AP Psychology Chapter 9

Automatic processing

refers to our unconscious encoding of incidental information such as space,time, and frequency, and of well-learned information.

Chunking

is the memory technique of organizing material into familiar, meaningful units.

Deja vu

is the false sense that you have already experienced a current situation.

Echoic memory

is the momentary sensory memory of auditory stimuli, lasting about 3 or 4 seconds.

Effortful processing

is encoding that requires attention and some degree of conscious effort

Encoding

the first step in memory; information is translated into some form that enables it to enter our memory system.

Explicit memories

are memories of facts, including names, images and events. They are also called declarative memories.

Flashbulb memory

an unusually vivid memory of an emotionally important moment in one's life.

hippocampus

is a neural region within the limbic system that is important in the processing of explicit memories for storage.

Iconic memory

is the visual sensory memory consisting of a perfect photographic memory, which lasts no more than a few tenths of a second.

Imagery

refers to mental pictures and can be an important aid to effortful processing.

Implicit memories

are memories of skills, preferences and dispositions. These memories are evidently processed, not by the hippocampus, but by a more primitive part of the brain, the cerebellum. They are also called procedural or nondeclarative memories.

Long-term memory

is the relatively permanent and unlimited capacity memory system into which information from short-term memory may pass.

Long-term potentiation (LTP)

is an increase in a synapse's firing potential following brief, rapid stimulation. LTP is believed to be the neural basis for learning and memory.

Memory

the persistence of learning over time via the storage and retrieval of information

misinformation effect

is the tendency of eyewitnesses to an event to incorporate misleading information about the event into their memories. At the heart of many false memories, source amnesia refers to misattributing an event to the wrong source.

Mnemonics

are memory aids (the method of loci,acronyms, peg-words, etc.), which often use visual imagery.

Mood-congruent

memory is the tendency to recall experiences that are consistent with our current mood.

Priming

is the activation, often unconscious, of a web of associations in memory in order to retrieve a specific memory.

Proactive interference

is the disruptive effect of something you already have learned on your efforts to learn or recall new information.

Recall

is a measure of retention in which the person must remember, with few retrieval cues, information learned earlier.

Recognition

is a measure of retention in which one need only identify, rather than recall, previously learned information.

Rehearsal

is the conscious, effortful repetition of information that you are trying either to maintain in consciousness or to encode for storage.

Relearning

is also a measure of retention in that the less time it takes to relearn information, the more that information has been retained.

Repression

is an example of motivated forgetting in that painful and unacceptable memories are prevented from entering consciousness.

Retrieval

is the process of bringing to consciousness information from memory storage.

Retroactive interference

is the disruptive effect of something recently learned on old knowledge.

Semantic encoding

is the processing of information into memory according to its meaning.

Sensory memory

is the immediate, initial recording of sensory information in the memory system.

Serial position effect

is the tendency for items at the beginning and end of a list to be more easily retained than those in the middle.

Short-term memory

is conscious memory, which can hold about seven items for a short time; also called working memory.

Spacing effect

is the tendency for distributed practice to yield better long-term retention than massed practice, or cramming.

Storage

is the passive process by which encoded information is maintained over time.

Visual encoding

is the use of imagery to process information into memory.

acoustic encoding

the encoding of sound, especially the sound of words.

working memory

a newer understanding of short-term memory that involves conscious, active processing of incoming auditory and visual-spatial information, and of information retrieved from longterm memory.