Wk 6: Memory

Question 1

Short-term memory / Working memory:

Answer 1

the ability to hold information in our minds for a brief time and work it (ex: doing times tables in your head).

Question 2

Semantic memories:

Answer 2

the more or less permanent store of knowledge that people have (ex: the meanings of words).

Question 3

Collective memory:

Answer 3

the kind of memory that people in a group share (ex: family, community, school mates etc.).

Question 4

Episodic memory:

Answer 4

• The ability to remember the episodes of our lives; The ability to learn and retrieve new information or episodes in one’s life; inability to recall events.
• The focus of this module; what people normally think when they think of ‘memory’.
• Ex: When he was 10 Billy won the city chess championship. Thirty years later, he remembers shaking hands with his opponent and lifting the trophy.

Question 5

Autobiographical memory:

Answer 5

• Remembering specific events that have happened over the course of one’s entire life; remembering specific events that have happened over the course of one’s entire life.
• Ex: 25-year old Lizanne remembers going to sleep-away camp when she was 10 years old.

Question 6

Encoding:

Answer 6

• The pact of putting information into memory / The initial learning of information.
• Selective: we attend to some events in our environment and we ignore others (In ‘real’ life there are many factors that are at play); people cannot encode all information they are exposed to.
• Prolific: we are always encoding the events of our lives constantly.

Question 7

Storage:

Answer 7

• The stage in the learning/memory process that bridges encoding and retrieval.
• Maintaining information overtime.

Question 8

Retrieval:

Answer 8

• The process of accessing stored information.

- The ability to access information when you need it.

Question 9

Errors in memory:

Answer 9

1. FORGETTING

2. MISREMEMBERING (false recall / false recognition)

Question 10

Flashbulb memory:

Answer 10

• A highly detailed and vivid memory of an emotionally significant event.
• When vivid memories are tinged with strong emotional content; Finding out important news.

Question 11

Recoding:

Answer 11

Part of the encoding process; 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 12

Mnemonic devices:

Answer 12

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 13

Causes of Forgetting:

Answer 13

1. Encoding Failures: distracted or are not paying attention to specific details / Permanent form of forgetting / Interruption of consolidation
2. Decay: the fading of memories over the passage of time / Permanent form of forgetting.
3. Inadequate retrieval cue: when a memory exists yet we temporarily cannot access it / The memory is not permanently forgotten; instead, you just need the right reminder to remember what it is.
4. Interference: when other memories get in the way of retrieving a desired memory.
   Proactive: old memories block the learning of new related memories,
   Retroactive: new memories block the retrieval of old related memories.
5. Trying not to remember: deliberately attempting to keep them out of mind.

Question 14

Anterograde Amnesia:

Answer 14

Inability to form new memories for facts and events after the onset of amnesia.

Question 15

Retrograde amnesia:

Answer 15

Inability to retrieve memories for facts and events acquired before the onset of amnesia.

Question 16

Temporarily graded retrograde amnesia:

Answer 16

Inability to retrieve memories from just prior to the onset of amnesia with intact memory for much earlier events.

Question 17

Dissociative memory:

Answer 17

Loss of autobiographical memories from a period in the past in the absence of brain injury or disease.

Question 18

What part of the brain is associated with memory?

Answer 18

hippocampus

Question 19

misinformation (in regards to eyewitness testimony):

Answer 19

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