Memory Mechanics
I'll Never Forget
I Can't Remember
Problem-Solving Hacks
Brain Games
100
The relatively permanent and limitless storehouse of the memory system.
What is long term memory?
100
This strategy uses the first letter of bit of information in a sequence to be able to easily remember the sequence. Example: P.E.M.D.A.S or ROY G. BIV
What is an acronym?
100
Like footprints in the sand after the tide rolls in, this type of memory failure happens when information slowly fades away simply because time passes.
What is decay?
100
When someone approaches a task already convinced it will be easy—or impossibly hard—their performance often shifts to match that belief, thanks to this concept describing how prior beliefs shape outcomes.
What is an expectancy?
100
It’s the mental habit that leads someone researching “Are cats better than dogs?” to click only the articles that say yes—because they’re unconsciously hunting for evidence that supports what they already believe.
What is a confirmation bias?
200
The immediate, very brief recording of sensations experienced in the memory system.
What is sensory memory?
200
A type of device to help enhance memory like Acrostics, Method of Loci, Chunking.
What are Mnemonic devices?
200
Forgetting someone's name right after being introduced because you didn’t actively focus on it is an example of this type of memory failure.
What is encoding failure?
200
After seeing a news story once, your brain suddenly thinks it’s happening everywhere—this mental shortcut, where easily recalled examples feel more common than they really are.
What is availability bias?
200
When someone keeps trying to solve a new puzzle the same way they solved the last one—even when that old approach no longer works—they’re stuck in this problem‑solving mindset that favors familiar strategies over fresh ones.
What is a mental set?
300
The ability to focus on one specific stimulus while ignoring others. For example, when you're having a conversation with someone, you're only listening to their words and not to the background noise.
What is selective attention?
300
A process where information is repeatedly verbalized to keep it in short-term memory without transferring it to long-term memory. Like saying a phone number over and over before dialing it.
What is maintenance rehearsal?
300
After a sudden injury, a person wakes up knowing how to tie their shoes but not who they are or what happened yesterday. They are experiencing this.
What is amnesia?
300
When your brain takes a mental shortcut to make quick decisions you are using this problem solving technique.
What is heuristics?
300
After the game ends, you shrug and say, “I knew they were going to win all along”—this “knew-it-all-along” thinking is an example of this bias.
What is a hindsight bias?
400
Explicit Conscious tasks; this type of memory deals Memory of facts and experiences, Personal experience, general knowledge, and is intentional.
What is declarative memory?
400
1492 Columbus sailed the ocean blue
or
Thirty days hath September.
This strategy makes information easier to remember.
What is a rhyme or songs?
400
Even though you once toddled, talked, and took your first steps, this type of amnesia explains why your brain hit “delete” on most memories from the first few years of life.
What is infantile amnesia?
400
This everyday process—like following step‑by‑step instructions to make a PB&J sandwich—illustrates this term for a precise set of rules a computer uses to solve a problem.
What is an algorithm?
400
If a $1,000 jacket suddenly makes the $300 one seem like a bargain, you’ve fallen for this heuristic—where the first number you hear quietly anchors all later judgments.
What is an anchoring heuristic?
500
Active or working memory that holds a few items briefly before the information is stored or forgotten
What is short term memory?
500
This process involves deep processing of information to assign meaning to new concepts by connecting it to existing or prior knowledge.
What is elaborative rehearsal?
500
This is the type of amnesia Dory suffers from.
What is Anterograde amnesia?
500
When a decision-maker leans on a mental shortcut—like assuming a coin that’s landed heads five times is “due” for tails—they’re using this term for a built‑in tilt in thinking that can speed things up, but sometimes mislead.
What is a bias?
500
Expectancies can explain this powerful mind-over-matter phenomenon of taking a sugar pill works its “magic” simply because you believe it will.
What is the placebo-effect?