

http://quizlet.com/36118725/ap-psych-unit-8cognitive-memory-flash-cards/
http://quizlet.com/19164639/ap-psychmyers-unit-7b-flash-cards/


Any indication that learning has persisted over
time
Two Models
Three Box Model of Memory
 Information Processing Model

Sensory
Memory
Short-Term
Memory
Long-Term
Memory
• Some memory is
lost because it is
not encoded
• More Memory is
lost because it is
not encoded
• Some information
is lost due to
retrieval failure
Encoding
Storage
Retrieval


Split-second holding tank, holds info less than
a second
Demonstrated by George Sperling
Flashed a grid of nine letters for 1/20th of a second,
participants could recall either the top, middle, or
bottom rows perfectly
 Tone (high, medium, or low) used as a cue as to
what row to remember
Q
L
M
 Entire grid is held in memory for
W
P
X
a split second

T
E
V


Iconic- visual Echoic-auditory (slightly longer3-4 seconds)
Most of the information is never encodedselective attention

What we are attending to or what we consider to be
important
 Cocktail party phenomenon




Everything we are currently thinking about
Fades in 10-30 seconds
Capacity- Magic Number 7
Limit can be expanded with

Chunking (including mnemonic devices)
 Phone numbers

Rehearsal- simple repetition


Permanent memory, unlimited capacity
Can decay or fade
Episodic
Semantic
Procedural
• Memories of
specific
events
• General
knowledge
of the world,
stored as
facts,
meanings,
and
categories
• Memories of
skills and
how to
perform
them; might
be
complicated
to explain in
words

Can also be:



Explicit (declarative)- conscious memories of facts or
events we have actively remembered
Implicit (nondeclarative)- unintentional memories
we might not even realize we have
Eidetic (photographic) memories- very rare!




Alternate way to think about memory
Elaborately (Deeply) Processed- will likely to
be remembered later, more time spent studying
Maintenance (Shallowly) Processed- will be
forgotten quickly (cramming)
Explains why we remember stories
better than simple repetition


Recognition- matching a current event or
fact with one already in memory
(multiple choice test)
Recall- retrieving a memory with an
external cue


Primacy-recency effect/
serial position effect- more
likely to remember the
first and the last items on a
list
Semantic network theory- our brain
forms new memories by connecting them
to memories already present


Flashbulb memories- encode
the context of an effect
Mood congruent memoryrecall better when mood is
the same

Phonemes- smallest units of sound in a
language (English-44)


Morpheme- smallest units of meaningful
sound


Ph, sh, a, l
Ing, -s, anti-
Syntax- specific order in which words are
written and spoken

Each language has its own syntax

State-dependent memory- more likely to
remember when in same state of consciousness


Alcohol and Drugs
Constructive memories- may report false
details that never occurred


Elizabeth Loftus
Leading questions can easily influence us

Relearning effect- relearning forgotten
information is quicker the second time around



languages
Proactive interference- learning new
information interferes when recalling old
information
Retroactive interference- older information
learned previously interferes with the recall of
information learned more recently
Babbling
Stage-
One-Word
Stage
• Beginning at 3 to 4 months
• Spontaneously utters various sounds at first unrelated to the household language
• from about age 1 to 2
• speaks mostly in single words
• Sometimes called holophrastic
• beginning about age 2
Two-Word • speaks mostly two-word statements
Stage-
• early speech stage in which the child speaks like a telegram – “go car”
• uses mostly nouns and verbs and omitting “auxiliary” words
Telegraphic
• Also overgeneralizes
Speech

Skinner- Operant Conditioning


Association, imitation, and reinforcement
Noam Chomsky- Inborn Universal Grammar
Language Acquisition Device
 Acquire grammar and language without being taught
 Over-generalizing


Linguistic Relativity

Whorfs hypothesis that language determines
the way we think
 Supported by few studies- labeling has more
of an impact

Concept

mental grouping of similar objects, events, or people
 Address- country, city, street, house

Prototype
the best example of a category
 matching new items to the prototype provides a quick
and easy method for including items in a category (as
when comparing feathered creatures to a prototypical
bird, such as a robin.)


Image

Mental picture we create in our minds of the outside
world

Algorithm


methodical, logical rule or procedure that guarantees
solving a particular problem
Heuristic




rule-of-thumb strategy that often allows us to make
judgments and solve problems efficiently
usually speedier than algorithms
more error-prone than algorithms
sometimes we’re unaware of using heuristics

Availability Heuristic

judging a situation based on examples of similar
situations that come to mind initially
Representativeness Heuristic
judging a situation based on how similar aspects are
to prototypes the person holds in his or her mind
 A young person is more likely to commit suicide
 An old person is more likely to be a poor driver

Overconfidence


Belief Bias


tendency to be more confident than correct
the tendency for one’s preexisting beliefs to
distort logical reasoning
Belief Perseverance

clinging to one’s initial conceptions after the
basis on which they were formed has been
discredited

Functional Fixedness


Confirmation Bias


tendency to think of things only in terms of their
usual functions
tendency to search for information that confirms
one’s preconceptions
Framing

the way an issue is posed

1) Mr. Krohn, a carpenter is frustrated because he
misplaced is hammer and needs to pound in the
last nail in the bookcase he is building. He
overlooks the fact that he could huse the tennis
trophy sitting above the workbench to pound in
the nail. Which concept best explains why Mr.
Krohn overlooked the trophy?





Representativeness heuristic
Retrieval
Functional fixedness
Belief bias
Divergent thinking

2)Which of the following is an example of the use
of the representativeness heuristic?





A) Judging that a young person is more likely to be the
instigator of an argument than an older person, because
you believe that younger people are more likely to start
fights
Breaking a math story problem down into smaller,
representative parts, in order to solve it
Judging a situation by a rule that is usually, but not
always, true
Solving a problem with a rule that guarantees the right,
more representative answer
Making a judgment according to past experiences that are
most easily recalled, therefore representative of
experience

3) Which sentence most accurately describes
sensory memory?





Sensory memory stores all memory input perfectly
accurately for a short period of time
Sensory memory encodes only sensations we are
attending to at the time
Sensory memory records all incoming sensations and
remembers them indefinitely
Sensory memory receives memories from the working
memory and decides which memories to encode in longterm memory
Sensory memory records some sensations accurately, but
some are recorded incorrectly, leading to constructive
memory

4) Which of the following would be the best piece
of evidence for the nativist theory of language
acquisition?





A child who acquires language at an extremely early age
through intense instruction by his/her parents
Statistical evidence that children in one culture learn
language faster than children in another culture
A child of normal mental ability not being able to learn
language due to language deprivation at an early age
A child skipping the babbling and telegraphic speech
stages of language acquisition
A child deprived of language at an early age successfully
learning language later

5) Recall is more difficult than recognition
because





Memories retrieved by recognition are held in
working memory, and recalled memories are in
long-term memory
Memories retrieved by recognition are more deeply
processed
The process of recall involves cues to the memory
that causes interference
Memories retrieved by recognition are more recent
than memories retrieved be recall
The process of recognition involves matching a
person, event, or object with something already in
memory