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 |