Memory Flashcards
Memory
The ability to take in, solidify, store and use information; also the store of what has been learned and remembered. Memory is not one process nor is it only one kind.
Four Stages In Forming Memory
1) Encoding-taking in information
2) Consolidation: Solidifying Information
3) Storage: Keeping Information
4) Retrieval: Getting and using information
Encoding-Taking in information
The process by which the brain attends to, takes in, and integrates new information; the first stage of long-term memory formation.
Two Kinds of Encoding Processes
Automatic Processing and Effortful processing
Automatic Processing
Encoding of information that occurs with little effort or conscious attention to the task. Episodic memory involves this processing.
Effortful Processing
Encoding of information that occurs with careful attention and conscious effort.
Mnemonic device
A method devised to help us remember information, such as rhyme or an acronym. Semantic memory.
Consolidation: Solidifying Information
The process of establishing, stabilizing, or solidifying a memory; the second stage of long-term memory formation.
Storage: Keeping information
The retention of memory over time; the third stage of long-term memory formation.
Three ways memories are organized and stored
1) Hierarchies
2)Schemas
3Networks
Hierarchies
Ways of organizing related pieces of information from the most specific feature they have in common to the most general.
Schemas
Mental frameworks that develop from our experiences with particular people, objects, or events.
Associative Networks
A chain of associations (the psychological process that binds concepts together) between related concepts.
Node
Each concept or association in a network.
Neural Networks
Are computer models that imidate the way neurons talk to each other.
An Associative Network
Associative networks are chains of association between related concepts or nodes that get activated. The closer concepts are to each other, the more directly related they are and the more likely they are to activate the other node. The network for “fire engine” is a rich associative network of related concepts.
Parallel distributed processing (PDP)
Models proposed that associations involve the simultaneous activity of many nodes.
Retrieval: Getting and using information
The recovery of information stored in memory. Retrieval is not always reliable.
Retrieval error=forgetting.
Aids to Memory Formation
Attention and dept of processing
information that is encoded more deeply activates the left prefrontal cortex and left temporal lobe than information that is processed shallowly.
Levels of processing
The concept that the more deeply people encode information, the better they will recall it.
Three levels of processing
1) Structural- is the shallowest level
2) Phonemic-Sound of the word
3) Semantic-deepest level of processing the meaning of the words
Sleep
The recall is better when a person falls asleep one hour after learning material compared to two hours after learning the material.
Emotion
Emotion helps us remember through biochemical and genetic processes. Emotional events switch on genes that build proteins to strengthen the synaptic connections between neurons. The proteins also stimulate the formation of new synapses and even new neurons.
Amygdala and the hippocampus
linked to key structures for emotion.
Norepinephrine
the mechanism through which emotional arousal affects memory formation is the release of norepinephrine. Makes the synaptic connections between neurons more plastic-changes the structure of the synaptic connections.
Flashbulb memory
Is the detailed snapshot memory for what we were doing when we first heard of a major, public, and emotionally charged event.
Impediments to memory formation
multitasking and emotion
The three-Stage model of memory
The classification of memories based on duration as sensory, short-term, and long-term.
sensory Memory
The part of memory that holds information in its original sensory form. Information held for a very brief period of time, usually about half a second or less.
Short-term memory
The part of memory that is temporary (for 2 to 30 seconds) stores a limited amount of information before it is either transferred to long-term storage or forgotten.
Long-term memory
The part of memory that has the capacity to store a vast amount of information for as little as 30 seconds and as long as a lifetime.
Iconic memory
is a brief visual record left on the retina of the eye.
Echoic memory
Is the short-term retention of sounds.
Working memory
The part of memory required to attend to and solve a problem at hand.
Short term memory capacity
The number of items that can be held in the short-term memory.
Three or four images can be held in short-term memory.
3 process of working memory
attending to a stimulus, storing information about the stimulus, and rehearsing the store process to help solve a problem.
The central executive
decides where to focus attention and selectively hones in on specific aspects to a stimulus.
Visuospatial sketchpad
briefly provides storage for visual and spatial sensations, such as images, photos, scenes, and three-dimensional objects.
Episodic Buffer
Temporary store for information that will become long-term memories of specific events, or experiences.
Phonological loop
Sound or linguistic information. assists the central executive by providing extra storage for a limited number of digits or words for up to 30 seconds at a time.
Rehearsal
The process of repeatedly practicing material, so that it enters long-term memory.
Serial Position Effect
The tendency to have better recall for items in a list according to their position in the list. Mary Whiton Calkins observed that people are better able to recall a list of items at the beginning and end of the list, they tend to forget the items in the middle.
Primary effect
The tendency to preferentially recall items at the beginning of a list.
Recency Effect
Recall for items at the end of a list. These effects go away if people are given a distracting task.
Long-term memory
The most complex. Two distinct types, and four distinct stages of processing. long-term memory can be divided into whether it is conscious or not (Implicit/Explict).
Implicit memory (Declarative memory)
A kind of memory made up of knowledge based on previous experiences, such as skills that we perform automatically once we have mastered them; resides outside conscious awareness. we cannot directly recall this type of memory. it comes in two forms; procedural memory and priming.
Procedural memory
A kind of memory made up of implicit knowledge for almost any behavior or physical skill we have learned.
Priming
A kind of implicit memory arises when a recall is improved by earlier exposure to the same or similar stimuli.
Explicit memory
The knowledge that consists of the conscious recall of facts and events; also known as declarative memory. Two kinds of explicit conscious memory: semantic and episodic.
Semantic memory
The form of memory that recalls facts and general knowledge, such as what we learn in school.
Episodic memory
The form of memory that recalls the experiences we have had.
Highly Superior autobiographical memory (HSAM)
Occurs when people can recall in considerable detail personal events from almost any day of their adolescent and adult life.
Memory and the Brain
Two major neurological systems involved in every aspect of memory: neurons and brain regions. Neuroplasticity is the key to memory formation.
Donald Hebb
Developed a theory of how neural connections form and how synaptic connections change with learning and memory.
Long-term Potentiation
The strengthening of synaptic connection that results when a synapse of one neuron repeatedly fires and exacts another neuron.
Cell Assemblies
Repeated stimulation of a group of neurons leads to the formation of cell assemblies, networks of nerve cells that persist even after stimulation has stopped.
CREB
To strengthen the synapse permanently, a protein called CREB must be activated.
Prefrontal cortex
The frontmost region of the frontal lobes; plays an important role in attention, appropriate social behavior, impulse control, and working memory.
Optogenetics
A treatment that uses a combination of light stimulation and genetics to manipulate the activity of individual neurons.
Brain regions involved in working memory
The prefrontal cortex focuses attention on sensory stimuli and holds information long enough for us to solve a problem; then it transfers the information to the hippocampus for memory consolidation. the temporal and occipital lobes, as well as Wernicke’s area, are active in the rehearsal of the auditory and visuospatial information needed by working memory.
Transcranial direct current stimulation (TDCS)
Electrical stimulation of the brain.
Reconsolidation
Occurs when reactivation of a memory weakens the original memory and a new consolidation happens, but this time resulting in a slightly different memory.
False memories
Memories for events that never happened but were suggested by someone or something.
Recovered memory
A memory from a real event that was encoded, stored, but not retrieved for a long period of time until some later event brings it suddenly to consciousness.
Suggestibility
A problem with memory occurs when memories are implanted in our minds based on leading questions, comments, or suggestions by someone else or some other source.
Misinformation effect
Occurs when information learned after an original event is wrong or misleading but gets incorporated into the memory as true.
Forgetting
The weakening or loss of memories over time.
Interference
Disruption of memory because other information competes with the information we are trying to recall.
Retroactive interference
Disruption of memory because new experiences or information causes people to forget previously learned experiences or information.
Ebbinghaus’s forgetting curve
A graphic depiction of how recall steadily declines over time.
Absent-Mindedness
A form of forgetfulness that results from inattention.
Blocking
The inability to retrieve some information that once was stored.
Repression
The unconscious act of keeping threatening thoughts, feelings, or impulses out of consciousness.
Amnesia
Memory loss due to brain injury or disease.
Anterograde amnesia
The inability to remember events after an injury or the onset of a disease.
Retrograde amnesia
An inability to recall events or experiences that happened before the onset of a disease or injury.
