Chapter 7: The Knowing Mind [Exam 3] Flashcards
Memory
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.
Information Processing
A continuum including attention, sensation, perception, learning, memory, and cognition.
Encoding
The first step of memory.
The process of acquiring information and transferring it into memory.
Storage
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.
Retrieval
The recovery of stored information.
A culmination of memory processes.
Retrieval failure causes stress and interference.
Sensory Memory
The first stage in the Atkinson-Shiffrin model that holds large amounts of incoming data for very brief amounts of time.
Holds sensory data.
Visual Codes
Used for the temporary storage of information about visual images.
Iconic memories.
Haptic codes
Process touch and other body senses.
Acoustic codes
Represent sound and words.
Echoic memories.
Short-Term Memory
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.
Rehearsal
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.
Chunking
The process of grouping similar or meaningful information together.
Working Memory
An extension is the concept of STM that includes the active manipulation of multiple types of information simultaneously.
Phonological Loop
Responsible for verbal auditory information.
EX: Maintenance rehearsal.
Visuospatial Sketchpad
Holds visual and spatial information.
Central Executive
Manages the work of the other components by directing attention to particular tasks.
Uses parts of the prefrontal cortex and the anterior cingulate cortex.
Episodic Buffer
Provides a mechanism for combining information stored in the LTM.
EX: The chunking of letters.
Long-Term Memory
The final stage of the Atkinson-Shiffrin model that is the location of permanent memories.
Has very few limitations in capacity or duration.
Elaborative Rehearsal
Involves linking the new material to thinks you already know.
More effective for permanent storage of information.
Levels of Processing
The depth of processing applied to information that predicts its ease of retrieval.
Shallow > deep.
Serial Position Effect
When participants are asked to learn a list of words and recall them in any order.
In a “U” shape.
Primacy Effect
Within the Serial Position Effect.
The superior recall for the first items on the list.
Results from the storage of these items in LTM.
Recency Effect
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.
Declarative Memory/Explicit Memory
Consciously retrieved memories that are easy to verbalize.
Non-declarative Memory/Implicit Memory
Unconsciously and effortlessly retrieved memories that are difficult to verbalize.
Semantic Memory
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.
Episodic Memory
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.
Autobiographical Memory
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.
Classical Conditioning
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.
Procedural Memory
A type of non-declarative memory.
Memories for how to carry out skilled movements.
Has the ability to automate our performance.
Priming Memory
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.
Source Anmesia
Maintain semantic knowledge but don’t know how it was acquired.
Connectionism
The view that the mind is an interconnected network made up of simpler units.
Spreading Activation Model
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.
Schema
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.
Cue
A stimulus that aids retrieval.
EX: Recognition tasks (T/F) and recall tasks (essay questions).
Encoding Specificity
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.
Reconstruction
The rebuilding of a memory out of stored elements.
Flashbulb Memory
An especially vivid and detailed memory of an emotional event.
EX: 9/11, PTSD.
Forgetting
A decrease in the ability to remember a previously formed memory.
Decay
Reduction in ability to retrieve rarely used information over time.
Method of Savings
Method of measuring retention of material.
Interference
Competition between newer and older information in memory.
Synaptic Consolidation
The physical changes related to memory that occur at the synapse.
Motivated Forgetting
The failure to retrieve negative memories.
