MEMORY BASICS
What is recall?
Retrieving information from memory without cues.
What is encoding?
The process of acquiring new information.
Who proposed the “seven plus or minus two” capacity limit?
George Miller
What is retroactive interference?
New info blocks old info.
Who was H.M.?
A patient with severe anterograde amnesia after hippocampal surgery.
What is the serial position effect?
People remember the first and last items better than items in the middle.
What is the spacing effect?
Spaced-out learning is more effective than cramming.
What is chunking?
Grouping information into meaningful units to expand memory span.
What is proactive interference?
Old info blocks new info.
Who is Elizabeth Loftus?
A psychologist famous for research on false memories.
Which effect explains remembering the beginning of a list?
The primacy effect.
What mnemonic uses location pathways?
The method of loci.
What are episodic memories?
Memories of specific personal events and experiences
What is misattribution?
Remembering something but attributing it to the wrong source.
What did the Lost in the Mall experiment demonstrate?
People can form false memories for events that never happened
Which effect explains remembering unusual or distinctive items?
The Von Restorff effect.
What model states deeper meaning-based processing makes memory last longer?
Levels-of-processing model
Which part of working memory stores sound and verbal material?
The phonological loop
What is suggestibility?
When memory is distorted by outside information or suggestions
Who was Clive Wearing?
A man with near-total amnesia but preserved musical procedural memory.
What is paired-associate learning?
When one concept serves as a cue for another (ex: “park-fleas”).
What is adaptive memory?
Encoding information in ways that match evolutionary survival needs.
What does the central executive do?
Directs attention and coordinates working memory systems.
What is hyperthymesia?
Near-perfect autobiographical memory.
What did Daniel Schacter contribute to memory research?
Identified the Seven Sins of Memory.