Cognition: Memory

Question 1

Define: memory

Answer 1

Internal record of some precious event or experience

Active information processing system in which the brain processes, encodes, stores, retrieves and uses that information.

Question 2

Define: mental representation

Answer 2

Memory is a psychological version of original sound, thought, object or concept

Question 3

Multi-store model of memory

Answer 3

Atkinson & Shiffrin (1968) - stage model of memory: sensory, STM and LTM.

Question 4

Define: duration

Answer 4

Length of time information is stored for.

Question 5

Define: capacity

Answer 5

Amount of information that can be stored.

Question 6

Define: encoding

Answer 6

Converting information into a form that can be stored.

Question 7

Define: storage

Answer 7

Information is held for various lengths of time.

Question 8

Define: retrieval

Answer 8

Locates stored information and returns it to consciousness.

Question 9

Sensory memory

Answer 9

◦ memory retained for a brief period
◦ stores all incoming information in memory registers for difference senses

◦ capacity: unlimited
◦ 2 main registers: iconic and echoic

Question 10

Define: iconic memory

Answer 10

Sensory register for visual information such as shape and colour

◦ icon or image
◦ duration: > 1 second.

Question 11

Define: echoic memory

Answer 11

Sensory register for sound

◦ echo
◦ duration: 3 - 4 seconds, long enough to begin encoding
◦ understanding language, full long words.

Question 12

Short-term memory

Answer 12

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

Question 13

Define: maintenance rehearsal

Answer 13

Use of rehearsal or repetition to retain information for immediate use

Question 14

Define: elaborative rehearsal

Answer 14

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.

Question 15

Define: chunking

Answer 15

Material combined into larger, meaningful groups based on patterns and regularities in information being process. Increase STM capacity.

Question 16

Long-term memory

Answer 16

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

Question 17

Define: procedural memory

Answer 17

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.

Question 18

Define: implicit memory

Answer 18

Memory for something that has been learned without conscious effort.

Question 19

Define: declarative memory

Answer 19

‘Declare’ how things are or what you remember

Explicit memory

2 divisions:

1) episodic memory
2) semantic memory

Question 20

Define: explicit memory

Answer 20

Requires conscious effort for retrieval.

Question 21

Define: episodic memory

Answer 21

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.

Question 22

Define: semantic memory

Answer 22

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.

Question 23

Working memory model

Answer 23

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.

Question 24

Define: phonological loop

Answer 24

Stores and processes phonological information (sounds of language) and rehearses it silently.

Question 25

Define: visuo-spatial sketchpad

Answer 25

Stores visual and spatial information, and constructs and manipulates visual images including details of shape, colour, motion, pattern and position.

Question 26

Define: central executive

Answer 26

Collects and collates information from working slave systems while drawing on information held in LTM

Responsible for organising information and coordinating slave systems.

Question 27

Define: episodic buffer

Answer 27

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

Question 28

Define: recall

Answer 28

Questions you ask to retrieve information from memory without prompts/cues.

Question 29

Define: recognition

Answer 29

Identifying the information from a number of alternatives.

Question 30

Define: relearning

Answer 30

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.

Question 31

Types of forgetting

Answer 31

1) Retrieval failure
2) Interference
3) Motivated forgetting
4) Decay

Question 32

Define: retrieval failure

Answer 32

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

Question 33

Define: interference

Answer 33

Retrieval difficulties due to competing or similar information being stored. Cannot be retrieved as related or similar information gets mixed up/blocks retrieval.

Question 34

Define: retroactive interference

Answer 34

New information interferes retroactively with old information.

Question 35

Define: proactive interference

Answer 35

Information previously learned interferes with new learning.

Question 36

Define: motivated forgetting

Answer 36

Inability to retrieve information because there is some advantage to not remembering it

May provoke anxiety or be convenient/desirable to forget.

Question 37

Define: decay

Answer 37

Fading away of memories over time.

Question 38

Ways to improve memory

Answer 38

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