Long-term Memory Structure

Short-term Memory (STM)

Active contents of memory with a limited duration; 20-30 seconds; 7 ± 2; sound based confusion

Long-term Memory (LTM)

Memory that is no longer active and is retrieved later; seconds to years; limitless; meaning based confusion

Serial Position Effect

phenomenon where items at the beginning and end of a list are remembered better than those in the middle

Primacy Effect

tendency to remember the first few items better due to more rehearsal; more likely to get to LTM.

Recency Effect

The tendency to remember the last items of a list that are still active in STM; fresh

Amnesiac Patients

Individuals with memory deficits, particularly in forming new long-term memories (anterograde amnesia) or recalling past memories (retrograde amnesia).

Explicit Memory

A type of memory that is declarative, conscious, and intentional.

Implicit Memory

A type of memory that occurs without explicit awareness or deliberate retrieval.

Retrograde Amnesia

Inability to remember events prior to brain damage.

Anterograde Amnesia

Inability to form new memories after brain damage.

H.M. (Henry Molaison)

had hippocampus removed & could not form new LTM; still had STM and LTM from pre-op, showing they are separate processes

Clive Wearing

infection damaged hippocampus, intact STM and old LTM but couldn’t form new LTM, showing separation of STM/LTM

Jimmie G

Korsakoff’s syndrome caused anterograde amnesia

Levels of Processing

A concept suggesting that deeper processing leads to better retention of information.

K.F.

Parietal lobe damage caused reduced STM capacity and recency effect but normal function of LTM

Population Dissociation

Different individuals show opposite impairments, showing separation of cognitive functions and their associated brain structures

Episodic Memory

type of explicit LTM that allows individuals to consciously recall specific personal experiences, events, and situations from their past

Semantic Memory

type of explicit LTM responsible for storing general world knowledge, including facts, concepts, meanings, and language, independent of personal experience

Priming

phenomenon in which exposure to one stimulus influences how a person responds to a subsequent, related stimulus

Procedural Memory

type of implicit LTM responsible for knowing how to perform tasks, habits, and motor skills automatically

Conditioning

form of implicit memory, storing learned associations automatically without conscious effort

what did Warrington and Weiskrantz (1970) study?

They studied whether amnesic patients could still show learning or memory without consciously remembering the information using word-stem completion tasks.

What did Warrington and Weiskrantz find?

Amnesic patients showed impaired explicit memory but intact implicit memory, while healthy controls performed well on both; demonstrating a population dissociation between explicit and implicit memory systems

Direct Test of Memory

asked to consciously recall a specific event or previously learned information EX: remembering/recalling a word list

Indirect Test of Memory

measures the retention of information without requiring conscious recollection of a previous experience (implicit memory) EX: word-stem completion

What did Jacoby and Dallas (1981) study?

whether explicit and implicit memory operate as separate systems by using recognition tests (explicit) & word identification tasks with priming (implicit)

What did Jacoby and Dallas (1981) find?

Recognition (explicit) decreased over time & priming in word identification (implicit) remained stable, showing the two types of memory function independently