Chap.8: Memory

Memory

Learning that persists over time through the encoding, storage, and retrieval of information

Alzheimer’s Disease

Severely damages the brain and in the process strips away memory

Super-recognizes

Display an extraordinary face-recognition ability

Recall

Retrieving information that is not currently in your conscious awareness but that was learned at an earlier time

Recognition

Identifying items previously learned

Relearning

Learning something more quickly when you learn it a second or later time

Overlearning

Additional rehearsal of verbal information

Encode

Get information into our brain

Storage

Retain the encoded information over time

Retrieval

The process of getting information out of the memory storage

Parallel processing

Processing multiple aspects of a stimulus or problem.

Connectionism

An information processing model, that views memories as products of interconnected neural networks.

Sensory memory

The immediate, very brief recording of sensory information in the memory system

Short term memory

Briefly activated memory of a few items (such as digits of a phone number while calling) that is later stored or forgotten.

Long-term memory

The relatively permanent and limitless archive of the memory system. Includes knowledge, skills and experiences

Working Memory

A stage where short-term memories combine with long-term memories

Explicit(declarative) memories

Facts and experiences we can consciously know and “declare”

Effortful processing

Encoding that requires attention and conscious effort

Automatic processing

Unconscious encoding of incidental information such as space, time, and frequency and a familiar or well learned information, such as sound, smells, and word meanings

Implicit(nondeclarative) memories

Retention of learn skills or classically condition associations, independent of conscious recollection.

Iconic memory

A fleeting sensory memory of visual stimuli; a photographic or picture image memory lasting no more than a few tents of a second

Echoic memory

A momentary sensory memory of auditory stimuli; if attention is elsewhere sounds and words can still be recalled within three or four seconds

Chunking

Organizing items into familiar manageable units; often occurs automatically

Mnemonics

Memory aids, especially those techniques that use vivid imagery and organizational devices.

Spacing effect

The tendency for distributed study or practice to yield better long-term retention than is achieved through massed study or practice

Testing effect

Enhanced memory after retrieving rather than simply rereading information. Also sometimes referred to as a retrieval practice effect or test enhanced learning

Shallow processing

Encodes on an elementary level such as words, letters, or a more intermediate level, a words sound; based on the structure or appearance of words

Deep processing

Encodes semantically, based on the meaning of the words. The deeper (more meaningful) the processing, the better our retention

Self-reference effect

The tendency to remember self-relevant information

Semantic memory

explicit memory of facts or general knowledge

Episodic memory

explicit memory of personally experienced events

Hippocampus

a temporal lobe neural structure located in the limbic system; helps process explicit(conscious) memories

Memory Consolidation

The neural storage of a long-term memory

Cerebellum

Plays a key role in forming and storing implicit memories created by classical conditioning

Basal ganglia

Deep brain structures involved in motor movement, facilitate formation of our procedural memories for skills.

Infantile amnesia

Inability to consciously remember events of the first four years of life

Amygdala

A brain structure involved in processing emotions and is critical for forming emotional memories.

Memory Trace

A lasting physical change as memory forms

Flashbulb memories

A clear memory of an emotionally significant moment or event

Long-term potentiation(LTP)

An increase in nerve cell’s firing potential after brief, rapid stimulation.

Priming

The awakening, often unconsciously, of particular associations in memory

Encoding specificity principle

The idea that cues and contexts specific to a particular memory will be most effective in helping us recall it

Context-dependent memory

Suggests that memory is enhanced when the environment during retrieval matches the environment during encoding.

State-dependent memory

What we learn in one state may be more easily recalled when we are again in that state

Mood-congruent memory

The tendency to recall experiences that are consistent with one’s good or bad mood

Retrospective memory

Past memories

Prospective memory

Intended future actions

Serial Position effect

Our tendency to recall best the last(recency effect) and first(primacy effect) items in a list

Recency effect

Briefly recalling the last items especially quickly and well

Primacy Effect

When the recall is the best of the first items listed.

Anterograde amnesia

An inability form new memories

Retrograde amnesia

an inability to remember information from one’s past

Highly superior autobiographical memory

An extraordinary ability to recall detailed personal memories

Proactive(forward acting) interference

When prior learning disrupts your recall of new information

Retroactive(backward acting) interference

Occurs when new learning disrupts your recall of old information

Positive Transfer

When previously learned information often facilitates our learning of new information

Repression

The basic defense mechanism that banishes from consciousness anxiety-arousing thoughts, feelings, and memories.

Reconsolidation

A process in which previously stored memories are potentially altered before being stored again

Misinformation effect

Occurs when a memory has been corrupted by misleading information

Source Amnesia(source misattribution)

Faulty memory for how, when, or where information was learned or imagined

Deja vu

The eerie sense that, “I’ve experienced this before.”