Exam 2 Terms Flashcards
episodic memory
Memory for personal experience of specific autobiographical events; it includes information about the spatial and temporal contexts in which the event occurred.
semantic memory
Memory for facts or general knowledge about the world, including general personal information.
declarative memory
A broad class of memories, both semantic and episodic, that can typically be verbalized (“declared”) or explicitly communicated in some other way.
nondeclarative memory
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.
explicit memory
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.
implicit memory
Memory that occurs without the learner’s awareness.
levels-of-processing effect
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).
encoding specificity effect
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.
transfer-appropriate processing (TAP) effect
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.
free recall
A memory test that involves simply generating requested information from memory.
cued recall
A memory test that involves some kind of prompt or cue to aid recall.
recognition
A memory test that involves picking out (or recognizing) a studied item from a set of options.
directed forgetting
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.
interference
Reduction in the strength of a memory due to overlap with the content of other memories.
proactive interference
Disruption of new learning by previously stored information.
retroactive interference
Disruption of old (previously stored) information by more recent learning.
source monitoring error
Remembering information but being mistaken about the specific episode that is the source of that memory.
false memory
Memory for events that never actually happened.
consolidation period
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.”
reconsolidation
The process whereby each time an old memory is recalled or reactivated, it may become vulnerable to modification.
metamemory
Knowledge of, and ability to think about, our own memories, including both feeling of knowing and judgment of learning.
mood congruency of memory
The principle that it is easiest to retrieve memories that match our current mood or emotional state.
flashbulb memory
A memory formed under conditions of extreme emotions that seems especially vivid and long-lasting.
working memory
The active and temporary representation of information that is maintained for the short term, available for manipulation.
cognitive control
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.
short-term memory (STM)
A temporary memory that is maintained through active rehearsal.
long-term memory (LTM)
Permanent or near-permanent storage of memory that lasts beyond a period of conscious attention.
transient memory
Nonpermanent memory that lasts seconds or minutes; the Atkinson–Shiffrin model describes two types: sensory and short-term memory.
sensory memory
Brief, transient sensations of what has just been perceived when someone sees, hears, or tastes something.
visual sensory memory
The initial temporary storage for information perceived by the visual system.
visuospatial sketchpad
The component of Baddeley’s model of working memory that holds visual and spatial images for manipulation.
phonological loop
The component of Baddeley’s model of working memory that maintains auditory memories by internal (subvocal) speech rehearsal.
central executive
The component of Baddeley’s model of working memory that monitors and manipulates the two working-memory buffers.
word-length effect
The tendency for a person to remember fewer words from a list as the length of the words increases.
delayed nonmatch-to-sample (DNMS) task
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.
skill
An ability that can improve over time through practice.
perceptual-motor skill
Learned movement patterns guided by sensory inputs.
cognitive skill
A skill that requires problem solving or the application of strategies.
closed skill
A skill that involves performing predefined movements that, ideally, never vary.
open skill
A skill in which movements are made on the basis of predictions about changing demands of the environment.
knowledge of results
Feedback about performance of a skill, critical to the effectiveness of practice.
power law of practice
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.
massed practice
Concentrated, continuous practice of a skill.
spaced practice
Practice of a skill that is spread out over several sessions.
constant practice
Practice involving a constrained set of materials and skills.
variable practice
Practice involving the performance of skills in a wide variety of contexts.
implicit learning
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.
serial reaction time task
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.
motor program
A sequence of movements that an organism can perform automatically (with minimal attention).
cognitive stage
The first stage in Fitts’s model of skill learning, when an individual must actively think to encode and perform a skill.
associative stage
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.
autonomous stage
The third stage in Fitts’s model of skill learning, when a skill or subcomponents of the skill become motor programs.
transfer of training
The transfer of skill memories to novel situations.
transfer specificity
The restricted applicability of learned skills to specific situations.
identical elements theory
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.
learning set formation
Acquisition of the ability to learn novel tasks rapidly based on frequent experiences with similar tasks.
skill decay
Loss of a skill due to non-use.
