Memory and Personality Psychology Review

Comprehensive vocabulary flashcards covering the key terms, mechanisms, and theories of memory systems and personality psychology from the lecture notes.

Memory

The ability to store and retrieve information over time.

Encoding

The process of transforming what we see, think, or feel into an enduring memory (getting it in).

Semantic Encoding

The process of relating new information in a meaningful way to knowledge that is already stored in memory.

Visual Imagery Encoding

The process of storing new information by converting it into mental images, activating visual processing regions in the occipital lobe.

Organizational Encoding

The process of categorizing information according to the relationships among a series of items.

Storage

The process of maintaining information in memory over time (keeping it there).

Sensory Storage

A type of storage that holds sensory information for a few seconds or less; it has a relatively large capacity, short duration, and is veridical (truthful).

Iconic Memory

A fast-decaying store of visual information that usually decays in 1 second or less.

Echoic Memory

A fast-decaying store of auditory information that usually decays in about 5 seconds, possessing a smaller capacity and longer duration than iconic memory.

Short-Term Memory

A type of storage that holds nonsensory information for more than a few seconds but less than a minute (about 15-20 seconds), with a capacity of approximately 7 items.

Rehearsal

The process of keeping information in short-term memory by mentally repeating it.

Serial Position Effect

The observation that the first few items and the last few items in a list are more likely to be recalled than the items in the middle.

Primary Effect

Enhanced recall of the first few items in a list of words, which receive more rehearsals and are more likely to be encoded into long-term memory.

Recency Effect

Enhanced recall of the last few items in a list, resulting from rehearsing items that are still present in short-term storage.

Chunking

Combining small pieces of information into large clusters or chunks that are more easily held in short-term memory.

Long-Term Memory

A type of storage that holds information for hours, days, weeks, or years, with approximately infinite capacity and duration.

Anterograde Amnesia

The inability to transfer new information from the short-term store to the long-term store.

Retrograde Amnesia

The inability to retrieve information that was acquired before a particular date, usually the date of an injury or surgery.

Consolidation

The process by which memories become stable in the brain, allowing new information to become set.

Reconsolidation

A process where memories become vulnerable to disruption when they are recalled, thus requiring them to be consolidated again.

Long-Term Potentiation (LTP)

A process whereby repeated communication across the synapse between neurons strengthens the connection, making further communication easier.

Engram

The enduring physical change in the brain that is produced by a particular experience.

Retrieval

The process of bringing to mind information that has been previously encoded and stored (getting it out).

Retrieval Cue

External information that is associated with stored information and helps bring it to mind.

Encoding Specificity Principle

The principle stating that a retrieval cue can serve as an effective reminder when it helps re-create the specific way in which information was initially encoded.

State-Dependent Retrieval

The process whereby information tends to be better recalled when the person is in the same state during encoding and retrieval.

Transfer-Appropriate Processing

The idea that memory is likely to transfer from one situation to another when the encoding and retrieval contexts match.

Retrieval-Induced Forgetting

A process by which retrieving an item from long-term memory impairs subsequent recall of related items.

Implicit Memory

Memory that occurs when past experiences influence later behavior and performance, even without conscious effort to remember them or awareness of recollection.

Procedural Memory

The gradual acquisition of skills as a result of practice, characterized as "knowing what to do," which does not rely on the hippocampus.

Priming

An enhanced ability to think of a stimulus, such as a word or object, as a result of recent exposure to the stimulus during an earlier study task.

Explicit Memory

Memory that occurs when people consciously or intentionally retrieve past experiences.

Semantic Memory

A network of associated facts and concepts that make up our general knowledge of the world.

Episodic Memory

A collection of past personal experiences that occurred at a particular time and place, used also to envision future experiences.

Collaborative Inhibition

The phenomenon where a collaborative group remembers fewer items when recalling together than if the individuals remembered separately.

Working Memory

The active maintenance of information in short-term storage, defined by the kinds of work being performed rather than capacity and duration.

Visuo-Spatial Sketchpad

A subsystem of working memory responsible for holding and processing visual images.

Phonological Loop

A subsystem of working memory dedicated to holding and manipulating verbal information.

Episodic Buffer

A component of working memory that integrates visual and verbal information from the subsystems.

Central Executive

A component of working memory that coordinates the subsystems and the episodic buffer.

Transience

Forgetting that occurs with the passage of time, characterized by a rapid drop-off early on followed by smaller losses in later years.

Retroactive Interference

Situations in which later learning impairs memory for information acquired earlier.

Proactive Interference

Situations in which earlier learning impairs memory for information acquired later.

Absentmindedness

A lapse in attention that results in memory failure.

Prospective Memory

Remembering to do things in the future.

Blocking

A failure to retrieve information that is available in memory even though you are trying to produce it.

Memory Misattribution

Assigning a recollection or an idea to the wrong source, representing a primary cause of eyewitness misidentifications.

Source Memory

Recall of when, where, and how information was acquired.

Suggestibility

The tendency to incorporate misleading information from external sources into personal recollections.

Bias

The distorting influences of present knowledge, beliefs, and feelings on recollection of previous experiences.

Persistence

The intrusive recollection of events that we wish we could forget.

Flashbulb Memories

Detailed recollections of when and where we heard about shocking events.

Personality

An individual’s characteristic style of behaving, thinking, and feeling.

Self-Report

A process where people provide subjective information about their own thoughts, feelings, or behaviors, typically via questionnaire or interview.

Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI)

A well-researched clinical questionnaire used to assess personality and psychological problems.

Projective Tests

Tests designed to reveal inner aspects of individuals' personalities through analysis of their responses to a standard series of ambiguous stimuli.

Rorschach Inkblot Test

A projective technique in which respondents' inner thoughts and feelings are believed to be revealed by their analysis of a set of unstructured inkblots.

Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)

A projective technique in which respondents' underlying motives, concerns, and view of the social world are revealed through stories they make up about ambiguous pictures of people.

Trait

A relatively stable disposition to behave in a particular and consistent way.

Big Five

The traits of the five-factor personality model: openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism (O.C.E.A.N.).

Behavioral Activation System (BAS)

A 'go' system proposed by Jeffrey Gray that activates approach behavior in response to the anticipation of reward.

Behavioral Inhibition System (BIS)

A 'stop' system proposed by Jeffrey Gray that inhibits behavior in response to stimuli signaling punishment.

Psychodynamic Approach

An approach regarding personality as formed by needs, strivings, and motives largely operating outside of awareness that can produce emotional disorders.

Id

The part of the mind containing drives present at birth, serving as the source of bodily needs, wants, desires, and impulses seeking immediate gratification.

Superego

The mental system reflecting internalized cultural rules, mainly learned as parents exercise authority, punishing wrong behavior and rewarding ideal standards.

Ego

The component of personality developed through contact with the external world that enables an individual to deal with life’s practical demands.

Defense Mechanisms

Unconscious coping mechanisms that reduce the anxiety generated by threats from unacceptable impulses.

Repression

A defense mechanism involving taking a bad experience or unacceptable thought out of one's mind.

Rationalization

A defense mechanism involving providing a reasonable excuse to hide one’s underlying feelings or beliefs.

Reaction Formation

A defense mechanism whereby an individual replaces an unacceptable feeling or impulse with its opposite (e.g., being rude to someone you are attracted to).

Projection

A defense mechanism that involves attributing one’s own unacceptable threats or feelings to others or an entire group.

Regression

A defense mechanism characterized by reverting to immature behavior typical of an earlier developmental stage because it felt more secure.

Displacement

A defense mechanism involving shifting unacceptable wishes or drives toward a neutral or less threatening substitute.

Identification

A defense mechanism where a person takes on the characteristics of another who seems more powerful (e.g., a bullied child becoming a bully).

Sublimation

A defense mechanism involving diverting unacceptable aggressive or sexual drives into socially acceptable and valued activities.

Psychosexual Stages

Distinct early life stages through which personality is formed as children experience sexual pleasures from specific body areas and caregivers redirect those pleasures.

Self-Actualizing Tendency

The human motive toward realizing our inner potential, including the pursuit of knowledge and creative expression.

Flow

A mental state of energized focus created by engagement in tasks that exactly match one’s abilities.

Existential Approach

A school of thought that regards personality as governed by an individual's ongoing choices and decisions in the context of the realities of life and death.

Angst

The anxiety of fully being and confronting the meaning and reality of existence.

Social-Cognitive Approach

An approach that views personality in terms of how a person thinks about situations encountered in daily life and behaves in response to them.

Person-Situation Controversy

The debate focusing on the question of whether behavior is caused more by personality traits or by situational factors.

Personal Constructs

Dimensions people use in making sense of their experiences, introduced by George Kelly.

Outcome Expectancies

A person’s assumptions about the likely consequences of a future behavior, learned through direct experience.

Locus of Control

A person’s tendency to perceive the control of rewards as internal to the self or external in the environment.

Self-Concept

A person’s explicit knowledge of their own behaviors, traits, and other personal characteristics.

Self-Narrative

A story that we tell about ourselves to organize and understand our life experiences.

Self-Verification

The tendency to seek evidence that confirms the self-concept.

Self-Esteem

The extent to which someone likes, values, and accepts themselves.

Self-Serving Bias

The tendency for people to take credit for their successes but downplay responsibility for their failures.

Narcissism

A grandiose view of the self, combined with a tendency to seek admiration from and exploit others.