Unit 3

Recognition

Identifying something that we have seen before from a pool of things (multiple choice questions)

decay forgetting

Neurons are used less and less, becoming weaker and weaker, leading us to forget

sensory memory

Temporary storage of everything our senses take in (.5-3 seconds)

anterograde amnesia

an inability to form new memories

retrograde amnesia

an inability to retrieve information from one's past

availability heuristic

judging a situation based on examples of similar situations that come to mind initially

Representative heuristic

judging the likelihood of things in terms of how well they seem to represent, or match, particular prototypes

Interference forgetting

learning some items may disrupt retrieval of other information

serial position effect

our tendency to recall the last and first items in a list best

anchoring effect

fixating on initial information and ignoring subsequent information (normally in prices)

sentences stage

(6-10 yrs old)- implicit understanding and 80% of language learned already

telegraphic stage

2 word sentences, normally overgeneralized grammar (broken)

Cocktail party effect

Ability to concentrate on one voice amongst a crowd

encoding categories

Automatic, Effortful (shallow and deep processing)

language aquisition stages

Babbling Stage, HoloPhrastic, Telegraphic, Sentence

attention

Converting sensory memory into short-term memory

Forgetting categories

Decay, Interference, Amnesia

convergent thinking

Deciding what is the best idea or possibility in a problem (doing it!)

George Miller

Found that short term memory has the capacity of about 7 (+/- 2) items.

Fixation

Inability to view a problem from a different perspective; one way and one way only

Elizabeth Loftus

Memory is maleable; car crash (make it worse than it seems)

Explicit: episodic memory

Memory of personally experienced events

parallel processing

Processing many aspects of objects at the same time (motion, color, depth, etc...)

babbling stage

Random noises; random phonemes of home language

long-term potentiation

Recalling information over and over strengthens firing and synapses of neurons; remember more and better

Recall

Remembering without an option of answers (fill in blank questions)

maintenance rehearsal

Repeating info in order to lengthen time in Short-term memory

Effortful: deep processing

Requires learning; meaningful analysis-really thinking about it

Effortful: shallow processing

Requires learning; memorizing things w/o meaning

Syntax

Rules for arranging words effectively in a sentence

Morphemes

The smallest units of meaning in a language.

divergent thinking

Thinking about the number of possibilities or ideas in a given problem

elaboritive rehearsal

Transferring info into long-term memory; mnemonic devices are an example of this encoding (giving something meaning)

holophrastic stage

Whole ideas via one word, eg: "mama" for any woman

echoic memory

auditory sensory memory (2-4 seconds)

short-term memory

component of memory system that holds information for about 20 seconds

Chomsky's Language Acquisition Device

every child is born with the knowledge to acquire language and grammar rules

Long-term memory categories

explicit and implicit

Explicit: semantic memory

facts, rules, concepts, general knowledge

retroactive interference

new information interferes with old information

proactive interference

old information interferes with the new information

Implicit: procedural memory

retention without conscious recollection (such as skills)

Phonemes

smallest unit of sound

Implicit: priming memory

stimulus exposure affects responses to a later stimulus

tip of the tongue phenomenon

temporary inability to remember information; recall gets pieces, but not all

primacy effect

tendency to remember things at beginning of list

recency effect

tendency to remember things at the end of a list

selective attention

the ability to focus on only one stimulus from among all sensory input

Ebbinghaus forgetting curve

the course of forgetting is initially rapid, then levels off with time

functional fixedness

the tendency to perceive an item only in terms of its most common use

automatic processing

unconscious encoding of incidental information

iconic memory

visual sensory memory (0.25 seconds)