Psychology- Memory

Amygdala

A limbic system structure involved in memory and emotion, particularly fear and aggression.

When Lisa earns a perfect score on a(n) _____ test in history, she passes a _____ test of memory.

essay; recall

Highly Superior Autobiographical Memory

exceptionally accurate memory for autobiographical memory, larger temporal lobe, larger caudate

Mabel has Alzheimer's disease and her _____ memories for people and events are lost, but she is able to display an ability to form new _____ memories by being repeatedly shown words.

explicit; implicit

Leroy has a very clear memory of his daughter's birth. He remembers the weather, what he was wearing, the sounds in the hallway, and the joy he felt. Psychologists would say that

he has a flashbulb memory for this event

Nine-year-old Jade has just discovered something very interesting. She can look at a picture in a book and, when she closes her eyes, she can still see the picture very clearly for a few tenths of a second. Jade is experiencing _____ memory.

iconic

Hippocampus

a neural center located in the limbic system; helps process explicit memories for storage. The memories are not permanently stored. acts as a loading dock where the brain registers and temporarily holds the elements of a to-be-remembered episode—its smell, tough, sound, and location. Then, like older files shifted to a basement storeroom, memories migrate to the cortex for storage. This storage process is called memory consolidation

Employing the single word "HOMES" to remember the names of North America's five Great Lakes best illustrates the use of

a mnemonic device

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

Luke experiences some damage to his cerebellum. Based on information provided in the textbook, Luke's _____ memory may be impaired.

implicit

The textbook uses the term memoryless memory to refer to priming because priming is a type of _____ memory

implicit

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

implicit memory

What type of memory is not consciously accessible to us?

implicit memory

misinformation effect

incorporating misleading information into one's memory of an event

As strange as it may seem, James has run into the same co-worker four times today, in four different locations. He gets a little nervous, wondering if she is following him. His ability to unconsciously keep track of the number of times he has run into the co-worker is known as

automatic processing.

right frontal lobe

calling up a visual party scene; depression and general negativity

The misinformation effect highlights the:

changeability of memory

It is easier to remember information that is organized into meaningful units than information that is not. This is known as _____.

chunking

damage to hippocampus

disrupts recall and formation of explicit memories

Although Ron typically smokes two packs of cigarettes each day, he recalls smoking little more than one pack per day. This poor memory BEST illustrates:

motivated forgetting

Jamal's brother often pretends to listen to what Jamal is saying when his brother is really focused elsewhere. When Jamal asks him, "What did I just say?" his brother can sometimes repeat Jamal's last few words. This MOST likely reflects his _____ memory.

echoic

Studying for a psychology test requires _____. It takes attention and conscious work, but pays off with lasting and accessible memories.

effortful processing

Carlos cannot remember Juan Alvarez's name because he was not paying attention when Juan was formally introduced. Carlos' poor memory is BEST explained in terms of _____ failure.

encoding

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

encoding failure- unattended information never entered our memory system storage decay- information fades from our memory retrieval failure- we cannot access stored information accurately, sometimes due to interference or motivated forgetting

positive transfer

when old information facilitates the learning of new information

Jamaal has to make an important phone call. Unfortunately, his cell phone is not charged and he has to use his landline, which does not store phone numbers. To make the call, he has to get the number from his cell phone and remember it long enough to dial on his landline. For this task, _____ memory is MOST important.

working

EFFORTFUL PROCESSING

•Explicit/declarative memory: consciously stores facts, info, and personal life experiences •Semantic memory: facts & general knowledge •Episodic memory: personal experiences & events

Chunking

organizing items into familiar, manageable units; often occurs automatically

primacy effect

other things being equal, information presented first usually has the most influence

serial position effect

our tendency to recall best the last (a recency effect) and first items (a primacy effect) in a list

left frontal lobe

positive emotions; location of the Broca's area; Recalling a password and holding it in working memory

When bits of information do not compete with each other, and actually facilitate memory, it is called:

positive transfer

"Cat food, cola, toothpaste . . ." Ned's roommate recites items over the phone as he throws his books in the back seat and gets into his car. Ned is supposed to stop at the store on the way home. The roommate continues to list a few more items. Finally, he wraps up, ". . . coffee creamer, spaghetti sauce, dish soap, and iced tea mix." Ned forgets a couple of things, but he does get the cat food, cola, and toothpaste. His memory for these items reflects the _____ effect

primacy

In the process of retrieving a specific memory from a web of associations, a person needs to activate one of the strands that lead to it. This is known as _____

priming

Nana is taking a Spanish final at the end of the spring semester. The problem is that the French vocabulary she learned the semester before keeps getting in the way, causing her to forget Spanish words. Nana is experiencing _____ interference.

proactive

_____ interference occurs when something learned before interferes with one's recall of something learned later.

proactive

In _____ interference, information learned earlier disrupts the recall of information learned more recently; in _____ interference, recently learned information disrupts the recall of information learned earlier.

proactive; retroactive

With respect to interference, _____ is to forgetting new information as _____ is to forgetting old information

proactive; retroactive

If one has NOT studied well for a test, in which format is one likely to get a higher score

recognition

The spacing effect

refers to the finding that long-term memory is enhanced when learning events are spaced apart in time, rather than massed in immediate succession

Tarik has a chemistry test in two days. He has to memorize the elements on the periodic table, so he writes them on index cards. He keeps the cards with him at all times and frequently reads through them. Tarik is using _____ to encode information in short-term memory for longer-term storage.

rehearsal

Through conscious repetition of information in short-term memory, humans can encode information for long-term storage. This is known as _____.

rehearsal

Mrs. Alvarez cannot consciously recall how frequently she criticizes her children because it would cause her too much anxiety. Sigmund Freud would have suggested that her poor memory illustrates a defense mechanism called _____.

repression

The happier Choiya feels, the more readily she recalls experiences with former teachers who were warm and generous. This best illustrates that emotional states can be

retrieval clues

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

retrieval cues

You will experience less (proactive/retroactive) interference if you learn new material in the hour before sleep than you will if you learn it before turning to another subject.

retroactive

After studying biology all afternoon, Alonzo is having difficulty remembering details of the organic chemistry material he memorized that morning. Alonzo's difficulty BEST illustrates

retroactive interference

Dana is suffering from _____ when she fails to remember events preceding traumatic brain injury

retrograde amnesia

Phone companies created seven-digit phone numbers because this amount BEST suits the capacity of one's:

short term memory

After Maya gave her friend the password to a protected website, the friend was able to remember it only long enough to type it into the password box. In this instance, the password was clearly stored in her _____ memory.

short-term

In a movie the main character has to write everything on his body and take notes, otherwise he quickly forgets. This is because he has sustained an injury that has left him without _____ memory.

short-term

Several months after watching a science fiction movie about space travel and alien abduction, Daniel began to remember that aliens had abducted him and had subjected him to many of the horrors portrayed in the movie. His mistaken recall BEST illustrates _____ amnesia.

source

Victor has been working 70-hour work weeks and has been getting his days and nights mixed up, as well as having trouble separating his dreams from reality. Just yesterday, he thought a project had been completed, but in reality it was only a dream. This problem is known as _____ amnesia.

source

retrieval cues

stimuli that aid the recall or recognition of information stored in memory

stress hormones

stress hormones focus memory. Stress provokes the amygdala (two limbic systems, emotion-processing clusters) to initiate a memory trace that boosts activity in the brain's memory-forming areas stressful events can form unforgettable memories

The hippocampus seems to function as a

temporary processing site for explicit memories.

dejavu

that eerie sense that "I've experienced this before." Cues from the current situation may subconsciously trigger retrieval of an earlier experience.

Recent research by Ravizza and colleagues suggests that students may spend as much as one-_____ of a typical class hour browsing the internet.

third

left hippocampus damage

trouble remembering verbal information, no trouble recalling visual designs and locations

right hippocampus damage

trouble remembering visual designs and locations

If the functioning of one's cerebellum is impaired, one would have trouble

tying a knot

left hippocampus

verbal information

right hippocampus

visual designs and locations

mood-congruent memory

the tendency to recall experiences that are consistent with one's current good or bad mood

In the Pew Survey

95 percent of American adults said they could recall exactly where they were or what they were doing when they first heard the news of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

flashbulb memory

A clear and vivid long-term memory of an especially meaningful and emotional event.

Repression (defense mechanism)

- Involuntary blocking of unpleasant feelings and experiences from ones awareness. EX: An accident victim can remember nothing about the accident

pre-frontal cortex

-associated w/ planning intricate cognitive functions, expressing personality, & making decisions -Receives arousal from brainstem: coordinates arousal

infintile amnesia

-no explicit memories lower than about age 3 -hippocampus is later developing we index much of our explicit memory with a command of language that young children do not possess. Second, the hippocampus is one of the last brain structures to mature, and as it does, more gets retained

Some individuals have an amazing ability to remember things. For example, college student Feng Wang could repeat back _____ digits.

200

Imagine a study in which participants are shown 2000 slides of houses and storefronts, each for only 10 seconds. Later, these same participants are shown 300 of the original slides paired with slides they have not seen before. According to research, these participants would be able to recognize _____ percent of the slides they had seen before.

90

Recall

A measure of memory in which the person must retrieve information learned earlier, as on a fill-in-the-blank test.

peg-word system

A mnemonic in which the items in a list to be remembered are associated with the sequential items in a memorized jingle and then the list is retrieved by going through the jingle and retrieving the associated items.

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.

testing effect

Enhanced performance on a memory test caused by being tested on the material to be remembered.

On a business trip last year, Erum, who really hates to fly, and Pam flew from Los Angeles to Boston. In the middle of the flight, they experienced 20 minutes of very severe turbulence. Erum remembers this incident as if it were yesterday, but Pam cannot recall it. Why

Erum experienced emotion-triggered hormonal changes

sensory memory

Holds sensory information just long enough for our brain to locate relevant bits of data and transfer it to the next stage •large capacity •Short duration

implicit memory

Memories we don't deliberately remember or reflect on consciously

subregions of hippocampus

One part is active as people and mice learn social information. Another part is active as memory champions engage in spatial mnemonics. The rear area, which processes spatial memory, grows bigger as London cabbies navigate the city's complicated maze of streets

automatic processing

Procedural memory: motor skills and habits Priming: prior exposure to stimuli affects the processing of new information even when you don't have any conscious memory of the initial learning and storage Classically conditioned memory: conditioned responses to conditioned stimuli like fears

Hierachies

When people develop expertise, they process information not only into chunks but into hierarchies composed of a few broad concepts divided and subdivided into narrower concepts and facts.

recognition

a measure of memory in which the person need only identify items previously learned, as on a multiple-choice test

reconsolidation

a process in which previously stored memories, when retrieved, are potentially altered before being stored again

basal ganglia

a set of subcortical structures that directs intentional movements; facilitate formation of our procedural memories for skills. receives input from the cortex, but does not return the favor of sending information back to the cortex for conscious awareness of procedural learning.

autobiographical memory

a special form of episodic memory, consisting of a person's recollections of his or her life experiences

classical conditioning

a type of learning in which one learns to link two or more stimuli and anticipate events

production effect

an improvement in recall and recognition resulting from saying the material aloud during rehearsal

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.

frontal lobe

associated with reasoning, planning, parts of speech, movement, emotions, and problem solving

source amnesia

attributing to the wrong source an event we have experienced, heard about, read about, or imagined

memoryless memory

invisible memory without explicit remembering

Consolidation

is the process where our brains convert short-term memories into long-term ones

James has suffered hippocampal damage from a near-fatal bus crash. He is not able to remember verbal information, but retains the ability to recall visual designs and locations. He may have suffered damage to his:

left hippocampus

retrograde amnesia

loss of memory from the point of some injury or trauma backwards, or loss of memory for the past

tunnel vision

loss of peripheral vision, can be triggered by emotional events. They focus our attention and recall on high-priority information, and reduce our recall of irrelevant details

false memories

memories for events that never happened, but were suggested by someone or something; socially contagious

Mnenomics

memory aids, especially those techniques that use vivid imagery and organizational devices

A research participant is required to report as much of a poem as he can remember immediately after having read the poem once. The greatest number of recall errors should occur for lines _____ of the poem

middle

Cerebellum

the "little brain" at the rear of the brainstem; functions include processing sensory input and coordinating movement output and balance role in forming and storing the implicit memories created by classical conditioning With a damaged cerebellum, people cannot develop certain conditioned reflexes, such as associating a tone with an impending puff of air—and thus do not blink in anticipation of the puff. Implicit memory formation needs the cerebellum.

storage decay

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

retroactive interference

the disruptive effect of new learning on the recall of old information; backward acting

proactive interference

the disruptive effect of prior learning on the recall of new information; forward acting

encoding specificity principle

the idea that cues and contexts specific to a particular memory will be most effective in helping us recall it

retrieval cue failure

the inability to recall long-term memories because of inadequate or missing retrieval cues

anterograde amnesia

the inability to transfer new information from the short-term store into the long-term store; inability to form new memories

memory consolidation

the neural storage of a long-term memory Sleep supports memory consolidation. In one experiment, students who learned material in a study/sleep/restudy condition remembered material better

state-dependent retrieval

the tendency for information to be better recalled when the person is in the same state during encoding and retrieval