Cognitive Processes: W2L2

Study Notes

Explicit (Declarative) Memory: Conscious recollection of facts and events.
- Episodic Memory: Personal experiences, events, and their context (e.g., remembering your first day of school).
- Semantic Memory: General knowledge about the world, facts, concepts, and language (e.g., knowing the capital of France).
Implicit (Unconscious) Memory: Memories that influence our behavior without conscious awareness.
- Classical Conditioning: Learning associations between stimuli (e.g., associating a dentist drill with pain and anxiety).
- Procedural Memory: Memory for skills and habits, learned through repetition (e.g., riding a bike).
- Priming: Exposure to a stimulus influences responses to subsequent stimuli (e.g., seeing the word "money" might make you think of "withdraw" or "robbery").

Classical Conditioning: Unconsciously learning associations between stimuli, leading to automatic responses.
Priming: Exposure to one concept, word, or image can activate related concepts in our minds, influencing our thoughts and responses.

Semantic Memory: Stores facts, concepts, and general knowledge about the world.
Episodic Memory: Stores our personal experiences and memories of specific events.
Hippocampus: A brain structure crucial for transferring memories from short-term to long-term storage.

Procedural Memory: The memory system responsible for learning and remembering skills and habits.
Not Consciously Available: We often perform these actions without thinking about them (e.g., tying our shoes).
Acquired Through Repetition: Continuous practice and reinforcement lead to the development of procedural memory.

Experiment: A series of letters displayed for a limited duration, testing implicit memory.
Results: Participants who were previously exposed to the letters (even without conscious recollection) showed faster recognition and recall.

Implicit Test: A test designed to assess implicit memory by measuring how well participants complete words or phrases with previously presented stimuli.
Example: Participants are more likely to complete "th-n-" with "think" if they were previously exposed to that word.

Modality and Format: Implicit and explicit memory systems process information in different ways.
Delay/Retention Interval: Implicit memories last longer than explicit memories.
Amnesic Patients: Individuals with amnesia often have impaired explicit memory but preserved implicit memory abilities.

Source Confusion: Mistaking the source of a memory (e.g., believing you witnessed an event when you actually heard about it from someone else).
Hypnosis: Does not improve memory accuracy; instead, it can increase the likelihood of creating false memories.
Scripts: Scripts are organized knowledge about common events or actions that can influence our recall of events.

Recall: Retrieving information from memory without any cues (e.g., essay questions).
Recognition: Identifying previously learned information (e.g., multiple-choice questions).

DRM Paradigm: A method used to demonstrate false memories by presenting a list of related words and then testing recall for a word that was not presented.
Connectivity: The related words activate the "target word" in memory, making participants more likely to falsely recall it.

Misleading Post-Event Information: Exposure to inaccurate information after an event can distort our memories.
Misinformation Paradigm: A procedure used to study false memories by providing participants with misleading information about an event.
Social Pressure: Social influence can also contribute to false memory formation.

Flashbulb Memories: Vivid and detailed memories for emotionally significant events.
Special Neural Mechanism? Some researchers believe that a special neural mechanism is activated during these events.
Research Findings: Most studies show that these memories, though vivid, are not fundamentally different from ordinary memories.