Chapter 7: Human Memory (2) Flashcards
What is self-referent encoding?
Self-referent encoding involves deciding how or whether the information is personally relevant.
What is sensory memory?
The sensory memory preserves information in its original sensory form for a brief time, usually only a fraction of a second.
Sensory memory allows the sensation of a visual pattern, sound, or touch to linger for a brief moment after the sensory stimulation is over.
What is the term for brief memory referring to the eyes and ears?
For visual information, this brief memory is referred to as iconic memory.
The parallel memory for acoustic information is referred to as echoic memory.
Define short-term memory.
Short-term memory (STM) is a limited-capacity store that can maintain unrehearsed information for up to about 20 seconds.
How can you maintain information in your short-term memory?
Rehearsal—the process of repetitively verbalizing or thinking about the information.
Differentiate between maintenance rehearsal and more elaborative rehearsal
In using maintenance rehearsal you are simply maintaining the information in consciousness, whereas in more elaborative processing, you are increasing the probability that you will retain the information in the future
What are chunks or chunking?
You can increase the capacity of your short-term memory by combining stimuli into larger, possibly higher-order units, called chunks.
A chunk is a group of familiar stimuli stored as a single unit.
Define working memory.
Working memory is a type of short-term memory that stores information temporarily during the completion of cognitive tasks, such as comprehension, problem solving, reasoning, and learning.
(CS)
What is the first component of working memory?
The first component is the phonological loop, This loop holds verbal info.
This component is at work when you use recitation to temporarily remember a phone number.
What is the second component of working memory?
The second component in working memory is a visuospatial sketchpad that permits people to temporarily hold and manipulate visual images.
This element is at work when you try to mentally rearrange the furniture in your bedroom or map out a complicated route that you need to follow to travel somewhere.
What is the third component of working memory?
The third component is a central executive system.
It controls the deployment of attention, switching the focus of attention and dividing attention as needed (e.g., dividing your attention between a message you are trying to text to your friend during a lecture and what your professor told the class about next week’s exam, “What was that? Which chapters are on next week’s exam?”).
Which component of working memory coordinates the actions of the other modules?
The central executive system.
What is the fourth component of working memory?
The fourth component is the episodic buffer, it is assumed to be a temporary storage system that is able to combine information from the loop, the sketchpad, long-term memory, or indeed from perceptual input, into a coherent episode.
Define Working memory capacity.
Working memory capacity (WMC) refers to one’s ability to hold and manipulate information in conscious attention.
(CS)
Can working memory be reduced?
Working memory capacity can be temporarily reduced by situational factors, such as pressure to perform or rumination
