Unit 7 Mod 32 AP Psych Notes

These are semantic memories (facts/general knowledge) -Left frontal lobe

Explicit memories (semantic or episodic) are processed in the hippocampus- fed to other brain regions for storage.

Memory Consolidation: The hippocampus acts like a loading dock, then sent to other areas for storage

• The Cerebellum “little brain” - processes sensory input, coordinating movement output and balance, and enabling nonverbal learning and memory.

  • plays a key role in forming and storing the implicit memories

• infantile amnesia- First 4 years of life are largely blank

  • the hippocampus is one of the last to mature

  • no somatic encoding

• Flashbulb memory: is a clear, sustained long-term memory of an emotionally significant moment or event

• Long-term potentiation (LTP): increase in a cell’s firing potential after brief, rapid stimulation; a neural basis for learning and memory

• Retrieval cues

  • associations we form at the time we encode a memory—smells, tastes, and sights that can evoke our memory of the associated person or event

  • To call up visual cues when trying to recall something, we may mentally place ourselves in the original context.

• Priming

  • 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.

• State-dependent memory

  • What we learn in one physiological state—be it drunk or sober—may be more easily recalled when we are again in that state.

  • Mood-congruent memory- recall experiences that are consistent with one’s current good or bad mood

  • Mood effects on retrieval help explain why our moods persist.

    • well in a sad mood, you will remember sad memories

• Serial position effect

  • Easier to remember things at the beginning (primacy effect) and end of lists (recency effect).