PSY 200 - Exam 3 - Swisher, Purdue

Amnesia

a condition caused by brain damage in which there is severe impairment of long-term memory (mostly declarative memory)

Korsakoff’s Syndrome

amnesia caused by chronic alcoholism and thiamine vitamin deficiency

Anterograde Amnesia

reduced capacity for new learning after the onset of amnesia

Retrograde Amnesia

difficulty remembering events that happened before the onset of amnesia

Henry Molaison (HM)

had his hippocampus removed and developed anterograde amnesia, but he was still capable of learning procedural tasks and improving on those tasks

Declarative Memory

a form of long-term memory that involves knowing something is the case; it involves conscious recollection and memory for facts (semantic memory) and events (episodic memory); sometimes known as explicit memory

Non-Declarative Memory

forms of long-term memory that influence behavior but do not involve conscious recollection; also known as implicit memory

Procedural Memory

memory concerned with knowing how; includes the knowledge required to perform skilled actions

Priming

facilitating the processing of (and response) to a target stimulus by presenting a stimulus related to it shortly beforehand

Repetition Priming

the finding that processing of a stimulus is facilitated if it has been processed previously

Episodic Memory

a form of long-term memory concerned with personal experiences or episodes occurring in a given place at a specific time

Semantic Memory

a form of long-term memory consisting of general knowledge about the world, concepts, language and so on

Semantic Dementia

a condition involving damage to the anterior temporal lobes involving widespread loss of information about the meanings of words and concepts; however, episodic memory and executive functioning are reasonably intact initially

Kent Cochrane (KC)

lost hippocampus in a motorcycle accident, developed anterograde amnesia and partial retrograde amnesia (trouble recalling episodic memories); remembered how to fix motorcycles, meaning intact semantic memory

Semanticization

when episodic memories change into semantic memories over time

Consolidation Theory (vs. Alternative Theory)

episodic memories are consolidated over time in hippocampus, but stored elsewhere to protect them

Alternative Theory (vs. Consolidation Theory)

episodic memories become more like semantic memories over time; remote semantic memories formed before onset of amnesia are intact but forgotten

Free Recall

a test of episodic memory in which previously presented to-be-remembered items are recalled in any order

Serial Recall

a test of episodic memory in which previously presented to-be-remembered items must be recalled in the order of presentation

Cued Recall

a test of episodic memory in which previously presented to-be-remembered items are recalled in response to relevant cues

Concepts

mental representations of categories of objects or items

Category-Specific Deficits

disorders caused by brain damage in which semantic memory is disrupted for certain semantic categories

Hub-and-Spoke Model of Conceptual Processing

gives conceptual coherence and integration of sensory and motor processing; hub: general representation of a concept independent of its specific features; spokes: specific to each modality, facilitate actions with the world

Schema

an organized packet of information about the world, events, or people, stored in long-term memory

Script

a form of schema containing information about a sequence of events

Concepts - Superordinate Categories

general, broad category with several lower levels, generally abstract

Concepts - Basic-Level or Natural Categories

subdivision of superordinate category; everyday items and experiences

Concepts - Subordinate Categories

subdivision of basic-level categories; similarity to other members of the category

Barsalou’s Situated Simulation Theory

process concepts in isolation and in context; representations of an item vary across contexts; the perceptual and motor (or action) systems are involved in concept processing

Polymorphous Concept

typically characterizes natural objects that individually have different combinations of the necessary and sufficient features that define the conceptual class

Perceptual Priming

a form of priming in which repeated presentations of a stimulus facilitates its perceptual processing

Conceptual Priming

a form of priming in which there is facilitated processing of stimulus meaning

Repetition Suppression

the finding that stimulus repetition often leads to reduced brain activity; typically with enhanced performance via priming

Repetition Enhancement

the finding that stimulus repetition sometimes leads to increased brain activity

Synchrony Model

describes how repetition suppression is associated with priming effects: repeated stimuli cause brain cells to fire at lower rates, because of this they fire more synchronously with one another, this enhanced synchrony leads to more efficient neural processing