Memory Flashcards
What are the three memory processes and what are their roles?
- Encoding transforms information into form that can be stored in memory
- Storage maintains the information in memory across time
- Retrieval is when the information stored in memory is brought to mind
What are the three measures of memory and their roles?
- Recall: regenerate (reform) with little or no cues (essay question; fill in the blank)
- Recognition: experience similar to stimuli (multiple choice)
- Relearning: learn something for the second time (faster studying time if read over lecture notes a week ago)
What are the three types of memory in terms of duration?
Sensory memory, short-term memory and long-term memory
What is the description of sensory memory?
- Temporary storage for sensory information
- Very large capacity
- Stores information in its natural form
What was discovered in Alkinson-Shiffrin Model?
Initial 200-500ms after an item is percieved
Remember 12 items but degrades quicker (Sperling’s experiment)
Visual images- fraction of a second
Sounds- 2 seconds
What is the capacity of STM (short-term memory)
5 to 9 bits of information and holds information for less than 30s w/o rehearsal
How do you keep information for longer in STM
Through rehearsal
What happens if distracted or info is misplaced? (STM)
It is lost
How to increase STM capacity?
By chunking (easier to remember meaninful units)
What is the source of information? (STM)
Can either be sensory or long-term memory
What is the capacity in LTM (long-term memory)
Unlimited, relatively permanent
How does it store information? (LTM)
In semantic form
Information goes to LTM through _________?
Rehearsal
What is essential to process STM to LTM
The hippocampus
How is information transferred from STM to LTM?
By either an automatic process (rehearsal) or through elaboration
What are the types of LTM?
Declarative memory (explicit) and Procedural Memory (implicit)
What is Declarative Memory (explicit)
Facts and experiences
What are the two types of declarative memory and their definition?
Episodic memory: events of your life
Semantic: general knowledge
What is the brain area (declarative memory)?
Hippocampus but not through semantic memory
What is Procedural Memory (implicit)
Motor skills, habits, simple class. Conditional responses (learning how to drive, walk, etc).
You have to learn it, you don’t know how until you learn it
What are the brain areas (procedural memory)
CR- cerebellum
Skills and Habits- cerebellum and motor areas of cortex
What are Levels-of-Processing Model?
Affects how long we remember the information
What are the two types of Levels-of-Processing?
Shallow Processing- when we are merely aware of the incoming sensory information
Deep Processing- when we make an association, or attach meaning to infomation
What is the over learning effect?
When information is more resistant to disruption or loss
What did Ebbinghaus assume?
That memory is the formation of new associations and that it stregthens with repetition
What did Ebbinghaus found by testing his own memory and forgetting?
The learning curve and the forgetting curve
Memory is a ___________ process
Reconstructive
What are schemas?
Frameworks of knowledge and assumptions about people, objects and events that affect how information is encoded and recalled
Are eyewitnesses testimony accurate? And why?
No because other factors can influence their memory of the event
What is the solution so that eyewitnesses testimonies are mor accurate?
To ask neutral questions
Can hypnosis bring accurate memory back?
No, it increases the confidence in memories but doesn’t improve the accuracy of memory
What are the unusual memory phenomena?
The flashbulb and eidetic memory
What is a Flashbulb Memory? (Unusual memory phenomena)
Flashbulb: vivid memory of the conditions surrounding one’s first hearing the news of a surprising, shocking or highly emotional event. Not entirely accuate
What is a Eidetic Memory? (Unusual memory phenomena)
Eidetic: ability to retain a visual image several min after it has been removed. 5% of children have this but lose it before adulthood
What are some factors influencing Retrieval
Serial Position Effect, environmental context and state-dependent memory
What are the two types of Serial position effect?
Primary: tendency to better recall items at the beginning
Recency: end easier to recall than items in the middle of sequence
What is Environmental Context?
The tendency to better recall information in the same physical location where information was encoded
What is State-dependent memory?
The tendency to better recall information if in the same psychological and pharmacological state as when information was encoded
What is the role of the hippocampus in memory?
It is essential for the formation of declarative memories
What is the role of the prefrontal lobe in memory?
Long-lasting increase in the efficiency of neutral transmission at the synapse. Is the basis for learning and memory at the same level of the neuron
What was preserved in the case of H.M?
- Facts learned before operation (LTM)
- Hold information for short period of time (STM)
- Procedural memory
- Not remember learning it but performance improvess over time
- Conclusion the hippocampus is not required
What were the main problems when converting STM to LTM in the case of H.M?
- Consolidation
- STM doesn’t require hippocampus
- LTM stored throughout brain but hippocampus necessary to get it
What happened in the case of H.M?
He has brain surgery to cure epilepsy and a large section o the tempoal lobes were removed
What is Forgetting?
When old memories are unable to be recalled
What are the causes of forgetting?
Decay theory and interference
What is the decay theory? (Causes of forgetting)
If the memory trace is not used it disapears over time (from sensory and STM, but not LTM)
What are the two types of Interference?
Proactive: when previous learning interferes with new learning
Retroactive when new learning interferes with new learning
What is Chunking?
When information is reorganized into meaninful units
What is Reconstruction?
When you piece together highlights and add in other pieces but not all is accurate memory
What are the types of forgetting and how does it happen?
Encoding failure: material never having been put into LTM
Consolidation failure: any disruptions in the consolidation process that prevents a permanent memory from forming
Retrieval failure: tip of the tongue phenomenon; when information is in the LTM but cannot be retrieved
Motivated forgetting: forgetting something traumatic to protect yourself
Prospective forgetting: one fails to remember to perform some action at a certain time
Who originated repressed memories?
Sigmund Freud
What was discovered about repressed memories?
- A often traumatic memory of an event is stored by unconscious mind
- Therapy to recover memories is a malpractice
- Studies: we can force ourselves to forget non-traumatic facts
When are repressed memories mistaken for ‘amnesia of early childhood’?
Before age 2 because hippocampus not mature
