Memory Types, Processes, and Neural Mechanisms in Psychology

Declarative/explicit memory definition and types

conscious recollection of facts, events, etc

includes semantic memory, episodic memory, and prospective memory, and spatial memory

Nondeclarative/implicit memory definition and types

unconscious memories

includes procedural memory, associative memory(conditioning)

Semantic memory

Cultural knowledge and ideas

EX: name of states, add and subtract, word definitions

Involves cortical regions well beyond hippocampus

Episodic memory

Personal experiences

Recalling sights, sounds, emotions

Involves amygdala

Working memory

Creation of short-term memories while manipulating it

If not transferred to long-term memory, it becomes no longer retrievable

3 steps to making memories

encoding, consolidation, retrieval

encoding

The process which some type of stimuli is converted in to a form that can be processed and recalled in the brain

More attention to a stimuli = better encoding ability

Consolidation

Transforming memories into long-term memories

Happens in our sleep, the hippocampus consolidates memories to neo neocortex

Retrieval

Retrieval of the information by the reconsolidation

Some parts of the memory are lost, and other parts become more emphasized

Long term potentiation

1. Hyperactivity of specific AMPA receptors causes the magnesium to stop blocking the NMDA receptors

2. NMDA receptors are activated and calcium ions flood,in which act as secondary messengers that help phosphorylate the existing AMPA receptors, increasing conduction speed and amount of AMPA receptors

Memory engrams

Specific groups of neurons represent memories

When a specific group of neurons is activated, the memory is recalled

Long term depression

Decrease in excitatory signals in a certain skill or reflex by habituation

If something becomes nonthreatening, the body adapts to not fire as strong as a neural signal to respond to that innocuous stimulus

The opposite process of LTP, where lower levels of calcium cause the removal of AMPA receptors

Neuroplasticity

The ability for the brain to adapt and change based on environmental cues or injuries

Increase synaptic strength, be able to heighten undamaged areas

grid cells

Help you navigate your environment universally without external cues(understand direction and distance of movement)

Most prominent in the entorhinal cortex

Places cells

Helps you navigate a familiar place

in hippocampus

Concept cells

Neurons that fire to seeing a specific stimulus like a certain concept like a celebrity or place