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Intro to Psych > Memory > Flashcards

Memory Flashcards

1
Q

Learning

A

Acquiring of new information

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2
Q

Memory

A

Persistence of learning over time; then taking that information and storing it for later

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3
Q

Computer model to memory

A

1.) Input
2.) Storage of information/consolidate information
3.) Output/retrieval

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4
Q

Every part of memory has to be fully intact because if disconnect anywhere along the way…

A

Problems with overall memory

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5
Q

Input

A

Putting information in properly so you can remember later

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6
Q

What is input heavily influenced by?

A

Attentional ability

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7
Q

Storage of information/consolidate information

A

Good sleep allows you to consolidate/store information properly

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8
Q

Major player in storage of information?

A

Hippocampus

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9
Q

Dementia

A

Hippocampus is destroyed/shrinking in the brain so maybe they can get information in, but can’t store it anymore

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10
Q

Output/retrieval

A

Really positive or negative information is stored and more readily accessible (pulled out of brain better/easier)

-information in the brain but you have to be able to find it and pull it out

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11
Q

What affects attentional ability?

A

1.) Sounds/environmental stimuli
2.) Mental health symptoms
3.) Maintenance needs
4.) Stress
5.) Substance use and medications
6.) Medical history/diagnoses

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12
Q

Sounds/environmental stimuli

A

Really hot or cold in a room, sound noises outside, lighting, etc.

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13
Q

Mental health symptoms

A

Ex. anxiety, ADHD, PTSD, depression, etc.

Ex. Test next period (so can’t be fully present in the moment)

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14
Q

Can humans actually multitask?

A

NO! Can’t be in different spots of the brain at the same time!

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15
Q

Maintenance needs

A

Hunger, thirsty, sleep, etc.

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16
Q

What is the number one/first spot of the brain affected by poor sleep?

A

Attention!

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17
Q

Stress

A

Something as small as forgetting your keys to something as big as a life or death experience

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18
Q

Substance abuse and medications

A

Only difference between substance and medications is whether they legal or illegal

-SAME FAMILY

And in both cases, brain can’t work properly to input information let alone store it

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19
Q

Alcohol loves the hippocampus

A

true

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20
Q

Medical history/diagnoses

A

Ex. traumatic brain injury can cause problems with memory

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21
Q

Encoding

A

Getting information in (and processing it)

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22
Q

The two different kinds of memory

A

1.) Explicit memory
2.) Implicit memory

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23
Q

Explicit memory

A

Declarative memory
- declare and talk about this information; memory for facts and events

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24
Q

Examples of explicit memory

A

Facts
Dates
Names
Events

(actively retrieve)

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25
Q

Major player in explicit memory?

A

Hippocampus
- requires you to effortfully encode

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26
Q

Implicit memory

A

Non-declarative memory
- gets input into our brain automatically
- can’t actively say you have this memory
- Classically conditioned information (such as fear of blue jays because of trauma)
- Conditioned, learned skills (ex. typing, writing, “riding a bike,” throwing/kicking a ball, and driving)
- happening without you conscious awareness

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27
Q

Major player in implicit memory?

A

Basal ganglia
- automatic

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28
Q

In Alzheimer’s…

A

Poor input, impaired consolidation, impaired output

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29
Q

“Short-term” memory (encoding)

A

Our capacity to store brief information is very limited/fades away

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30
Q

“Magic number” for set capacity to take information in (short-term)

A

Miller in the 50s proposed roughly 7+/- 2 (SEVEN PLUS OR MINUS TWO; so 5-9 units of information)

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31
Q

Even with a phone number, you are over the set capacity to take things in (7+/- 2)…

A

But we chop off first three based on area code and then you are down to seven
- have to work with it (repeat it) to send it to storage or else it fades away

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32
Q

Effortful processing strategies

A

HIPPOCAMPUS
1.) chunking
2.) mnemonics
3.) distributed spacing/practice
4.) goofy story

33
Q

Chunking

A

(brain loves and wants structures; uses shortcuts)
- take larger units of information and “chunk”/break them down into meaningful units

34
Q

Examples of chunking

A

(814) 425-1264
- chunk into three meaningful units of 3, 3, 4

Social security
- chunk into 3, 2, 4

Sequence of numbers that are over our capacity so we chunk to make it less information at a time; it is a strategy

35
Q

Mnemonics

A

Taking an abbreviation where each letter stands for something
- ex. PEMDAS and HOMES (Great Lakes)

Condensing multiple words into one word to force information into hippocampus

36
Q

Distributed spacing/practice over cramming… why?

A

Cramming is not effective for long-term because ton of information being forced into hippocampus in a small amount of time (but capacity is limited) so even if you memorize it for a test, you won’t remember for like a final exam if you never look at it again because works sometimes for short-term but not long-term)

  • take information in over time
37
Q

Goofy story

A

Information becomes personally relevant/weird or important to you so you are more likely to remember it

38
Q

Storage

A

Most believe it is a limitless warehouse (every interaction, every sense you experienced, etc) but the problem is the retrieval of those memories

39
Q

Savant Syndrome

A

Somebody has the extraordinary ability to remember and retrieve information

40
Q

Are IQ and intelligence the same thing?

A

NO

41
Q

What structure(s) are involved in storage?

A

Hippocampus and association areas (areas outside of big, main structures; connections between big structures)

42
Q

2 conscious (explicit) storage systems

A

1.) Semantic memory
2.) Episodic memory

43
Q

Semantic memory

A

Facts that I know, knowledge that I have
ex. car fact

44
Q

Episodic memory

A

Personally relevant information (about you), personally experienced
ex. when you first started driving a car (who taught you, descriptive about that day)

45
Q

What does the hippocampus do with episodic memories?

A

converts information into long-term memory storage (consolidation)
- this happens during deep sleep

46
Q

Implicit systems (automatic stuff)

A

Basal ganglia
CEREBELLUM (mostly known for gait and walking, but…) ALSO INVOLVED IN PROCEDURAL LEARNING
- motor movements are fluid

  • All of this is being done without conscious awareness
  • skill acquired over time becomes automatic/fluid
47
Q

Amygdala

A

Duo with hippocampus
- What is stored has a lot to do with amygdala deeming them important
- part of emotional processing
- Have to be positively or negatively significant to be stored and sent to Hippocampus

ex. Getting proposed to on a certain date and place

48
Q

What is the problem with the amygdala?

A

Amygdala can’t only pick positive events (but trauma is important too)
- bad could be adaptive since could theoretically happen again (already have that experience so could be adaptive)

49
Q

Flashbulb memory

A

So emotionally significant, image or sequence shot straight to hippocampus (seared in as strong as possible)

50
Q

Where does the name flashbulb memory come from?

A

Camera with a giant flash takes a picture and captures a moment in time

51
Q

What happens during a flashbulb memory?

A

Massive flood of chemicals, hormones, etc. than normal

52
Q

What is the problem with a flashbulb memory?

A

You can’t remember it all even if highly significant because….
1.) Can only take in so much information at one time (partly true)
2.) *The FLOODING of chemicals and hormones is so massive that it blocks ability to hold a ton of information at one time (so grabs the most brief, intense moment of time and takes snippet(s)

53
Q

Retrieval

A

output of information
- held together by “web” of associations

54
Q

Retrieval structures in the brain

A

NOT well known
(received by association like spider web fibers close together)

55
Q

“Web” of associations

A

retrieval is better at time/place/with person (at time) of memory
- some similarity in which memory was formed
- CUEING

with just a sliver of information, we can grab information beside it through web of associations

56
Q

Associations

A

allow you to put that information out (it’s all coming back to me now)
- important in trying to recall memory

57
Q

2 types of memory

A

1.) Context-dependent memory
2.) State-dependent memory

58
Q

Context-dependent memory

A

Tend to recall/retrieve information better if same or similar context in which you learned it/when it was encoded

Ex. taking the test for this class in this classroom where we learned it

59
Q

State-dependent memory

A

Emotional/state you are in during an event become cues
- tend to learn more if you can put yourself in the same state in which you learned the information

60
Q

Forgetting

A

1.) Anterograde amnesia
2.) Retrograde amnesia

61
Q

Anterograde amnesia

A

Inability to form NEW memories
- usually the result of injury or insult to brain (more of a medical disease basis; less likely seen in mental health cases)
- living the same day every day on repeat (movie)

62
Q

Patient HM: Severe epilepsy/seizures

A

Seizures starting in temporal lobes (where hippocampus and amygdala live)
- did not have corpus callous severed
- Temporal lobes on each side… removed the majority of both of them (origin points)
- BILATERAL: took both sides of brain (MEDIAL TEMPORAL)

63
Q

Lobectomy

A

Removal of part of a lobe

64
Q

Medial Temporal Lobe

A

Houses the limbic system
- Hippocampus
- Amygdala
- Hypothalamus

65
Q

Damage to the medial temporal lobe (HM)

A

Can NOT process and store emotion properly
- in Patient HM, BOTH sides of temporal lobe damaged, so could not form new memories (couldn’t remember meeting people five seconds later)
- NOT all memory is housed here (keep in mind basal ganglia and cerebellum)

HM can’t remember people or doing a task but is getting better at doing that specific task so other parts of the brain are learning to process that information)

66
Q

Is memory stored in one place? (using HM example)

A

NO; procedural memory still intact in HM: basal ganglia and cerebellum were not touched so those systems were still working, so could kick butt doing a task but couldn’t remember doing the task
- still able to learn in some capacity; some room for error (brain has a bit of a fail safe in having flexibility with memory)

67
Q

Retrograde amnesia

A

Inability to retrieve information from the past
- dementia-like process (pieces)
- can be caused by traumatic brain injuries but also traumatizing events

68
Q

Where can forgetting occur?

A

Anywhere, anytime

69
Q

Why so many difficulties for retrieval?

A

1.) Encoding failure
2.) Storage decay
3.) Retrieval failure

70
Q

Storage decay

A

Information in storage will decay over time (not explicit all the time)

Ex. As you age, your storage center begin to decay; mental health issues, poor sleep, etc.

71
Q

Retrieval failure

A

Interference happens a lot to disrupt the retrieval of information

72
Q

Interference

A

When information disrupts learning or retrieval of old or new information

73
Q

Two types of interference

A

1.) Proactive
2.) Retroactive

74
Q

Proactive

A

When this occurs, PRIOR learning (already done) disrupts the recall of NEW information
- Ex. changing passwords (keep putting old password in lol)

75
Q

Retroactive

A

NEW learning disrupts recall of OLD information
- Ex. Chapter 1 is not on exam 2, but we start learning it before the exam
- In this case, new learning disrupts recall on exam; interferes with you being able to pull that information out on an exam

76
Q

Motivated forgetting

A

Usually related to trauma
- We repress bad information (we don’t want to think about trauma so brain tries to forget on purpose)
- but triggers can quickly bring you back to trauma

77
Q

Misremembering/misinformation effect

A

Ex. faulty testimonies
- people latch onto little lies
- Elizabeth LOFTUS
- with exposure to subtle misinformation, people will confidently misremember

78
Q

Mendella Effect

A

Ex. Movie quotes that are actually incorrect

Ex. Application/implications to legal system
- Can make an innocent person look guilty
- Planting misinformation
- Making a murderer documentary example: Planting seeds of information in intellectually disabled to make conviction

Intro to Psych (13 decks)

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