Memory

Question 1

What is memory?

Answer 1

Our brain acts like computers,

1. Receives information
2. processes it
3. makes decisions based on what was processed.

Can be divided into two ways

• Processing
• working
• long-term

Question 2

What is sensory memory?

Answer 2

Memory that is obtained from your senses

1. Iconis: involves the eye less than few seconds, deals with the things that you see.
2. echoic: involves hearing, a few seconds deals with the things that you hear

All memory comes from sensory memory

Question 3

What is working memory?

Answer 3

This is a memory that involves what you are thinking at the moment.

1. Verbal information: the spoken word or read this stores into the phonological part of the brain
2. Visual and verbal:
   
   1. visual: a cognitive system that keeps a limited amount of visual information
   2. verbal: remember something and perform an activity using memory
3. Visual spacial information: is the ability to remember things that you see based on where they are position in space
   
   1. seven: most people remember this number hence phons number are always in 7
   2. Serial positioning: people tend to remember more the first and last thing in a list rather than the whole list
   3. Dual coding hypothesis: it is easier to remember words that are associated with images
   4. Method of loci: learning to facilitate memory by combining visualization with spatial memory of familiar things.

Question 4

What is long-term memory? define explicit and Implicit.

Answer 4

memory that last for a lifetime and is divided into two

1. Explicit/declarative: things you can clearly describe -
   
   1. Semantic (logic): recalling fact ( D.C is the capital of United States)
   2. Episodic memory: recall experiences or things that have happened to you.
2. Implicit/ non-declarative: things you can’t really declare it is innate kinda you can’t consciously recal it. Like when Alide is learning to pedal her skates
   
   1. Procedural memory: motor skills or tasks like riding a bike
   2. Emotional /reflective: memory of associations between stimuli -example the smell citronella and the feeling it gives me from the house we lived in back home.

Question 5

How to encode things in memory? What are the four types of encoding

Answer 5

1. What: encoding is transffering sensory information into memory
2. Types of encoding:
   
   1. visual encoding: how you store pieces of information that is visual
   2. Acoustic encoding: how you remember how things sound
   3. Tactile encoding: how you store what things physically feel like
   4. semantic encoding: relates to you as a person for instance how you give meaning to things

Question 6

what are ways to improve retrieval?

Answer 6

1. Priming: prior activation by being exposed to something familiar
2. Context: the environment that you encode the information in can help you retrieve things

Question 7

What is state dependent memory?

Answer 7

1. your state in the moment that you are encoding something can help you remember that thing, if the next time you happen to be in that mood you will remember the product

Question 8

Explain what is retrieval cues in general?

Answer 8

Any time you pull something from your long-term memory you are engaged in retrieval cues.

1. Free recall: you are not given cues you are just told to recall something
2. Cued recall: the experimenter will usually give you some type of cue - this helps and people do better than the free recall.
3. Recognition: these will e the best out of the three test they will present you with two words and will ask you which one you are hearing.

Question 9

Explain the concept of memory reconstruction? what are schemas?

Answer 9

1. In our memories, we never remember things fully we usually fill in the gaps of our memory
2. Schemas: is a mental blueprint or plan - it describes patterns of thoughts or behaviours, that are used to retrieve a memory but that can be inaccurate:
   
   1. False information: inaccurate recollections of an event
   2. Misleading information: how someone tells a memory can alter the actual memory

Question 10

What is a source monitoring error?

Answer 10

Literally translates into: the source that you use to back up your argument is wrong.

This is when information is misleading people you may not know or have forgotten where the source of this information comes from.

• Late-night commercial about iron not viable but because you forgot someone ask you if you knew of a good iron and you bring this up but forgot that the source is not a great one
  *

Question 11

What are flashbulb memories?

Answer 11

1. these are emotional memories that can be positive or negative
2. They are very vivid memories even is they seem real they can still be reconstruction memories.

Question 12

How does our brain learn?

Answer 12

1. when we store memory we do not grow new brain cells however we do something called plasticity
   
   1. Neurons communicate using an electrical signal
   2. Long-term potentiation: this is what happens when you are learning, when you keep stimulating the same synapases and they becomes stronger

Question 13

When does a memory connection become weak? what are two terms that can determine what happens?

Answer 13

1. Decay: when you don’t recall memory for some time it can become weak, and we can have a hard time retrieving it.
   
   1. Ebbinghaus: was the first one to find that decay exists.
   2. Relearning: when decay happens however re-learning is much easier.
2. Interference: two types of things can interfere with the memory
   
   1. Retroactive: new learning can interfere with old information
   2. Proactive: something you learn in the past interacts with something you are about to learn

Question 14

How does ageing affect cognition and memory?

Answer 14

1. What stays stable: implicit memory and recognition
2. What improves: semantic memories, and emotional reasoning
3. what declines in old age: recall, episodic - they can’t form new memories, processing information, and divided attention and prospective memory

Question 15

Diseases that impact memories with age

Answer 15

1. Dementia: groups of diseases where exessive forgetting can lead to interfering with life in general
   
   1. Alzheimers: is one of the most common of the dementia diseases. cause by build up of toxin called amyloid plaque and starts off with a slow memory loss
2. Korsakoff’s syndrome: caused by lack of vitamin B1 especially prominent in alcoholism
   
   1. B1: is an important vitamin that helps in the conversion of glucose into energy very important for neurons.
3. Wernick’s encephalopathy: this is before korsakoff’s syndrome develops can be stops but is also from the B1 deficiency
   
   1. treatment: healthy eating, abstain from alcohol

Question 16

What are amnesia ?

Answer 16

1. Retrograde amnesia: can’ t recall information that you’ve previously encoded
2. Anterogate amnesia: can’t encode new memory

Question 17

what is short term memory?

Answer 17

memory that is short term, usually can only remember up to seven things (+/-) that is why our phone number is usually 7 digits long

Question 18

Explain the concept of the brain and how it works with memory?

Answer 18

• Hemispheric lateralization: the brain is devided into the right and left hemisphere each of which has their own specialization
  
  • Corpus callosum: helps the communication of information between the two hemispheres.
  • Contralateral control: each hemisphere rules over the control of the other side of the body.
  • The right hemisphere helps in visuospatial ( visual and spatial relationship among objects) patterns, of these are deficit we often correlate that with damage to the right hemisphere. The right is also important for artistic and musical abilities, visualization and emotion.
  • Left hemisphere: controls speech, comprehension, arithmetic and writing.

Question 19

What is the importance of mirror neurons?

Answer 19

specialized neurons in the brain that fire both while observing and performing a behavior

Question 20

What is interference?

Answer 20

it is the ability to interfere with the retrieval of a memory of newly learned information.

1. Retroactive interference: when a recently learned information interferes with the learning of older information.
2. Proactive interference: when old learned material interacts with newly learned materials.