Unit 5: Cognition & Language Flashcards
Tip of the Tongue Phenomenon
Failing to retrieve a memory with the feeling that the retrieval is imminent
Flashbulb memories
A vivid, enduring memory associated with a personally significant and emotional event
- amygdala
Must be consequential and biologically significant
(prone to error)
What are the stages of automatic processing?
(stages of memory)
sensory input –> sensory memory –> short term memory -(selective attention + rehearsal)-> long term memory
What is forgetting?
difference between short term and long term
STM: failure to encode properly (decay)
LTM: failure to retrieve or gradually decay
Short Term Memory (STM)
memory that holds meaningful information (from sensory input) for a short period of time –> holds 7+/- 2 items for about 30 seconds
Long term memory (LTM)
memory that stores information on a relatively long term basis (limitless capacity)
Types of LTM
Implicit (nondeclarative) and Explicit (declarative)
Implicit memories
memories that are automatically encoded
ex. procedural, conditioning, space/time/frequency
The individual is unaware that the learning has occurred
Explicit memories
(both types)
memories that require effortful processing to encode
2 types:
semantic: facts, meanings
episodic: information about recent or past events and experiences
List the Effortful Processing strategies
Chunking
Mnemonics
Rehearsal
Hierarchies
Deep Processing
Shallow processing
Mnemonics
Examples
Peg words, imagery, rhymes, songs, acronyms
Shallow processing
rote repetition, focusing on structure/appearance
Deep Processing
Semantic: meaning (of a word)
acoustic: sound
imagery
Describe the Ebbinghaus forgetting curve
Memory starts to decay quickly then starts to slowly decline after a while (even out)
can be combatted by distributed practice
Anterograde amnesia
No new explicit memories
have the ability to recall old events but nothing after that
Retrograde amnesia
Inability to recall old events, but maintain the ability to remember new ones
Prospective memory
Memory of a future event (“I need to do this…”
Parts of the Brain
What deals with implicit memories?
Basal ganglia (two arms w/ amygdala) = procedural memories
Cerebellum = conditioning
What part of the brain deals with explicit memories?
Hippocampus + Limbic (reward) system
Infantial amnesia: hippocampus not fully developed until age 3.
Long-Term Potentiation
- biological basis for LTM formation
- neurons strengthen their synaptic connections as they signal eachother –> as they are more frequent signals, the post-synaptic neuron becomes more and more sensitive to signals from the presynaptic neuron
Types of memory retrieval
Recall
Regonition
Relearning
Things that affect memory retrieval
- Priming: unconscious associations that help retrieve memories
- Context dependence: easier to recall things in the same place you learned it
- State dependence: easier to recall things while in the same mental state you learning it
- Mood-Congruent Memory: recall memories that are consistent with your current mood (happy = recall happy memories)
- Serial Position Effect
Serial Positioning effect
Tendency to recall first and last items from a list, and forget the middle
- Primacy effect: when recalling things later, we remember the last items (the last things in out minds)
- Spacing effect: forgetting curve, distributed learning
Proponents of forgetting
- Failure to encode (STM)
- failure to retrieve (LTM)
- Storage decay: can be physical phenomenon, or the result of not accessing a memory for a long time
- Interference
- Repression (Freud)
