Short-Term Memory (1)

Question 1

What is memory?

Answer 1

The process involved in encoding, retaining, retrieving, and using information about stimuli, images, events, ideas, and skills after the original information is no longer present.

Question 2

What is short-term memory?

Answer 2

The capacity for holding a small amount of information in an active, readily available state for a short interval.

Question 3

What can sometimes impact the way one thinks or behaves?

Answer 3

Past experiences

Question 4

Of what does every memory system consist?

Answer 4

• Encoding
• Storage
• Retrieval

Question 5

To what does the term “encoding” refer in relation to memory?

Answer 5

To the process by which information is learnt.

Question 6

To what does the term “storage” refer in relation to memory?

Answer 6

To how, where, to what extent, and for how long encoded information is retained within the memory system.

Question 7

To what does the term “retrieval” refer in relation to memory?

Answer 7

To the way in which one gains access to information that is stored in memory.

Question 8

What was William James’ (1842 - 1910) early perspective about memory?

Answer 8

That there were two memory types (primary memory and secondary memory).

Question 9

To what did William James’ concept of primary memory refer?

Answer 9

To information available to consciousness, of which the retrieval is effortless.

Question 10

To what did William James’ concept of secondary memory refer?

Answer 10

To a type of long-term storage of information that is not consciously available until it is cognitively activated, causing retrieval to be effortful.

Question 11

How did Herman Ebbinghaus (1850 - 1909) contribute to early perspectives about memory?

Answer 11

Due to his findings of his testing his retention of nonsense letter strings (consisting of a consonant-vowel-consonant sequence) by freely recalling those that he had learnt via a list over a so-called “retention interval”.

Question 12

What were the findings of Herman Ebbinghaus following his nonsense letter string retention experiment?

Answer 12

• He identified a so-called “learning curve”.
• The serial position effect
• The spacing effect

Question 13

What is the serial position effect (coined and identified by Herman Ebbinghaus)?

Answer 13

A cognitive bias relating to the fact that the position of an item in a list impacts how well one can remember it.

Question 14

What was Herman Ebbinghaus the first to suggest about the serial position effect?

Answer 14

That it occurs because of a combination of the primacy and recency effects.

Question 15

What is the spacing effect (coined and identified by Herman Ebbinghaus)?

Answer 15

The observation that repetitions spaced in time tend to produce stronger memories than repetitions massed closer together in time.

Question 16

Which experiment and analysis did Alfred Binet and V. Henri carry out in 1984?

Answer 16

An experiment on children’s recall of sentences.

Question 17

What did Binet report from his and V. Henri’s experiment on children’s recall of sentences?

Answer 17

That when children were asked what they had seen, they made fewer but more accurate observations than children who were asked specific and detailed questions.