Cognitive Approach - Terminology

Question 1

Multi store model of memory

Answer 1

A model of memory developed by Atkinson and Shiffrin in 1968. It described the flow between three permanent storage systems of memory: the sensory register (SR), short-term memory (STM) and long-term memory (LTM).

Question 2

Working memory model

Answer 2

It was developed by Baddeley and Hitch in 1974. It proposes that STM is a collection of multiple stores which actively process different types of STM. According to the model, it consists of 3 components: the central executive, the phonological loop and the visuo-spatial sketchpad.

Question 3

Long term memory (LTM)

Answer 3

A relatively permanent memory storage system that holds huge amounts of information for LONG periods of time.

Question 4

Short term memory (STM)

Answer 4

The capacity to store a small amount of information in the mind and keep it readily available for a short period of time.

Question 5

Working memory

Answer 5

A form of memory that allows a person to temporarily hold a limited amount of information at the ready for immediate mental use.

Question 6

Declarative memory

Answer 6

(“knowing what”) is the memory of facts and events and refers to those memories that can be consciously recalled. There are two subsets of declarative memory: semantic memory and episodic memory

Question 7

Episodic memory

Answer 7

the memory of specific events that have occurred at a given time and in a given place.

Question 8

Procedural memory

Answer 8

(“knowing how”) is the unconscious memory of skills and how to do things.

Question 9

Encoding

Answer 9

the initial learning of information by placing information into memory storage.

Question 10

Displacement

Answer 10

In the MSM this is what happens to information in STM if it is not rehearsed. It is displaced - or “knocked out” of the STM store by other incoming stimuli.

Question 11

Primacy effect

Answer 11

The ability to recall words at the beginning of the list because they had already been transferred to long-term memory.

Question 12

Recency effect

Answer 12

The ability to recall words that have just been spoken because they are still in short-term memory.

Question 13

Dual process model

Answer 13

Argues that there are two systems of decision making - System 1 and System 2.

Question 14

System 1/2

Answer 14

• System 1 is an automatic, intuitive and effortless way of thinking.
• System 2 is a slower, conscious and rational mode of thinking.

Question 15

The Wason selection task

Answer 15

A problem designed to explore the ways people reason with conditional statements, those that can be expressed using “if. (People had to pick between 4 cards based on a condition, e.g. “if there is a D on one side of the card, there is a 3 on the other side. Which cards do you have to flip to see if the proposition is true? The cards: D,F,3,7)

Question 16

Cognitive bias

Answer 16

A systematic error in thinking that occurs when people are processing and interpreting information in the world around them and affects the decisions and judgments that they make.

Question 17

Heuristic

Answer 17

Simple and efficient rules that guide decision making.

Question 18

Cognitive misers

Answer 18

An interpretation of stereotypes as psychological mechanisms that economize on the time and effort spent on information processing by simplifying social reality, which would otherwise overwhelm our cognitive capacities with its complexity.

Question 19

Anchoring bias

Answer 19

The idea that we use pre-existing data as a reference point for al subsequent data, which can skew our decision-making processes.

Question 20

Availability heuristic

Answer 20

A mental shortcut that relies on immediate examples that come to a given person’s mind when making a decision.

Question 21

Framing effect

Answer 21

When people react to a particular choice in different ways depending on how it is presented.

Question 22

Peak-end rule

Answer 22

People judge an experience largely based on how they felt at its peak (i.e., its most intense point) and at its end, rather than based on the total sum or average of every moment of the experience.

Question 23

Representativeness heuristic

Answer 23

A cognitive bias that happens when people falsely believe that if two objects are similar, then they are also correlated with each other.

Question 24

Effort heuristic

Answer 24

The idea that if more effort is put into something, people tend to value it more.

Question 25

Confirmation bias

Answer 25

The idea that people seek out information that confirms their pre-existing ideas and ignore contrary information.

Question 26

Schema

Answer 26

Mental representations that are used to organize our knowledge, to assist recall, to guide our behaviour, to predict likely happenings and to help us to make sense of current experiences. Schemas are cognitive structures that are derived from prior experience and knowledge. They simplify reality, setting up expectations about what is probable in relation to particular social and textual contexts.

Question 27

Assimilation

Answer 27

The cognitive process of making new information fit in with your existing understanding of the world.

Question 28

Accomodation

Answer 28

Used to describe what occurs when new information or experiences cause you to modify your existing schemas.

Question 29

Reconstructive memory

Answer 29

The theory that when memories are accessed, they are not retrieved as a single, whole memory, but rather as a collection of independent memories put together. It is in this “reconstructive process” that distortions occur.

Question 30

Memory distortion

Answer 30

It is when our brain creates false memories or changes the memories we already have.

Question 31

Misinformation effect

Answer 31

Refers to the tendency for post-event information to interfere with the memory of the original event.

Question 32

Serial position effect

Answer 32

The psychological tendency to remember the first and last items in a list better than those in the middle.

Question 33

Episodic buffer

Answer 33

The component of Baddeley & Hitch’s Working Memory Model dedicated to linking information across domains to form integrated units of visual, spatial, and verbal information with time sequencing (or chronological ordering), such as the memory of a story or a movie scene.

Question 34

Phonological loop

Answer 34

The component of Baddeley & Hitch’s Working Memory Model responsible for processing auditory information.

Question 35

Central executive

Answer 35

The part of Baddeley & Hitch’s Working Memory Model responsible for the control and regulation of cognitive processes. It binds information from a number of sources into a coherent “episode”, coordinates the “slave systems”, shifts between tasks and handles selective attention and inhibition.

Question 36

Dual task technique

Answer 36

Widely used in experimental psychology to study the degree to which different mental faculties are independent of one another (if the two tasks do not interfere), or load upon shared resources (if they do interfere).

Question 37

Visuo-spatial sketchpad

Answer 37

The component of Baddeley & Hitch’s Working Memory Model which holds information about what we see. It is used in the temporary storage and manipulation of spatial and visual information, such as remembering shapes and colors, or the location or speed of objects in space. It is also involved in tasks that involve planning of spatial movements, like planning one’s way through a building.

Question 38

Cocktail party effect

Answer 38

The ability to focus one’s attention a particular stimulus while filtering out a range of other stimuli (i.e., noise).

Question 39

Word-length effect

Answer 39

Refers to the fact that lists of words that take more time to articulate—longer words—are more poorly remembered than words that take less time to articulate.

Question 40

Eyewitness testimony

Answer 40

An individual’s recollection of an event, often a crime or accident of some kind, that they personally saw or experienced. The reliability of eyewitness testimony is a major issue in forensic psychology, given the existence of such phenomena as the misinformation effect.

Question 41

Special mechnaism hypothesis

Answer 41

Argues for the existence of a special biological memory mechanism that, when triggered by an event exceeding critical levels of surprise and consequentiality, creates a permanent record of the details and circumstances surrounding the experience.

Question 42

Flashbulb memory

Answer 42

Brown & Kulik’s theory that memories created as the result of high levels of emotion - particularly surprise - are like “photographs.” The theory argues that a lot of peripheral and irrelevant information is retained.

Question 43

(HL) Transactive memory

Question 44

(HL) Google effect

Question 45

(HL) Media multitasking