Cognilearning Exam, Memory

Jeremiah Sullins, Harding Univ.

What was George Miller’s “Magical #7” and why was it controversial during its day?

• People can remember about seven items in their working memory at a time

• Controversial since he suggested that people engaged in internal mental processes to “chunk” information to make it more manageable, but it went against more popular behaviorist ideas

What is Maintenance Rehearsal (AKA rote memorization)?

Repeating something over and over until it’s no longer needed

What’s the serial position effect used for and two factors related to it?

Used to measure the size of short-term memory

• Primacy effect: items at the beginning of a list are more easily remembered

• Recency effect: items at the end of a list are more easily remembered

What can impact short term memory negatively (2)?

• Length of stimuli (too many decreases effectiveness of STM)

• Proactive interference (similar stimuli competes with each other)

What is Baddeley’s model of working memory?

Central Executive is connected to:

• Visuospatial Sketchpad

• Episodic Buffer

• Phonological Loop

All three of those contribute and can deposit into Long-Term Memory

What are the three types of LTM and description of each?

Episodic Memory: focuses on memories or events that have happened to you

Semantic Memory: describes your organized knowledge about the world

Procedural Memory: refers to your knowledge of how to do something

What is levels of processing?

Deep and meaningful kinds of information processing lead to more permanent retention than shallow sensory kinds of processing

What is the effect of self-reference?

You’ll remember more if you relate information to yourself personally

What is Encoding Specificity?

Recall is better if the retrieval context is similar to the encoding context

• Studying in the same room you take an exam in

What’s the effect of emotions on memory?

More accurate recall if stimuli is associated with pleasant memory rather than violent or negative memory

What’s the Pollyanna Principle about?

Memories tend to become more positive with the passage of time

What’s the effect of mood on memory?

You recall material more accurately if it is congruent with your current mood

Difference between anterograde and retrograde amnesia?

• Anterograde: Inability to form new memories

• Retrograde: Loss of memories prior to brain injury

Relationship between expertise and memory?

The more time and effort you put into something, the more consistently exceptional performance you’ll have in that area

What’s own-race bias?

People are generally more accurate in identifying members of their own ethnic group compared to members of another

What’s the impact of retroactive interference on memory?

Construed or false memories can be built off of inaccurate or conflicting data about past events

What is the post-event misinformation effect?

People that view an event and are given misleading information about the event will recall the misleading information rather than the actual event

Why do we make mistakes in eyewitness testimony (4)?

Errors more likely if…

• …there’s a long delay between event and the time of testimony

• …misinformation is plausible enough

• …there is social pressure

• …there has been positive feedback

What’s the total-time hypothesis?

The amount you learn is dependent on the amount of time you dedicate to learning

What’s the keyword method in learning language?

Identify an English ‘keyword’ that sounds similar to the word you’re trying to learn

What’s the Method of Loci?

Associate the items to be learned with a series of visual images of physical locations (mind palace)

Benefit of using a hierarchy technique in memorization?

You deeply process the material which makes retrieval much easier since the information is meaningful (chunking)

What is prospective memory?

Remembering something you’ll need to do in the future

What’s the Distributed Practice Effect?

You’ll remember more if you spread out your learning trials over time (spaced learning)

What is mnemonics?

Any technique or memory device that helps you learn information through linking it to other data