Chapter 6: Memory Strategies and Metacognition

Comprehensive vocabulary flashcards covering memory strategies, practice effects, prospective vs. retrospective memory, and metacognitive concepts from Chapter 6.

Memory Strategy

Mental activities that can help improve encoding and retrieval.

Encoding

The initial acquisition of information, during which information is processed and represented in memory.

Retrieval

Locating information in memory storage and accessing that information.

Total-Time Hypothesis

The hypothesis that the amount of information learned depends on the total time devoted to learning, with study time predicting GPA only when study strategy quality is taken into account.

Distributed-Practice Effect

The tendency to remember more material when learning trials are spread over time rather than massed together (spaced versus massed learning).

Desirable Difficulties

A learning situation that is somewhat challenging but not too difficult.

Testing Effect

The phenomenon where being tested on material increases memory for that material and boosts long-term recall for academic content.

Roediger and Karpicke (2006) Testing Effect Experiment (Figure 6.1)

A study demonstrating that repeated studying yields slightly higher recall after a 5-minute interval, but testing leads to substantially higher retention at 2-day and 1-week intervals.

Mnemonics

Mental strategies designed to improve memory.

Mental/Visual Imagery

A mnemonic strategy using interacting visual images to improve memory, which is particularly helpful if the image is bizarre.

Keyword Method

A mnemonic method where one identifies an English word that sounds similar to the new word to be learned.

Familiar Locations Method

A mnemonic strategy in which a mental image is created for each item to be remembered and then placed in a specific familiar location.

Prospective Memory

Remembering that you need to do something in the future, which requires remembering both the need to perform an action and the content of that action.

Retrospective Memory

Remembering information that has been acquired in the past.

Frontal Lobe

The brain region relied upon by both prospective memory and retrospective memory.

Causes of Prospective-Memory Failures

Factors leading to absentmindedness, including divided attention, disruption of customary activity, familiar surroundings and automatic tasks, and preoccupation, distraction, or time pressure.

Metacognition

Knowledge about and control of one’s cognitive processes, including supervising which memory strategies to use and when, self-knowledge, metamemory, and metacomprehension.

Metamemory

Knowledge, monitoring, and control of one’s memory.

Foresight Bias

Overestimating the number of answers you will supply on a future test, often resulting from studying with the correct responses visible.

Dunning and Coauthors (2003) Study (Figure 6.4)

A study demonstrating that less competent students overestimate their test performance, whereas more competent students are more accurate in estimating their scores.

Tip-of-the-Tongue Effect

The subjective, largely involuntary experience of knowing the target word one is searching for but being unable to recall it at that moment.

Feeling-of-Knowing Effect

The subjective, more conscious experience of knowing some information without being able to recall it immediately, related to the amount of partial information retrieved.