Chapter 7 Key Terms

context dependent learning

the environment of which you are learning something in, you have to be in the same environment when recalling what you learned

context reinstatement

mentally recreating the state or environment you were in during learning even when you are in a completely different environment physically during testing

encoding specificity

when learning a piece of information, you aren’t just storing that specific piece of information, you storing the context along with it

nodes

individual units of specific ideas, concepts, or pieces of information

association or associative links

the pathways that link nodes together

activation level

that state of energy of a node at any given moment

response threshold

the activation level a node has to reach before it can fire

sub threshold activation

when the level activation in a node is below the response threshold, doesn’t fire

summation

the combination of two or more separate thresholds so a node can fire

spreading activation

when the activation in one node goes through an association link to a neighboring node

lexical-decision task

being shown letter strings on a screen and having to decide whether the string of letters are real words or not

semantic priming

one word makes it faster and easier to process a related word soon after, the concepts are linked in memory

recall

being able to remember a specific piece of information from memory

recognition

being able to remember a specific piece of information when shown the item itself, recognizing you’ve encountered the exact item before

source memory

recalling the exact context in which you learned something, where, when, or from whom you got the piece of information rather than just the fact itself

familiarity

the feeling you’ve encountered a stimulus before, even if you can’t remember when or where you saw it before

attribution

the process of explaining why something feels familiar

“remember” distinction

you have source memory, you can recollect specific context, where, when, how you experienced it

“know” distinction”

you have the feeling of familiarity (“rings a bell”) confident you’ve seen it before but can’t recall any specific details or context

word stem completion

when you’re given the beginning of a word and have to produce other words with the given beginning

explicit (declarative) memory

conscious intentional recollection of past experiences or facts, purposefully bringing to mind

direct memory testing

being directly asked to remember past events or items

implicit (non declarative) memory

unconscious automatic memory, influences behavior thoughts, or action without you actively trying to remember or realizing you’re using your memory

indirect memory testing

being asked to remember past experiences or items by not being asked directly

illusion of truth

tendency to believe that something is true simply because you’ve heard it before

processing fluency

how fast and efficiently your brain can remember something from memory

amnesia

memory loss from brain damage, illness, or trauma

retrograde amnesia

being unable to recall memories from before accident

anterograde amnesia

being unable to recall memories from after accident

source confusion

when you correctly remember a piece of information but you remember where or how you learned it incorrectly

processing pathway

the sequence of detectors/connections that fires when you perceive, recognize or think about a specific piece of information

Korsakoff’s syndrome

brain disorder due to deficiency of vitamin B1, causes anterograde amnesia, people who have this don’t consciously remember anything after the accident but when asked indirectly they remember unconsciously