Terry Ch. 6 Flashcards
verbal learning
learning/memorizing lists of words (misnomer- it can be faces, etc); discover the basic laws of learning through studying the acquisition/retention of items
rote learning
passive subject who needs to memorize something (not accurate)
serial learning
Ebbinghaus- a list of items is learned and reproduced in order, one item after another (ex: alphabet)
nonsense syllables
words that aren’t real, don’t have a meaning- to eliminate bias of remembering certain important words. Ebbinghaus meant for the order of the items on the list to be nonsensical
relearn
you can learn something faster the 2nd, 3rd, 4th time you study it
savings
how many trials it takes to learn something the second time- or how many were saved between the first and second time. a way to measure memory without recalling something; used in ECS experiments
curve of forgetting
once you learn something, the most forgetting happens right away, and then the rate slows significantly
psychophysiology
using a mathematical relationship for a psychological experience between a stimulus and result- interest of Ebbinghaus
Ebbinghaus
created methodology for studying how we acquire and how we retain information; interested in psychophysiology; introduced the technique of memorizing word lists; introduced learning curve; discovered idea of massed practice
CVC
consonant-vowel-consonant; used for creating nonsense words with no meaning
serial-position effect
when memorizing a list, it’s easier to remember items at the beginning and end than the middle
paired-associate learning
learn response word by pairing it with stimulus word (ex: learning names, pairing it with something) and then recalling the response when prompted by the stimulus; can develop only in one direction, so be sure to practice in both directions- the more difficult direction is retained longer
primacy
remember things at the beginning better; increased by slower rate of presentation or by familiarity of items (items are more likely in long term memory)
recency
remember the last thing you learned better; affected by how closely after presentation the testing takes place (items are still in short term memory)
rehearsal
practice from the beginning and add one more each time; repeat several times and then add
proactive interference
early learning disrupts later learning
retroactive interference
later learning disrupts earlier learning
interference
items you learn in the beginning suppress the next few items; the items at the end suppress the previous few items. when you learn the second one it interferes in both directions…much more interference happening to the middle items
cognitive elaboration
adding details to a piece of information to help you remember it
cognitive helplessness
we’ve tried to learn names before and had difficulty doing so, so in the future we rarely even try. then we fail- self fulfilling prophecy
free-recall task
presented with a list of item and the test is just to recall whatever you can, order doesn’t matter
distributed rehearsals
when given a list of items, young children will repeat each item when given, and older children will repeat multiple items at a time; this is more effective
organization
use existing knowledge to group items that are similar/related (happens during learning, shown in output); aka reorganization because you change the organization
associative clustering
pairings that you already know from general life (ex: black/white) are recalled together
subjective organization
even if words are presented separately, people impose their own organization to help remember
generalization
relating something new to something that it is similar to in what you know
discrimination
being able to tell the difference between stimuli (ex: Manet vs Monet)
direction of associations
if you learn things where one goes to the next, it’s easier to remember it in the order you learned it for paired associates learning (so you should learn both ways)
serial memory model
information goes into short term memory, and then long term memory
short term memory
conscious memory
long term memory
subconscious memory
subjective organization
if no categories/associations are apparent, people will impose their own organization; high clustering correlates with better recall
available memories
present in the memory store (you have learned it)
accessible memories
can be recalled/retrieved (you have learned it AND you can recall it)
tip of the tongue experience
you know you know it, but you can’t recall it right now (it’s available but not accessible)
cue overload effect
having too many cues messes you up- if you give them too much detail they’ll only remember what you told them, get stuck (cue words are so active in memory that they suppress recall of other words)
recall test
reproduce/recall studied information
recognition test
present studied items along with unstudied/distractor items to see if the previously studied item can be detected (most successful retrieval this way)
relearning test
initially studied material is relearned and the amount of saving is assessed
encoding specificity
you’ll have the most success in retrieval if you use the same meaning you used to encode the information to begin with (ex: familiar actor, new movie)
implicit learning
learn something without intending to, often you can’t verbalize it (how to get somewhere…)
remembering vs knowing
remember specific info, know vague/familiar info; messes you up on recognition tests if you know it but it’s not part of what you memorized
ex: professor knows a name belonged to some student in the past vs professor remembers something about the student and thus their name
false fame effect
study where they had to count beeps and then identify famous people- identified a made up person as famous because they had heard their name during the split attention part
acronym
first letters of a list of items make up an already meaningful word. ex: HOMES for great lakes (works better if order isn’t important)
verbal keyword mediator
find a mediating word to link to-be-associated words, mostly used for learning foreign languages
narrative story method
remember something like a list of words by creating a story that puts them all together- very powerful
procedural memory
skill- you can’t always talk about how
method of loci/locations
imagine yourself walking through a location and coming across the different items in certain locations (whether abstract- feeling freedom- or concrete)
peg word
if you need to remember a number (or an order), imagine a word that reminds with each number and put them all in a situation together.
(1-bun, 2-shoe, 3-tree, 4-door, 5-hive, 6-sticks, 7-heaven, 8-gate, 9-wine, 10-hen)
mnemonics
the study of how to improve your memory/devices used to aid encoding and retrieval
first letter mnemonic
if you have to remember a list, remember the first letter of each item and make up a phrase/sentence. helps with names and orders
visual keyword mediator
imagine the 2 items interacting (ex: dog, bicycle- dog riding bicycle)
misapplication of distinctiveness principle
hide something in a weird place thinking you’ll remember it because it’s unusual- that’s confusing distinct with unusual; distinctiveness helps you remember an object or location, but not an association between the two
absent mindedness
do something and then forget about it (set down keys, don’t know where)
updating errors
if you always do something a certain way and then do it once differently, you forget and go back to the regular place- forgot to update your memory
Baker/baker paradox
it’s harder to remember names than other things- we remember that someone is a baker, not that his name is Baker
prior knowledge
pre-existing associations that can either help or hinder the learning of new associations
free response
give a word and they say the first thing they think of; is often only one direction (butter –> fly but not fly –> butter)
steps of paired associate learning
learning the response, discriminating among the stimuli, associating response to stimuli
categorical clustering
words from the same semantic category (ex: types of food) tend to be recalled together
when is free recall better than recognition?
when the word is presented with a different stimulus than the one you associated it with during learning; it would be recalled easily, but you may not recognize it with the different stimulus
essential components of a mnemonic system
known list of cues, items are associated with cues, striking imagery, same cues during studying and recall
