Memory and Cognition

Memory

The persistence of learning over time through storage and retrieval of iformation

Cognition

The mental activities associated with thinking, knowing, remembering and communicating

Encoding

Processing information into the memory system

Storage

Retention of encoded information.

Retrieval

Pulling information out of memory storage (i.e. out of long term memory and into working memory).

Sensory memory

The immediate and brief recording of sensory information into the memory system.

Short-term memory

Activate memory that holds about 7 (plus or minus) items briefly before the information is stored or forgotten.

Long-term memory

The relatively permanent and limitless storehouse of the memory system.

Working memory

A newer understanding of short-term memory that focuses on conscious, active processing of incoming information, and of information retrieved from long-term memory.

Parellel processing

The processing of many aspects of a problem simultaneously.

Automatic processing

Unconscious encoding of incidental information, such as space, time and frequency or of well-learned information, such as word meanings.

Effortful processing

Encoding that requires attention and conscious effort

Rehearsal

The conscious repetition of information, either to maintain it in the working memory or store it in long-term memory.

Spacing effect

The tendency for distributed study or practice to yield better long-term retention.

Serial position effect

Tendency to recall the last and first items in a list.

Visual encoding

The encoding of picture images.

Acoustic encoding

The encoding of sound.

Semantic encoding

The encoding of meaning, including the meaning of words.

Imagery

Creating mental pictures.

Mnemoics

Memory aids.

Chunking

The grouping of information into familiar, meaningful units.

Iconic memory

A momentary sensory memory of visual stimuli; a picture-image memory lasting no more than a few tenths of a second.

Echoic memory

A momentary sensory memory of auditory stimuli; if attention is elsewhere, sounds and words can still be recalled within 3-4 seconds.

Long-term potentiation (LTP)

An increase in a synapse's firing potential after brief, rapid stimulation. Neural basis for memory and learning.

Flashbulb memory

A clear memory of an emotionally significant moment or event.

Amnesia

The loss of memory.

Implicit (nondeclarative/procedural) memory

A long-term memory recalled without conscious effort.

Explicit (declarative) memory

A long-term memory recalled via effortful processing.

Hierarchies

Encoding by organizing items into broad categories divided into narrower concepts and facts.

Testing effect

Repeated quizzing of previously learned information to improve learning.

Self-refernce effect

Information that we meaningfully relate to ourselves.

Rosy retrospection

The tendency for negative emotions recalled with bad events to fade more rapidly than the positive emotions associated with good events.

Infantile amnesia

Lack of memory for experiences that occurred prior to 3 years of age.

Recall

A measure of memory in which one must retrieve information previously learned without aids.

Recognition

A measure of memory in which one identifies previously learned information from items on a list.

Re-learning

The notion that one will learn information more quickly if it has already been learned.

Priming

The activation of particular associations in memory. Typically an unconscious process.

Context effects

Enhanced recall when in the same situation as originally learned.

Deja vu

The sense that "I've experienced that before". Cues from the current situation subconsciously trigger retrieval of an earlier experience.

Mood-congruent memory

The tendency to recall experiences that are consistent with one's current mood, e.g. recalling happy emotions when feeling happy.

State-dependent memory

Learning in a particular state (drunk) may enhance recall in that same state.

3 Sins of forgetting

Absent mindedness - inattention to details leads to encoding failure

Transience - storage decay over time

Blocking - inaccessibility of stored information

3 Sins of distortion

Misattribution - confusing the source of information

Suggestibility - the lingering effects of misinformation (How fast were the cars going when they hit/smashed each other? The leading question later becomes a false memory).

Bias - recollections shaped by personal preferences

Ebbinghaus' forgetting curve

a graph showing that the course of forgetting of novel information is initially rapid but levels off with time.

Proactive interference

The disruptive effect of prior learning on recall of new information. Forgetting new information.

Retroactive interference

The disruptive effect of new learning on the recall of prior information. Forgetting old information because you have learned something new.

Repression

In psychoanalytic theory, the defense mechanism that blocks anxiety arousing thoughts from the conscious mind.

Misinformation effect

Incorporating misleading information into one's memory of an event.

Source amnesia

Attributing to the wrong source an event we have experienced or heard about. Also called misattribution.

Concepts

A mental grouping of similar objects.

Prototypes

A mental image or best example of a category

Algorithim

A methodical, logical rule or procedure that guarantees solving a particular problem.

Heuristic

A simple thinking strategy that allows us to make judgments efficiently; speedier but more error-prone than heuristics.

Insight

A sudden and often novel realization of the solution to a problem.

Confirmation bias

A tendency to search for information that supports our preconceptions and to ignore or distort contradictory evidence.

Fixation

The inability to see a problem form a new perspective.

Mental set

A tendency to approach a problem in a particular way, often that has been successful in the past.

Functional fixedness

The tendency to think of objects only in terms of their usual role.

Representativeness hueristic

Judging the likelihood of things in terms of how well they seem to represent or match particular prototypes.

Availability heuristic

Estimating the likelihood of events based on their availability in memory.

Belief preserverence

Clinging to one's initial conceptions after the basis on which they were formed has been discredited.

Intuition

An effortless, immediate, automatic feeling or thought, as contrasted with explicit, conscious reasoning.

Framing

The way one presents an issue.

Phonemes

The smallest distinctive unit of sound.

Morphemes

the smallest unit that carries meaning; may be a word or part of a word.

Telegraphic speech

Early stage in which a child speaks using mostly nouns and verbs. "Go car", instead of, "let's go to the car".

Inborn universal grammar

Theory that all human languages have the same grammatical building blocks so we can readily learn the specific rules of the language we experience.

Linguistic determinism

Whorf's hypothesis that language determines the way we think. (The Hopi do not have a past tense, so they cannot readily think about the past.)