Memory systems
This initial stage of memory registers sensory information for only a few seconds before it fades.
What is sensory memory?
The process of getting information into memory.
What is encoding?
Memories of facts and experiences that you can consciously declare.
What are explicit memories?
A condition in which someone cannot form new memories after an injury.
What is anterograde amnesia?
Charles Spearman proposed that this general intelligence factor underlies all mental abilities.
What is the g factor?
This type of memory holds about 7 ± 2 bits of information briefly before it’s stored or forgotten.
What is short-term memory?
The process of maintaining information over time.
What is storage?
Memory that happens automatically, such as skills and conditioned responses.
What is implicit memory?
When newly learned information interferes with recalling old information.
What is retroactive interference?
The chronological age that most typically corresponds to a given level of test performance.
What is mental age?
This system actively processes information in short-term storage, combining new info with old.
What is working memory?
The process of getting information out of memory storage.
What is retrieval?
Memory for general knowledge, concepts, and meanings of words.
What is semantic memory?
When misleading information gets incorporated into a person’s memory of an event.
What is the misinformation effect?
The type of intelligence that involves accumulated knowledge and skills.
What is crystallized intelligence?
This memory system has a virtually limitless capacity and can last a lifetime.
What is long-term memory?
Retrieving information without any cues, as on a fill-in-the-blank test.
What is recall?
Memory of personally experienced events.
What is episodic memory?
A condition in which someone cannot recall old memories from before an injury.
What is retrograde amnesia?
The extent to which a test measures what it is intended to measure.
What is content validity?
This brief visual sensory memory allows you to recall an image for a fraction of a second.
What is iconic memory?
Identifying information that you’ve already learned, as on a multiple-choice test.
What is recognition?
Vivid, emotionally charged memories of significant events (like 9/11).
What is flashbulb memory?
When old information interferes with learning new information.
What is proactive interference?
The type of intelligence that involves reasoning, problem-solving, and abstract thinking.
What is fluid intelligence?