Psychology and Sociology: Memory

Question 1

Encoding

Answer 1

Refers to the process of putting new information into memory

Question 2

Automatic processing

Answer 2

information gained without any effort

Question 3

Controlled (effortful) processing

Answer 3

active memorization

Question 4

Visual encoding

Answer 4

visualizing information

Question 5

Acoustic encoding

Answer 5

storing the way something sounds

Question 6

Elaborative encoding

Answer 6

link information to knowledge that is already in memory

Question 7

Semantic encoding

Answer 7

put new information into meaningful context

Question 8

Self-reference effect

Answer 8

our tendency to recall information best when we can put it into the context of our own lives

Question 9

Maintenance rehearsal

Answer 9

the repetition of a piece of information to either keep it within working memory or to store it in short-term and eventually long-term memory

Question 10

Mnemonics

Answer 10

acronyms or rhyming phrases that provide a vivid organization of the information we are trying to remember

Question 11

Method of loci

Answer 11

associating each item in a list with a location along a route through a building that has already been memorized

Question 12

Peg-word

Answer 12

associates numbers with items that rhyme with or resemble the numbers

Question 13

Chunking

Answer 13

taking individual elements of a large list and grouping them together into groups of elements with related meaning

Question 14

Sensory memory

Answer 14

-preserves information in its original sensory form with high accuracy and lasts very short time (less than a second)
-Iconic memory: fast decaying memory of visual stimuli
-Echoic memory: fast decaying memory of auditory stimuli
-memories maintained by the major projection areas of each sensory system

Question 15

Short-term memory

Answer 15

-fades quickly (30 s) without rehearsal
-memory capacity: the number of items we can hold in our short-term memory at any given time
-housed primarily in hippocampus

Question 16

Working memory

Answer 16

-closely related to short-term memory and also housed in hippocampus
-allows us to keep a few pieces of information in our consciousness simultaneously and to manipulate that information

Question 17

Long-term memory

Answer 17

-An essentially limitless warehouse for knowledge that we are then able to recall on demand, sometimes for the rest of our lives
-Elaborative rehearsal: the association of the information to knowledge already stored in long-term memory
-Primarily controlled by the hippocampus, but memories are moved over time back to the cerebral cortex
-Implicit memory: consists of our skills, habits, and conditioned responses, none of which need to be consciously recalled

Question 18

Procedural memory (long-term)

Answer 18

relates to our unconscious memory of the skills required to complete procedural tasks

Question 19

Priming (long-term)

Answer 19

involves the presentation of one stimulus affecting perception of the second

Question 20

Positive priming

Answer 20

occurs when exposure to the first stimulus improves processing of the second stimulus

Question 21

Negative priming

Answer 21

the first stimulus interferes with the processing of the second stimulus, resulting in slower response times and more errors

Question 22

Explicit memory

Answer 22

consists of those memories that require conscious recall

Question 23

Episodic memory (explicit)

Answer 23

refers to our recollection of life experiences

Question 24

Semantic memory (explicit)

Answer 24

refers to ideas, concepts, or facts that we know, but are not tied to specific life experiences

Question 25

Autobiographical memory (explicit)

Answer 25

the name given to our explicit memories about our lives and ourselves, and include all of our episodic memories of our own life experiences, but also include semantic memories that relate to our personal traits and characteristics

Question 26

Retrieval

Answer 26

The name given to the process of demonstrating that something that has been learned has been retained

Question 27

Recall

Answer 27

the retrieval and statement of previously learned information

Question 28

Recognition

Answer 28

the process of merely identifying a piece of information that was previously learned; easier than recall

Question 29

Spacing effect (relearning)

Answer 29

the longer the amount of time between sessions of relearning, the greater the retention of information later on

Question 30

Spreading activation

Answer 30

when one node of our semantic network is activated, the other linked concepts around it are also unconsciously activated

Question 31

Context effect

Answer 31

memory is aided by being in the physical location where encoding took place

Question 32

Source monitoring

Answer 32

retrieval process that involves determining the origin of memories, and whether they are factual or fictional

Question 33

State-dependent theory

Answer 33

a retrieval cue based on performing better when in the same mental state as when the information was learned

Question 34

Primacy effect

Answer 34

tendency to recall the first few items on a list

Question 35

Recency effect

Answer 35

tendency to recall the last few items on a list

Question 36

Serial-position effect

Answer 36

tendency to remember the first few things and last few things on a list

Question 37

Interference

Answer 37

A retrieval error caused by the existence of other, usually similar, information

Question 38

Proactive interference

Answer 38

old information is interfering with new learning

Question 39

Retroactive interference

Answer 39

new information cases forgetting of old information

Question 40

Aging

Answer 40

-Prospective memory: remembering to perform a task at some point in the future
-event based remains strong with age
-time based gets worse with age

Question 41

Reproductive memory

Answer 41

accurate recall of past events

Question 42

Reconstructive memory

Answer 42

a theory of memory recall in which cognitive processes such as imagination, semantic memory, and perception affect the act of remembering

Question 43

False memory

Answer 43

a memory that incorrectly recalls actual events or recalls events that never occurred

Question 44

Recovered memories

Answer 44

repressed memories that are brought back into our conscious mind either spontaneously or through psychotherapy

Question 45

Misinformation effect

Answer 45

a person’s recall of an event becomes less accurate due to the injection of outside information into the memory

Question 46

Intrusion errors

Answer 46

-refers to false memories that have included a false detail into a particular memory
-The intruding memory is injected into original memory due to both memories being related or sharing a theme, not an outside source like the misinformation effect

Question 47

Source-monitoring error

Answer 47

involves confusion between semantic and episodic memory; a person remembers the details of an event, but confuses the context under which those details were gained

Question 48

Neuroplasticity

Answer 48

phenomenon in which neural connections are rapidly formed in response to stimuli as our brains develop

Question 49

Synaptic pruning

Answer 49

weak neural connections are broken while strong ones are bolstered, increasing the efficiency of our brains’ ability to process information

Question 50

Long-term potentiation

Answer 50

the strengthening of neural connections through repeated use