Human Memory Flashcards
What are the main brain areas involved in human memory?
Temporal lobe: long term memory storage and retrieval
Hippocampus = forming new memories and retrieving old ones
Prefrontal regions are associated with working memory, and also in organizing and prioritizing memories
Parietal areas involved in maintaining information in working memory (attention-based memory)
Amygdala: process emotional memories
Basal ganglia and Cerebellum are important for procedural memory like riding a bike and habits
Occipital Cortex: Involved in visual memory, particularly for recognizing images and faces
What is partial-report procedure?
Shows visual sensory memory by asking people to recall part of what they briefly see, revealing they remember more than they can say
What is whole-report procedure?
Shows visual sensory memory by asking people to recall everything they saw after briefly viewing a set of items, showing limits in how much can be remembered at once.
What is Sperlings Method?
Both partial-report procedure and whole-report procedure experiment. Showing a grid of letters briefly, then using cues (like tones) to test recall, showing people remember more than they can report.
(Existence of a visual sensory store (=iconic memory) and that iconic memory has a large capacity but fades quickly (1s))
What is iconic memory (visual sensory memory)?
The brief, visual part of sensory memory, lasting about 1 second, holding a snapshot of what you see
What is echoic memory (auditory sensory store)?
The brief, auditory part of sensory memory, lasting 3–4 seconds (but can up to 10 seconds), holding sounds you hear
What is short-term memory?
Between sensory memory and long-term memory: Stores a small amount of information for a short time, usually 20–30 seconds. It helps you keep things in mind for immediate tasks.
Information fades quickly unless you rehearse or transfer it to long-term memory
What is memory span?
The capacity of short-term memory
What is depth of processing theory?
Suggests that the more deeply you process information, the better you will remember it
What is Atkinson and Shiffrin’s theory of short-term memory?
Suggests information moves from sensory memory to short-term memory, then either forgotten or transferred to long-term memory through rehearsal (instead of depth of processing)
What is Baddeley’s Theory of Working Memory?
Proposes that working memory is a system with multiple components: two slave systems that interact with a central executive
What is working memory?
A system for holding the information needed to perform a task
What is the central executive?
Controls attention and coordinates information in working memory through the two slave systems
What are the two slave systems?
Visuospatial sketchpad and Phonological loop
What is Visuospatial sketchpad?
Responsible for handling visual and spatial information in the mind
What is Phonological loop?
Responsible for processing and maintaining verbal and auditory information.
Has two components:
Articulatory process: “inner voice” that rehearses verbal information
(Activity in Broca’s area)
Phonological store: “inner ear” that hears the inner voice and stores the information
(Activity in the parietal-temporal region of the brain)
What is dealyed-matching to sample task?
A working-memory task where a participant is shown a sample (like a shape or object), then after a delay, must identify a matching item from a set of options (activity in Brodmann area)
What is long term working memory?
When information stays active in your mind for a long time, helping you solve problems or complete tasks.
What is long term memory?
Where information is stored for a long time, like facts, experiences, or skills, and can be retrieved later
What is activation?
Refers to the process of bringing information from long-term memory into awareness or active use in the mind
What is ACT-theory?
A model of human cognition that explains how people store and use knowledge. It divides memory into three parts:
Declarative memory (facts and information)
Procedural memory (skills and actions)
Working memory (information actively being processed)
Suggests that learning happens when knowledge is stored in declarative memory and then becomes procedural through practice.
What is spreading activation?
A theory that explains how ideas or concepts in memory are linked. When you think of one idea, it activates related ideas, causing them to “spread”
What is strength in human memory?
How well a memory is retained and how easily it can be recalled. Stronger memories are more easily activated and remembered
What is a Power function?
A mathematical function that is based on the idea that something is slowing down the learning process
What is the power law of learning?
Suggests that the more you practice something, the faster you learn at first, but as you keep practicing, the rate of improvement slows down
What is Long-term potentiation(LTP)
A process in the brain that strengthens the connections between neurons, making it easier for them to communicate (remembering something over and over makes it stronger, and easier to remember next time)
What is spacing effects?
Learning is more effective when study sessions are spread out over time, rather than crammed into a short period
What is elaborative processing?
A way of remembering things by connecting new information to what you already know
What is incidental vs intentional learning?
Incidental learning happens without trying to learn something, like picking up information naturally while doing something else.
Intentional learning is when you purposely focus on learning something, like studying for a test.
What is Flashbulb memories?
Vivid, detailed, long-lasting memories of major, important and emotionally charged events
What is the Penfield experiment?
Involved stimulating parts of the brain during surgery, which triggered memories or sensations, helping to map brain functions. (Forgotten memories are still there even though we cant retrieve them)
Nelson later found and supported that forgotten memories actually exist
What is the power law of forgetting?
Suggests that we forget information quickly at first, but the rate of forgetting slows down over time. The more you try to remember something, the slower you forget it
What is the think/no-think paradigm? (memory suppression/motivated forgetting)
An experiment that studies memory control. Participants are shown pairs of words and asked to either think about one word when prompted or not think about it. This helps researchers understand how we can intentionally suppress memories or actively bring them to mind
What is retention?
The ability to keep information in memory over time
What is the Decay Theory?
Suggests that memories fade or weaken over time if they are not used or rehearsed
What is Interference Theory?
Suggests that forgetting happens because other information gets in the way. There are two types:
Proactive interference: Older memories interfere with new ones.
Retroactive interference: New memories interfere with older ones.
What is the fan effect?
When the more facts or associations you have linked to a particular concept, the slower it becomes to recall any one of them
What is exact retrieval vs. plausible retrieval?
Exact retrieval is when you remember something exactly as it was, like recalling a specific fact or event with no mistakes.
Plausible retrieval is when you remember something that seems likely or reasonable, but it might not be completely accurate
What is eyewitness testimony in relation to human memory?
When someone describes what they saw during an event, like a crime or accident, to help investigators.
However, it can be unreliable because memories can be influenced by factors like stress, time, or leading questions
What is false-memory syndrome?
When a person believes they remember something that didn’t actually happen
What is the Deese-Roediger-McDermott paradigm?
An experiment that shows how false memories can be created. Participants are shown a list of words related to a central theme (like “bed,” “rest,” “sleep”). Afterward, many participants mistakenly remember a word that wasn’t on the list but fits the theme (like “dream”), demonstrating how false memories can form.
(Activation in the hippocampus is about the same for false memories and true memories)
What is mood congruence?
Refers to the tendency to remember information that matches your current mood. For example, when you’re happy, you’re more likely to recall happy memories
What is state-dependent learning?
The idea that you remember things better when you’re in the same physical or emotional state as when you learned them
What is the encoding-specifity principle?
Suggests that memory is improved when the context during encoding (learning) matches the context during retrieval (remembering)
What is Amnesia?
Memory loss, often due to brain injury, trauma, or illness.
Who was patient H.M?
He had a brain surgery to treat epilepsy, where part of his hippocampus was removed, which caused him to develop anterograde amnesia, unable to form new long-term memories.
His case helped scientists understand the hippocampus’s role in memory
What is anterograde amnesia?
The inability to form new long-term memories, but can still remember old memories
What is retrograde amnesia?
Cannot remember past memories
A type of memory loss where a person cannot remember events that occurred before a specific point in time, however they can form new memories
Who was Clive Wearing?
A man with severe anterograde and retrograde amnesia due to a brain infection. He can’t form new memories or recall much from the past but can still play music and recognize his wife
What is Explicit memory (declarative memory)?
The type of memory you can consciously recall and describe, like facts, events, or experiences. It includes two subtypes:
Episodic memory (personal experiences)
Semantic memory (general knowledge or facts)
What is Implicit memory (non-declarative memory)?
The type of memory that influences your behavior without conscious awareness. It includes skills, habits, and conditioned responses, like riding a bike
What are the 4 subcategories of non-declarative memory?
Procedural memory: Memory for skills and tasks, like riding a bike or playing an instrument.
Priming: Being influenced by prior experiences without conscious awareness, like recognizing a word faster if you’ve seen it before.
Classical conditioning: Learning through associations, like feeling nervous when you hear a certain sound because it’s linked to something scary.
Non-associative learning: Changes in behavior due to repeated exposure to a stimulus, like getting used to a loud noise over time
What is Procedural knowledge?
The understanding of how to perform specific tasks or actions, but it can be difficult to explain to others
What is the retention function?
Shows how memory changes over time. It describes how much information we can remember after different amounts of time have passed
What did Craik and Lockhart find?
Words that were deeply processed (focusing on the word’s meaning) were remembered better than those that were shallowly processed (focusing on the words font)
What did Shepard and Teghtsoonian demonstrate and how did Baddeley and Vallar contribute?
They found that people can remember fewer long words than short words.
Baddeley and Vallar explained it in terms of working memory processes, linking the word length effect to the capacity limitations of the phonological loop
What did Meyer and Schvaneveldt find?
Studied semantic priming, finding that people recognize related words faster (e.g., “bread” and “butter”) than unrelated ones. This supports the idea that related concepts are linked in memory, contributing to the spreading activation model
What did Barnes find?
That Long-Term Potentiation (LTP) strengthens the connections between neurons, especially in the hippocampus, which is important for memory
How can memory relate to other topics?
