Chapter 8: Memory

Question 1

What are the three general processes of memory?

Answer 1

• Encoding, storage, and retrieval

Question 2

What’s the information-processing theory?

Answer 2

• Information is stored and retrieved piece by piece and moves among three memory stores during encoding, storage, and retrieval

Question 3

What’s the Parallel Distributed theory?

Answer 3

• 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

Question 4

What’s the difference between a memory store’s duration and capacity?

Answer 4

• Duration - the length of time information is maintained
• Capacity - the amount of information that is maintained

Question 5

What’s the three-stage model of memory?

Answer 5

• 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

Question 6

What’s the difference between iconic memory and echoic memory?

Answer 6

• Iconic - brief storage of raw data in the visual system
• Echoic - auditory information stored in a similar sensory “buffer”

Question 7

What are the two main processes used in short-term memory?

Answer 7

• Chunking
• Rehearsal

Question 8

What are some major problems with the original concept of STM?

Answer 8

• Not emphasizing active processing of information (rehearsal is relatively passive)
• Not emphasizing visual information
• Not emphasizing the role of attention

Question 9

What are the three components of working memory?

Answer 9

• 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.)

Question 10

What’s the duration and capacity of long-term memory?

Answer 10

• Duration - hours to years
• Capacity - huge (possibly limitless)
  *requires no active process of rehearsal

Question 11

What are the two broad categories of long-term memory?

Answer 11

• Episodic - memory of an event in your life, autobiographical, temporal context
• Semantic - Memory of facts, knowledge of the world, non-autobiographical, not temporal

Question 12

What is procedural memory?

Answer 12

• A category of LTM, the memory for actions

Question 13

What are the two ways to encode new information?

Answer 13

• Automatic encoding - when you automatically remember something with no effort
• Effortful encoding - when you have to work to memorize something

Question 14

What is spaced rehearsal?

Answer 14

• 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.

Question 15

What are the three different methods to encode new information?

Answer 15

• Phonological - encoding based on sound
• Visual - encoding based on how the information looks
• Semantic - encoding based on the meaning of the information

Question 16

How are codes used in making memories?

Answer 16

• 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

Question 17

What part of the brain is involved in consolidation of new memories?

Answer 17

• The hippocampus

Question 18

What are the two types of depths of processing?

Answer 18

• Shallow - most superficial level of processing (based on simple sensory stimuli)
• Deep - based on more extensive associations, meaning, context, etc.

Question 19

What are two major components that are important for recalling episodic memory?

Answer 19

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

Question 20

What are the two reasons you don’t remember something?

Answer 20

• 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

Question 21

What are some explanations that may explain a storage failure?

Answer 21

• A biological problem such as head trauma or Alzheimer’s

Question 22

What are flashbulb memories?

Answer 22

• Highly emotional and detailed memories of personal experiences
• Ex. 9/11

Question 23

What’s the difference between implicit and explicit memories?

Answer 23

• 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)

Question 24

What are the five major types of implicit memories?

Answer 24

• Classically conditioned responses
• Memories formed through non-associative learning
• Habits
• Skills (after a while rely on automatic processing)
• Priming

Question 25

What causes forgetting?

Answer 25

• 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

Question 26

What are the two different types of amnesia?

Answer 26

• 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