Memory Vocab Quiz

Memory

The mental capacity or faculty of retaining and reviving facts, events, impressions, etc., or of recalling or recognizing previous experiences.

Encoding

Processing of information into the memory system- for example, extracting meaning

Automatic processing

Unconscious encoding of incidental information, such as space, time, and frequency

Effortful processing

Encoding that requires attention conscious effort

Maintenance Rehearsal

The process of repeatedly verbalizing or thinking about a piece of information.

Elaborative Rehearsal

A memory technique that involves thinking about the meaning of the term to be remembered, as opposed to simply repeating the word to yourself over and over.

Spacing effect

Tendency for distributed study or practice to yield better long-term retention than is achieved through massed study or practice

Primacy effect

This is the tendency for the first items presented in a series to be remembered better or more easily..

Serial position effect

Our tendency to recall best the last and first items in a list, also called the Primacy-Recency effect.

Visual encoding

Encoding of picture images

Acoustic encoding

Encoding of sound, especially the sound of words

Semantic encoding

Encoding of meaning, including the meaning of words

Imagery

Mental pictures; powerful aid to effortful processing

Rehearsal

Conscious repetition of information, either to maintain it in consciousness or to encode it for storage

Mnemonics

Memory aids; like vivid imagery

Chunking

Organizing items into familiar, manageable units; often occurs automatically

Self reference effect

Ways in which the information has personal meaning

Hierarchal encoding

Organizing information into set and subsets.

Storage

The ways in which we hold information in our brains

Flashbulb memory

Clear memory of an emotionally significant moment or event

Sensory memory

The immediate, very brief recording of sensory information in the memory system

Iconic memory

Momentary sensory memory of visual stimuli

Echoic memory

Momentary sensory memory of auditory stimuli; sounds can be recalled within 3 or 4 seconds

Short-term memory or Working memory

Activated memory that holds a few items briefly, such as the seven digits of a phone number while dialing

Long-term memory

Relatively permanent and limitless storehouse of the memory system

Long term potentiation

A persistent strengthening of synapses based on activity that produces a long-lasting increase in signal transmission between two neurons.

Parallel Processing

The processing of many aspects of a problem simultaneously; the brain's natural mode of information processing for many functions, doing many things at once

Implicit memory or Procedural memory

Retention independent of conscious recollection

Explicit memory or Declarative Memory

Memory of facts and experiences that one can consciously know and "declare"

Hippocampus

Neural center that is located in limbic system and helps process explicit memories for storage

Retrieval

Process of getting information out of memory storage

Recall

Measure of memory in which the person must retrieve information learned earlier

Recognition

Measure of memory in which the person need only identify items previously learned

Relearning

Memory measure that assesses the amount of time saved when learning material for a second time

Herman Ebbinghaus

German psychologist who pioneered the experimental study of memory, and is known for his discovery of the forgetting curve and the spacing effect. He was also the first person to describe the learning curve.

Priming

Activation, often unconsciously, of particular associations in memory

Deja vu

That eerie sense that "I've experienced this before"

Mood-congruent memory

Tendency to recall experiences that are consistent with one's current good or bad mood

State-dependent memory

Learning that takes place in one situation or "state" is generally better remembered later in a similar situation or state.

Episodic memory

A category of long-term memory that involves the recollection of specific events, situations and experiences.

Forgetting

The loss of a previously held memory due to transience or disuse.

Amnesia

Loss of memory

Proactive interference

Disruptive effect of prior learning on the recall of new information

Retroactive interference

Disruptive effect of new learning on the recall of old information

Repression

In psychoanalytic theory, the basic defense mechanism that banishes from consciousness anxiety-arousing thoughts, feelings, and memories

Elizabeth Loftus

She is an American psychologist and expert on human memory. She has conducted extensive research on the misinformation effect and the nature of false memories.

Misinformation effect

Incorporating misleading information into one's memory of an event

Source amnesia

Attributing to the wrong source an event we have experienced, heard about, read about, or imagined