AP Psych unit 5

cognition and learning

memory definition

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

alzheimer’s disease

a progressive neurodegeneration and fatal condition (difficulty remembering new information, inability to do everyday task; speech, recognition, and memory decline)

memory measures

recall, recognition, relearning

recall

retrieving information that is not currently in your conscious awareness but that was learned at an earlier time (fill in the blank, short answer, or essay question; telling a friend about the time you won a goldfish at the carnival)

recognition

identifying items previously learned (mcq or matching question; seeing a brand of cereal on the grocery store shelf and recognizing it from the commercial)

relearning

learning something more quickly when you learn it a second or later time (studying for a final exam; traveling to Costa Rica and remembering the Spanish you learned in 10th grade)

Hermann Ebbinghaus and relearning

(randomly selected syllables, practiced himself, and tested himself) the more times he practiced, the less time he needed to relearn the syllables. relearning speed can be used to measure memory retention

information processing model (how must we remember any event?)

encode (put in), store (organize), retrieve (pull out)

parallel processing

considering many aspects of a problem simultaneously; the brain’s mode of information processing for many functions

richard atkinson and richard shiffrin: three-stage model of memory

sensory memory, short-term memory, long-term memory

sensory memory

the immediate, very brief recording of sensory information in the memory system

short-term memory

memory that holds a few items briefly before the information is stored or forgotten

long-term memory

relatively permanent and limitless storehouse of the memory system

back door/automatic processing

some information slips into long-term memory via a “back door” without our consciously attending to it, this is called automatic processing

working memory

a newer understanding of short-term memory that adds conscious, active processing of incoming auditory and visual information, and of information retrieved from long-term memory

baddeley’s model of working memory

visual-spacial and auditory rehearsal of new information; a central executive (manager) focuses attention, and pulls information from long-term memory to help make sense of new information

central executive

key to new model of working memory; coordinates focused processing that helps keep information sharp

explicit memory

retention of facts and experiences from long-term memory that one can consciously know and declare (effortful processing: encoding that requires attention and conscious effort)

implicit memory

retention of learned skills or classically conditioned associations in long-term memory independent of conscious recollection; automatic processing (space, time, frequency, and well-learned information like word meanings)

iconic memory

a fleeting sensory memory of visual stimuli

echoic memory

impeccable, though fleeting, sensory memory for auditory stimuli

miller and short-term memory capacity

george miller proposed that we can store between 5 and 9 pieces of information in short-term memory

working memory capacity: age

varies with age and other factors, young adults have a greater working memory capacity than children and older adults

benefit of large working memory capacity

ability to juggle multiple items while processing information tends to aid information retention after sleeping and creative problem solving

effortful processing strategies

boost ability to form new memories: chunking, mnemonics, hierarchies

hierarchies

organize a list into groups to aid retrieval

spacing effect

tendency for distributed study or practice to yield better long-term retention than is achieved through massed study or practice (cramming)

testing effect

repeated-self testing, distributes practice, helps memory retrieval

shallow processing

encoding on a basic level, based on the structure or appearance of words

deep processing

encoding semantically, based on the meaning of the words; leads to best retention

making material meaningful: self-reference effect

increases retention; requires about 1/10th the effort according to ebbinghaus

capacity of long-term memory

essentially limitless

karl lashley: where is long-term memory stored

brain distributes the components of a memory across a network of locations

frontal lobes: explicit memory

processing semantic and episodic memories

semantic memory

a type of explicit memory of facts and general knowledge; left frontal lobe (like recalling a password and holding it in working memory)

episodic memory

a type of explicit memory of experienced events; right frontal lobe (like calling up a visual party scene)

hippocampus and explicit memories

explicit memories for facts and episodes are processed in the hippocampus and fed to other brain regions for storage, like a save button for explicit memories

subregions of the hippocampus

one is active as you learn social information, another active in spacial mnemonics, the rear is active in spacial memory (like when cab drivers navigate London’s streets)

memory conslidation

memories not permanently stored in hippocampus, hippocampus is like a loading dock where the brain temporarily holds the elements of a to-be-remembered episode before older files are shifted to a basement storeroom for storage elsewhere

sleep and memory consolidation

during deep sleep, the hippocampus processes memories for later retrieval; hippocampus and brain cortex “talking” during sleep

sleep and memory consolidation: spacing effect

when learning is distributed over days rather than crammed, we experience more sleep-induced memory consolidation, explaining the spacing effect

processing implicit memories

cerebellum and basal ganglia

cerebellum

involved in sensory input, movement output; processing and storing implicit memories created by classical conditioning, creating conditioned reflexes

basal ganglia

involved in motor movement, facilitate formation of procedural (implicit) memories for skills (like riding a bike); receive input from the cortex but don’t send it back for conscious awareness of procedural learning

infantile amnesia

conscious memory of first four years is largely blank because we index a lot of our explicit memory with language that has not yet been developed, and hippocampus has not fully matured yet

amygdala and memory processing

stress provokes amygdala to initiate memory trace that boosts activity in brain’s memory forming areas; emotion arousal can sear certain events into the brain, while disrupting memory for irrelevant events (tunnel vision memory)

flashbulb memory

clear, sustained long-term memory of an emotionally significant moment or event

serotonin release at synapse and memory processing (kandel and schwartz)

when learning occurs, experimental slugs released more serotonin into certain neurons; these cells’ synapses then became more efficient at transmitting signals. experience and learning can increase the number of synapses in slugs

long-term potentiation (LTP)

in experiments with people, rapidly stimulating certain memory-circuit connections increases sensitivity; sending neuron needs less prompting to release neurotransmitter = more neural connections = neural basis for learning and association

LTP and receptor sites

receptor sites for neurons increased

retrieval cues

associations that help us access information and pull it out of memory; come from associations we form at the time that can evoke memory of associated person or event

priming

activation, often unconsciously, of particular associations in long-term implicit memory; the implicit memory effect in which exposure to a stimulus influences response to a later stimulus

perceptual set

a tendency to perceive or notice some aspects of the available sensory data and ignore others

context-dependent memory

putting yourself back in the context where you earlier experienced something can prime your memory retrieval (when you visit your old childhood home, old memories resurface)

context and recall; state-dependent memory

when put in the same setting as when you learned information, you recall it better; what we learn in one physiological state (drunk/sober) may be more easily recalled when we are again in that state

encoding specificity principle

the idea that cues and contexts specific to a particular memory will be most effective in helping us recall it

mood-congruent memory

the tendency to recall experiences that are consistent with one’s current good or bad emotional state (mood)

mood-congruency and duration of mood

when happy, we recall happy events, prolonging mood; same with sad events

serial position effect

tendency to recall best the last (recency effect) and first (primacy effect) items in a list

anterograde amnesia

an inability to form new memories due to injury or illness

retrograde amnesia

an inability to retrieve information from one’s past due to injury or illness

when do we forget?

any stage of memory

encoding failure

much of what we sense we never notice, and what we don’t encode, we don’t remember

storage decay

memory for novel information fades quickly, then levels out; forgetting curve = memory drops sharply, then levels off

retrieval failure

failure to retrieve from long-term memory; sometimes, important events defy our attempts to access information that’s important to us or that we’ve rehearsed

proactive interference

a form of retrieval failure: disruptive effect of older learning on recall of new information: old things you learned is getting in the way of new stuff you’re trying to remember now (if you buy a new combination lock, your well-rehearsed old combination may intefere with your retrieval of the new one)

retroactive interference

disruptive effect of newer learning on the recall of old information: new stuff you learned is making it hard to remember old stuff (if someone sings new lyrics to the tune of an old song, you may have trouble remembering the original words)

retroactive interference and sleep

information presented in the hour before sleep suffers less retroactive interference because the opportunity for interfering events is minimized

motivated forgetting

people may forget unwanted memories, either consciously or unconsciously

repression

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

memory reconsolidation

a process in which previously stored memories, when retrieved, are potentially altered before being stored again

misinformation effect

misleading information has distorted one’s memory of an event (when people were asked a question about cars crashing phrased with “smashed” rather than “hit” they were more likely to report faster speeds and broken glass)

imagination and memory

repeatedly imagining nonexistent actions and events can create false memories bc they activate similar brain areas

source amnesia

faulty memory for how, when, or where information was learned or imagined, can explain déjà vu

false memories vs real memories

false memories can be persistent like real ones but are usually limited to the main gist of the event

cognition

all the mental activities associated with thinking, knowing, remembering, and communicating

concepts

mental groupings of similar objects, events, ideas, or people

prototype

a mental image or best example of a category

prototypes forming concepts

matching new items to a prototype helps sort them into concepts, which help us understand the world

creativity

the ability to produce new and valuable ideas

convergent thinking

narrowing the available problem solutions to determine the single best solution

divergent thinking

expanding the number of possible problem solutions; creative thinking that expands in different directions

problem-solving strategies

algorithm, heuristic

algorithm

a methodical, logical rule or step-by-step procedure that guarantees solving a particular problem

heuristic

a simple thinking strategy that often allows us to make judgements and solve problems efficiently; usually speedier but also more error-prone than an algorithm

insight

a sudden realization of a problem’s solution; contrasts with strategy-based solutions

brain activity during insight

before = frontal lobes, instant of discovery = right temporal lobe

confirmation bias

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

fixation

inability to see a problem from a new perspective; an obstacle to problem solving

mental set

an example of fixation; our tendency to approach a problem with the mindset of what has worked for us previously

intuition

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

representativeness heuristic

estimating the likelihood of events in terms of how well they seem to represent, or match, particular stereotypes; may lead us to ignore other relevant information

availability heuristic

estimating the likelihood of events based on their availability in memory; if instances come readily to mind (perhaps because of their vividness), we presume such events are common

overconfidence

the tendency to be more confident and correct; to overestimate the accuracy of our beliefs and judgements

belief perseverance

clinging to one’s initial conceptions after the basis on which they were formed has been discredited

framing

the way an issue is posed; how an issue is worded can significantly affect decisions and judgements

language

our spoken, written, or signed words and the ways we combine them to communicate meaning

phoneme

in a language, the smallest distinctive sound unit

morpheme

in a language, the smallest unit that carries meaning; may be a word or part of a word

grammar

in a language, a system of rules that enables us to communicate with and understand others