Memory systems: the foundations of cognition Flashcards
what is procedural memory?
Procedural memory is a category of long-term memory that involves recollections of which a person has no direct conscious awareness.
perceptual-motor skills
kicking a ball, opening a door, driving car
- perceptual input guides motor output
- also applies to cognitive skills
- implicit rather than explicit
what is memory?
the fundamental basis of cognition
what does perception involve?
memory: recognition = sensory input + prior knowledge
what is knowledge?
storage of past experiences/learning
what does memory support?
‘offline cognition’ (purely internal mental processes)
cognitive psychological definition of memory:
memory compromises of an array of interacting systems, each capable of encoding or registering information, storing it, making it available by retrieval (Baddeley, 1999)
memory as:
- storehouse
- specific contents
- process/processes: encoding, storage, retrieval and also forgetting
what is photographic memory?
the ability to recall images, sounds or objects in memory with great accuracy without limit
- psychologists prefer the term “eidetic memory”
what did Haber discover about eidetic memory?
he discovered that eidetic memory is sometimes found in young children, but gradually disappears as a person ages (1979)
who was Ebbinghaus
3 points
- he was the father of experimental memory research who wanted to study memory stripped of meaning
- to do this he used nonsense syllables
- discovered the forgetting function
forgetting in the real world
Forgetting initially quite rapid but if word is still accessible after 3 years then likely to be well-preserved 30 years later (Bahrick, 1984)
what is latent memory?
knowledge that only becomes clear when a person has an incentive to display it
