Chapter 8 - Memory: Structures, processes and skills Flashcards
Encoding processes
Used to code the information acquired through the senses and to enter it into the memory system.
Storage processes
Used to retain coded information in the memory system as internal representations.
Retrieval processes
Used to recover or get access to the information stored in the memory system.
Recognition
The type of retrieval process that involves finding a match in memory for something that is in the external world.
Recall
The type of retrieval process that involves searching for something stored in memory and bringing it into consciousness.
Retrieval cues
Cues or prompts available at retrieval that may help us find the information we are searching for in memory.
Memory span
The number of items that can be repeated back in the correct order just after a list of items has been presented in a memory experiment.
Primacy effect
The finding, in memory experiments, that participants are more likely to remember
the first few items from a list of items.
Recency effect
The finding, in memory experiments, that participants are more likely to remember the last few items from a list of items.
Working memory
An alternative conception of short- term memory which reflects its active role in cognitive processing.
Levels of processing theory
The theory that the retention of material in memory is dependent on how deeply it is processed at encoding.
Elaborative rehearsal
The process of thinking about information to be remembered in terms of its meaning and associations to other stored material.
Maintenance rehearsal
The process of memorising by simply repeating information without any further processing.
Orienting tasks
Task instructions designed to influence the processing performed on material to be remembered, such as words.
Incidental learning
Learning that occurs in the absence of explicit instructions to learn when an experimenter presents a set of items for later memory testing.
Intentional learning
Learning that occurs when an experimenter has specifically told participants that their memory for presented items will be tested.
Generation effect
An effect in which participants are more likely to remember
the items that they generated in a word association test, rather than items they simply read.
Spacing effect
An effect in which memory is enhanced because learning is spread out across several sessions, rather than confined to a single session.
Nonsense syllables
Pronounceable, but meaningless material, such as the consonant- vowel-consonant trigrams VOX and BUC, used in memory experiments.
Free recall
A memory recall task in which participants can recall the items in any order they wish.
Clustering
Seen in memory recall when participants recall the items in clusters according to category or some other dimension.
Mnemonic
A technique or strategy that will increase the memorability of material to be remembered, such as adding meaningful associations or bizarre images.
Encoding specificity principle
The notion that retrieval of information from memory depends on an overlap or matching of the cues that are available at retrieval with those registered at encoding.
Tip of the tongue phenomenon
The feeling that although you cannot remember something it is there stored in memory just out of reach.
Indirect access
A type of retrieval that involves deliberate and conscious searching in memory.
Direct access
A type of retrieval that is effortless and occurs automatically without searching in memory.
Misinformation effect
An effect in which later information influences the accuracy of memory for earlier information
Reminiscence bump
The disproportionately higher number of memories recalled from the adolescent and early adult period compared to other life periods
Case study
An in-depth study of a single participant often focusing on atypical psychological functioning
Localization of function
The theoretical approach that assumes that particular areas of the brain play a key role in functions such as motor control, perception, memory, emotion, etc.
Double dissociation
Different patients display converse patterns of deficit within memory function or other cognitive domains. This can yield important insights when linked to damage in different areas of the brain.
Plasticity
The capacity for organised alteration or development in the structure and/or function of the nervous system, typically with beneficial outcomes.
Anomically
Describes the inability to generate names for people or objects, typically as a result of a brain injury
Episodic memory
A subsystem of long- term memory concerned with personal episodes or events which include information about the place and the time in which they were acquired.
Semantic memory
A subsystem of long- term memory concerned with general facts or knowledge about the world, and lacking reference to the specific contextual episodes involved in their
original acquisition.
Procedural memory
A subsystem of memory concerned with knowing how to do something, e.g. riding a bike, this knowledge being difficult to describe using words.
Declarative memory
A subsystem of memory concerned with knowing that, this being either episodic or semantic memory.
Mnemonists
Individuals with exceptional memory skills, typically exploited for performance
Synaesthesia
The capacity for stimuli presented in one sensory modality to evoke spontaneously experiences in another modality. For example to ‘hear’ colours
