Psychology in Everyday Life Chapter 7

Source amnesia

Attributing to the wrong source an event we have experienced, heard about, read about, or imagined (also called source misattribution).

Implicit memory

Retaining learned skills or conditioning, often without conscious awareness of this learning.

Memory

The persistence of learning over time through the storage and retrieval of information.

Retrieval

The process of getting information out of memory storage.

Encoding

The processing of information into the memory system.

Flashbulb memory

A clear memory of an emotionally significant moment or event.

Retrieval cue

Any stimulus (event, feeling, place, and so on) linked to a specific memory.

Effortful processing

Encoding that requires attention and conscious effort.

Priming

The activation, often unconsciously, of particular associations in memory.

Strategies to improve memory

1) Study repeatedly 2) Space out study 3) Spend more time rehearsing & actively thinking about material 4) Make material meaningful 5) Activate retrieval cues 6) Minimize interference 7) Sleep more 8) Test your own knowledge

Recall

A measure of memory in which the person must retrieve information learned earlier, as on a fill-in-the-blank test.

Recognition

A measure of memory in which the person need only identify items previously learned, as on a multiple choice test.

Relearning

A memory measure that assesses the amount of time saved when learning material for a second time.

Hippocampus

A neural center that is located in the limbic system and helps process explicit memories for storage.

Repression

In psychoanalytic theory, the basic defense mechanism that banishes anxiety-arousing thoughts, feelings, and memories from consciousness.

Misinformation effect

Incorporating misleading information into one's memory of an event.

Mnemonics

Memory aids.

Explicit memory

Memory of facts and experiences that one can consciously know and "declare."

Imagery

Mental pictures

Short-term memory

Activated memory that holds a few items briefly, before information is stored or forgotten.

Rehearsal

The conscious repetition of information, either to maintain it in consciousness or to encode it for storage.

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.

Sensory memory

The immediate, very brief recording of sensory information in the memory system.

Working memory

A newer understanding of short-term memory that involves conscious, active processing of incoming auditory and visual-spatial information, and of information retrieved from long-term memory.

Long-term potentiation

An increase in a synapse's firing potential after brief, rapid stimulation. Believed to be a neural basis for learning and memory.

Chunking

Organizing terms into familiar, manageable units; often occurs automatically.

Serial position effect

Our tendency to recall best the last and first items in a list.

Storage

The retention of encoded information over time.

Spacing effect

The tendency for distributed study or practice to yield better long-term retention than is achieved through massed study or practice.

Mood-congruent memory

The tendency to recall experiences that are consistent with your current mood (good or bad).

Automatic processing

Unconscious encoding of incidental information, such as space, time, and frequency, and of well-learned information, such as word meanings.

anterograde amnesia

an inability to form new memories

retrograde amnesia

an inability to retrieve information from one's past

Long-term memory

Relatively permanent and limitless storehouse of the memory system.