AP Psychology: Topic 2.4 - Encoding Memories

Encoding

the act of getting information into the memory system through automatic or effortful processing

Mnemonic devices

techniques for using associations to help memorize and retrieve information

Method of loci

a mnemonic technique that involves associating items on a list with a sequence of familiar physical locations

Chunking

a mnemonic that arranges information as in acrostics, acronyms, and grouping of digits in a phone number

Categories

a memory strategy that clusters interrelated concepts to aid in learning

Hierarchies

a system of complex information broken down into broad concepts and further subdivided into categories and subcategories

Spacing effect

information is retained better if there is a period of time between study sessions

Memory consolidation

the gradual process of converting new long-term memories to stable, enduring memory codes; sleep is useful for organizing and consolidating memories

Massed practice

studying a large amount of information over a short or uninterrupted period of time

Distributed practice

breaking practice or study into several short sessions over a longer period of time

Serial position effect

the brain's tendency to best recall the last and first items in a list

Primacy effect

the brain's tendency to remember information at the beginning of a body of information better than the information that follows

Recency effect

the brain's tendency to remember the most recent information better than earlier information