Declarative Memory

Non-declarative Memory

A form of long-term memory that influence behavior, but do not involve conscious recollection (procedural memory and priming), also known as implicit memory.

Declarative Memory

A form of long-term memory that involves knowing something is the case; it involves conscious recollection and includes memory for facts (semantic memory) and event (episodic memory); sometimes known as explicit memory.

Recollection

A form of recognition memory. It is the process of recognizing an item by using cues, or retrieval of contextual details. (slow and requires attention)

Familiarity

A form of recognition memory. It is the process of recognizing an item, without knowing the specific details. (fast)

Scripts

A form of schema containing information about a sequence of events.

Patient H.M.

A man that suffered from chronic seizures. His bilateral medial temporal lobe was removed, which includes the hippocampus. As a result, he suffered from retrograde amnesia. He had difficulty with declarative memory and was able to form non-declarative memories.

Hub & spoke model

A model of concept processing. Hub: modality-independent unified representation located in the anterior temporal lobe. Spokes - modality-specific regions involved in sensorimotor processing.

Korsakoff's syndrome with confabulation

Amnesia caused by severe alcoholism. Confabulation is when a person makes up stories. Caused by a deficiency in thymine.

Procedural Memory

An implicit, or non-declarative memory concerned with knowing how to perform skilled actions without the intention to learn, or awareness of learning.

Herpes encephalitis

Caused by herpes simplex 1. The virus enters the brain and causes amnesia. (e.g. clive wearings)

Semantic hierarchies

Concepts are organized into hierarchies. There are three levels superordinate (abstract, less informative, fast), basic (happy medium), subordinate (less distinctive, slow, and less accurate).

Semanticization

Episodic memories changing into semantic memories. If you have multiple episodic memories, it becomes a semantic memory.

Vargha Kadhem study

Global anterograde amnesia is described in three patients with brain injuries. Magnetic resonance techniques revealed bilateral hippocampal pathology in all three cases. Remarkably, despite their pronounced amnesia for the episodes of everyday life, all three patients attended mainstream schools and attained levels of speech and language competence, literacy, and factual knowledge that are within the low average to average range. The findings provide support for the view that the episodic and semantic components of cognitive memory are partly dissociable, with only the episodic component being fully dependent on the hippocampus.

Lashley's search for the engram

His famously unsuccessful search for the "engram" - the localized area of memory within a rats brain. He impaired their brain by creating lesions, but did not find the exact sport. Led him to propose the principle of "mass action," in which learning is distributed across all parts of the brain rather than stored in a single regions, with the degree of impairment proportional to the amount of brain that was damaged.

Spreading activation

It is a model of working- memory that shows how the mind processes related ideas, such as verbal and semantic concepts. It explains the priming effect, demonstrating that a person recalls info more easily when a related concept has been introduced.

Episodic Memory

Long-term memory concerned with personal experiences or episodes occurring at a given place at a specific time.

Semantic Memory

Long-term memory consisting of general knowledge about the world, concepts, language and so on.

Schemas

Organized packet of information (chunks) about the world, events or people stored in long-term memory.

DRM false memory paradigm

Participants are presented with word lists composed of the strongest associates of a critical non-presented word, as determined by word association norms. On subsequent recall and recognition tests, participants tend to identify the non-presented critical word as having been studied previously.

Semantic dementia

Patients have severe loss of memory on word meanings and concepts, even though their episodic memory and most cognitive functions are reasonably intact. Caused by damage to the anterior temporal lobes. (double dissociation)

Situated stimulation theory

perceptual and motor systems are often involved in concept processing.