Unit 5 AP Psychology Module 31-36

Memory

Memory

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

Alzheimer's Disease

A progressive neurodegeneration and fatal condition.

Recall (measurement of memory)

retrieving information that is not currently in your conscious awareness but that was learned at an earlier time.

Recognition (measurement of memory)

identifying items previously learned

Relearning (measurement of memory)

Learning something more quickly when you learn it a second time or during a later time.

-Learned it before = Relearn material more easily

Hermann Ebbinghaus

randomly selected a sample of syllables and practiced them, and tested himself on his ability to accurately recall the items.

The day after learning such a list, he could recall few of the nonsense syllables.

But they weren't entirely forgotten.

Hermann Ebbinghaus' findings

Ebbinghaus found that the more times he practiced a list of nonsense syllables on Day 1, the less time he required to relearn it on Day 2. Speed of relearning is one measure of memory retention

Parallel processing

Considering many aspects of a problem simultaneously; the brain's natural mode of information processing for many functions.

working memory

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

How does Baddeley's model address working memory?

includes visual-spatial and auditory rehearsal of new information. A hypothetical central executive (manager) focuses our attention and pulls information from long-term memory to help make sense of new information.

central executive

coordinates focused processing without which, information often fades.

Explicit memory

retention of facts and experiences from long-term memory that one can consciously know and "declare."

also called declarative memory.

Implicit memory

retention of learned skills or classically conditioned associations in long-term memory independent of conscious recollection.

also called nondeclarative memory.

George Sperling's sensory memory experiment

When George Sperling (1960) flashed a group of letters for 1/20th of a second, people could recall only about half the letters.

But when signaled to recall a particular row immediately after the letters had disappeared, they could do so with near-perfect accuracy.

iconic memory

Sperling's sensory memory experiment demonstrated this, a fleeting sensory memory of visual stimuli.

echoic memory

a momentary sensory memory of auditory stimuli; if attention is elsewhere, sounds and words can still be recalled within 3 or 4 seconds

chunking

organizing items into familiar, manageable units.

What are some effortful processing strategies that can help us encode and retrieve?

1. chunking

2. mnemonics

3. hierarchies

mnemonic device

memory aids, especially those techniques that use vivid imagery and organizational devices, like acronyms or acrostics.

peg-word system

a mnemonic device that utilizes visual imagery and this simple jingle.

spacing effect

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

testing effect

effective way to distribute practice is repeated self-testing

two levels of processing

1. shallow processing

2. deep processing

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; tends to yield the best retention

self-reference effect

tendency to better remember personally relevant information

semantic

facts and general knowledge

episodic

experienced events

hippocampus

explicit memories for facts and episodes are processed here and fed to other brain regions for storage.

a subcortical limbic system structure in the temporal lobes.

memory consolidation

memories are not permanently stored in the hippocampus because of...

cerebellum

the "little brain" at the rear of the brainstem; functions include processing sensory input, coordinating movement output and balance, and enabling nonverbal learning and memory.

basal ganglia

Deep brain structures involved in motor movement, facilitate formation of our procedural memories (nondeclarative or implicit) for skills.

receive input from the cortex but do not return the favor of sending information back to the cortex for conscious awareness of procedural learning.

infantile amnesia

the inability to remember events from the first four years of life.

amygdala

two lima bean-sized neural clusters in the limbic system; linked to emotion.

role it plays in memory processing:

- stress hormones focus memory.

- stress provokes it to initiate a memory trace that boosts activity in the brain's memory- forming areas.

flashbulb memory

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

long-term potentiation (LTP)

an increase in a cell's firing potential after brief, rapid stimulation; a neural basis for learning and memory.

priming

the activation, often unconsciously, of associations in long-term implicit memory.

perceptual set

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

priming

the implicit memory effect in which exposure to a stimulus influences response to a later stimulus

context-dependent memory

Putting yourself back in the context where you earlier experienced something can prime your memory retrieval

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

The theory that information learned in a particular state of mind (e.g., depressed, happy, somber) is more easily recalled when in that same state of mind.

mood-congruent memory

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

serial position effect

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

Jill Price

the woman who can't forget.

Remembers every day of her life since age 14 with detailed clarity, including both the joys and the hurts.

possesses a very detailed episodic long-term memory.

Henry Molaison, H.M.

Much of his hippocampus was removed in order to stop persistent seizures.

Resulted in "severe disconnection of the remaining hippocampus" from the rest of the brain.

Unable to form new conscious memories. For about half a minute he could keep something in mind, enough to carry on a conversation.

When distracted, he would lose what was just said or what had just occurred.

Anterograde amnesia (type of forgetting)

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.

1. encoding failure

2. storage decay

3. retrieval failure

Why do we forget?

encoding failure

Much of what we sense we never notice, and what we fail to encode, we will never remember

storage decay

poor durability of stored memories leads to their decay.

retrieval failure

the inability to recall long-term memories because of inadequate or missing retrieval cues

proactive interference (factor that influence memory retrieval errors)

the forward-acting disruptive effect of older learning on the recall of new information

retroactive interference (factor that influence memory retrieval errors)

the backward-acting disruptive effect of new learning on the recall of old information

motivated forgetting

forgetting unwanted memories, consciously or unconsciously. 'motivated' to forget.

repression

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

Psychologist Margaret McKinnon

interviewed 15 passengers who nearly died in a plane crash and found that all exhibited vivid, detailed memories.

With trauma comes not repression but, far more often, "robust" memory.

reconsolidation

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

misinformation effect

occurs when misleading information has distorted one's memory of an event

source amnesia

faulty memory for how, when, or where information was learned or imagined

also called source misattribution.

deja vu

that eerie sense that "I've experienced this before."

cognition

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

concepts

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

prototype

mental image or best example of a category.

creativity

the ability to produce new (novel) and valuable (useful) 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 diverges in different directions

1. expertise

2. imaginative thinking skills

3. venturesome personality

4. intrinsic motivation

5. creative environment

five components of creativity according to robert sternberg

algorithm (problem solving strategy)

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

heuristic (problem solving strategy)

a simple thinking strategy that allows us to make judgements and solve problems efficiently, speedier but more error prone

insight

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

1. confirmation bias

2. fixation

3. mental set

three obstacles to problem solving?

confirmation bias

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

fixation

the inability to see a problem from a new perspective; an · obstacle to problem-solving.

intuition

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

Representativeness heuristic (intuitive mental shortcut)

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

Availability heuristic (intuitive mental shortcut)

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.

availability heuristic

estimating the likelihood of events based on how fast they come to mind... their 'availability' in memory

planning fallacy

the tendency to underestimate how long it will take to complete a task

belief perserverance

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 judgments.

language

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

phoneme (structural components of language)

the smallest distinctive sound unit.

morpheme (structural components of language)

the smallest unit that carries meaning; may be a word or a part of a word (such as a prefix)

grammar (structural components of language)

a system of rules that enables us to communicate with and understand others.

babbling stage

Beginning around 4 months, the stage of speech development in which an infant spontaneously utters various sounds (phonemes) is at first unrelated to the household language.

one word stage

the stage in speech development, from about age 1 to 2, during which a child speaks mostly in single words.

two-word stage

At about 18 months, children's learning of language explodes from about a word per week to a word per day.

telegraphic speech

The two-word stage produces sentences in which a child speaks like telegram—"go car"—using mostly nouns and verbs

aphasia

impairment of language, usually caused by left hemisphere damage either to Broca's area (impairing speaking) or to Wernicke's area (impairing understanding)

broca's area

helps control language expression—an area of the frontal lobe, usually in the left hemisphere, that directs the muscle movements involved in speech.

Wernicke's Area

a brain area involved in language comprehension and expression, usually in the left temporal lobe.

Benjamin Whorf

Contended that language determines the way we think. Created the linguistic determinism hypothesis that language controls the way we think and interpret the world around us.

linguist influence

the weaker form of "linguistic relativity"—the idea that language affects thought (thus our thinking and world view is "relative to" our cultural language)