Chapter 6

Pezdek and colleagues assert that

false memories are more likely to be formed for plausible false events than for implausible ones.

Memory for particularly emotional or traumatic events can lead to the formation of

flashbulb memories, memories that seem as vivid and detailed as if the person were looking at a snapshot of the event but that are no more accurate than any other memories.

Semantic and episodic memories may be stored in the

frontal and temporal lobes as well but in different locations than short-term memory

semantic memories

general knowledge, such as language and information learned in formal education used on Jeopardy

step #3 retrieval

getting the information they know they have out of storage

infantile amnesia

Most people cannot remember events that occurred before age 2 or 3.

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.

False-memory syndrome

the creation of false or inaccurate memories through suggestion, especially while hypnotized.

when referring to long term memory

the decay theory is called "disuse"

The serial position effect, or primacy or recency effect, occurs when

the first items and the last items in a list of information are recalled more efficiently than items in the middle of the list.

Adaptive forgetting

the idea that being able to suppress information that we no longer need makes it easier to remember what we do need

Which of the following is an example of a test using recognition?

true-false

declarative (explicit) memory

type of long-term memory containing information that is conscious and known *about what people can know*

nondeclarative (implicit) memory

type of long-term memory including memory for skills, procedures, habits, and conditioned responses. These memories are not conscious but are implied to exist because they affect conscious behavior -*about the things that people can do*

Automatic encoding of some kinds of information requires

very little effort to place information in long-term memory.

iconic sensory memory

visual sensory memory that lasts about a quarter of a second

retrieval cues

words, meanings, sounds, and other stimuli that are encoded at the same time as a new memory.

Of the following, which is the most similar to the concept of long-term memory?

a computer hard drive

Research by Elizabeth Loftus shows that eyewitness recognition is very prone to what psychologists call __________

a false positive

elaborative rehearsal

a way of increasing the number of retrieval cues for information by connecting new information with something that is already well known

the recorder

"plays" the dialogue in the person's head

it is impossible or extremely difficult to bring *implicit* memories into consciousness.

*Explicit* memories can be forgotten but always have the potential to be made conscious.

Recall vs. recognition

*recall* a type of memory retrieval in which the information to be retrieved must be "pulled" out of memory with few or no cues, whereas *recognition* involves matching information with stored images or facts.

Identify some common reasons people forget things.

-Some "forgetting" is actually a failure to encode information. -Memory trace decay theory assumes the presence of a physical memory trace that decays with disuse over time. -Forgetting in LTM is most likely due to proactive or retroactive interference.

sensory memory

-the first system in the process of memory in which raw information from the senses is held for a brief period of time -Information is encoded into sensory memory as neural messages in the nervous system

three interrelated systems of working memory

1. central executive 2. visual "sketch pad" 3. auditory "recorder"

The researchers concluded that there are two steps that must occur before people will be likely to interpret their thoughts and fantasies about false events as true memories:

1. the event must be made to seem as plausible as possible 2. information is given to a person to make them believe it happened to them personally

the curve of forgetting.

Ebbinghaus found that information is mostly lost within 1 hour after learning and then gradually fades away.

In Loftus's 1978 study, participants viewed a slide presentation of an accident. Later, some of the participants 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 participants typically respond?

Many participants' overall accuracy dropped when confronted with conflicting information.

duration

There is a relatively permanent physical change in the brain itself when a memory is formed

retroactive interference

When newer information interferes with the retrieval of older information

Loftus and others have found that people constantly update and revise their memories of events. Part of this revision may include

adding information acquired later to a previous memory. That later information may also be in error, further contaminating the earlier memory.

memory for fear of objects is most likely stored in the

amygdala

Memory

an active system that receives information from the senses, puts that information into a usable form, and organizes it as it stores it away, and then retrieves the information from storage

The primary memory difficulty in Alzheimer's disease is

anterograde amnesia, although retrograde amnesia can also occur as the disease progresses.

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

semantic network model

assumes that information is stored in the brain in a connected fashion with concepts that are related to each other stored physically closer to each other than concepts that are not highly related

short term memory seems to only be encoded in the

auditory form

echoic sensory memory

auditory sensory memory, only lasting from 2-4 seconds

priming

can occur where experience with information or concepts can improve later performance

anterogade amnesia

can't form new declarative memories

Evidence suggests that nondeclarative memories are stored in the

cerebellum

-memories are reconstructed from the various bits and pieces of information that have been stored away in different places at the time of encoding in a process called -memories are literally "built," or reconstructed, from the information stored away during encoding. Each time a memory is retrieved, it may be altered or revised in some way to include new information or to exclude details that may be left out of the new reconstruction.

constructive processing

visual "sketch pad"

contain images of the people and events of the particular passage being read

Encoding specificity occurs when

context-dependent information becomes encoded as retrieval cues for specific memories.

Iconic memory helps the visual system view surroundings as

continuous and stable in spite of these saccadic movements. It also allows enough time for the brain stem to decide if the information is important enough to be brought into consciousness—like the possibly pantless person.

Over time, if these traces are not used, they may

decay, fading into nothing

Memory for facts is called

declarative memory, or explicit memory, because facts are things that are known and can be declared (stated outright).

Which type of memory system best explains the "What?" phenomenon?

echoic sensory system

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

The best way to encode information into LTM in an organized fashion is to make it meaningful through

elaborative rehearsal

You are surprised by the fact that you cannot remember if Abraham Lincoln's head faces the left or the right on a penny. This is all the more surprising given the fact that you work with money at your job on nearly a daily basis. What would best explain such an inability to recall this information?

encoding failure

According to Sperling, what is the capacity of iconic memory?

everything that can be seen at one time

step #2 storage

hold on to the information for some period of time

implicit memories

how to balance on a bicycle

short term memory

information is held for a brief period of time while being used may be held for up to 30 seconds and possibly longer through maintenance rehearsal

Craik and Lockhart theorized that

information that is more "deeply processed," or processed according to its meaning rather than just the sound or physical characteristics of the word or words, will be remembered more efficiently and for a longer period of time.

central executive

interpreter for both the visual and auditory information, and the visual and auditory information are themselves contained in short-term memory

Rote

like "rotating" the information in one's head, saying it over and over again

third stage of memory

long term memory

testing effect

long-term memory is increased when students practice retrieving the information to be learned

Rather than improving memory retrieval, hypnosis

makes the creation of false memories more likely

information that has just entered iconic memory will be pushed out very quickly by new information, a process called

masking

Context-dependent learning

may refer to the physical surroundings a person is in when they are learning specific information.

In anterograde amnesia

memory for anything new becomes impossible, although old memories may still be retrievable

In retrograde amnesia

memory of the past (prior to the injury) is lost, which can be a loss of only minutes or a loss of several years.

parallel distributed processing model

memory processes are proposed to take place at the same time over a large network of neural connections

levels of processing model

model of memory that assumes information that is more "deeply processed," or processed according to its meaning rather than just the sound or physical characteristics of the word or words, will be remembered more efficiently and for a longer period of time

The semantic network model of memory suggests that the __________ nodes you must pass through to access information, the longer it will take for you to recall information.

more

George Miller tested the "capacity" of our short term memory and found that

most everyone you test will get past the first two sequences of numbers, but some people will make errors on the six-digit span, about half of the people you test will slip up on the seven-digit span, and very few will be able to get past the nine-digit span without errors

examples of recognition

multiple choice, matching, true-false

explicit memories

naming all of the planets

Memory for skills is a type of

nondeclarative memory, or implicit memory, because the skills have to be demonstrated and not reported

Hyperthymia

not only has an astonishing and rare ability to recall specific events from his or her personal past but also spends an unusually large amount of time thinking about that personal past

Hindsight bias occurs when

people falsely believe that they knew the outcome of some event because they have included knowledge of the event's true outcome in their memories of the event itself.

The misinformation effect refers to the

people who are asked misleading questions or given misleading information to incorporate that information into their memories for a particular event.

Consolidation consists of the

physical changes in neurons that take place during the formation of a memory.

State-dependent learning occurs when

physiological or psychological states become encoded as retrieval cues for memories formed while in those states. example: remembering all the bad things during a fight

And declarative memories are stored in the

prefrontal and temporal lobes of the cortex.

chunking

process of reorganizing the information like a phone number

When someone is asked a question such as "Where were you born?" the question acts as the cue for retrieval of the answer. This is an example of

recall (fill in the blank)

A word-search puzzle, in which the words are already written down in the grid and simply need to be circled, is an example of

recognition

working memory

relating to storage and manipulation of information thought of as an active system that processes the information present within short-term memory.

episodic memories

represent "episodes" of our lives

maintenance rehearsal

saying bits of information to be remembered over and over in one's head in order to maintain it in short-term memory

Information enters into short-term memory through a process known as

selective attention

Dr. Anne M. Treisman proposed that

selective attention operates in a two-stage filtering process: -In the first stage, incoming stimuli in sensory memory are filtered on the basis of simple physical characteristics, similar to Broadbent's original idea. Instead of moving to STM or being lost, however, there is only a lessening (attenuation) of the "signal strength" of unselected sensory stimuli in comparison to the selected stimuli. -In the second stage, only the stimuli that meet a certain threshold of importance are processed. Since the attenuated stimuli are still present at this second stage, something as subjectively important as one's own name may be able to be "plucked" out of the attenuated incoming stimuli.

For information to travel from either the iconic or echoic sensory system 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

two types of declarative long term memories

semantic and episodic

memory trace

some physical change in the brain, perhaps in a neuron or in the activity between neurons, which occurs when a memory is formed

distributed practice

spacing the study of material to be remembered by including breaks between study periods

proactive interference

tendency for older or previously learned material to interfere with the learning (and subsequent retrieval) of new material

recency effect

tendency to remember words at the end of a list especially well

one of the main criticisms of the information-processing model

the "memory stores as boxes" idea because it makes it seem as though there is nothing in between STM and LTM

eidetic memory

the ability to access a visual memory for 30 seconds or more

the best way to think of how information is organized in LTM is to think about

the internet

Miller called this

the magical number seven, plus or minus two

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

information processing model

the processing of information for memory storage is similar to a computer processing information ( in three stages) -assumes that the length of time that a memory will be remembered depends on the stage of memory in which it is stored.

step #1 encoding

the set of mental operations that people perform on sensory information to convert that information into a form that is usable in the brain's storage systems

it is defined as

the tendency for memory of any kind of information to be improved if retrieval conditions are similar to the conditions under which the information was encoded

Episodic and semantic memories are explicit memories because

they are easily made conscious and brought from long-term storage into short-term memory.