Emotion, Memory, Stress Flashcards
What is the episodic buffer of working memory?
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.
What is the central executive component of working memory?
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.
What is the phonological logical loop of working memory?
A component of working memory responsible for keeping auditory information active in consciousness.
What is the visuospatial sketchpad of working memory?
It Is the component of working memory that is responsible for keeping visual and spatial information active in consciousness.
What are the defining characteristics of a flashbulb memory?
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%.
What is General adaptation syndrome (GAS)?
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.
Encoding
The act of moving information from temporary working memory to long-term memory
What are the primary types of stressors?
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
What does the Schachter singer theory of emotion say?
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.
What are the three components of emotion?
Physiological - how the body responds
Cognitive - how/what we think about our emotions
Behavioral - how we act upon and express our emotions
DAAA mnemonic for behavioral and emotional effects of stress
Depression
Anger
Anxiety
Addiction
What are the physical effects of stress?
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
Which emotions are associated with the left hemisphere?
Positive emotions - sociable, interested, joyful
What emotions are associated with the right hemisphere?
Negative emotions - loneliness, sadness, fear
What are the seven universal emotions?
Sadness, happiness, fear, disgust, anger, surprise, joy
Yerkes-Dodson Law
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.
What is the difference between a mood and an emotion?
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.
The hypothalamus controls what aspect of emotion?
Physiological aspects, such as sympathetic or parasympathetic activation causing changes in heart rate, blood pressure, respiratory rate.
The prefrontal cortex is responsible for what components of emotion?
The cognitive and behavioral components
What is prospective memory?
It is remembering that you have to do a task in the future
What is intrusion error?
This occurs when a person includes a false detail in the original memory which actually came from a different memory.
What is the misinformation effect?
It is when a persons recall of memory is clouded by information from an outside source which is injected into the memory.
What is synaptic pruning?
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.
Explain the life of a memory from when it occurs to where it goes in the end
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.
Function of the hypothalamus
A small kidney bean structure below the thalamus which controls, hunger, thirst, sex drive, activation of the fight or flight system
What is the function of the hippocampus?
It controls the formation of new memories
What is the function of the thalamus?
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.
What is the function of the amygdala?
Plays a role in experiencing fear and anger and other primitive emotions.
What does the James Lange theory of emotion say?
It emphasizes that a physiological response happens first, and then the emotion occurs.
What does the Cannon Bard theory of emotion say?
It says that physiological responses and feelings/emotions happen simultaneously, but independently of one another.
What is an emotion?
An emotion is a universal, short-lived, biological response, which induces physiological changes in the body.
What is agnosia?
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.
What is the difference between explicit and implicit memory?
Explicit involves conscious recall while implicit doesn’t.
2 types of explicit memory
Episodic - events that have happened in your life
Semantic - facts, general knowledge
2 types of implicit memory
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
How does the parasympathetic nervous system react to emotion?
-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
How does the sympathetic nervous system react to emotion?
-Digestion and salivation decreases
-Pupils dilate
-HR increases
-Adrenaline increases
What is sensory memory?
It is a transient short lived type of memory which lasts for 1-3 seconds and is either auditory (echoic) or visual (iconic).
Method of loci
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).
Proactive interference
Occurs when old information interferes with learning new information
Retroactive interference
Occurs when new information you learned interferes with remembering old information
Source monitoring error
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)
What is the primacy effect?
The tendency/phenomenon of remembering the beginning things on a list.
What is memory decay?
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.
Retrieval failure
When a person can’t remember a memory
What is the definition of retrieval?
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.
What is recognition?
The ability to identify a familiar stimulus (a person, event, object) that you have seen before
What are retrieval cues?
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.
What is the serial position effect?
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
What are the two types of sensory memory?
Echoic memory - brief transient memory of a sound (sound)
Iconic memory - brief transient memory of an image (visual)
What are the three stages of memory?
Sensory memory, short-term memory (or working memory), and long term memory
Short-term memory characteristics
-Maintained for approximately 20 seconds unless actively rehearsed
-Capacity: lies between 5 and 9 items so 7 plus or minus 2
What is dementia?
A neurodegenerative disease which affects a person’s ability to recall.
Dementia highly affects procedural memory.
What is self-referencing?
The ability to
What are the 4 types of encoding?
Visual encoding, acoustic encoding, semantic encoding, and elaborative encoding.
What is visual encoding?
Using images and other visual information to form long-term memory.
What is acoustic encoding?
Using sounds/music/language to form long-term memory.
What is elaborative encoding?
Using information that is already known and relating it to new information experienced, so you can remember the new info better.
How does aging affect memory decline?
Hard mcat SB question about aging
General information refers to “ crystallized intelligence”,general background knowledge which stays consist w/ aging
In various experiments define what the uses of semantic, episodic, and procedural memory can be applied to?
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.
