What Is Memory?

classical conditioning

learning procedure by which a neutral stimulus is paired with a response -evoking stimulus, and will come to evoke the response of the previously unconditioned response-evoking stimulus.

event-related potentials

method of using EEG, in which the EEG reaction of the brain to specific stimuli is tracked over time.

Priming

process where the presentation of an item influences the processing of a subsequent item, making it easier (positive) or more Difficult (negative)

implicit or nondeclarative

retrieval of information through performance, rather than intentional recall.

music

though Clive Wearing was deeply amnesic and unable to store information for longer than a few seconds and could only talk about his life in broad outlines, one aspect of his memory appeared to be unimpaired.

Model

"A method of expressing a theory more precisely, allowing predictions to be made and tested."

verbal learning

"An approach to memory that relies principally on the learning of lists of words and nonsense syllables"

Gestalt

"An approach to psychology popular in Germany in the 1930's. Attempted to use perceptual principles to understaffed memory and reasoning. "

Schema

"Proposed by Barlett to explain how our knowledge of the world is structured and influences the way in which new information is stored and recalled."

reductionism

"The view that all scientific explanations should aim to be based on a lower level of analysis."

Ebbinghaus

19th century German philosopher who was first to demonstrate it was possible to study memory experimentally.

neuroimaging

A range of methods where the brain can be studied, either in terms of its anatomical structure or its operation.

long-term memory

A system, or systems, assumed to underpin the capacity to store information over long periods of time.

Echoic Memory

A term sometimes applied to auditory sensory memory.

Bartlett

Author of "remembering" (1932) he expicitly rejected the learning of meaningless material, using instead material such as folk tales from other cultures. His approach emphasized the study of memory errors made, explaining them in terms of the participants cultural assumptions about the world.

electroencephalogram

Device for recording electrical potentials of the brain through a series of electrodes placed on the scalp.

Sperling

He presented participants with an array of twelve letters in three rows of four, and then asked people to recall them. Typically people culd provide four or five correct items.

Mental time travel

In describing episodic memory Tulving refers to humans capacity to do this, and emphasizes its value in allowing us to recollect and relive individual events, and to use that information for planning future actions.

Iconic Memory

Investigators at Bell Laboratories, Sperling among them, used a new information-processing approach to analyze this fleeting visual memory system.

semantic

Memories which are assumed to store the accumulative knowledge of the world.

episodic

Memories which are assumed to underpin the capacity to remember specific events.

Magnetic Resonance imaging

Method of brain imaging that works by detecting changes induced by a powerful magnetic field.

positron emission tomography

Method where radioactively labeled substances are introduced to a subjects bloodstream and subsequently monitored to measure physiological activation.

Masking

Process by which the perception and/or storage of a stimulus is influenced by events occurring immediately before (forward), or more commonly after presentation (masking).

Craik

Proposed the idea of representing theories as models, and using the computer to develop such models. Carried out what may have been the first psychological experiments based on this idea, using analog computers and applying his computer-based theoretical model to the gun-aiming in tanks.

stores and processes

Some theorists object to the concept of a memory _____ aas too static, arguing instead that researchers should be concerned with ________.

Magnetoencephalography

System where the activity of neurons within the brain is detected through the tiny magnetic fiends that their activity generates.

Sensory Memory

Term applied to the brief storage of information within a specific modality.

Modal Model

Term applied to the model of memory developed by Atkinson and Shiffren((1968). Representative of many similar models proposed at the time, wherein a unified single memory system was rejected in exchange for multiple independent memory systems.

short-term memory

The retention of small amounts of material over periods ofa few seconds.

explicit or declarative

These memories are open to intentional retrieval.

working memory

a memory system that underpins our capacity to "keep things in mind" when performing complex tasks.