Terry 9 Flashcards
encoding
acquiring new information; beginning to form a memory trace
Which side of the brain encodes verbal and which encodes photographs?
left: verbal. right: photographs
episodic memory
remembering information based on its occurrence at a particular time and place
word meaningfulness
- occur often in language/print
- easy to pronounce
- associated with other items
- more imagable
concrete words
- refer to actual physical things
- imagable
- many associations
abstract words
refer to nonphysical abstract ideas
imagery
refers to items being mentally imaged; actually seeing something makes it easier to remember than just seeing the name of it
testing effect
after you study material, taking a practice test on it rather than studying it more (better when you receive feedback); later look at effects of study vs practice testing
spacing of repetitions
massed vs spaced presentation of an item (spaced can mean time in between and/or other items in between)
isolation effect
one distinctive item that stands apart from other items in a series
maintenance rehearsal
repetitive thinking about material; passive/shallow
elaborative rehearsal
using more cognitive effort to think about it; using more associations or representing it uniquely in your memory; deep. best for short-term retention/when you know you won’t be interrupted during rehearsal. produces more of an episodic memory (you remember time/place you studied it)
arousal
mental/physiological arousal, affected by circadian rhythms, stimulant/depressant drugs, emotional arousal
incentives
explicit rewards for learning/remembering
incidental learning
you’re asked to think about some material, not told there will be a retention test
intentional learning
you are told to remember something because you’ll be tested
dual-memory distinction
rehearsal in short-term memory promotes better long-term representation of the information
elaboration hypothesis
expanding a newly formed memory trace; remembering it better by relating it to other known facts
distinctiveness hypothesis
elaborative rehearsal increases distinctiveness of a memory; stands out, easily separated from other memories, less interference from other memories during retrieval; can occur through shallow processing
cognitive effort hypothesis
the amount of effort expended in rehearsal is what determines retention; measured by impairment of performance on a task done simultaneously with memory task
keyword mnemonic
use a mediating word to connect 2 target items
narrative method
create a story to link together a series of target words
Rank in order from best memory to worst memory: pictures, objects, words
- objects
- pictures
- words
why images are easier to remember than words
can use both verbal and visual encoding (dual encoding); more specific/distinctive than just a word
semantic memory
general knowledge
episodic memory
personal recollections
domain-specific knowledge
we have detailed/specific knowledge in certain subject areas, in these areas we can recall info and learn new info more easily than someone with less knowledge in these areas
von Restorf effect/isolation effect
isolating one item on the list makes it stand out
retrograde amnesic effect
enhanced recall of a distinctive item can impair recall of the items just before it
anterograde amnesic effect
words after the distinctive one are forgotten
seductive detail effect
interesting details grab our attention more than abstract/general material that these details relate to, so we remember the seductive details more than the main ideas (take away energy from processing other info + interrupts flow)
retrograde amnesia hypothesis
in massed practice, when you practice material for the 2nd time so close together it actually interferes with the soaking in of the first round
attention-deficit hypothesis
people feel that a second repetition right after the first one is unnecessary; they’d rather pay attention to things that haven’t been repeated in a while
encoding variability hypothesis
when you space rehearsals you encode info slightly differently each time so you might associate certain items with more than one thing
generation effect
increased memory performance on material that is generated by the participant from a prompt, rather than externally provided. meaningful comprehension/associations leads to elaborative processing + this gives more practice in retrieving info in response to a cue
limits of elaboration
doesn’t work for implicit memory; verbal overshadowing
verbal overshadowing
trying to describe something nonverbal with something verbal can lead to less accurate retention
incidental learning
don’t need intention/preparation in order to remember (what you had for breakfast)
limits of elaboration
doesn’t work for implicit memory; verbal overshadowing
incidental learning
don’t need intention/preparation in order to remember (what you had for breakfast)
yerkes-dodson law
best performance occurs at medium arousal- too much or too little and performance is affected
how emotion affects memory
increases hormones that aid in encoding; makes you focus more on central details than peripheral details; distinctive, talked about a lot (elaboration, rehearsal)
flashbulb memories
we remember important moments (9/11) like a picture, and we are immune to forgetting them (may really be formed in the days after when you tell and retell) (may remember other things as well, but will be less certain of them)
weapons focus
victims focus attention on the weapon (the central detail) but not on things like who was holding it (peripheral details)
selection (schemas)
schemas guide selection of what is to be encoded- usually schema-relevant details
storage (schemas)
provides an outline to fit new information into
abstraction (schemas)
some parts of a schema occur so often that they’re abstracted and stored in the schema, rather than remembering details from any one event
normalization (schemas)
we remember what normally happens, instead of what happened one particular time
retrieval (schema)
schema provides retrieval cues for memory search
metamemory
knowledge about memory: estimates of difficulty of learning, strategies, monitoring progress, awareness of what we know/don’t, beliefs about oru memory vs memory in general
judgments of learning
after studying, before testing, participants rate how well they think they learned material
memory self-efficacy
judgments about how well wethink our memory will do in a particular situation
