AP Psychology: Memory, Cognition, and Language
Explicit memory
Memory of facts and experiences that one can consciously know and "declare"
Retroactive interference
The disruptive effect of new learning on the recall of old information
Two word stage
beginning about age 2 the stage in speech development during which a child speaks mostly two word statements
Flashbulb memory
A clear memory of an emotionally significant moment or event
Recall
A measure of memory in which the person must retrieve information learned earlier, as on a fill-in-the-blank test.
Priming
An enhanced ability to think of a stimulus, such as a word or object, as a result of a recent exposure to the stimulus
Imagery
Description that appeals to the senses (sight, sound, smell, touch, taste)
Effortful processing
Encoding that requires attention and conscious effort
Encoding
First stage of the memory process; in it information is transformed or coded (a transduction process) into a form that can be processed further and stored
Herman Ebbinghaus
He was a German psychologist who pioneered the experimental study of memory, and is known for his discovery of the forgetting curve and the spacing effect. He was also the first person to describe the learning curve.
Memory
Hippocampus
Grammar
In a language, a system of rules that enables us to communicate with and understand others
Elizabeth Loftus
"misinformation effect" shown in memory studies
Peter Wason
Confirmation bias shows that "ordinary people will evade facts to defend themselves against new information on issues".
Noam Chompsky
Developed theory of lamguage acquisition
Storage
Maintaining encoded information in memory over time.
Syntax
Sentence structure
Overconfidence
Tendency to overestimate our ability to make correct predictions
Sensory memory
A type of storage that holds sensory information for a few seconds or less.
Wolfgang Kohler
Considered to be the founder of Gestalt Psychology
Availability heuristic
Estimating the likelihood of events based on their availability in memory; if instances come readily to mind, we presume such events are common
George Miller
Former president of the American Psychological Association, proposed that we can only hold 7(+/-) 2 items in Short Term Memory @ any one time.
Karl Lashley
He was an American psychologist and behaviorist well-remembered for his influential contributions to the study of learning and memory. His failure to find a single biological locus of memory in the rat's brain (or "engram", as he called it) suggested to him that memories were not localized to one part of the brain, but were widely distributed throughout the cerebral cortex.
Bejamin Lee Whorf
Linguistic Determinism
Semantics
Meaning
Implicit memory
Memories we don't deliberately remember or reflect on consciously
Conformation bias
The tendency to look for evidence in support of a belief and to ignore evidence that would disprove a belief
Functional fixedness
The tendency to think of things only in terms of their usual functions; an impediment to problem solving.
Wallace Lambert
Theorist who proposes a transitional bilingual program: initially instruction is 90% L1, then shifts towards English.
Mental set
a tendency to approach a problem in a particular way, often a way that has been successful in the past
Long term Potentiation
an increase in a synapse's firing potential after brief, rapid stimulation. believed to be a neural basis for learning and memory
Steven Pinker
argued that grammar is an innate algorithm evolved by NS that requires a few parameters to be set by language experience
George Sperling
demonstrated sensory memory by flashing a grid of 9 letters for 1/20th of a secon
Alan Baddeley
developed a model of working memory; three main components: the phonological loop, visuospatial sketchpad, and the central executive
Telegraphic speech
early speech stage in which a child speaks like a telegram--'go car'--using mostly nouns and verbs and omitting 'auxiliary' words
Representative heuristic
judging the likelihood of things in terms of how well they seem to represent, or match, particular prototypes; may lead one to ignore other relevent information
Daniel Kahnerman
studied heuristics, biases and errors
James Schwartz
studied whether electrochemical switches in the brain cause shifts in functions of brain circuits, leading to different behaviors
Endel Tulving
suggested 2 kinds of long-term memory: episodic and semantic
One word Stage
the stage in speech development, from about age 1 to 2, during which a child speaks mostly in single words
Mood Congruent Memory
the tendency to recall experiences that are consistent with one's current good or bad mood
Richard Shiffrin
three stage memory curve, studied LTM
Acoustic encoding
The encoding of sound, especially the sound of words
Phoneme
(linguistics) one of a small set of speech sounds that are distinguished by the speakers of a particular language
Repression
(psychiatry) the classical defense mechanism that protects you from impulses or ideas that would cause anxiety by preventing them from becoming conscious
Rehearsal
(psychology) a form of practice
Chunking
(psychology) the configuration of smaller units of information into large coordinated units
Language
A system of communication through the use of speech, a collection of sounds understood by a group of people to have the same meaning.
BF Skinner
1904-1990; Field: behavioral; Contributions: created techniques to manipulate the consequences of an organism's behavior in order to observe the effects of subsequent behavior; Studies: Skinner box
Robert Sternberg
1949-present; Field: intelligence; Contributions: devised the Triarchic Theory of Intelligence (academic problem-solving, practical, and creative)
Creativity
A feature of thought and problem solving that includes the tendency to generate or recognize ideas considered to be high-quality, original, novel, and appropriate.
Prototype
A full-scale working model used to test a design concept by making actual observations and necessary adjustments.
Amos Tversky
A key figure in the discovery of systematic human cognitive bias
Recognition
A measure of memory in which the person need only identify items previously learned, as on a multiple-choice test
Relearning
A memory measure that assesses the amount of time saved when learning material for a second time
Concept
A mental grouping of similar objects, events, ideas, or people.
Algorithm
A methodical, logical rule or procedure that guarantees solving a particular problem.
Echoic memory
A momentary sensory memory of auditory stimuli; if attention is elsewhere, sounds and words can still be recalled within 3 or 4 seconds
Iconic Memory
A momentary sensory memory of visual stimuli; a photographic or picture-image memory lasting no more than a few tenths of a second
Hippocampus
A neural center located in the limbic system that helps process explicit memories for storage.
Working memory
A newer understanding of short-term memory that involves conscious, active processing of incoming auditory and visual-spatial information, and of information retrieved from long-term memory.
Amnesia
A significant memory loss that is too extensive to be due to normal forgetting. See also Anterograde amnesia, Retrograde amnesia.
Insight
A sudden and often novel realization of the solution to a problem
Fixation
According to Freud, a lingering focus of pleasure-seeking energies at an earlier psychosexual stage, in which conflicts were unresolved
Short Term Memory
Actived memory that hold a few items briefly. - Duration 20 to 30 seconds - Capacity - 7 items +/1 2 items
Cognition
All the mental activities associated with thinking, knowing, remembering, and communicating.
Henry Roedinger
American psychologist, re sender in the office human and memory
Intuition
An effortless, immediate, automatic feeling or thought, as contrasted with explicit, conscious reasoning
Fergus Craik
Asserted that learning and recall depend on the depth of processing
Richard Atkinson
Atkinson's most fundamental and far-reaching contribution to cognitive psychology is the Atkinson-Shiffrin model (with Richard M. Shiffrin), one of the most significant advances in the study of human memory. It put a theory of memory on a mathematical basis for the first time.
Source Amnesia
Attributing to the wrong source an event we have experienced, heard about, read about, or imagined
Babbling Stage
Beginning at about 4 months, the stage of speech development in which the infant spontaneously utters various sounds at first unrelated to the household language
Jeffrey Karpicke
Identified the Testing Effect - tests are not only a means of assessing learning but also improving it.
Morpheme
In a language, the smallest unit that carries meaning; may be a word or a part of a word (such as a prefix)
Misinformation effect
Incorporating misleading information into one's memory of an event
Mnemonics
Memory aids, especially those techniques that use vivid imagery and organizational devices
Oliver Sacks
Oliver Sacks, M.D. is a physician, a best-selling author, and professor of neurology and psychiatry at the Columbia University Medical Center. He is best known for his collections of neurological case histories, including The Man who Mistook his Wife for a Hat (1985), Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain (2007) and The Mind's Eye (2010). Awakenings (1973).
Rajan Mahadevan
On repeated visits to the psychology building at the University of Minnesota this man had trouble recalling the location of the nearest restroom. Yet he once set a world's record by reciting from memory the first 31,811 places of pi He is a numerically gifted memorist, which he discovered at the tender age of 4. Although Rajan is adept at remembering numbers, he nevertheless displays only an average memory when it comes to prose passages or geometric shapes.
Serial position effect
Our tendency to recall best the last and first items in a list
Framing
Phatic talk, e.g 'hi, how're you?', 'see you soon'
Heuristic
RELATING TO A SPECULATIVE FORMULATION GUIDING THE INVESTIGATION OR SOLUTION OF A PROBLEM; EDUCATIONAL METHOD IN WHICH STUDENTS LEARN FROM THEIR OWN INVESTIGATIONS
Retrieval
Recovery of stored information
Long term memory
Relatively permanent and limitless storage of memory.
Shelley Taylor
Scientist that argued the "fight or flight" response with the idea that women "tend and befriend." Women will join forces and protect the offspring. Release oxytocin.
Dean Keith Simonton
Studied prominent scientists and inventors and learned that the most eminent among them were mentored, challenged and supported.
Eric Kandel
Studied the sea slug Aplysia and posited that learning and memory are evidenced by changes in synapses and neural pathways.
Déjà vu
That eerie sense that "I've experienced this before." Cues from the current situation may subconsciously trigger retrieval of an earlier experience.
Proactive Interference
The disruptive effect of prior learning on the recall of new information
Semantic encoding
The encoding of meaning, including the meaning of words
Visual encoding
The encoding of picture images
Parallel processing
The processing of several aspects of a problem simultaneously; the brain's natural mode of information processing for many functions, including vision. Contrasts with the step-by-step (serial) processing of most computers and of conscious problem solving.
Automatic processing
Unconscious encoding of incidental information, such as space, time, and frequency, and of well-learned information, such as word meanings.
Linguistic Determinism
Whorf's hypothesis that language determines the way we think
Brief perseverance
clinging to one's initial conceptions after the basis on which they were formed has been discredited
H.M (Henry Molaison
experimental bilateral anterior medial temporal lobectomy for epilepsy. Permanent short term memory for names, faces, events. Stuck in past.
Spacing effect
the tendency for distributed study or practice to yield better long-term retention than is achieved through massed study or practice