Cognitive Psychology

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Digit-Span Task

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A task often used for measuring working memory's storage capacity. Participants are read a series of digits (e.g. "8 3 4") and must immediately repeat them back. If they do this successfully, they are given a slightly longer list (e.g. "9 2 4 0), and so forth. The length of the longest list a person can remember is that person's ____. Normally around 7 items until errors.

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George Miller (7 +/-2)

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A number often offered as an estimate of the holding capacity of working memory by ______.

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Recency Effect

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The tendency to remember materials that occur late in a series because at the end of list presentation, the last few items are still in short term and are often the first items to be reported.

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Primacy Effect

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An often-observed advantage in remembering the early-presented materials within a sequence of materials. With free recall, participants remember the first few items in the list because the first few items receive the most memory rehearsal and are transferred from WM to LTM.

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Long-Term Memory

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The storage system in which we hold all of our knowledge and all of our memories. ____ contains memories that are not currently activated; those that are activated are represented in working memory. Stored permanently. Large storage capacity.

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Working Memory

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The storage system in which information is held while that information is being worked on. All indications are that ____ is a system, and not a single entity, and that information is held here via active processes, not via some sort of passive storage. Formerly called "short-term memory." Limited space but instantly available, lasts about 20-30 seconds. It is control of our moment by moment awareness as we do a task.

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Free Recall

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A method of assessing memory. The person being tested is asked to come up with as many items as possible from a particular source (such as "the list you heard earlier" or "things you saw yesterday") in any sequence.

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Chunking

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Combining similar material into units.

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Operation Span

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A measure of working memory's capacity. This measure turns out to be predictive of performance in many other tasks, presumably because these tasks all rely on working memory. Example, being presented with an equation then a word upon completion. The more words you remember is called your _______ _______.

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Reading Span

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A measure of working memory. Designed specifically to measure efficiency of WM. Example, reading sentences and remembering last words. More you can recall, greater your ______ ______.

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Central Executive

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The hypothesized director of the working-memory system. No storage capacity, delegates. This is the component of the system needed for any interpretation or analysis; in contrast, mere storage of materials can be provided by working memory's assistants, which work under the control of the ____.

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Visuospatial Buffer

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One of the low-level assistants used as part of the working-memory system. This buffer plays an important role in storing visual or spatial representations, including visual images (picturing what a house looks like).

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Phonological (Rehearsal) Loop

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One of the low-level assistants, hypothesized as part of the working-memory system. This loop draws on subvocalized (covert) speech, which serves to create a record in the phonological buffer. (Reading or listening to others).

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Episodic Buffer

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One of the low-level assistants used as a part of the working-memory system. It is the newest component and prepares info to move onto LTM. Materials in this buffer fade, but they can be refreshed by another cycle of covert speech, with this cycle initiated by working memory's central executive.

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Shallow Processing

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A mode of thinking about material in which one pays attention only to appearances and other superficial aspects of the material; ______ typically leads to poor memory retention. Often contrasted with deep processing. Example, whether a word is capitalized or not.

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Structural Encoding

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An emphasis on the physical structural characteristics of the stimulus.

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Phonemic Encoding

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Translating visual input from written words into sounds. Emphasis on the sounds of the words

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Deep Processing

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A mode of thinking about material in which one pays attention to the meaning and implications of the material; ____ typically leads to excellent memory retention.

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Elaborative Rehearsal

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A way of engaging materials to be remembered, such that one pays attention to what the materials mean and how they are related to each other, or to other things in the surroundings, or to other things one already knows. Example, does a word fit in a sentence?

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Self Reference Effect

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The tendency to have better memory for information relevant to one's self than for other sorts of material.

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Incidental Learning

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Learning that takes place in the absence of any intention to learn and, correspondingly, in the absence of any expectation of a subsequent memory test.

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Intentional Learning

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The acquisition of memories in a setting in which people know that their memory for the information will be tested later.

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Mnemonic Strategies

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A technique designed to improve memory accuracy, and to make learning easier; in general, ____ seek in one fashion or another to help memory by imposing an organization on the materials to be learned.

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Peg-Word Systems

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A type of mnemonic strategy using words or locations as "pegs" on which one "hangs" the materials to be remembered. It's easy to remember words when associated with others.

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First-Letter Mnemonics

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Making a word using the first letter of each word.

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Acquisition /Encoding

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The process of placing new information into long-term memory.

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Storage

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The state in which a memory, once aquired, remains dormant until it is retrieved. How information is maintained.

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Retrieval

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The process of locating information in memory and activating that information for use.

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Modal Model

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A nickname for a specific conception of the "architecture" of memory. In this model, working memory serves both as the storage site for material now being contemplated, and also the "loading platform" for long-term memory. Information can reach working memory through the processes of perception, or it can be drawn from long-term memory. Once in working memory, material can be further processed, or it can simply be recycled for subsequent use. (Attkinson and Shiffrin)

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Sensory Memory

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Stimuli enters and is held for 2 secs. Iconic and echoic memory takes information from visual and auditory systems. Goes to STM or forgotten.

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Context Reinstatement (Context-Dependent Memory)

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A procedure in which someone is led to the same mental and emotional state they were in during some previous event; ____ can often promote accurate recollection.

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Land Water Study

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A context (context-dependent memory) reinstatement study where some learned a word on land, others under water. Those who learned on land recalled better on land than water, etc.

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Encoding Specificity Principle

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(context dependent memory) recall is better if the retrievals context is similar to the encoding context. Forgetting occurs when the encoding and retrieval context are incongruent. An example is sitting on a sofa, get up to get something but forget what you were going to get, sit back down and then remember.

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Explicit Memory Tests

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A form of direct memory testing (retrieval) where people are instructed to remember information. Conscious of being tested on their memory.

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Recall

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The task of (explicit) memory retrieval in which the rememberer must come up with the desired materials, sometimes in response to a cue that names the context in which these materials were earlier encountered ("Name the pictures you saw earlier") sometimes in response to a question that requires the sought-after information ("Name a fruit," or "What is the state capital of California?") Short answers on tests.

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Recognition

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The task of (explicit) memory retrieval in which the items to be remembered are presented and the person must decide whether or not the item was encountered in some earlier circumstance. Thus, for example, one might be asked, "Have you ever seen this person before?" or "Is this the poster you saw in the office yesterday?" Multiple choice on tests.

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Source Memory

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A form of memory (recognition) that allows one to recollect the episode in which learning took place, or the time and place in which a particular stimulus was encountered.

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Implicit Memory Tests

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A form of indirect memory testing. Where previous information creeps into memory. Remember more information than explicit. Not aware of being tested later.

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Word-Stem Completion

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A task in which people are given the beginning of a word (e.g. "TOM") and must provide a word that starts with the letters provided. In some versions of the task, only one solution is possible, and so performance is measured by counting the number of words completed. In other versions of the task, several solutions are possible for each stem, and performance is assessed by determining which of the responses fulfill some other criterion.

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Repetition Priming

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A type of implicit memory test. Participants asked to name words that answer a specific question. Name two types of fruit = will choose fruit they previously saw.

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False Fame Study (Jacoby 1989)

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Study on familiarity where participants read a list of fictitious names, later asked to rate new list of names according to how famous they are with real and fictitious names. Participants rated some fictitious names as real because they had seen the name before.

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Illusion of Truth/Sleeper Effect

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Memory error due to familiarity that claims that are familiar seem more plausible, especially if you’ve heard the claim before even if you said it was false the first time. If we hear something from a credible source, we assume them to be true.

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Source Confusion

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Memory error due to familiarity where when you tell a story only for someone to tell you they told you the story. More lax during recall than recognition.

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Retrograde Amnesia

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An inability to remember experiences that occurred before the event that triggered the memory disruption. Example - waking up in a hospital and not remembering two days before an accident, or anything at all.

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Anterograde Amnesia

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An inability to remember experiences that occurred after the event that triggered the memory disruption. Example - Drew Barrymore in 50 first dates.

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Korsakoff's Syndrome

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A clinical syndrome characterized primarily by dense anterograde amnesia. ____ is caused by damage to specific brain regions, and it is often precipitated by a form of malnutrition common among long-term alcoholics.

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DRM

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A commonly used experimental procedure for eliciting and studying memory errors. In this procedure, a person sees or hears a list of words that are all related to a single theme; however, the word that names the theme is not itself included. Nonetheless, people are very likely to remember later that the theme word was presented.

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Schemata

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A pattern of knowledge describing what is typical or frequent in a particular situation. For example, a "kitchen ____" would stipulate that a stove and refrigerator are likely to be present, whereas a coffeemaker may or may not be present, and a piano is likely not to be present. Summarizes the broad patter of what is normal in a situation.

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Misinformation Effect

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An effect in which research participants' reports about an earlier event are influenced by misinformation they received after experiencing the event. in the extreme, ____ can be used to create false memories concerning an entire event that, in truth, never occurred.

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Retention Interval

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The amount of time that passes between the initial learning of some material and the subsequent memory retrieval of that material.

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Decay

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The hypothesis that, with the passage of time, memories may fade or erode.

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Interference

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The hypothesis that materials are lost from memory because of interference from other materials also in memory. ____ is caused by materials learned prior to the learning episode is called "proactive ____," ____ that is caused by materials learned after the learning episode is called "retroactive ___."

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Retrieval Failure

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A mechanism that probably contributes to a great deal of forgetting. ___ occurs when a memory is, in fact, in long-term storage, but one is unable to locate that memory when trying to retrieve it.

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Autobiographical Memory

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The aspect of memory that records the episodes and events in a person's life.

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Flashbulb Memories

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A memory of extraordinary clarity, typically for some highly emotional event, retained despite the passage of many years. Not accurate.

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Repression

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Pushed out of awareness as a step toward self-protection. Not consciously available but exist in long term memory and may be "recovered." Not accurate.

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Traumatic Memories

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Extra vivid and long lived recollections of a terrible event. Understood in terms of a person's AGE. Research suggests well remembered for years.

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Emotional Events

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events likely to be remembered, important to us, can be re-experienced. Pay closer attention to these, and tend to think about them in the minutes (hours) following event. More accurate than others.

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Context Reinstatement

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Improved memory performance if we re-create the context that was in place during learning.

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Fisher and Craik Study

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Presented participants with series of word pairs that either rhymed or semantically associated (cat-dog, cat-hat). The latter encouraged to think about words meanings. Found that when encouraged to think about meanings rather than sound, they remembered better.

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Intrusion Errors

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Errors in which other knowledge intrudes into the remembered event.

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Post Identification Feedback

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An effect that seems to occur because there is not an accessible memory trace formed about these retrospective judgments, thereby making witnesses rely on an inference process that responds to the feedback.

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H. M.

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a patient who suffered from profound epilepsy and a variety of attempts to cure him failed. Had brain surgery where parts of his brain were removed, causing him to be unable to learn anything new, a form of anterograde amnesia.

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Spreading Activation

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As each thought becomes activated, it serves as a source for others, spreading outward through the network, or maze of associations. Spreads from its starting point in all directions.