Psych 8

Which parts of the brain are important for implicit memory processing, and which parts play a key role in explicit memory processing?

The cerebellum and basal ganglia are important for implicit memory processing, and the frontal lobes and hippocampus are key to explicit memory formation

Which memory strategies can help you study smarter and retain more information?

: Rehearse repeatedly to boost long-term recall. Schedule spaced (not crammed) study times. Spend more time rehearsing or actively thinking about the material. Make the material personally meaningful, with well-organized and vivid associations. Refresh your memory by returning to contexts and moods to activate retrieval cues. Use mnemonic devices. Minimize interference. Plan for a complete night's sleep. Test yourself repeatedly—retrieval practice is a proven retention strategy

Which strategies are better for long-term retention: cramming and rereading material, or spreading out learning over time and repeatedly testing yourself?

Although cramming and rereading may lead to short-term gains in knowledge, distributed practice and repeated self-testing will result in the greatest long-term retention

Psychologists involved in the study of memories of abuse tend to disagree with each other about which of the following statements?

We tend to repress extremely upsetting memories.

Children can be accurate eyewitnesses if

a neutral person asks nonleading questions soon after the event.

Multiple-choice questions test our ________. Fill-in-the-blank questions test our _________.

Recognition; recall

We may recognize a face at a social gathering but be unable to remember how we know that person. This is an example of

déjà vu

The psychological terms for taking in information, retaining it, and later getting it back out are ______________, _____________ and ____________

encoding; storage; retrieval

Hippocampus damage typically leaves people unable to learn new facts or recall recent events. However, they may be able to learn new skills, such as riding a bicycle, which is an ___________ (explicit/implicit) memory.

implicit

A psychologist who asks you to write down as many objects as you can remember having seen a few minutes earlier is testing your ________

recall

Freud proposed that painful or unacceptable memories are blocked from consciousness through a mechanism called

repression

Specific odors, visual images, emotions, or other associations that help us access a memory are examples of

retrieval cues

The hour before sleep is a good time to memorize information, because going to sleep after learning new material minimizes ___________ interference.

retroactive

At which of Atkinson-Shiffrin's three memory stages would iconic and echoic memory occur?

sensory memory

When we are tested immediately after viewing a list of words, we tend to recall the first and last items best, which is known as the ________ __________ effect.

serial position

Our short-term memory for new information is limited to about ________ items

seven

When forgetting is due to encoding failure, information has not been transferred from

short-term memory into long-term memory.

Eliza's family loves to tell the story of how she "stole the show" as a 2-year-old, dancing at her aunt's wedding reception. Even though she was so young, Eliza says she can recall the event clearly. How is this possible?

source amnesia

What is priming?

Priming is the activation (often without our awareness) of associations. Seeing a gun, for example, might temporarily predispose someone to interpret an ambiguous face as threatening or to recall a boss as nasty

Long-term potentiation (LTP) refers to

an increase in a cell's firing potential after brief, rapid stimulation.

The concept of working memory

clarifies the idea of short-term memory by focusing on the active processing that occurs in this stage.

What are two basic functions of working memory?

(1) Active processing of incoming visual-spatial and auditory information, and (2) focusing our spotlight of attention

What are three ways we forget, and how does each of these happen?

(1) Encoding failure: Unattended information never entered our memory system. (2) Storage decay: Information fades from our memory. (3) Retrieval failure: We cannot access stored information accurately, sometimes due to interference or motivated forgetting

What is the difference between automatic and effortful processing, and what are some examples of each?

Automatic processing occurs unconsciously (automatically) for such things as the sequence and frequency of a day's events, and reading and comprehending words in our native language(s). Effortful processing requires attention and awareness and happens, for example, when we work hard to learn new material in class, or new lines for a play

Imagine being a jury member in a trial for a parent accused of sexual abuse based on a recovered memory. What insights from memory research should you offer the jury?

It will be important to remember the key points agreed upon by most researchers and professional associations: Sexual abuse, injustice, forgetting, and memory construction all happen; recovered memories are common; memories from before age 3 are unreliable; memories claimed to be recovered through hypnosis or drug influence are especially unreliable; and memories, whether real or false, can be emotionally upsetting.

If you want to be sure to remember what you're learning for an upcoming test, would it be better to use recall or recognition to check your memory? Why?

It would be better to test your memory with recall (such as with short-answer or fill-in-the-blank self-test questions) rather than recognition (such as with multiple-choice questions). Recalling information is harder than recognizing it. So if you can recall it, that means your retention of the material is better than if you could only recognize it. Your chances of test success are therefore greater

if you try to make the material you are learning personally meaningful, are you processing at a shallow or a deep level? Which level leads to greater retention?

Making material personally meaningful involves processing at a deep level, because you are processing semantically—based on the meaning of the words. Deep processing leads to greater retention

When you feel sad, why might it help to look at pictures that reawaken some of your best memories?

Memories are stored within a web of many associations, one of which is mood. When you recall happy moments from your past, you deliberately activate these positive links. You may then experience mood- congruent memory and recall other happy moments, which could improve your mood and brighten your interpretation of current events.

Your friend has experienced brain damage in an accident. He can remember how to tie his shoes but has a hard time remembering anything you tell him during a conversation. What's going on here?

Our explicit conscious memories of facts and episodes differ from our implicit memories of skills (such as shoe tying) and classically conditioned responses. The parts of the brain involved in explicit memory processing (the frontal lobes and hippocampus) may have sustained damage in the accident, while the parts involved in implicit memory processing (the cerebellum and basal ganglia) appear to have escaped unharmed

How does the working memory concept update the classic Atkinson-Shiffrin three-stage information-processing model?

The newer idea of a working memory emphasizes the active processing that we now know takes place in Atkinson-Shiffrin's short-term memory stage. While the Atkinson-Shiffrin model viewed short-term memory as a temporary holding space, working memory plays a key role in processing new information and connecting it to previously stored information

Sensory memory may be visual (_________ memory) or auditory (___________ memory).

iconic; echoic

Ebbinghaus' "forgetting curve" shows that after an initial decline, memory for novel information tends to

level out

The neural basis for learning and memory, found at the synapses in the brain's memory- circuit connections, results from brief, rapid stimulation. It is called

long-term potentiation

Memory aids that use visual imagery (such as peg words) or other organizational devices (such as acronyms) are called

mnemonics

The hippocampus seems to function as a

temporary processing site for explicit memories.

Which brain area responds to stress hormones by helping to create stronger memories?

the amygdala

When tested immediately after viewing a list of words, people tend to recall the first and last items more readily than those in the middle. When retested after a delay, they are most likely to recall

the first item on the list

One reason false memories form is our tendency to fill in memory gaps with our reasonable guesses and assumptions, sometimes based on misleading information. This tendency is an example of

the misinformation effect