Chapter 7: The Knowing Mind [Exam 3]

Question 1

Memory

Answer 1

The ability to retain knowledge.
A component of a neural machine designed to use information acquired in the past to coordinate an organism’s behavior in the present.

Question 2

Information Processing

Answer 2

A continuum including attention, sensation, perception, learning, memory, and cognition.

Question 3

Encoding

Answer 3

The first step of memory.

The process of acquiring information and transferring it into memory.

Question 4

Storage

Answer 4

The second step of memory.
The retention of information.
Can vary in time; seconds (sensory memory), several seconds (short-term and working memory), and indefinitely (long-term memory).
What you retrieve = what is stored.

Question 5

Retrieval

Answer 5

The recovery of stored information.
A culmination of memory processes.
Retrieval failure causes stress and interference.

Question 6

Sensory Memory

Answer 6

The first stage in the Atkinson-Shiffrin model that holds large amounts of incoming data for very brief amounts of time.
Holds sensory data.

Question 7

Visual Codes

Answer 7

Used for the temporary storage of information about visual images.
Iconic memories.

Question 8

Haptic codes

Answer 8

Process touch and other body senses.

Question 9

Acoustic codes

Answer 9

Represent sound and words.

Echoic memories.

Question 10

Short-Term Memory

Answer 10

Holds a small amount of information for a limited time.
Features different types of representations - acoustic codes, representing images, representing sounds, and visual codes.
Limitations in duration and limitations in capacity.

Question 11

Rehearsal

Answer 11

Repetition of information.
Information stays in the STM indefinitely as long as you aren’t asked to think about anything else.
Data is easily displaced by new, incoming bits of data.

Question 12

Chunking

Answer 12

The process of grouping similar or meaningful information together.

Question 13

Working Memory

Answer 13

An extension is the concept of STM that includes the active manipulation of multiple types of information simultaneously.

Question 14

Phonological Loop

Answer 14

Responsible for verbal auditory information.

EX: Maintenance rehearsal.

Question 15

Visuospatial Sketchpad

Answer 15

Holds visual and spatial information.

Question 16

Central Executive

Answer 16

Manages the work of the other components by directing attention to particular tasks.
Uses parts of the prefrontal cortex and the anterior cingulate cortex.

Question 17

Episodic Buffer

Answer 17

Provides a mechanism for combining information stored in the LTM.
EX: The chunking of letters.

Question 18

Long-Term Memory

Answer 18

The final stage of the Atkinson-Shiffrin model that is the location of permanent memories.
Has very few limitations in capacity or duration.

Question 19

Elaborative Rehearsal

Answer 19

Involves linking the new material to thinks you already know.
More effective for permanent storage of information.

Question 20

Levels of Processing

Answer 20

The depth of processing applied to information that predicts its ease of retrieval.
Shallow > deep.

Question 21

Serial Position Effect

Answer 21

When participants are asked to learn a list of words and recall them in any order.
In a “U” shape.

Question 22

Primacy Effect

Answer 22

Within the Serial Position Effect.
The superior recall for the first items on the list.
Results from the storage of these items in LTM.

Question 23

Recency Effect

Answer 23

Within the Serial Position Effect.
The superior recall for the last words on the list.
Results because there words are in the WM at the time of recall.
Disappears if recall is delayed by 30 seconds.

Question 24

Declarative Memory/Explicit Memory

Answer 24

Consciously retrieved memories that are easy to verbalize.

Question 25

Non-declarative Memory/Implicit Memory

Answer 25

Unconsciously and effortlessly retrieved memories that are difficult to verbalize.

Question 26

Semantic Memory

Answer 26

A type of declarative memory.
A general knowledge memory.
Contains knowledge about the world, organized into categories, and provides us with an objective understanding of our world.

Question 27

Episodic Memory

Answer 27

A type of declarative memory.
A memory of personal/past experiences.
Includes more specific information about events, objects, and people, is organized by timeline, and provides a reference point for our subjective experience of the self.

Question 28

Autobiographical Memory

Answer 28

A type of declarative memory.
Semantic or episodic memories that reference the self.
Assessed for the two points of view; reliving the experience vividly or watching the experience as an observer.
Not stored intentionally.
Provides a sense of continuity or consistency in the self.

Question 29

Classical Conditioning

Answer 29

A type of non-declarative memory.
Results when we learn that a stimulus signals an important upcoming event.
Accounts for the many of the involuntary and unconscious emotional responses we have to the world around us.

Question 30

Procedural Memory

Answer 30

A type of non-declarative memory.
Memories for how to carry out skilled movements.
Has the ability to automate our performance.

Question 31

Priming Memory

Answer 31

A type of non-declarative memory.
A change in response to a stimulus as a result of exposure to a previous stimulus.
Can influence our responses to stimuli that are perceptually related or conceptually related.
Explains many of our unconscious daily responses to familiar stimuli.
Contributes to our understanding of how information ir organized in the LTM.

Question 32

Source Anmesia

Answer 32

Maintain semantic knowledge but don’t know how it was acquired.

Question 33

Connectionism

Answer 33

The view that the mind is an interconnected network made up of simpler units.

Question 34

Spreading Activation Model

Answer 34

A connectionist theory proposing that people organize general knowledge based on their individual experiences.
Recognizes that we do not organize concepts according to strict hierarchies and that people form their own organizations in memory based on their personal experiences.

Question 35

Schema

Answer 35

A set of expectations about objects and situations.
The details that are consistent with our schemas are more likely to be retained.
Very important in the process of memory storage.

Question 36

Cue

Answer 36

A stimulus that aids retrieval.

EX: Recognition tasks (T/F) and recall tasks (essay questions).

Question 37

Encoding Specificity

Answer 37

Memories incorporate unique combinations of information when encoded.
Each time you form a LTM, bits of information are encoded along with other important bits that are present at the same time > each memory is processed in a unique and specific way > any stimulus that was present and noticed during encoding could serve as a cue.
Context-dependent.

Question 38

Reconstruction

Answer 38

The rebuilding of a memory out of stored elements.

Question 39

Flashbulb Memory

Answer 39

An especially vivid and detailed memory of an emotional event.
EX: 9/11, PTSD.

Question 40

Forgetting

Answer 40

A decrease in the ability to remember a previously formed memory.

Question 41

Decay

Answer 41

Reduction in ability to retrieve rarely used information over time.

Question 42

Method of Savings

Answer 42

Method of measuring retention of material.

Question 43

Interference

Answer 43

Competition between newer and older information in memory.

Question 44

Synaptic Consolidation

Answer 44

The physical changes related to memory that occur at the synapse.

Question 45

Motivated Forgetting

Answer 45

The failure to retrieve negative memories.