Cognition: Memory Flashcards
Define: memory
Internal record of some precious event or experience
Active information processing system in which the brain processes, encodes, stores, retrieves and uses that information.
Define: mental representation
Memory is a psychological version of original sound, thought, object or concept
Multi-store model of memory
Atkinson & Shiffrin (1968) - stage model of memory: sensory, STM and LTM.
Define: duration
Length of time information is stored for.
Define: capacity
Amount of information that can be stored.
Define: encoding
Converting information into a form that can be stored.
Define: storage
Information is held for various lengths of time.
Define: retrieval
Locates stored information and returns it to consciousness.
Sensory memory
◦ memory retained for a brief period
◦ stores all incoming information in memory registers for difference senses
◦ capacity: unlimited
◦ 2 main registers: iconic and echoic
Define: iconic memory
Sensory register for visual information such as shape and colour
◦ icon or image
◦ duration: > 1 second.
Define: echoic memory
Sensory register for sound
◦ echo
◦ duration: 3 - 4 seconds, long enough to begin encoding
◦ understanding language, full long words.
Short-term memory
Information you are aware of, can be stored for a short period
◦ capacity: 5 - 9 pieces of information (Miller, 1956)
◦ duration: 30 seconds
◦ rehearsal enables information to be retained in STM for longer and transfer to LTM
Define: maintenance rehearsal
Use of rehearsal or repetition to retain information for immediate use
Define: elaborative rehearsal
Use of strategies that associate material to be remembered with other retained information. Actively process and encode information and associate the material with other information in LTM. Try to make material more meaningful to it can be stored and used later.
Define: chunking
Material combined into larger, meaningful groups based on patterns and regularities in information being process. Increase STM capacity.
Long-term memory
Relatively permanent store of information that must be large enough to retain all information we encounter and remember during our lifetime
◦ information moves from STM to LTM through physical changes in neurons and neural networks to make associations, and storage, permanent
◦ can decay over time
2 divisions:
1) Procedural memory
2) Declarative memory
Define: procedural memory
Memory of actions and skills that have been learned. Stores way you perform any type of action
Mainly motor skills
Little effort to retrieve
Implicit memory.
Define: implicit memory
Memory for something that has been learned without conscious effort.
Define: declarative memory
‘Declare’ how things are or what you remember
Explicit memory
2 divisions:
1) episodic memory
2) semantic memory
Define: explicit memory
Requires conscious effort for retrieval.
Define: episodic memory
Memory for past personal events, internal representation of own interpretation of an experience in your life
Specific events remembered because of importance of experience to you personally
Linked to particular feelings and sensations, and to particular time
Autobiographical memory.
Define: semantic memory
Knowledge of facts and information, based on understanding and interpretation, often of spoken or written material
Memory of facts and information that enables us to construct meaning.
Working memory model
Baddeley and Hitch (1974) - 2 slave systems for short term maintenance of information and central executive responsible for organising information and coordinating slave systems
Broader than STM and emphasises active nature of processing memory > passive maintenance
Limited capacity.
Define: phonological loop
Stores and processes phonological information (sounds of language) and rehearses it silently.
Define: visuo-spatial sketchpad
Stores visual and spatial information, and constructs and manipulates visual images including details of shape, colour, motion, pattern and position.
Define: central executive
Collects and collates information from working slave systems while drawing on information held in LTM
Responsible for organising information and coordinating slave systems.
Define: episodic buffer
3rd slave system links across domains to form integrated units of visual, spatial and verbal information with time
Links to LTM
Added by Baddeley in 2000
Define: recall
Questions you ask to retrieve information from memory without prompts/cues.
Define: recognition
Identifying the information from a number of alternatives.
Define: relearning
Learning information again that has been previously learned
Technique used to test memory by seeing whether a person learns information that has been previously more taught more quickly on a second occasion, see if any information has been retained
Learned more quickly second time => some information must have been retained.
Types of forgetting
1) Retrieval failure
2) Interference
3) Motivated forgetting
4) Decay
Define: retrieval failure
Inability to retrieve a certain piece of information
Retrieval requires cues, act as mental reminders and cause search to be activated, transferring likely information from LTM to STM
Inability to retrieve information when reminder cues do not assist since cues not stored in first place
Define: interference
Retrieval difficulties due to competing or similar information being stored. Cannot be retrieved as related or similar information gets mixed up/blocks retrieval.
Define: retroactive interference
New information interferes retroactively with old information.
Define: proactive interference
Information previously learned interferes with new learning.
Define: motivated forgetting
Inability to retrieve information because there is some advantage to not remembering it
May provoke anxiety or be convenient/desirable to forget.
Define: decay
Fading away of memories over time.
Ways to improve memory
1) Systems to improve organisation of memory
2) Pay closer attention to material
3) Having experience with information to be remembered
4) Using the information to be remembered
5) Rehearing information as it is transferred from STM to LTM
6) Mnemonics or memory-aid tricks
7) Contextual cues to trigger memories
