Memory Flashcards
(76 cards)
Memory
The ability to take in, solidify, store and use information; also the store of what has been learned and remembered. Memory is not one process nor is it only one kind.
Four Stages In Forming Memory
1) Encoding-taking in information
2) Consolidation: Solidifying Information
3) Storage: Keeping Information
4) Retrieval: Getting and using information
Encoding-Taking in information
The process by which the brain attends to, takes in, and integrates new information; the first stage of long-term memory formation.
Two Kinds of Encoding Processes
Automatic Processing and Effortful processing
Automatic Processing
Encoding of information that occurs with little effort or conscious attention to the task. Episodic memory involves this processing.
Effortful Processing
Encoding of information that occurs with careful attention and conscious effort.
Mnemonic device
A method devised to help us remember information, such as rhyme or an acronym. Semantic memory.
Consolidation: Solidifying Information
The process of establishing, stabilizing, or solidifying a memory; the second stage of long-term memory formation.
Storage: Keeping information
The retention of memory over time; the third stage of long-term memory formation.
Three ways memories are organized and stored
1) Hierarchies
2)Schemas
3Networks
Hierarchies
Ways of organizing related pieces of information from the most specific feature they have in common to the most general.
Schemas
Mental frameworks that develop from our experiences with particular people, objects, or events.
Associative Networks
A chain of associations (the psychological process that binds concepts together) between related concepts.
Node
Each concept or association in a network.
Neural Networks
Are computer models that imidate the way neurons talk to each other.
An Associative Network
Associative networks are chains of association between related concepts or nodes that get activated. The closer concepts are to each other, the more directly related they are and the more likely they are to activate the other node. The network for “fire engine” is a rich associative network of related concepts.
Parallel distributed processing (PDP)
Models proposed that associations involve the simultaneous activity of many nodes.
Retrieval: Getting and using information
The recovery of information stored in memory. Retrieval is not always reliable.
Retrieval error=forgetting.
Aids to Memory Formation
Attention and dept of processing
information that is encoded more deeply activates the left prefrontal cortex and left temporal lobe than information that is processed shallowly.
Levels of processing
The concept that the more deeply people encode information, the better they will recall it.
Three levels of processing
1) Structural- is the shallowest level
2) Phonemic-Sound of the word
3) Semantic-deepest level of processing the meaning of the words
Sleep
The recall is better when a person falls asleep one hour after learning material compared to two hours after learning the material.
Emotion
Emotion helps us remember through biochemical and genetic processes. Emotional events switch on genes that build proteins to strengthen the synaptic connections between neurons. The proteins also stimulate the formation of new synapses and even new neurons.
Amygdala and the hippocampus
linked to key structures for emotion.