Exam 2 Terms

Question 1

episodic memory

Answer 1

Memory for personal experience of specific autobiographical events; it includes information about the spatial and temporal contexts in which the event occurred.

Question 2

semantic memory

Answer 2

Memory for facts or general knowledge about the world, including general personal information.

Question 3

declarative memory

Answer 3

A broad class of memories, both semantic and episodic, that can typically be verbalized (“declared”) or explicitly communicated in some other way.

Question 4

nondeclarative memory

Answer 4

A broad class of memory that includes skill memory and other types of learning that do not fall under either the episodic or semantic memory categories and that are not always consciously accessible or easy to verbalize.

Question 5

explicit memory

Answer 5

A category of memory that includes semantic memory and episodic memory and that consists of memories of which the person is aware: you know that you know the information.

Question 6

implicit memory

Answer 6

Memory that occurs without the learner’s awareness.

Question 7

levels-of-processing effect

Answer 7

The finding that, in general, deeper processing (such as thinking about the semantic meaning of a word) leads to better recall of the information than shallow processing (such as thinking about the spelling or pronunciation of a word).

Question 8

encoding specificity effect

Answer 8

The principle that retrieval is likely to be more successful if the cues and contextual conditions present at recall are similar to those that were present at encoding.

Question 9

transfer-appropriate processing (TAP) effect

Answer 9

The principle that memory retrieval will be best when the way that information is processed at encoding matches how it will be processed at retrieval.

Question 10

free recall

Answer 10

A memory test that involves simply generating requested information from memory.

Question 11

cued recall

Answer 11

A memory test that involves some kind of prompt or cue to aid recall.

Question 12

recognition

Answer 12

A memory test that involves picking out (or recognizing) a studied item from a set of options.

Question 13

directed forgetting

Answer 13

A procedure in which participants are first asked to learn information and later asked to remember or forget specific items; typically, memory is worse for items that a participant was directed to forget.

Question 14

interference

Answer 14

Reduction in the strength of a memory due to overlap with the content of other memories.

Question 15

proactive interference

Answer 15

Disruption of new learning by previously stored information.

Question 16

retroactive interference

Answer 16

Disruption of old (previously stored) information by more recent learning.

Question 17

source monitoring error

Answer 17

Remembering information but being mistaken about the specific episode that is the source of that memory.

Question 18

false memory

Answer 18

Memory for events that never actually happened.

Question 19

consolidation period

Answer 19

A length of time during which new episodic and semantic memories are vulnerable and easily lost or altered; each time a memory is recalled, it may become vulnerable again until it has been “reconsolidated.”

Question 20

reconsolidation

Answer 20

The process whereby each time an old memory is recalled or reactivated, it may become vulnerable to modification.

Question 21

metamemory

Answer 21

Knowledge of, and ability to think about, our own memories, including both feeling of knowing and judgment of learning.

Question 22

mood congruency of memory

Answer 22

The principle that it is easiest to retrieve memories that match our current mood or emotional state.

Question 23

flashbulb memory

Answer 23

A memory formed under conditions of extreme emotions that seems especially vivid and long-lasting.

Question 24

working memory

Answer 24

The active and temporary representation of information that is maintained for the short term, available for manipulation.

Question 25

cognitive control

Answer 25

The manipulation and application of working memory for planning, task switching, attention paying, stimulus selection, and the inhibition of inappropriate reflexive behaviors. Also known as executive control or executive function.

Question 26

short-term memory (STM)

Answer 26

A temporary memory that is maintained through active rehearsal.

Question 27

long-term memory (LTM)

Answer 27

Permanent or near-permanent storage of memory that lasts beyond a period of conscious attention.

Question 28

transient memory

Answer 28

Nonpermanent memory that lasts seconds or minutes; the Atkinson–Shiffrin model describes two types: sensory and short-term memory.

Question 29

sensory memory

Answer 29

Brief, transient sensations of what has just been perceived when someone sees, hears, or tastes something.

Question 30

visual sensory memory

Answer 30

The initial temporary storage for information perceived by the visual system.

Question 31

visuospatial sketchpad

Answer 31

The component of Baddeley’s model of working memory that holds visual and spatial images for manipulation.

Question 32

phonological loop

Answer 32

The component of Baddeley’s model of working memory that maintains auditory memories by internal (subvocal) speech rehearsal.

Question 33

central executive

Answer 33

The component of Baddeley’s model of working memory that monitors and manipulates the two working-memory buffers.

Question 34

word-length effect

Answer 34

The tendency for a person to remember fewer words from a list as the length of the words increases.

Question 35

delayed nonmatch-to-sample (DNMS) task

Answer 35

A test of visual memory in which a subject must indicate which of two objects is not the same as the sample object that was recently seen.

Question 36

skill

Answer 36

An ability that can improve over time through practice.

Question 37

perceptual-motor skill

Answer 37

Learned movement patterns guided by sensory inputs.

Question 38

cognitive skill

Answer 38

A skill that requires problem solving or the application of strategies.

Question 39

closed skill

Answer 39

A skill that involves performing predefined movements that, ideally, never vary.

Question 40

open skill

Answer 40

A skill in which movements are made on the basis of predictions about changing demands of the environment.

Question 41

knowledge of results

Answer 41

Feedback about performance of a skill, critical to the effectiveness of practice.

Question 42

power law of practice

Answer 42

A law stating that the degree to which each new practice session improves performance diminishes after a certain point, such that greater numbers of sessions are needed to further improve the skill; learning occurs quickly at first and then slows down.

Question 43

massed practice

Answer 43

Concentrated, continuous practice of a skill.

Question 44

spaced practice

Answer 44

Practice of a skill that is spread out over several sessions.

Question 45

constant practice

Answer 45

Practice involving a constrained set of materials and skills.

Question 46

variable practice

Answer 46

Practice involving the performance of skills in a wide variety of contexts.

Question 47

implicit learning

Answer 47

Learning that occurs without the learner’s awareness of improvements in performance or, in the case of people with amnesia, awareness that practice has occurred.

Question 48

serial reaction time task

Answer 48

An experimental task that requires individuals to press keys in specific sequences on the basis of cues provided by a computer; used to study implicit learning.

Question 49

motor program

Answer 49

A sequence of movements that an organism can perform automatically (with minimal attention).

Question 50

cognitive stage

Answer 50

The first stage in Fitts’s model of skill learning, when an individual must actively think to encode and perform a skill.

Question 51

associative stage

Answer 51

The second stage in Fitts’s model of skill learning, when learners begin to use stereotyped actions in performing a skill and rely less on actively recalled memories of rules.

Question 52

autonomous stage

Answer 52

The third stage in Fitts’s model of skill learning, when a skill or subcomponents of the skill become motor programs.

Question 53

transfer of training

Answer 53

The transfer of skill memories to novel situations.

Question 54

transfer specificity

Answer 54

The restricted applicability of learned skills to specific situations.

Question 55

identical elements theory

Answer 55

Thorndike’s proposal that learned abilities transfer to novel situations to an extent that depends on the number of elements in the new situation that are identical to those in the situation in which the skills were encoded.

Question 56

learning set formation

Answer 56

Acquisition of the ability to learn novel tasks rapidly based on frequent experiences with similar tasks.

Question 57

skill decay

Answer 57

Loss of a skill due to non-use.