WSC Science Flashcards
Key terms
Hippocampus
The elongated ridges on the floor of each lateral ventricle (the center of emotion and memory)
Lateral Ventricle
The center of each cerebral hemisphere in the brain
Amygdala
A mass of grey matter in each cerebral hemisphere which helps experience emotions
Cerebellum
The part of the brain at the back of the skull in vertebrates which coordinates and regulates muscular activity
Acetylcholine
A compound that occurs throughout the nervous system, a neurotransmitter
Neuroplasticity
The ability of the brain to form and also reorganize synaptic connections - usually in response to learning, experience or injury.
Neurons
A specialized cell that transmits nerve impulses
Nervous System
The network of nerve cells that transmit nerve impulses around the body
Explicit memory
When you consciously remember a memory
Implicit memory
Implicit memory uses experiences you’ve had before to remember things without you actually recalling them - when you unconsciously remember a memory.
Declarative memory
Memory of facts and events
Procedural memory
Part of the long-term memory that focuses on remembering how to do things (aka motor skills), including walking, talking and reading (DON’T CONFUSE WITH Hyperthymestic memory)
Semantic Memory
Memory that doesn’t come from personal experience - like colour names and basic facts
Episodic Memory
When a person remembers something their own way, a memory unique to them. It will be different to another person’s recollection.
Eidectic memory
Photographic memory (the ability to vividly recall images from memory after only a few instances of exposure with high precision)
Hyperthymestic memory
A condition in which an individual possesses a superior autobiographical memory, meaning he or she can recall the vast majority of personal experiences and events in his or her life - even ones that happened years ago. It’s also known as autobiographical memory.
Reconstructive memory
When remembering is influenced by various other cognitive processes including perception, imagination, semantic memory and beliefs, amongst others. A memory is ‘reconstructed’, as implied by the name.
Collective memory
When a collection of people remember a memory together
Flashbulb memory
When you remember a memory vividly - like a flashbulb was turned on in your head. It can sometimes happen when someone says something and the memory comes back to you - this kind of memory is usually surprising.
Source confusion
When someone remembers something someone else said or did as their own memory, even though they were not present at the event
Overt rehearsal
Overt rehearsal is when your body rehearses for your external improvements (like facing a mirror and practicing how to eat properly).
Covert rehearsal
Covert rehearsal is when you rehearse your internal improvement.
Individualistic Vs Collectivistic
Does an individual’s life belong to him or herself, or to the state or country (or government)?
Emotional arousal
A state of heightened physiological activity. This includes having strong emotions like anger and fear and we go to the emotional arousal state in response to our daily experiences. For example the fight, flight or freeze response is a state of emotional arousal.
Neisser & Harsch
Tested the flashbulb memory theory:
ocedure:
106 students in an introductory psychology class were given a questionnaire and asked to write a description of how they had heard the news. They also had to answer seven questions related to where they were, what they were doing, etc., and what emotional feelings they experienced at the time of the event.
Participants answered the questionnaires less than 24 hours after the disaster.
Two and a half years later, 44 of the original students answered the questionnaire again. This time they were also asked to rate how confident they were of the accuracy of their memory on a scale from 1 to 5. The participants were also asked if they had filled out a questionnaire of the subject before.
Sometime after the last questionnaires, the researchers performed a semi-structured interview to test whether the participants could remember what they had written previously. Participants then saw their original reports from the first questionnaire.Only 11 participants out of the 44 remembered that they had filled out the questionnaire before.
There were major discrepancies between the original questionnaire and the follow-up two and a half years later. The mean score of correctness of recall of the seven questions was 2.95 out of 7. For 11 participants the score was 0, and 22 scored 2 or less. The average level of confidence in accuracy for the questions was 4.17.
The results challenge the predictions of the FM theory and also question the reliability of memory in general. Participants were confident that they remembered the event correctly both times and they could not explain the discrepancies between the first and second accounts.The study was conducted in a natural environment and it has higher ecological validity than laboratory experiments on memory. The participants were psychology students who participated for course credits and they may not be representative.
The degree of emotional arousal when witnessing a shocking public event may be different from experiencing a traumatic event in your own personal life, and the importance of the events may be very different. This could influence how well people remember a certain event.
Brown and Kulik
a high level of surprise
(b) high levels of emotion
If these two variables are not present there won’t be Flashbulb memory creation. This is because the surprise and emotion lead to increase rehearsal of the memory, both overtly (publicly) and covertly (internally). This rehearsal is what strengthens the memory.
Brown and Kulik found this out.
Wang & Aydin
Wang and Aydin, 2008 showed that in some collectivist cultures (Japan, China) expressing emotions, especially negative emotions, is usually viewed as dangerous and it is not encouraged. Furthermore, collectivist societies do not encourage individuals to focus on their internal states or reflect and talk about their emotional states.
Elaborative encoding
A mnemonic that relates to-be-remembered information to pre-existing memories and knowledge. One can make such connections visually, spatially, semantically or acoustically.
Spaced retrieval
A learning technique, which requires users to rehearse information - in testing this type of learning, people are instructed to rehearse a given set of information at a certain time, and each new rehearsal is expected to have a longer period of time between itself and the previous rehearsal or an equal amount of time between rehearsals. At the end of every trial period there is a test phase.
Mnemonics
The study and development of systems for improving and assisting the memory.
Mind Palace
A Memory Palace is an imaginary location in your mind where you can store mnemonic images. The most common type of memory palace involves making a journey through a place you know well, like a building or town. Along that journey there are specific locations that you always visit in the same order.
Simonides
A philosopher
Giordano Bruno
German monk of the 11th century who founded the Carthusian Order
Nootropics
A drug that improves the mind - particularily the cognitive function
Transcranial magnetic stimulation
Also known as TMS - a noninvasive procedure that uses magnetic fields to stimulate nerve cells in the brain to improve symptoms of depression
Cognitive Function
Reasoning, memory , attention, and language
Chunking
Group together (connected items or words) so that they can be stored or processed as single concepts.
Priming
The implicit memory effect in which exposure to a stimulus influences response to a later stimulus. It is a technique in psychology used to train a person’s memory both in positive and negative ways.
Interference
An explanation for forgetting in long term memory. The basic theory states that interference occurs when information that is similar in format gets in the way of the information that someone is trying to recall. There are two types of interference; retroactive and proactive.
Memory inhibition
The ability not to remember irrelevant information
Working Memory Model
Alan Baddeley and Graham Hitch proposed a model of working memory in 1974, in an attempt to present a more accurate model of primary memory (often referred to as short-term memory). Working memory splits primary memory into multiple components, rather than considering it to be a single, unified construct.
Multi-store Model
The multistore model of memory (also known as the modal model) was proposed by Atkinson and Shiffrin (1968) and is a structural model. They proposed that memory consisted of three stores: a sensory register, short-term memory (STM) and long-term memory (LTM).
Levels of Processing
The levels-of-processing effect, identified by Fergus I. M. Craik and Robert S. Lockhart in 1972, describes memory recall of stimuli as a function of the depth of mental processing. Deeper levels of analysis produce more elaborate, longer-lasting, and stronger memory traces than shallow levels of analysis.
Humor effect
Research in humor has been done to understand the psychological and physiological effects, both positive and negative, on a person or groups of people.
Generation effect
a phenomenon where information is better remembered if it is generated from one’s own mind rather than simply read. Researchers have struggled to account for why generated information is better recalled than read information, but no single explanation has been sufficient.
Positivity effect
The positivity effect is the ability to constructively analyze a situation where the desired results are not achieved; but still obtain positive feedback that assists our future progression.
Decay Theory
Memory fades due to the mere passage of time. Information is therefore less available for later retrieval as time passes and memory, as well as memory strength, wears away. When we learn something new, a neurochemical “memory trace” is created.
Motivated Forgetting
a theorized psychological behavior in which people may forget unwanted memories, either consciously or unconsciously.
Gaslighting
A form of emotional abuse where the abuser manipulates situations repeatedly to trick the victim into distrusting his or her own memory and perceptions.
Amnesia
A deficit in memory caused by brain damage, disease, or psychological trauma - the inability to retrieve information that was acquired before a particular date, usually the date of an accident or operation.
TBI
This condition can adversely affect a person’s quality of life with cognitive, behavioral, emotional, and physical symptoms that limit interpersonal, social, and occupational functioning.
Blackout
A phenomenon caused by the intake of any substance or medication in which short term and long term memory creation is impaired, therefore causing a complete inability to recall the past. … The term “blackout” can also refer to a complete loss of consciousness
Nostalgia
A sentimentality for the past, typically for a period or place with happy personal associations.
Alzheimer’s
A progressive, neurocognitive disease characterized by memory loss, language deterioration, impaired ability to mentally manipulate visual information, poor judgment, confusion, restlessness, and mood swings. It is the leading cause of dementia in the elderly.
Dementia
Dementia is progressive loss of cognitive function, marked by memory problems and confused thinking.
Korsakoff’s Syndrome
A chronic memory disorder caused by severe deficiency of thiamine (vitamin B-1). Korsakoff syndrome is most commonly caused by alcohol misuse, but certain other conditions also can cause the syndrome.
