Unit 7

Question 1

memory

Answer 1

the persistence of learning over time through the encoding, storage, and retrieval of information.

Question 2

encoding

Answer 2

the converting of a sensory input into a way of being processed and deposited in memory. (processing information and making it into a memory)

Question 3

storage

Answer 3

the process of retaining encoded information overtime

Question 4

retrieval

Answer 4

getting information out of the memory storage

Question 5

parallel processing

Answer 5

being able to process lots of sensory information at the same time

Question 6

sensory memory

Answer 6

brief recording of sensory (taste,smell, etc) information in the memory system.

Question 7

short-term memory

Answer 7

activated memory that remembers a few things briefly, such as the seven digits of a phone number while dialing, before it is stored or forgotten.

Question 8

long-term memory

Answer 8

that enables one to retain, retrieve, and make use of skills and knowledge hours, weeks, or even years after they were originally learned.

Question 9

working memory

Answer 9

brain system that provides temporary storage for such complex cognitive tasks as language comprehension, learning, and reasoning.

Question 10

explicit memory

Answer 10

Explicit memory requires you to consciously recall information. For example, imagine someone asks you what the capital of France is. To answer, you’d likely access your memory to find the correct answer: Paris.

Question 11

effortful processing

Answer 11

encoding that requires attention and con-scious effort.

Question 12

automatic processing

Answer 12

unconscious processing of information, such as space, time and of well-learned information, such as word meanings

Question 13

implicit memory

Answer 13

memory for a previous event or experience that is produced indirectly (ex. riding a bike)

Question 14

iconic memory

Answer 14

a momentary sensory memory of visual stimuli; a photographic or picture-image memory lasting no more than a few tenths of a second.

Question 15

echoic memory

Answer 15

a momentary sensory memory of auditory stimuli; if attention is elsewhere, sounds and words can still be recalled within 3 or 4 seconds.

Question 16

chunking

Answer 16

the process by which the mind divides large pieces of information into smaller units (chunks) that are easier to retain in short-term memory.

Question 17

mnemonics

Answer 17

any device or technique used to assist memory

Question 18

spacing effect

Answer 18

people learn material easier and more effectively when it is studied several times over a long period of time rather than in a short period of time.

Question 19

testing effect

Answer 19

finding that taking a test on previously studied material is better than restudying that material for an equivalent amount of time.

Question 20

shallow processing

Answer 20

encoding on a basic level based on the structure or appearance of words

Question 21

deep processing

Answer 21

Deep processing involves elaboration rehearsal which involves a more meaningful analysis (e.g. images, thinking, associations etc.) of information and leads to better recall. For example, giving words a meaning or linking them with previous knowledge.

Question 22

hippocampus

Answer 22

a curved structure in our temporal lobes that is responsible for memory

Question 23

flashbulb memory

Answer 23

clear memory of an emotionally significant moment or event. (trauma/shocking memory)

Question 24

long-term potentiation

Answer 24

an increase in a cell’s firing potential after brief, rapid stimulation. Believed to be a neural basis for learning and memory

Question 25

recall

Answer 25

a measure of memory in which the person must retrieve information learned earlier, as on a fill-in-the-blank test.

Question 26

recognition

Answer 26

form of remembering characterized by a feeling of familiarity when something previously experienced is again encountered

Question 27

relearning

Answer 27

a measure of memory that assesses the amount of time saved when learning material again.

Question 28

priming

Answer 28

the activation, often unconsciously, of particular associations in memory (forgetting why u walked in a room)

Question 29

mood-congruent memory

Answer 29

consistency between one’s mood state and the emotional context of memories recalled. During positive mood states, individuals will tend to retrieve pleasant memories, whereas during negative mood states, negative thoughts and associations will more likely come to mind.

Question 30

serial position effect

Answer 30

Our tendency to recall best the last (a recency effect) and first items (a primacy effect) in a list.

Question 31

anterograde amnesia

Answer 31

an inability to form new memories

Question 32

retrograde amnesia

Answer 32

an inability to retrieve information from one’s past

Question 33

proactive interference

Answer 33

interference in new learning due to previous learning of similar or related material. (ex. learning french after 2 years of spanish)

Question 34

retroactive interference

Answer 34

occurs when new information interferes with your ability to recall information that you could remember previously. Things that are more recent and fresh are easy to remember, but old information feels far away, even if you spent more time learning it. An example of this is switching your password from Psych2020 to Psych#2021 and then not being able to recall your old password.

Question 35

repression

Answer 35

psychological defense mechanism in which unpleasant thoughts or memories are pushed from the conscious mind

Question 36

misinformation effect

Answer 36

incorporating misleading information into one’s memory of an event. (the skittle experiment we did in class)

Question 37

source amnesia

Answer 37

an inability to remember from where existing knowledge was acquired. For a basic example, most of us remember learning how to read and write, but we don’t remember learning to walk.

Question 38

deja vu

Answer 38

that eerie sense that “I’ve experienced this before.” Cues from the current situation may unconsciously trigger retrieval of an earlier experience.

Question 39

cognition

Answer 39

all the mental activities associated with thinking, knowing, remembering, and communicating.

Question 40

concept

Answer 40

a mental grouping of similar objects, events, ideas, or people.

Question 41

prototype

Answer 41

Prototypes are used to enhance memory and recall, since you can keep a prototype of something and then match new, similar things to the prototype in order to identify, categorize, or store this new thing. For example, if I ask you to imagine a dog, what do you imagine?

Question 42

creativity

Answer 42

the ability to produce novel and valuable ideas

Question 43

convergent thinking

Answer 43

narrows the available problem solutions to determine the single best solution. joining two or more different observations or ideas together so that they provide additional information, for example, putting the pieces of a puzzle together so they make a complete picture.

Question 44

divergent thinking

Answer 44

expands the number of possible problem solutions (creative thinking that diverges in different directions).

Question 45

insight

Answer 45

a sudden realization of a problem’s solution; contrasts with strategy-based solutions.

Question 46

algorithm

Answer 46

An algorithm is a step by step method that guarantees to solve a particular problem.

Question 47

heuristic

Answer 47

a simple thinking strategy that often allows us to make judgments and solve problems efficiently; usually speedier but also more error - prone than algorithms.

Question 48

confirmation bias

Answer 48

the tendency of people to favor information that confirms their existing beliefs or hypotheses

Question 49

mental set

Answer 49

a tendency to approach a problem in one particular way, often a way that has been successful in the past (doing something the same way if it has worked in the past)

Question 50

intuition

Answer 50

an effortless, immediate, automatic feeling or thought, as contrasted with explicit, conscious reasoning

Question 51

representative heuristic

Answer 51

judging the likelihood of things in terms of how well they seem to represent, or match, particular prototypes; may lead us to ignore other relevant information. (basing view of a product based on one positive or negative review)

Question 52

availability heuristic

Answer 52

estimating the likelihood of events based on their availability in memory. (judging a situation based on examples of similar situations that initially come to mind)

Question 53

overconfidence

Answer 53

the tendency to be more confident than correct

Question 54

belief perseverance

Answer 54

tendency to maintain one’s beliefs even in the face of evidence that contradicts them. An example of belief perseverance is a person who believes that smoking does not cause cancer despite the abundance of evidence that shows that smoking does cause cancer

Question 55

framing

Answer 55

the way an issue is posed; how an issue is framed can significantly affect decisions and judgments. For example, let’s say that a doctor who is going to be performing surgery on you says you have a 90 percent chance of survival. That sounds pretty good, right? If it was framed differently by saying you have a 10 percent chance of dying

Question 56

language

Answer 56

words and the way we combine them to communicate meaning

Question 57

phoneme

Answer 57

in a language, the smallest distinctive sound unit.

Question 58

morpheme

Answer 58

in a language, the smallest unit that carries meaning; may be a word or a part of a word

Question 59

grammar

Answer 59

in a language, a system of rules that enables us to communicate with and understand others. In a given language, semantics is the set of rules for deriving meaning from sounds, and syntax is the set of rules for combining words into grammatically sensible sentences.

Question 60

babbling

Answer 60

beginning at about 4 months, the stage of speech development in which the infant spontaneously utters various sounds at first unrelated to the household language.

Question 61

one-word stage

Answer 61

the stage in speech development, from about age 1 to 2, during which a child speaks mostly in single words.

Question 62

two-word stage

Answer 62

beginning about age 2, the stage in speech development during which a child speaks mostly in two-word statements.

Question 63

telegraphic speech

Answer 63

early speech stage in which a child speaks like a telegram—“go car”—using mostly nouns and verbs

Question 64

aphasia

Answer 64

impairment of language, usually caused by left-hemisphere damage either to Broca’s area (impairing speaking) or to Wernicke’s area (impairing understanding).

Question 65

broca’s area

Answer 65

controls language expression an area of the frontal lobe, usually in the left hemisphere, that directs the muscle movements involved in speech

Question 66

wernicke’s area

Answer 66

controls language reception a brain area involved in language comprehension and expression; usually in the left temporal lobe

Question 67

linguistic’s determintation

Answer 67

Whorf’s hypothesis that language determines the way we think

Question 68

richard atkinson

Answer 68

drew an analogy between information storage in computers and information storage in human memory

Question 69

george miller

Answer 69

pointed out small capacity of STM in famous paper “The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two”

Question 70

hermann ebbinghaus

Answer 70

first person to conduct scientific studies of forgetting

Question 71

eric kandel

Answer 71

studied conditioned reflexes in a simple organism - a sea slug; led to a Nobel Prize

Question 72

elizabeth loftus

Answer 72

researched misinformation effect

Question 73

robert sternberg

Answer 73

proposed the triarchic theory that divides intelligence into three types: componential, experiential, and contextual

Question 74

wolfgang kohler

Answer 74

german psychologist whose research focused on human perception

Question 75

amos tversky

Answer 75

discovered systematic human cognitive bias

Question 76

daniel kahneman

Answer 76

is an Israeli-American psychologist and economist notable for his work on the psychology of judgment and decision-making, as well as behavioral economics

Question 77

steven pinker

Answer 77

is an experimental cognitive psychologist and a popular writer on language, mind, and human nature.

Question 78

noam chomsky

Answer 78

contribution to psychology is the concept of universal grammar, which states that language is innate, or inborn, instead of learned

Question 79

paul broca

Answer 79

broca was a neuroanatomist who made contributions to the study of the limbic system and rhinencephalon. His research on the localization of speech in the brain paved the way for new research into the lateralization of brain functions.

Question 80

carl wernicke

Answer 80

made discoveries about brain function

Question 81

benjamin lee whorf

Answer 81

developed the principle of linguistic relativity