Memory Systems
This type of memory helps you recall how to do things, like tying your shoes or typing on a keyboard.
What is procedural memory?
This temporary storage system allows us to hold and manipulate information during tasks like reading or problem solving.
What is working memory?
The process of transforming sensory input into a form that can be stored in memory.
What is encoding?
The tendency for people to believe repeated information, even if it’s false.
What is the illusory truth effect?
This principle says that practice tests improve memory retention more effectively than rereading notes.
What is retrieval practice (or the testing effect)
The memory system responsible for facts, knowledge, and meanings of words.
What is semantic memory?
This component of working memory deals with spoken and written language.
What is the phonological loop?
Remembering something better when tested in the same context in which it was learned demonstrates this principle.
What is encoding specificity?
When details from different memories blend together, causing confusion about what really happened.
What is source monitoring error?
Studying material in spaced intervals, rather than all at once, takes advantage of this memory principle.
What is the spacing effect?
This kind of memory lets you mentally “revisit” personal experiences from your own life.
What is episodic memory?
When you imagine how furniture will fit in your room, you’re using this working memory subsystem.
What is the visuospatial sketchpad?
This theory proposes that deeper, meaning-based processing leads to better long-term memory.
What is the levels of processing theory?
This term describes how memory is reconstructed rather than replayed exactly like a recording.
What is reconstructive memory?
Generating your own examples, summaries, or questions promotes this kind of deeper processing.
What is elaboration?
This term describes memories we are consciously aware of and can describe verbally.
What is explicit memory?
The part of working memory that directs attention and coordinates other subsystems.
What is the central executive?
When you recall something by practicing retrieval rather than rereading, you’re benefiting from this effect.
What is the testing effect?
When exposure to misleading information changes your recall of an event.
What is the misinformation effect?
Repeated exposure to material can make it feel familiar, leading to an illusion of mastery — this is called the…
What is the familiarity effect?
This psychologist proposed a distinction between remembering something you personally experienced and simply knowing it happened.
Who is Endel Tulving?
This effect explains why lists of short words are easier to remember than lists of long words.
What is the word length effect?
The idea that memory performance improves when the type of processing at learning matches the type at retrieval.
What is transfer-appropriate processing?
A phenomenon where suggestion or imagination causes a person to “remember” something that never actually occurred.
What is a false memory?
When memories are recalled and modified during therapy, the process is known as this, often applied in PTSD research.
What is reconsolidation?