memory pt2

Schemas

Cognitive structures that organize information about a particular topic; can distort memory by filling in expected but absent information.

Misinformation effect

Memory distortion where existing memories can be altered if you are later exposed to misleading information; demonstrated through Loftus' research with car accident footage

Source confusion

Memory distortion where true source of memory is forgotten.

Contact tracing

May end up taking the place of eyewitness testimony in order for law enforcement to track people.

Imagination inflation

Memory distortion where repeatedly imagining a false memory increases the person's belief that it occurred.

Lost-in-the-mall-technique

Using information from family members to create false memories.

Factors contributing to false memories

Repeatedly imagining event leads to familiarity, source confusion, vivid sensory details, and suggestion.

Repressed memory

Freud's theory that the mind unconsciously pushes traumatic memories into the unconscious mind.

Dissociated memory

Loftus argued that supposedly recovered memories are instead false.

Repressed memory therapy

Goal was to recover repressed memories of childhood sexual abuse in order to begin healing process and working through emotions.

Memory Trace

Lashley's proposed brain changes associated with a particular stored memory.

Localized memory

Lashley's initial idea that particular memory is stored in one brain area.

Distributed memory

Lashley concluded that memory was distributed throughout the brain after removing parts of rat brains and seeing that they could still run a maze.

Cerebellum activity

Thompson's study that classically conditioned rabbits to blink showed a change in this area; related to reflexive responses

Localization and distribution

Simple memories may be localized while complex are distributed

Kandel's use of classical conditioning

Kandel classically conditioned Aplysia snail to withdraw gill flaps when squirted with water; revealed that function and structure of neurons was altered

Long-term potentiation

A long-lasting increase in synaptic strength between two neurons.

Retrograde amnesia

Loss of memory for episodic information of recent events; can have psychogenic or biogenic cause

Memory consolidation

Gradual physical process of converting new long-term memories to stable and enduring memory codes.

Anterograde amnesia

Loss of memory caused by inability to store new memories, always biogenic.

H.M. case

Revealed the hippocampus' role in forming new explicit memories for episodic and semantic information.

Hippocampus

Encodes and transfers new explicit memories to long-term memory.

Amygdala

Encodes and stores emotional aspects of memory.

Cerebellum

Memories involving movement.

Frontal lobes

Retrieving and organizing information that is associated with autobiographical and episodic memories.

Prefrontal cortex

Aids working memory by focusing on relevant information.

Medial temporal lobes

Encodes complex memories by forming links among information in multiple brain regions.

Dementia

Progressive deterioration and impairment of memory, reasoning, language, and other cognitive functions as the result of disease, injury, or substance abuse.

Alzheimer's disease

Progressive disease that destroys the brain's neurons, gradually impairing memory, thinking, language, and other cognitive functions.

Protein plaques

Dense deposits of protein and other cell materials outside and around neurons, interfering with communication and damaging neurons.

Fibrous tangles

Twisted fibers that build up inside neurons and interrupt flow of nourishment.

Alzheimer's progression

First attacks temporal lobes, then frontal and limbic areas; short-term memory is first affected

Alteration of neuron function due to memory trace

increase in neurotransmitter production

Alteration of neuron structure due to memory trace

increase in number of connecting branches between neurons and synapses on each branch