Chapter 7 Unit 2 Pysch

What neural events are connected with memory?

Learning is apparently connected with the proliferation of dendrites and synapses in the brain. Learning and memory are also connected with the release of the neurotransmitters serotonin and acetylcholine and the hormones adrenaline and vasopressin.

Nonsense syllables

Meaningless sets of two consonants, with a vowel sandwiched between, that are used to study memory.

Rote

Mechanical associative learning that is based on repetition.

Episodic memory

Memories of events experienced by a person or that take place in the person's presence.

Explicit memory

Memory that clearly and distinctly expresses (explicates) specific information; also referred to as declarative memory.

Implicit memory

Memory that is suggested (implied) but not plainly expressed, as illustrated in the things that people do but do not state clearly; also referred to as nondeclarative memory.

Priming

Memory that is suggested (implied) but not plainly expressed, as illustrated in the things that people do but do not state clearly; also referred to as nondeclarative memory.

Retrospective memory

Memory that is suggested (implied) but not plainly expressed, as illustrated in the things that people do but do not state clearly; also referred to as nondeclarative memory.

Prospective memory

Memory to perform an act in the future, as at a certain time or when a certain event occurs

Maintenance rehearsal

Mental repetition of information to keep it in memory.

Semantic code

Mental representation of information according to its meaning.

Visual code

Mental representation of information as a picture

Acoustic cod

Mental representation of information as a sequence of sounds.

Encoding

Modifying information so that it can be placed in memory; the first stage of information processing.

Paired associates

Nonsense syllables presented in pairs in experiments that measure recall.

20. measur- ing forgetting?

Nonsense syllables were developed by Ebbinghaus in the 19th century as a way of measuring the functions of mem- ory.

Why do people frequently have trouble recalling being in accidents?

Physical trauma can interfere with memory formation. Two kinds of amnesia are caused by physical trauma.

Can children remember events from the first couple years of life?

Probably not. This phenomenon is referred to as infan- tile amnesia.

What is the Freudian concept of repression?

Repression refers to Freud's concept of motivated forget- ting. Freud suggested that we are motivated to forget painful memories or unacceptable ideas. Research on the recovery of repressed memories is quite controversial.

Why do we sometimes feel that the answer to a question is on the tip of our tongue?

Research suggests that the tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon often reflects incomplete learning.

Recall

Retrieval or reconstruction of learned material.

Working memory

Same as short term memory.

Feeling-of-knowing experience

Same as tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon.

Metamemory

Self-awareness of the ways memory functions, allowing the person to encode, store, and retrieve information effectively.

Why can some events, like the attack of September 11, 2001, be etched in memory for a lifetime?

So-called flashbulb memories, as of the terrorist attack of September 11, 2001, or the death of a public figure like Prin- cess Diana or JFK Jr., tend to occur within a web of unusual and emotionally arousing circumstances. We may elaborate them extensively—that is, relate them to many things.

Savings

The difference between the number of repetitions originally required to learn a list and the number of repetitions required to relearn the list after a certain amount of time has elapsed.

Misinformation effect

The false information provided by his nurse became implanted in his own memory.

Tip-of-the-tongue (TOT) phenomenon (

The feeling that information is stored in memory although it cannot be readily retrieved; also called the feeling-of-knowing experience

What structures in the brain are connected with memory?

The hippocampus relays sensory information to the cor- tex and is therefore vital in the formation of new memo- ries. Visual memories appear to be stored in the visual cortex, auditory memories in the auditory cortex, and so on. The thalamus is connected with the formation of visual memories.

Elaborative rehearsal

The kind of coding in which new informa- tion is related to information that is already known.

Retrieval

The location of stored information and its return to consciousness; the third stage of information processing.

Eidetic imagery

The maintenance of detailed visual memories over several minutes

Storage

The maintenance of information over time; the second stage of information processing.

Memory

The processes by which information is encoded, stored, and retrieved.

Saccadic eye movement

The rapid jumps made by a person's eyes as they fixate on different points

Echoic memory

The sensory register that briefly holds mental representations of auditory stimuli

Iconic memory

The sensory register that briefly holds mental representations of visual stimuli.

Serial-position effect

The tendency to recall more accurately the first and last items in a series.

Primacy effect

The tendency to recall the initial items in a series of items.

Recency effect

The tendency to recall the last items in a series of items.

Long-term memory

The type or stage of memory capable of relatively permanent storage.

Sensory memory

The type or stage of memory first encountered by a stimulus. Sensory memory holds impressions briefly, but long enough so that series of percep- tions are psychologically continuous.

Short-term memory

The type or stage of memory that can hold informa- tion for up to a minute or so after the trace of the stimulus decays; also called working memory

Interference theory

The view that we may forget stored material because other learning interferes with it.

How does long-term memory function?

There is no known limit to the amount of information that can be stored in long-term memory, and memories can be stored for a lifetime. The memories of eyewitnesses can also be distorted by leading questions. Information is usually transferred from short-term to long-term memory by maintenance rehearsal (rote repetition) and elaborative rehearsal (relating information to things that are already known).

Why can learning Spanish make it harder to remember French?

This is an example of retroactive interference, in which new learning interferes with old learning.

Why may it be useful to study in the room in which we will be tested?

This is because memories are frequently dependent on the context in which they were formed. That is, context depen- dence refers to the finding that we often retrieve informa- tion more efficiently when we are in the same context as when we acquired it. State dependence refers to the find- ing that we often retrieve information better when we are in the same state of consciousness or mood as when we learned it.

What is the levels-of-processing model of memory?

This model views memory in terms of a single dimension— not three stages. It is hypothesized that we encode, store, and retrieve information more efficiently when we have pro- cessed it more deeply.

Why are we most likely to remember the first and last items in a list?

This phenomenon is referred to as the serial-position effect. We tend to remember the initial items in a list because they are rehearsed most often (the primacy effect). We tend to remember the final items in a list because they are least likely to have been displaced by new information (the recency effect).

How is knowledge organized in long-term memory?

We tend to organize information according to a hierarchical structure. That is, we classify or arrange chunks of informa- tion into groups or classes according to common features.

How does short-term memory function?

also called working memory—for a minute or so after the trace decays. Rehearsal allows us to maintain information indefinitely. The appearance of new information in short-term memory displaces the old information.

What is the difference between retrospective memory and prospective memory?

concerns events in the past that can be explicit or implicit. the other involves remembering to do things in the future.

Infantile amnesia

events that occurred prior to the age of 3 or so; also termed childhood amnesia.

What is semantic memory?

general knowledge, as in remembering that the United States has 50 states or that Shakespeare wrote Hamlet.

Is seven a magic number, or did the phone company get lucky?

it seems that the typical person can remember about seven chunks of information (juggle that many pieces of information in short- term memory).

4. What is implicit memory?

knowing how to do things like write with a pencil or ride a bicycle..

What is the role of retrieval in memory?

locating stored information and bring- ing it back into consciousness.

Proactive interference

old learning with the ability to retrieve material learned recently.

Retention is often tested through three types of memory tasks:

recognition, recall, and relearning.

What is explicit memory?

specific information— information that can be clearly stated or declared. The information can be autobiographical or general.

Retroactive interference

the interference of new learning with the ability to retrieve material learned previously.

What is the role of storage in memory?

the maintenance of information over time. The main methods of storing information are maintenance rehearsal (rote repetition) and elaborative rehearsal (relating it to things we already know).

What is the Atkinson-Shiffrin model of memory?

three stages of memory—sensory memory, short-term memory, and long-term memory—and that the progress of information through these stages determines whether it is remembered and for how long.

What is the role of encoding in memory?

transforming it so that we can place it in memory. We commonly use visual, auditory, and semantic codes to convert physical and chemical stimulation into psychological formats that can be remembered.

Retrieval cue

A clue or prompt that can be used to enable or trigger the recovery of a memory in storage.

Method of savings

A measure of retention in which the difference between the number of repetitions originally required to learn a list and the number of repetitions required to relearn the list after a certain amount of time has elapsed is calculated.

Relearning

A measure of retention. Material is usually relearned more quickly than it is learned initially.

Flashbulb memory

A memory that is highly detailed and strongly emotion- ally elaborated because of its great and unusual significance

Icon

A mental representation of a visual stimulus that is held briefly in sensory memory.

Chunk

A stimulus or group of stimuli that is perceived as a discrete piece of information.

Sensory register

A system of memory that holds information briefly, but long enough so that it can be processed fur- ther. There may be a sensory register for every sense.

Schema

A way of mentally representing the world, such as a belief or an expectation, that can influence perception of persons, objects, and situations.

Dissociative amnesia

Amnesia thought to stem from psychological conflict or trauma.

Memory trace

An assumed change in the nervous system that reflects the impression made by a stimulus. Memory traces are said to be "held" in sensory registers.

Engram

An assumed electrical circuit in the brain that corresponded to a memory trace.

What is episodic memory?

An episodic memory is a memory of a specific event that one has observed or participated in.

Anterograde amnesia

Anterograde amnesia Failure to remember events that occurred after physical trauma because of the effects of the trauma.

How does sensory memory function?

Each sense is believed to have a sensory register that briefly holds the memory traces of stimuli in sensory memory. The traces then decay. Visual sensory memory makes discrete visual sensations—produced by saccadic eye movements— seem continuous. Sperling used the partial-report procedure to show that we can see more objects than we can report afterward. Icons are mental representations of visual stimuli. Echoes are representations of auditory stimuli (sounds). Echoes can be held in sensory memory for several seconds.

Long-term potentiation (LTP)

Enhanced efficiency in synaptic transmission that follows brief, rapid stimulation.

Retrograde amnesia

Failure to remember events that occurred prior to physical trauma because of the effects of the trauma.

Semantic memory

General knowledge, as opposed to episodic memory.

Hippocampus

Hippocampus A structure in the limbic system that plays an important role in the formation of new memories.

Repression

In Freud's psychodynamic theory, the ejection of anxiety-evoking ideas from conscious awareness.

Recognition

In information processing, the easiest memory task, involving identification of objects or events encountered before

Displace

In memory theory, to cause information to be lost from short-term memory by adding new information.

Context-dependent memory

Information that is better retrieved in the context in which it was encoded and stored, or learned

State-dependent memory

Information that is better retrieved in the physiologi- cal or emotional state in which it was encoded and stored, or learned.