Unit Four – Intro to Psychology: Memory and Cognition

A comprehensive vocabulary review of key memory, cognition, and language terms from Unit Four of Introduction to Psychology.

Amnesia

A deficit in long term memory in which the individual loses the ability to retrieve memories.

Cognition

All the mental activities associated with thinking, knowing, remembering and communicating.

Concept

A mental grouping of similar objects, events, ideas, or people.

Prototype

A mental image or best example of a concept.

Effortful Processing

Encoding that requires attention and conscious effort.

Language

Our spoken, written, or signed words and the ways we combine them to communicate meaning.

Phoneme

The smallest units of distinctive sound in language.

Morpheme

The smallest unit of meaning in a language; usually these are suffixes and prefixes.

Grammar

The rules for using words, including the meanings, connotations, and syntax (how the order of words makes meaning).

Syntax

How the order of words makes meaning.

Mechanics

Rules that govern written language.

Pragmatics

Unwritten rules about what language is appropriate to use at particular times.

Aphasia

Impairment of language, usually caused by left hemisphere damage either to Broca’s area or Wernicke’s area.

Broca's area

An area of the left hemisphere of the brain where damage impairs speaking.

Wernicke's area

An area of the left hemisphere of the brain where damage impairs an individual’s understanding of language.

Memory

The persistence of learning over time through the storage and retrieval of information and skills.

Encoding

The process of getting information into our memory system so that it can be stored.

Storage

The process of retaining encoded information over time.

Retrieval

The process of getting information out of our long-term memory.

Implicit Memory

Memories of procedures or classically conditioned responses, which occurs independent of conscious recollection.

Explicit Memory

Memories of facts and experiences that one can consciously know and recall.

Recall

A measure of memory in which the person must retrieve information learned earlier in the exact way it was encoded.

Recognition

A measure of memory in which the person identifies items previously learned.

Relearning

A measure of memory that assesses the amount of time saved when learning material again.

Testing Effect

Long-term memory retention is significantly enhanced by actively recalling information through testing, rather than passively re-studying it.