Memory Flashcards
We likely remember exactly where we were when we received news that classes were suspended due to Covid-19. Why?
Memory processes are different when emotion is involved. More memorable.
Hormones: epinephrine and norepinephrine are more active in arousal and stress; they enhance memory. Possibly because glucose more available to brain.
Explicit vs. Implicit memory
Explicit: Conscious, intentional recollection of an event or information (accessible to conscious mind)
Implicit: Unconscious retention of memory by experience that affects current thoughts or actions (not accessible to conscious mind)
Priming
Measures implicit memory where someone reads or listens to information and is later tested to see if it affects performance on another task
Information-processing models of memory (three-box model)
We encode information, store information, and retrieve information (much like a computer).
sensory register, working memory, long-term memory
How long is working memory? How long is long-term memory? How long is sensory register?
Sensory register is 1-2s
Working memory is up to 30s
Long-term memory is a few minutes to a couple decades
Parallel Distributed Processing (PDP) model
The mind has many processes operating at the same time (not linearly). Connections among a huge number of interacting processing units. Parallel and simultaneous processing.
How long visual images in sensory register? How long audio stimuli?
Visual: max half a second
Audio: up to 10 seconds
Magic number of working memory
7 plus or minus 2 items
Why is working memory called ‘working’ memory?
Our brain works with the information we have, comparing it to existing information.
2 types of contents of memories
1) Semantic memories: memories of general knowledge, facts, rules, etc.
2) Episodic memories: memories of personally experienced events and their contexts
Serial-position effect
why?
We recall better the beginning and end of a list of items.
First few items are due to the first few items rehearsed many times or first exposed to working memory before overloaded.
Last few are due to being plucked out of working memory as they’re most recent.
What happens to neural processes in working memory?
Neurons change in ability to release neurotransmitters (either more or less)
Changes in brain processes during long-term memory
Long-term potentiation (a long-lasting increase in strength of synaptic responsiveness, a biological mechanism)
Consolidation (memory)
long-term memory becomes durable and stable (but they never truly consolidate fully! retrieving them potentially messes them up)
Long-term potentiation
Increased strength of synaptic responses in an area after stimulation. Important for learning and memory
Storage of memory is in which part of the brain?
Cerebral cortex
Which part of the brain is active during working memory tasks?
Frontal and parietal lobes
What areas of brain is important to encode pictures and words?
Frontal lobes and area adjacent to hippocampus (temporal)
Implicit memory parts of the brain
Cerebellum, striatum
Which part of the brain is important for formation and retention of classically conditioned responses?
Cerebellum
Mnemonics
Strategies/tricks for improving memory`
Effortful encoding
Use of intentional effort to encode information. studying. Relating to personal experience.
Maintenance and Elaborative rehearsal
Maintenance: mere reptetition of material
Elaborative rehearsal: associate new information with stored information. (more effective in longer lists)
Deep Processing
Processing of meaning rather than physical/sensory features
4 Mechanisms of forgetting:
Decay, replacement, interference, and cue-dependent forgetting.
Decay theory (memory)
does not explain what?
Information in memory fades if not accessed.
doesn’t explain some skills like riding a bike (lasts long) or other knowledge things like Spanish
Replacement theory (memory)
New information wipes out old. For example, leading questions influence or overwrite memories.
Interference theory (memory)
Similar items of information interfere with each other.
Retroactive interference
new info interferes with ability to remember old.
Proactive interference
Old information interferes with ability to remember current
Cue-dependent forgetting
Inability to retrieve info stored in memory because there aren’t sufficient cues.
State-dependent memory
Tendency to remember things when in the same physical or mental state as the original experience
Mood-congruent memory
Tendency to remember experiences consistent with current mood and overlook events that aren’t.
Childhood amnesia (what’s alternate name?)
Infantile amnesia
Adults cannot accurately recall events from earlier than age 2
Why might infantile amnesia exist? (3 things)
Brain development (prefrontal cortex) not well developed.
No self-concept, making it little cues to recall
Not socially developed, so parents decide everything that’s important to them
Psychogenic amnesia
massive memory loss without brain damage cause
Traumatic amnesia (alternate name?)
Burying of traumatic events in memory.
Repression according to Freud.
Repressed memories in the literature
Can be fabricated memories that never existed. There is not one case of repressed memory of surviving concentration camp or being victim of terrorism. Weak empirical support for repressed memories
Source misattribution
Not being able to distinguish actual memory from information learned elsewhere.
Confabulation
Confusion of some event that happened to someone else with one that happened to you.
Belief you remember something when it never happened.
Under what circumstances is confabulation most likely to happen?
3 things
1) imagined it many times
2) image has lots of details, making it feel real
3) the event is easy to imagine
Memory is re_______.
(it’s not fixed)
reconstructive
