PSYC1150 - Memory and Consciousness

Memory illusion

A false but compelling memory that results from recounting memory, helping us make sense of the world.

Paradox of Memory

A contradiction resulting in our memories failing to store information instead of replacing it.

Hyperthymestic syndrome

A condition where individuals can remember almost everything they've experienced without difficulty.

Sensory Memory

The initial stage of memory that holds perceptions for only a few seconds tied to sensory experiences. Maintains perceptions through small buffers before storing the memory itself.

Iconic Memory

A type of sensory memory that lasts for only a second and pertains to visual perception.

Echoic Memory

A type of sensory memory related to auditory stimuli that allows us to remember sounds like an echo.

Working Memory

The capacity to hold on to information currently being processed or thought about.

Decay

The fading of memory over time when not actively rehearsed or used.

Interference

The process where new memories hinder the recall of old memories or vice versa.

Retroactive Interference

Interference that occurs when new information hampers older learning.

Proactive Interference

Interference that occurs when older memories inhibit the learning of new information.

Chunking

A strategy that helps improve memory by grouping larger amounts of information into manageable units.

Long-term Memory

The stage of memory that has a theoretically infinite capacity for storing information.

Explicit Memory

The intentional and conscious recalling of information.

Implicit Memory

The recalling of information without conscious effort, often related to skills and conditioned responses.

Engram

The physical trace of a memory in the brain.

Hippocampus

A brain structure crucial for forming lasting memories.

Anterograde amnesia

A condition where an individual is unable to form new memories after an event.

Retrograde amnesia

A condition characterized by the loss of memories prior to a certain event.

Circadian rhythm

The body’s natural 24-hour cycle that regulates sleep and other physiological processes.

Sleep debt

The accumulation of lost sleep that can lead to various negative health outcomes.

REM sleep

A sleep stage characterized by rapid eye movement, increased brain activity, and vivid dreaming.

Mnemonic device

A strategy or learning aid used to enhance recall, such as using acronyms or visualizations.

Flashbulb memory

A highly detailed and vivid memory of an emotionally significant event.

Source monitoring confusion

The lack of clarity about the origin of a memory, leading to inaccurate recall.

What are memories, if not reproductive?

Reconstructive

What are the two types of dimensions for memory?

Span and duration

Span

The idea of how much information the systems in the mind can hold.

Duration

The idea of how long systems can hold information.

Interference

The idea that memories get in the way of each other. Makes performance worse through memory collision. Often applied to short-term memory.

Magic Number

The universal “limit” of short-term memory. Referred to as 7(±)2.

Who established the Magic Number in 1956?

George Miller

Maintenance Rehearsal

A type of strategy that involves repeating stimuli in its original form.

Elaborative Rehearsal

A type of strategy that involves linkages of memories in different forms, including visualization and relationship connections.

What does deeper levels of processing lead to?

Developing more enduring long term memories.

Permastore

An analogy to ‘never melting’, which refers to ‘frozen long-term’ memory. Studied by Harry Bahrick.

How much can the long-term memory bank store?

Around “500” online encyclopedias.

Semantic Errors

A type of mistake made in long-term memories.

Acoustic Errors

A type of mistake made in short-term memories.

Primacy Effect

A type of tendency to recall. Involves remembering stimuli earlier in a list. Reflects on long-term memory.

Recency Effect

A type of tendency to recall. Involves remembering stimuli later down a list. Reflects on short-term memory.

What are the three differences between short-term and long-term memory?

Holding of memories, endurance of memories, and their errors.

Serial Position Curve

The displaying of primacy and recency effects; demonstrates positions in lists and the percent amount correct.

Semantic Memory

A type of long-term memory that stores factual information. Activates the left frontal cortex.

Episodic Memory

A type of long-term memory that stores recollections of events and experiences. Activates the right frontal cortex.

What are the four implicit memory recalls?

Procedural, priming, conditioning, and habituation

What are the two explicit memory recalls?

Episodic and semantic

The Pegword Method

A method that is often used to recall ordered lists of words. Also connects with rhythms and words associated with certain keywords.

Method of Loci

A method that is often used in regards with relying on imagery of places. This includes locations and visualization of memories. Often used for self-affirming memory recall within depressed individuals from researchers

Keyword Method

A method that is often relied on the ability to think of a word that reminds you of another word- such as retrieving meanings of words with similar word connections. 

Ginkgo biloba

A herbal remedy for memory that holds the ability to improve it. Effects are minimal, however, and can be harmful. Increases levels of acetylcholine.

Modafinil (Provigil)

A drug that is used for people suffering narcolepsy, sleep apnea and the like. Effective similarly like caffeine and enhancing attention.

Schemas

Organized knowledge structures and mental modules that are stored in memory. Can be organized through scripts and equips people with reference points of specific places.

What can schemas lead to?

Biases and overgeneralizations, along with paradoxes of memories.

Where did the concept of recollection originate from?

Hermann Ebbinghaus

Law of Distributed Versus Massed Practice

A statement that tells us we tend to remember things better in the long run when learning is spread out over long intervals.

“Tip-of-the-tongue” phenomenon

The struggle of retrieving memories, despite the memory itself being present. Is known, but holds the lack of ability to speak clearly of it.

Context-dependent Learning

The superior retrieval phenomenon that states that the external content of original memories matches the retrieval context.

State-dependent Learning

The superior retrieval phenomenon that states “when the organism is in the same physiological/psychological state as it was during encoding”.

Long-term potentiation (LTP)

An aspect of the connections of neurons through repetitive stimulation. Considered a physiological basis for memory and plays a key role in learning.

Where are memories stored?

All sorts of brain regions and organized groups of neurons that connect with one another.

What part of the mind is used as a major bank for withdrawing memories?

Prefrontal Cortex

Amygdala

The emotional component of memories that helps recall feelings associated with past experiences, especially fears.

What is the average human point of memory degeneration?

Past the age of 65.

Habituation

The decrease of attention to familiar stimuli. A form of implicit memory.

Infantile Amnesia

The inability of retrieving accurate memories before a certain earlier age. Answers the mystery ‘why we can’t remember the first few years of our lives’.

Guided Imagery

A strategy used by therapists that push clients to imagine past events of their own experiences.

Hypnotic Age Regression

A strategy used by therapist that utilize hypnosis to return clients to a psychological state of childhood.

Phantom Flashbulb Memories

The idea that some flashbulb memories, despite their vividness and confidence in experiences, are false.

Imagination Inflation

The phenomenon of confusing events that are imagined as something that did occur in reality.

Who is more likely to confuse fantasy and reality through memories?

Children

Cryptomnesia

Literal meaning of ‘hidden memory’. The mistake of an idea origination from someone else, but the belief that the idea was originated by another.

What does the malleability of memories prove to us?

Even the strongest, most accurate memories can be reconstructed.

Misinformation Effects

A phenomenon that causes fictitious memories to occur through misguided information. Older adults are vulnerable to this.

Incubus Phenomenon

A occurrence that happens during sleep paralysis; when a humanoid/animal figure carries out aggressive acts that cause people to fear death.

Locked-in syndrome

A phenomenon that states people are felt as if they’re reliving events never experienced before. Involved in consciousness.

What plays a critical role in learning?

Sleeping

What plays a critical role in sleeping?

Melatonin

Rapid eye movements (REM)

The long form of a specific sleep cycle. Describes specific reactions and reflected signs of dreaming. Identified when brains shift dramatically into high gear through low amplitude waves that resemble wakefulness. Increased heart rate/blood pressure.

Stage One Sleep

Lasts for five to ten minutes, and is considered a light level. Produces theta waves that occur 4 to 7 seven times per second. Inserts confusion in this state, making us more relaxed, vulnerable to hypnagogic imagery (dream-like), and experiencing sudden jerks (myoclonic jerks) of the limbs.

Stage Two Sleep

Lasts for roughly 10 to 30 minutes. Brain waves slow down, electrical activity (sleep spindles) occur and create K-complexes- sharply rising and falling waves of said activity. Heart rate slows, body temperature decreases, eye movements cease.

Stage Three/Four Sleep

Delta waves are observed at this stage; these two stages are needed to have a full rest of sleep. This is considered the stage of “deep sleep”.

What happens of we deprived of REM sleep?

We experience rebounds, which increases the amounts and intensity of sleep that is needed.

Neo-dissociation Theory

A second version to the idea. Introduces a new component called the ‘hidden observer'- an area in your awareness is vivid, but another area doesn't receive it.

Hypnosis

The planting of an idea. A person that responds to suggestions by another for the result of altering perception, thinking and behaviour. It is said it is merely suggestive, but others disagree on this notion.

Where did hypnosis originate from?

Anton Mesmer

What kinds of factors can hypnosis balance when taking ahold of a person?

Pain tolerance, social/behavioural effects, and bodily function

Lucid Dreaming

An experience that brings self awareness to the dream state. A hybrid/mixed state of consciousness that feature both non-REM and REM sleep.

Insomnia

The most common sleep disorder. Can affect falling asleep, returning to sleep, or waking up an abnormal periods. Often due to stress, illnesses, medications, or relationship problems.

What are some ways of combating insomnia?

Hiding clocks, avoiding caffeine, reading, surfing the web, watching television

Narcolepsy

A sleeping disorder that develops experiences of sudden sleep, developing an overwhelming urge to sleep.

Cataplexy

The sudden, complete loss of muscle tone. Causes a person to lose balance and make muscles limp like- rendering the individual like a rag doll.

What hormone plays a key role in triggering sleep attacks?

Orexin

Sleep Apnea

A sleep disorder that causes snoring, screaming or gasping. Caused by blockages of the airway and interferes with sleep.

Night Terrors

A harmless event during sleep that occur almost exclusively in children; barely any recollection is remembered, but can be caused by intensive stress.

Sleepwalking

A phenomenon that renders the person in movement while sleeping. While exhibiting little activity, can be prone to day-to-day activity with consciousness.

Dreaming

A universal experience that involves processing emotional memories, integrating new experiences with the old, and simulating threatening events to cope. The function of it reminds a mystery to this day.

What did psychologist Sigmund Freud refer to dreams as?

The guardians of sleep

What do dreams function, according to dream-work factors?

It disguises aggressive and sexual impulses into wish fulfillments; acts as a mental censor through repressing and protecting rest.

Manifest Content

The details of the dreams itself.