Chapter 6: Memory

Interference

A cause of forgetting that occurs because information or associations stored either before or after a given memory hinder the ability to remember it.

Encoding Failure

A cause of forgetting that occurs when information was never put into long-term memory.

Information-processing theory

A framework for studying memory that uses the computer as a model of human cognitive processes.

Retrograde Amnesia

A loss of memory for experiences that occurred shortly before a loss of consciousness.

Relearning Method

A measure of memory in which retention is expressed as the percentage of time saved when material is relearned compared with the time required to learn the material originally.

Chunking

A memory strategy that involves grouping or organizing bits of information into larger units, which are easier to remember.

Recall

A memory task in which a person must produce required information by searching memory.

Recognition

A memory task in which a person must simply identify material as familiar or as having been encountered before.

Hippocampal Region

A part of the limbic system, which includes the hippocampus itself and the underlying cortical areas, involved in the formation of semantic memories.

Amnesia

A partial or complete loss of memory due to loss of consciousness, brain damage, or some psychological cause.

Suppression

A person makes a conscious, active attempt to put a painful, disturbing, anxiety- or guilt-provoking memory out of mind, but the person is still aware that the painful event occurred.

George A. Miller

A pioneer in memory research; came up with chunking

Repression

A psychological process in which traumatic memories are buried in the unconscious.

Source Memory

A recollection of the circumstances in which you formed a memory.

Dementia

A state of mental deterioration characterized by impaired memory and intellect and by altered personality and behavior.

Reconstruction

An account of an event that has been pieced together from a few highlights.

Expertise

An extensive amount of background knowledge that is relevant to a reconstructive memory task.

Long-Term Potentiation (LTP)

An increase in the efficiency of neural transmission at the synapses that lasts for hours or longer.

Alzheimer's Disease

An incurable form of dementia characterized by progressive deterioration of intellect and personality, resulting from widespread degeneration of brain cells.

Consolidation Failure

Any disruption in the consolidation process that prevents a long-term memory from forming.

Retrieval Cue

Any stimulus or bit of information that aids in retrieving particular information from long-term memory.

Hardware

Brain structures that are involved in memory.

Process required for Remembering

Encoding -> Storage -> Retrieval

Type of Forgetting

Encoding failure, Decay, Interference, Consolidation failure, Motivated forgetting, Prospective forgetting, Retrieval failure.

Misinformation Effect

Erroneous recollections of witnessed events that result from information learned after the fact.

Motivated Forgetting

Forgetting through suppression or repression in an effort to protect oneself from material that is painful, frightening, or otherwise unpleasant.

Schemas

Frameworks of knowledge and assumptions that we have about people, objects, and events.

Retroactive Interference

Happens when new learning interferes with the ability to remember previously learned information.

Estrogen

Improves working memory efficiency.

Source Monitoring

Intentionally keeping track of the sources of incoming information.

Cortisol

Interferes with memory in patients who have diseases of the adrenal glands.

Software

Learned memory strategies

Flashbulb Memories

Memories for shocking, emotion-provoking events that include information about the source from which the information was acquired.

Bapineuzumab

New drug that prevents the development of neurofibrillary tangles.

Retrieval Failure

Not remembering something one is certain of knowing.

Prospective Forgetting

Not remembering to carry out some intended action.

Tip-of-the-finger (TOF) Phenomenon

Occurs in individuals who use sign language to communicate.

Proactive Interference

Occurs when information or experiences already stored in long-term memory hinder the ability to remember newer information.

Autobiographical Memories

Recollections that a person includes in an account of the events of his or her own life.

Mastery

Repeating a list until able to recall it twice without error.

Maintenance Rehearsal

Repeating information over and over again until it is no longer needed; may eventually lead to storage of information in long-term memory.

Stroop Test

Requires research participants to memorize color words that are shown in colored type.

Automaticity

The ability to recall information from long-term memory without effort.

Eidetic Imagery

The ability to retain the image of a visual stimulus for several minutes after it has been removed from view and to use this retained image to answer questions about the visual stimulus.

Rehearsal

The act of purposely repeating information to maintain it in short-term memory.

Short-Term Memory (STM)

The component of the memory system that holds about seven (from five to nine) items for less than 30 seconds without rehearsal; aka working memory.

Displacement

The event that occurs when short-term memory is filled to capacity and each new, incoming item pushes out an existing item which is then forgotten.

Tip-of-the-tongue (TOT) Phenomenon

The experience of knowing that a particular piece of information has been learned but being unable to retrieve it.

Serial Position Effect

The finding that, for information learned in a sequence, recall is better for the beginning and ending items than for the middle items in the sequence.

Forgetting

The inability to bring to mind information that was previously remembered.

Anterograde Amnesia

The inability to form long-term memories of events occurring after a brain injury or brain surgery, although memories formed before the trauma are usually intact and short-term memory is unaffected.

Levels-of-processing Model

The memory model that describes maintenance rehearsal as "shallow" processing and elaborative rehearsal as "deep" processing.

Working Memory

The memory subsystem that we use when we try to understand information, remember it, or use it to solve a problem or communicate with someone.

Long-Term Memory (LTM)

The memory system with a virtually unlimited capacity that contains vast stores of a person's permanent or relatively permanent memories.

Decay Theory

The oldest theory of forgetting, which holds that memories, if not used, fade with time and ultimately disappear altogether.

Curve of Forgetting

The pattern of forgetting discovered by Ebbinghaus, which shows that forgetting tapers off after a period of rapid information loss that immediately follows learning.

Savings Score

The percentage of time saved recalling information compared to the time it took to originally learn the information; reflects how much material remains in long-term memory.

Retrieval

The process of bringing to mind information that has been stored in memory.

Memory

The process of encoding, storage, and retrieval of information.

Storage

The process of keeping or maintaining information in memory.

Consolidation

The psychological process by which encoded information is stored in memory.

Infantile Amnesia

The relative inability of older children and adults to recall events from the first few years of life.

Declaritive Memory

The subsystem within long-term memory that stores facts, information, and personal life events that can be brought to mind verbally or in the form of images and then declared or stated; also called explicit memory.

Nondeclarative Memory

The subsystem within long-term memory that stores motor skills, habits, and simple classically conditioned responses; also called implicit memory.

Sensory Memory

The system that holds information from the senses for a period of time ranging from only a fraction of a second to about 2 seconds.

Positive Bias

The tendency for pleasant autobiographical memories to be more easily recalled than unpleasant ones and memories of unpleasant events to become more emotionally positive over time.

Context Effect

The tendency to encode elements of the physical setting in which information is learned along with memory of the information itself.

State-Dependent Memory Effect

The tendency to recall information better if one is in the same pharmacological or psychological state as when the information was encoded.

Primary Effect

The tendency to recall the first items in a sequence more readily than the middle items.

Recency Effect

The tendency to recall the last items in a sequence more readily than those in the middle.

Episodic Memory

The type of declarative memory that records events as they have been subjectively experienced.

Semantic Memory

The type of declarative memory that stores general knowledge, or objective facts and information.

Richard Atkinson & Richard Shiffrin

Their model characterizes memory as 3 different, interacting memory systems: Sensory, Short-term, and Long-term memory.

Expertise and Culture

Two important sources of prior knowledge.

Repression

Unpleasant memories are literally removed from consciousness, and the person is no longer aware that the unpleasant event ever occurred.

Cryptomnesia

When an article or other reference of passage is read and stored in semantic memory for future use and reconstructive memory processes may lead the person to mistakenly believe they thought of it themselves when writing a paper, leading to missed notation or accidental plagiarism.

Elaborative Rehearsal

memory strategy that involves relating new information to something that is already known.

Encoding

process of transforming information into a form that can be stored in memory.