Chapter 8 Terms Amnesia the loss of memory Rehearsal the conscious repetition of information either to maintain it in consciousness or to encode it for storage Mnemonics memory aids especially those techniques that use vivid imagery and organizational devices Priming the activation often unconsciously of particular associations in memory Recognition a measure of memory in which the person need only identify items previously learned as on a multiple choice test Chunking organizing items into familiar manageable units often occurs automatically Spacing Effect the tendency for distributed study or practice to yield better long term retention than is achieved through massed study or practice Photographic Memory Flashbulb memories a clear memory of an emotionally significant moment or event Serial Position Effect our tendency to recall best the last and first items in a list Sperling s partial report 7 2 Patient HM most famous case in which a patient experienced in 1953 the necessary surgical removal of a brain area involved in laying new conscious memories of facts and experiences The brain tissue loss left his older memories intact at last repot he was still doing daily crossword puzzles But converting new experiences to long term stprage was another matter Concepts Sensory Memory the immediate very brief recording of sensory information in the memory system Iconic memory a momentary sensory memory of visual stimuli a photographic or picture image memory lasting no more than a few tenths of a second Echoic memory a momentary sensory memory of auditory stimuli if attention is elsewhere sounds and words can still be recalled within 3 or 4 seconds Short Term Memory activated memory that holds a few items briefly such as the seven digits of a phone number while dialing before the information is stored or forgotten Long term Memory the relatively permanent and limitless storehouse of the memory system Includes knowledge skill and experience Implicit memory retention independent of conscious recollection processed in the hippocampus also called nondeclarative memory They can learn how to do something Explicit memory memory of facts and experiences that one can consciously know and declare Processed by other brain areas including the cerebellum Also called declarative memory Hippocampus a neural center that is located in the limbic system helps process explicit memories for storage Cerebellum plays an important part in our forming and storing of implicit memories Encoding the processing of information into the memory system Storage the retention of encoded information over time Maintenance Retrieval the process of getting information out of memory storage Automatic processing unconscious encoding of incidental information such as space time and frequency and of well learned information such as word meanings Effortful processing encoding that requires attention and conscious effort Rehearsal the conscious repetition of information either to maintain it in consciousness or to encode it for storage Proactive interference forward acting the disruptive effect of prior learning on the recall of new information Retroactive interference backward acting the disruptive effect of new learning on the recall of old information Constructive memory Chapter 9 Terms Cognition the mental activities associated with thinking knowing remembering and communicating Concept a mental grouping of similar objects events ideas or people Prototype a mental image or best example of a category Matching new items to a prototype provides a quick and easy method for sorting items into categories as when comparing feathered creatures to a prototypical bird such as a robin Trial and Error Heuristic a simple thinking strategy that often allows us to make judgments and solve problems efficiently usually speedier but also more error prone than algorithms Algorithm a methodical logical rule or procedure that guarantees solving a particular problem Contrasts with the usually speedier but also more error prone use of heuristics Insight a sudden and often novel realization f the solution to a problem it contrasts with strategy based solutions Fixation the inability to see a problem from a new perspective by employing a different mental set Mental set a tendency to approach a problem in one particular way often a way that has been successful in the past Functional Fixedness the tendency to think only in terms of their usual functions an impediment to problem solving Overconfidence the tendency to be more confident than correct to overestimate the accuracy of our beliefs and judgments Belief Perseverance clinging to one s initial conceptions after the basis on which they were formed has been discredited Confirmation bias a tendency to search for information that supports our preconceptions and to ignore or distort contradictory evidence Intuition an effortless immediate automatic feeling or thought as contrasted with explicit conscious reasoning Framing the way an issue is posed how an issue is framed can significantly affect decisions and judgments Aphasia impairment of language usually cause by left hemisphere damage either to Broca s areas impairing speaking or to Wrnickes s area impairing understanding Broca s area controls language expression an area of the frontal lobe usually in the left hemisphere that directs the muscle movements involved in speech Wenicke s area controls language reception a brain area involved in language comprehension and expression usually in the left temporal lobe Concepts Language our spoken written or signed words and the ways we combine them to communicate meaning Linguistic Determinism Whorf s hypothesis that language determines the way we think Stages of Language 4 months babbles many speech sounds babbling stage the infant spontaneously utters various sounds at first unrelated to the household language 10 months babbling resembles household language 12 months one word stage the stage in speech development from about age 1 to during which a child speaks mostly in single words 24 months two word stage a child mostly speaks 2 word statement Telegraphic speech a child speaks like a telegram go car using mostly nouns and verbs 24 months language develops rapidly into complete sentences Grammar in a language a system of rules that enable us to communicate with and understand others Semantics the set of rules by which we derive meaning from morphemes words and sentences in a given language also the
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