Memory Flashcards
What are the 3 stages of memory?
- Sensory
- Short-Term
- Long-Term
With sensory memory, what’s iconic memory?
visual images lasting up to a 1/2 second
With sensory memory, what’s echoic memory?
sounds lasting up to 4 seconds
What process can pass into short-term memory when we are bombarded by visual and auditory information?
Selective attention (only the information we attend to)
Short-term memory only stores memories for what short duration of time?
up to 30 seconds
What are the two components of short-term memory?
Primary memory and working memory
What’s primary memory?
passive holding tank of information requiring no manipulation (remembering a 5 digit sequence)
What’s working memory?
holds information but also manipulates it (repeating a 5-digit sequence backwards)
How many items can a person keep in short-term memory?
5-9 items
Chunking or rehearsing helps with what?
turning short-term memory into long-term memory
Some theorists break down long term memory into what 2 components?
Recent memory and remote memory
What’s the difference between recent & remote memory?
recent: lasts around 2-weeks
remote: lasts around 2 years or more
What’s eidetic memory?
It’s photographic memory when you can retain an image of what was seen for a long period of time
What are the two concepts involved in retrieval with long term memory
Recognition & recall
What’s a way to improve recognition with retrieval in long-term memory?
Priming
What’s priming with long-term memory?
exposure to a stimulus to help a person recognize the stimuli at a later point in time
What’s the Zeigarnik Effect?
to continue to work on a solution unconsciously - the tendency to remember and work on incomplete tasks
What’s redintigration?
when something rapidly unlocks a chain of memories (a smell)
What’s landmark events?
events that are important to us like graduation or a wedding and we can use those events to locate details of other events around that same time
What are flashbulb memories?
memories of significant events usually of traumatic nature - evokes strong emotional reactions at the time of encoding
What’s prospective memory
Remembering that one had planned to do something at a particular time
What are the effects of hypnosis on memory?
It tends to elicit more false memories than true ones, so they are more likely to reconstruct memories or use imagination to fill in the gaps - therapists could give false information the hypnotized person will incorporate it into their memory
Why does a distortion in information happen when you retrieve it from long-term memory?
Long-term memory relies on semantic features (the meaning) where you can’t repeat an exact sentence you read, but you can identify a sentence with similar meaning but not the exact wording
Are eyewitness reports reliable or unreliable?
Highly unreliable - people commonly misidentify innocent people in mugshots and lineups, and they report inaccurate memories with high degrees of confidence
What are the two classifications of memory?
- Declarative/explicit memory
- Procedural memory
What’s declarative or explicit memory?
Conscious recollection of information or experience
Two subcategories of declarative/explicit memory
- Semantic
- Episodic
What’s the difference between semantic and episodic memory
Semantic: memory of meanings of words/facts and how they relate to each other
Episodic: recalling autobiographical events and when/where it occurred
What’s prodedural/implicit/nondeclarative memory
Recollection of skills, physical operations and procedures that are remembered automatically without conscious awareness
What does the hippocampus specifically do with memory?
Consolidates short-term memory into long-term memory
What neurotransmitter is essential to memory?
Acetylcholine (ACh)
e.g., people with Alzheimer’s have problems with its production
What’s long-term potentiation (LTP) & what are the enzymes called associated with it?
The physiological process by which short-term memories become long-term memories which includes enzymes called kinases
Through repeated stimulation of a synapse (through rehearsal) it leads to chemical and structural changes in the dendrite of the receiving neuron
What’s the serial position effect with immediate recall? how is it different than delayed recall?
Immediate: they remember the beginning and the end of the list rather than the middle (AKA Serial Position Effect)
Delayed: only remembering the beginning of the list while the end & middle are remembered to equivalent degrees (AKA Primacy Effect)
What’s anterograde vs retrograde amnesia?
Anterograde: impairment in acquiring new memories
Retrograde: loss of memories that happened before injury or disease
What’s post-traumatic amnesia?
Loss of memories for events occurring a short time after a trauma
What’s paramnesia?
Distortion of memory that involves confabulation
What’s interference and what are the 2 types?
Interference is forgetting because other material interferes with the ability to learn or retrieve the target material
1. Retroactive interference
2. Proactive interference
What’s the difference between retroactive vs proactive interference?
Retroactive: recent learning interferes with ability to recall past learned materials
RE = recent info is causing interference with past
Proactive: previously learned material interferes with your ability to learn/recall current material
P= past info is causing interference with current
Mood congruent memory
We tend to remember material better when our mood is the same when recalling it as it was while we learned it
State-dependent memory
when you remember material better when your are in a similar state to when the learning took place
e.g., you studied under the influence of marijuana, and so you take marijuana before taking the exam
What theorist created the concept of “motivated forgetting.’
Freud, he believed the unconscious can block painful or disturbing memories
