Memory

What is amnesia?

Loss of memory.

What is retrograde amnesia?

Inability to remember memories formed before an event.

What is anterograde amnesia?

Inability to form new memories after an event.

What happened to Clive Wearing?

Herpes encephalitis damaged his bilateral hippocampi, surrounding temporal cortex, and some frontal cortex, causing severe memory impairment.

Who was H.M.?

Henry Molaison, a patient with severe epilepsy who underwent surgery removing parts of both medial temporal lobes.

What memory abilities did H.M. retain?

IQ, language, attention, knowledge, childhood memories, short-term memory, and working memory.

What memory ability was impaired in H.M.?

The ability to form new episodic and long-term memories.

What type of amnesia did H.M. have?

Severe anterograde amnesia with some retrograde amnesia.

What did H.M.'s retrograde amnesia demonstrate?

He lost some memories from the one to three years before surgery, suggesting that memory consolidation takes time.

What brain structures are part of the medial temporal lobes?

The hippocampus, parahippocampal gyrus, entorhinal cortex, perirhinal cortex, and parahippocampal cortex.

What is the modal model of memory?

Atkinson and Shiffrin's model proposing sensory memory, short-term or working memory, and long-term memory.

What is sensory memory?

A brief memory system with a large capacity that holds sensory information for a very short time.

What is working memory?

A limited-capacity system that temporarily holds and processes information currently being used.

What is long-term memory?

A large-capacity system for passive storage of information that can be retrieved into working memory.

What is the capacity of sensory memory?

Large.

What is the capacity of working memory?

Approximately four items, plus or minus two.

What is the capacity of long-term memory?

Virtually infinite.

How long does sensory memory last?

Approximately 500 milliseconds, or one-half of a second.

How long does information remain in working memory?

It is limited and begins to be forgotten after approximately four seconds without continued attention.

How long can long-term memories last?

They can last a lifetime.

What did Luck and Vogel find about working memory capacity?

Working memory capacity is approximately four items, plus or minus two.

What did Standing's study suggest about long-term memory capacity?

People can retain a very large number of pictures, suggesting that long-term memory has virtually unlimited capacity.

Why might forgetting in long-term memory occur?

Forgetting may result from retrieval failure rather than complete loss of information.

What is the search-engine analogy for long-term memory?

Information may still be stored, but the correct retrieval cues or search terms are needed to access it.

What happens when long-term memories are highly similar?

They become more difficult to retrieve because the retrieval system has to search through more similar information.

What is the embedded-processes model of memory?

A model proposing that memory is one system with different levels of activation rather than separate memory systems.

How does the embedded-processes model explain working memory?

Working memory is the currently activated portion of long-term memory, limited by attention.

What is the focus of attention?

The small amount of information that is actively being attended to in working memory.

How does the embedded-processes model explain sensory memory?

Sensory memory is brief information used to orient attention, especially toward danger.

What evidence supports the embedded-processes model?

Working memory and attention have similar capacity limits, and working memory and long-term memory share some physical brain systems.

What is a prototype?

An average or typical representation of a category.

What is the prototype approach?

The approach that defines categories by comparing items to a typical or averaged example.

What is the exemplar approach?

The approach that defines categories using multiple actual examples of category members rather than one averaged prototype.

What is recollection?

A relatively slow retrieval process involving detailed information about when, where, or how something occurred.

What is familiarity?

A relatively fast feeling that something has been encountered or is known without recalling specific details.

How does recollection differ from familiarity?

Recollection is detailed and either present or absent, while familiarity is a graded sense of knowing that can be weak or strong.

What is the remember/know paradigm?

A recognition-memory procedure in which people identify old items as remembered, known, or not remembered.

What does a remember response mean?

The person consciously recollects details about the item's presentation.

What does a know response mean?

The person knows the item was presented but cannot recall details about its presentation.

Which brain structure is associated with recollection?

The hippocampus.

Which brain structures are associated with familiarity?

The perirhinal cortex and parahippocampal cortex or gyrus.

What did Montaldi and colleagues find about recollection and familiarity?

Hippocampal activity was related to recollection, while parahippocampal activity was related to familiarity.

What is a double dissociation?

Evidence that two functions depend on different brain regions because damage to one region disrupts one function while leaving the other relatively intact.

What did hippocampal damage disrupt?

Recollection.

What did damage to the hippocampus, parahippocampus, and perirhinal regions disrupt?

Both recollection and familiarity.

What is the tip-of-the-tongue experience?

A feeling of familiarity or knowing that occurs without successful recollection.

What is episodic memory?

Memory for personally experienced events and the details surrounding them.

What is semantic memory?

Memory for general knowledge, facts, and concepts without necessarily remembering when the information was learned.

What is procedural memory?

Memory for skills and procedures, such as motor skills, that can often be performed without conscious recollection.

Can amnesic patients learn procedural skills?

Yes. They can improve on procedural tasks even when they cannot remember practicing them.

What did H.M.'s mirror-tracing performance demonstrate?

He could learn a perceptual-motor skill while lacking conscious or declarative memory of the learning episodes.

What is declarative or explicit memory?

Memory that can be consciously recalled or intentionally reported.

What is nondeclarative or implicit memory?

Memory shown through changes in performance without conscious recollection.

What is an explicit memory test?

A test that directly instructs people to use memory, such as recall or recognition.

What is an implicit memory test?

A test that measures the unconscious influence of previous experience without asking people to remember the past.

What is priming?

An increase in the likelihood of responding to a stimulus because of previous exposure to it.

What did the word-fragment completion task demonstrate?

Previously studied words were more likely to be completed, demonstrating implicit memory or priming.

What happens to implicit memory in amnesia?

It can remain relatively intact even when episodic memory is impaired.

What is the DRM paradigm?

A false-memory procedure in which people study related words and often falsely remember a related but nonpresented critical lure.

What is a critical lure?

A related word that was not presented but is often falsely recalled in the DRM paradigm.

What did the DRM paradigm demonstrate?

People can falsely remember nonpresented words and may be just as confident in false memories as in studied memories.

What is false memory?

Remembering an event or information that did not actually occur or was not presented.

What does it mean that memory is reconstructive?

Memory is rebuilt during retrieval and can be influenced by expectations, related information, and later experiences.

What did the Lost in the Mall study demonstrate?

Some people accepted false memories of an event that never happened.

Why can false memories be dangerous?

People may be unaware of memory's limitations and may feel highly confident about inaccurate memories.

What are the three systems in the modal model?

Sensory memory, working memory, and long-term memory.

What are the two major types of amnesia?

Retrograde amnesia and anterograde amnesia.

What is the main difference between STM and LTM?

Short-term memory has limited capacity and brief duration, while long-term memory has large capacity and potentially lifetime duration.

What is the main difference between explicit and implicit memory?

Explicit memory requires conscious recollection, while implicit memory is demonstrated indirectly through behavior or performance.

What are the major topics in the lecture?

Amnesia, the modal model, the embedded-processes model, recollection and familiarity, memory beyond episodic memory, false memory, and memory distortion.