Human Memory Flashcards
Acronym
A made up word where each letter represents a word to be remembered
ie. Roy G. Biv for the colours of the rainbow
Acrostic
A poem where every line begins with a letter to represent a word to be remembered
ie. Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge for music notes
Amygdala
Critical component to the creation of memories of learned fears
Anterograde Amnesia
Inability to create new long term memories
Attention
Focusing in on specific events or stimuli
Chunk
Familiar stimuli being stored as a familiar unit
Clustering
Tendency to remember related items in groups
Conceptual Hierarchy
Classifications of things
ie. Dogs > Breeds
Connectionist Models
- Resemble semantic networks
- Specific bits of information is represented by a specific pattern of activation in the network
- Information lies in the strength of connections
- Same as PDP
Consolidation
- The act of encoding information from the short-term memory to the long-term memory
- Happens in the hippocampus
Context Cues
Retrieval cues based on the context that an event was encoding during
ie. Remembering what you did when you got out of bed by imagining your morning
Decay Theory
A theory that states memories are lost due to the passing of time
Declarative Memory System
Contains factual information
ie. grammar, faces, dog breeds
Destination Memory
Remembering who you told information to
Distributed Practice
Spreading study time across multiple sessions
Dual-Coding Theory
- Created by Allan Pavio
- States that encoding a visual image as well as verbal information assists in retrieval because two codes are better than one
Elaboration
Relating information to other information while encoding
ie. “you have a dog? I have a dog!”
Encoding Specificity Principle
States that successful retrieval depends on how much the retrieval cues match up with the memory code
Episodic Memory System
Contains events or information that is personal to you and is normally dated
ie. Christmas of 2007 was when Tessie came around
Explicit Memory
Retention that occurs intentionally
ie. making sure to remember your dogs favourite snacks
Flashbulb Memories
Unusually vivid memories of a big event
ie. Knowing where you were and what you were doing when you heard about 9/11
Forgetting Curve
- Created by Hermann Ebbinghaus
- A graph showing the rate at which people tend to forget information
Hindsight Bias
The tendency to reconstruct our view on an event after knowing how it ends
ie. saying “I knew it all along” when you find out your dog ate your cookies
Hippocampus
Critical in consolidation and long-term memory
Implicit Memory
Unintentional retention
ie. remembering what your dog looks like
Interference Theory
States that competition from other stimuli could affect the encoding of information
Keyword Method
Assigning a concrete word to a concept
ie. Garden for Gordon, the newbie at work who wears green everyday
Level-of-Processing Theory
- States the deeper the processing, the stronger the memory code
- Shallow processing (structure), intermediate processing (phonemic) and deep processing (semantic)
Link Method
Putting objects to be remembered together in a mental image
ie. you need to remember dog food and a brush, so you remember your dog eating while you brush him
Long-Term Memory
Unlimited storage system where memories are held over time
Long-Term Potentiation
Long-term increase in strength of nerve impulses along specific pathways
Massed Practice
Putting all your study time into one practice session
Method of Loci
- Creating an imaginary pathway down a familiar route and choosing checkpoints to place objects
ie. when you imagine yourself passing the corner store, you will see a bag of dog treats
Misinformation Effect
Memories are influenced by outside information
Mnemonic Devices
Tactics used to increase recall
Motivated Forgetting
Tendency to forget events or information one doesn’t want to think about
Nondeclarative Memory System
Contains skills and abilities that one doesn’t have to think about
ie. riding a bike or walking
Overlearning
Continuing to learn information that you’ve already seemed to master
Parallel Distributed Processing
- Certain memories correspond to certain patterns of activation in connectionist networks
- Connectionist approach
Prefrontal Cortex
Contributes to working memory
Proactive Interference
Old information interferes with the retention of new information
Procedural Memory System
- Nondeclaritive memory system
- Memory for actions, skills and conditioned responses
Prospective Memory
Remembering what one needs to do in the future
ie. Remembering to put the leash on your dog before you take him on a walk
Pseudoforgetting
Forgetting things one never actually knew in the first place
ie. not being able to pick a real dime out of a line of very convincing fakes
Reality Monitoring
Deciding whether or not memories were formed from external events or just ones own thoughts or imagination
ie. Did I actually feed the dog or only think about feeding the dog?
Recall
A measurement of retention where subjects must remember information without any cues
ie. an essay or short answer test
Recognition
A measurement of retention where subjects must pick the right answer out of a list of potential answers
ie. a multiple choice test
Rehearsal
Repeating information to oneself in order to move it from short term to long term memory
Relational Schemas
Schemas relating to people, events and regularities in your experiences
Relearning
A measurement of retention where the time to learn a concept is compared to the time it takes to relearn a concept one has already learned before
Repression
- Freud’s concept that unfavourable memories are pushed down into the unconscious
- Contributes to motivated forgetting
Retention
How well one holds information in their memory
Retention Interval
The amount of time between learning information and having retention measured
Retrieval
Reaching back to recover information in your memory
ie. unearthing information needed for your final
Retrieval Cues
Certain clues used to assist in retrieval
ie. remembering where you left your umbrella by reliving the morning in your mind
Retroactive Interference
New information interferes with the retention of old material
Retrograde Amnesia
The inability to remember any past events
Retrospective Memory
Remembering past events
Schema
An idea about what is expected from people, places or events based on past experiences
Self-Referent Encoding
Deciding whether or not information is relevant
Semantic Memory System
- A network where information is connected to related material
- The further away a connection is, the further the relation
ie. Red > Apple > Pear
Sensory Memory
Keeps sensory information in its original form for a short time
ie. writing in the air with a sparkler
Serial-Position Effect
Recall is better for information at the beginning or the end of a list or learning session
Short-Term Memory
Storage system that can hold a limited amount of unrehearsed information for about 20 seconds
Source Monitoring
Remembering who you’ve told information to
Storage
Keeping encoded information over a course of time
Tip-of-the-Tongue Phenomenon (TOTTP)
Occurs when information isn’t able to be retrieved, and appears to be just out of reach
Transfer-Appropriate Processing
Processing of information is similar to the type of processing needed in a measurement of retention
ie. remembering how a word looks for a spelling test
Visual Imagery
- Using images to remember information
- Includes link method, method of loci and the keyword method
Working Memory
Storage system that can hold and maintain a limited amount of information by providing a link between perception, memory and action
Working Memory Capacity
Ones ability to hold and manipulate information consciously
Richard Atkinson and Richard Shiffrin
- Memory model that showed information must pass through two temporary storage units before being placed in a long term storage unit
- Sensory, short term and long term
Sir Frederic Bartlett
- Made subjects read “The War of the Ghosts” and recall it later
- Found subjects condensed the story and sometimes added details
- This supported his idea that memory is a reconstruction of events, not an exact recreation
Elizabeth Loftus
- Studied the misinformation effect
- Found that there are 3 stages:
- View an event
- Subjects are exposed to information about the event, some of which may be misleading
- Recall of the event is tested
-Studied this with showing subjects a car crash then asking half of them if they saw any glass when the cars “hit” each other, and the other half, when the cars “smashed” into each other
Hermann Ebbinghaus
- Studied forgetting by testing his own recall ability of nonsense syllables
- His forgetting curve was especially steep but it provided a base for different tests in the future
Fergus Craik and Robert Lockhart
- Levels of Processing theory
- Stated that different rates of forgetting occur because certain encoding methods are more durable than others
- Structural Processing: focusing on what information looks like
- Phonemic Processing: focusing on what information sounds like
- Semantic Processing: focusing on the meaning of the information
George Miller
- Realized people could only hold a limited amount of information in their short term memory
- Seven, plus or minus two
Endel Tulving
-Divided declaritive memory into semantic and episodic memory
