Studied by 1 personmemory
the persistence of learning over time through the encoding, storage, and retrieval of information
Alzheimer's disease
a disease that slowly strips away memory and begins as difficulty remembering new information and progresses into an inability to do everyday tasks
lost memory strikes at the core of our...
humanity. It leaves people robbed of a sense of joy, meaning, and companionship
memory is very...
impressive; we can recognize faces, songs, and more.
3 retention measures
recall, recognition, relearning
recall
a measure of memory in which the person must retrieve information learned earlier that is not currently in your conscious awareness (ex: fill-in-the-blank test)
recognition
a measure of memory in which the person identifies items previously learned (ex: multiple-choice test)
relearning
a measure of memory that assesses the amount of time saved when learning material again (ex: studying for a final exam)
Herman Ebbinghaus
showed that our response speed when recalling or recognizing information indicates memory strength, as does relearning, using nonsense syllables
Ebbinghaus' experiment
Ebbinghaus randomly selected a sample of syllables, practiced them, and then tested himself by trying to look away and recall the items. The more frequently he repeated the list aloud on day 1, the less time required to relearn on day 2
additional rehearsal of verbal information can produce...
overlearning
overall, we ______________ more than we ____________________
remember ; recall
memory is an _________________-__________________ model
information-processing
to remember any event, we must...
encode, store, retrieve
encode
the process of getting information into the memory system
storage
the process of retaining encoded information over time
retrieval
the process of getting information out of memory storage
parallel processing
processing many aspects of a problem simultaneously
to focus on multitrack processing, an information-processing model called ______________________ views memories as products of interconnected neural netrworks
connectionism
memory pathways constantly change when we...
learn new things
memory-forming process
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
activated memory that holds a few items briefly before the information is stored or forgotten. We encode short-term memory through rehearsal
long-term memory
the relatively permanent and limitless storehouse of the memory system. Includes knowledge, skills, and experiences
Who designed the memory forming process?
Richard Atkinson and Richard Shiffrin
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
without focused attention, information often...
fades
explicit memories (declarative memory)
retention of facts and experiences that one can constantly know and "declare"
effortful processing
encoding that requires attention and conscious effort (used with explicit memories)
implicit memories (nondeclarative memory)
retention of learned skills or classically conditioned associations independent of conscious recollection
automatic processing
the unconscious encoding of incidental information, such as space, time, and frequency, and of well-learned information, such as word meaning
George Sperling's Experiment
when immediately after flashing 9 letters, he sounded a high, medium, or low tone that directed participants to recall a certain row
Iconic memory
a momentary sensory memory of visual stimuli; a picture-image memory lasting no more than a few tenths of a second
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
George Miller's proposal
that we can store about 7 (lucky number) pieces of information in short-term memory. (In reality, the number varies by task)
Working memory capacity varies, depending on age and other factors (young adults are the best). But whatever our age, we do better when...
focused on one thing at a time with no restrictions
processing strategies
chunking, mnemonics, hierarchies
mnemonics
memory aids, especially those techniques that use vivid imagery and organizational devices. The peg-word system is a frequent mnemonic that requires you to memorize a jingle to copy down words
chunking and mnemonics together make...
acronyms
hierarchies
broad concepts divided and subdivided into narrower concepts and facts
the spacing effect
the tendency for distributed study or practice to yield better long-term retention than is achieved through massed study or practice
the testing effect (retrieval practice effect, test-enhanced learning)
when one has an enhanced memory after retrieving rather than simply rereading information
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
Craik and Tulving's experiment
asked questions after flashing words at viewers that would elicit different levels of processing
If new information is neither meaningful nor related to our experiences, we (have trouble/do fine) processing it
have trouble
Self-reference effect
tendency to better remember information relevant to ourselves
The amount of information remembered depends on...
time spent learning and on your making it meaningful for deep processing
the brain distributes the components of memory across (one location/a network of locations)
a network of locations
explicit, conscious memories are either...
semantic or episodic
semantic
explicit memory of facts and general knowledge
episodic
explicit memory of personally experienced events
when you summon a past experience, information gets sent to...
the prefrontal cortex (in the frontal lobes) for working and processing. The left and right lobes process different types of memories.
hippocampus
helps process for storage explicit memories of facts and events
damage to the general hippocampus...
disrupts the formation and recall of explicit memories
damage to the left/right hippocampus...
makes people have trouble remembering verbal information, but not visual information. Vice versa for the right hippocampus.
memory consolidation
the neural storage of a long-term memory
What supports memory consolidation?
sleep
what plays a key role in forming and storing implicit memories created by classical conditioning?
the cerebellum. With it damaged, people cannot develop certain conditioned reflexes
What does the basal ganglia do?
facilitate formation of our procedural memories for skill. They receive input from the cortex but do not send the information back
What best explains why the reactions and skills we learned during infancy reach far into our future?
our implicit memory system
infantile amnesia
forgetting our first four years after life as adults
Our emotions trigger stress hormones that influence
memory formation. Stress provokes the amygdala to initiate a memory trace that boosts activity in the memory-forming areas.
Tunnel vision memory
Extremely emotional or stressful memories that focus our attention and recall on high-priority information and reduce our recall of irrelevant details
flashbulb memories
clear, sustained memories of an emotionally significant moment or event. Though they are vivid, they may decline over time
given increased activity in particular pathways, neural interconnections are....
forming and strengthening
Eric Kandel and James Schwartz experiment
observed synaptic changes during learning in Aplysia, a sea slug. They discovered that when learning occurs, Aplysia releases more serotonin into certain neurons. These cells' synapses then become even more efficient at transmitting signals
Long-term potentiation (LTP)
an increase in a cell's firing potential after brief, rapid stimulation; a neural basis for learning and memory
electroconvulsive therapy (ECT)
a brief electric current is sent through the brain of an anesthetized patient
what is the best memory-booster?
sleep
approaches to improving memory
using drugs with glutamate and drugs and produce CREB, which helps LTP by reshaping synapses to transfer short-term memories into long-term memories.
retrieval cues
when you encode into a memory a piece of target information, you associate with it other bits about your surroundings. The more retrieval cues you have, the better your chances of finding a route to the suspended memory. The best ones come from associations we form at the time when we encode a memory
priming
the activation, often unconsciously, of certain associations, thus predisposing one's perception, memory, or response.
Context-dependent memory
putting yourself back in the context where you earlier experienced something can prime your memory retrieval. Experiencing something outside the usual setting can be confusing.
encoding specificity principle
the idea that cues and contexts specific to a particular memory will be the most effective in helping us recall it.
state-dependent memory
when what we learn in one state may be more easily recalled when we are again in that state
moon congruent
the tendency to recall experiences that are consistent with one's current good or bad mood.
mood magnifies...
events
when we're happy, we recall
happy memories
when we're in a bad mood, we read a normal look as a...
mean/bad glare
serial position effect
our tendency to recall the last (recency effect) and first (primary effect) items in a list
chunking
organizing items into familiar, manageable units; often occurs automatically/naturally
H.M. Case
surgeons removed much of H.M's hippocampus to stop seizures. This resulted in an inability to perform new, conscious memories
What did HM suffer from?
anterograde amnesia
anterograde amnesia
an inability to form new memories
retrograde amnesia
an inability to retrieve information from one's past
Jimmie G.
the man frozen in time, no memory of time
H.M. and Jimmie lost their ability to for explicit memories, but could still...
form implicit memories (but have no conscious recall of it)
much of what we sense we will never...
notice, and what we fail to encode, we will never remember
Age can effect encoding efficiently. However, no matter our age, we....
selectively attend to few of the myriad sights and sounds constantly bombarding us
What did Ebbinghaus' experiment confirm?
the course of forgetting is initially rapid, then levels off with time (forgetting curve)
Often forgetting is not memories faded, but memories ________.
unretrieved
retrieval problems occasionally stem from what?
interference and motivated forgetting
proactive interference
the forward-acting disruptive effect of prior learning on the recall of new information (prior learning disrupts recall of new info)
retroactive interference
the backward-acting disruptive effect of new learning on the recall of old information (learning disrupts recall of old interference)
why does information presented in the hour before sleep suffer less retroactive interference?
the opportunity for interfering events is minimized
why are memories unreliable?
we revise them
repressing
the basic defense mechanism that banishes from consciousness anxiety-arousing thoughts, feelings, and memories
Sigmund Freud's views of memory repression
we repress painful or uncooperative memories to protect our self-concept and minimize anxiety. but the repressed memory lingers, and can be retrieved by some later cue or during therapy
reconsolidation
a process in which previously stored memories, when retrieved, are potentially altered before being stored again
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