Memory Research: Serial Position, MSM, and HM (Glanzer & Cunitz)

Vocabulary-style flashcards covering key concepts from serial position effects, the MSM, and the HM case study, including related memory types and brain areas.

Serial position effect

The pattern where recall varies with an item's position in a study list, typically showing primacy and recency effects.

Primacy effect

Better recall for items at the beginning of a list, attributed to transfer into long-term memory.

Recency effect

Better recall for items at the end of a list, attributed to retrieval from short-term memory.

Short-Term Memory (STM)

A temporary memory store with limited capacity (about 5–9 items) and short duration, involved in immediate recall.

Long-Term Memory (LTM)

Memory store with large or unlimited capacity and duration; information is transferred from STM through rehearsal.

Multi-Store Model (MSM)

Atkinson & Shiffrin’s model proposing separate memory stores: sensory memory, STM, and LTM, with transfers between them.

Displacement

Forgetting in STM due to new information pushing out older items.

Rehearsal

Mental repetition that maintains items in STM and facilitates transfer to LTM.

Sensory memory

Initial brief store for sensory information before it moves to STM.

Glanzer & Cunitz (1966)

Researchers who demonstrated primacy and recency effects, providing evidence for distinct STM and LTM stores.

Hippocampus

A brain structure in the medial temporal lobe critical for transferring memories from short-term to long-term memory.

Medial Temporal Lobe

Brain region including the hippocampus; important for organization and storage of memories, not the sole site of permanent storage.

Anterograde amnesia

Inability to form new memories after brain injury; HM’s case is a classic example.

Retrograde amnesia

Loss of memory for events prior to an injury; can diminish over time in some cases.

HM (Henry Molaison)

A famous patient with extensive amnesia due to medial temporal lobe/hippocampal damage; showed preserved working memory and procedural skills but impaired explicit memory.

Procedural memory

Memory for how to perform tasks and skills; often preserved in amnesia.

Semantic memory

Factual knowledge about the world.

Episodic memory

Autobiographical memories of events and experiences.

Prosopagnosia

Inability to recognize faces, typically due to damage to the fusiform gyrus.

Cognitive map

Mental representation of the spatial layout of an environment.

Retrieval

Process of bringing information from LTM back into working memory for use.

Interference

When similar information is recalled incorrectly or disrupts retrieval, affecting accuracy.

Distractor task

A secondary task (e.g., counting backward) used to disrupt rehearsal and study its effect on memory, often reducing recency effects.