Memory
This is the brief memory system that holds information for about 20 seconds.
What is short-term memory?
Focusing on one conversation in a noisy room demonstrates this type of attention.
What is selective attention?
This mental shortcut helps us make quick judgments but can lead to errors.
What is a heuristic?
This type of processing uses your prior knowledge and expectations to interpret sensory information, like recognizing a word even when some letters are missing.
What is top-down processing?
When you fail to retrieve a piece of information because you never encoded it properly, it’s called this.
What is encoding failure?
Remembering how to ride a bike is an example of this type of memory.
What is procedural memory?
This type of memory retrieval involves identifying information you’ve previously learned, like on a multiple-choice test.
What is recognition?
This problem-solving strategy involves following a step-by-step, logical procedure that guarantees a solution, like a recipe for baking a cake.
What is an algorithm?
This Gestalt principle involves perceiving a figure separate from its background.
What is figure-ground?
This effect explains why you’re more likely to remember the last items on a list.
What is the recency effect?
This memory effect explains why you remember the first item on a grocery list better than the middle ones.
What is the primacy effect?
Remembering a specific event, such as your first day of school, relies on this type of memory.
What is episodic memory?
Failing to see a screwdriver as a potential hammer demonstrates this cognitive bias.
What is functional fixedness?
This principle helps you see a complete circle even if part of it is missing.
What is closure?
This describes how we remember items better when they're at the beginning and end of a list.
What is the serial position effect?
This occurs when new information interferes with the retrieval of older information.
What is retroactive interference?
These are hints or stimuli that help you access memories stored in long-term memory.
What are retrieval cues?
This effect occurs when people prefer a "90% success rate" over a "10% failure rate." It's all about how you say it!
What is framing?
This principle ensures you perceive a person as the same size whether they're close or far away from you.
What is size constancy?
Adding misleading information to someone's memory after the fact is known as this effect.
What is the misinformation effect?
This type of memory allows you to unconsciously retain information from past experiences.
What is implicit memory?
The inability to remember where you first learned a piece of information is known as this.
What is source amnesia?
When you estimate the likelihood of events based on how easily examples come to mind, you’re using this heuristic.
What is the availability heuristic?
When an object is in shadow but still perceived as the same color, this principle is at work.
What is color constancy?
When old information interferes with learning new information, it’s called this.
What is proactive interference?