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Chapter 7 Notes - Coggle Diagram
Chapter 7 Notes
Why does Memory Sometimes Fail Us?
Transience: Fading Memories Cause Forgetting
Transience
The Impermanence of a Long Term Memory
Transience is based on the idea that long term memories gradually fade in strength over time
Forgetting Curve
A graph plotting the amount of retention and forgetting over time for a certain batch of material
Steep at first, becoming flatter as time goes on
Absent Mindedness
Forgetting caused by lapses in attention
Examples: misplacing car keys
Blocking
Forgetting that occurs when an item in memory cannot be accessed or retrieved. Blocking is caused by intereference
Proactive Interference
A cause of forgetting by which previously stored information prevents learning and remembering new information
Retroactive Interference
A cause of forgetting by which newly learend information prevents retrieval of previously stored material
Serial position effect
A form of interference related to the sequence in which information is presented. Generaly, items in the middle of the sequence are less well remembered than the items presented first or last
Example: you are more likely to remember the names of those you met first and last when you meet a series of people
Misattribution: Memories in the Wrong Context
Misattribution
A memory fault that occurs when memoeis are retrieved but are associated with the wrong time, place, or person
Suggestibility: External Cues Distort or Create Memories
Suggestibility
The process of memory distortion as the result of deliberate or inadverdent solution
Misinformation Effect
The distortion of memory by suggestion or misinformation
Factors Affecting the Accuracy of Eyewitnesses
People's recollections are less influenced by leading questions if they are forewarned that interrogations can create memory bias
When the passage of time allows the original memory to fade, people are more likely to misremember information
Each time a memory is retrieved, it is reconstructed and then restored, which increaes the chances of error
The age of the witness matters: children and seniors may be especially susceptible to influence by misinformation in their accuracy to recall
Confidence in a memory is not a sign of an accurate memory. In fact, misinformed individuals can accuratelt come to believe the misinformation in which they feel confidence
Bias
Expectancy Bias
In memory, a tendency to distort recalled events to make them fit one's expectations
Self-consistenct bias
Commonly held idea that we are more consistent in our attitudes, opinions, and beliefs than we actually are
An attitude, belief, emotion, or experience that distorts memories
Persistence: When We Can't Forget
A memory probkem in which unwanted memories cannot be put out of mind
Mnemotics
Techniques for improving memory, especially by making connections between new material and material established in long term memory
Method of Loci
A mnemotic technique that involves associating items on a list with a sequence of familiar physical locations
Natural Language Mediators
Words associated with new information to be remembered
Judging and Making Decisions
Hindsight Bias
The tendency, after learning about an event, to "second guess" or believe that one could have predicted the event in advance
Confirmation Bias
Anchoring Bias
A faulty heuristic caused by basing (anchoring) an estimate on a completely unrelated quantity
Representativeness Bias
A faulty heuristic strategy based on the presumption that once people or events are categorized, they share all the features of other members in that category
Availability Bias
A faulty heuristic strategy that estimates probabilities based on information that can be recalled (made available) from personal experience
Creativity
A mental process that produces novel responses that contribute to the solution of problems
Aptitudes
How Do Children Acquire Language?
Language Acquisition Device, or LAD
A biologically organized mental structure in the brain that facilitates the learning of language because (according to Chomsky) it is innately programmed with some of the fundamental rules of grammar
Innateness Theory of Language
Children learn language mainly by following an inborn program for acquiring vocabulary and grammar
Early stages for acquiring languages include:
The babbling stage
The one-word stage
The two-word stage
Telegraphic speech (short, simple
sentences)
The naming explosion
Rules of Grammar
Grammar
The rules of a language, specifying how to use words, morephemes, and syntax to produce understandable sentences
Morephemes
The meaningful units of language that make up words. Some whole words are morephemes, while other morephemes are gramatical compartments that alter a word's meaning
Overregularization
Applying a grammatical rule too widely and thereby creating incorrect forms
Computer Metaphor
The idea that the brain is an information-processing organ that operates, in some ways, like a computer
How do we form memories?
Sensory memory
The first of the three memory stages, preserving brief impressions of stimuli
Actual capacity of sensory memory can be twelve or more items
All but three or more items disappear before they enter conciousness
Psychologists belueve that memory images take the form of nerve impulses
Working memory
The second of three memory stages, and the most limited in capacity. It preserves recently percieved events or experiences for less than a minute without rehearsal
Consists of
Central Executive
Phonological Loop
Sketchpad
Chunking
Organizing pieces of information into a smaller number of meaningful units (or chunks)-a process that frees up space in working memory
Maintenance rehearsal
A working memory proecess in which information is merely repeated or reviewed to keep it from fading while in working memory. Maintenance rehearsal involves no active elaboration
Elaborate rehearsing
A working-memory process in which information is activelt reviewed and related to information already in LTM
Acoustic Encoding
The conversion of information, especially semantic information, to sound patterns in working memory
Levels of processing theory
The explanation for the fact that information that is more connected to meaningful items in long term memory (more "deeply" processed) will be remembered better
Long term memory
The third of the three memory stages, with the largest capacity and longest duration; LTM stores material organized according to meaning
uses its capacity to store all the experiences, events, information, emotions, skills, words, categories, and judgements that were transferred in working memory
Procedural Memory
A division of LTM that stores memories for how things are done
Retrograde amnesia
inability to remember information previously stored in memory
Can be caused by things such as a blow to the head or an electric shock
Memories can be enhanced by emotional arousal
Flashbulb memory
A clear and vivid long term memory of an especially meaningful and emotional event
Ex: Winning an Oscar
Many people have formed the same flashbulb memories of certain events
9/11
Hurricane Katrina
Raptors winning the Championship
Declarative memory
A division of LTM that stores explicit information; also known as fact memory
two subdivisions
episodic memory
A subdivision of declarative memory that stores memory of personal events, or episodes
semantic memory
Engram
The physical trace of memory
Anteretrograde Amnesia
Inability to form memories for new
information
How Do We Retrieve Memories?
Implicit Memories
A memory that was not deliberately learned or of which you have no concious awareness
Can affect your behaviour but which you did not deliberately learn or of which you currently have no awareness of
Retrieving Implicit Memories by Priming
Priming
A technique for cuing implicit memories by providing cues that stimulate a memory without awareness of the connection between the cue and retrieved memory
Priming makes it easier to make connection between the cue and stimulated memory
Explicit Memories
Memory that has been processed with attention and can be conciously recalled
Retrieval Cues
Stimuli that are used to bring a memory to conciousness or into behaviour
Can be used to bring back a long dormant experience
Recall and Recognition
Recall
A retrieval method in which one must reproduce previously presented information
Recognition
A retrieval method in which one must identify present stimuli as having been previously presented
Other Factors Affecting Retrieval
Encoding Specificity Principle
The doctrine that memory is encoded and stored with specific cues related to the context in which it was formed. The more closely the retrieval cues match the form in which the information was encoded, the better it wil be remembered
Mood congruent memory
A memory process that selectively retrieves memories that match one’s mood
Tip of the Tongue Phenomenon
The inability to recall a word while knowing it is in memory
people describe this frustrating experience as having the word "on the tip of the tongue"
What Are the Components of Thought
Concepts
Mental representations of categories of items and ideas, based on experience
Natural Concepts
Mental represenation of objects and events drawn from our direct experience
Prototype
An ideal or most representative example of a conceptual category
Artificial Conceps
Concepts defined by rules, such as word definitions and mathematical formulas
Concept hierarchies
Levels of concepts from most general to most specific in which a more general level includes more specific concepts-as the concept of "animal" includes "dog", "giraffe", and "butterfly"
Thought and the Brain
Event-Related Potential
Brain waves shown on an EEG in
response to stimulation
Schemas and Scripts
Schemas
A knowledge cluster or general framework that provides expectations about topics, events, objects, people, and situations in one’s life
Scripts
A cluster of knowledge about sequences of events and actions expected to occur in particular settings
What Abilities do Good Thinkers Possess?
Problem Solving
Good problem solvers are skilled at
Identifying the problem
Selecting a strategy
Algorithms
Problem-solving procedures or formulas that guarantee a correct outcome, if properly applied
Heuristics
cognitive strategies or "rules of thumb" used as shortcuts to solve complex mental tsaks. Unlike algorithms, heuristics do not guarantee a correct solution
Useful heuristics include:
Working backward
Searching for analogies
Breaking a big problem into smaller
problems
Obstacles to Problem Solving
Mental Set
The tendency to respond to a new problem in the manner used for a previous problem
Functional Fixedness
The inability to percieve a new use for an object associated with a different purpose; a form of mental set
What Is Memory?
Any system-human, animal or machine- that encodes, stores, and retrieves information
Memory's Three Basic Tasks
information-processing model
A cognitive understanding of memory, emphasizing how information is changed when it is encoded, stored, and retrieved
Encoding
One of the three basic tasks of memory, involving the modification of information to fit the preferred format for the memory system
Storage
One of the three basic tasks of memory, involving the retention of encoded material over time
Retrieval
The third basic task memory, involving the location and recovery of information from memory