Memory

Question 1

Explicit memory

Answer 1

• declarative
• facts and experiences we consciously know and declare
• encoded through conscious effortful processing (encoding that requires attention and conscious effort)

Question 2

Implicit memories

Answer 2

• nondeclarative
• uses automatic processing (happens without our awareness, produces some things we can know without actively thinking about them)
• includes procedural memory for automatic skills (riding a bike, knitting) and classically conditioned associations among stimuli (tensing when seeing a dog after getting bit a decade ago)
• automatic processing includes info about space, time, and frequency

Question 3

iconic memory and echoic memory

Answer 3

• iconic memory is a fleeting sensory memory of a visual stimuli; for a few tenths of a second our eyes register a picture-image memory and we can recall any part of it in amazing detail
• echoic memory is an impeccable, fleeting memory for auditory stimuli; lingers for 3-4 seconds

Question 4

short term memory capacity

Answer 4

• we tend to remember about six letters and five words
• active processing after being exposed to new info is crucial to short term memory capacity

Question 5

shallow vs. deep processing + Craik/Tulving

Answer 5

• shallow processing encodes on an elementary level, such as a word’s letters or a word’s sound
• deep processing encodes semantically, based on the meaning of the words… the deeper the processing, the better our retention
• Craik and Tulving showed that the deeper processing in third q yielded much better memory

Question 6

the self-reference effect

Answer 6

• the tendency to remember self-relevant info
• is especially strong in individualist western cultures
• people from collectivist eastern cultures are more likely to remember self-relevent and family-relevant info equally well

Question 7

explicit memory types

Answer 7

• semantic: facts and general knowledge
• episodic: personally experienced events
• network that processes and stores new explicit memories for facts and episodes includes the frontal lobes and hippocampus
• summoning past experience sends input to the prefrontal cortex (front part of the frontal lobes) for working memory processing
• recalling a password is left frontal lobe, a visual party is right frontal lobe
• women’s episodic memory passes mens

Question 8

hippocampus function in memory

Answer 8

• grows as children mature
• left hippocampus damage means trouble remembering verbal info but no trouble recalling visual designs and locations… this is reversed with right damage
• rear area processes spatial memory

Question 9

memory consolidation

Answer 9

• the neural storage of a long-term memory
• memories are registered and temporarily held in the hippocampus and is then migrated to the cortex for storage
• the hippocampus and cortex display simultaneous activity rhythms during sleep, as if having a dialogue

Question 10

Parts of the brain and their corresponding memory-related function

Answer 10

• basal ganglia and cerebellum: implicit memory formation
• amygdala: emotion-related memory processing
• frontal lobes and hippocampus: explicit memory formation

Question 11

stress and memory

Answer 11

• stress focuses memory by provoking the amygdala to initiate a memory trace (a lasting physical change as the memory forms that boosts activity in the brain’s memory-forming areas)
• stronger emotional experiences make for stronger more reliable memories, in part because we rehearse them… but are still prone to some error with time
• produces tunnel vision memory (focus attention and recall on high priority info and reduce recall of irrelevant details)

Question 12

Kandel and James Schwartz

Answer 12

• used a slug to determine it releases more serotonin into certain neurons
• this makes the cells’ synapses become more efficient at transmitting signals
• experience and learning can increase and even double the number of synapses

Question 13

long term poteniation

Answer 13

• an increase in a nerve cell’s firing potential after brief, rapid stimulation
• the sending neuron needs less prompting to release its neurotransmitter and more connections exist after rapidly stimulating certain memory circuit connections
• a physical basis for memory
• after ltp has occured, passing an electric current through the brain won’t disrupt old memories, but will wipe out very recent memories
• glutamate and creb enhance ltp

Question 14

prospective and retrospective memory

Answer 14

• prospective memory retrieves memories for our intended future actions
• retrospective memory is used to retrieve memories from our past
• reminenscence therapy uses the power of retrieval cues to help people recall older memories

Question 15

encoding specificity principle

Answer 15

• the idea that cues and contexts specific to a particular memory will be most effective in helping us recall it

Question 16

mood-congruent memory

Answer 16

the tendency to recall experiences that are consistent with one’s current good or bad mood

Question 17

serial position effect

Answer 17

-our tendency to recall best the last (recency effect) and first (primacy effect) items in a list
-right after getting new info, last is easier bc of working memory, but after a delay the recall is best for the first items

Question 18

reconsolidation

Answer 18

a process in which previously stored memories, when retrieved, are potentially altered before being stored again

Question 19

misinformation effect

Answer 19

• occurs when a memory has been corrupted by misleading information

Question 20

deja vu

Answer 20

• seems to be familiarity with a stimlus and our uncertainty about where we encountered it before
• normally we experience a feeling of familiarity (termporal lobe processing) before we consciously remember details (bc of frontal and hippocampus processing)
• when these functions and brain regions are out of sync we may experience a feeling of familiarity without conscious recall