Long-Term Memory

Flashcards covering key vocabulary and concepts from the Long-Term Memory lecture.

Working Memory

Holds and processes information with the help of long-term memory, and uses declarative memory systems to understand the contents of speech.

Herman Ebbinghaus

Developed an empirical method using lists of nonsense syllables to study learning, identifying the primacy and recency effects.

Primacy Effect

Items from the start of a study list are recalled with a higher probability during the test, thought to be due to rehearsal.

Recency Effect

Items from the end of the study list are recalled with a higher probability, likely due to STM.

Frederick Bartlett

Asked participants to read and retell a story from a Northern American culture, noting that participants changed unfamiliar details to align with their own worldviews, suggesting schemas shape memory.

Proactive Interference

Decrease in memory that occurs when previously learned information interferes with learning new information.

Semantic Coding in LTM

States that specific wording is forgotten, but the general meaning can be remembered for a long time.

Episodic Memory

Involves mental time travel—the experience of traveling back in time to reconnect with events that happened in the past.

Semantic Memory

Knowing; does not involve mental time travel.

Henry Molaison (HM)

Had a bitemporal lobectomy to alleviate epilepsy resulting in a severe anterograde amnesia: HM was unable to encode novel memories.

Kent Cochrane (KC)

Lost his episodic memory after a motorcycle accident, but retained semantic memory.

LP

Italian woman who suffered an attack of encephalitis resulting in severe impairment of memory for semantic information, but was still able to remember events in her life.

Semantic Dementia

Patients lose certain concepts due to degeneration of the anterior temporal lobe (ATL).

Distributed-Plus-Hub View

Posits that various different surface representations connect to, and communicate through, a shared amodal ‘hub’ in the anterior temporal lobes.

Procedural Learning

HM retained this type of learning after surgery, as demonstrated by the mirror drawing task.

Parkinson’s Disease (PD)

A chronic degenerative disorder of the central nervous system with motor and non-motor symptoms.

Substantia Nigra

A group of cells in the midbrain that degenerates in PD, responsible for the motor symptoms.

Probabilistic Learning Task

Patients with PD performed poorly compared to controls on this type of task.

Basal Ganglia

Play a central role in procedural learning, shaping goal-directed behaviors into habits.