Memory Class Exam 2

What type of memory includes schemas, scripts, and stereotypes?

They are forms of semantic memory: organized general knowledge about the world.

What is a schema?

An organized mental framework of knowledge about a person, place, object, or situation.

What is a script?

A schema for the usual sequence of events in a familiar situation, such as going to a restaurant.

What is a stereotype?

A schema about the traits or behaviors believed to be typical of members of a social group; it can lead to oversimplified judgments.

What are two purposes of schemas?

They help us organize and interpret information, and they help us make predictions or fill in missing details.

What is prospective memory?

Remembering to carry out an intended action in the future.

What is a time-based prospective memory task?

Remembering to do something at a particular time, such as taking medicine at 8 p.m.

What is an event-based prospective memory task?

Remembering to do something when a specific event or cue occurs, such as giving someone a message when you see them.

Which prospective memory tasks usually have more external cues available?

Event-based tasks, because the relevant event can serve as an external reminder.

How can you turn a time-based task into an event-based task?

Attach it to a noticeable event or routine—for example, take medicine after brushing your teeth instead of relying only on remembering a clock time.

What are prospective memory failures often related to?

Failures to notice or monitor for the cue, especially when attention is occupied by another task; time-based tasks also require self-initiated monitoring.

What two features make a good prospective-memory cue?

It is noticeable/distinctive and closely connected to the intended action (strongly associated with what you need to remember).

What are the two parts of metamemory?

Monitoring—assessing what you know or how well you remember; and control—using those assessments to guide learning or memory behavior.

What is good metamemory?

Accurately judging what you know and do not know, then choosing effective study or retrieval strategies.

What is poor metamemory?

Misjudging how well you know material—for example, feeling confident because it looks familiar and stopping study too soon.

What is an ease-of-learning judgment?

A prediction made before learning about how easy or difficult material will be to learn.

What is a judgment of learning (JOL)?

An estimate of how likely you will be to remember information later; often made during or shortly after learning.

What is a feeling-of-knowing (FOK) judgment?

A judgment that you would recognize or identify information later even though you cannot currently recall it.

What is a retrospective confidence judgment?

A judgment made after answering or retrieving information about how confident you are that your answer is correct.

What is a tip-of-the-tongue (TOT) state?

The feeling that you know a word or name but temporarily cannot retrieve it.

A tip-of-the-tongue state is an example of what metamemory judgment?

A feeling-of-knowing (FOK) judgment.

What are availability and accessibility?

Availability means information is stored in memory; accessibility means how easily that stored information can be retrieved right now.

What kinds of incorrect words may come to mind during a TOT state?

Words related in meaning or sound to the target word—such as similar-sounding words or words from the same category.

What is theory of mind?

The ability to understand that other people have their own thoughts, beliefs, desires, and knowledge, which may differ from your own.

What does the false-belief test measure?

Whether a child understands that another person can hold a belief that is false or different from the child's own knowledge.

Which memory abilities tend to decline with age, and which are relatively preserved?

Episodic memory and working-memory performance often decline; semantic knowledge/vocabulary and procedural skills are generally more preserved, though patterns vary by task and person.

What is the processing-speed theory of aging and memory?

Memory problems partly result from slower mental processing, leaving less time or capacity to perform memory operations.

What is the inhibitory-deficit theory of aging and memory?

Older adults may have more difficulty suppressing irrelevant information, so distractions interfere with encoding and retrieval.

What is the environmental-support theory of aging and memory?

Older adults often perform better when tasks provide helpful cues or support; memory differences are larger when they must retrieve information on their own.

What are white-matter tracts?

Bundles of nerve fibers (axons) that connect different brain regions and allow them to communicate.

Name three brain areas that decrease in volume with age.

The hippocampus, prefrontal cortex, and cerebellum are commonly described as showing age-related volume reductions.

What are four neurological changes in children's brains as they grow?

Synaptic connections are formed and reorganized; unused connections are pruned; myelination increases; and brain regions/networks become more specialized and connected.

What are four non-neurological reasons children's declarative memory improves?

Language and vocabulary improve; knowledge and schemas increase; memory strategies and metamemory improve; and attention/control skills become more effective.

What is habituation?

A decrease in attention or response after repeated exposure to the same stimulus.

How is habituation used to study infant memory?

Researchers repeatedly show or play a stimulus until the infant's looking or listening response decreases, then later test whether the infant responds differently to a familiar or changed stimulus.

What is novelty preference?

An infant's tendency to look longer at or pay more attention to a new stimulus than to a familiar one, suggesting recognition of the familiar stimulus.

Which senses are functional in newborns?

Touch, taste, smell, and hearing are functional; vision is present but relatively immature and less sharp.

What do infants generally prefer to look at?

Face-like patterns and especially human faces, including high-contrast, visually interesting patterns.

What do infants generally prefer to listen to?

Human voices, especially their mother's/familiar caregiver's voice, and speech-like sounds.

When do newborns begin to recognize their mother's face?

Recognition develops very early; studies commonly find evidence within the first days to weeks after birth. Check your instructor's exact age if a specific recording value was given.

When do newborns recognize their mother's voice?

Recognition can be present before birth and is evident at or shortly after birth.

Which working-memory component is especially affected by aging?

The central executive, particularly tasks requiring attention, coordination, and control; working-memory capacity/manipulation is more affected than simple short-term storage.

What two factors help explain older adults' encoding difficulties?

Reduced processing speed/attentional resources and less effective use of encoding strategies or elaboration; distraction and divided attention can add difficulty.

How do older adults compare with younger adults in amount and accuracy of recall?

On average, older adults may recall less information and make more errors on demanding episodic-recall tasks, although performance varies and cues can help.

What are the two major Alzheimer's disease brain pathologies?

Amyloid plaques—amyloid-beta deposits between neurons; and neurofibrillary tangles—abnormal tau protein inside neurons.

Where do Alzheimer's plaques and tangles occur?

They develop in memory-related and other brain regions; tangles are prominent inside affected neurons, while plaques accumulate between neurons. The hippocampus/entorhinal region is affected early, with spread to wider cortex.

What is the general order of memory decline in Alzheimer's disease?

Recent episodic memory is commonly affected early; as the disease progresses, language and semantic knowledge, orientation, and other cognitive abilities become impaired. Procedural and remote memories may be relatively preserved longer.

What factors may protect against or lower risk of Alzheimer's disease?

Regular physical activity, cardiovascular health, cognitive and social engagement, adequate sleep, and management of risk factors may support brain health; none guarantees prevention.

Is there a cure for Alzheimer's disease?

There is currently no cure. Treatments and support can help manage symptoms, and some medicines may slow decline for eligible people.

What is childhood amnesia?

The relative inability of older children and adults to remember autobiographical events from the earliest years of life, especially before about age 3-4.

What is the brain-development explanation of childhood amnesia?

Early memory is limited because brain systems important for stable autobiographical memory, including the hippocampus and related networks, are still developing.

What is the language explanation of childhood amnesia?

Memories are harder to organize and later retrieve before children have enough language to label, narrate, and structure experiences.

What is the cognitive-development explanation of childhood amnesia?

Children's developing sense of self, concepts of time, and understanding of personal experiences make early autobiographical memories harder to form and maintain.

What is the social-cultural explanation of childhood amnesia?

Parent-child conversations and cultural practices help children build autobiographical narratives; differences in reminiscing styles can influence later memory.

What is the retrieval-cue explanation of childhood amnesia?

Early memories may be difficult to retrieve because the cues and ways of thinking present when they formed differ from those available later.

What is the interference explanation of childhood amnesia?

Many new experiences and memories accumulate during childhood and may interfere with access to earlier memories.

Which explanations of childhood amnesia have the most and least research support?

There is no single universally agreed ranking across textbooks and lectures. Language, brain development, and social interaction have substantial support; ask your class recording/slides for the specific 'most' and 'least' labels expected.

What is the cue-word technique?

A method for studying autobiographical memory in which a person is given a word (such as 'happy' or 'school') and recalls a personal event connected to it.

What is the reminiscence bump?

The tendency for adults over about age 40 to recall a disproportionate number of autobiographical memories from adolescence and early adulthood.

What is a flashbulb memory?

A vivid, detailed, and strongly held memory of the circumstances in which someone learned about a surprising, consequential, or emotional event.

What is the special-mechanism approach to flashbulb memories?

The view that emotionally important or surprising events trigger a special memory mechanism that creates unusually accurate, durable memories.

What is the ordinary-mechanism approach to flashbulb memories?

The view that flashbulb memories rely on ordinary memory processes, with vividness and confidence explained by factors such as emotion, rehearsal, and repeated retelling—not a unique memory system.

What are four reasons the ordinary-mechanism approach explains flashbulb memories?

The event is rehearsed and discussed repeatedly; people encounter repeated media coverage; the event is personally/emotionally important; and repeated retelling can strengthen confidence and vividness without guaranteeing accuracy.

What is a recall task?

A memory task requiring you to produce information with little or no answer provided, such as filling in a blank or listing items.

What is a recognition task?

A memory task requiring you to identify previously learned information among options, such as a multiple-choice question.

What do dendrites do?

Receive signals from other neurons and carry them toward the cell body.

What does the cell body (soma) do?

Contains the nucleus and maintains the neuron; it integrates incoming signals.

What does the axon do?

Carries electrical signals away from the cell body toward other cells.

What does the myelin sheath do?

Insulates the axon and speeds the transmission of electrical signals.

What is a synapse?

The junction/gap where a neuron communicates with another neuron or target cell, usually through neurotransmitters.

What is the hippocampus involved in?

Forming and consolidating new explicit/declarative memories, especially memories for events and facts.

What is the amygdala involved in?

Processing emotion, especially emotional significance and fear, and strengthening memory for emotionally arousing events.

What is long-term potentiation (LTP)?

A long-lasting increase in the strength of communication between neurons after repeated or strong activation; it is considered one mechanism that supports learning and memory.

What is memory consolidation?

The process by which a newly formed, fragile memory becomes more stable over time.

What brain structure is especially crucial for consolidating new declarative memories?

The hippocampus and its connected medial-temporal-lobe system.

What is maintenance rehearsal?

Repeating information without adding meaning, usually to keep it active briefly.

What is elaborative rehearsal?

Connecting new information to meaning, prior knowledge, examples, or associations to make it more memorable.

Chunking is an example of what kind of memory strategy/rehearsal?

A form of elaborative organization: grouping separate pieces into meaningful units.

What is the main function of the central executive in working memory?

Directs attention and coordinates the other working-memory components; it controls and switches between mental tasks.

What are two basic principles behind many memory strategies?

Make information meaningful/connected to prior knowledge, and organize information into manageable groups or cues.

What is the cognitive cost of memory strategies?

Strategies can require extra time and mental effort during encoding or retrieval, so they may slow performance even when they improve memory.

What is the self-reference effect?

Information is remembered better when you relate it to yourself.

What is the generation effect?

Information is remembered better when you actively produce it yourself rather than simply reading or being given it.

What are common reasons we forget?

Encoding failure, decay or loss of accessibility over time, interference from other information, and retrieval failure due to ineffective cues.

What is semantic memory?

Memory for general facts, concepts, and word meanings, such as knowing that Paris is the capital of France.

What is episodic memory?

Memory for personally experienced events tied to a particular time and place, such as remembering your last birthday.

What is procedural memory?

Memory for how to perform skills and actions, such as riding a bike or tying shoes.

What is explicit memory?

Memory that involves conscious recollection, including episodic and semantic memory.

What is implicit memory?

Memory that influences behavior without conscious recollection, including skills, habits, and priming.

What is distributed practice?

Spreading study sessions over time instead of cramming them together.

What are the benefits of distributed practice?

It usually improves long-term retention, strengthens retrieval, and reduces the problems associated with massed/crammed study.