Unit 5 - cognition pt 1

Persistence of learning over time

Includes

-encoding

-storage

-retrieval of info

Measure of memory when a person must retrieve information learned earlier

-fill in the blank question

Measure of memory when the person identifies previously learned info

-multiple choice questions

Measure of memory when learning something a second time

-learning information that was previously learned faster than the 1st time

Getting info into the memory system

-Making information meaningful

Retains encoded info over time

Getting info out of memory storage

Processing multiple things at the same time

-natural mode of info processing for many functions

Brief recording of sensory info in the memory system

• shortest time info is held

Holds a few items briefly, before the info is stored and forgotten

Miller’s number 7 theory - you can hold 5-9 items in short term memory

• (7 +/- 2)

• least amount held

Relatively permanent and limitless storehouse of the memory system

• knowledge

• skills

• experiences

Conscious, active processing of auditory/visual info and info retrieved from long-term memory

• type of short-term memory

• will go away if not rehearsed or connected to something in long term memory

Retention of facts and experiences (conscious)

• aka declarative memory

Encoding requiring attention and conscious effort

Unconscious encoding

• space

• time

• frequency

• well learned info (word meanings)

Retention of learned skills or classically conditioned association

• unconscious recollection

• aka nondeclarative memory

A moment of a picture-image memory

(sensory memory)

A moment of the ability to recall sounds and words within 3 or 4 seconds even if your attention is elsewhere

• sounds

• sensory memory

Organizing information into manageable units or similar groups of info

• occurs automatically

Vivid imagery and organization devices to aid memory

Distributed practice in order to have better long-term retention

Active retrieval instead of rereading information

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• aka retrieval practice effect

  • test-enhanced learning

Encoding on a basic level

• Structure or appearance of words

Encoding based on meaning (meaning of words)

• tends to yield the best retention

• explicit memory

• Facts and general knowledge

• one of two conscious memory systems

• explicit memory

• personally experienced events

• one of two conscious memory systems

• located in the limbic system

• helps process for storage of explicit (conscious) memories of facts and events

Neural storage of a long-term memory

Clear, sustained memory of an emotionally significant moment/event

• Increase in cell’s firing potential after brief rapid simulation

• neural basis for learning and memory

• all or nothing response

Unconscious activation of certain associations causing changes to one’s perception, memory, or response

Cues and contexts specific to a memory will be most effective in helping the recall

Tendency to recall experiences that are consistent to current good or bad mood

Recalling the last and first items in a list

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• last (recency effect)

• first (primary effect)

Inability to form new memories

• 50 first dates

Inability to retrieve info from one’s past

• dory

Disruptive effect of older learning on the recall of new information

• Affecting the new

Disruptive effect of newer learning on the recall of old information

• Affecting the old

Banishes memories from consciousness that are anxiety-arousing thoughts, feelings, and memories

• defense mechanism

Previous stored memories when retrieved are altered before being stored again

Misleading information distorts one’s memory of an event

Faulty memory of how, when, or where info was learned or imagined

• aka misattribution

• heart of many false memories

Eerie sense that “I’ve experienced this before”

• cues may unconsciously trigger retrieval of an earlier experience

What information do we process automatically?

How does sensory memory work?

What are some effortful processing strategies that can help us remember new information?

information composed of a few broad concepts divided and subdivided into narrower concepts and facts

What roles do the cerebellum and basal ganglia play in memory processing?

How reliable are young children’s eyewitness descriptions?

Ex: “One is a bun, two is a shoe, three is a tree, four is a door”

we recall information we can meaningfully relate to ourselves

• Conducted research about the response speed when recalling or recognizing information indicates memory strength

• Pioneer memory researcher

• forgetting curve

• Explained memory forming process

• Miller’s magic number

• short-term/working memory can only hold 5-9 pieces of memory at a time

• Observed synaptic changes during learning in neurons

• Long-term potentiation

• Demonstrated how memory works and how it can be altered by external factors

interferes with memory and reconstructs it

Why is memory unreliable?

Activities associated with thinking, knowing, and remembering

A mental image or best example of a category

• when someone says flower people think rose before orchid

Ability to produce new and valuable ideas

Determining the single best solution

• expanding the # of possible solutions

• diverges in different directions

Logical rule or procedure that guarantees solving a problem.

• takes longer but there are less errors

Simple thinking strategy to make judgments and solve problems efficiently/quicker

• More likely for errors

A sudden realization of a solution that contrasts with strategy-based solutions

• aha moment

Tendency to seek evidence for our ideas over evidence against our ideas

Cognition - inability to see a new perspective (obstacle to problem solving)

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Personality theory - seeks more pleasurable solutions

-tendency to approach a problem in one way that was successful in the past

Automatic feeling or thought

• goes against explicit reasoning

Estimating likelihood of events based on particular prototypes

• may lead us to ignore relevant info

Estimating the likelihood of events based on available memory

• being more confident than correct

• overestimating the accuracy of our beliefs and judgements

Clinging onto initial conception despite info that discredited that conception

How an issue is worded can affect decisions and judgements

Combining words to communicate meaning

• spoken

• written

• signed

The smallest distinctive sound unit

Smallest unit that carries meaning

• might be a word or part of a word

• ex: prefix

Language’s set of rules that allows people to communicate

• stage of speech development

• infant spontaneously utters sounds at first unrelated to the household language

• begins at 4 months

• speaks with one word

• age 1-2

• says cookie (when wanting a snack)

• speaks in two word statements

• begins about age 2

• mostly uses nouns and verbs

Ex: go car

Impairment of language

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impairing of speaking

impairing understanding

Broca’s area controls

Wernicke’s area controls

Whorf’s hypothesis aka Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis

• language controls the way we think and see the world around us

• Weaker form of linguistic relativism

• idea that language affects thought

Language that you are raised in determines the kind of thoughts you will have

Believed creativity has 5 components

• expertise

• imaginative thinking skills

• a venturesome personality

• intrinsic motivation

• creative environment

Showed that humans aren’t the only ones to display insight

Researched representativeness and availability heuristics

Noted that noises contain information

• Argued that the brain had a built-in predisposition to learn grammar rules

• Language is learned naturally

• Discovered Broca’s area

• Found when damaged people can’t speak

• Discovered Wernicke’s area

• Found  when damage people don’t understand language

• Hypothesized language itself shapes a person's basic ideas

• Linguistic determinism