psychology memory

Flashbulb Memory

a clear memory of an emotionally significant moment or event -It's as if the brain commands, "Capture this!" The people who experienced a 1989 San Francisco earthquake did just that. A year and a half later, they had perfect recall if where they had been and what they were doing (verified by their recorded thoughts within a day or two of the quake). Others' memories for the circumstances under which they merely heard about the quake were more prone to errors. Flashbulb memories that people relive, rehearse, and discuss may also come to err. Although our flashbulb memories are noteworthy for their vividness and the confidence with which we recall them, misinformation can seep into them.

Algorithm

a methodical, logical rule or procedure that guarantees solving a particular problem. Contrasts with the usually speedier-but also more error-prone-use pf heuristics -to gind another word using all the letters in SPLOYOCHYG, we could try eacch letter in each position, but we would need to generate and examine the 907,200 resulting permutations.

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 -picture yourself in class, as your attention veers to thoughts of the weekend. If your mildly irked teacher tests your attention by asking, "What did I just say?" your can recover the teacher's last few words from your mind's echo chamber. Auditory echoes tend to linger for 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 -for a few tenths of a second, our eyes register an exact representation of a scene and we can recall any part of it in amazing detail. But if George Sperling delayed the tone signal by more than half a second, the image faded and participants again recalled only about half the letters. Our visual screen clears quickly, as new images are superimposed over old ones.

Heuristic

a simple thinking strategy that often allows us to make judgments and solve problems efficiently; usually speedier but also more error-prone than algorithms -to search for hot cocoa mix, you could search every supermarket aisle(an algorithm), or you could check the breakfast, beverage, and baking supplies section (heuristics). The heuristics approach is often speedier, but an algorithmic search guarantees you will find it eventually.

Insight

a sudden and often novel realization of the solution to a problem it contrasts with strategy-based solutions -They gave people a problem: Think of a word that will form a compound word or phrase with each of three words in a set)such as pine, crab, and sauce), and press a button to sound a bell when you know the answer. (If you need a hint: The word is a fruit._ All the while, the researchers mapped the problem solver's brain activity, using fMRIs by a sudden A ha! insight, which typically was preceded by frontal lobe activity involved in focusing attention and was accompanied by a burst of activity in the right temporal lobe, just above the ear.

Mental Set

a tendency to a[[roach a problem in one particular way, often a way that has been successful in the past -Given the sequence O-T-T-F-?-?-?, what are the final three letters? Most people have difficulty recognizing that the three final letters are F(five), S(ix), and S(even).

Short-Term Memory (working)

activated memory that holds a few items briefly, such as the seven digits of a phone number while dialing, before the information is stored or forgotten -we pay attention to and encode important or novel stimuli-in this case an angry face in the crowd

Mnemonic Devices

memory aids, especially those techniques that use vivid imagery and organizational devices - Some modern mnemonic devices rely on both acoustic and visual codes. For example, the peg-word system requires you to memorize a jingle: "One is a bun; two is a shoe;three is a tree; four is a door; five is a hive; six is sticks; seven is heaven; eight is a gate; nine is swine; ten is a hen." Without much effort, you will soon be able to count by peg-words instead of numbers: bun, shoe, tree... and then to visually associate the peg-words with to-be-remembered items.

Explicit Memories

memory of facts and experiences that one can consciously know and "declare." (Also called declarative memory.) -these people may not know and be able to declare that they know -with conscious recall -processed in hippocampus -facts:general knowledge -personally experienced events

Chunking

organizing items into familiar, manageable units often occurs automatically -for those who read Chinese, after looking at these characters 春夏秋冬, can you reproduce them exactly? If so, you are literate in Chinese

Implicit Memories

retention independent of conscious recollection (Also called non-declarative or procedural memory.) -they can learn how to do something -without conscious recall -processed by other brain areas, including cerebellum -skills: motor (bike riding or playing an instrument) and cognitive -classical conditioning

Sensory Memory

the immediate, very brief recording of sensory information in the memory system -sensory memory registers incoming information, allowing your brain to capture for a moment a sea of faces

Fixation

the inability to see a problem from a new perspective, by employing a different mental set -How would you arrange six matches to form four equilateral triangles? To solve this problem, you must view it from a new perspective, breaking the fixation of limiting solutions to two dimensions

Long-Term Memory

the relatively permanent and limitless storehouse of the memory system. Includes knowledge, skills and experiences if we stare at the face long enough(rehearsal), or if we're sufficiently disturbed by it)it;s deemed "important"), we will encode it for long-term storage, and we may, an hour later, be able to call up an image of the face