Memory Flashcards
What is implicit memory?
Knowledge based on previous experience, such as skills performed automatically once mastered; resides outside conscious awareness.
What is sensory memory?
Holds info in original sensory form for very brief time, usually half a second or less.
What is short-term memory?
Temporarily (2-30 seconds) stores limited amount of info before transferred to long-term storage or forgotten.
What is long-term memory?
Has capacity to store vast amount of info for as little as 30 seconds and as long as a lifetime.
What is working memory?
Required to attend to and solve a problem; used interchangeably with short-term memory.
What is chunking?
Breaking down a list of items to be remembered into a smaller set of meaningful units.
What is rehearsal?
Repeatedly practising material so that it enters long-term memory.
What is serial position effect?
Tendency to have better recall for items in a list according to their position in the list.
What is procedural memory?
Made up of implicit knowledge for almost any behaviour or physical skill we have learned.
What is priming?
Implicit memory that arises when recall is improved by earlier exposure to same or similar stimuli.
What is semantic memory?
Recalls facts and general knowledge.
What is episodic memory?
Recalls experiences we had.
What is encoding?
Process by which the brain attends to, takes in, and integrates new info; first stage of long-term memory formation.
What is automatic processing?
Encoding of info that occurs with little effort or conscious attention to the task.
What is effortful processing?
Encoding of info that occurs with careful attention, conscious effort.
What is the concept of levels of processing?
The more deeply people encode info, the better they will recall it.
What is dual coding theory?
Proposes visual and verbal info are processed by independent, non-competing systems.
What is consolidation?
Established, stabilized, or solidifies a memory; second stage of long-term memory formation.
What is storage?
Retention of memory over time; third stage of long-term memory formation.
What are hierarchies?
Organizes related pieces of info from their most specific feature to the most general.
What are schemas?
Mental frameworks that develop from experiences with particular people, objects, or events.
What is an associative network?
Chain of associations between related concepts.
What is retrieval?
Recovery of info stored in memory; fourth stage of long-term memory.
What is flashbulb memory?
Vivid memory for emotional event of great significance.
What is interference?
Disruption of memory - other info competes with info trying to be recalled.
What is retroactive interference?
Disruption of memory - new experiences/info cause forgetting of previously learned experiences/info.
What is proactive interference?
Disruption of memory - previously learned info interferes with learning of new info.
What is the forgetting curve?
Graphic depiction of how recall steadily declined over time.
What is transience?
Most common type of forgetfulness due to fleeting nature of some memories.
What is blocking?
Inability to retrieve some info once stored.
What is repression?
Retrieval of encoded/stored memories actively inhibited.
What is misattribution?
Belief that a memory came from one source when it came from another.
What is persistence?
Repeated recall of good/bad experiences even when we actively try to forget them.
What is consistency bias?
Selective recall of past events to fit current beliefs.
What is suggestibility?
Occurs when memories are implanted based on leading questions, comments, suggestions by someone else or some other source.
What is long-term potentiation?
Strengthening of synoptic connection when synapse of one neuron repeatedly fires and excites another.
What is explicit memory?
Knowledge that consists of conscious recall of facts and events.
