Cognitive Psychology: Memory
duration of iconic memory
1 second
A very brief memory created in a split-second sight is called
A double take.
Research by Elizabeth Loftus shows that eyewitness recognition is very prone to what psychologists call
A false positive.
Hierarchy
A group organized by rank
Rote
A habitual, repetitive routine or procedure
Hippocampus
A neural center located in the limbic system that helps process explicit memories for storage.
Aaron had no memory of how he got home from a party. He then convinces himself that he must have been abducted by aliens while walking home. Subsequently, he is hypnotized in an attempt to help increase his memories of that evening. Based on the research of memory recall through hypnosis, what might we learn?
Aaron may unknowingly create false memories of what happened that night to justify his belief.
Accesible
Able to be reached or understood
Which neurotransmitter is no longer readily produced in Alzheimer's patients?
Acetycholine
A key component for any person to believe that a false event is in fact true is to make sure that the false information is
As plausible as possible.
The tendency of certain elements to enter long-term memory with little or no effort to encode and organize them is what defines
Automatic encoding.
Jeopardy
Danger
Shantel spent a year living abroad in Spain. During that time, her ability to read and speak Spanish grew tremendously. However, now, two years later, Shantel feels she can no longer travel there because she can barely remember a thing. Her problem is most likely due to
Decay theory.
_ memories are said to linger in the mind for a few seconds, allowing people the chance to keep with the flow of conversations and remember what was just said.
Echoic
Amber meets a cute guy named Carson at a party. She wants to make sure she remembers his name so she reminds herself that he has the same name as the capital of Nevada (Carson City). This transferring of information from short-term memory to long-term memory is an example of what type of rehearsal?
Elaborative
A process by which information is transferred from short-term to long-term memory by making it meaningful id called
Elaborative rehearsal.
Colin is asked to repeat what his mother just told him. He says he "forgot" but in reality Collins wasn't paying attention to his mother at all. This is an example of the _ explanation of forgetting.
Encoding failure
Reasons for forgetting
Encoding failure, storage decay, retrieval failure
What concept suggests that the best place to study for your psychology final to ensure fgood retrieval of concepts is your psychology classroom?
Encoding specificity
Three processes of memory
Encoding, storage, retrieval
Lucy remembers specific incidents that are meaningful to him more clearly than general facts and knowledge. Which type of memory would you say he is strong in?
Episodic memory
Decay
Fading away of memory over time
The ability to remember where you were and what you were doing when the United States was attacked on September 11, 2001, is an example of
Flashbulb memory.
semantic and episodic long-term memories
Frontal and temporal lobes (different locations than short-term memories)
Meaningful
Full of purpose; worthy
Episodic
Happening in parts or segments
Semantic
Having to do with the meaning of words or language
Henry was angry with himself for wasting time watching his favorite football team lose a match. He thought he knew the outcome all along. This tendency to believe that one can accurately predict an outcome is known as
Hindsight bias.
Henry Gustav Molaison (H. M.) suffered from profound anterograde amnesia after his _ were surgically removed in an attempt to control his seizures.
Hippocampi
Maison
House
Icon
Image
Intact
In place, unharmed
Masking
Information that has just entered iconic memory will be pushed out very quickly by new information
Long term
Involving or in effect for a number of years.
Studies by Elizabeth Loftus find that memory
Is highly fluid and can be altered by the person even when the person is unaware he or she is doing it.
Mona Lisa
Leonardo da Vinci
Research has demonstrated you can enhance your memory for specific words if you think about its meaning, how it can be used, and by giving a personal example of its use. This is best accounted for by which model of memory?
Levels-of-processing model
Attenuation
Loss of power in a signal as it travels from the sending device to the receiving device
In Loftus's 1978 study, subjects viewed a slide presentation of an accident. Later, some of the subjects were asked a question about a yield sign when the actual slides contained pictures of a stop sign. When presented with this inaccurate information, how did these subjects typically respond?
Many subjects' overall accuracy dropped when confronted with conflicting information.
Mary has just met an attractive man named Austin at a party. She wants to make sure she remembers his name. What should she do?
Mary should make it more meaningful. For example, she might remind herself that Austin has the same name as the capital of Texas.
Constructive processing
Memories are built or reconstructed from the info stored away during encoding
Recall
Memories are retrieved with few or no external cues
Brenda has been able to tie her shoes since she was 4 but now finds it difficult to explain to her baby brother how to tie his shoes but she can easily demonstrate it for him. Brenda's memory for shoe-tying is best characterized as a _ memory.
Nondeclarative (implicit)
_ memory includes what people can do or demonstrate, whereas _ memory is about what people know and can report.
Nondeclarative; declarative
Tower of Hanoi
O(2^n)
In Hermann Ebbinghaus's classic study on memory and the forgetting curve, how long after learning the lists does most forgetting happen?
One hour
Which model of memory suggests that memory processes occur throughout a neural network simultaneously?
Parallel distributed processing model
Retrieving many different aspects of memory all at once is the
Parallel distributed processing model.
Phineas walks out of his office and into the conference room. However, after he leaves his office, he forgets what he was coming into the conference room for. According to the encoding specificity hypothesis, what should Phineas do to regain his lost memory?
Phineas should return to his office to help him remember what he had forgotten.
Fathima has got a new cell phone number, but finds herself giving her old one when someone asks her for it. This is an example of
Proactive interference.
Types of long-term memories
Procedural (AKA: Nondeclarative/implicit memory) Declarative memory (AKA: Explicit memory)
Stages
Qualitatively distinct periods of development.
Available
Ready for use, at hand
In _, memories are retrieved with no external cues.
Recall
Multiple-choice test questions typically rely on _ while essay questions rely on _.
Recognition; recall
Ruth has just finished her research paper and handed it in. As she walks out of the classroom, she realizes that there were a few more things she should have included in the paper. Ruth's problem is in the memory process of
Retrieval.
human memory consists of multiple systems that have the ability to store information for periods of time that range from _ to _.
Seconds; our lifetime.
Information enters into short-term memory through a process known as _.
Selective attention
For information to travel from sensory memory to short-term memory, it must first be _ and then encoded primarily into _ form.
Selectively attended to; auditory
When you take your final exam in your psychology class, what type of memory will you most certainly need to access to answer each question?
Semantic
Three-stage process of memory
Sensory memory, short-term memory, and long-term memory.
Jaclynn had written a grocery list but accidentally left it at home. Trying to remember the list, Jaclynn remembers what was at the beginning of the list and what was at the end but not those things in the middle. This is an example of the
Serial position effect.
When creating a presentation, many public speaking instructors will tell you to develop a strong opening or attention getter to your presentation as well as a good summary and finish. What aspect of memory best explains the else suggestions?
Serial position phenomenon
iconic memory test
Show a grid of letters, and immediately sounded a high, medium, or low tone just after the grid was shown.
Mnemonist
Someone with highly developed memory skills
Memento
Something that serves as a reminder
Implied
Suggested but not directly expressed
Felisha can recall with great detail the day of her wedding and all that occurred. What might psychologists say about these particular flashbulb memories?
The memories were likely enhanced in part by the hormones released during emotional moments.
Duration
The period of time taken by something
Memory
The persistence of learning over time through the storage and retrieval of information.
Your mother tells you to dress for success at your interview because it's all about "first impressions." In other words, she is telling you that people often remember what they see first. This belief is in line with what element of memory?
The primacy effect
Consolidation
The process by which memories become stable in the brain
Transduction
The process of converting outside stimuli, such as light, into neural activity
Encoding
The processing of information into the memory system
Storage
The retention of encoded information over time.
You are introduced to someone at a party. While talking with the person, you realize that you have already forgotten the person's name. What amount of time does it typically take before such information is lost from short-term memory?
Typically between 12 and 30 seconds
Connectionism
Views memories as products of interconnected neural networks
photographic memory
Vivid mental images, resembling a photograph. Very few people possess such ability.
Raven has just finished learning a list of nonsense words given to her by her psychology instructor as part of a class activity. She had 100 percent recall at the end of class. According to Ebbinghaus's curve of forgetting, how quickly will Raven likely forget about 40 percent of the information she has just learned?
Within the first 20 minutes after leaving the class
curve of forgetting
a graph that shows the amount of memorized information remembered after varying lengths of time
recognition
a measure of memory in which the person need only identify items previously learned
semantic memory
a network of associated facts and concepts that make up our general knowledge of the world
encoding specificity
a process in which memories incorporate unique combinations of information when encoded
digit-span test
a series of numbers is read to subjects who are then asked to recall the numbers in order
retrieval cue
a stimulus for remembering
electroconvulsive therapy (ECT)
a treatment that involves inducing a mild seizure by delivering an electrical shock to the brain
short-term memory (STM)
activated memory that holds a few items briefly before the information is stored or forgotten
working memory
active maintenance of information in short-term storage
anterograde amnesia
an inability to form new memories
retrograde amnesia
an inability to retrieve information from one's past
long-term potentiation
an increase in a synapse's firing potential after brief, rapid stimulation
Disuse
another name for decay, assuming that memories that are not used will eventually decay and disappear
semantic network model
assumes that information is stored in the brain in a connected fashion
echoic memory
auditory sensory memory
procedural memories
cerebellum
information-processing model
cognitive understanding of memory emphasizing how information is changed
Microsaccades
constant movement of the eyes; tiny little vibrations that people do not notice consciously
comprehensive
covering or including everything
massed practice
cramming
false-memory syndrome
creation of inaccurate or false memories through the suggestion of others
Autobiographical
dealing with the writer's own life
senile dementia
decreases in mental abilities experienced by some people in old age
flashbulb memories
detailed recollections of when and where we heard about shocking events
capacity of iconic memory
everything that can be seen at one time
encoding failure
failure to process information into memory
tip of the tongue (TOT)
feeling certain that one knows a word, but being unable to recall it
simultaneous
happening or existing at the same time
nondeclarative memory
implicit memory for skills, habits, and learned responses Likely involves amygdala and cerebellum
misinformation effect
incorporating misleading information into one's memory of an event
state-dependent learning
learning is associated with internal states of the participant
parallel distributed processing (PDP) model
memory models in which new info changes one's overall knowledge base
explicit memory
memory of facts and experiences that one can consciously know and "declare"
levels-of-processing model
model of memory that assumes information that is more "deeply processed"
Chunking
organizing items into familiar, manageable units; often occurs automatically
serial position effect
our tendency to recall best the last and first items in a list
partial report method
participants heard tone that told them which row of letters to report
memory trace
physical change in the brain that occurs when a memory is formed
short-term memories
prefrontal cortex and temporal lobes
maintenance rehearsal
repeating stimuli in their original form to retain them in short-term memory
implicit memory
retention independent of conscious recollection
distributed practice
spacing the study of material to be remembered by including breaks between study periods
context-dependent learning
superior retrieval when the external context of the original memories matches the retrieval context
mnemonic strategies
techniques to aid memory
Studies show that as time passes, memories
tend to become more and more inaccurate.
automatic encoding
tendency of certain kinds of information to enter LTM with little or no effortful 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
eidetic memory
the ability to remember with great accuracy visual information on the basis of short-term exposure
Priming
the activation, often unconsciously, of particular associations in memory
declarative memory
the cognitive information retrieved from explicit memory; knowledge that can be declared
episodic memory
the collection of past personal experiences that occurred at a particular time and place
retroactive interference
the disruptive effect of new learning on the recall of old information
proactive interference
the disruptive effect of prior learning on the recall of new information
selective attention
the focusing of conscious awareness on a particular stimulus
procedural memory
the gradual acquisition of skills as a result of practice, or "knowing how" to do things
sensory memory
the immediate, very brief recording of sensory information in the memory system
infantile amnesia
the inability to remember events from early childhood
elaborative rehearsal
the linking of new information to material that is already known
autobiographical memory
the memory for events and facts related to one's personal life story
Retrieval
the process of getting information out of memory storage
long-term memory (LTM)
the relatively permanent and limitless storehouse of the memory system
hindsight bias
the tendency to believe, after learning an outcome, that one would have foreseen it
iconic memory
visual sensory memory
false positive
when we think we perceive a stimulus that is not there