Sensation, Perception, and Memory Lecture Notes

Vocabulary flashcards covering the processes of sensation, perception, multi-store memory models, working memory components, neurological memory structures, retrieval methods, and levels of processing.

Sensation

The detection of stimulus energy by sense organs and its conversion into electrochemical energy.

Reception

The detection of sensory information in the sense organs of the body by sensory receptors.

Transduction

The changing of sensory information into electrochemical energy.

Transmission

The movement of electrochemical energy from sensory receptors to the brain for interpreting.

Electrochemical energy

The form of energy used by neurons to carry sensory information from sensory receptors to the brain.

Perception

The mental representation that the brain creates using information detected by senses.

Selection

The process by which the brain focuses on important sensory information for further processing while filtering out irrelevant details.

Organisation

The process of arranging and grouping sensory information into a meaningful pattern or whole.

Interpretation

The process of assigning meaning to organised patterns or a whole.

Memory

The cognitive function through which information and past experiences are actively processed, stored and retrieved.

Acoustic encoding

The encoding of sound.

Visual encoding

The encoding of images.

Semantic encoding

The encoding of meaning.

Atkinson and Shiffrin’s Multi-store model of memory (1968)

A memory model proposing that information flows through three storage systems: the sensory register, short-term store, and long-term store.

Sensory register

A memory store where sensory information is briefly held before decaying or transferring to short-term memory, featuring visual and acoustic encoding, unlimited capacity, and a duration of several hundred milliseconds.

Echoic store

The sensory store dedicated to auditory information.

Iconic store

The sensory store dedicated to visual information.

Olfactory store

The sensory store dedicated to smell.

Haptic store

The sensory store dedicated to tactile information.

Gustatory store

The sensory store dedicated to taste.

Short-term memory

A temporary memory store with mainly acoustic encoding, a capacity of 5-8 items, and a duration of 15-30 seconds that receives limited information from the sensory register and long-term store.

Rehearsal

The repetition of information within the short-term store, while memory trace simultaneously forms and strengthens in the long-term store.

Long-term memory

A relatively permanent memory store with unlimited capacity and semantic encoding that sends and receives information from the short-term store.

Implicit memory (procedural)

A type of long-term memory for knowing how to perform actions and skills that operates without conscious awareness and cannot be declared verbally.

Explicit memory (declarative)

A type of long-term memory for facts and personally significant events (knowing 'that') that requires conscious effort and can be consciously recalled and expressed verbally.

Semantic memory

A division of explicit memory for facts and general knowledge not tied to any particular time or place.

Episodic memory

A division of explicit memory for personally significant events that are connected to a particular time or place.

Baddeley and Hitch’s Working memory model (1974, 2000)

A model viewing short-term memory as a complex, active working store that holds pieces of information while they are being manipulated.

Central executive

The component of working memory responsible for coordinating subsystems, controlling attention, decision-making, and retrieving and consolidating information from long-term memory.

Phonological loop

The 'inner ear' component of working memory that stores and processes words and sounds that are heard.

Phonological store

The part of the phonological loop that stores words that are heard.

Articulatory control process

The component of the phonological loop that repeats heard words in a loop, allowing maintenance rehearsal to occur.

Visuospatial sketchpad

The working memory component that stores and manipulates visual and spatial information.

Episodic buffer

A working memory component that temporarily stores consolidated information from the central executive, visuospatial sketchpad, phonological loop, and long-term memory.

Hippocampus

A brain structure that forms new explicit memories by combining experience elements into a coherent memory trace and helps consolidate them into lasting representations in cortical areas.

Amygdala

A collection of nuclei involved in emotional processing and modulation of the fear response that forms implicit memories and attaches emotional significance to events.

Cerebellum

A brain structure responsible for balance, distance judgement, and coordination that contributes to the formation of procedural memory.

Recall

The process of retrieving information from long-term memory with limited or no retrieval cues to assist the process.

Free recall

Retrieving as much information as possible about a specific topic in any order, without retrieval cues.

Serial recall

The retrieval of information in a specific sequence without retrieval cues.

Cued recall

The retrieval of information from memory with the aid of retrieval cues.

Recognition

The ability to identify previously stored information by matching current stimuli with stored memories.

Relearning

Reacquiring knowledge or skills that were previously learned but have since been partially forgotten.

Craik and Lokhart’s levels of processing model of memory (1972)

A model proposing that memory traces are consequential products of cognitive processing, where the ease of retrieval from long-term memory depends on processing depth along a shallow-to-deep continuum.

Cognitive processing

Memory formation that involves analysing and transforming sensory information.

Shallow processing

Processing that involves encoding sensory information based on appearance or physical features (structural encoding) or phonemic encoding, using maintenance rehearsal and resulting in memory traces that are difficult to retrieve.

Deep Processing

Processing where elaborate rehearsal encodes information semantically by attaching meaning or linking it to prior knowledge, forming distinctive and more readily retrievable memory traces.