Neuroscience & Foundations
Which pioneer used the Savings Method with nonsense syllables to quantify the forgetting curve?
Hermann Ebbinghaus
The process by which small components are put together to form a whole; often called data-driven processing.
Bottom-up processing
The phenomenon where it is easier to remember items at the end of a list because they are still in STM.
Recency effect
Bartlett's "War of the Ghosts" showed that we use cultural frameworks to rebuild memories. What is the term for these frameworks?
Schemas
While syntax deals with rules and structure, what is the term for the system that deals with the "meaning" of words?
Semantics
The concept that specific functions are served by specific areas of the brain (e.g., FFA for faces).
Localization of function
The effect where people take longer to name a color of ink when the word spells a different color.
Stroop effect
In Baddeley’s model, the component that coordinates the activity of the other slave systems.
Central executive
A member of a category that is a "standard" representation, formed by averaging all members encountered.
Prototype
What is the name of the mental task where participants decide if two 3D blocks are the same by rotating them in their mind?
Mental rotation
The idea that a single neuron can represent a specific complex object (e.g., your grandmother's face).
Specificity coding (Grandmother cell)
What is the term for the process by which features such as color, form, and motion are combined to create our perception of a coherent object?
Binding
The finding that memory is better if the physical environment during encoding matches the environment during retrieval.
Encoding specificity
The tendency for witnesses to be influenced by misleading info provided after they observe a crime.
Misinformation effect
The system of rules that determines how words are combined into phrases and sentences.
Syntax
A technique that uses magnetic fields to measure the oxygen level in the blood to track brain activity.
fMRI (Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging)
A visual search task where the target differs from distractors by a combination of two or more features.
Conjunction search
The process of transforming a memory from a fragile, new state to a more permanent, stable state.
Consolidation
The finding that "high-prototypical" members of a category are named first when listing items (e.g., Apple for Fruit).
What is the term for the representation in which different parts of an image can be described as corresponding to specific locations in space?
Spatial representation
If the intensity of a stimulus increases, the size of the action potential stays the same. What is the only thing that increases?
Firing rate (Rate firing)
The "Where/How" pathway in the brain, which leads from the striate cortex to the parietal lobe.
Dorsal pathway
Memory for specific personal experiences, which involves "mental time travel" back to a specific time/place.
Episodic memory
In a semantic network, the process where activity at one node leads to activation of nearby, related nodes.
Spreading activity
The mental process where we shift our focus from one part of a mental image to another, showing it takes time.
Mental scanning