Chapter 8: Memory Flashcards
What are the three general processes of memory?
- Encoding, storage, and retrieval
What’s the information-processing theory?
- Information is stored and retrieved piece by piece and moves among three memory stores during encoding, storage, and retrieval
What’s the Parallel Distributed theory?
- Memories are stored as part of a large integrated web of information and represented in the brain as a pattern of activation across entire neural networks
- Similar to how neurons form networks in the brain
What’s the difference between a memory store’s duration and capacity?
- Duration - the length of time information is maintained
- Capacity - the amount of information that is maintained
What’s the three-stage model of memory?
- Information enters our sensory memory, which holds everything taken in initially from our five sense
- If we pay attention, it enters our working memory, which holds info for approximately 30 seconds and can hold up to 5-9 items
- If we properly encode the information, it enters our long-term memory, where it is stored forever
What’s the difference between iconic memory and echoic memory?
- Iconic - brief storage of raw data in the visual system
- Echoic - auditory information stored in a similar sensory “buffer”
What are the two main processes used in short-term memory?
- Chunking
- Rehearsal
What are some major problems with the original concept of STM?
- Not emphasizing active processing of information (rehearsal is relatively passive)
- Not emphasizing visual information
- Not emphasizing the role of attention
What are the three components of working memory?
- Central executive (controls activity of the articulatory loop and VSSP)
- Articulatory loop (like a tape recorder)
- Visuospatial sketch pad (VSSP) (maintains mental images, location of objects, etc.)
What’s the duration and capacity of long-term memory?
- Duration - hours to years
- Capacity - huge (possibly limitless)
*requires no active process of rehearsal
What are the two broad categories of long-term memory?
- Episodic - memory of an event in your life, autobiographical, temporal context
- Semantic - Memory of facts, knowledge of the world, non-autobiographical, not temporal
What is procedural memory?
- A category of LTM, the memory for actions
What are the two ways to encode new information?
- Automatic encoding - when you automatically remember something with no effort
- Effortful encoding - when you have to work to memorize something
What is spaced rehearsal?
- A method of memorization that helps facilitate moving working memories into long-term memory
- Ex. starting to study for an exam well before the night before.
What are the three different methods to encode new information?
- Phonological - encoding based on sound
- Visual - encoding based on how the information looks
- Semantic - encoding based on the meaning of the information
How are codes used in making memories?
- A code is a type of mental representation, an internal
‘representation” of a stimulus or an event - Information stored as one type of code does not need to match the original input
What part of the brain is involved in consolidation of new memories?
- The hippocampus
What are the two types of depths of processing?
- Shallow - most superficial level of processing (based on simple sensory stimuli)
- Deep - based on more extensive associations, meaning, context, etc.
What are two major components that are important for recalling episodic memory?
1) Interpretation
* The successful use of memory depends on the number of connections that are made between related items and the degree to which these are initially activated
2) Context
* Location, physiological state, etc., affect the ability to recall and your confidence that you recalled correctly
What are the two reasons you don’t remember something?
- Unavailability - it wasn’t successfully encoded, something went wrong while you were studying
- Inaccessibility - memory is stored but cannot be retrieved, perhaps because appropriate connections aren’t being made
What are some explanations that may explain a storage failure?
- A biological problem such as head trauma or Alzheimer’s
What are flashbulb memories?
- Highly emotional and detailed memories of personal experiences
- Ex. 9/11
What’s the difference between implicit and explicit memories?
- Implicit - cannot be voluntarily called to mind and verbalized, includes motor skills (ex. tying your shoelaces)
- Explicit - can be voluntarily called to mind and verbalized (semantic and episodic memories)
What are the five major types of implicit memories?
- Classically conditioned responses
- Memories formed through non-associative learning
- Habits
- Skills (after a while rely on automatic processing)
- Priming
What causes forgetting?
- Decay - the theory that memories fade over time because relevant connections between neurons are lost
- Interferences - the theory that the disruption of the ability to remember one piece of information is caused by the presence of other information
*Retroactive - new information interferes with old
*proactive - old information interferes with new
What are the two different types of amnesia?
- Retrograde amnesia - disrupts previous memories (ex. infantile amnesia, an adult’s inability to recall any early episodic memories)
- Anterograde amnesia - leaves already consolidated memories intact but prevents the learning of new facts
