complete ch6

Encoding

How you transform a physical, sensory input into a representation that can be placed into memory.

Storage

How you store (keep) encoded information in memory.

Retrieval

How you gain access to information stored in memory.

Short-Term Storage

The temporary storage and use of encoded information.

Long-Term Storage

Information encoded into a form transferred into permanent storage and available for subsequent retrieval.

Semantic encoding

A code based on word meaning.

Acoustic encoding

Encoding visually or auditorily presented information by how it sounds.

Visual encoding

Temporarily encoding information visually based on how it looks.

Categorical clustering

Organize a list of items into a set of categories.

Interactive Images

Create ——— that link the isolated words in a list.

Pegword system

Associate each new word with a word on a previously memorized list and form an interactive image between the two words.

Method of loci

Visualize walking around an area with distinctive landmarks that you know well, and then link the various landmarks to specific items to be remembered.

Acronym

Devise a word or expression in which each of its letters stands for a certain other word or concept.

Acrostic

Form a sentence rather than a single word to help you remember the new words.

Keyword system

Form an interactive image that links the sound and meaning of a foreign word with the sound and meaning of a familiar word.

Mnemonic devices

Specific techniques to help you organize and memorize information.

Interference

When competing information interferes with our storing information.

Decay

When we forget facts just because time passes.

Declarative memory

memory that refers to facts and knowledge.

Nondeclarative memory

Refers to procedural memories such as skills.

Consolidation

This process of integrating new information into stored information.

Metamemory

Strategies that involve reflecting on our own memory processes to improve our memory (or our understanding and reflection upon our memory and how to improve it).

Metacognition

Our ability to think about and control our own processes of thought and ways of enhancing our thinking (thinking about how we think).

Rehearsal

The repeated recitation of an item.

Overt

Rehearsal that is aloud and obvious to anyone watching.

Covert

Rehearsal that is silent and hidden.

Elaborative rehearsal

Rehearsal where the individual somehow elaborates on the items to be remembered to make them more meaningfully integrated or connected.

Maintenance rehearsal

Rehearsal where the individual simply repeats the items to be remembered temporarily in short-term memory.

Practice effects

The effects of rehearsal used for keeping information active.

Distributed practice

Learning in which various sessions are spaced over time.

Massed practice

Learning in which sessions are crammed together in a very short space of time.

Spacing effect

The effect where the greater the distribution of learning trials over time, the more participants remember over long periods.

Parallel processing

The simultaneous handling of multiple operations.

Serial processing

Operations being done one after another.

Exhaustive serial processing

Processing that implies the participant always checks a test digit against all digits in a positive set, even if a match is found partway through.

Self-terminating processing

Processing that implies the participant checks a test digit against only those digits needed to make a response, terminating once located.

Interference theory

Forgetting that occurs because recall of certain words interferes with recall of other words.

Retroactive interference

Occurs when newly acquired knowledge impedes the recall of older material.

Proactive interference

Occurs when material that was learned in the past impedes the learning of new material.

Free recall condition

A recall condition where participants merely recall as many words as they can in any order they choose.

Cued recall condition

A recall condition where participants are tested category by category using category labels as cues.

Availability

The presence of information stored in long-term memory.

Accessibility

The degree to which we can gain access to the available information.

Schemas

Mental frameworks that represent knowledge in a meaningful way.

Serial-position curve

Represents the probability of recall of a given word, given its serial position (order of presentation) in a list.

Recency effect

Superior recall of words at and near the end of a list.

Primacy effect

Superior recall of words at and near the beginning of a list.

Decay theory

Asserts that information is forgotten because of the gradual disappearance, rather than displacement, of the memory trace.

Reconstructive

Involving the use of various strategies to retrieve original memory traces and then rebuild original experiences.

Constructive

Memory framework in real-life situations where prior experience affects how we recall things and what we actually recall.

Autobiographical memory

Memory of an individual's history.

Flashbulb memory

A memory of an event so powerful that the person remembers the event as vividly as if it were indelibly preserved on film.

Memory distortions

Changes or errors in memory tending to occur in seven specific ways ("seven sins of memory").

Transience

Distortion where memory fades quickly.

Absent-mindedness

Distortion where people perform routine acts or enter spaces while temporarily forgetting their immediate objective.

Blocking

Distortion where people have something they know they should remember, but cannot retrieve it (tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon).

Misattribution

Distortion where people cannot remember where they heard or read something, or think they saw/heard things they did not.

Suggestibility

Distortion where people are susceptible to suggestion, leading them to remember seeing or experiencing things that did not happen.

Bias

Distortion where people are biased in their recall based on current states or experiences.

Persistence

Distortion where people remember things as consequential that, in a broad context, are inconsequential.

Repressed memories

Memories that are alleged to have been pushed down into unconsciousness because of the distress they cause.

Source-monitoring error

Occurs when a person attributes a memory derived from one source to another source.

Spreading activation

An explanation of false recognition where every time an item is studied, you think of the items related to that item.

Encoding specificity

A relationship indicating that what is recalled depends on what is encoded.

Self-reference effect

The principle that when individuals generate their own cues for retrieval, they are much more potent than when other individuals do so.

susceptible

Children’s recollections are particularly —— to distortion. Such distortion is especially likely when the children are asked leading questions, as in a courtroom setting. 

leading

Children’s recollections are particularly susceptible to distortion. Such distortion is especially likely when the children are asked ——- questions, as in a courtroom setting.