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| The processing of information into the memory system -- for example, by extracting meaning. |
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| The retention of encoded information over time. |
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| The process of getting information out of memory storage. |
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| The immediate, very brief recording of sensory information in the memory system. |
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| Can't remember things that happened BEFORE brain damage. |
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| Can't form new memories of things that happen AFTER brain damage. |
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| Banged his head when he was nine and had surgery at age 27 to remove hippocampus in both hemispheres. Epilepsy was cured, but he had become profoundly amnesic. He learned how to solve the Hanoi puzzle, but he couldn't remember learning how to do it. |
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Flashed letter matrix on screen for 1/20 second
Subject’s task:
Experiment 1: Recall letters. On average, 4 letters are recalled (1 or 2 letters per row)
Experiment 2: Tone (high, medium, or low) indicates whether subjects are to recall items from top, middle, or bottom row
Results:
Subjects always recalled what 4 letters, but…
1. When tone immediately preceded display:
All letters recalled from the row
2. When tone followed display by 2 seconds:
1 or 2 letters recalled from the row
3. When tone followed display by 1/5 of a second:
All letters recalled from the row |
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Definition
| Memories you can talk about. |
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| Memories you can't talk about, like how to ride a bike and play the piano. |
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| Memories for specific events. |
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| Memories for meanings of objects, words, etc; abstracted away from any particular event. |
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Definition
Penfield: stimulation of the temporal lobe sometimes leads to the remembering of a long-“forgotten” memory
Many of the “remembered” events were found to be HALLUCINATIONS rather than MEMORIES |
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Definition
People (i.e. witnesses to a crime) sometimes remember things that they cannot remember when not hypnotized (e.g. Boston Strangler and the San Fran Cable Car Nimphomaniac).
In many instances, memories “retrieved” under hypnosis turn out to be FABRICATIONS (made up) |
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Term
| Spontaneous Recovery of Lost Memories |
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Definition
Sometimes people seem to recover memories that they had “forgotten” long ago (e.g. memories of sexual abuse during childhood).
Did the “recovered memories” really occur?
Person BELIEVES them to be true! |
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Term
| Loftus (1992): Class Experiment |
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Definition
Method
Each student wrote a letter to a younger sibling, listing five events that had occurred in their childhood
The sibling was asked to write down everything they could remember about those events
The twist: One of the five events hadn’t actually happened (getting lost in a shopping mall at a young age)
The question: Would the sibling (a) recognize that the “event” never occurred, or (b) accept the “event as real and produce a memory for it”?
The results:
Some of the siblings accepted the event as real and wrote a full, detailed description of it
When told that one of the events on the list had not actually happened, they often selected an event that actually occurred as the “fake” event. |
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| A new understanding of short-term memomry that involves conscious, active processing of incoming auditory and visual=spatial information, and of information retrieved from long-term memory. |
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| Unconscious encoding of incidental information, such as space, time, and frequency, and of well-learned information, such as word meanings. |
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| Encoding that requires attention and conscious effort. |
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| The conscious repetition of information, either to maintain it in consciousness or to encode it for storage. |
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| The tendency for distributed study or practice to yield better long-term retention than is achieved through massed study or practice. |
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| Our tendency to recall best the last and first items in a list. |
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| The encoding of picture images. |
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| The encoding of sound, especially the sound of words. |
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| The encoding of meaning, including the meaning of words. |
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| Mental pictures; a powerful aid to effortful processing, especially when combined with semantic encoding. |
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| Memory aids, especially those techniques that use vivid imagery and organizational devices. |
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| Organizing items into familiar, manageable units; often occurs automatically. |
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| A momentary sensory memory of visual stimuli; a photographic or picture-image memory lasting no more than a few tenths of a second. |
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| A Momentary sensory memory of auditory stimuli; if attention is elsewhere, sounds and words can still be recalled within 3 or 4 seconds. |
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Term
| Long-Term Potentiation (LTP) |
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Definition
| An increase in a synapse's firing potential after brief, rapid stimulation. Believed to be a neural basis for learning and memory. |
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| Retention independent of conscious recollection. (Also called procedural memory.) |
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| Memory of facts and experiences that one can consciously know and "declare." |
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| A neural center that is located in the limbic system and helps process explicit memories for storage. Damage to the left hippocampus results in trouble remembering verbal information, and damage to the right hippocampus results in trouble remembering visual designs and locations. |
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Definition
| A measure of memory in which the person must retrieve information learned earlier, as on a fill-in-the-blank test. |
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| A measure of memory in which the person need only identify items previously learned, as on a multiple-choice test. |
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| A memory measure that assesses the amount of time saved when learning material for a second time. |
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| The activation, often unconsciously, of particular associations in memory. Ask a friend two rapid-fire questions: (a) How do you pronounce the world spelled by the letters s-h-o-p? (b) What do you do when you come to a green light? If your friend answers "stop" to the second question, you have demonstrated priming. |
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| That eerie sense that "I've experienced this before." Cues from the current situation may subconsciously trigger retrieval of an earlier experience. |
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| The tendency to recall experiences that are consistent with one's current good or bad mood. |
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| The disruptive effect of prior learning on the recall of new information. |
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| The disruptive effect of new learning on the recall of old information. |
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| In psychoanalytic theory, the baisc defense mechanism that banishes from consciousness anxiety-arousing thoughts, feelings, and memories. |
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| Incorporating misleading information into one's memory of an event. |
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| Attributing to the wrong source and event we have experienced, heard about, read about, or imagined. (Also called source misattribution.) Source amnesia, along with the misinformation effect, is at the heart of many false memories. |
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