Chapter 9 (1-21)

Question 1

anterograde amnesia

Answer 1

loss of memory from the point of injury or trauma forward, or the inability to form new long-term memories

Question 2

constructive processing

Answer 2

referring to the retrieval of memories in which those memories are altered, revised, or influenced by newer information

Question 3

curve of forgetting

Answer 3

a graph showing a distinct pattern in which forgetting is very fast within the first hour after learning a list and then tapers off gradually

Question 4

decay

Answer 4

loss of memory due to the passage of time, during which the memory trace is not used

Question 5

declarative (explicit) memory

Answer 5

type of long-term memory containing information that is conscious and known

Question 6

distributed practice

Answer 6

spacing the study of material to be remembered by including breaks between study periods

Question 7

echoic memory

Answer 7

the brief memory of something a person has just heard

Question 8

elaborative rehearsal

Answer 8

a method of transferring information from STM into LTM by making that information meaningful in some way

Question 9

encoding

Answer 9

the set of mental operations that people perform on sensory information to convert that information into a form that is usable in the brain’s storage systems

Question 10

encoding failure

Answer 10

failure to process information into memory

Question 11

encoding specificity

Answer 11

the tendency for memory of information to be improved if related information (such as surroundings or physiological state) available when the memory is first formed is also available when the memory is being retrieved

Question 12

episodic memory

Answer 12

type of declarative memory containing personal information not readily available to others, such as daily activities and events

Question 13

flashbulb memory

Answer 13

type of automatic encoding that occurs because an unexpected event has strong emotional associations for the person remembering it

Question 14

hindsight bias

Answer 14

the tendency to falsely believe, through revision of older memories to include newer information, that one could have correctly predicted the outcome of an event

Question 15

iconic memory

Answer 15

visual sensory memory, lasting only a fraction of a second

Question 16

information-processing model

Answer 16

model of memory that assumes the processing of information for memory storage is similar to the way a computer processes memory in a series of three stages

Question 17

levels-of-processing model

Answer 17

model of memory that assumes information that is more “deeply processed,” or processed according to its meaning rather than just the sound or physical characteristics of the word or words, will be remembered more efficiently and for a longer period of time

Question 18

long-term memory (LTM)

Answer 18

the system of memory into which all the information is placed to be kept more or less permanently

Question 19

maintenance rehearsal

Answer 19

practice of saying some information to be remembered over and over in one’s head in order to maintain it in short-term memory

Question 20

memory

Answer 20

an active system that receives information from the senses, puts that information into a usable form, and organizes it as it stores it away, and then retrieves the information from storage

Question 21

memory trace

Answer 21

physical change in the brain that occurs when a memory is formed