Podcast
Questions and Answers
Which part of the brain is activated during semantic encoding?
Which part of the brain is activated during semantic encoding?
What type of encoding involves converting information into mental pictures?
What type of encoding involves converting information into mental pictures?
During which type of encoding is the upper left frontal lobe active?
During which type of encoding is the upper left frontal lobe active?
What was the primary focus of the research conducted by Fergus Craik and Endel Tulving?
What was the primary focus of the research conducted by Fergus Craik and Endel Tulving?
Signup and view all the answers
What must be done to enhance recall according to organizational encoding?
What must be done to enhance recall according to organizational encoding?
Signup and view all the answers
Which of the following judgments involves visual processing rather than semantic processing?
Which of the following judgments involves visual processing rather than semantic processing?
Signup and view all the answers
Which area of the brain is primarily associated with visual imagery encoding?
Which area of the brain is primarily associated with visual imagery encoding?
Signup and view all the answers
What benefit does visual imagery encoding provide according to the research?
What benefit does visual imagery encoding provide according to the research?
Signup and view all the answers
What type of amnesia is characterized by the inability to transfer new information from short-term memory into long-term memory?
What type of amnesia is characterized by the inability to transfer new information from short-term memory into long-term memory?
Signup and view all the answers
Which brain structure is critical for the consolidation of memories?
Which brain structure is critical for the consolidation of memories?
Signup and view all the answers
What term refers to the process where memories become vulnerable to disruption upon recall?
What term refers to the process where memories become vulnerable to disruption upon recall?
Signup and view all the answers
What phenomenon is observed when a person cannot retrieve previously acquired information due to an injury?
What phenomenon is observed when a person cannot retrieve previously acquired information due to an injury?
Signup and view all the answers
What percentage of high school classmates can be accurately recognized by individuals even 50 years after graduation?
What percentage of high school classmates can be accurately recognized by individuals even 50 years after graduation?
Signup and view all the answers
Which of the following statements best describes the process of memory consolidation?
Which of the following statements best describes the process of memory consolidation?
Signup and view all the answers
How can the detail of traumatic memories, like those from the Boston Marathon bombings, be reduced?
How can the detail of traumatic memories, like those from the Boston Marathon bombings, be reduced?
Signup and view all the answers
What occurs to the connections between neurons as communication between them is enhanced?
What occurs to the connections between neurons as communication between them is enhanced?
Signup and view all the answers
What type of memory is characterized as a network of associated facts and concepts that make up general knowledge?
What type of memory is characterized as a network of associated facts and concepts that make up general knowledge?
Signup and view all the answers
What role does episodic memory play in creative thinking?
What role does episodic memory play in creative thinking?
Signup and view all the answers
What is the most significant factor identified as key in divergent creative thinking?
What is the most significant factor identified as key in divergent creative thinking?
Signup and view all the answers
Which condition is associated with an inability to vividly reexperience past events but retains the knowledge that they occurred?
Which condition is associated with an inability to vividly reexperience past events but retains the knowledge that they occurred?
Signup and view all the answers
What type of memory aids the ability to mentally 'travel' back in time to recall personal experiences?
What type of memory aids the ability to mentally 'travel' back in time to recall personal experiences?
Signup and view all the answers
Which of the following processes is primarily linked with reduced activation levels in the cortex?
Which of the following processes is primarily linked with reduced activation levels in the cortex?
Signup and view all the answers
What type of thinking involves generating creative ideas by combining different types of information in new ways?
What type of thinking involves generating creative ideas by combining different types of information in new ways?
Signup and view all the answers
Structural MRI scans of individuals with severely deficient autobiographical memory (SDAM) showed reduced volume in which brain region?
Structural MRI scans of individuals with severely deficient autobiographical memory (SDAM) showed reduced volume in which brain region?
Signup and view all the answers
What does transfer-appropriate processing suggest about memory?
What does transfer-appropriate processing suggest about memory?
Signup and view all the answers
What type of interference occurs when new information hinders the retrieval of previously learned information?
What type of interference occurs when new information hinders the retrieval of previously learned information?
Signup and view all the answers
What is a key feature of the Cognitive Interview (CI)?
What is a key feature of the Cognitive Interview (CI)?
Signup and view all the answers
What is retrieval-induced forgetting?
What is retrieval-induced forgetting?
Signup and view all the answers
What phenomenon is characterized by a lapse in attention leading to memory failure?
What phenomenon is characterized by a lapse in attention leading to memory failure?
Signup and view all the answers
When attempting to remember a name but experiencing difficulty, which memory failure is most likely occurring?
When attempting to remember a name but experiencing difficulty, which memory failure is most likely occurring?
Signup and view all the answers
How does the study-test condition affect memory recall after longer retention intervals?
How does the study-test condition affect memory recall after longer retention intervals?
Signup and view all the answers
What can be a consequence of retrieval on memory?
What can be a consequence of retrieval on memory?
Signup and view all the answers
Which type of forgetting is often associated with early childhood experiences that are difficult to recall?
Which type of forgetting is often associated with early childhood experiences that are difficult to recall?
Signup and view all the answers
Which two types can long-term memories be broken down into?
Which two types can long-term memories be broken down into?
Signup and view all the answers
What is the term for the phenomenon where a person misattributes a memory to an incorrect source?
What is the term for the phenomenon where a person misattributes a memory to an incorrect source?
Signup and view all the answers
How is retention measured in the Curve of Forgetting?
How is retention measured in the Curve of Forgetting?
Signup and view all the answers
What is one effect of retrieval on memory?
What is one effect of retrieval on memory?
Signup and view all the answers
Which brain region shows decreased activity when attention is divided, leading to memory failure?
Which brain region shows decreased activity when attention is divided, leading to memory failure?
Signup and view all the answers
What outcome is observed with shorter retention intervals in memory testing?
What outcome is observed with shorter retention intervals in memory testing?
Signup and view all the answers
What is referred to as 'remembering to do things in the future'?
What is referred to as 'remembering to do things in the future'?
Signup and view all the answers
What is long-term potentiation (LTP)?
What is long-term potentiation (LTP)?
Signup and view all the answers
Which of the following statements about targeted memory reactivation (TMR) is accurate?
Which of the following statements about targeted memory reactivation (TMR) is accurate?
Signup and view all the answers
What role do retrieval cues play in memory recall?
What role do retrieval cues play in memory recall?
Signup and view all the answers
What is the encoding specificity principle?
What is the encoding specificity principle?
Signup and view all the answers
Which of the following best describes state-dependent retrieval?
Which of the following best describes state-dependent retrieval?
Signup and view all the answers
What can enhance memory consolidation according to research?
What can enhance memory consolidation according to research?
Signup and view all the answers
Which type of memory is associated with the sea slug Aplysia?
Which type of memory is associated with the sea slug Aplysia?
Signup and view all the answers
How do external contexts function in memory retrieval?
How do external contexts function in memory retrieval?
Signup and view all the answers
Study Notes
Introduction to Memory
- Memory is the ability to store and retrieve information over time.
- Three key functions of memory include encoding, storage, and retrieval.
Chapter Outline
- What is memory?
- Encoding: Transforming perceptions into memories
- Storage: Maintaining memories over time
- Retrieval: Bringing memories to mind
- Forms of long-term memory: More than one kind
- Memory failures: The seven "sins" of memory
Encoding: Transforming Perceptions Into Memories
- Memories combine existing knowledge with new information.
- Memories are constructed.
- Three major ways to encode include semantic, visual imagery, and organizational encoding.
Semantic Encoding
- Relating new information to existing knowledge in a meaningful way
- Associated with increased activity in the lower left frontal lobe and the inner part of the left temporal lobe.
Visual Imagery Encoding
- Storing information by converting it into mental pictures.
- Produces neural changes in visual and memory networks that enhance memory performance.
- A smartphone app can be used to teach visual imagery to improve encoding of new information.
Organizational Encoding
- Categorizing information according to relationships among items.
- Organizing current experiences by segmenting events into meaningful units is effective in enhancing recall.
- Examples include hierarchies and mnemonics.
Encoding of Survival-Related Information
- Memory mechanisms that aid survival are passed down based on Darwinian principles.
- Experiments using survival encoding yield better memory (perhaps due to elaborative, visual imagery, and organizational encoding).
- Superior recall is observed in scenarios that involve planning, but not survival.
Storage: Maintaining Memories Over Time
- Sensory storage, holding sensory information for a few seconds or less, is distinguished
- Iconic memory: Fast-decaying store of visual information
- Echoic memory: Fast-decaying store of auditory information
Short-Term Storage and Working Memory
- Short-term memory: Holds nonsensory information for more than a few seconds, but less than a minute.
- Rehearsal is vital in maintaining short-term memories.
- Chunking is the process of combining small pieces of information into larger clusters to improve short-term memory.
Rehearsal and Chunking Strengthen Memory
- Rehearsal: Process of keeping information in short-term memory by mentally repeating it
- Serial position effect: Items at the beginning and end of a series are more easily recalled than those in the middle. Recency effect specifically deals with the items at the end of the list
- Chunking: Combining small pieces of information into larger units
The Decline of Short-Term Memory
- A 1959 experiment showed how quickly short-term memory fades without rehearsal.
- Memory for consonant strings declines rapidly, diminishing from about 80% after a 3-second delay to almost nothing after 20 seconds.
- Short-term memory holds information for about 15–20 seconds.
Working Memory Model
- Working memory stores and manipulates information.
- Includes a limited capacity memory system
- Refers to active maintenance of information in short term storage
- Involves two subsystems: Visio-spatial sketchpad and phonological loop. The episodic buffer serves as a connection between the two
Retrieval Cues
- Information is sometimes available in memory, even when not immediately accessible.
- Retrieval cues are external information that is associated with stored information to help retrieve it. Examples include encoding specificity principle, state-dependent retrieval, and transfer-appropriate processing.
Consequences of Retrieval (Part 1)
- Retrieval strengthens retrieved memories, particularly long-term memories.
- Retrieval-induced forgetting occurs when retrieving an item from long-term memory impairs subsequent recall of related items.
Memory Testing Benefits Long-Term Retention
- Study-study condition yields slightly better recall with a 5-minute retention interval.
- Results change dramatically at longer retention intervals. The study-test condition performed better at 2-day and 1-week retention intervals
Consequences of Retrieval (Part 2)
- Retrieval can improve subsequent memory.
- Retrieval can impair subsequent memory.
- Retrieval can change subsequent memory.
Forms of Long-Term Memory: More Than One Kind
- Explicit memories: Consciously retrieving past experiences (e.g., semantic and episodic memories)
- Implicit memories: Influence of past experiences on later behavior, even without awareness (e.g., procedural memory and priming).
Implicit Memory
- Procedural memory: Gradual acquisition of skills through practice or "knowing how" to do things.
- Priming: Enhanced ability to think of a stimulus as a result of recent exposure (perceptual and conceptual priming)
Long-Term Priming of Visual Objects
- Participants who viewed drawings of common objects and were tested for recognition of fragmented draws 17 years later showed priming effects.
- Priming effects were nonsignificant in participants who hadn't seen the drawings previously.
Procedural Memory and Priming Do Not Rely on the Hippocampus
- Priming is associated with reduced activity in various cortex regions when performing unprimed tasks.
- Neuroimaging studies show distinct brain systems for priming.
Explicit Memory: Semantic and Episodic
- Semantic memory: Network of associated facts and concepts that make up general knowledge.
- Episodic memory: Collection of past personal experiences at a particular time and place that involves mental time travel; contributes to imagination and creativity.
Episodic Memory
- Helps envision personal futures through divergent creative thinking.
- Allows combination of elements from past experiences to envision different future versions.
- Divergent creative thinking involves combining different types of information in new ways.
- TMS (transcranial magnetic stimulation) shows impaired performance on both tasks that involve envisioning the future and when considering past memories
Remembering the Past and Imagining the Future Depend on Common Brain Regions
- Remembering and imagining the future rely on a common core network in the brain
A World of Differences: Do We All Reexperience Our Personal Pasts?
- Severely deficient autobiographical memory: High functioning individuals struggle to vividly reexperience events from the past
- Reduced volume of the hippocampus in individuals with severely deficient autobiographical memory may be a contributing factor.
- Individual differences in the ability to recall episodic details related to volume of particular subregions
Collaborative Memory: Social Influences on Remembering
- Collaborative memory: How people remember in groups
- Collaborative recall is greater than any single individual but less than a nominal group of people recalling information individually.
- Retrieval induced forgetting occurs in groups setting
- Social learning inhibition has a role to play
The Real World: Is GPS Hurting Our Memories?
- Reliance on GPS results in impaired memory for routes during virtual navigation tasks.
- Increased reliance on GPS might lead to reduced brain volume in regions responsible for navigation and memory.
- People who rely on GPS might remember less detail about their tours.
- Increased GPS reliance results in a decrease in spatial memory abilities.
Memory Failures: Transience
- Transience: Forgetting that occurs with the passage of time.
- Memory fades more quickly at first, then more slowly over time and switching from specific to more general memories
- Common types of forgetting that are associated with transience include retroactive interference and proactive interference along with infantile or childhood amnesia.
The Curve of Forgetting
- Hermann Ebbinghaus measured retention at different delay intervals after studying nonsense syllables.
- Memory strength measured by the percentage of time needed to relearn a list compared to the time initially needed to memorize it.
Memory Failures: Absentmindedness
- Absentmindedness: A lapse in attention resulting in memory failures.
- Less activity in the left frontal lobe when attention is divided can lead to absentmindedness.
- We don't always remember to remember.
- External reminders and intention offloading methods help overcome this
Memory Failures: Blocking
- Blocking: Failure to retrieve information that's available in memory.
- Tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon: Inability to retrieve information despite knowing it exists in memory
- Frequency of blocking increases with age and injury
Memory Failures: Memory Misattribution
- Memory misattribution: Assigning a recollection or idea to the wrong source.
- Frontal lobe involved. Correct memories can be attributed to wrong sources.
- Source amnesia: Inability to recall when, where, or how information was acquired.
- Misattribution happens to all, and influenced by culture.
- False recognition: Experiencing an item as familiar even if not encountered before
- Culture contributes to how memories are constructed
Memory Failures: Suggestibility
- Suggestibility: Incorporating misleading information from external sources into personal recollections.
- People can develop false memories as a result of the suggestions
- Visual imagery influence, social pressures, recall of childhood memories contribute
Memory Failures: Bias
- Bias: Present knowledge, beliefs, and feelings distort recollections of previous events
- Consistency bias: Past memories reconstructed to fit present beliefs.
- Egocentric bias: Exaggerating change between present and past to appear favourable.
- Example of bias used is fake news.
Memory Failures: Persistence
- Persistence: Intrusive recollection of events that we wish we could forget.
- Persistence is frequently connected to upsetting or traumatic experiences
- Memories of emotionally charged events are more resistant to forgetting.
- Flashbulb memories: Detailed recollections of shocking events. Amygdala is involved in emotional memory
The Amygdala's Influence on Memory
- The amygdala, located near the hippocampus, responds strongly to emotional events.
- Damage to the amygdala can impair the recall of emotional events.
Are the Seven Sins Vices or Virtues?
- Each of the seven sins can cause trouble in our lives, but they also have an adaptive side.
- Sins viewed as the cost of having a memory that works well most of the time.
Associative Inference & Missing Pieces
- Associative inferences: Combining information from different episodes leads to new connections
- Adaptive process that uses stored memory in an inflexible way
- Makes correct associative inferences can lead to memory misattribution errors
Studying That Suits You
Use AI to generate personalized quizzes and flashcards to suit your learning preferences.
Related Documents
Description
Test your understanding of memory functions, including encoding, storage, and retrieval. Explore forms of long-term memory and learn about memory failures through this informative quiz. Perfect for students studying psychology or cognitive science.
