Cognition Flashcards
The persistence of learning over time through the encoding, storage, and retrieval of information.
Memory
The processing of information into the memory system-for example, by extracting meaning.
Encoding
The processing of information over time.
Storage
The process of getting information out of memory storage.
Retrieval
The immediate, very brief recording of sensory information in the memory system.
Sensory memory
Activated memory that holds a few items briefly, such as the seven digits of a phone number while dialing, before the information is stored or forgotten.
Short-term memory
The relatively permanent and limitless storehouse of the memory system. Includes knowledge, skills, and experiences.
Long-term memory
A newer understanding of short-term memory that focuses on conscious, active processing if incoming auditory and visual-spatial information, and if information retrieved from long-term memory.
Working memory
Memory of facts and experiences that one can consciously know and “declare.” Also called declarative memory.
Explicit memory
Encoding that requires attention and conscious effort.
Effortful processing
Unconscious encoding of incidental information, such as space, time, frequency, and of well learned information such as word meaning.
Automatic processing
Retention independent of conscious recollection. (Also called nondeclarative memory.)
Implicit memory
A momentary sensory memory of visual stimuli; a photographic or picture-image memory lasting no more than a few tenths of a second.
Iconic memory
A momentary sensory memory of auditory stimuli; if attention is elsewhere, sounds and words can be recalled within 3 or 4 seconds.
Echoic memory
Conducted memory experiments on himself and created the learning curve.
Herman Ebbinghaus
Organizing items into familiar, manageable units; often occurs automatically. For example, APPLE instead of PLPAE.
Chunking
Memory aids, especially those techniques that use vivid imagery and organization devices.
Mnemonics
The tendency for distributed study or practice to yield better long-term retention than is achieved through mass study or practice.
Spacing Effect
Enhanced memory after retrieving, rather than simply rereading information. Also sometimes referred to as retrieval practice effect or test-enhanced learning.
Testing Effect
Encoding on a basic level based on the structure or appearance of words.
Shallow Processing
Encoding semantically, based on the meaning of the words tends to yield the best retention.
Deep Processing
A neural center located in the Limbic system; helps process explicit memories for storage.
Hippocampus
A clear memory of an emotionally significant moment or event.
Flashbulb Memory
An increase in a cell’s firing potential after brief, rapid stimulation. Believed to be a neural basis for learning and memory.
Long-term Potentiation (LTP)
A measure of memory in which the person must retrieve information learned earlier, as on a fill-in-the-blank test.
Recall
A measure of memory in which the person need only identify items previously learned, as on a multiple choice test.
Recognition
A measure of memory that assesses the amount of time saved when learning material again.
Relearning
The activation, often unconsciously, of particular associations in memory.
Priming
The tendency to recall experiences that are consistent with one’s current good or bad mood.
Mood-congruent memory
Our tendency to recall best the last (a recency effect) and first items (primary effect) in a list.
Serial Position Effect
An inability to form new memories; sufferers can remember their past after nothing past the trauma.
Anterograde amnesia
A methodical, logical rule or procedure that guarantees solving a particular problem.
Algorithm
A simple thinking strategy that often allows us to make judgments and solve problems efficiently; usually speedier-but also more error-prone.
Heuristic
A tendency to search for information that supports our perceptions and to ignore or distort contradictory evidence.
Confirmation Bias
A tendency to approach a problem in a particular way, often a way that has been successful in the past.
Mental set
An effortful, immediate, automatic feeling or thought, as contrasted with explicit, conscious reasoning.
Intuition
Judging the likelihood of things in terms of how well they seem to represent, or match, particular prototypes; may lead us to ignore other relevant information.
Representativeness Heuristic
Estimating the likelihood of events based on their availability in memory; if instances come readily to mind (perhaps because of their vividness) we presume such events are common.
Availability Heuristic
The tendency to be more confident than correct-to overestimate the accuracy of our beliefs and judgments.
Overconfidence
Clinging to one’s initial conceptions after the basis on which they were formed has been discredited.
Belief Perseverance
The way an issue is posed; how an issue is _____ can significantly affect decisions and judgments.
Framing
Our spoken, written, or signed words and the ways we combine them to communicate meaning.
Language
In a language, the smallest distinctive sound unit.
Phoneme
In a language, the smallest unit that carries meaning; may be a word or part of a word (such as a prefix.)
Morpheme
In a language, a system of rules that enables us to communicate with and understand others.
Grammar
The set of rules for deriving meaning from sounds.
Semantics
The set of rules for combining words into grammatically sensible words.
Syntax
Beginning at about 4 months, the stage of speech development in which the infant spontaneously utters various sounds at first unrelated to the household language.
Babbling Stage
The stage in speech development, from about age 1 to 2, during which a child speaks mostly in single words.
One-word Stage
Beginning at about age 2, the stage in speech development during which a child speaks mostly in two-word statements.
Two-word Stage
Early speech stage in which a child speaks like a telegram-“go car”-using mostly nouns and verbs.
Telegraphic Speech
Impairment of language, usually caused by left-hemisphere damage either to Broca’s area (impairing speech) or to Wernicke’s area (impairing understanding.)
Aphasia
Controls language expression-an area of the frontal lobe, usually in the left hemisphere, that directs the muscle movements involved in speech.
Broca’s Area
Controls language reception-a brain area involved in language comprehension and expression; usually in the left temporal lobe.
Wernicke’s Area
All the mental activities associated with thinking, knowing, remembering, and communicating.
Cognition
A mental grouping of similar objects, events, ideas, or people.
Concept
A mental image or best example of a category.
Prototype
The ability to produce novel and valuable ideas.
Creativity
Narrows the available problem solutions to determine the single best solution.
Convergent thinking
Expands the number of possible problem solutions (creative thinking that _____ in different directions.)
Divergent Thinking
How long and how well we remember information depends on how deeply we process the information when it is encoded
Fergus Craik & Robert Lockhart’s Levels-of Processing Model
The branch of sensory memory used by the sense of touch
Haptic Memory
Number of items a person can remember and repeat back using attention and short-term memory, usually ____ + or - _____
Memory span, 7, 2
Straight repeating of information in order to memorize it to prolong its presence in STM , can increase the length of time information can be stored to about thirty seconds
Maintenance Rehearsal
Long-term memory that involves the recollection of specific events, situations, and experiences
Episodic Memory
These are memories of facts, concepts, names, and other general knowledge
Semantic Memory
A person has visual images clear enough to be retained for seconds and realistic in their vividness
Eidetic (Photographic) Memory
Process where our brains convert short-term memories into long-term ones
Memory Consolidation
Strengthening of a synaptic connection that happens when the synapse of one neuron repeatedly fires and excites another neuron
Long Term Potentiation (LTP)
Memory retrieval and procedural memory (creating & maintaining habits) are run by the _____ ______.
Basal Ganglia
The failure to recall a memory due to missing stimuli or cues that were present at the time the memory was encoded to help trigger the memory
Retrieval Failure “Why we Forget”
Occurs when a memory was never formed in the first place (without effort, many memories never form)
Encoding Failure
Older memories interfere with the retrieval of newer memories
Proactive Interference
Newer memories interfere with the retrieval of older memories
Retroactive Interference
Extensive research on memory construction and false memories and how memory is changeable, it is not always accurate
Elizabeth Loftus
Exposed to misleading information we tend to misremember
Misinformation Effect
The inability to remember the source of a memory while retaining its substance
Source Amnesia
Involves using the first letters of a list of to-be-learned items to create a meaningful and/or odd sentence
Acrostic
Involve making a phonetic link connecting a to-be-learned word with a similar-sounding keyword, and then making an interactive image that links the keyword to the meaning of the to-be-learned word
Keyword Mnemonics
Learners identify a keyword (or “name clue”) that is acoustically similar to the name of a person they are trying to remember
Face-Name Mnemonics
Mnemonic technique for memorizing lists, An object or image is visualized which holds or ‘pegs’ the information that needs to be recalled and makes it easier to remember
One is a bun
Two is a shoe
Three is a tree
etc.
Peg Word System
