Mod 32 terms

Karl Lashley

trained rats to find way out of maze

• removed piece of their brain’s cortex and retested memory

• no matter the section, rats had partial memory of maze

Brain distributes parts of memory across

network of locations

some brain cells that fire during experience

fire again when recalled

Semantic

explicit memory of facts and general knowledge

Episodic

explicit memory of personally experienced events

Frontal lobes and hippocampus

process and store explicit memories

prefrontal cortex example

working memory processing when you think of past experiences (input sent here for this)

left frontal lobe example

recalling password and holding it in working memory

right frontal lobe example

recall visual party scene

hippocampus

helps process to store explicit memories of facts and events (names, images, and events)

• memories not permanently stored here

• like a save button for conscious memories

• parts are active for: social info, spatial mnemonics and spatial memory (in rear area)

damage to hippocampus

disrupts formation and recall of explicit memories

• left side: trouble remembering verbal information

• right side: trouble recalling visual designs and locations

memory consolidation

the neural storage of a long-term memory, process when going through what to remember

What helps explain the spacing effect?

more sleep-induced memory consolidation when learning is spread out over days

automatic processing

lays down implicit memories for skills and newly conditioned associations

cerebellum

role in forming and storing implicit memories created by classical conditioning

damage to cerebellum means that

a person can’t develop certain conditioned relfexes

basal ganglia

facilitate the formation of procedural memories for skills

• involved in motor movement

• they get input from cortex, but dont send info back for conscious awareness of procedural learning

infantile amnesia

when our conscious memory of our first four years is largely blank

Contributers:

1. we index explicit memory with command of languages that kids dont have

2. hippocampus is one of the last brain structures to mature

stress hormones influence

memory formation and focus memory

• make glucose energy available to fuel brain activity

• stress provokes the amygdala to initiate a memory trace that boosts activity in the brain’s memory-forming areas

Why do we remember exciting or shocking events?

emotion-triggered hormonal changes

flashbulb memories

a clear, sustained memory of an emotionally significant moment or event

experience and learning can increase the number of

synapses

long-term potentiation (LTP)

an increase in a cell’s firing potential after brief, rapid stimulation; a neural basis for learning and memory (after LTP receptor sites double)(increased sensitivity for nts) (terminal branch releases nts across the synapse)

glutamate

LTP-enhancing neurotransmitter

CREB

protein the enhances the LTP process

• boosting production of this could cause better production of other proteins that help reshape synapses and transfer short term memories into long-term ones

memory blocking drugs might blunt

intrusive memories

retrieval cues help you

access information (best cues from associations we form at time of memory encoding)

priming

the activation, often unconsciously, of certain associations thus predisposing one’s perception, memory, or response

• ex: hear rabbit → write hare not hair

• context of experience can prime memory retrieval

• help activate other memories

Encoding specificity principle

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

state-dependent memory

what we learn in one state (drunk/sober) may be more easily recalled when we are again in that state

mood congruent

the tendency to recall experiences that are consistent with ones current good or bad mood

serial position effect

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

• explains why we can have holes in memory of a list of recent events

primacy effect

first things remembered

recency effect

most recent things remembered