Unit 2 Cognition Memory (M)

Question 1

Encoding

Answer 1

The processing of information into the memory system.

Question 2

Storage

Answer 2

The process of maintaining information in memory over time

Question 3

Retrieval

Answer 3

The process of getting information out of memory storage.

Question 4

Automatic vs. effortful processing

Answer 4

Automatic: The unconscious and effortless process of encoding information such as space, time, and frequency.

Effortful: Mental activity that requires deliberation and control and involves intentional work.

Question 5

Explicit memory vs. implicit memory

Answer 5

Explicit: Memory of facts and experiences that one can consciously know and declare

Implicit: Memory for information that is acquired and expressed unconsciously or automatically via facilitated performance on a related task.

Question 6

Episodic memory

Answer 6

the ability to remember personally experienced events associated with a particular time and place; in addition to recalling the facts of a past event, an individual has to engage in “mental time travel” and remember that they were the one who lived the event. The hippocampus plays a key role in episodic memory formation and retrieval

Question 7

Semantic memory

Answer 7

A category of long-term memory that involves the recollection of ideas, concepts, and facts commonly regarded as general knowledge.

Question 8

Levels of processing (shallow, intermediate, deep)

Answer 8

Shallow: A category of long-term memory that involves the recollection of ideas, concepts, and facts commonly regarded as general knowledge.

intermediate: Mental processing that is the recollection of obscurer facts and knowledge

Deep: Mental activity that requires deliberation and control and involves a sense of effort, or overcoming resistance.

Question 9

Structural, phonemic, and semantic encoding

Answer 9

Structural: type of shallow processing that focuses on the physical structure of information.

Phonemic: shallow processing that focuses on the auditory aspects of information.

Semantic: Cognitive encoding of new information that focuses on its meaningful aspects as opposed to its perceptual characteristics

Question 10

Procedural memory

Answer 10

A type of implicit memory that involves motor skills and behavioral habits.

Question 11

Prospective memory

Answer 11

One’s ability to remember to do something in the future.

Question 12

Long-term potentiation

Answer 12

Strengthening of a synaptic connection that happens when the synapse of one neuron repeatedly fires and excites another neuron

Question 13

Working memory and central executive

Answer 13

Working memory: A newer understanding of short-term memory that focuses on information retrieved from long-term memory.

Central executive: in Baddeley’s model of working memory, this is the component that coordinates processes of working memory, including the phonological loop and visuospatial sketchpad; it focuses attention, switches attention between different tasks, and initiates long-term encoding and retrieval

Question 14

Phonological loop

Answer 14

a component that holds and manipulates auditory information over short intervals of time. For example, if one tried to remember a telephone number by repeating it over and over in the few moments before dialing, this effort would take place in the phonological loop.

Question 15

Visuospatial sketchpad

Answer 15

Refers to our ability temporarily to hold visual and spatial information, such as the location of a parked car, or the route from home to a grocery store

Question 16

Multi-store model

Answer 16

Three stage memory model including sensory memory, short-term memory, and long-term memory

Question 17

Sensory memory

Answer 17

The immediate, very brief recording of sensory information in the memory system.

Question 18

Iconic and echoic memory

Answer 18

A momentary sensory memory of visual stimuli; a photographic or picture-image memory lasting no more that a few tenths of a second.

Question 19

Short term memory (STM)

Answer 19

Activated memory that holds a few items briefly, such as the seven digits of a phone number while dialing, before the information is stored or forgotten.

Question 20

Long term memory (LTM)

Answer 20

The relatively permanent and limitless storehouse of the memory system, includes knowledge, skills and experiences.

Question 21

Mnemonic devices

Answer 21

A memory aid, especially those techniques that use vivid imagery and organizational devices.

Question 22

Method of Loci

Answer 22

A mnemonic technique that involves associating items on a list with a sequence or tour of familiar physical locations.

Question 23

Chunking

Answer 23

memory strategy that involves grouping individual pieces of information into larger, meaningful units.

Question 24

Spacing effect

Answer 24

The tendency for distributed study or practice to yield better long-term retention that is achieved through massed study or practice

Question 25

Distributed practice vs. massed practice

Answer 25

Distributed: a learning procedure in which practice periods for a particular task are separated by lengthy rest periods or lengthy periods of practicing different activities or studying other material, rather than occurring close together in time. In many learning situations, distributed practice is found to be more effective than massed practice. Also called spaced learning; spaced practice

Massed: Encoding information all at once - less effective that distributed practice

Question 26

Serial position effect

Answer 26

Our tendency to recall best the last and first items in a list

Question 27

Primacy effect vs. recency effect

Answer 27

Primacy: The tendency for facts, impressions, or items that are presented first to be better learned or remembered than material presented later in the sequence.

recency: a memory phenomenon in which the most recently presented facts, impressions, or items are learned or remembered better than material presented earlier.

Question 28

Maintenance rehearsal vs. elaborative rehearsal

Answer 28

Maintenance: Repeating items over and over to maintain them in short-term memory, although it does not effectively promote long-term retention because it involves little elaboration of the information to be remembered.

elaborative: A memorization method that involves thinking about how new information relates to information already stored in long-term memory.

Question 29

Autobiographical memory and highly superior autobiographical memory

Answer 29

Auto: a person’s memory for episodes or experiences that occurred in their own life (may contain episodic and semantic memories that are personally relevant)

superior: able to recall, with considerable accuracy, details of daily experiences that occurred over many previous decades.

Question 30

Retrograde amnesia

Answer 30

A phenomenon in which a person suffers a brain injury from a stroke or an accident and loses the ability to remember events immediately before the injury is called

Question 31

Anterograde amnesia

Answer 31

A phenomenon in which a person suffers a brain injury from a stroke or an accident and loses the ability to form new memories since the injury is called

Question 32

Alzheimer’s disease

Answer 32

A neurocognitive disorder marked by neural plaques, often with an onset after age 80, and entailing a progressive decline in memory and other cognitive abilities

Question 33

Infantile amnesia

Answer 33

The inability to retrieve memories from much before age 3.

Question 34

Recall

Answer 34

A measure of memory in which the person must retrieve information without the use of any cues to jog one’s memory.

Question 35

Recognition

Answer 35

A measure of memory in which the person need only identify items previously learned due to the presence of retrieval cues.

Question 36

Retrieval cues

Answer 36

stimuli that help people retrieve memories; can be present in the external environment, such as sounds, smells, and sights, and can also be internal to the person retrieving the memory, such as physical states or feelings

Question 37

Context-dependent memory

Answer 37

memories are more easily retrieved when one is in the same physical location in which those memories were encoded; for example, remembering events from 1st grade more easily when again in one’s elementary school classroom

Question 38

State-dependent memory

Answer 38

memories are more easily retrieved when one is in the same physical location in which those memories were encoded; for example, remembering events from 1st grade more easily when again in one’s elementary school classroom

Question 39

Mood-congruent memory

Answer 39

The tendency to recall experiences that are consistent with one’s current emotional state.

Question 40

Retrieval practice

Answer 40

the strategy of recalling facts, concepts, or events from memory in order to enhance learning.

Question 41

Forgetting curve (Ebbinghaus)

Answer 41

A graphic depiction of the amount of forgetting over time after learning has taken place. There is generally a sudden drop in retention shortly after learning, followed by a more gradual decline thereafter.

Question 42

Encoding failure

Answer 42

Failure to process information into memory.

Question 43

Proactive interference

Answer 43

The disruptive effect of prior learning on the recall of new information.

Question 44

Retroactive interference

Answer 44

The disruption effect of new information on the recall of old information.

Question 45

Tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon

Answer 45

The temporary inability to remember something you know, accompanied by a feeling that it’s just out of reach.

Question 46

Repression

Answer 46

In psychoanalytic theory, the basic defense mechanism that banishes from consciousness anxiety-arousing thoughts, feelings, and memories.

Question 47

Misinformation effect

Answer 47

Incorporating misleading information into one’s memory of an event

Question 48

Source amnesia

Answer 48

Attributing to the wrong source an event we have experienced, heard about, read about, or imagined.

Question 49

Constructive memory

Answer 49

The process of bringing up old memories, filling in any missing pieces of information to make our recall more clear.

Question 50

Memory consolidation

Answer 50

The neural processes through which new information from STM is stabilized to result in the storage of enduring memories within LTM.

Question 51

Imagination inflation

Answer 51

the increased likelihood that a person will judge an event as having actually occurred (e.g., during childhood) when they imagine the event before making such a judgment.