CH 6: Long-Term Memory

short-term memory

what happened over the last couple of seconds, typically around 15 seconds

long-term memory

what happened longer than a few seconds ago, up to years ago

why might STM and LTM need to work together rather than functioning as completely separate systems?

they work together to help us solve problems using past knowledge while helping us understand and process new information

serial position curve

shows memory for words based on their order in a list

the primacy effect

enhanced memory for words presented at the beginning of a list, has an advantage as they get more time to be rehearsed rather than just skimmed

the regency effect

enhanced memory for words presented at the end of the list, has an advantage as the words are still in your short term memory when recall begins

What happened to the recency effect when researchers added a delay before recall?

it prevented participants from remembering the most recent words, and they were stuck rehearsing what they were rehearsing at first and did not keep anything in short term memory

What supports the idea that the recency effect is related to STM?

delayed recall supports the idea that the recency effect is related to short term memory because the recency advantage disappears after a delay

coding

the form in which information is represented in the mind

what are the three types of coding?

visual, auditory, and semantic

visual coding

information represented as an image (remembering your favorite teacher from high school)

auditory coding

information represented as sound (remembering a movie and hearing it your brain when you can’t sleep)

semantic coding

information represented in terms of its meaning (remembering a series of words with gaps in between)

proactive interference

when information learned previously interferes with learning new information (getting lost in what the answer is)

Why did participants’ performance decrease when they repeatedly received words from the same category?

They got the fruits or category all messed up with each other, because they were all fruits

What happened when the category of words changed?

their performance shot back up, which was a release in proactive interference

Why does this demonstrate semantic coding rather than simply auditory coding?

this demonstrates semantic coding as they remembered the general category as opposed to the specific fruits.

release from proactive interference

a situation in which conditions occur that eliminate or reduce the decrease in performance caused by proactive interference

double dissociation

occurs when two cognitive functions are shown to operate independently, typically demonstrated by two patients with complementary impairments

what were patient HMs symptoms?

he had a removal of the medial temporal lobe, including the hippocampus, and his STM was relatively intact while his LTM was severely damaged as he was unable to form new memories

what were the patient’s KF symptoms?

he had damage involving the parietal lobe, and his STM was severely impaired, while his ability for forming LTM was relatively intact

episodic memory

involved mental time travel, memory for the events in our life

semantic memory

involves accessing knowledge about the world that does not have to be tied to remembering a personal experience (facts and knowledge)

explicit memory

involves memory that we are conscious of (personal events, facts and knowledge)

implicit memory

involves learning that can influence behavior without awareness (procedural memory, priming, conditioning)

procedural memory (aka skill memory)

involves memory for patients with amnesia by teaching them tasks such as sorting mail or a repetitive computer-based task that they can become an expert at

as a skill becomes more practiced, we generally need ____ conscious attention to every individual step

less

expert induced amnesia

refers to the effect where well-learned procedural memories do not require attention

priming

occurs when seeing or experiencing one stimulus (priming stimulus) changes the way a person responds to another stimulus (the test stimulus)

Why might repeated exposure influence you even if you don’t remember seeing or hearing something before?

even if you don't remember it, repeated exposure to content without even consciously remembering it can create implicit memory, so you are at least familiar with it deep in the brain.

classical conditioning

occurs when two stimuli are paired: a neutral stimulus that initially does not result in a response, and a conditioning stimulus that does not result in a response

operant conditioning

involves learning through the consequences of a behavior

reinforcement

increases a behavior

punishment

decreases a behavior

shaping

learning a behavior by reinforcing small steps that gradually get closer to the desired behavior

conscious reinforcement

consciously giving yourself a reward after doing a behavior to encourage yourself to keep doing it

partial reinforcement

a behavior is rewarded only some of the time, rather than every time

extinction

when a learned behavior gradually decreases because the reinforcement or reward stops

Mindfulness

attention is intentionally directed toward the present moment

Constructive Episodic Simulation Hypothesis

the hypothesis proposed by Schacter and Addis that episodic memories are extracted and recombined to construct simulations of future events

Autobiographical Memory

memory for specific events from a person's life which can include both episodic and semantic components