Unit 2.3 - Memory

Memory

The persistence of learning over time through the encoding, storage, and retrieval of information

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

Encoding

The process of getting information into the memory system

Storage

The process of retaining information over time

Retrieval

The process of getting information out of memory storage

Implicit Memories (Nondeclarative)

Involves retention of learned skills and classically conditions associations independent of conscious recollection

Where are implicit memories processed?

The cerebellum and basal ganglia

What does implicit memories remember?

Space, time, and frequency

Motor and cognitive skills

Classical conditioning

Explicit memories (declarative)

Involves the retention of facts and experiences that one can consciously know

Where are explicit memories processed?

In the hippocampus and frontal lobe

Semantic Memory

Facts and general knowledge

Episodic Memory

Personally experienced events

Procedural Memory

How to do something

Prospective Memory

Involves remembering to do something in the future

Long-term potentiation

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

The neural basis for learning and memory

Working Memory

A newer understanding of short-term memory that adds conscious, active processing of incoming auditory and visual information, and of information retrieved from long-term memory

The Central Executive System

A core component of working memory, controls attention and coordinates the phonological loop and the visuospatial sketchpad

Phonological Loop

Handling auditory information

Visuospatial Sketchpad

Processing visual and spatial information

Effortful Processing

How we encode explicit memories, which requires attention and conscious effort

Automatic Processing

How we encode implicit memories, which is the unconscious encoding of incidental informTion

Levels of processing

Structural, Phonemic, and Semantic

Structural

Look of a word

Phonemic

Sound of a word

Semantic

Meaning of a word