CHAPTER 8 reading - MEMORY Flashcards
Method of loci
a memory aid that associates information with mental images of physical locations
Schema is a
mental framework - organised pattern of thought - about some aspect of the word
Memory is enhanced by forming
associations between new information and other items already in our memory
Priming
refers to the activation of one concept (or one unit of information) by another e.g. fthe word fire engine primes the node for red which makes it more likely that our memory for this colour will be assessed
Excitatory =
increasing the likelihood that a neuron will fire
Inhibitory =
Decreasing the likelihood of firing
Declarative memory involves
factual knowledge and includes two subcategories episodic and semantic memory
Episodic memory is
our store of knowledge concerning personally experienced events
Semantic memory represents
general factual knowledge about the world and language, including memory for words and concepts
Amnesia =
memory loss
HM surgery
had most of his hippocampus and surrounding brain tissue surgically removed to reduce his severe epileptic seizures
Procedural (non-declarative) memory
Reflected in skills and actions
Classical condition effects are seen in this division of memory
Explicit memory
Involves conscious or intentional memory retrieval, as when you consciously recognise or recall something
Rcognition requires
us to decide whether a stimulus is familiar
Implicit memory
occurs when memory influences our behaviour without conscious awareness
Retrieval cue is
a stimulus, whether internal or external, that activates information stored in long-term memory
distinctive stimuli are generally better remembered than non-distinctive stimuli
Context dependent memory
it is typically easier to remember something in the same environment in which it was originally encoded
shown by the Godden and Baddeley (1975) experiment - scuba diving experiment
Encoding specificity refers to the fact that
we can retrieve information better if we are in the same context or state that we were in when we encoded the information. This is not necessarily true for out mood states
When the material is meaningful …
we are likely to retain more of it over time
Why do we forget?
Encoding failure
Decay of the memory trace
Interference
Motivated forgetting
Encoding failure
Failing to encode the information into long term memory in the first place
Decay of memory trace
decay theory = proposed that with time and diuse, the long term physical memory trace in the nervous system fades away
the longer the tim
Interference
forget information bcause other items in long term memory impair our ability to retrieve it
Proactive interference
occurs when material learned in the past interferes with recall of newer material
Reteroactive interference
occurs when newly acquired information interderes with the ability to recall information learned at an earlier time
Motivated forgetting
people are consciously or unconsciously motivated forget
repression is a motivated process that protects us by blocking the conscious recall of anxiety arousing memories
Repression
a motivational process that protects us by blocking the conscious recall of anxiety-arousing memories
Amnesia commonly refers to
memory loss due to special conditions such as brain injury, illness or psychological trauma
Reterograde amnesia
Represents memory loss for events that took pace sometime in life before the onset of amnesia
Anterograde amnesia
Refers to memory loss for events that occur after the inital onset of amnesia
Dementia
refers to impaired memory and other cognitive deficits that accompany brain degradation and interfere with normal functioning
Alzheimers disease is a
progressive brain disorder that is the most common cause among adults over the age of 65 years old
Schemas
Bartlett believed that people have generalised ideas (schemas) about how events happen, which they use to organise information and construct their memories
Misinformation effect
the distortion of memory by misleading postevent information
Source confusion
the misinformation effect can also occur because of source confusion - our tendency to recall something or recognise it as familiar but to forget where we encountered it
Misiformation is more problematic for
younger children and when leading questions are used. Psychologists still debate whether recovered memories of abuse are accurate, or whether they were forgotten due to repression or other psychological processes
Working memory stored in
cortical networks located in different lobes of the brain become more active
Sensory memory stored in
Stimuli enters and is transformed into neural cdes and sent to the brain, where sensory areas of the cerebral cortex intiially process it
Frontal lobe plays a key role in
working memory
generally become more active during tasks that place greater demands on working memory
seems to be particularly important in supporting central-executive functions, such as allocating attention to other components of working memory
Many patients with extensive hippocapal damage such as Clive Wearing and HM retain
the use of their short term memory but cannot form new, explicit long-term declarative memories - memories for new personal experiences and facts
Hippocampus is said to
help to gradually convert short term memories into permanent ones
memory consolidation - the meaning of events or information and so on are processed initially in different regions of the cortex and then gradually bound together in the hippocampus
research has demonstrated that the hippocampus has an important role in encoding the context of the memory, particularly where the event occurred, helping us to differentiate our episodic memories
Amygdala
encodes emotionally arousing aspects of stimuli and plays an important role in helping us form long term memories for events that stir our emotions
Cerebellum plays an important role in
forming procesural memories
Ensduring increase in synaptic strength is called
long term potentiation - it is the development of a memory and involves chemical and structural changes to synapses
