Memory

Question 1

Hyperthymestic syndrome

Answer 1

A condition in which an individual possesses a superior autobiographical memory, meaning he or she can recall the vast majority of personal experiences and events in his or her life.

Question 2

Suggestive memory techniques

Answer 2

Procedures that encourage patients to recall memories that may or may not have taken place

Question 3

Memory illusion

Answer 3

False but subjectively compelling memories

Question 4

Three memory model

Answer 4

Early model that subdivides memory into sensory, short-term and long-term memory (Atkinson & Shiffrin 1968)

Question 5

Sensory Memory

Answer 5

Brief storage of perceptual information before it is passed to short-term memory

Question 6

Iconic Memory

Answer 6

Visual sensory memory

Question 7

Echoic Memory

Answer 7

Auditory sensory memory

Question 8

Short-term memory

Answer 8

Memory system that retains information for limited durations. “Working memory”.

Question 9

Retroactive Inhibition

Answer 9

Interference with retention of old information due to acquisition of new information

Question 10

Proactive inhibition

Answer 10

Interference with acquisition of new information due to previous learning of information

Question 11

Chunking

Answer 11

Organising information into meaningful groupings, allowing us to extend the span of short-term memory

Question 12

Rehearsal

Answer 12

Repeating information to extend the duration of retention in short-term memory

Question 13

Maintenance rehearsal

Answer 13

Repeating stimuli in their original form to retain them in short-term memory

Question 14

Elaborative rehearsal

Answer 14

Linking stimuli to each other in a meaningful way to improve retention of information in short-term memory

Question 15

Levels-of-processing model of memory

Answer 15

Depth of transforming information influences how easily we remember it

Question 16

Phonological processing

Answer 16

Focus on how words sound to memorise them

Question 17

Long-term memory

Answer 17

Sustained (from minutes to years) retention of information stored regarding our facts, experiences and skills

Question 18

Semantic memory

Answer 18

Portion of long-term memory that processes ideas and concepts that are not drawn from personal experience. E.g. names of colours, countries, sounds of letters

Question 19

Primacy effect

Answer 19

Tendency to remember words at the start of a list particularly well

Question 20

Semantic memory

Answer 20

Portion of long-term memory that processes ideas and concepts that are not drawn from personal experience. E.g. names of colours, countries, sounds of letters
(tends to activate the left frontal cortex more than the right frontal cortex)

Question 21

Recency effect

Answer 21

Tendency to remember words at the end of a list especially well
(Memory for late words in a list tends to activate the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, which plays a key role in keeping information ‘alive’ in short-term memory

Question 22

Von Restorff effect

Answer 22

Tendency to remember distinctive stimuli better than less distinctive stimuli

Question 23

Serial position curve

Answer 23

Graph depicting the effect of both primacy and recency on people’s ability to recall items on a list

Question 24

Episodic memory

Answer 24

Memory of events in our lives

tends to activate the right frontal cortex more than the left frontal cortex

Question 25

Explicit memory

Answer 25

Memories we recall intentionally and of which we have conscious awareness (e.g. semantic and episodic memory)

Question 26

Implicit memory

Answer 26

Memories we do not deliberately remember or reflect on consciously (e.g. procedural memory, priming, habituation, classical conditioning)

Question 27

Procedural memory

Answer 27

Memory for how to do things, including motor skills and habits (Type of implicit memory)

Question 28

Priming

Answer 28

Our ability to identify a stimulus more easily or more quickly after we have encountered similar stimuli

Question 29

Priming

Answer 29

Our ability to identify a stimulus more easily or more quickly after we have encountered similar stimuli

Question 30

Encoding

Answer 30

Process of getting information into our memory banks (1st of 3 'stages of memory')

Question 31

Storage

Answer 31

Process of keeping information in memory (2nd of 3 stages of memory)

Question 32

Retrieval

Answer 32

Reactivation or reconstruction of experiences from our memory stores

Question 33

Schema

Answer 33

organised knowledge structure or mental model that we have stored in memory

Question 34

Retrieval cues

Answer 34

Hints that make it easier for us to recall information

Question 35

Recall

Answer 35

Generating previously remembered information

Question 36

Recognition

Answer 36

Selecting previously remembered information from an array of options

Question 37

Relearning

Answer 37

Reacquiring knowledge that we had previously learned but largely forgotten over time

Question 38

Distributed vs massed practice

Answer 38

Studying information in small increments over time (distributed) versus in large increments over a brief amount of time (massed)

Question 39

Tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon

Answer 39

Experience of knowing that we know something but being unable to access it

Question 40

Encoding specificity

Answer 40

Phenomenon of remembering something better when the conditions under which we retrieve information are similar to the conditions under which we encoded it

Question 41

Context-dependent learning

Answer 41

Superior retrieval of memories when the external context of the original memories matches the retrieval context

Question 42

State-dependent learning

Answer 42

Superior retrieval of memories when the organism is in the same physiological or psychological state as it was during encoding

Question 43

- Engram | - Assemblies

Answer 43

- The physical trace of memory in the brain. Carl Lashley experiments (1929) - Donald Hebb (1949) theory that the engram is located in organised groups of neurons in the brain (assemblies)

Question 44

Long term potentiation

Answer 44

Gradual strengthening of the connections among neurons from repetitive stimulation (LTP enhances the release of glutamate into the synaptic cleft and activates postsynaptic receptors for NMDA and AMPA, resulting in enhanced learning)

Question 45

Retrograde amnesia

Answer 45

Loss of memories from our past

Question 46

Anterograde amnesia

Answer 46

Inability to encode new memories from our experiences

Question 47

Meta-memory

Answer 47

Knowledge about our own memory abilities and limitations

Question 48

Infantile amnesia

Answer 48

Inability of adults to remember personal experiences that took place before an early age

Question 49

Flashbulb memories

Answer 49

Emotional memories that are extraordinarily vivid and detailed

Question 50

Source monitoring

Answer 50

Ability to identify the origins of a memory

Question 51

Cryptomnesia

Answer 51

Failure to recognise that our ideas originated with someone else

Question 52

Misinformation effect

Answer 52

Creation of fictitious memories by providing misleading information about an event after it takes place