psych 101

• Memory


  The ability to store and retrieve information over time
• Cognition


  The processes of acquiring and using knowledge
• In computers, information can be accessed

  Only if one knows the exact location of the memory
• In the brain, information can be accessed

  Through spreading activation from closely related concepts
• Memories are constructed, not recorded, when we remember events we don't reproduce exact replicas of those events
• Misinformation effect


  The misinformation that subjects are exposed to after the event can contaminate subjects' memories of what they witnessed
• Explicit memory


  Knowledge or experiences that can be consciously remembered
• Episodic memory


  Firsthand experiences that we have had
• Semantic memory


  Our knowledge of facts and concepts about the world
• Recall memory test


  A measure of explicit memory that involves bringing from memory information that has previously been remembered
• Recognition memory test


  A measure of explicit memory that involves determining whether information has been seen or learned before
• Recall is more difficult than recognition
• Relearning (or savings)


  Assess how much more quickly information is processed or learned when it is studied again after it has already been learned but then forgotten
• Implicit memory


  The influence of experience on behaviour, even if the individual is not aware of those influences
• Procedural memory


  Our often unexplainable knowledge of how to do things
• Classical conditioning effects


  We learn, often without effort or awareness, to associate neutral stimuli (such as a sound or a light) with another stimulus (such as food), which creates a naturally occurring response, such as enjoyment or salivation
• Priming


  Changes in behaviour as a result of experiences that have happened frequently or recently. Priming refers both to the activation of knowledge (e.g., we can prime the concept of kindness by presenting people with words related to kindness) and to the influence of that activation on behaviour (people who are primed with the concept of kindness may act more kindly)
• Implicit memories are frequently formed and used automatically, without much effort or awareness on our part
• Information processing


  1. Sensory memory

  2. Short-term memory

  3. Long-term memory
• Sensory memory


  The brief storage of sensory information; 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


  Visual sensory memory; first studied by the psychologist George Sperling; participants had access to all of the letters in their iconic memories, and if the task was short enough, they were able to report on the part of the display he asked them to. The "short enough" is the length of iconic memory, which turns out to be about 250 milliseconds (¼ of a second)
• Echoic memory


  Auditory sensory memory; to remember the words that you said at the beginning of a long sentence when you get to the end of it, and to take notes on your psychology professor's most recent statement even after he or she has finished saying it
• Eidetic imagery (or photographic memory)


  People can report details of an image over long periods of time
• The composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart may have possessed eidetic memory for music, because even when he was very young and had not yet had a great deal of musical training, he could listen to long compositions and then play them back almost perfectly
• Short-term memory (STM)


  The place where small amounts of information can be temporarily kept for more than a few seconds but usually for less than one minute
• Working memory


  The processes that we use to make sense of, modify, interpret, and store information in STM; not a store of memory like STM but rather a set of memory procedures or operations
• Central executive


  The part of working memory that directs attention and processing
• Maintenance rehearsal


  The process of repeating information mentally or out loud with the goal of keeping it in memory
• The digit span of most adults is between five and nine digits, with an average of about seven; George Miller (1956) referred to "seven plus or minus two" pieces of information as the magic number in short-term memory
• Chunking


  The process of organizing information into smaller groupings (chunks), thereby increasing the number of items that can be held in STM
• Long-term memory (LTM)


  Memory storage that can hold information for days, months, and years
• To be successful, the information that we want to remember must be encoded and stored, and then retrieved
• Elaborative encoding


  Material is better remembered if it is processed more fully
• Self-reference effect


  Material is better remembered if it is linked to thoughts about the self
• Forgetting curve


  Information that we have learned drops off rapidly with time
• Spacing effect


  Information is learned better when it is studied in shorter periods spaced over time
• Overlearning


  We can continue to learn even after we think we know the information perfectly
• Context-dependent retrieval


  We have better retrieval when it occurs in the same situation in which we learned the material
• State-dependent retrieval


  We have better retrieval when we are in the same psychological state as we were when we learned the material
• Encoding


  The process by which we place the things that we experience into memory