Unit 5 - cognition pt 1

**Memory**

Persistence of learning over time

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Includes

\-encoding

\-storage

\-retrieval of info

**Recall**

Measure of memory when a person must retrieve information learned earlier

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\-fill in the blank question

**Recognition**

Measure of memory when the person identifies previously learned info

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\-multiple choice questions

**Relearning**

Measure of memory when learning something a second time

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\-learning information that was previously learned faster than the 1st time

**Encoding**

Getting info into the memory system

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\-Making information meaningful

**Storage**

Retains encoded info over time

**Retrieval**

Getting info out of memory storage 

**Parallel processing**

Processing multiple things at the same time

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\-natural mode of info processing for many functions

**Sensory memory** 

Brief recording of sensory info in the memory system

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* shortest time info is held

**Short-term memory**

Holds a few items briefly, before the info is stored and forgotten

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Miller’s number 7 theory - you can hold 5-9 items in short term memory

* (7 +/- 2)

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* least amount held

**Long-term memory**

Relatively permanent and limitless storehouse of the memory system 

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* knowledge
* skills
* experiences

**Working memory**

Conscious, active processing of auditory/visual info and info retrieved from long-term memory

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* type of short-term memory
* will go away if not rehearsed or connected to something in long term memory

**Explicit memory**

Retention of facts and experiences (conscious)

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* aka declarative memory

**Effortful processing**

Encoding requiring attention and conscious effort

**Automatic processing**

Unconscious encoding

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* space
* time
* frequency
* well learned info (word meanings)

**Implicit memory**

Retention of learned skills or classically conditioned association

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* unconscious recollection
* aka nondeclarative memory

**Iconic memory**

A moment of a picture-image memory

(sensory memory)

**Echoic memory**

A moment of the ability to recall sounds and words within 3 or 4 seconds even if your attention is elsewhere

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* sounds
* sensory memory

**Chunking**

Organizing information into manageable units or similar groups of info

* occurs automatically

**Mnemonics**

Vivid imagery and organization devices to aid memory 

**Spacing effect**

Distributed practice in order to have better long-term retention

**Testing effect**

Active retrieval instead of rereading information 

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* aka retrieval practice effect
* test-enhanced learning

**Shallow processing**

Encoding on a basic level

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* Structure or appearance of words

**Deep processing**

Encoding based on meaning (meaning of words)

* tends to yield the best retention

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**Semantic memory**

* explicit memory 
* Facts and general knowledge 
* one of two conscious memory systems 

**Episodic memory**

* explicit memory
* personally experienced events
* one of two conscious memory systems

**Hippocampus**

* located in the limbic system 
* helps process for storage of explicit (conscious) memories of facts and events

**Memory consolidation**

Neural storage of a long-term memory 

**Flashbulb memory**

Clear, sustained memory of an emotionally significant moment/event

**Long-term potentiation**

* Increase in cell’s firing potential after brief rapid simulation
* neural basis for learning and memory 
* all or nothing response 

**Priming**

Unconscious activation of certain associations causing changes to one’s perception, memory, or response 

**Encoding specificity principle**

Cues and contexts specific to a memory will be most effective in helping the recall

**Mood-congruent memory**

Tendency to recall experiences that are consistent to current good or bad mood 

**Serial position effect**

Recalling the last and first items in a list 

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* last (recency effect)
* first (primary effect)

**Anterograde amnesia**

Inability to form new memories 

* 50 first dates

**Retrograde amnesia**

Inability to retrieve info from one’s past 

* dory

**Proactive interference** 

Disruptive effect of older learning on the recall of new information 

* Affecting the new

**Retroactive interference** 

Disruptive effect of newer learning on the recall of old information

* Affecting the old

**Repression**

Banishes memories from consciousness that are anxiety-arousing thoughts, feelings, and memories

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* defense mechanism

**Reconsolidation**

Previous stored memories when retrieved are altered before being stored again

**Misinformation**

Misleading information distorts one’s memory of an event 

**Source amnesia**

Faulty memory of how, when, or where info was learned or imagined

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* aka misattribution
* heart of many false memories

**Deja vu**

Eerie sense that “I’ve experienced this before”

* cues may unconsciously trigger retrieval of an earlier experience 

* skills
* classically conditioned associations
* space
* time
* frequency

What information do we process automatically?

Feeds some info into working memory for active processing there

How does sensory memory work?

* chunking
* mnemonics
* hierarchies
* distributed practice

What are some effortful processing strategies that can help us remember new information?

Hierarchies

information composed of a few broad concepts divided and subdivided into narrower concepts and facts

cerebellum

* stores classically conditioned memories

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basal ganglia

* motor movement and help form procedural memories for skills

What roles do the cerebellum and basal ganglia play in memory processing?

Children are susceptible to the misinformation effect.

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* if questioned with neutral wording they can accurately recall events and people involved

How reliable are young children’s eyewitness descriptions?

Peg-word system

Ex: “One is a bun, two is a shoe, three is a tree, four is a door”

Self-reference effect 

we recall information we can meaningfully relate to ourselves

**Hermann Ebbinghaus**

* Conducted research about the response speed when recalling or recognizing information indicates memory strength
* Pioneer memory researcher
* forgetting curve

**Richard Atkinson and Richard Shiffrin**

* Explained memory forming process 

**George A. Miller**

* Miller’s magic number 
* short-term/working memory can only hold 5-9 pieces of memory at a time

**Eric Kandel**

* Observed synaptic changes during learning in neurons 
* Long-term potentiation 

**Elizabeth Loftus**

* Demonstrated how memory works and how it can be altered by external factors

suggestibility

interferes with memory and reconstructs it

It can be reconstructed/influenced by external factors

Why is memory unreliable?

**Cognition**

Activities associated with thinking, knowing, and remembering

**Prototype** 

A mental image or best example of a category

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* when someone says flower people think rose before orchid

**Creativity**

Ability to produce new and valuable ideas

**Convergent thinking**

Determining the single best solution

**Divergent thinking**

* expanding the # of possible solutions


* diverges in different directions

**Algorithm**

Logical rule or procedure that guarantees solving a problem.

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* takes longer but there are less errors

**Heuristic**

Simple thinking strategy to make judgments and solve problems efficiently/quicker

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* More likely for errors

**Insight**

A sudden realization of a solution that contrasts with strategy-based solutions

* aha moment

**Confirmation bias**

Tendency to seek evidence for our ideas over evidence against our ideas

**Fixation**

Cognition - inability to see a new perspective (obstacle to problem solving)

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Personality theory - seeks more pleasurable solutions

**Mental State**

\-tendency to approach a problem in one way that was successful in the past

**Intuition**

Automatic feeling or thought

* goes against explicit reasoning

**Representativeness heuristic**

Estimating likelihood of events based on particular prototypes

* may lead us to ignore relevant info

**Availability heuristic**

Estimating the likelihood of events based on available memory

**Overconfidence**

* being more confident than correct


* overestimating the accuracy of our beliefs and judgements

**Belief perseverance**

Clinging onto initial conception despite info that discredited that conception

**Framing**

How an issue is worded can affect decisions and judgements

**Language**

Combining words to communicate meaning 

* spoken
* written
* signed

**Phoneme**

The smallest distinctive sound unit

**Morpheme**

Smallest unit that carries meaning

* might be a word or part of a word
* ex: prefix

**Grammar**

Language’s set of rules that allows people to communicate

**Babbling stage**

* stage of speech development


* infant spontaneously utters sounds at first unrelated to the household language
* begins at 4 months

**One-word stage**

* speaks with one word 
* age 1-2
* says cookie (when wanting a snack)

**Two-word stage**

* speaks in two word statements
* begins about age 2

**Telegraphic speech**

* mostly uses nouns and verbs 

Ex: go car

**Aphasia**

Impairment of language 

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Aphasia in broca’s area

impairing of speaking

Aphasia in Wernicke’s area

impairing understanding

speech

Broca’s area controls

understanding

Wernicke’s area controls

**Linguistic determinism**

Whorf’s hypothesis aka Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis

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* language controls the way we think and see the world around us

**Linguistic influence**

* Weaker form of linguistic relativism
* idea that language affects thought

**Linguistic relativism**

Language that you are raised in determines the kind of thoughts you will have

**Robert Sternberg**

Believed creativity has 5 components

5 components of creativity

* expertise
* imaginative thinking skills
* a venturesome personality
* intrinsic motivation
* creative environment

**Wolfgang Koher**

Showed that humans aren’t the only ones to display insight

**Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman**

Researched representativeness and availability heuristics

**Steven Pinker**

Noted that noises contain information

**Noam Chomsky**

* Argued that the brain had a built-in predisposition to learn grammar rules
* Language is learned naturally

**Paul Broca**

* Discovered Broca’s area
* Found when damaged people can’t speak

**Carl Wernicke** 

* Discovered Wernicke’s area
* Found  when damage people don’t understand language

**Benjamin Lee Whorf** 

* Hypothesized language itself shapes a person's basic ideas 
* Linguistic determinism