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AP Psych - Memory

Terms in this set (82)

The Information Processing Model
Model of memory that assumed that the processing of information for memory storage occurs in 3 stages: Encoding, Storage, Retrieval
Encoding
The processing of information into the memory system. AKA: Making memories
Storage
The process of holding encoded information in memory over time.
Retrieval
Remembering, or the process of bringing to mind information that has been previously encoded and stored.
Atkinson-Shiffrin Model
A model for describing memory in which there are three kinds of memory (sensory, short term, long term). This is an older model that is less used than the Information Processing Model.
Sensory Memory
Memories of sights, sounds, smells, etc. that last only a few seconds.
Acoustic Memory
Memories of sounds that last only a few seconds unless they are sent into short-term memory.
Iconic Memory
Memories of things we see that last only a few seconds unless they are sent into short-term memory.

(Tip: I-conic more like eye-conic)
Short-Term Memory
The things you remember for a few minutes or hours that are forgotten unless they are processed by the hippocampus into long-term memory.
Working Memory
A newer understanding of short-term memory that involves conscious, active processing of incoming auditory and visual-spatial information, and of information retrieved from long-term memory.

(Tip: Like all the papers out on your desk you're using to do your homework.)
Miller's Number
7 (plus or minus 2). It is the number of things the average person can hold in their working memory.
Long Term Memory
The relatively permanent and unlimited storehouse of the memory system. Includes knowledge, skills, and experiences.
Implicit Memory
The things we know without being aware that we know them, like how to ride the bus or learned attitudes and behaviors such as a fear of the dark.
Procedural Memory
A type of long-term memory. It is our memory of how to do things.

(Ex: How to tie our shoes, open apps on our phone, get from home to school, etc.)
Explicit / Declarative Memory
Long-term memory of facts.

(Ex: The first president, the primary colors, your phone number, etc.)
Episodic Memory
A type of long-term memory. These are the events of your own life.
Semantic Memory
Memories of things that have meaning or definition. These are our explicit memories.
Flashbulb Memories
A clear memory of an emotionally significant moment or event.
Neurogenesis
Creation of new neurons in the adult brain. Forming new memories involves this.
Long-Term Potentiation
Making stronger connections between neurons by repetitive stimulation, usually because of thinking of something over and over.
Engram / Memory Trace
The path through the brain between neurons in which new synapses have formed or strengthened that makes a memory accessible. Studied by Karl Lashley.

(Tip: Imagine a "road" to a memory in the brain.)
Equipotentiality Hypothesis
If part of one area of the brain involved in memory is damaged, another part of the same area can take over that memory function.

(Tip: Imagine that the road to a memory is blocked, so your brain builds a new road to get that memory out.)
Hippocampus
Part of the limbic system that helps process short-term memories for storage in the long-term memory.
Amygdala
A limbic system structure involved in memory, especially emotional memories such as fear and aggression.
Sensory Encoding
Remembering sights, sounds, smells, etc.
Acoustic Encoding
The encoding of sound, especially the sound of words.
Iconic Encoding
The encoding of things we see.
Automatic Processing
Encoding of things that happen without meaning to, such as the events of the day, how a person we meet is dressed, or the meaning of a new word.
Effortful Processing
Encoding that requires attention and conscious effort, like studying definitions of psychology terms or memorizing a list.
Active Processing
When making a memory, if you think about things deeply you can remember it in many forms.

(Ex: Participating in a discussion in class will let you remember that new idea in many formats such as on a test, or during a conversation, or when reading.)
Passive Processing
When making a memory, only taking in the information without thinking deeply or working with it in any way. The result is that you can only remember the idea in the way it was presented.

(Ex: If you learned about something from a lecture, you'll only be able to remember it when you're listening, but not on a written test.)
Schemas & Semantic Networks
The ways our ideas are connected together in our minds. In memory, we must connect new ideas or memories to the ideas and memories we already have.
Maintenance Rehearsal
Repeating something over and over to keep it in short-term memory.

(Ex: Saying a phone number you heard over and over so you can remember it long enough to dial it.)
Elaborative Rehearsal
Thinking about something in multiple ways so that you can move it from short-term to long-term memory.
Distributed Practice / Spacing
Spreading out your study over time with breaks. This is the best way to build long-term memories.
Massed Practice / Cramming
Studying all at once. This may work to pack a lot of information into your working memory but does not lead to much long-term memory building.
Serial Position Effect
Our tendency to recall best the first. and last things on a list.

(Tip: Remember a TV "series", or you can remember the first and last cereal boxes you saw when you walked down that aisle at the grocery store.)
Recency Effect
Our tendency to remember the last thing on a list.
Primacy Effect
Our tendency to remember the first thing on a list.
Next-in-Line Effect
When we are in line to perform or answer, we focus on ourselves so we don't remember what the person just before or just after us said or did.
Testing Effect / Retrieval Practice
Repeated quizzing of previously learned material helps long term retention. In other words, having something on a test can help us build memories.
Interleaving
Switching between ideas while you study. This can help us build memories.

(Ex: Practicing two different songs on the piano and going back and forth between them will help your remember them more than if you just practiced one at a time.)
Infantile / Childhood Amnesia
A lack of memory for the early years of a person's life. For most people, their first memories start around age 2.
Mnemonic
Some sort of trick used to help us remember things.
Chunking
Putting things together into groups to help remember them.

(Ex: Learning all the words for the colors as a group, or breaking a phone number down into the first three numbers and then the second four numbers.)
Peg Word
A memory aid that involves linking words with numbers

(ex: 1 is bun, 2 is shoe, 3 is tree, 4 is door...etc)
Link Method
Connecting things you need to remember with something you already know or is easy to remember.

(Ex. Making a story out of as list of new things. Note: This is why studying with friends can be helpful because it naturally creates these connections.)
Method of Loci
Using familiar locations as cues to recall things that have been associated with them.

(Ex: Picturing yourself putting things you need to remember in different places in your room so later you can "look" around and see them.)
Music / Poem
Creating a song or poem makes it easier for one to remember ideas through lyrics.

(ex: ABC song, Planet song, etc.)
Acronyms
Word or words that are made of the first letters of a list of things or a phrase.

(ex: Making a sentence to remember the random letters in a password, or PEMDAS to remember the order of operations in math.)
Cross Words
Creating an easy-to-remember phrase in which the first letter of each word corresponds to the first letter of words in a list that is hard to remember.

(Ex: King Philip Came Over From Great Spain to help remember Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order...)
Recall
Remembering something without being given any options to choose from.

(Ex: Fill-in-the-blank test)
Recognition
Knowing the correct information by picking it out of a list.

(Ex: A multiple choice test, or picking the person you remember out of a group of people.)
Retrieval Cues
Something that helps you remember by triggering a connection to your memory.

(Ex: Going to the room where you last used something you've lost to try to remember what you last did with it.)
Forgetting
Loss of information from long-term memory
Encoding Failure
Failure to process information into memory. Basically, you can't remember something because you never really remembered it correctly in the first place.
Absentmindedness
A kind of encoding failure that happens when we are not paying attention to the thing we need to remember.

(Ex: Using your phone in class so you don't remember the lesson.)
Memory Trace Decay / Storage Decay
Over time, if not used, connections in our brains can weaken or be lost causing a loss of memory.

(Example: Forgetting a language you once knew if you never speak or hear it. Tip: Imagine a path in the forrest getting overgrown and lost if no one ever walks it.)
Tip-of-the-Tongue Phenomenon
The temporary inability to remember something you know, accompanied by a feeling that it's just out of reach.
Transience
The slow fading of memories over time. This is most common with episodic memory as we forget things that happened long ago.
Hermann Ebbinghaus
Psychologist who studied memory. He came up with the idea of the Forgetting Curve
The Forgetting Curve
A famous graph created by Ebbinghaus showing that we forget a lot of novel/new information quickly, but retain some information for a long time.
Motivated Forgetting
When our brain blocks some memories on purpose, such as when we forget something traumatic or frightening.
Repression
Defense mechanism by which anxiety-provoking thoughts and feelings are forced to the unconscious.
Proactive Interference
When past or old information that you've already learned disrupts the learning and recall of new information

(ex: It's hard to remember your new phone number because you still have the old one stuck in your head, or calling your new girlfriend your old girlfriend's name!)
Retroactive Interference
When new information makes it difficult to recall old information.

(ex: You forget your old address because you started to memorize your new one.)
Anterograde Amnesia
When you forget things that happened AFTER a traumatic event.

(Ex: You fall and hit your head and can't remember going to the hospital even though you were awake and talking to people.)

(Tip: A for After)
Retrograde Amnesia
When you forget things that happened BEFORE a traumatic event.

(Ex: You can't remember anything that happened at school on the day you had a concussion at after-school volleyball practice.)
Constructive Memory
The act of remembering by putting together all the bits of information about something that you can remember and filling in the blanks with what makes the most sense.

(Ex: Think of our memories like building something out of Legos rather than like a video we can replay.)
Suggestibility
Our memory is easily influenced by misinformation from external sources that leads to the creation of false memories.

(Ex: A police officer asking "How tall was the suspect?" causing you to think the person was tall.)
Elisabeth Loftus
Psychologist who studied memory and developed the ideas of the misinformation effect and constructed memories.
Misinformation Effect
When outside information causes us to remember something incorrectly.
Illusion of Memory
We think we remember more than we actually remember. This is partly due to the fact that memories are constructed so although we are filling in the blanks in our memory when we recall something we don't realize it.
Priming
the activation, often unconsciously, of particular associations in memory
False Memory Syndrome
the creation of inaccurate or false memories through the suggestion of others, often while the person is under hypnosis
Source Amnesia
Not having a memory for how, when, or where information was learned.

(Ex: Forgetting which friend told you a story.)
Bias
Prejudice in favor of or against one thing, person, or group compared with another. In memory, it causes us to remember some things more than others, or in an incorrect way.
Source Misattribution
When you incorrectly remember when or where information came from.

(Ex: Thinking you read something from your textbook but actually you saw it on YouTube.)
State Dependent / Mood Congruent Memory
The tendency to recall experiences that are consistent with one's current mood.

(Ex: When you make your mom mad she can suddenly remember every bad thing you ever did.)
Place-Based / Context Dependent Memory / Encoding Specificity
We can remember things best in the place we learned them.

(Ex: The best place to take a psychology test will be in our classroom or the place you did your notes.)
Pollyanna Principle
The tendency for people to remember happier or positive things.

(Ex: You can probably remember your favorite teachers from elementary school but have forgotten the teachers you didn't like as much.)
Self-Reference Effect
Tendency for an individual to have better memory for information that relates to oneself in comparison to material that has less personal relevance.

(Ex: You can remember our own experiences of a family trip but you probably forgot about things that happened to your family members on the same trip.)
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