Long Term Memory and Neuroscience of Memory

Question 1

In LTM, what is the difference between implicit and explicit?

Answer 1

Implicit is unconscious and non-declarative.

Explicit is declarative and conscious.

Question 2

What is the difference between semantic and episodic?

Answer 2

Semantic is general knowledge (1st president - George Washington).

Episodic is a specific event (i.e., 16th birthday)

Question 3

What is the difference between priming and procedural?

Answer 3

Priming - when something is reminding you of something else (e.g. yellow reminds you of a banana)

Procedural - muscle memory that allows you to perform without thinking about these performances

Question 4

What types of long-term memory are most affected by amnesia and why?

Answer 4

Episodic and primed are two types of long-term memory that are most affected by amnesia. Episodic memory is impaired, and people can be primed.

Question 5

What is memory consolidation?

Answer 5

Memory consolidation is turning from short-term memory to long-term memory

Question 6

What is the different explanation of memory for the long-term vs. short-term?

Answer 6

In short-term memory, neurotransmitters can be increased as the software, while long-term memory is an engram and hardware.

Question 7

What is an engram?

Answer 7

Engram is a physical or chemical change in the brain that represents acquired memory info.

Engram has consolidation and reconsolidation
1) Consolidation - process of getting memory in
2) Reconsolidation - every time you retrieve a memory, you go through the whole process

Question 8

What are the three types or theories of forgetting?

Answer 8

1. Decay theory: when the unused information weakens over time
2. Intentional theory: the process of updating memory to remove or suppress unwanted or irrelevant information
3. Interference theory: similar memories get in the way; proactive and retroactive interferences

Question 9

What is the neuroscience evidence of decay theory?

Answer 9

a general decline in activation in posterior regions over a delay period

Question 10

What is the neuroscience evidence for intentional forgetting?

Answer 10

The frontal lobe is more active, while the hippocampus is less active.

Question 11

What is proactive and retroactive interference?

Answer 11

1) Proactive interference
- produced by material encountered before the target memory is encoded.
- Old memories interfere with new memories.

2) Retroactive interference
- produced by material encountered after the target memory is encoded.
-New memories interfere with old memories.

Question 12

What is memory distortion?

Answer 12

It is creating false memories from something that has never happened or changing memories.

Question 13

What is amnesia, what are the different types, and what memory systems are impacted?

Answer 13

1) Amnesia is a memory loss.

2) The types of amnesia:
- retrograde - forgetting the
past; losing access to long-
term memory
= can come back

   - anterograde -  cannot encode new LTM

3) Episodic and priming memory can be impacted.

Question 14

What are the different examples of memory distortion?

Answer 14

Constructed and reconstructed are examples of memory distortion

1) constructed: piecing together our memories using other information

2) reconstructed: using context and other memories to piece together those memories leading to memory distortion

Question 15

How does related information lead to memory distortion?

Answer 15

Related information comes to mind and related information can tweak our memories.

Question 16

What is source memory and how can it lead to memory distortion?

Answer 16

The source memory is recalling the source of learned information such as knowledge of when and where something was learned. Examples are imagination and cryptomnesia.

1) Imagination has an action sentence that can be read, imagined, and performed action.

2) Cryptomnesia is when someone doesn’t remember hearing it or they were inspired but didn’t think it was that similar.

This can lead to memory distortion because the time and place can be switched up in our memories

Question 17

What study shows imagination is particularly bad?

Answer 17

Imagination is bad.

1) Guided imagination is imagining that they have experiences they previously denied

2) Imagination inflation is a worth of imagination that can increase people’s confidence that in the past they had experiences like the imagined one.

Question 18

What are flashbulb memories, and how do they tell us something about memory distortion?

Answer 18

Flashbulb memories - typically emotional, surprising events. They are called flashbulb memories because as someone thinks back to a memory, it’s very vivid - “snapshot images” that came to mind

Question 19

What are the two studies that we discuss in flashbulb memories?

Answer 19

1. “Snapshot images” came to mind by George Eastman
2. Neisser Harsch studied Flashbulb Memories that existed in 1992.