The Chirs List

Primacy effect: The tendency to remember the first items in a list or sequence better than later ones.

Recency effect: The tendency to remember the most recent items in a list or sequence more effectively than those presented earlier.

Working memory model: The framework that explains how we temporarily store and manipulate information, consisting of the central executive, phonological loop, visuospatial sketchpad, and episodic buffer.

Working memory capacity: the limited amount of information that can be held in working memory at any given time, typically estimated to be between 5 to 9 items.

Chunking: A strategy used to enhance memory capacity by grouping individual pieces of information into larger, more manageable units, allowing for better retention and recall.

Levels of processing: This theory suggests that the depth of processing affects how well information is remembered, with deeper, more meaningful processing leading to better retention compared to shallow processing.

infantile amnesia: the inability of adults to retrieve memories from early childhood, typically before the age of 3 or 4, due to the ongoing development of the brain and cognitive structures.

Autobiographical recall: a memory system consisting of episodes recollected from an individual's life, based on a combination of episodic and semantic memory

Nostalgia bump: increased or enhanced recollection for events that occurred during their adolescence and early adulthood.

Context-dependent memory: improved recall when the context (e.g. underwater vs on land) during encoding is the same as the context during retrieval.

State dependent memory: improved recall when the state (e.g. drunk vs. sober)during encoding is the same as the state during retrieval.

Flashbulb memories: Memories about emotionally charged events (believed to be more accurate though this is not necessarily the case

Neurobiology of memory: Memories are made by changes in collections of neurons and the connections or synapses between them

Four stages of memory: 1. encoding 2. Storage 3. recognition 4. recall

Patient HM could not form: new memories (anterograde amnesia) and could not remember 2 years before his operation (retrograde amnesia) but was still able to use his implicit memory

Patient HM teaches us that: The hippocampus is thought to be critical for long-term declarative memory

Memory illusions: cases in which a rememberer's report of a past event seriously deviates from the event's actual occurrence

DRM paradigm: A procedure in cognitive psychology used to study false memory in humans. The procedure typically involves the oral presentation of a list of related words (e.g., bed, rest, awake, tired, dream, wake, snooze, blanket, doze, slumber, snore, nap, peace, yawn, drowsy) and then requires the subject to remember as many words from the list as possible. Typical results show that subjects recall a related but absent word (e.g., sleep), known as a 'lure', with the same frequency as other presented words

Semantic memory: encompasses knowledge of objects, facts, and words

Semantic dementia: an acute loss of memory for common words and their meanings. For example, being unable to understand and differentiate between a "car" and an "engine".

Prototype Theory: A theory that suggests concepts are represented by a central tendency or typical example of a category.

Levels of categorization: Subordinate, Basic, superordinate

Superordinate level of categorization: Very general categories ex. Animals

Basic level of categorization: A balance between general and specific categories ex. Dogs

Subordinate level of categorization: Very specific categories ex. German shepard

Exemplar Theory: A theory stating that individuals store specific examples and categorize based on similarity to these examples

How does fear generalization relate to categorization: Broad conditioning makes generalized fear easier (I.e. typical stimulus are more easily generalized)

How much memory is stored in your sensory memory: Sensory memory holds a large amount of information, but only for a very brief period—typically less than a second. The exact capacity depends on the type of sensory memory.

Iconic memory: Visual memory. Has the ability to recall information with high accuracy after a brief exposure, often exemplified by remembering the details of a recently viewed list or sequence.

Echonic memory: auditory memory. Can store around 2–4 seconds of sound, allowing us to process spoken language even if we don't hear every word instantly

Whole report: flash a stimulus (like a list of letters) report as much stimulus as you can (3-4 items are often recalled suggesting sensory memory is very limited)

Partial report: flash stimulus, but row of letters without telling the patient which will be tested (8- 10 items stored), suggesting that sensory memory stores quite a bit but only for a brief time)

Working memory: the ability to hold information in our current focus of attention while completing some sort of necessary cognitive processing task.

Sensory memory: a quick collection of information from your senses. It's highly detailed and has a large capacity. It only lasts for a couple of seconds. Information moves from your sensory memory to your short-term memory

Episodic memory: the memory of everyday events that can be explicitly stated or conjured. It is the collection of past personal experiences that occurred at particular times and places

Process-dissociation procedure: a method for separating conscious (or intentional) and non-conscious (or automatic) uses of memory and for producing estimates of the isolated contributions of recollection and familiarity to memory performance.

Depth of processing: The more you process a piece of information (Shallow vs. Deep) the more likely you are to recall it later

Implicit memory: A type of long-term memory that is not consciously recalled.

Explicit memory: A type of long-term memory that is concisely and recalled with effort

Implicit vs. Explicit memory study: Purse Study

Reconstructive memory: the idea that remembering the past reflects our attempts to reconstruct the events experienced previously

Memory errors: false memories, flash bulb memories

False memories: a phenomenon where someone recalls something that did not actually happen or recalls it differently from the way it actually happened

Coding specificity principle: the idea that memory retrieval is improved when the encoding context is the same as the retrieval context

Early selection: the locus of selection is at early stages of processing and that therefore, unattended stimuli are not fully processed.

Late selection: all information in the unattended ear is processed on the basis of meaning (semantic level), not just the selected or highly pertinent information.(supported by cocktail party effect)

Colour perception: Certain photoreceptors in the retina (cones) are sensitive to different wavelengths of light, different colours have different wavelengths

The perceived colour of an object depends on:  which light components are absorbed by the material of that object

Neuroimaging: the use of various techniques to either directly or indirectly image the structure, function/pharmacology of the brain.

Examples of structural neuroimaging: CT and MRI

Examples of functional neuroimaging: EEG, PET scan, fMRI, TMS

Structural imaging: generates a detailed portrait of shapes, sizes and positions of the brain’s components

Functional imaging: generates information about activity levels throughout the brain

Contrast sensitivity testing: the ability to perceive sharp and clear outlines of very small objects. It is also defined as the ability to identify minute differences in the shadings and patterns.

Ventral Stream: the pathway in the brain associated with the perception of shapes and object recognition (what)

Dorsal streams: spatial processing, attention, and online control of actions (where)

Ebbinghaus illusion: In the best-known version of the illusion, two circles of identical size are placed near each other, and one is surrounded by large circles while the other is surrounded by small circles. Played a crucial role in the debate over the existence of separate pathways in the brain for perception and action. Distorts perception of size, but not action.

Stroop effect: Words that colour do not match the word. Suggests that since recognizing colors is not an "automatic process," there is hesitancy to respond, whereas, in contrast, the brain automatically understands the meanings of words as a result of habitual reading. Automatic reading does not need controlled attention, but still uses enough attentional resources to reduce the amount of attention accessible for color information processing

Cognitive control: a set of cognitive processes that support goal-directed behaviour, by regulating thoughts and actions through cognitive control, selecting and successfully monitoring actions that facilitate the attainment of chosen objectives.

Feature search: requires identification of a pop-out target, defined by a single feature (e.g., search for the only square among a display of circles)

Conductive search: requires identification of a target defined by a combination of two features (e.g., search for a yellow square among red and yellow circles

Inattentional Blindness: individual fails to perceive an unexpected stimulus in plain sight, purely as a result of a lack of attention