Chapter 9: Memory, Attention and Consciousness

Question 1

anterograde amnesia

Answer 1

loss, due to injury to the brain, in ability to form new long-term memories for events that occur after the injury

Question 2

association

Answer 2

link between two memories or mental concepts, such that recall of one tends to promote recall of the other

Question 3

association by contiguity

Answer 3

Aristotle’s principle that if two environmental events (stimuli) occur at the same time or one right after the other (contigously), those events will be linked together in the mind

Question 4

association by similarity

Answer 4

Aristotle’s principle that events, or ideas that are similar to one another become linked/associated in the person’s mind (structure of memory), such that the thought of one tends to elicit the thought of the other

Question 5

attention

Answer 5

process that controls the flow of information from the sensory store into working memory; any focusing of mental activity along a specific track (inner memories and knowledge or based on external stimuli)

Question 6

automatic processes

Answer 6

cognitive processes that require no mental effort for their execution

1. occures without intention and conscious awareness
2. doesn’t interfere with the execution of other processes
3. doesn’t improve with practice
4. isn’t influenced by individual differences in intelligence, motivation, or education

Question 7

central executive

Answer 7

component of the mind responsible for coordinating all activities of working memory and for bringing new information into working memory

Question 8

chunking

Answer 8

strategy for improving ability to remember a set of items by grouping them mentally to form fewer items

Question 9

consciousness

Answer 9

experiencing of percepts or other mental events in such a manner that one can report on them to others

Question 10

consolidation

Answer 10

process by which a new memory becomes silidified in the brain, such that it is not easily forgotten

Question 11

control processes

Answer 11

mental processes that operate on information in the memory stores and move information from one store to another

Question 12

dual-processing theories

Answer 12

cognitive theories that propose that people have two general ways of processing information: fast, automatic, unconscious or slow, effortful, conscious

Question 13

echoic memory

Answer 13

sensory memory for the sense of hearing

Question 14

effortful processes

Answer 14

cognitive processes that consume some of the information-processing system’s limited capacity

1. available to conscious awareness
2. interferes with the execution of other processes
3. improves with practice
4. influenced by individual differnces in intelligence, motivation, or education

Question 15

elaboration (elaborative rehersal)

Answer 15

process of thinking about an item of information in such a way to tie the item mentally to other information in memory, which helps to encode the item into long-term memory

Question 16

encoding

Answer 16

mental process by which long-term memories are formed

Question 17

encoding rehersal

Answer 17

active mental process by which a person strives to encode information into long-term memory

Question 18

episodic memory

Answer 18

explicit memory of past events (episodes) in one’s own life

Question 19

executive functions

Answer 19

processes involved in regulating attention and in determining what to do with the information just gathered or retrieved from long-term memory

Question 20

explicit memory

Answer 20

class of memory that can be consciously recalled and used to answer explicit questions about one knows or remembers

Question 21

iconic memory

Answer 21

sensory memory for the sense of vision

Question 22

implicit memory

Answer 22

memory that influences one’s behaviour or thought but does not itself enter consciousness

Question 23

infantile amnesia

Answer 23

inability to remember events from infancy and early childhood

Question 24

long-term memory

Answer 24

information that is retained in the mind for long periods

Question 25

maintance rehersal

Answer 25

active mental process by which a person strives to hold information in short-term memory for a period of time

Question 26

memory

Answer 26

1. mind’s ability to retain information over time

2. information retained in the mind over time

Question 27

memory stores

Answer 27

constructs that are conceived of as places where information is held in the mind

Question 28

phonological loop

Answer 28

component of working memory responsible for holding verbal information

Question 29

preattentive processing

Answer 29

analysis, at an unconscious level, in which the mind determines which stimuli are worth passing into working memory

Question 30

priming

Answer 30

implicit memory process by which a stimulus (priming stimulus) activates (makes more retrievable)

Question 31

procedural memory

Answer 31

class of implicit memory that enables a person to perform specific learned skills or habitual responses

Question 32

prospective memory

Answer 32

remembering to do something in the future

Question 33

retrieval cue

Answer 33

word/phrase/other stimulus that helps one retrieve a specific item of information from long-term memory

Question 34

retrograde amnesia

Answer 34

loss, due to injury to the brain, of long term memories that had been formed before the injury

Question 35

schema

Answer 35

mental representation of a concept; information stored in long-term memory that allows a person to identify a group of different events or items as members of the same category

Question 36

script

Answer 36

variety of schema that represents in memroy the temporal organisation of a category of event

Question 37

semantic meory

Answer 37

one’s storehouse of explicit general knowledge that is, of knowledge that can be expressed in words and is not mentally tied to experiences in one’s own life

Question 38

sensory memory

Answer 38

memory trace that preserves the original information in a sensory stimulus for a brief period following the termination of the stimulus; it is experienced as if one is still sensing the original stimulus

Question 39

short-term memory spam

Answer 39

number of pronouncable items of information that a person can retain in short-term memory at any given time

Question 40

short-term store

Answer 40

memory store that can hold a limited amount of information for a matter of seconds; cognitive operations are executed in the short-term store and information can be maintained indefinitely in the short-term store and through operations such as rehearsal

Question 41

Stroop interference effect

Answer 41

effect which a printed color word interferes with a person’s ability to name the color of ink in which the word is printed if the color is not the same as the color named by the word

Question 42

temporal-lobe amnesia

Answer 42

loss in memory abilities that occurs as a result of damage to structures in the limbic system that lie under the temporal lobe of the cerebral cortex

Question 43

visuospatial sketchpad

Answer 43

component of working memory responsible for holding visual and spatial information

Question 44

working memory

Answer 44

memory store that is considered to be the main workplace of the mind; among other things it is the seat of conscious thought and reasoning