condensed chapter 5

Alzheimer’s disease

A disease of older adults that causes dementia as well as progressive memory loss.

Amnesia

Severe loss of explicit memory.

Anterograde amnesia

The inability to remember events that occur after a traumatic event.

Central executive

Allocates attention within working memory.

Episodic buffer

Explains how we integrate information in working memory, long-term memory, the visuospatial sketchpad, and the phonological loop.

Episodic memory

Stores personally experienced events or episodes.

Explicit memory

In which participants engage in conscious recollection.

Hypermnesia

A process of producing retrieval of memories that would seem to have been forgotten.

Hypothetical constructs

Concepts that are not themselves directly measurable or observable but that serve as mental models for understanding how a psychological phenomenon works.

Iconic store

A discrete visual sensory register that holds information for very short periods.

Implicit memory

In which we use information from memory but are not consciously aware that we are doing so.

Infantile amnesia

The inability to recall events that happened when we were very young.

Levels-of-processing (LOP) framework

Suggests that memory does not comprise three or even any specific number of separate stores, but rather it varies along a continuous dimension in terms of depth of encoding.

Long-term store

Capable of very large capacity and of storing information for very long periods, perhaps even indefinitely.

Memory

The means by which we retain and draw on information from our past experiences to use in the present.

Mnemonist

Someone who demonstrates extraordinarily keen memory ability, usually based on using special techniques for memory enhancement.

Phonological loop

Briefly stores mainly verbal information for verbal comprehension and for acoustic rehearsal.

Prime

A node that activates a connected node.

Priming effect

The resulting activation of the node.

Recall

You produce a fact, a word, or other item from memory.

Recognition

You select or identify an item as being one that you have been exposed to previously.

Retrograde amnesia

In which individuals lose their purposeful memory for events before whatever trauma induces memory loss.

Semantic memory

Stores general world knowledge.

Sensory store

Capable of storing relatively limited amounts of information for very brief periods.

Short-term store

Capable of storing information for somewhat longer periods but of relatively limited capacity as well.

Visuospatial sketchpad

Briefly holds some visual images, as when you picture the way your best friend looks or when you work on a puzzle.

Working memory

Holds only the most recently activated, or conscious, portion of long-term memory, and it moves these activated elements into and out of brief, temporary memory storage.