Lecture Notes

Flashcards for vocabulary terms.

Central Executive

Coordinates the activities of the other components of memory.

Visuospatial Sketchpad

Memory that briefly holds information about objects' appearance and location in space.

Phonological Loop

Memory that briefly holds auditory information.

Encoding

The process of getting information into the brain.

Sensory Memory

Super-short-term recording of information from senses.

Iconic Memory

Fleeting memory of visual information.

Echoic Memory

Fleeting auditory memory.

Short-Term Memory

Memory that holds only a small amount of information; limited capacity; temporary storage.

Long-Term Memories

"Permanent" storage but memories can fade.

Automatic Encoding

Encoding that requires no effort.

Effortful Encoding

Encoding that requires attention.

Structural Encoding

Focuses on what words physically look like; a shallow encoding method.

Phonemic Encoding

Focuses on how words sound.

Semantic Encoding

Focuses on the meaning of words; deepest, most effective way to encode.

Mnemonic Devices

Memory aids, especially if imagery and organization are involved.

Method of Loci

Picturing items or words at certain locations in a familiar place.

Chunking

Divide items or numbers into chunks to make encoding easier.

Spacing Effect

We retain info better when practice is distributed over time vs. massed practice.

Serial Position Effect

The tendency to be more/less likely to recall items based on their position in a list.

Primacy Effect

Tendency to recall first items better than those in the middle.

Recency Effect

Tendency to recall last items.

Elaborative Rehearsal

A memory technique that makes a term to be remembered meaningful.

Maintenance Rehearsal

Practice of saying some information to be remembered over and over to maintain it in short-term memory.

Autobiographical Memory

Memory of your life.

Amnesia

The loss of memory.

Anterograde Amnesia

Inability to encode new memories.

Retrograde Amnesia

Inability to recall past events/memories.

Infantile Amnesia

Inability to recall anything before the age of 3.

Alzheimer's Disease

Causes memory loss by disrupting ACh in the hippocampus.

Retrieval

Getting information back out of the brain.

Recognition

Given possible answers (retrieval cues) and you have to select the correct one.

Recall

You must generate possible solutions and then identify correct answers.

State-Dependent Memory

Recalling events encoded while in a particular state of consciousness better when in that state again.

Mood-Congruent Memory

Recalling events encoded while in a particular mood better when experiencing that mood again.

Context-Dependent Memory

The more closely retrieval cues match the external environment in which the encoding took place, the greater the chance of recalling the information.

Testing Effect

Suggests long-term memory is increased when you test yourself once in a while.

Storage Decay

Memories fade over time.

Encoding Failure

We don't encode everything, we only encode things we pay attention to.

Proactive Interference

Old information interferes and keeps you from recalling information learned more recently.

Retroactive Interference

New information interferes and keeps you from recalling old information.

Tip-of-the-Tongue Phenomenon

Difficulty retrieving stored information.

Repression

Information or memories can be forgotten in order to protect the ego from distress.

Misinformation Effect

Incorporating misleading information into one's memory of an event.

Source Amnesia

Attributing an event or information to the wrong source.

Constructive Memories

Memories and recollections of events are distorted by adding or changing details.

Imagination Inflation

Imagining an event that never happened increases confidence in the memory of the (false) event.

Metacognition

Thinking about one's thinking.

Concept

Mental grouping of similar objects, events, ideas, and people.

Prototype

A mental image or best example of a concept.

Assimilation

Adding new experiences or information to a preexisting schema.

Accommodation

Adjusting a schema to fit new experiences/information.

Algorithm

A problem-solving strategy that tries every possible option until one works.

Heuristic

A simple thinking strategy (rule of thumb, shortcut) that often allows us to make judgments and solve problems efficiently.

Representativeness Heuristic

Judging the likelihood of things in terms of how well they seem to match particular prototypes.

Availability Heuristic

Basing judgments on the availability of information in our memories.

Framing

The way an issue is posed; framing can greatly affect our decisions and judgments.

Priming

Presenting information in a context that encourages a particular interpretation.

Mental Set

Tendency for people to fall into established thought patterns or ways of solving problems using methods that have worked in the past.

Gambler's Fallacy

The belief that the chances of something happening with a fixed probability become higher or lower as the process is repeated.

Sunk-Cost Fallacy

The idea that one must go through with something or continue one's investment even if it is hopeless or detrimental to oneself.

Executive Functions

A set of cognitive processes and mental skills that help an individual plan, monitor, and successfully execute their goals.

Divergent Thinking

Ability to think about many different things at once (creative).

Convergent Thinking

Limits creativity - one way of solving a problem.

Functional Fixedness

The tendency to think of things only in terms of their usual functions.

Memory

An indication that learning has persisted over a period of time through the storage and retrieval of information.

Explicit Memory

Conscious recall.

Episodic Memory

The memory of specific events, stored in a sequential series.

Semantic Memory

General knowledge, facts, and meaning, stored in categories.

Implicit Memory

Without conscious recall, unlimited capacity.

Procedural Memory

Memory of how to perform skills, stored in sequential series.

Prospective Memory

Remembering what you are supposed to do in the future.

Long-Term Potentiation

Neurons strengthen connections between each other through repeated firing; associated with long-term memories.

Working Memory Model

Working memories interact with several components to process information into long-term memories.