Ch. 7 Long-Term Memory

Question 1

Amnesia

Answer 1

Severely impaired long-term memory capacities, typically due to trauma or brain damage.

Question 2

Anterograde amnesia

Answer 2

A form of amnesia in which memories formed after the trauma of brain damage are lost.

Question 3

Consolidation

Answer 3

The process of making memories durable and, in some cases, permanent.

Question 4

Consolidation & changing memories

Answer 4

Consolidated memories are stable, but when they are recalled, they become de-stable. Cortical connections can be strengthened or modified, altering how it is reconsolidated.

Question 5

Importance of plastic memory

Answer 5

From various memories, we can form simulations of desired futures (like a collage). This helps us make choices, solve problems.

Question 6

Context-dependent memory

Answer 6

A memory benefit when the external conditions (such as location or background noise) match between encoding and retrieval.

Question 7

Elaborative rehearsal

Answer 7

A technique for storing information in long-term memory that involves elaborating on the meaning of the information.

Question 8

Encoding specificity

Answer 8

A principle in long-term memory retrieval in which a match in condition between encoding and retrieval facilitates recall.

Question 9

Episodic memory

Answer 9

Memory of events that have happened directly to us that can be recalled in a sequence as they occurred, i.e., “mental time travel.” Active in occipital and temporal lobes

Question 10

Amnesia (Patient KC)

Answer 10

Affects hippocampus. Amnesia patients piece information together to understand their current situation, but don’t deeply recall any episodic memories. Have semantic un

Question 11

Explicit (or declarative) memory

Answer 11

Memory for all information that can be verbally reported: includes semantic and episodic memory.

Question 12

Familiarity effect

Answer 12

A phenomenon in which people will tend to rate something that they have encountered before more favorably than something completely unfamiliar.

Question 13

Free-recall task

Answer 13

A type of memory task in which the experimental subject must simply remember as many items as they can from a memorized list without and cues or prompts.

Question 14

Hippocampal replay

Answer 14

A phenomenon in which sequences of brain activity in the hippocampus that occurred during behavioral activity are repeated or “replayed,” in sequence, after the event. It has been proposed as a mechanism in systems consolidation. May be essential to system consolidation

Question 15

Hippocampus & process of encoding

Answer 15

One proposition: Hippocampus stores and then moves memories to cortex.
Other: Hippocampus does not store memories, but coordinates storage in cortex.

Question 16

Implicit memory

Answer 16

A form of long-term memory in which the individual does not have explicit awareness of knowing the information but where the information has indirect effects on behavior. (includes prejudice and conditioning) Active in amygdala. Less prone to forgetting than explicit memory

Question 17

Habits

Answer 17

Routines begin as explicit memories, become implicit memories (i hate my period, it ruins my vacations, i take birth control > I take birth control every day)

Maladaptive, repetitive thoughts and emotions can be habits. stem from OCD.

Question 18

Forming habits

Answer 18

Reward must be present to form a habit, but not to keep it consistent. Must manually connect a different reward with the initial cue in order to break the first habit (dog eats sock (tasty reward), put shoe near sock, dog eats shoe instead (tastier reward!))

Question 19

Priming

Answer 19

Prior exposure facilitates information processing without awareness. Pictures of lemonade all over a tour of a building, offer a drink at the end of visit, people want lemonade but not sure why

Question 20

Deja vu

Answer 20

The feeling that you have encountered an experience before. Actually caused by the trigger of a very similar primed memory.

Question 21

Level of processing theory

Answer 21

Craik and Tulving (1972) A theory of long-term memory encoding that holds that depth of meaning during processing determines how likely an item is to be recalled.

Question 22

Depth of memory effect

Answer 22

We learn info better if we elaborate it based on info we already know (Tulving’s findings, this could be a different name for level of processing theory)

Depth of memory increases when we are in the same area/mental state as when we learned something

Question 23

Encoding specificity hypothesis

Answer 23

Memory retrieval increases when we are in the same area/mental state as when we learned something (state-dependent learning

Question 24

Transfer-appropriate processing

Answer 24

Overlap between processes during encoding and retrieval determines memory strength. When we learn something shallowly, we remember it better when being asked shallow questions, vise versa (which word was in all caps)

Question 25

Self-reference effect

Answer 25

Link to identity. If words describe you better, or feel more personal to you, you will remember them better (happy, talkative)

Question 26

Generation effect

Answer 26

Info is better remembered during active rehearsal. Generate the word K__g-crown, H___e-saddle

Question 27

Craik and Tulving 1972 experiment

Answer 27

Participants were given three categories of questions: **case** (upper/lowercase of word), **rhyming**, or **sentence completion**. Then given a free-recall task to remember the words. Words they were prompted to think about sound or meaning, they remembered better.

Question 28

Long-term memory

Answer 28

LTM typically retains the abstracted semantic information, without specific physical details.

Question 29

Long-term potentiation (LTP)

Answer 29

A form of synaptic consolidation in which a receiving neuron becomes more likely to fire in response to the stimulation of a sending neuron. Either more firing or more releasing

Question 30

Maintenance rehearsal

Answer 30

A technique for encoding information in long-term memory that involves simply repeating the information.

Question 31

Patient H.M.

Answer 31

H.M.'s hippocampus was removed. Though intelligence/cognition were intact, he could not make long-term memories. Info remained in his STM for 15 minutes. Similarly, Clive Wearing, musicologist/concert pianist, believed he was waking up from a void of memory.

Question 32

Proof for different types of memory

Answer 32

double dissociation, in which each function can be shown to be preserved while the other is compromised. Damage to hippocampus: impaired LTM Damage to STM processing cortical regions: impaired STM

Question 33

Alzheimer’s disease

Answer 33

Disease causing loss of LTM, impairs STM in early stages. Affects **medial temporal lobe** (MTL) first. Causes impulsivity, behavioral issues (addiction)

Question 34

Modal model on encoding

Answer 34

The longer the information is retained in short-term memory via rehearsal, the likelier it is that it will enter into long-term memory.

Question 35

Primacy effect

Answer 35

A phenomenon in the serial position effect in which words at the beginning of the list are better remembered. It is attributed to long-term memory.

Question 36

Procedural memory

Answer 36

A form of implicit memory consisting of knowledge of how to perform a task.

Question 37

Recency effect

Answer 37

A phenomenon in the serial position effect in which words at the end of the list are better remembered. It is attributed to short-term memory.

Question 38

Retrograde amnesia

Answer 38

A form of amnesia in which memories formed before the trauma of brain damage are lost. **Temporally graded memory loss**: Remote/old memories are less affected than recent memories)

Question 39

Korsakoff's syndrome

Answer 39

Chronic alcoholism causes antero- and retrograde amnesia. Changes personality. Causes **confabulation**: fabrication of memories

Question 40

Dissociative amnesia

Answer 40

Occurs from trauma, not from brain damage. Retrograde. People change personalities, often are so disoriented they move and change identities.

Question 41

Semantic memory

Answer 41

A form of explicit/declarative memory in which the information is recalled as a set of facts without mental time travel. Many memories begin as episodic and then transform to semantic memory over time. Active in **frontal and parietal lobes**

Question 42

Spreading activation/semantic organization

Answer 42

Semantic memories are stored as a web of interlinked facts. One being triggered can trigger associations to others (Pasta makes me think of italy!)

Question 43

Semantic dementia

Answer 43

Affects **temporal** lobes. Episodic memories remain, not semantic memories (cannot name animals in a picture, can remember personal experiences)

Question 44

Types of dementia (not on exam)

Answer 44

**Frontotemporal**: affects language function **Lewy body**: affects sleep, body function, motion **Vascular**: disrupts blood flow in brain, cognitive deficit, delusions

Question 45

Associative deficit hypothesis

Answer 45

Older adults have trouble creating links between items in their mind (lack of **hippocampal** function) but can retrieve singular items ok. (I remember you, but from where??)

Question 46

Adaptive cognitive aging

Answer 46

Young adults use only right PFC to remember/associate things. Older adults who have better memory learn to employ both lobes in order to compensate for deterioration.

Question 47

Serial position effect

Answer 47

An effect in memory studies using recall of long words lists in which words at the beginning and end of the list are remembered better than those in the middle of the list.

Question 48

Spacing effect

Answer 48

A benefit in long-term memory when information is repeated over spaced out intervals.

Question 49

Reappearance hypothesis (reconstructive memory??)

Answer 49

Episodic memory trace is recalled the same way at each retrieval (reproduced, not reconstructed). It does not change when retrieved (unlike flashbulb memories)

Question 50

State-dependent memory

Answer 50

A memory benefit when the internal conditions (such as mood) match between encoding and retrieval.

Question 51

Synaptic consolidation

Answer 51

Changes at the synapses between neurons that lead to long-term storage of memories.

Question 52

Systems consolidation

Answer 52

A process of making long-term memories more durable based on connections between cortical areas; thought to be **orchestrated by the hippocampus.**

Question 53

Testing effect

Answer 53

A long-term memory benefit that occurs when people retrieve information on their own rather than observing it passively. (when you are quizzed, you remember better than if you reread)

Question 54

Transfer-appropriate processing

Answer 54

**Morris (1977)** An account for which information is remembered in long-term memory that emphasizes a match in form between when the information is initially encoded and when it is retrieved. Can be even more important than depth of initial processing.

Question 55

Transfer learning

Answer 55

A technique used in training neural networks in which the weights of an ANN trained on one task are re-used in a different network in order to learn a different task. (bakery AI used for brain tumors)