LECTURE 10 Flashcards
Short-term memory, or Working memory
the ability to hold information in our minds for a brief time and work with it (e.g., multiplying 24 x 17 without using paper would rely on working memory)
Episodic Memory
the ability to remember the episodes of our lives. If you
were given the task of recalling everything you did 2 days ago, that would be a test of episodic memory; you would be required to mentally travel through the day in your mind and note the main events.
Semantic Memory
our storehouse of more-or-less permanent knowledge, such as the meanings of words in a language (e.g., the
meaning of “parasol”) and the huge collection of facts about the world
Collective memory
to the kind of memory that people in a group share (whether family, community, schoolmates, or citizens of a state or a country). For example, residents of small towns often strongly identify with those towns, remembering the local customs and historical events in a unique way. That is, the community’s collective memory passes stories and recollections between neighbors and to future generations, forming a memory system unto itself.
early-stage Alzheimer’s disease.
Semantic memory is still preserved
Autobiographical Memory
Although remembering specific events that have happened over the course of one’s entire life
3 necessary stages for learning and memory and the types of errors that can occur.
Encoding, Storage and Retrieval.
Encoding: the initial learning of information
Storage: maintaining information over time
Retrieval: ability to access information when you need it
Types of error: Forgetting & Misremembering (false recall or false recognition)
Whenever forgetting or misremembering occurs, we can ask, at which stage in the learning memory process was there a failure?
One reason for this inaccuracy is that the three stages are not as discrete as our description implies. Rather, all three stages depend on one another. How we encode
information determines how it will be stored and what cues will be effective when we try to retrieve it. And too, the act of retrieval itself also changes the way information is subsequently remembered, usually aiding later recall of the retrieved information. The central point for now is that the three stages—encoding, storage, and retrieval—affect one another, and are
inextricably bound together.
Encoding
initial experience of perceiving and learning information.
Distinctiveness
having an event stand out as quite different from a
background of similar events. The principle that unusual events (in a context of similar events) will be recalled and recognized better than uniform (nondistinctive) events.
Flashbulb memory
how some memories seem to be captured in the mind like a flash photograph; because of the distinctiveness and emotionality of the news, they seem to become permanently etched in the mind with exceptional clarity compared to other memories. our objective accuracy
with them is far from perfect. Vivid personal memories of receiving the news of some momentous (and usually emotional) event.
Recoding
taking the information from the form it is delivered to us and then converting it in a way that we can make sense of it. However, recoding can also introduce errors—when we accidentally add information during encoding, then remember that new material as if it had
been part of the actual experience. The ubiquitous process during learning of taking information in one form and converting it to another form, usually one more easily remembered
Recoding strategies
Relate new information to info we already know and imagine them by creating vivid pictures of it.
pragmatic inferences
With pragmatic inferences, there is usually one particular inference you’re likely to make. Consider the statement Brewer (1977) gave her participants: “The karate champion hit the cinder block.” After hearing or seeing this sentence, participants who were given a memory test tended to remember the statement as having been, “The karate champion broke the cinder block.” This remembered statement is not necessarily a logical inference (i.e., it is perfectly reasonable that a karate champion could hit a cinder block without breaking it). Nevertheless, the pragmatic conclusion from hearing such a sentence is that the block was
likely broken. The participants remembered this inference they made while hearing the sentence in place of the actual words that were in the sentence
Inferences
instances when something is not explicitly stated, but we are still able to guess the undisclosed intention
