Week 11

Question 1

Short term/working memory

Answer 1

The ability to try and hold information in our minds for a brief time and work with it

Question 2

Episodic memory

Answer 2

The ability to remember the episodes of our lives

Question 3

Semantic memory

Answer 3

Our storehouse of more-or-less permanent knowledge and the huge collection of facts about the world

Question 4

Collective memory

Answer 4

Refers to the kind of memory that people in a group share

Question 5

Three stages of memory and learning

Answer 5

Encoding, storage, retrieval

Question 6

Encoding

Answer 6

The initial learning of information. Refers to the initial experience of perceiving and learning information.
We are always encoding the events of our lives

Question 7

Storage

Answer 7

Maintaining information over time. We encode each of our experiences within the structure of the nervous system, making new impressions involves changes in the brain. Memories have to be stored somewhere in the brain, so in order to do so, the brain biochemically alters itself and its neural tissue

Question 8

Retrieval

Answer 8

The ability to access information when you need it. We access only a tiny portion of what we’ve taken in. Most of our memories will never be used-in the sense of being brought back to mind, consciously

Question 9

Two types of errors in retrieval

Answer 9

Forgetting, misremembering

Question 10

One reason for inaccuracy

Answer 10

The three stages are not as discrete as our description implies. All three stages depend on one another. How we encode information determines how it will be stored.

Question 11

Flashbulb memory

Answer 11

How some memories seem to be captured in the mind like a flash photograph; because of the distinctiveness and emotionality of the news, they seem to become permanently etched in the mind withe exceptional clarity. A highly detailed and vivid memory of an emotionally significant event

Question 12

Process of encoding

Answer 12

Always involves recoding, that is, taking the information from the form it is delivered to us and then converting it in a way that we can make sense of it

Question 13

Basic concept of good encoding strategies

Answer 13

To form distinctive memories, and to form links or associations among memories to help later retrieval

Question 14

Recoding

Answer 14

The ubiquitous process during learning of taking information in one form and converting it to another form, usually one more easily remembered

Question 15

distinctiveness

Answer 15

The principle that unusual events will be recalled and recognized better than uniform events

Question 16

One reason people can sometimes remember events that did not actually happen

Answer 16

Recoding can add information that was not even seen or heard during the initial encoding phase. Several of the recoding processes, like forming associations between memories, can happen without our awareness

Question 17

Memory trace

Answer 17

A term indicating the change in the nervous system representing an event

Question 18

Engrams

Answer 18

A term indicating the change in the nervous system representing an event, memory trace

Question 19

Consolidation

Answer 19

The process occurring after encoding that is believed to stabilize memory traces

Question 20

Memory

Answer 20

A construction of what you actually recall and what you believe happened. Remembering is reconstructive no reproductive

Question 21

Retroactive interference

Answer 21

Refers to new activities during the retention interval that interfere with retrieving that specific, older memory

Question 22

Misinformation effect

Answer 22

When erroneous information occurring after an event is remembered as having been part of the original event

Question 23

Proactive interference

Answer 23

When past memories interfere with the encoding of new ones

Question 24

Available information

Answer 24

The information that is stored in memory-but precisely how much and what types are stored cannot be known.

Question 25

Accessible information

Answer 25

The information we retrieve

Question 26

Encoding specificity principle

Answer 26

The hypothesis that a retrieval cue will be effective to the extent that information encoded from the cue overlaps or matches information in the engram or memory trace

Question 27

Cue overload principle

Answer 27

The principle stating that the more memories that are associated to a particular retrieval cue, the less effective the cue will be in prompting retrieval of any one memory.

Question 28

Requirements for a cue to be effective

Answer 28

A match must exist between the cue and the desired target memory; to produce the best retrieval, the cue-target relationship should be distinctive

Question 29

Recognition failure of recallable words

Answer 29

Highlights the point that a cue will be most effective depending on how the information has been encoded

Question 30

Retrieving memories

Answer 30

Every time we retrieve a memory, it is altered. Retrieving some information can actually cause us to forget other information related to it- a phenomenon called retrieval-induced forgetting. Retrieval practise enhances accurate memories, so it will strengthen errors or false memories. Sometimes memories can be manufactured just from hearing a vivid story

Question 31

Testing effect or the retrieval practise effect

Answer 31

The act of retrieval itself makes the retrieved memory much more likely to be retrieved again

Question 32

To improve memory

Answer 32

We need to encode information in conjunction with excellent cues that will bring back the remembered events when we need them. Construct meaningful cues that remind us of the original experience, and those cues should be distinctive and not associated with other memories

Question 33

Mnemonic devices

Answer 33

A strategy for remembering large amounts of information, usually involving imaging events occurring on a journey or with some other set of memorized cues

Question 34

Peg word technique

Answer 34

Forms a vivid image of what you want to remember and imagine interacting with peg words

Question 35

autobiographical memory

Answer 35

Memory for the event’s of one’s life

Question 36

Five reasons we forget

Answer 36

Encoding failures, Decay, Inadequate retriveal cues, interference, trying not to remember

Question 37

Encoding failures

Answer 37

If you fail to encode information into memory, you are not going to remember it later on. Encoding failures occur because we are distracted or are not paying attention to specific details

Question 38

Decay

Answer 38

As time passes, memories get harder to recall. If we do not rehearse a memory and the neural representation of that memory is not reactivated over a long period of time, the memory representation may disappear entirely or fade to the point where it can no longer be accessed.

Question 39

Inadequate retrieval cues

Answer 39

This type of forgetting may occur when we lack the appropriate retrieval cues for brining the memory to mind

Question 40

Interference

Answer 40

Other memories get in the way of retrieving a desired memory

Question 41

Trying not to remember

Answer 41

Over time, by not actively trying not to remember an event, we can sometimes successfully keep the undesirable memory from being retrieved either by inhibiting the undesirable memory or generating diversionary thoughts

Question 42

Forgetting

Answer 42

Is adaptive, allowing us to be efficient and hold onto the most relevant memories

Question 43

Anterograde amnesia

Answer 43

Refers to a person with amnesia who is unable to learn new information, a memory impairment. Inability to form new memories for facts and events after the onset of amnesia. Keep information in short-term, or working memory, but when attention is turned to something else, that information was lost for good

Question 44

Retrograde amnesia

Answer 44

Refers to an inability to retrieve old memories that occurred before the onset of amnesia. Co-occurs with anterograde amnesia and shows a temporal gradient, in which memories closest in time to the onset of amnesia are lost, but more remote memories are retained

Question 45

Problem with Eyewitness testimony

Answer 45

There is a wealth of evidence that eyewitness testimony is probably the most persuasive form of evidence presented in court, but in many cases, its accuracy is dubious.
Evidence that mistaken eyewitnesses evidence can lead to wrongful conviction-sending people to prison for years or decades, even death row for crimes they did not commit

Question 46

Faulty eyewitness testimony

Answer 46

has been implicated in at least 75% of DNA exoneration cases-more than any other cause

Question 46

Problem with witnesses talking to each other

Answer 46

Because different eyewitnesses are different people with different perspectives, they are likely to see or notice different things, and thus remember different things, even when they witness the same event
Reinforce common memories for the event but also contaminate each other’s memories for the event

Question 47

How can eyewitness memory be corrupted

Answer 47

By leading questions, misinterpretations of events, conversations with co-witnesses, and their own expectations for what should have happened

Question 48

How can memory in the legal system be fixed

Answer 48

Aim at specific legal procedures, including when and how witnesses should be interviewed, and how lineups should be constructed and conducted
Appropriate education to be provided to jury members and others tasked with assessing eyewitness memory

Question 49

Eyewitness identification error

Answer 49

Substantial amount of research demonstrating that eyewitnesses can make serious but often understandable and even predictable errors
Some factors have been shown to make eyewitness identification errors particularly likely, such as poor vision or viewing conditions during the crime, particularly stressful witnessing experiences, too little time to view the perpetrator or perpetrators, too much delay between witnessing and identifying, and being asked to identify a perpetrator from being a race other than one’s own

Question 50

Misinformation effect

Answer 50

When erroneous information occurring after an event is remembered as having been part of the original event

Question 51

Misinformation in eyewitness testimony

Answer 51

Misinformation that subjects were exposed to after the even apparently contaminates subjects’ memories of what they witnessed. Memory can be contaminated by erroneous information that people are exposed to after they witness an event. Can corrupt memory even more easily when it is encountered in social situations

Question 52

How is memory susceptible to a wide variety of other biases and errors

Answer 52

People can forget events that happened to them and people they once know, they can mix up details across time and place, they can even remember whole complex events that never happened at all
These errors, once made, can be very hard to unmake.

Question 53

foils

Answer 53

Any member of a lineup other than the suspect

Question 54

Schemata

Answer 54

A memory template, created through repeated exposure to a particular class of objects or events

Question 55

False memories

Answer 55

Memory for an event that never actually occurred, implanted by experimental manipulation or other means

Question 56

How do our expectations and beliefs about how the world works have huge influences on our memories

Answer 56

Many aspects of our everyday lives are full of redundancies, our memory systems take advantage of the reoccurring patterns by forming and using schemata, or memory templates

Question 57

False memory studies

Answer 57

Have used a variety of different manipulations to produce false memories in substantial minorities and even occasional majorities of manipulated subjects

Question 58

False feedback manipulation

Answer 58

Allows researchers to persuade subjects to falsely remember having a variety of childhood experiences