Lec 8: Attention and Memory

Question 1

Change blindness

Answer 1

a failure to notice large changes in one’s environment

Question 2

attention

Answer 2

the granting of priority of processing to a particular location, item, or thought

Question 3

filter theory

Answer 3

attention is selective, boosting relevant info and rejecting irrelevant info

Question 4

selective attention

Answer 4

one’s ability to track items rapidly fall apart the more there are to monitor

Question 5

memory

Answer 5

the nervous system’s capacity to acquire and retain usable skills and knowledge

Question 6

sensory memory

Answer 6

a memory system that BRIEFLY stores sensory information in close to its original sensory form

a light, sound, an odor, taste leaves a vanishing trace on the nervous system

Question 7

short term memory

Answer 7

memory storage system that briefly holds a limited amount of info in awareness

Question 8

working memory

Answer 8

an active processing system that keeps different types of info available for current use ie sounds, images, ideas

information remains in working memory for about 20-30 seconds unless you prevent it from disappearing by thinking about or rehearsing the info

Question 9

memory span

Answer 9

the amount of info held in working memory

Question 10

chunking

Answer 10

organizing info into meaningful units to make it easier to remember

ex: 3104983325 is easier to remember as 310-498-3325

Question 11

long term memory

Answer 11

a relatively permanent, limitless storage

nursery rhymes, what you had for lunch the previous day

Question 12

long term memory vs working memory

Answer 12

long term memory has longer duration and a far greater capacity

Question 13

serial position effect

Answer 13

ability to recall items from a list depends on order of presentation, with items presented early or late in the list remembered better than those in the middle

list of words
words in the beginning and end are better remembered than the ones in the middle

Question 14

primacy effect

Answer 14

people have a good memory for items at the beginning of a list

Question 15

recency effect

Answer 15

people also have a good memory for items at the end of a list

Question 16

levels of processing model

Answer 16

the more deeply an item is encoded, the more meaning it has, and the better it is remembered

Question 17

maintenance rehearsal

Answer 17

repeating the item over and over

Question 18

elaborative rehearsal

Answer 18

encodes the info in more meaningful ways

Question 19

The more an item is elaborated at the time of storage

Answer 19

the richer the later

memory will be because more connections can serve as retrieval cues

Question 20

schemas

Answer 20

cognitive structures that help us perceive, organize, process, and use info

decisions about how to chunk info depend on schemas

prior knowledge and culture shapes our schemas and can lead to biased encoding, influencing memory

Question 21

associative networks

Answer 21

organized by category and structured in a hierarchy

provide a blueprint for where to find info

Question 22

spreading activation models

Answer 22

Stimuli in working memory activate specific nodes in long-term memory,
making retrieval easier.

Activation of a node spreads throughout its network,
enhancing memory of related items

Question 23

retrieval cue

Answer 23

anything that helps a person or an animal recall info stored in long term memory

Question 24

memory may be enhanced by

Answer 24

Context-dependent memory
when the recall situation is similar to the encoding situation

state-dependent memory
when a person’s internal states match during encoding and recall

Question 25

two types of long term memory

Answer 25

explicit memory (declarative) implicit memory

Question 26

explicit memory

Answer 26

system underlying conscious memories, recalled as facts or memories

Question 27

implicit memory

Answer 27

system underlying unconscious memories memories that exist w/o our awareness of them and don't require conscious attention

Question 28

episodic memory

Answer 28

type of explicit memory memory for one's personal past experiences, often a narrative ex: remembering parts about your 16th birthday

Question 29

semantic memory

Answer 29

explicit memory memory for knowledge about the world ex: knowing what Jell-O is

Question 30

evidence that episodic and semantic systems of explicit memory are separate

Answer 30

in cases of brain injury in which semantic memory is intact even though episodic memory is impaired

Question 31

procedural memory

Answer 31

implicit memory involved motor skills, habits, and other behaviors employed to achieve goals ex: coordinating muscle movements to ride a bike or how to tie shoes so unconscious that consciously thinking about automatic behaviors can interfere with the smooth production of those behaviors

Question 32

forgetting

Answer 32

the inability to retrieve memory from long term storage

Question 33

amnesia

Answer 33

a deficit in long term memory, resulting from disease, brain injury, or psychological trauma

Question 34

anterograde amnesia

Answer 34

inability to form new memories (HM)

Question 35

retrograde amnesia

Answer 35

inability to retrieve past memories such as events, facts, people, personal info

Question 36

ribot's law

Answer 36

has to do with retrograde amnesia recent memories are most prone, bc they have the weakest neural representation

Question 37

7 sins of memory

Answer 37

``` transience blocking absentmindedness persistence misattribution bias suggestability ```

Question 38

transience

Answer 38

deterioration of quality of memory over time ex: right after a movie, you can recall many details, but eventually you might forget the entire plot of a movie

Question 39

transience is caused by

Answer 39

interference

Question 40

proactive interference

Answer 40

when prior info inhibits the ability to remember new info ex: moving to a new city but you keep writing down your old zip code

Question 41

retroactive interference

Answer 41

when new info inhibits the ability to remember old info ex: after a while, you forget your old zip code

Question 42

blocking

Answer 42

temporary inability to retrieve specific info often occurs bc of interference from words that are similar in some way ex: tip of the tongue

Question 43

absentmindedness

Answer 43

caused by shallow encoding (not a lot of attention) which occurs when ppl fail to pay sufficient attention multi-tasking can often lead to absentmindedness during most of our day we are consciously aware of only a small portion of both our thoughts and behaviors

Question 44

persistence

Answer 44

recurrence of unwanted memories PTSD emotional events are associated with amygdala activity

Question 45

misattribution

Answer 45

memory distortion that occurs when people misremember the time, place, person, or circumstances involved with a memory

Question 46

false fame effect

Answer 46

effect that causes people to mistakenly believe that someone is famous simply bc they have encountered the person's name before

Question 47

sleeper effect

Answer 47

an argument initially is not very persuasive bc it comes from a questionable source, but becomes more persuasive over time

Question 48

cryptomnesia

Answer 48

type of misattribution that occurs when a person thinks he or she has come up with a new idea but has only retrieved a stored idea and failed to attribute the idea to its proper source can lead to plagiarism kiran thinking he came up with "they're playing basketball"

Question 49

Bias

Answer 49

changing of memories over time so that they become consistent with current beliefs or attitudes individuals tend to remember events as casting them in prominent or favorable roles

Question 50

suggestability

Answer 50

the development of biased memories from misleading info people can "remember" seeing nonexistent objects different wordings of questions altered the participants' memories of the event

Question 51

lost in the mall

Answer 51

25% of people failed to recognize a false memory

Question 52

confabulation

Answer 52

unintended false recollection of episodic memories honest lying

Question 53

flashbulb memories

Answer 53

vivid episodic memories in which people first learned of a surprising, emotionally arousing event ex: 9/11 can be biased and inaccurate

Question 54

engram

Answer 54

the physical site of memory storage; the place where memory lives

Question 55

equipotentiality

Answer 55

the idea that memory is distributed throughout the brain rather than confined to any specific location

Question 56

prefrontal cortex

Answer 56

working memory

Question 57

temporal lobe

Answer 57

declarative memory

Question 58

amygdala

Answer 58

fear learning

Question 59

hippocampus

Answer 59

spatial memory

Question 60

cerebellum

Answer 60

motor action learning and memory

Question 61

remembering something seen or heard involves

Answer 61

reactivating the cortical circuits involved in the initial seeing or hearing