Chapter 11 Memory, Language, and Problem-solving

• Modal model of memory


  Memory is divided into three separate storage areas: sensory, short-term, and long-term
• iconic memory


  visual sensory memory. lasts for a few tenths of a second.
• echoic memory


  auditory sensory memory. lasts for 3-4 seconds
• visual persistence


  sensory information in sensory memory remains in attention briefly. For example, how fans look like theyre a disk instead of individual flaps

  
• George Sperling


  experimented on memory and partial report. Participants were shown 3 rows of 4 letters each for just milliseconds, and were asked to recall the lines. He named the ability to recall the lines of letters iconic memory or short-term visual memory
• How long does short-term memory last

  few seconds to up to a minute
• George Miller


  found that short-term memory is primarily acoustically coded, and can hold about 7 items plus or minus 2.
• maintenance rehearsal


  simple repetition to keep an item inn short-term memory until it can be used. (eg. saying a phone number to yourself over and over again until u put it in ur contacts)
• Elaborative rehearsal


  involves organization and understanding of the information that has been encoded in order to transfer the information that has been encoded in order to transfer the information to long-tern memory. (eg. when u try to remember the name of someone). Better than maintenance rehearsal to ensure that short-term memory is stored in long-term.
• Effortful processing


  making a conscious effort to retain information. Includes maintenance rehearsal and elaborative rehearsal. Opposite of Automatic processing.
• Automatic processing


  process that occurs unconsciously when we are engaged with well-practiced skills, like riding a bike. Opposite of effortful processing.
• dual-coding hypothesis


  indicates that it is easier to remember words with associated images than either word or images alone.
• method of loci


  Imagining moving through a familiar place, and in each place, leaving a visual representation of a topic to be remembered.
• self-reference effect


  It is easier to remember things that are personally relevant
• encoded


  to be stored and able to be recalled later
• decay of memory


  forgetting things in short-term memory because of time
• interference


  forgetting things in short-term memory because of being displaced by new information
• retroactive interference


  new information pushes old information out of short-term memory
• proactive interference


  old information makes it more difficult to learn new information
• primacy effect


  tendency to remember the first few items in a list. Often lasts long.
• recency effect


  tendency to remember the last few items in a list. Often fades in about a day.
• Serial position effect


  the overall effect of the primacy and recency effects

  
• semantically encoded


  (long-term memory) encoded in the form of word meanings. Different from being visually encoded or acoustically encoded
• episodic memory (declarative/explicit)


  memory for events that we ourselves have experienced
• semantic memory (declarative/explicit)


  comprises facts, figures, and general world knowledge
• procedural memory (nondeclaratic/implicit)


  memory consisting of skills and habits, stored in striatum (limbic system)
• Declarative aka explicit memory


  a memory a person can consciously consider and retrieve
• Nondeclarative aka implicit memory


  beyond conscious consideration. Also includes priming and classical conditioning.
• context-dependent memory


  The theory that information is more likely to be recalled if the attempt to retrieve it occurs in a situation similar to the situation in which it was encoded. (eg. recalling things u memorized in a classroom, in a classroom is easier than if u memorized at home)
• State-dependent memory


  The theory that information learned in a particular state of mind is easier to recall if ur in a similar state of mind. (eg. under the influence of drugs)
• working memory


  a type of memory that some psychologists believe, is in between sensory and short term memory. Allows memory to be manipulated in ways that other types of memory can't. For example, rearranging random alphabets in alphabetical order
• nodes


  individual ideas in the network of memory
• spreading activation


  Once a response threshold of a node is reached, it fires and sends a stimulus to all of its neighbors, contributing to their activation. This means the activation of a few nodes can lead to a pattern of activation within the network that spreads onward. This is why hints are helpful; they aim to activate the nodes around.
• flashbulb memory


  very deep, vivid memory in the form of a visual image associated with a particular emotionally arousing event, such as what people were doing when they heard about 911
• memory reconstruction


  occurs when we fit together pieces of an even that seem likely
• source confusion


  one likely cause of memory reconstruction. we attribute the event to a different source than it actually came from
• Elizabeth Loftus


  demonstrated that repeated suggestions and misleading questions can create false memories. This is called Framing.
• Hermann Ebbinghaus


  thought of the forgetting curve, and showed that this could be addressed by spaced review of materials.
• 5 key features of language

  it is arbitrary, it has ha structure that is additive, has a multiplicity of structure, is productive, is dynamic
• phonemes


  smallest unit of speech sounds in a given language that are still distinct