Chapter 7: Memory: Constructing and Reconstructing Our Pasts
Schema
Organized knowledge structure or mental model that we've stored in memory
Chunking
Organizing info into meaningful groupings, allowing us to extend the span of short-term memory
Priming
Our ability to identify a stimulus more easily or more quickly after we've encountered similar stimuli
Semantic Memory
Our knowledge of facts about the world
Procedural Memory
Our memory for how to do things is called?
Tip-of-the-tongue (TOT) Phenomenon
Experience of knowing that we know something but being unable to access it
Decay
Fading of info from memory over time
Cryptomnesia
Failure to recognize that our ideas originated with someone else
Memory Illusion
False but subjectively compelling memory
Recall
Generating previously remembered info
Sensory Memory
George Sperling's partial report method studies from 1960's demonstrated that when a display of 12 letters was viewed, participants retained all of the letters in____________ but not all of them could be transferred to short-term memory.
Long-Term Potentiation (LTP)
Gradual strengthening of the connections among neurons from repetitive stimulation
Serial Position Curve
Graph depicting both primacy and recency effects on people's ability to recalls items on a list
Retrieval Cue
Hint that makes it easier for us to recall info
25%
In Elizabeth Loftus's"lost in the mall" study approximately what percentage of people distinctly remembered being lost in a shopping mall after being told that this had happened to them, even though it didn't really happen?
Infantile Amnesia
Inability of adults to remember personal experiences that took place before an early age
Anterograde Amnesia
Inability to encode new memories from our experience
Mnemonic
A learning aid, strategy, or device that enhances recall
Echoic Memory
Allows you to remember auditory stimuli for up to 5 to 10 seconds
Semantic; episodic
Ally remembers that St. Paul is the capital of Minnesota. Alina remembers that she lived in St. Paul when she was 12 years old. Ally is demonstrating ____________ memory while Alina is demonstrating _______________ memory.
Generalized amnesia
Although it is presented as the most common kind of memory loss in the popular media, with depictions of someone losing all memory of his or her past, _______________ is not actually the most common kind of amnesia.
Schemas
Although using___________ can sometimes lead to mistakes, they provide us with a frame of reference for interpreting new situations.
Echoic Memory
Auditory sensory memory
Sensory Memory
Brief storage of perceptual info before it is passed to short-term memory
Misinformation Effect
Creation of fictitious memories by providing misleading info about an event after it takes place
eyewitnesses
More than 300 convicted prisoners to date have been released bc DNA evidence showed they were innocent, despite confident testimony from?
Method of Loci
Dee Dee has to remember 4 items that he needs at the market, so her visualizes the path he will take to get there. He imagines a bar of soap hanging from a large tree, envisions a roll of paper towels next to a stoplight, "sees" a packet of gum on the newspaper rack, and imagines the fire hydrant spurting out soda. which memory strategy is Dee Dee relying on?
Levels of Processing
Depth of transforming info, which influences how easily we remember it
Flashbulb Memory
Emotional memory that is extraordinarily vivid and detailed
Proactive Interference
Interference with acquisition of new info due to previous learning of info
Retroactive Interference
Interference with retention of old info due to acquisition of new info
Meta-Memory
Knowledge about our own memory abilities and limitations
Source Monitoring Confusion
Lack of clarity about the origin of a memory
Elaborative Rehearsal
Linking stimuli to each other in a meaningful way to improve retention of info in short-term memory
Interference
Loss of info from memory bc of competition rom additional incoming info
Retrograde amnesia
Loss of memories from our past
Implicit Memory
Memories we don't deliberately remember or reflect or consciously
Explicit Memory
Memories we recall intentionally and of which we have conscious awareness
Procedural Memory
Memory for how to do things, including motor skills and habits
Short-Term Memory
Memory system that retains info for limited durations
Encoding Specificity
Phenomenon of remembering something better when the conditions under which we retrieve information are similar to the conditions under which we encoded it
Suggestive Memory Technique
Procedure that encourages patients to recall memories that may or may not have taken place
Encoding
Process of getting info into our memory banks
Storage
Process of keeping info in memory
Recall, recognition, and relearning
Psychologists measure people's memory abilities by assessing three capacities:______________.
Relearning
Reacquiring knowledge that we'd previously learned but largely forgotten over time
Retrieval
Reactivation or reconstruction of experiences from our memory stores
Episodic Memory
Recollection of events in our lives
Long-term Memory
Relatively enduring (from minutes to years) retention of information stored regarding our facts, experiences, and skills
Rehearsal
Repeating info to extend the duration of retention in short-term memory
Maintenance Rehearsal
Repeating stimuli in their original form to retain them in short-term memory
Memory
Retention of info over time
Recognition
Selecting previously remembered info from an array of options
Distributed versus Massed Practice
Studying info in small increments over time (distributed) versus in large increments over a brief amount of time (massed)
Context-Dependent Learning
Superior retrieval of memories when the external context of the original memories matches the retrieval context
State-Dependent Learning
Superior retrieval of memories when the organism is in the same physiological or psychological state as it was during encoding
Primacy Effect
Tendency to remember words at the beginning of a list especially well
Recency Effect
Tendency to remember words at the end of a list especially well
Decay; interference
The 2 primary reasons why short-term memories fade are?
Magic Number
The span for short-term memory, according to George Miller: seven pus or minus two pieces of info
Permastore
Type of long-term memory that appears to be permanent
Cryptomnesia
Unintentional plagiarism has been attributed to _________, which occurs when someone says they forgot having been exposed to the plagiarized material earlier and thought they had created it themselves.
Iconic Memory
Visual sensory memory
Memory for recent events fades first, with distant memories usually being the last to go
What is the general progression of memory loss for patients with Alzheimer's disease?
Source monitoring
When we are not sure where a memory really came from ("Did it actually happen? Or was it all a dream?") we can use cues such as how vivid and detailed the memory is to determine the answer. This process is called?
It is easier to implant a false memory that is plausible than one that is implausible
Which of the following statements is true?
Chunking
Without even noticing that you are doing it, what memory technique do you use to remember larger quantities of info, even though your short-term memory capacity only holds about nine bits of info?
Hermann Ebbinghaus
ZAK, BOL, GID, YAF, and other nonsense syllables were used in some of the earliest studies of memory, conducted by?