Psychology Memory Test

Memory

Sensory memory

The immediate, very brief recording of information from the five senses into the memory system. The "entry point."

Memory

The persistence of learning over time through the encoding, storage, and retrieval of information.

Encoding

The process of getting information into the memory system.

Storage

The process of retaining encoded information over time.

Retrieval

The process of getting information out of memory storage.

Short-term memory

Activated memory that holds a few items briefly (from 15 to 30 seconds without rehearsal), such as the seven digits of a phone number while dialing, before that information is stored or forgotten.

Long-term memory

The relatively permanent and limitless storehouse of the memory system. Includes knowledge, skills, and experiences.

Working memory

A newer understanding of short-term memory that stresses conscious, active processing of information, whether newly encoded or retrieved from long-term memory.

Automatic processing

Unconscious and unintentional encoding of everyday information.

Effortful processing

Encoding that requires attention and conscious effort.

Spacing effect

The tendency for distributed study or practice to yield better long-term retention than is achieved through massed study or practice.

Implicit memory

Retaining learned skills or classically conditioned associations, without conscious awareness; also called non-declarative memory.

Explicit memory

Memory of facts and personal events that you can consciously retrieve; also called declarative memory.

Long-term potentiation

The strengthening of synapses between nerve cells. Believed to be the neural basis for learning and memory.

Flashbulb memory

A clear memory of an emotionally significant moment or event.

Chunking

Organizing items into familiar, manageable units; often occurs automatically.

Mnemonics

Memory aids or tricks, especially techniques that use vivid imagery and organizational devices.

Testing effect

Enhanced memory after retrieving, rather than simply re-reading, information. Also sometimes referred to as the retrieval practice effect or test-enhanced learning.

Hippocampus

A neural center located in the limbic system; helps process explicit memories for storage.

Priming

The activation, often unconsciously, of particular associations in memory.

Infantile amnesia

Difficulty or inability that adults have remembering early childhood (because the brain is not developed enough to form long-term explicit memories).

Information-processing model

Model of memory that assumes the processing of information for memory storage is similar to the way a computer processes memory in a series of stages; created by Atkinson and Shiffrin.

7 +/- 2

The "magical number" (the number of items that can be kept in short-term memory at a time).

Episodic memory

Memory of personal events in a specific time and place.

Semantic memory

Memory for general facts and concepts not linked to a specific time.

Procedural memory

Memory for motor skills and habits, such as texting or riding a bike.

Classical conditioning

Memory of learned associations.

Peg-word system

Mnemonic device in which you associate items you want to remember with a list of words you have already memorized (e.g. one is bun, two is shoe, three is tree, etc.).

Method of loci

Mnemonic device that involves taking a mental walk through a familiar location. A person connects specific locations with the items he or she wants to remember. Also called the "memory palace."

Cerebellum

Part of the brain that plays an important role in forming and storing memories created by classical conditioning.

Basal ganglia

Part of the brain that helps form memories of physical skills (walking, cooking, dressing, etc.).

Echoic memory

A form of sensory memory that allows the mind to temporarily perceive and store auditory information or sound.

Iconic memory

A brief sensory memory of visual stimuli.

Recall

Memory demonstrated by retrieving information learned earlier, as on a fill-in-the-blank test.

Retrieval cue

Any stimulus (event, feeling, place, and so on) linked to a specific memory.

Deja vu

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

Mood-congruent memory

The tendency to recall experiences that are consistent with one's current good or bad mood.

Memory trace

Physical changes in the brain as a memory forms.

Proactive interference

The disruptive effect of prior learning on the recall of new information. You forget the new.

Repression

In psychoanalytic theory, the basic defense mechanism that banishes anxiety-arousing thoughts, feelings, and memories from consciousness.

Misinformation effect

When misleading information is incorporated into one's memory after an event.

Source amnesia

Faulty memory for how, when, or where information was learned or imagined.

Recognition

Memory demonstrated by identifying items previously learned, as on a multiple-choice test.

Relearning

Memory demonstrated by time saved when learning material a second time.

Retroactive interference

The disruptive effect of new learning on the recall of old information. You forget the old.

Amnesia

A loss of memory often due to brain trauma, injury, or disease; literally "without memory."

Serial position effect

Our tendency to recall best the last and first items in a list.

State-dependent memory

The phenomenon through which memory retrieval is most efficient when an individual is in the same state of consciousness as he/she was when the memory was formed. For instance, if you are drunk when you make a memory, you will remember it better when you are drunk again.

Primacy effect

Information from the beginning of a list remembered better.

Recency effect

Information at the end of a list recalled more clearly.

Forgetting curve

A graph showing a distinct pattern in which forgetting is very fast within the first hour after learning a list and then tapers off gradually.

Tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon

The inability to retrieve a word from memory, though it is partially recalled and retrieval seems imminent.

Elizabeth Loftus

An American cognitive psychologist who has conducted extensive research on the malleability of human memory.

Hermann Ebbinghaus

A German psychologist known for his discovery of the forgetting curve and the spacing effect.

Anterograde amnesia

Loss of memory from the point of injury or trauma forward, or the inability to form new long-term memories ("senile dementia").

Retrograde amnesia

Loss of memory from the point of some injury or trauma backwards, or loss of memory for the past.

Elaborative rehearsal

Not only repeating information, but thinking about the meaning of new material and making connections to information already stored in memory; helps encode information into long-term memory.

Maintenance (or rote) rehearsal

Repeating information over and over to maintain it in consciousness (keep it in short-term memory). Shallow processing.

Decay theory

States that memory fades with the passage of time; the memory trace weakens if not used.

TYPES of implicit (mostly automatic) memory

Procedural, classical conditioning, priming

TYPES of explicit memory

Semantic, episodic

Selective attention

Determines what information moves from sensory memory to short-term memory.

Self-reference effect

Tendency to better remember information relevant to ourselves.

Name or word mnemonic (acronym)

A word formed from the first letter of each word in a series. Example: ROY G. BIV

Expression mnemonic (acrostic)

The first letter of each item in a list is arranged to form an expression, phrase, or sentence. Example: Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally