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