Chapter 7 // Human Memory Flashcards
Watching something and paying attention to it /Identifying t he details to begin preparing for memorization.
Four Memory Steps: Perception
Getting the memory ready for storage / Usually a verbal code.
Four Memory Steps: Encoding
Getting the memory into the brain / Groups of neurons that fire together.
Four Memory Steps: Storage
Getting the memory back when you need to use it. Can be frustrating during a test when you know the item but cant retrieve it from your brain
Four Memory Steps: Retrieval
Uses structural encoding (weakest form, remembering physical characteristics such as size/shape).
Shallow Processing
Uses phonemic encoding (middle form, remembering sounds of words such as rhymes).
Intermediate Processing
Uses semantic encoding (strongest form, remembering the word by its meaning).
Deep Processing
Know how encoding may be enriched.
1) Elaboration
2) Visual Imagery
3) Self Referent Encoding
Linking a stimulus to other information at the time of encoding. Phobias are caused by classical conditioning + your fear of spiders.
Elaboration
Forming a visual image in your head to remember a word. Picturing someone juggling to remember the word juggle.
Visual Imagery
Deciding how or whether information is personally relevant. The word love is important if you are in love.
Self- Retreating Encoding
o Takes in info that is passed from the sensory memory
o Very limited, can only take in about 5-9 unrelated items
o Can stay for 20 seconds if unused
o Relating information can be grouped together to fill only one STM slot
o Rehearsal can increase time in the STM or pass on to the LTM
Atkinson and Shiffrin Model: Short Term Memory
o Almost unlimited capacity
o Duration is almost unlimited
Atkinson and Shiffrin Model: Long Term Memory
o Takes in hundreds/thousands of pieces of memory every day
o Goes in as the way that they were formed
o Held for less than 1 second and then tossed back out
o Paying attention moves the memory forward
Atkinson and Shiffrin Model: Sensory Memory
Clear memories are kept from an important event that does not die away.
Flashbulb Memory
Featured Studies Relating to Flashbulb memory.
Methods: Students at Duke were split into three randomly assigned groups, each were tested on Sept 12 about 9/11 but group 1 was retested one week after 9/11; group 2 was retested six weeks after 9/11; group 3 was retested 32 weeks after 9/11
Procedure: asked to describe their memory about 9/11 and when retested the two tests were compared
Results: there was no appreciable difference in consistency between participants’ flashbulb memories of 9/11 and their everyday memories over time but consistency declined over time at about the same rate for both types of memories
Discussion: the authors concluded that flashbulb memories fade gradually over time, even though people subjectively feel that these memories are especially vivid and accurate.
The tendency to remember similar or related items in groups (even if the items were not presented that way)—conceptual hierarchy is a multilevel classification system based on common properties among items (example: minerals, metals/stones, etc.)
Clustering and Conceptual Hierarchies
An organized cluster of knowledge about a particular object or event abstracted from previous experience with the object or event. Example: college students have schemas for what professors’ offices are like—people would put desk, chairs, books, filling cabinet when in the picture there was only one chair, a wine bottle, etc.
Schemas
Consists of nodes representing concepts, joined together by pathways that link related concepts.
Semantic Networks
Assume that cognitive processes depend on patterns of activation in highly interconnected computational networks that resemble neural networks. Consists of a large network of interconnected computing units, or nodes, that operate much like neurons.
Connectionist Network and Parallel Processing Models
The Importance of Cues
Memories can be jogged with information (first letter of the word)
The Importance of Context
Putting yourself back in the situation to try to remember what happened or what you need.
When one recalls an event that they witnessed but enter misleading post-event information.
The Misinformation Effect
Making attributions about the origins of memories. Remembering that you read an article in the New York Times rather than Rolling Stone.
Source Monitoring
The process of deciding whether memories are based on external or internal sources. If something happened or you only think it happened.
Reality Monitoring
Having to retrieve the memory on your own (used in tests during fill in the blank/essays where there is no additional help)
Recall
Present the information in any order that you wish.
Free Recall
Having to recall the information in a correct order (history).
Serial Recall
Choices are in front of us (multiple choice test)
Recognition
Know Herman Ebbinghaus and his forgetting curve.
- Ebbinghaus learned lists of paired syllables and then would try to recall #2 while only seeing #1
- Human forgetting is curved over time
- Very rapid in the beginning and then slowly declines
- Sleep shows the same pattern, but the forgetting is less severe
- Ebbinghaus’ information is exaggerated because the syllables have nothing to be compared to.
If the information is not encoded properly it is more likely to be forgotten (if a student simply skims over the textbook while paying more attention to the TV).
Human Forgetting: Ineffective Encoding
Something happens to the memory trace (like an old color photo it fades and blurs)
Human Forgetting: Decay Theory
Forgetting things because we confuse one memory with another.
Human Forgetting: Interference Theory
When the previously learned information interferes with the retention of new information.
Proactive Interference
When new information impairs the retention of previously learned information/ Learning the test material and then learning something new.
Retroactive Interference
Not being able to recall a memory at a certain time.
Human Forgetting: Retrieval Failure
The value of a retrieval cue depends on how well it corresponds to a memory code.
Encoding Specificity Principle
When the initial processing of information is similar to the type of processing required by the subsequent measure of retention. Semantic processing is better than phonemic for certain words.
Transfer Appropriate Processing
Forgetting things that we don’t want to think about.
Human Forgetting: Motivated Forgetting
Keeping distressing thoughts and feelings buried in the unconscious. Actually proven that it is harder to remember these things.
Repression (Recovered Memories)
Pro of Recovered Memories
Many people who have been raped will deny that it happened years later.
Con of Recovered Memories
People are told that their problems are the result of other things.
Know the role of Neural Circuitry in Memory.
Alterations in synaptic transmission.
“Memories may create unique, reusable pathways in the brain along which signals flow.”
Richard Thompson
Synapses become closer together and strong.
Eric Kandel
Affect memory store by modulating activity in the amygdala.
Adrenal Hormones
A long-lasting increase in neural excitability at synapses along a specific neural pathway.
Long-Term Potentiation (LTP):
A long-lasting decrease in neural excitability at synapses along a specific neural pathway.
Long-Term Depression (LTD)-
Involves the loss of memories for events that occurred prior to the onset of amnesia.
Retrograde Amnesia
The loss of memories for events that occur after the onset of amnesia.
Anterograde Amnesia
Accounts for much long-term memory through consolidation.
Hippocampus
A hypothetical process involving the gradual conversion of information into durable memory codes stored in long-term memory.
Consolidation
Seems to be critical for formation of learned fears.
Amygdala
Stores memories.
Cerebral Cortex
Important in working memory.
Prefrontal Cortex
Involves the loss of memories for events that occurred prior to the onset of amnesia.
Retrograde Amnesia
The loss of memories for events that occur after the onset of amnesia.
Anterograde Amnesia
Handles factual information.
Declarative Memory
Memory of how to do things.
Procedural Memory
Chronological recollections of personal experiences.
Episodic Memory
General knowledge that is not tied to the time when the information was learned.
Semantic Memory
Remembering to perform actions in the future.
Prospective Memory
Remembering events from the past or previously learned information.
Retrospective Memory
Know the Personal Application “Improving Everyday Memory.”.
- Mnemonic devices: strategies for enhancing memory
- Overlearning: refers to continued rehearsal of material after you first appear to have mastered it.
- Serial-position effect: occurs when subjects show better recall for items at the beginning and end of a list than for items in the middle
- Link method: involves forming a mental image of items to be remembered in a way that links them together
- Method of loci: involves taking an imaginary walk along a familiar path where images of items to be remembered are associated with certain locations
