Psychology 111 - Exam 3 - Chapter 5 and 6 - Full Review
Full consciousness: (Levels of consciousness)
able to report your mental state; aware of the state while having the state
Working memory:
active maintenance of info in short term storage; consists of: -central executive controlling the flow of visual info -visuo-spatial sketchpad/phonological loop -episodic buffer that integrates info
Dynamic unconscious: (The Unconscious Mind)
active system encompassing a lifetime of hidden memories, instincts and desires; struggles to control these forces
Case judgements:
appearance of the world
Consistency bias:
bias to reconstruct past to fit the present
2) Absentmindedness:
-lapse in attention that results in memory failure -caused by lack of attention or by forgetting to carry out actions planned to do in the future
Episodic memory: (Types of explicit memory)
collection of past personal experiences that occurred at a particular time/place; increasing activity for remembering activities in past and future
Chunking:
combining small pieces of info into large clusters or chunks to make easier to store
Long-term potentiation (LTP):
communication across the synapse between neurons strengthens the connections making future communication easier
Collaborative memory:
how people remember in groups
Mind-body problem:
how the mind is related to brain and body (remember Descartes?) What do you think is the order of operations? -Do we have a thought then an action? Or, do we complete the action then have a thought?
Phenomenology:
how things seem to the conscious person
Retroactive interference: (Transience)
later learning impairs memory for info acquired earlier; days blending together
Trying to recall: (Two processes for retrieval)
left frontal lobe
Minimal consciousness: (Levels of consciousness)
low-level kind of sensory awareness/responsiveness that occurs when mind inputs sensations and makes behaviour; rolling over when asleep from being poked; driving a car
Storage:
maintaining info in memory over time
Repression: (The Unconscious Mind)
mental processes of removing unacceptable thoughts and memories from consciousness to keep in unconscious
Thought suppression:
conscious avoidance of a thought
Explicit: (Forms of long-term memory)
consciously or intentionally retrieve past experiences
Hypnagogic state: (Sleep and Dreaming: Good Night, Mind)
presleep consciousness; hypnic jerk (sensation of dropping)
Flashbulb memories: (Persistence)
detailed recollections of when/where we heard about shocking events; not always accurate but remembered more often
Ironic processes of mental control:
errors occur because the mental processes that monitor errors can produce them, outside of conscious awareness Ex: telling yourself not to think about a white bear is generating an image in your mind to think of a white bear
Echoic memory:
fast-decaying store of auditory information; echo in the mind's ear; 5 seconds
Iconic memory:
fast-decaying store of visual information; 1 second or less
Serial position effect:
first and last items are more likely to be remembered
Source memory: (Memory Misattribution)
recall of when, where and how information was acquired; déjà vu (disruption in subjective feeling of remembering)
Long-term retention is enhanced by
sematic encoding
Rhyme judgements:
sound of the word
Daydreaming ... another state of consciousness
-Brain is active even when there is no task at hand; flow of purposeless thoughts -Even when people are not busy, they show activation in default network area of the brain -Thinking about social life -Thinking about the self -Thinking about the past and future
6) Bias:
-Distorting influence of present knowledge, beliefs and feelings on recollection of previous experiences -Current mood biases recall of past experiences
Judge minds based on:
-Experience (ex: pain, pleasure, hunger, anger, fear) -Agency (ex: self-control, planning, memory, thought)
1) Transience:
-Forgetting what occurs with the passage of time -Occurs during the storage phase of memory -Quality of memory changes; most forgetting happens soon after the event -Influenced by interference from others
7) Persistence:
-Intrusive recollection of events that we want to forget -Emotional experiences are better remembered than non-emotional experiences
What would have...
-Little experience and little agency? = dying person -Experiences but little agency: infants -Experiences and agency: us! -No experiences but perceived agency: perception of agency
Where are memories stored?
-Memory storage depends on spaces between neurons -Sending a neurotransmitter across a synapse changes the synapse strengthening the connection between the neurons
Hippocampal patient H.M.
-Removed parts of temporal lobes (including hippocampus) -Could not remember anything that happened after the operation (anterograde amnesia)
Three types of memory storage:
-Sensory -Short-term -Long-term
5) Suggestibility:
-Tendency to incorporate misleading information from external sources into personal recollections -Our memories are vulnerable to others and their interpretations and suggestions
Survival encoding:
-includes semantic, visual imagery and organizational encoding -encourages extensive planning to benefit memory -memory system has evolved to allow us to remember information to our survival
4) Memory Misattribution:
-assigning a recollection or an idea to the wrong source
3) Blocking:
-failure to retrieve info that is available in memory -occurs most often for names of people and places ... but why? -links to related concepts/knowledge vs. names; remembering someone is a baker instead of the last name Baker
Problem of other minds:
-fundamental difficulty in perceiving the consciousness of others Ex: you are the only one that will never know what it is like to be you
LTP Properties:
-occurs along several pathways within hippocampus -can be induced rapidly -can last for a long time
Benefits of groups?
-others reveal items others don't remember -others help reduce/correct memory errors
Effective as it:
-relates incoming knowledge to present knowledge -helps to have two mental place holders (visual and verbal); more ways to remember
Role of amygdala:
-responds strongly to emotional events -level of activity is a good predictor for memory of the event
Three types of encoding processes:
-semantic encoding: words -visual imagery encoding: vision -organizational encoding: categories
Four properties of consciousness
1) Intentionality 2) Unity 3) Selectivity 4) Transience
Memory Failures: The Seven Sins of Memory:
1) Transience 2) Absentmindedness 3) Blocking 4) Memory Misattribution 5) Suggestibility 6) Bias 7) Persistence
Memory:
ability to store and retrieve info over time -three key functions: encoding, storage and retrieval
False recognition: (Memory Misattribution)
a feeling of familiarity about something that hasn't been encountered before
Altered state of consciousness: (Sleep and Dreaming: Good Night, Mind)
a form of experience different than subjective experience of the world and mind
Unity: (Four properties of consciousness)
ability to integrate info from all of the body's senses into one coherent whole
Cognitive unconsciousness:
all the mental processes that influence thoughts, choices, emotions and behaviour; not experienced by the person
But ... can we do this? What are some issues?
assuming people are telling the truth, but no way to prove it
Mental control:
attempt to change consciousness states of mind
Retrieval:
bringing to mind information that has been encoded and stored
Selectivity: (Four properties of consciousness)
capacity to include some object but not others; include/exclude info; dichotic listening; cocktail party phenomenon: talking to someone, when hear name look across room
Organizational encoding:
categorizing info according to the relationships among items -can improve recall by organizing everything into multiple-level categories -activates the upper surface of the frontal lobe
Proactive interference: (Transience)
earlier learning impairs memory for information acquired later; forgetting where you parked if you always park in the same lot
Priming: (Types of implicit memory)
enhanced ability to think of a stimulus as a result of recent exposure to the stimulus
Freudian slips: (The Unconscious Mind)
evidence of unconscious mind; ex: forgetting the name of someone you do not like
Change bias:
exaggerate differences btwn what we feel or believe now vs. before
Egocentric bias:
exaggerate the change btwn past/present to make ourselves look good
Retrieval cues:
external info associated with stored info to help bring it to mind Information is available in memory just momentarily inaccessible
Self-consciousness: (Levels of consciousness)
focuses on the self to the exclusion of everything else; evaluating yourself and your shortcomings; 18 months +
Procedural memory: (Types of implicit memory)
gradual acquisition of skills as a result of practice
Successfully recalling: (Two processes for retrieval)
hippocampal region and processing centers in brain for senses
Short term memory:
holds non-sensory info for more than a few seconds but less than a minute; ex: phone #
Sensory:
holds sensory information for a few seconds or less
Conceptual priming: (Types of implicit memory)
implicit memory for the meaning of a word and how you would use and object, left hemisphere; front of brain
Perceptual priming: (Types of implicit memory)
implicit memory for the sensory features of an item (visual characteristics of a word or picture); right hemisphere; back of brain
Retrograde amnesia:
inability to retrieve info before a particular date
Anterograde amnesia:
inability to transfer new info from short-term store to long-term store
Semantic judgements:
meaning of the word
Transfer-appropriate processing:
memory is likely to transfer from one situation to another when the encoding/retrieval connects of the situations match
Reconsolidation:
memories are vulnerable to disruption when they are recalled
Consolidation:
memories becomes stable in brain After encoding memories are fragile where they can be disrupted Sleep plays an important role in memory consolidation
Circadian rhythm: Why do we sleep and why on such a specific schedule?
naturally occurring 24-hour activity When awake, brain waves alternate between beta waves (high-frequency) during alertness and alpha waves (low-frequency) during relaxation
Semantic memory: (Types of explicit memory)
network of associated facts and concepts that make up general knowledge
Implicit: (Forms of long-term memory)
past experiences influence later behaviour and performance; w/o effort to remember or awareness of the recollection.
Experience-sampling technique (Conscious contents)
people report on conscious experiences at certain times; consciousness is dominated by the environment; current concerns (what person is thinking about repeatedly) But again ... do we see any issues? Biases?
Consciousness:
persons subjective experience of the world and the mind
Hypnopompic state: (Sleep and Dreaming: Good Night, Mind)
postsleep consciousness
Rehearsal:
process of keeping info in short-term memory by mentally repeating it Limited by how long it can hold it can hold information and how much it can hold (about 7 meaningful pieces of info)
Semantic encoding:
process of relating new info in a meaningful way to knowledge already stored in memory; lower left parts of the frontal and temporal lobes
Visual imagery:
process of storing new info by converting it into mental pictures -activates processing regions in occipital lobe
Encoding:
process of transforming what we perceive, think, or feel into an enduring memory -memories are made by combining info we already have with new info from the senses -memories are constructed not recorded
Intentionality: (Four properties of consciousness)
quality of being directed toward and object
Prospective memory: (Absentmindedness)
remembering to do things in the future
Encoding-specificity principle
retrieval cue can serve to remind how memory was initially encoded
Retrieval-induced forgetting:
retrieving an item from long-term memory impairs recall of related items
State-dependent retrieval:
tendency for info to be better recalled when the person is in the same state during encoding and retrieval
Rebound effect of thought suppression:
tendency of a thought to return to consciousness with greater frequency following suppression
Transience: (Four properties of consciousness)
tendency to change; focus of attention changes; stream of consciousness
Subliminal perception: (Example of System 1 at work)
thought or behaviour is influenced by stimuli that person cannot consciously report perceiving Ex: reminder of aging causes a person to walk slower
Collaborative inhibition: (Problems with groups?)
together recall fewer than if working on their own -Retrieval strategies used by individuals might disrupt those used by others
Dual-process theories:
two systems for processing information - fast, automatic, unconsciousness processing (System 1); slow, effortful, conscious processing (System 2)
Long-term memory:
type of storage that holds info for hours, days, weeks, or years No capacity limits
Disorder of consciousness (Brain damaged individuals)
unable to demonstrate full consciousness or self-consciousness