Psych Final Review

• Memory


  The persistence of learning over time through encoding, storage, and retrieval
• Memory makes us who we are
• Encoding


  Changing information to a neural code (getting information into your brain)
• Storage


  Maintaining information for a period of time (retaining information)
• Retrieval


  Accessing information for use (getting information out, recalling information)
• Encoding, storage, retrieval examples


  • Keyboard (encoding), hard drive (storage), monitor (retrieval)
• Humans vs. Computers


  • Computers remember everything perfectly, humans do not (walking into a room and forgetting why)
  • Annoying but is adaptive
• No two people have the same memory
• We remember what is important to us
• We remember filler information through our own perception and experience
• Patient H.M.


  • Suffered from severe epilepsy which led him to have multiple seizures
  • Brain surgery to remove portions of H.M's temporal lobe which caused amnesia
  • Severe anterograde amnesia (inability to recall or make new memories/information)
  • No new memory after Sept. 1953
  • Died in Dec. 2008
• Retrograde amnesia


  Inability to remember past events
• Implicit memory


  • Memories that are not put into words
  • Memories of knowing how to do something
  • Includes habituation, sensitization, classical conditioning, procedural knowledge, priming
• Explicit memory


  Memories we can consciously retrieve and report
• Episodic memory


  The ability to remember previous events or episodes that happened at certain times or locations
• Autobiographical memory


  Episodic memories about you that you've experienced (birthday)
• Semantic memory


  For facts and meaning
• Encoding


  • The process by which perception is turned into memory
  • Can be automatic or effortful
• Elaborative rehearsal


  Focusing on the meaning of the information (on a deeper level)
• Encoding strategies


  • Actively processing (information makes it more memorable)
  • Mnemonics (imagery, using first letters, memory palace)
• Schemas


  • Mental structures that help perceive, organize, understand, and use information
  • Guide attention (objects, events, and people)
• We often forget information that is not consistent with our schemas
• Sensory memory


  Ultra-short, the first stage in explicit memory formation, brief recording of sensory input in original format, huge amount of information, very short duration, all 5 senses
• Iconic memory


  Image memory (visual)
• Echoic memory


  Sound memory (auditory)
• Working memory


  Attention transfers information from sensory storage, capacity between 4 and 7 items, duration around 20 seconds, encoding strategies extend limits and move some information into long-term memory
• Chunking


  Organizing information into meaningful units
• Serial position effect


  Items at the beginning or end of the list are remembered best
• Primacy effect


  Reflects long-term memory; people have a good memory for items at the beginning of a list
• Recency effect


  Reflects working memory; people have a good memory for items at the end of the list
• Consolidation


  Gradual information of lasting neural connections that represent long-term memory
• Hebbian learning


  "Neurons that fire together wire together"
• Long-term potentiation


  Every experience affects our neural circuitry, consolidation involves long-term potentiation, more synaptic connections between neurons, easier activation of post-synaptic neuron, additional NMDA receptors glutamate, a model for plasticity
• Consolidation factors


  Remembering important events/info, replay of a memory, sleep, emotion; autonomic arousal (stress hormones and amygdala activation)
• Flashbulb memories


  Strong, vivid, persistent memories of unique, highly emotionally charged experiences
• Reconsolidation


  Memories are sometimes reconsolidated after they are retrieved, updates - add new information, memories are dynamic, changeable, strengthens retrieval practice
• Retrieval


  The expression of a memory after encoding the storage
• Retrieval cue


  Anything that aids in recalling a memory
• Encoding specificity principle


  Cues and context-specific to a particular memory most effective in recall
• Context-dependent memory


  Better recall when context at encoding and retrieval are the same