Memory & Cognition (PDF)

Theng puthearyneth CHAPTER 5 Memory & Cognition Cognitive psychology is the field of psychology dedicated to examining how people think. There are 3 stages of Memory processes : - Encoding: is the process by which we place the things that we experience into me...

Theng puthearyneth CHAPTER 5 Memory & Cognition Cognitive psychology is the field of psychology dedicated to examining how people think. There are 3 stages of Memory processes : - Encoding: is the process by which we place the things that we experience into memory. For example, failing to remember someone's name immediately after being introduced often happens because we never properly encoded it in the first place. - Storage : is the process of holding information in memory to be processed or used. EX: such as looking up a phone number and retaining it long enough to place the call. - Retrieval: refers to the process of reactivating information that has been stored in memory. Sensory memory refers to the brief storage of sensory information. The purpose of sensory memory is to give the brain some time to process the incoming sensations, and to allow us to see the world as an unbroken stream of events rather than as individual pieces. Iconic memory is sensory memory for visual information. Echoic memory is the sensory memory for sound, can last as long as 4 seconds. Short term memory (STM) In Short-term memory (STM) small amounts of information can be temporarily kept for more than a few seconds, but usually for less than one minute. Information in short-term memory is not stored permanently but rather becomes available for us to process, and the processes that we use to make sense of, modify, interpret, and store information in STM are known as working memory. Long-term memory (LTM) long-term memory (LTM), the memory storage that can hold information for days, months, and years. The capacity of long- term memory is large, and there is no known limit to what we can remember. Long-term memory organizes information using categories, prototypes, and schemas. This can both improve memory and lead to distortions. There are two types of long-term memory; that is explicit and implicit. - Explicit (Declarative) Memory: o Episodic: Personal experiences and events o Semantic: General knowledge and facts - Implicit (Non-declarative) Memory: o Procedural: Our knowledge of how to do things such as skills, habits. skills, habits. o Priming: Changes in behavior as a result of experiences that have happened frequently or recently Cognition Cognition is thinking, and it encompasses the processes associated with perception, knowledge, problem solving, judgment, language, and memory. It allows us to attend to, rehearse, and organize information but cognition may also lead to distortions and errors in our judgments and our behaviors. Some of cognitive Processes that Pose threats to accuracy are Overconfidence, Source monitoring, Misinformation effect, Confirmation bias, Functional fixedness, Salience, Representativeness heuristic, and Availability heuristic.