psyc ch. 7

Acoustic/Auditory encoding

represent information as sequences of sounds, such as a tune or a rhyme.

Visual encoding

represent information as pictures,
such as the image of your best friend’s face.

Semantic encoding

represent the general meaning of an experience.

ex: If a teacher asks what we are learning in psyc, I don’t go into specifics but overall point was memory

Dual coding theory

pictures tend to be remembered better than words because pictures are represented in two codes, visual and verbal.

ex: movies over books

Storage

maintaining information in memory over time

ex: When you find that you can still use a
pogo stick that you haven’t played with since you were a child or that you can recall a vaca-
tion from many years ago, you are depending on the storage capacity of your memory.

Recall

being able to say or identify without hints, pictures, or questions of some sort

ex: recalling the presidents or US states with nothing but brain

Recognition

being able to identify things with hints or pictures

ex: having pictures of US presidents and recognizing them

Episodic memory

Any memory of a specific event that happened while you were present—that is, during an “episode” in your life

ex: what you did last summer, ate dinner last night

Flashbulb memory

vivid memories, remember in details: what you wear where you were, who was with you

ex: 9/11,

Semantic memory

type of memory containing generalized knowledge of the world.

ex: Knowing the official rules or how to score a match

Procedural memory/knowledge

Memory of how to do things, such as riding a bike or tying a shoelace

ex: knowing how to hit a ball

Prospective memory

“remembering to remember” tasks to be performed in the future

ex: deadlines, take medication, text happy birthday to someone

Constructive memory

Also known as reconstructive memory; we use new and existing information to create a memory

Declarative memory

memory to remember facts, dates

Explicit memory

The process of intentionally trying to remember

something

ex: Such as where you went on your last vacation or the correct answer to an exam question

implicit memory

The unintentional influence of prior experience

ex: you can solve a puzzle faster if you have solved it in the past, or implicit memories from your first reading would help you read a book more quickly the second time.

Information processing

earliest and most basic model of memory

Maintenance(shallow) rehearsal

try to keep it as long as needed, no connections or meaning to it

ex: phone number in short term memory

Elaborative (deep) rehearsal

how does new information relate to old information in long term memory, make a connection or meaning

Transfer-appropriate

encoding and retrieval are connected

ex: MC test might study different than an essay text

Parallel distributed processing

-all knowledge is connected and spread throughout brain, one word can trigger all these other memories

-everything connected

ex: word “sofa”

Multiple memory systems

brain has separate areas for storage

ex: brain damage can affect explicit or implicit memory

Encoding failure

Related to selective attention; the idea that we do not process/take in all the information and properly store it into long-term memory

ex: don’t know bottom color of flag or which presidents face is in what dollar

Framing effect

States that how a question is worded can affect one’s memory/answer

Misinformation effect

When given incorrect information, we tend to accept it as accurate/true

False memories

Memories that come from incorrect/made up information

Repressed memories

Memory that has been pushed out of our conscious awareness and into our unconscious

Mandela effect

phenomenon in which people misremembers a significant event or shares a memory of an event that did not actually occur.

ex: logos and slogans

primacy effect

If given a list of words, we tend to only remember the first few items.

recency effect

If given a list of words, we tend to only remember the last few items

von restorff effect

If given a list of words, we remember the distinctive and unique ones; also called isolation effect

sensory memory

A type of memory that holds large amounts of information very briefly, but long enough for it to be processed further. helps us experience a constant flow of information, even if that
flow is interrupted.

short-term memory

memory that remember for only 18-20 seconds

working memory

Part of the memory system that allows us to mentally manipulate information being held in short-term memory

long-term memory

relatively long-lasting stage of memory whose capacity to store new information is believed to be unlimited.

mood congruency effect

explains how a person is able to recall a memory in more detail if it coincides with their mood at the current time.

ex: a student in a grumpy mood would be more likely to remember the negative aspects of a presentation from class.

motivated forgetting

nothing correlated to mood, remember the good memories rather than the bad memories

state-dependent memory

Memory can be aided or hindered by a person’s mental condition (example – test anxiety)

context-dependent memory

Memory can be aided or hindered depending on the similarities and differences of the environment where the information was learned vs retrieved.

method of savings

measures forgetting and difference between learning vs. relearning, relearning method

ex: if it took me 6 days to learn ch. 7 and it took me 6 days to relearn it, my savings were 0%

decay

gradual disappearance

proactive interference

when it becomes harder to recall new information because of old information in the past.

ex: upon moving into a new house, one might find themselves accidentally writing their old address down when filling out forms

retroactive interference

conditions in which new learning interferes with old learning

ex: a musician might learn a new piece, only to find that the new song makes it more difficult to recall an older, previously learned piece.

anterograde amnesia

struggle to form new memories

retrograde amnesia

loss before injury. cannot remember past events or experiences.

source amnesia

not caused by head trauma, cant remember where the information came from

Mnemonics

Strategy for remembering by using acronyms such as HOMES for the Great Lakes

method of loci

Strategy for remembering where an individual uses visualizations to help remember names or list; put them (or it) into a place within your home

chunking

Memory strategy that has you break the information into smaller pieces in order to remember it

tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon

When retrieving incomplete knowledge; we know some of the info., but need clues to “get it out”

feeling-of-knowing experience

When retrieving incomplete knowledge; we are better at recognition than recall; “we will know it once we see it”

Korsakoff’s syndrome

Disorder in chronic alcoholics: person’s brain cannot use glucose as fuel; results in severe brain damage

Immediate memory span

Maximum number of items (5-7) a person can recall perfectly after only one presentation of the item

Implicit social cognitions

Past experiences that unconsciously influence a person’s judgments about a group of people

distributed practice

The spacing of study sessions over an extended period of time

mass practice

A long period of concentrated studying (cramming)