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Memory Notes
Test 1 practice
Term | Definition |
---|---|
memory | persistence of learning over time via the storage and retrieval of info |
Flashbulb memory | a clear memory of an emotionally significant moment or event; San Francisco residence recalling 1989 Earthquake |
Human memory like a | computer |
encoding | Get info into our brain. processing of info into memory system |
Retain info –storage | retention of encoded info over time |
retrieval | Get it back later process of getting into out of memory storage |
Humans store vast amounts of info in long-term memory | relatively permanent and limitless storehouse of the memory system |
Short-term memory: | activated memory that holds few items briefly; phone number just dial |
Automatic processing: | unconscious encoding of incidental info; occurs with little or no effort, without our awareness, and without interfering with our thinking of other things; space, time, frequency, well-learned info |
Effortful processing: | encoding that requires attention and conscious effort; memorizing these notes for the AP Psychology exam |
After practice, effort processing becomes more automatic; | reading from right to left for students of Hebrew |
Can boost memory through rehearsal: | conscious repetition of info, either to maintain it in consciousness or to encode it for storage |
Next-in-line effect: | when people go around circle saying names/words, poorest memories are for name/word person before them said |
Sleep | Info received before sleep is hardly ever remembered are consciousness fade before processing able |
Retain info better when rehearsal distributed over time | phenomenon called spacing effect: tendency for distributed study or practice to yield better long-term retention than is achieved through cramming |
When given a list of items and ask to recall, people often demonstrate serial position effect: | tendency to recall best the last and first items in a list |
rehearsal will not encode all info equally well | because processing of info is in 3 ways: 1.Semantic encoding: encoding of meaning, including the meaning of words 2.Acoustic encoding: encoding of sound, especially the sound of words 3.Visual encoding: encoding of picture images |
Fergus Craik and Endel Tulving | flashed a word to people, asking question that required processing either visually, acoustically, or semantically; semantic encoding was found to yield much better memory |
Imagery | mental pictures; powerful aid to effortful processing, especially when combined with semantic encoding;can easily picture where we were yesterday, where we sat, and what we wore |
Mnemonic | memory aids, especially those techniques that use vivid imagery and organizational devices |
Chunking: | organizing items into familiar, manageable units; often occurs automatically Able remember info best when able to organize it into personal meaningful arrangements |
Failure to encode info | –never entered memory system |
Much of what we sense, | we never notice |
Raymond Nickerson and Marilyn Adams | discover most people cannot pick the real American penny from different ones; (See pg. 280) |
Sensory memory | immediate, initial recording of sensory info in memory system |
we have short temporary photographic memory called iconic memory: | momentary sensory memory of visual stimuli; photographic/picture-image memory lasting no more than a few tenths of a sec; visual = eye, which sounds like “I” in iconic |
also fleeting memory for auditory sensory images called echoic memory: | momentary sensory memory of auditory stimuli; if attention is elsewhere, sounds and words can still be recalled within 3 or 4 sec; auditory = ear, which starts with “e” like echoic |
Short-Term Memory | without active processing, short-term memories have limited life short-term memory limited in capacity –about 7 chunks of info; at any given moment, can consciously process only very limited amount of info |
Long-Term Memory | capacity for storing long-term memories is practically limitless though forgetting occurs as new experiences interfere with retrieval and as physical memory trace gradually decays |
Karl Lashley | removed pieces of rat’s cortex as it ran through maze; found that no matter what part removed, partial memory of solving maze stayed; concluded memories don’t reside in single specific spot Psychologists then focus on neurons |
Long-term potential (LTP): | increase in a synapse’s firing potential after brief, rapid stimulation; believed to be neural basis for learning and memory |
After long-term potential occurs | passing electric current through brain won’t disrupt old memories, but wipe up recent experiences; football player with blow to head won’t recall name of play before the blow |
Drugs that block neurotransmitters also | disrupt info storage;drunk people hardly remembers previous evening |
Stimulating hormones affect memory | as more glucose available to fuel brain activity, indicating important event –sears events onto brain; remembering first kiss, earthquake |
Amnesia: | loss of memory |
Found that people who don’t have memories can still learn | indicating 2 memory systems operating in order |
Implicit memory: | retention without conscious recollection (of skills and dispositions); how to do something |
Explicit memory: | memory of facts and experiences that one can consciously know and “declare”; remember it was done before |
Through scans, | found that Hippocampus, neural center located in limbic system, helps process explicit memories for storage |
Damage to left side of hippocampus | produce difficulty in remembering verbal info, but no trouble recalling visual designs and locations |
Damage to right side produce difficulty in remembering visual designs and locations | but no trouble recalling verbal info |
When hippocampus removed from monkeys, | lose recent memories, but old memories intact, suggesting hippocampus not permanent storage |
Long-term memories | scattered across various parts of frontal and temporal lobes |
Recall: | measure of memory in which the person must retrieve information learned earlier; fill-in-the-blank test |
Once learned and forgotten | relearning something becomes quicker than when originally first learned |
Recognition: | measure of memory in which the person need only identify items previously learned; multiple-choice test |
Relearning: | memory measure that assesses the amount of time saved when relearning previously learned info |
Through tests on recognition and relearning | found one remember more than can recall |
To retrieve specific memory | need to identify one of the strands that leads to it, process called priming: activation, often unconsciously, of particular associations in memory |
Retrieval cues (reminders of info | such as photographs, often prime one’s memories for earlier experiences |
Best retrieval cues comes | from associations formed at time when one encodes memory By being in similar context (surrounding), can cause flood of retrieval cues and memories |
Being in similar context as before, | may trigger experience déjà vu: eerie sense that “I’ve experienced this before.” Cues from current situation may subconsciously trigger retrieval of an earlier experience |
Things we learn in one state (joyful, sad, drunk, sober, etc) | are more easily recalled when in same state –phenomenon called state-dependent memory |
Moods also associated with memory; | easily recall memory when mood of that incident same as present |
Mood-congruent memory | tendency to recall experiences that are consistent with one’s current good or bad mood |
Learning some items | may interfere with retrieving others |
Proactive interference (forward-acting): | disruptive effect of prior learning on the recall of new info; old combination lock numbers may interfere with recalling of new numbers; “pro”(after = new) interference = interference on new info |
Retroactive interference (backward-acting): | disruptive effect of new learning on the recall of old info; teachers who just learn students’ names from present class have trouble recalling previous class’ students’ names; retro (before = old) interference = interference on old info |
Repression | in psychoanalytic theory, the basic defence mechanism that banishes anxiety-arousing thoughts, feelings, and memories from consciousness |
Increasing memory | researchers think repression occurs rarely |
Misinformation effect: | incorporating misleading info into one’s memory of an event; miscalling a stop sign when asked about car crash |
Source amnesia: | attributing to the wrong source an event that we experienced, heard about, read about, or imagined |