Unit 3: Memory Flashcards
3 stages of learning/memory process
Encoding (initial experience), storage (putting it away), retrieval (taking it back out)
What are the three memory systems
Sensory, short term, long term
What is sensory memory?
First stage of memory where info enters system through senses
What is ionic sensory memory
Everything that can be seen at one time
Lasts for 1/4-1/2 of a second
Allows visual system to view surroundings as continuous (blinking)
Echoic sensory memory
Brief memory of sound
Limited to what can be heard at one moment
1-4 seconds duration
What is short term memory?
If incoming sensory is important enough to enter, it goes to short term
What is selective attention?
How sensory memory enters STM
Only stimuli that is important enough is chosen by selective attention
What is working memory?
Where memories or info is processed once in short term
Remembering something, new info
Capacity and duration of STM
7 items plus or minus 2
12-30 seconds without rehearsal
Maintenance rehearsal
Repeating or holding info in STM
What is long term memory
Where info is placed permanently
Duration of LTM
Memories are always there/there for a long time but not always retrievable
What is elaborative rehearsal?
Transferring LTM to STM by making it meaningful and making connections
What are the types of long term memory
Non declarative/implicit
Declarative/Explicit
What are the types of declarative memory
Semantic: has meaning
Episodic: episode of your life
Prospective: need to remember for later
What are the types of implicit memories?
Procedural: muscle memory
Types of encoding
auto: don’t have to try
Effortful: have to try
What is it called when the brain makes physical changes to store/make memories?
The consolidation process
Explain flashbulb memories
Memories that involve the amygdala (memories of fear) and the hippocampus. They have strong emotional associations, these emotions causing release of hormones that help in long term memories
What can cause false memories?
Incorrect rehearsal; when you rehearse the memory you fill in wrong details and convince yourself they’re right
What is long term potentiation?
Neurons that fire together wire together
By neurons repeatedly firing at each other the neurons change to adapt to each other and can signal quicker
Memory consolidation
Physical change in brain when new memories are made.
When new synaptic buds are formed allowing new connections between neurons and strengthening neural network of LTM
Encoding, storage, retrieval
Memory traces
Brain changes due to new memories
Sleep and memory
REM sleep helps procedural, other stages help Declarative
What kinds of retrieval are there
Recall and recognition
What is recall
When memories are retrieved with few or no external cues
Open answer test question
What is recognition
Ability to march info from stored info or facts
Multiple choice test
What is a flashbulb memory
When a memory is automatically encoded usually due to extreme emotion
What is serial position effect?
When people remember things at the beginning (primacy) and end (recency) of lists
Recency is less than primacy
What is hindsight bias?
Inclination to see events as more predicable after they have passed
Memory trace decay theory
When the memory trace isn’t used as much and thus fades over time
Retrograde amnesia
Loss of memory from point of injury backwards
Anterograde Amnesia
Loss of memory from point of injury forward
Alzheimers disease
Starts with anterograde, goes into retrograde
Types of Omission
Absentmindedness, tancsience (not used so fades away) and blocking
Types of Commission
Misattribution, suggestibility, bias, persistence
Define Omission and Commission
C: Extra added to memory
O: Not in brain
Leveling
Story gets shorter as retold
Sharpening
Certain aspects are emphasized or forgotten
Assimilation
Outlier information is changed to conform to make story more logical
Ebbinghaus Curve
Forgetting happens mostly in first hour then tapers off
