Chapter 7 Flashcards
a debilitating disorder affecting memory that results in the inability to consciously form new, long-term memories.
anterograde amnesia
the concept that a single item in short-term memory can be a compound of related concepts; an effective strategy to increase the amount of information in short-term memory capacity.
chunking
also known as explicit memories
declarative memories
a model of encoding which suggests that how meaningfully a person is able to form a connection to informationwill determine the reliability of the memory for future recall; in other words, a very meaningful memory will be more easily remember than a less meaningful memory.
depth of processing model (of memory)
the process of categorizing and storing information to long-term memory; the depth and effectiveness of encoding will alter the reliability of the memory.
encoding
a class of explicit memory that involves specific events and storiesfrom one’s life (e.g., losing your first tooth, your first kiss).
episodic memories
long-term memories that can be consciously and verbally recalled. Also known as declarative memories.
explicit memories
in regards to police line-up, when a witness chooses a suspect who is known to have not committed the crime, a known innocent.
false alarm
memories of ideas or events that did not occur; they are commonplace within memory, but have been the topic of much controversy especially due to their relevance to the justice system and law enforcement.
false memories
a class of episodic memories that are extremely rich and emotionally evocative, and that feel frozen in one’s mind; often developed as the result of trauma or other extraordinary event.
flashbulb memories
a person placed in a police line-up that is known not to have conducted the crime. Typically foils are somewhat similar in appearance to a suspect and are drawn from prisoner populations that were incarcerated during the events in question.
foil
the natural loss of information from memory that occurs over-time as a result of interfering information, replacing information, and/or poor encoding of information.
forgetting
the central idea or theme of a concept
gist
a patient in a famous case study that suffered anterograde amnesia.
H.M.
structure of the brain involved in encoding short-term memories into long-term memories.
hippocampus
long-term memories that are not accessible using verbal descriptions recall; these are typically bodily or motor memories of movements or action (e.g., tying your shoe). Also known as procedural memories.
implicit memories
a multi-stage model of cognition which describes the passing of information from the environment into memory; describes how memories can be stored and manipulated; posits that raw information is temporarily stored as sensory datum (sensory store), with attention can pass into an active stage in which it can be manipulated (short-term memory), and may be encoded for extended storage lasting from minutes to years, to decades (long term memory).
information-processing model (of memory)
a white house staffer in President Nixon’s cabinet that was later called to testify against Nixon. His testimony provided an interesting case study on memory when compared against Nixon’s personal tape recordings of conversations that occurred in the oval office.
John Dean
the component of the information-processing model of memory that has been successfully encoded from short-term memory for later recall and retrieval; the depth of encoding determines what information is successfully encoded into long-term memory.
long term memory
an experimental method asking participants to recall a set of real events from their childhood in addition to an event that did not occur, being lost at the mall. Memories are cued with a few basic details prompting nearly a third of participants to generate totally new and false memories from their childhood.
lost-at-the-mall study
deep levels of encoding; ; refers to information that is encoded usingdeep and meaningful strategies for encoding such as semantic connections
maximum levels of depth
any and all information stored within your mind and brain; can be preconscious, conscious, or unconscious.
memory
a mnemonic that facilitates recall memory by imagining a list of items in familiar places.
method of loci
lower levels of encoding; refers to information that is encoded using surface level strategies such as repetition or rehearsal.
minimal levels of depth
the bias in memory recall that results when false information is presented in a credible way to bias memory recall.
misinformation effect
strategies used to improve memory recall.
mnemonics or mnemonic devices
medium levels of encoding; refers to information that is encoded using moderate level strategies such phonological encoding.
moderate levels of depth
a police line-up procedure in which the suspect and a set of foils are presented at the same time to be compared and reviewed
parallel line up
the use of sound to form memories; common forms of phonological encoding include rhymes and alliterations.
phonological encoding
a police line-up procedure in which mug shots (photos) of a suspect and a set of foils are presented at the same time to be compared and reviewed
photo parallel line up
a police line-up procedure in which witnesses assess a stack of photos one by one to determine if any of those individuals match their memory
photo serial line up
in exchange for confession and assisting the police, a perpetrator is offered a somewhat reduced penalty for the crime and no trial is required.
plea bargain
the disproportionate number of guilty people who take pleas, relative to innocent people, causing an over representation of innocent people at trials.
pleading effect
police procedure used to present a suspect and a set of foils to a potential witness. By selecting the suspect, the witness provides corroborating evidence for an arrest.
police line-up
also known as implicit memories.
procedural memories
the behavioral strategy of repeating information to oneself (whether out-loud or sub-vocally) in order to an idea active in short-term memory; rehearsal of information may cause encoding to long-term memory.
rehearsal
also known as rehearsal
repetition
a debilitating disorder affecting memory that results in the inability to recall past, long-term memories (e.g., childhood memories may be lost).
retrograde amnesia
preset ideas about what things are and/or how they work
schemas
learning an idea by associating it with concepts that are personally meaningful and/or highly distinctive.
semantic encoding
a class of explicit memory are basic facts about the world and the origin of the memory is unclear.
semantic memories
an important theoretical concept about the structure of the mind, and the information in long-term memory. The semantic network describes that ideas are connected by different distances, and that the activation of any one idea will cause activity in any close associates (e.g., “dog” might activate “cat”, and to a lesser extent “bird” and have almost no connection with “satin” .
semantic network
the stage of the information-processing model of memory that is responsible for briefly capturing incoming sensory information; information in the sensory store is raw, unprocessed, and pre-conscious. Attention to these stimuli will result in its entrance into short-term memory while inattention to these stimuli will result in forgetting them.
sensory store
the portion of the nervous system receptive to energy in the environment and capable of transducing that energy into biological signals.
sensory system
the stage of the information-processing model of memory that contains the thoughts and ideas that are active in one’s mind at any given moment. Capacity is estimated at 3-4 items, although functionally holds about 7±2 items. Short-term memory will be forgotten if it is not encoded into long-term memory via rehearsal or some other method of encoding.
short-term memory
a set of experiments designed to test the capacity and duration of sensory memories. The technique involved rapid stimulus presentations immediately followed by cues to trigger attention to a small portion of the presentations. The experiments demonstrated the limits of conscious processing relative to the vast amount of information sensed and initially stored.
sperling
a complex, pattern related puzzle in which the user must devise strategies to transfer a set of rings from one peg to another.
tower of Hanoi puzzle
also known as short-term memory
working memory
