Memory
Terms
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- recall
- Requires subjects to generate info. on their own.
- retroactive interference
- Disrupting info. that was learned after the new items. Problematic for recall, which causes _______ inhibition.
- Karl Lashley
- Found that memories are stored diffusely in the brain.
- recency effects
- Last items are easy to remember because there has been less time for decay.
- flashbulb memories
- Recollections that seem burned into the brain: where I was on 9/11.
- Brenda Milner
- Wrote about patient 'HM' who was given a lesion of the hippo-campus to treat severe epilepsy. He couldn't add anything to his LTM.
- Elizabeth Loftus
- Found that memory of traumatic event is altered by the event itself and by the way that questions about the event are phrased. Ex: "How fast were the cars going when they crashed?" vs. "What was the rate of the cars upon impact?"
- eidetic imagery
- Photographic memory. This is more common in children and rural cultures.
- sensory memory
- Lasts only for seconds. Forms the connection between perception and memory.
- incidental learning
- Measured through presenting subjects with items they are not supposed to try to memorize and then testing for learning.
- semantic memory
- Consists of general knowledge of the world.
- interference theory
- Suggests that competing info. blocks retrieval.
- tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon
- Being on the verge of retrieval but not successfully doing so.
- free-recall learning
- A list of items is learned, then must be recalled in order with no cue.
- tachtiscope
- An instrument often used in cognitive or memory experiments. Presents visual material (words or images) to subjects for a fraction of a second.
- iconic memory
- Sensory memory for vision studied by George Sperling. He found that people could see more than they can remember. This visual memory exists, but only for a few seconds.
- declarative memory
- Knowing a fact.
- These make items on a list easier to learn and retrieve.
- acoustic dissimilarity, semantic dissimilarity, brevity, familiarity, concreteness, meaning, importance of subject
- serial-anticipation learning
- A list is learned.
- decay theory
- Posits that memories fade with time. Has been called too simplistic because other activities are known to interfere with retrieval.
- Zeigarnik effect
- The tendency to recall uncompleted tasks better than completed ones.
- paired-associate learning
- Use this type of learning when we study foreign languages. Ex: pairing German word 'rot' with English word 'red.'
- mnemoics
- Memory cues that help learning and recall. Using a word to represent many.
- chunking
- Grouping items; can increase the capacity of short-term memory.
- primacy effects
- First items are remembered because they benefit from the most rehearsal/exposure.
- Fergus Craik & Robert Lockhart
- Asserted that learning and recall depend on the depth of processing.
- Donald Hebb
- Posited that memory involves changes of synapses and neural pathways, making a 'memory tree.'
- episodic memory
- Consists of details, events, and discrete knowledge.
- rehearsal
- Repeating or practicing; key to keeping items in short-term memory and to transfer items to the long-term memory.
- generation-recognition model
- Suggests that anything one might recall should be easily recognized. This is why a multiple-choice (or recognition) test is easier than an essay (or recall) test.
- depth of processing
- Different levels of processing exist from the most superficial phonological (pronunciation) level to the deep semantic (meaning) level The deeper the item is processed, the easier it is to learn and recall.
- echoic memory
- Sensory memory for auditory sensations.
- clustering
- The brain's tendency to group similar items in memory whether they are learned together or not. Most often, they are grouped into conceptual or semantic hierarchies.
- proactive interference
- Disrupting info. that was learned before new items were presented, problematic for recall, which causes ________ inhibition.
- George Miller
- Found that short term memory has the capacity of about 7 (+/- 2) items.
- Hermann Ebbinghaus
- First to study memory semantically. He presented subjects with lists of nonsense syllables to study the STM. He also proposed a forgetting curve that depicts a sharp drop in savings immediately after learning and then levels off, with a slight downward trend.
- state-dependent memory
- Retrieval is more successful if it occurs in the same emotional state or physical state in which encoding occurred.
- encoding specificity principle
- Material is more likely to be remembered if it is retrieved in the same context in which it was stored. LTM is subject to this.
- three stages of memory
- sensory, short-term, and long-term
- procedural memory
- Knowing 'how to' to something.
- dual code hypothesis
- Allan Paivio. Items will be better remembered if they are encoded both visually (with icons or imagery) and semantically (with understanding).
- long-term memory (LTM)
- Capable of permanent retention. Most items are learned semantically, for meaning. Retention is measure by recognition, recall, and savings.
- Ulric Neisser
- Coined the term 'icon' for brief visual memory and found that an icon lasts for about one second. He found that when subjects are exposed to a bright flash of light or a new pattern before the iconic image fades, the first image will be erased.
- short-term memory (STM)
- Temporary; lasts for seconds or minutes.
- secondary (elaborative) rehearsal
- Involves organizing and understanding material in order to transfer it to LTM.
- primary rehearsal
- Involves repeating material in order to hold it in short-term memory.
- savings
- Measures how much info. about a subject remains in LTM by assessing how long it takes to learn something the second time as opposed to the first time.
- serial learning
- A list is learned and recalled in order. This type of learning is subject to primacy and recency effects.
- behaviorists and memory
- Explain memory through paired-associate learning. One item is learned with, and then cues the recall of another.
- recognition
- Simply requires subjects to recognize things learned in the past. Multiple-choice tests tap this.
- Frederick Bartlett
- Found that memory is reconstructive rather than rote. Found that people are more likely to remember the ideas or semantics about a story rather than the details or grammar of a story.