PSYC 144 - UC San Diego - Midterm One

Reductionism

The view that all scientific explanations should aim to be based on a lower level of analysis: Psychology in terms of physiology,

physiology in terms of chemistry, and chemistry in terms of physics.

Verbal Learning

A term applied to an approach to memory that relies principally on the learning of lists of words and nonsense syllables.

Gestalt Psychology

An approach to psychology that was strong in Germany in the 1930s and that attempted to use perceptual principles to

understand memory and reasoning.

Schema

Proposed by Bartlett to explain how our knowledge of the world is structured and influences the way in which new information is stored and subsequently recalled.

Model

A method of expressing a theory more precisely, allowing predictions to be made and tested.

Memory

The process by which we encode, store, and retrieve information.

Modal Model

A term applied to the model of memory developed by Atkinson and Shiffrin (1968).

Sensory Memory

A term applied to the brief storage of information within a specific modality.

Iconic Memory

A term applied to the brief storage of visual information.

Masking

A process by which the perception and/or storage of a stimulus is influenced by events occurring immediately before presentation or more commonly after.

Echoic Memory

A term sometimes applied to auditory sensory memory.

Short-term Memory (STM)

A term applied to the retention of small amounts of material over periods of a few seconds.

Working Memory

A memory system that underpins our capacity to "keep things in mind" when performing complex tasks.

Long-term Memory

A system or systems assumed to underpin the capacity to store information over long periods of time.

Explicit/Declarative Memory

Memory that is open to intentional retrieval, whether based on

recollecting personal events (episodic memory) or facts (semantic memory).

Implicit/Nondeclarative Memory

Retrieval of information from long-term memory through

performance rather than explicit conscious recall or recognition.

Semantic Memory

A system that is assumed to store accumulative knowledge of the world.

Episodic Memory

A system that is assumed to underpin the capacity to remember specific events.

Mental Time Travel

A term coined by Tulving to emphasize the way in which episodic memory allows us to relive the past and use this

information to imagine the future.

Classical Conditioning

A learning procedure whereby a neutral stimulus that is paired repeatedly with a response-evoking stimulus, will come to evoke that response.

Priming

The process whereby presentation of an item influences the processing of a subsequent item, either making it easier to process or more difficult.

Digit Span

Maximum number of sequentially presented digits that can reliably be recalled in the correct order.

Working Memory Span

Term applied to a range of complex memory span tasks in which simultaneous storage and processing is required.

Chunking

The process of combining a number of items into a single chunk typically on the basis of long-term memory.

Phonological Loop

Term applied by Baddeley and Hitch to the component of their model responsible for the temporary storage of speechlike information.

Phonological Similarity Effect

A tendency for immediate serial recall of verbal material to be

reduced, when the items are similar in sound.

Articulatory Suppression

A technique for disrupting verbal rehearsal by requiring participants to continuously repeat a spoken item.

Word Length Effect

A tendency for verbal memory span to decrease when longer words are used.

Irrelevant Sound Effect

A tendency for verbal STM to be disrupted by concurrent fluctuating sounds, including both speech and music.

Free Recall

A method whereby participants are presented with a sequence of items which they are subsequently required to recall in any order they wish.

Recency Effect

A tendency for the last few items in a list to be well recalled.

Primacy Effect

A tendency for the first few items in a sequence to be better recalled than most of the following items.

Long-term Recency

A tendency for the last few items to be well recalled under conditions of long-term memory.

Corsi Blocking Tapping

Visuo-spatial counterpart to digit span involving an array of blocks that the tester taps in a sequence and the patient attempts to copy.

Visuo-spatial STM

Retention of visual and/or spatial information over brief periods of time.

Levels of Processing

The theory proposed by Craik and Lockhart that asserts that items that are more deeply processed will be better remembered.

Visuo-Spatial Sketchpad

A component of the Baddeley and Hitch model that is assumed to be responsible for the temporary maintenance of

visual and spatial information.

Semantic Coding

Processing an item in terms of its meaning, hence relating it to other information in long-term memory.

Nonword-repetition Test

A test whereby participants hear and attempt to repeat back nonwords that gradually increase in length.

Immersion Method

A strategy for foreign language teaching whereby the learner is placed in an environment where only the foreign language

is used.

Supervisory attentional system (SAS)

A component of the model proposed by Norman and Shallice to account for the attentional control of action.

Confabulation

Recollection of something that did not happen.

Episodic buffer

A component of the Baddeley and Hitch model of working memory model that assumes a multidimensional code, allowing the various subcomponents of working memory to interact with long-term memory.

Binding

Term used to refer to the linking of features into objects, or of events into coherent episodes.

Working Memory Capacity

An assessment of how much information can be processed and stored at the same time.

Inhibition

A general term applied to mechanisms that suppress other activities.

Resource sharing

Use of limited attentional capacity to maintain two or more simultaneous activities.

Task switching

A process whereby a limited capacity system maintains activity on two or more tasks by switching between them.

Spatial working memory

System involved in temporarily retaining information regarding spatial location.

Object memory

System that temporarily retains information concerning visual features such as color and shape.

Dual-coding hypothesis

Highly imageable words are easy to learn because they can be encoded both visually and verbally.

Depth of processing

The proposal by Craik and Lockhart that the more deeply an event is processed, the better later episodic memory will be.

Transfer-appropriate processing (TAP)

Proposal that retention is best when the mode of encoding and mode of retrieval are the same.

Incidental learning

Learning situation in which the learner is unaware that a test will occur.

Intentional learning

Learning when the learner knows that there will be a test of retention.

Maintenance rehearsal

A process of rehearsal whereby items are "kept in mind" but not processed more deeply.

Elaborative rehearsal

Process whereby items are not simply kept in mind but are processed either more deeply or more elaborately.

Integration

The process of linking new information to pre-existing knowledge structures, such as prior schemas, concepts, and events.

Subjective organization

A strategy whereby a learner attempts to organize unstructured material so as to enhance learning.

Episodic sequence learning

The ability to represent the temporal sequence of occurrences within a larger event.

Place cells

Neurons in the hippocampus that respond whenever an animal or person is in a particular location in a particular environment.

Time cells

Neurons in the hippocampus that code for particular moments in time in a temporal sequence.

Spatio-temporal context

The particular place and time of an event, with spatial information about an environment contributing to specifying where something happened, and temporal information contributing to encoding when it happened.

Multimodal representation

A representation that draws together inputs from many different sensory modalities, such as vision, hearing, touch, taste, and smell.

Cortical reinstatement

The reactivation of sensory memory traces stored by neurons within individual cortical modulates, by virtue of back- projections from the hippocampus that activate the constituent parts of a memory, reinstating the original experience.

Systems consolidation

The process wherein a newly formed episodic memory gradually becomes integrated into the fabric of long-term memory, becoming more stable and durable in the process.

Offline processing

A process whereby the hippocampus, either during sleep, or in periods of quiet rest, periodically reinstates recent memories and knowledge in cortex, putatively by a process of hippocampal replay that drives neocortical activation of the elements of an event.

Ventromedial prefrontal cortex

A portion of the prefrontal cortex located along the midline of the brain, lower in the prefrontal cortex, thought to play an instrumental role in the integration of recent episodic experiences with well-consolidated background knowledge and schemas.

Retrieval

The process of recovering a target memory based on one or more cues, subsequently bringing that target into awareness.

Activation level

The variable internal state of a memory trace that contributes to its accessibility at a given point.

Features

Elementary components from which a complex memory can be assembled, including perceptual aspects such as color and object shapes, as well as higher level conceptual elements.

Pattern completion

The process whereby presenting a subset of features that represent a memory spreads activation to the remaining feature units representing that memory, completing the pattern of activity necessary to retrieve it.

Cue-specification

When intentionally retrieving a target memory, the control processes by which one specifies the nature of the target and any contextual features that may constrain retrieval, and establishes these as cues to guide search.

Cue-maintenance

When intentionally retrieving a target memory, the process of sustaining cues in working memory to guide search.

Interference resolution processes

When trying to recall a particular target memory, control processes that help to resolve interference from competing memories coactivated by the cues guiding retrieval.

Post-retrieval monitoring

During intentional retrieval, the processes by which one evaluates the products of memory search, to determine whether the retrieved trace is what we seek.

Encoding specificity principle

The more similar the cues available at retrieval are to the conditions present at encoding, the more effective the cues will be.

Retrieval mode

The cognitive set, or frame of mind, that orients a person towards the act of retrieval, ensuring that stimuli are interpreted as retrieval cues.

Context cues

Retrieval cues that specify aspects of the conditions under which a desired target was encoded, including the location and time of the event.

Direct/explicit memory tests

Any of a variety of memory assessments that overtly prompt participants to retrieve past events.

Repetition suppression

Reduced neural activity in brain regions that respond to a particular stimulus arising upon repetitions of that stimulus, often taken to reflect increased processing efficiency arising due to a stored memory trace.

Context-dependent memory

The finding that memory benefits when the spatio-temporal, mood, physiological, or cognitive context at retrieval matches that present at encoding.

Mood-congruent memory

Bias in the recall of memories such that negative mood makes negative memories more readily available than positive, and vice versa.

Mood-dependent memory

A form of context- dependent effect whereby what is learnt in a given mood, whether positive, negative or neutral, is best recalled in that mood.

Reconstructive memory

An active and inferential process of retrieval whereby gaps in memory are filled-in based on prior experience, logic, and goals.

Recognition memory

A person's ability to correctly decide whether they have encountered a stimulus previously in a particular context.

Signal detection theory

A model of recognition memory that posits that memory targets (signals) and lures (noise) on a recognition test possess an attribute known as strength or familiarity, which occurs in a graded fashion, with previously encountered items generally possessing more strength than novel items.

Familiarity-based recognition

A fast, automatic recognition process based on the perception of a memory's strength.

Recollection

The slower, more attention-demanding component of recognition memory in dual-process models, which involves retrieval of contextual information about the memory.

Dual-process theories of recognition

A class of recognition models that assumes that recognition memory judgments can be based on two independent forms of retrieval process: recollection and familiarity.

Remember/know procedure

A procedure used on recognition memory tests to separate the influences of familiarity and recollection on recognition performance.

Process dissociation procedure (PDP)

A technique for parceling out the contributions of recollection and familiarity within a recognition task

Source monitoring

The process of examining the contextual origins of a memory in order to determine whether it was encoded from a particular source.

Source misattribution error

When deciding the source of information in memory, sometimes people make errors and misattribute their recollection from one source to another.

Reality monitoring

Using source monitoring processes to decide whether a piece of information in memory referred to a real event or instead to something imagined.

Reality orientation training (ROT)

A method of treating patients in the latter stages of dementia who have lost their orientation in time and place.

Reminiscence therapy

A method of helping dementia patients cope with their growing amnesia by using photographs and other reminders of their past life.

Anterograde amnesia

A problem in encoding, storing, or retrieving information that can be used in the future.

Retrograde amnesia

A problem accessing events that happened in the past.

Personal semantic memory

Factual knowledge about one's own past.