Chapter 9

Maintenance rehearsal

Repeating information over and over to keep it active in short-term memory.

Recall

Retrieval of information with a minimum of external cues.

Retroactive interference

Tendency for new memories to interfere with the retrieval of old memories.

Proactive interference

Tendency for old memories to interfere with retrieval of newer ones.

Serial position effect

When remembering an ordered list, the tendency to make the most errors with middle terms.

priming

a change in a response to a stimulus as a result of exposure to a previous stimulus.

spreading activation model

a connectionist theory proposing that people organize general knowledge based on their individual experiences.

declarative memories

a consciously retrieved memory that is easy to verbalize, including semantic, episodic, and autobiographical information; also known as explicit memory.

information processing

a continuum including attention, sensation, perception, learning, memory, and cognition.

forgetting

a decrease in the ability to remember a previously formed memory.

semantic memory

a general knowledge memory

episodic memory

a memory for personal experience.

procedural memories

a nondeclarative or implicit memory for how to carry out skilled movement.

encoding specificity

a process in which memories incorporate unique combinations of information when encoded.

decay

a reduction in ability to retrieve rarely used information over time.

schema

a set of expectations about objects and situations.

cue

a stimulus that aids retrieval.

flashbulb memory

an especially vivid and detailed memory of an emotional event.

working memory

an extension of the concept of short-term memory that includes the active manipulation of multiple types of information simultaneously.

nondeclarative memory

an unconsciously and effortlessly retrieved memory that is difficult to verbalize, such as a memory for classical conditioning, procedural learning, and priming; also known as implicit memory.

interference

competition between newer and older information in memory.

motivated forgetting

failure to retrieve negative memories.

mnemonics

memory aids that link new information to well-known information.

reconstruction

rebuilding a memory out of stored elements.

rehearsal

repetition of information

autobiographical memories

semantic or episodic memories that reference the self.

memory

the ability to retain knowledge.

levels of processing theory

the depth (shallow to deep) of processing applied to information that predicts its ease of retrieval.

long-term potentiation (LTP)

the enhancement of communication between two neurons resulting from their synchronous activation.

long-term memory

the final stage of the Atkinson-Shiffrin model that is the location of permanent memories.

sensory memory

the first of the Atkinson-Shiffrin model that holds large amounts of incoming data for brief amounts of time, short-term storage system for sensory impressions.

chunking

the process of grouping similar or meaningful information together.

retrieval

the recovery of stored information.

storage

the retention of information.

short-term memory (STM)

the second stage of the Atkinson-Shiffrin model that holds a small amount of information for a limited time.

encoding

the transformation of information from one form to another.