Memory

Question 1

amnesia

Answer 1

Loss of memory

Question 2

chunking

Answer 2

A strategy to increase memory in which smaller bits of information are grouped into meaningful units.

Question 3

confabulation

Answer 3

An imagined but plausible memory that fills in gaps about what a person actually remembers.

Question 4

decay

Answer 4

A theory of forgetting in which items are lost from memory because of the passage of time.

Question 5

declarative memory

Answer 5

The portion of long-term memory that involves memory for facts and events. Declarative memory is further divided into semantic and episodic memory.

Question 6

echoic memory

Answer 6

A momentary sensory memory of auditory stimuli, lasting two to three seconds.

Question 7

encode

Answer 7

To transform incoming information so that it can be processed and stored in memory.

Question 8

episodic memory

Answer 8

The part of declarative memory that involves memory for specific events in one’s own life.

Question 9

false memory syndrome

Answer 9

A condition in which a person has a memory for an event that either didn’t occur at all, or occurred in a manner much different from the person’s memory of it.

Question 10

iconic memory

Answer 10

A momentary sensual memory of visual stimuli, lasting several tenths of a second.

Question 11

implicit memory

Answer 11

The portion of long-term memory that deals with remembering procedures, such as driving a car or playing the trombone. It is also known as procedural memory.

Question 12

interference

Answer 12

A process in which memory for certain information disrupts memory for other information. Interference can be proactive, when previously learned information disrupts the ability to learn later information; or it can be retroactive, when learning new information makes it harder to remember old information.

Question 13

long-term memory

Answer 13

Virtually limitless, virtually permanent memory storage.

Question 14

long-term potentiation

Answer 14

The biological basis of learning and memory, it is an increase in a synapse’s firing ability after a sequence of neurons is connected with a memory or learning.

Question 15

mnemonic strategies

Answer 15

Strategies that are used to improve memory, such as the method of loci.

Question 16

procedural memory

Answer 16

The portion of long-term memory that deals with remembering procedures, such as driving a car or playing the trombone. It is also known as implicit memory.

Question 17

reconstructive nature of memory

Answer 17

The view that our memory is not a perfect recording of events that occurred; rather, we reconstruct our memories through the filter of our present experience. Our present experience influences our recall of those events.

Question 18

repression

Answer 18

The act of removing a memory from conscious awareness. According to some psychologists, repressed memories can be recovered in therapy, but this remains a very controversial practice.

Question 19

retrieval

Answer 19

Calling forth information from long-term memory.

Question 20

retrograde amnesia

Answer 20

Loss of memory for events that preceded the event that caused the memory loss.

Question 21

semantic memory

Answer 21

Memory for “impersonal” information, such as meanings and facts. This is in contrast with episodic memory, which is memory for events in our own lives.

Question 22

sensory memory

Answer 22

Briefly retained information picked up by the sensory organs.

Question 23

serial order (position) effects

Answer 23

A memory phenomenon in which the items at the beginning and end of a list are more likely to be remembered than the items in the middle of a list.

Question 24

short-term (working) memory

Answer 24

Memory that holds the information currently being used, as well as the means by which to process that information. A good analogy is that working memory is like RAM in a computer.