Emotion, Memory, Stress

Question 1

What is the episodic buffer of working memory?

Answer 1

A component of working memory that is responsible for integrating information from the phonological loop and the visuospatial sketchpad and serving as a bridge to long-term memory.

Question 2

What is the central executive component of working memory?

Answer 2

It is a component responsible for active inhibition of useless information, direct attention to useful information, decision-making, problem-solving, and arithmetic in real time.

Question 3

What is the phonological logical loop of working memory?

Answer 3

A component of working memory responsible for keeping auditory information active in consciousness.

Question 4

What is the visuospatial sketchpad of working memory?

Answer 4

It Is the component of working memory that is responsible for keeping visual and spatial information active in consciousness.

Question 5

What are the defining characteristics of a flashbulb memory?

Answer 5

It is a vivid, detailed recollection/memory of an event that was extremely emotional, distinct, or significant to the individual. individuals feel extremely confident about the memory, but the actual accuracy is not 100%.

Question 6

What is General adaptation syndrome (GAS)?

Answer 6

A model that describes how the body reacts to stress in 3 stages.
Alarm stage - Occurs first few minutes of stress response/ body’s initial fight of flight response
Resistance stage - can last hours, days, or months; body resists the stressor
Exhaustion stage - body gets exhausted in resisting the stressor for too long, so resistance to stress decreases. This can lead to depression & other health concerns.
*Says that this model applies to all different kinds of stressors. Isn’t dependent on 1 specific type of stressor.

Question 7

Encoding

Answer 7

The act of moving information from temporary working memory to long-term memory

Question 8

What are the primary types of stressors?

Answer 8

Daily life stressors - getting a flat tire
Personal events - getting married, having a child, divorce, job change
Ambient stressors - examples include pollution in the city
Cataclysmic events - caused by extreme events like war, epidemics, natural disasters

Question 9

What does the Schachter singer theory of emotion say?

Answer 9

It says that in order for an emotion to occur, there must first be a physiological response and a cognitive interpretation of that response, which then causes an emotion to come about.
Emphasizes how physiological responses and cognition dependent on one another.

Question 10

What are the three components of emotion?

Answer 10

Physiological - how the body responds
Cognitive - how/what we think about our emotions
Behavioral - how we act upon and express our emotions

Question 11

DAAA mnemonic for behavioral and emotional effects of stress

Answer 11

Depression
Anger
Anxiety
Addiction

Question 12

What are the physical effects of stress?

Answer 12

Cardiovascular effects - hypertension, CAD, vascular disease, high blood sugar
Immune system effects - increased inflammation, immune suppression
Reproductive effects - changes in hormone levels, fertility issues, erectile dysfunction

Question 13

Which emotions are associated with the left hemisphere?

Answer 13

Positive emotions - sociable, interested, joyful

Question 14

What emotions are associated with the right hemisphere?

Answer 14

Negative emotions - loneliness, sadness, fear

Question 15

What are the seven universal emotions?

Answer 15

Sadness, happiness, fear, disgust, anger, surprise, joy

Question 16

Yerkes-Dodson Law

Answer 16

States that performance increases with arousal. However, there is an optimal level of arousal that is preferred. Arousal is too high or too low, then performance decreases.

Question 17

What is the difference between a mood and an emotion?

Answer 17

An emotion is more specific, short-lived, and can be easily identifiable by people from all cultures.
A mood is more longer lasting, general such as good or bad, and not as easily distinguished.

Question 18

The hypothalamus controls what aspect of emotion?

Answer 18

Physiological aspects, such as sympathetic or parasympathetic activation causing changes in heart rate, blood pressure, respiratory rate.

Question 19

The prefrontal cortex is responsible for what components of emotion?

Answer 19

The cognitive and behavioral components

Question 20

What is prospective memory?

Answer 20

It is remembering that you have to do a task in the future

Question 21

What is intrusion error?

Answer 21

This occurs when a person includes a false detail in the original memory which actually came from a different memory.

Question 22

What is the misinformation effect?

Answer 22

It is when a persons recall of memory is clouded by information from an outside source which is injected into the memory.

Question 23

What is synaptic pruning?

Answer 23

It is when the brain strengthens synapses between neurons that fire frequently and gets rid of/weakens synapses between neurons that don’t fire often.

Question 24

Explain the life of a memory from when it occurs to where it goes in the end

Answer 24

It begins as a sensory memory in the projection area of a given sensory modality. For example, a visual memory would begin in the occipital lobe or auditory memory would begin in the temporal lobe. Then it gets transferred to the hippocampus where it is manipulated through the working memory. The working memory serves as a bridge to long-term memory where it is stored for later recall.

Question 25

Function of the hypothalamus

Answer 25

A small kidney bean structure below the thalamus which controls, hunger, thirst, sex drive, activation of the fight or flight system

Question 26

What is the function of the hippocampus?

Answer 26

It controls the formation of new memories

Question 27

What is the function of the thalamus?

Answer 27

It is known as a relay station because it relays information from different senses, such as vision hearing, pain which all pass through the thalamus before reaching the proper part of the cortex.
Also controls wakefulness and cortical arousal.

Question 28

What is the function of the amygdala?

Answer 28

Plays a role in experiencing fear and anger and other primitive emotions.

Question 29

What does the James Lange theory of emotion say?

Answer 29

It emphasizes that a physiological response happens first, and then the emotion occurs.

Question 30

What does the Cannon Bard theory of emotion say?

Answer 30

It says that physiological responses and feelings/emotions happen simultaneously, but independently of one another.

Question 31

What is an emotion?

Answer 31

An emotion is a universal, short-lived, biological response, which induces physiological changes in the body.

Question 32

What is agnosia?

Answer 32

The inability to process sensory information. For example, not being able to recognize objects, people, sounds, smells, but the actual sense organ isn’t defective. This results from damage to projection areas of the brain from strokes, TBI‘s, or other neurological conditions.

Question 33

What is the difference between explicit and implicit memory?

Answer 33

Explicit involves conscious recall while implicit doesn’t.

Question 34

2 types of explicit memory

Answer 34

Episodic - events that have happened in your life
Semantic - facts, general knowledge

Question 35

2 types of implicit memory

Answer 35

Procedural - having to do with tasks that are like instinctual such as eating or walking
Priming - exposure to a previous stimulus influences recall of another stimulus

Question 36

How does the parasympathetic nervous system react to emotion?

Answer 36

-Pupils constrict
-Salivation increases, digestion increases (motility in the gut increases)
-Respiratory rate slows
-HR goes back to normal
-Decrease in adrenaline
-Glucose storage increases

Question 37

How does the sympathetic nervous system react to emotion?

Answer 37

-Digestion and salivation decreases
-Pupils dilate
-HR increases
-Adrenaline increases

Question 38

What is sensory memory?

Answer 38

It is a transient short lived type of memory which lasts for 1-3 seconds and is either auditory (echoic) or visual (iconic).

Question 39

Method of loci

Answer 39

A type of encoding strategy where items/information to be remembered are associated/assigned with specific locations (such as locations on a familiar route to you).

Question 40

Proactive interference

Answer 40

Occurs when old information interferes with learning new information

Question 41

Retroactive interference

Answer 41

Occurs when new information you learned interferes with remembering old information

Question 42

Source monitoring error

Answer 42

When you attribute a wrong source to a memory you have.
(Example: remembering a fact you learned, but thinking you learned it from school instead of actually seeing it in a movie)

Question 43

What is the primacy effect?

Answer 43

The tendency/phenomenon of remembering the beginning things on a list.

Question 44

What is memory decay?

Answer 44

When you don’t recall a memory, it becomes progressively harder to recall it potentially leading to loss of that memory.
Normal memory decay follows a characteristic pattern.

Question 45

Retrieval failure

Answer 45

When a person can’t remember a memory

Question 46

What is the definition of retrieval?

Answer 46

When you pull a memory out of long-term memory, and bring it into your working memory (consciousness). The two types are recognition and recall.

Question 47

What is recognition?

Answer 47

The ability to identify a familiar stimulus (a person, event, object) that you have seen before

Question 48

What are retrieval cues?

Answer 48

They are prompts/stimuli that are used to help retrieve a memory. The two types: internal cues (state-dependent) such as mood and external cues such as the location where the memory was encoded.

Question 49

What is the serial position effect?

Answer 49

When a list of items is presented ONE AT A TIME, the ability to recall the first & last things on the list is better than those in the middle.
E.g primacy & recency effect

Question 50

What are the two types of sensory memory?

Answer 50

Echoic memory - brief transient memory of a sound (sound)
Iconic memory - brief transient memory of an image (visual)

Question 51

What are the three stages of memory?

Answer 51

Sensory memory, short-term memory (or working memory), and long term memory

Question 52

Short-term memory characteristics

Answer 52

-Maintained for approximately 20 seconds unless actively rehearsed
-Capacity: lies between 5 and 9 items so 7 plus or minus 2

Question 53

What is dementia?

Answer 53

A neurodegenerative disease which affects a person’s ability to recall.
Dementia highly affects procedural memory.

Question 54

What is self-referencing?

Answer 54

The ability to

Question 55

What are the 4 types of encoding?

Answer 55

Visual encoding, acoustic encoding, semantic encoding, and elaborative encoding.

Question 56

What is visual encoding?

Answer 56

Using images and other visual information to form long-term memory.

Question 57

What is acoustic encoding?

Answer 57

Using sounds/music/language to form long-term memory.

Question 58

What is elaborative encoding?

Answer 58

Using information that is already known and relating it to new information experienced, so you can remember the new info better.

Question 59

How does aging affect memory decline?

Answer 59

Question 60

Hard mcat SB question about aging

Answer 60

General information refers to “ crystallized intelligence”,general background knowledge which stays consist w/ aging

Question 61

In various experiments define what the uses of semantic, episodic, and procedural memory can be applied to?

Answer 61

Semantic memory - participants recall information about general world knowledge, meanings of words and phrases (free-recall, serial recall, yes-no-recognition)
Episodic memory - participants recall actual events experience by them in the past
Procedural memory - “muscle memory” memory in performing tasks such as riding a bike, tying shoes, etc.