Exam 3 Psych

Memory

Memory

Refers to the capacity to retain and retrieve information, and also to the structures that account for this capacity.

Source misattribution

The inability to distinguish an actual memory of an event from information you learned about the event elsewhere.

Flashbulb Memories

Some unusual, shocking, or tragic events hold a special place in our long-term memory (permanent memory). It is never 100% accurate as it tends to have errors. 

Confabulation

confusion of an event that happened to someone else with one that happened to you. A belief that you remember something when it never actually happened.

Explicit Memory

Consciously trying to recall or recognize information?.

Recall

The ability to retrieve and reproduce from memory previously learned material.

Recognition

The ability to identify previously encounter material.

Sensory

huge capacity but extremely brief. Visual sensory register has a duration of about a about ½ a second and a large capacity.

Short term

Duration is pretty brief and about 30 seconds and capacity 7 +/- 2.  

Long term

a capacity that is unlimited and duration is permeant. 

Declarative Memory

“knowing that/what”, Memories of facts, ideas, concepts, and events. Ex. Knowing who's the president. 

Procedural Memory

“knowing how”, it’s in your muscle memory. ex. Texting without looking at your phone. 

Semantic Memory:

“general knowledge”General knowledge, including facts, rules, concepts and propositions.  

Episodic Memory

“personal recollections” Events that are specific to you. Think episode specific to you. 

Serial Position Effect

The tendency for recall of first and last item on a list to surpass recall of items in the middle of the list. – recency and primacy

Maintenance Rehearsal

is the rote repetitions of information in order to maintain its ability in memory. (least effective ) 

Elaborative Rehearsal

Take new information and link it to old information we already know. 

Deep Processing

In the encoding of information, the processing of meaning rather than simply the physical or sensory features of a stimulus. 

Mnemonics

Strategies and tricks for improving memory, such as the use of a verse of a formula. 

Interference retroactive:

When previous learned material interferes with the ability to remember similar material stored recently. (recent)

Interference Proactive

When recent learned material interferes with the ability to remember similar more recent material stored previously. (previous)

Replacement

when new memories replace old/existing memory. 

Decay Theory

The theory that information in memory eventually disappears but we still have access to it. 

Personality

Distinctive and relatively stable patterns of behavior, thoughts, motives, and emotions that characterizes an indiv. 

Objective Tests (inventories)

Standardized questionnaires requiring written responses; they typically include scales on which people are asked to rate themselves. (Considered to be more scientific, have more reliability.) 

Projective test – and unconscious influences

such as the ink-blot test, are based on the assumption that the test-taker will transfer or project unconscious conflicts and motives onto the ambiguous stimuli. 

Objective vs. Projective - which is more reliable?

OBJECTIVE TEST!!

Gordon Allport and central traits (5 to 10):

Gordon Allport claimed most of us have five -ten central traits reflecting a distinctive way of behaving, dealing with others, and reacting to new situations. 

The Big Five

Which decreases by age 30? 

People tend to become less extroverted and less open to new 
experiences. 

Raymond Cattle and factor analysis 

A statistical method for analyzing the interconnections among various measures or test scores; clusters of measures or scores that are highly correlated are assumed to measure the same underlying trait or ability. 

Psychodynamic theory

Theories that explain behavior and personality in terms of unconscious energy dynamics within the indiv. 

Popular culture

(I forgot to look for it….)

Id

is present at birth and is the only structure present at birth. Rely solely on the conscious and is rational.  (Pleasure principle) 

Ego

second year at life and the child is now told to wait. To help deal with the buildup of tension until it can be dealt with. Only rational structure. (Reality principle)

Superego

Last structure to develop and the moral code your parents teach you. (Morality principle)

Defense Mechanisms (7)

They are necessary, are adaptative, always active, operate almost always in unconscious level, use more then one at any given time. 

Repression

A threatening idea, memory, or emotion is blocked from consciousness (e.g., childhood sexual abuse).

Projection

Unacceptable or threatening feelings are repressed then attributed to Someone else.

 Displacement

occurs when people direct their emotions (usually anger) toward  things, animals, or other people who are not the real objects of their feelings. (e.g., a boy who is forbidden to direct anger at his father may take it out on his little sister or at school).  

Reaction Formation

Occurs when a feeling that produces unconscious anxiety is 
transformed into its opposite in consciousness. (e.g., a woman who fears her husband may believe that she is madly in love with him).  

Regression

occurs when a person reverts to a previous phase of psychological development. (e.g., a child entering a new and larger school may revert to an earlier stage and start sucking his/her thumb or wetting the bed). 

Denial

occurs when people refuse to admit that something unpleasant is 
happening (e.g., domestic violence, drug and alcohol abuse, sex abuse). Denial protects the self-image. 

Sublimation

An unacceptable urge/impulse is satisfied by an acceptable 
behavior. (e.g., Someone with very aggressive urges might become a boxer or perhaps a surgeon). 

Oral (sod)

First year of life (infancy); babies experience the world through their mouths to get pleasure. 

Anal (sod)

Ages 2-3 (toddler); Toilet training and control of bodily waste are 
the key issues. 

Phallic (sod)

Ages 3-6 (pre-school); The most important stage, 
according to Freud. The child unconsciously wishes to possess the opposite sex parent and reject the same-sex parent (as a rival). 

Latency (sod)

Between ages 5-6 to puberty

Genital (sod)

At puberty, the child enters the Genital Stage. Curious about sex, and the genitals are the main focus of pleasure (sex and masturbation). 

Oedipal complex

“Couldnt find it but we need to know….“

Encoding, storage, retrieval?

“Couldnt find it but we need to know….“