Memory

A. Nonsense Syllables: REK, JIB, MOF, QON B. Memory Interference: the retention of older material makes it harder to retain new material and vice versa. 1) Proactive Interference: when old material interferes with new material. 2) Retroactive Interference: when new material interferes with old material. I. Early Research on Memory: Ebbinghaus Memory: the storage, retention and recall of events, information and procedures.

II. Tests of Memory A. Free Recall: to produce an open-ended response from memory. B. Cued Recall: the person being tested gets hints about the correct answer. C. Recognition: the person being tested is offered several choices and then asked to select the correct one. D. Savings method: compares the rate at which someone relearns material as opposed to learning something new. 1) original learning time – relearning time = memory

A. Explicit Memory: involves the recall of knowledge and events in which a person deliberately retrieves the answer and recognizes it as a correct one. B. Implicit Memory: an experience influences something you say or do even though you might not be aware of the influence. 1) Declarative Memories: memories we can readily state in words. 1) Procedural Memories: memories of motor skills. III. Explicit Memory versus Implicit Memory C. Priming: activating particular associations in memory.

IV. Information- Processing Model of Memory: information enters the system, is processed and coded in various ways, and is then stored for later retrieval.

A. Sensory Store (iconic memory): the very brief storage of sensory information and is the first stage of memory processing.

B. Short-Term Memory: the temporary storage of recent events. C. Long-Term Memory: a relatively permanent storage of mostly meaningful information. 1) Semantic Memory: memory of general principals. 2) Episodic Memory: memory for specific events in a person’s life. 1) Attention: in reference to memory, the process that moves information from the sensory store to short-term memory.

D. Capacities of Short-Term and Long-Term Memory E. Decay of Short-Term and Long-Term Memory

G. Working Memory: a system for processing or working with current information. 1) Phonological loop: stores and rehearses auditory information. 2) Visuospatial Sketchpad: stores and manipulates visual and spatial information. 3) Central Executive: governs shifts of attention. F. Chunking: grouping items into meaningful sequences or clusters. 4) Episodic Buffer: retrieves information from long-term memory that influences one’s experience with incoming auditory and visual information.

V. Long-Term Memory Storage and Retrieval D. Levels-of-Processing Principal: how easily we can retrieve a memory depends on the number and types of associations we form. Hawk, Oriole, Tiger, Timberwolf, Blue Jay, Bull C. Retrieval Cue: associated information that aids in memory retrieval. A. Recognition: the ability to identify a previously encountered stimulus. B. Recall: the ability to reproduce material from memory. 1) Rehearsal: repeat over and over again until memorized. 2) Organization: categorizing material to be remembered.

F. Mnemonic Device: any memory aid that is based on encoding each item in a special way. 1) Method of Loci: you memorize a series of places and then using a vivid image, you associate each of these locations with something you want to remember. G. Elaboration: a mnemonic strategy of making mental associations involving items to be remembered. E. Encoding Specificity Principal: the associations you form during the time of learning are the most effective retrieval cues.

J. Flashbulb Memories: when you experience something so emotionally shocking that you remember the event, but as time goes by, you forget the details. K. Context-Dependent Memories: when you think of what you want to do somewhere, but forget what you were going to do when you arrive at that location… by returning to the place where you had the original thought, you are able to remember. I. State-Dependent Memory: when you remember something better if you are emotionally or physically in the same condition during recall as you were during learning. 1) The Primacy Effect: the tendency to remember the beginning of a list. 2) The Recency Effect: the tendency to remember the end of a list. H. The Serial-Order Effect: the tendency to remember the beginning and end of a list better than the middle.

L. Memory Reconstruction: during an event, we construct a memory. When we try to retrieve the memory, we reconstruct an account based partly on surviving memories and partly on expectations of what must have happened. M. Recovered Memories: reports of long lost memories, prompted by clinical techniques. N. False Memory: a report that one believes to be a memory but that does not correspond to actual events. O. Repression: the process of moving an unbearably unacceptable memory or impulse from the conscious mind to the unconscious mind. P. Dissociation: a stored memory that cannot be retrieved. 1) Déjà Vu: the experience of feeling sure that one has already witnessed or experienced a current situation, even though the exact circumstances of the previous encounter are uncertain and were perhaps imagined.

A. Anterograde Amnesia: the inability to store new long term memories. B. Retrograde Amnesia: loss of memory for events that occurred shortly before brain damage. VI. Amnesia: a severe loss or deterioration of memory or the inability to store or retrieve memory. D. Old Age Amnesia: the progressive loss of memory or the inability to retrieve memories due to old age. C. Infantile Amnesia: the inability to remember events experienced within the first two to three years of life.

F. Korsakoff’s Syndrome: a form of dementia leading to memory loss that results from a deficiency of vitamin B1, typically brought on by chronic alcoholism. 2) Confabulation: wild guessing mixed in with correct information, generated in an effort to hide gaps in memory. 1) Symptoms include… Apathy, Confusion, Retrograde Amnesia, Anterograde Amnesia, and… E. Dementia: deterioration in cognitive and behavioral functioning due to physiological causes resulting in amnesia. G. Alzheimer’s Disease: a progressive, degenerative brain disorder characterized by irreversible deterioration in memory, intelligence, awareness, and control of bodily functions, eventually leading to death.