2.5-2.7 AP Psychology

Semantic - Explicit memory of facts and general knowledge; one of our two conscious memory systems (the other is episodic memory).

Episodic - Explicit memory of personally experienced events; one of our two conscious memory systems (the other is semantic memory).

Hippocampus - A neural center located in the limbic system; helps process explicit (conscious) memories — of facts and events — for storage.

Memory consolidation - The neural storage of a long-term memory.

Flashbulb memories - A clear memory of an emotionally significant moment or event.

Priming - The activation, often unconsciously, of certain associations, thus predisposing one's perception, memory, or response.

Encoding specificity principle - The idea that cues and contexts specific to a particular memory will be most effective in helping us recall it.

Mood congruent - The tendency to recall experiences that are consistent with one's current good or bad mood.

Serial position effect - Our tendency to recall best the last items in a list initially (a recency effect) and the first items in a list after a delay (a primacy effect).

Interleaving - A retrieval practice strategy that involves mixing the study of different topics.

Anterograde amnesia - An inability to form new memories.

Retrograde amnesia - An inability to remember information from one's past.

Proactive (forward-acting) interference - The forward-acting disruptive effect of older learning on the recall of new information.

Retroactive (backward-acting) interference - The backward-acting disruptive effect of newer learning on the recall of old information.

Repress - In psychoanalytic theory, the basic defense mechanism that banishes from consciousness anxiety-arousing thoughts, feelings, and memories.

Reconsolidation - A process in which previously stored memories, when retrieved, are potentially altered before being stored again.

Misinformation effect - Occurs when a memory has been corrupted by misleading information.

Source amnesia - Faulty memory for how, when, or where information was learned or imagined (as when misattributing information to a wrong source). Source amnesia, along with the misinformation effect, is at the heart of many false memories.

Deja vu - That eerie sense that "I've experienced this before." Cues from the current situation may unconsciously trigger retrieval of an earlier experience.