Memory

Question 1

ENCODING

Answer 1

Automatic processing – no conscious effort going into memory formation
Effortful processing – making a conscious effort to remember information

Visual encoding – remember image
Acoustic encoding – remember sounds
Semantic encoding – memories fit into a context, carry a meaning
Self reference effect – implicate ourselves in the memory

Memorization techniques:

• maintenance rehearsal
• mnemonics
• clustering

Question 2

STORAGE

Answer 2

Sensory Memory – iconic and echoic, brief snapshots your brain takes of everything you see

Short Term Memory – fades quickly without rehearsal

Working Memory – integrates attention and function

Long Term Memory –

• • Explicit Memory: conscious recall, declarative memory
    - - Episodic Memory: events/experiences
    - - Semantic Memory: facts/concepts
• • Implicit Memory: unconscious
    - - Procedural Memory: skills and tasks

Question 3

RETRIEVAL

Answer 3

Relearning – previously stored info is recalled quicker
Recall – statement of previously learned info
Recognition – identify a piece of previously learned info

– retrieval is affected by location (context), mental state (state dependent memory – intoxication, crying), priming offsets (network surrounding memory will make it more accessible)

Question 4

Serial Position Effect

Answer 4

things learned first and last will be remembered better than those in the middle – primacy and recency

Question 5

Decay

Answer 5

the longer you go without revisiting a memory, the more likely it is to be forgotten

Question 6

Interference

Answer 6

Proactive Interference – old information similar to new information prevents it from easily being encoded

Retroactive Interference – newly encoded information disturbs the storage and recall of old information

Question 7

False Memories

Answer 7

brain fills in gaps in memory

Question 8

Misinformation Effect

Answer 8

new information can alter the memory of what you perceived initially

Question 9

Source Amnesia

Answer 9

confusion between semantic and episodic memory by losing the picture of the context under which the memory was encoded (dreams v. reality)

Question 10

Neuroplasticity

Answer 10

neural connections adapt in response to stimuli

• • synaptic pruning – weak neural connections are broken while strong ones are strengthened
• • long term potentiation – neurons become more efficient at releasing NTs in response to a stimuli – neuronal specialization