Objectives AP Psych Modules 31-33

31-7 What are some effortful processing strategies that can help us remember new information?

Effective effortful processing straggles include chinking, mnemonics, hierarchies and disturbed practice sessions The testing effect is the finding that consciously retrieving rather than simply rereading information enhances memory

32-4 How do emotions affect our memory processing?

Emotional arousal causes an outpouring of stress hormones, which lead to activity in the brain's memory forming areas. Significantly emotional events can trigger very clear flashbulb memories

31-3 How do explicit and implicit memories differ?

Explicit memories our conscious memories of facts and experiences develop with effortful processing, which requires conscious effort and attention Implicit memories of skills and classical conditioned associations happen without our awareness through automatic processing

32-6 how do external cues, internal emotions, and order of appearance influence memory retrieve?

External cues activates associations that help us retrieve memories; this process may occur without our awareness as it does in priming Returning to the same physical context or emotional state in which we formed a memory can help us retrieve it The serial position effect accounts for our tendency to recall best the last items and the first items in a list

31-1 What is memory, and how is it measured?

Memory is learning that has persisted over time, through the encoding, storage, and retrieval of information. Evidence of memory may be recalling information, recognizing it, or relearning it more easily on a later attempt.

33-5 How can you use memory research findings to do better in this and other courses?

Memory research findings suggests the following strategies for improving memory: Study repeatedly, make material meaningful, activate trivial cues, use mnemonic devices, minimize interference, sleep more, and test yourself to be sure you can retrieve, as well as recognize material

32-1 What is the capacity of long-term memory? Are our long-term memories processed and stored in specific locations?

Our long-term memory capacity is essentially unlimited Memories are not stored intact in the brain in single sports. Many parts of the brain interact as we form and retrieve memories

32-3 What roles do the cerebellum and basal ganglia play in our memory processing?

The cerebellum and basal ganglia are parts of the brain network dedicated to implicit memory formation The cerebellum is important for storing classical conditioned memories The basal ganglia are involved in motor movement and help form procedural memories for skills Many reactions and skills learning during our first four years continue into our adults lives, but we cannot consciously remember learning these associations and skills-a phenomenon psychologists call "infantile amnesia"

33-3 Why have reports of repressed and recovered memories been so hotly debated?

The debate focuses on whether memories of early childhood abuse are repressed and can be recovered during therapy Professional organizations set to find common ground between the potential for doubting true accusations of abuse and the potential for false accusations Psychologists now agree that sexual abuse happens, injustice happens, forgetting happens, recovered memories are commonplace, memories of things that happened before age 4 are unreliable, memories "recovered" under hypnosis are especially unreliable, and memories, whether real or false, can be emotionally upsetting

32-2 What roles do the frontal lobes and hippocampus play in memory processing?

The frontal lobes and hippocampus are parts of the brain network dedicated to explicit memory formation Many brain regions send information to the frontal lobes for processing The hippocampus with the help of surrounding areas of cortex, registers and temporarily holds elements of explicit memories before moving them to other brain regions for long-term storage

33-1 Why do we forget?

Anterograde amnesia is an inability to form new memories. Retrograde amnesia is an inability to retrieve old memories. Normal forgetting happens because we have never encoded information; because the physical trace has decayed; or because we cannot retrieve what we have encoded and stored. Retrieval problems may result from proactive (forward-acting) interference, as prior learning interferes with recall of new information, or from retroactive (backward-acting) interference, as new learning disrupts recall of old information. Some believe that motivated forgetting occurs, but researchers have found little evidence of repression.

33-4 How reliable are young children's eyewitness descriptions?

Children are susceptible to the misinformation effect, but if questioned in neutral words they understand, they can accurately recall events and people involved in them

31-8 What are the levels of processing, and how do they affect encoding?

Depth of processing affects long-term retention In shallow processing we encode words based on structure, appears, or sound Retention is best when we use deep processing, encoding words based on their meaning We also more easily remember material that is personally meaningful-the self reference effect

31-4 What information do we process automatically

In addition to skills and classically conditioned associations we automatically process incidental information about space, time, and frequency

32-5 How do changes at the synapse level affect our memory processing?

Long-term memories potentiation appears to be the neural basis for learning and memory. In LTP, neurons become more efficient at releasing and sensing the presence of neurotransmitters, and more connections develop between neurons

31-2 How do psychologists describe the human memory system?

Psychologists use memory models to think and communicate about memory Information-processing models involve three processes: encoding, storage, and retrieval Through parallel processing the human brain processes many things simultaneously The connectionism information processing model views memories as products of interconnected neural networks The three processing stages in the Atikinson-Shiffrin model are sensory memory, short-term memory, and long term memory. More recent research has updated this model to include two important concepts. working memory, to stress the active processing occurring in the second memory stage, and automatic processing to address the processing of information outside of conscious awareness

33-2 How do misinformation, imagination, and source amnesia influence our memory construction? how do we decide whether a memory is real or false?

Repeatedly "replaying" mores may alter them, leading to the introduction of inaccuracies In experiments demonstrating the misinformation effect people have formed false memories by incorporating misleading details either after receiving wrong information after an event, or after repeatedly imagining and rehearsing something that never happened When we reassemble a memory during retrieval, we may attribute it to the wrong source. Source amnesia may help explain deja vu False memories feel like real memories and can be persistent but are usually limited to the main gist of the event

31-5 How does sensory memory work?

Sensory memory feeds some information into working memory for active processing there. An iconic memory is a very brief (a few tenths of a second) sensory memory of visual stimuli; an echoic memory is a three- or four-second sensory memory of auditory stimuli.

31-6 What is our short-term and working memory capacity?

Short term memory capacity is about seven items, plus or minus two, but this information disappears from memory quickly without rehearsal Working memory capacity varies, depending on age, intelligence level, and other factors