Sensory Memory
the immediate, very brief recording of sensory information in the memory system
Iconic Memory
momentary sensory memory of visual stimuli
Selective Attention
ability to focus memory on individual stimulus
Echoic Memory
a momentary sensory memory of auditory stimuli; if attention is elsewhere, sounds and words can still be recalled within 3 or 4 seconds.
Chunking
organizing items into familiar, manageable units
Mnemonic Devices
memory aids especially those techniques that use vivid imagery and organizational devices
Rehesarsal
the conscious repetition of information, either to maintain it in consciousness or to encode it for storage
Episodic Memory
portion of LTM that stores personally experienced events
Semantic Memory
portion of LTM that stores general facts and information
Procedural Memory
portion of LTM that stores information relating to skills,habits, and other perceptual-motor tasks
Explicit Memories
memory of facts and experiences that one can consciously know and declare
Implicit Memories
retention independent of conscious recollection
Eidetic Memory
ability to reproduce unusually sharp and detailed images of something someone has seen
Retrieval
the process of getting information out of memory storage
Recognition
a measure of memory in which the person need only identify items previously learned
Recall
a measure of memory in which the person must retrieve information learned earlier
Primacy Effect/Recency Effect
tendency to remember items at beginning or end of list
Serial Position Effect
the tendency to recall best the last and first items in a list
Tip-of-the-tongue Phenomenon
a temporary inability to remember something accompanied by a feeling that it's just out of reach
Flashbulb Memories
a clear memory of an emotionally significant moment or event
State-dependent Memory
the impact of a physiological state on recall
Mood Congruent Memory
the tendency to recall experiences that are consistent with one's current good or bad mood
Relearning Effect
a memory measure that assesses the amount of time saved when learning material for a second time
Retroactive Interference
newly learned material interferes with previously learned material
Proactive Interference
previously learned information interferes with newly learned information
Anterograde Amnesia
loss of ability to create new memories after the event that causes the amnesia, leading to a partial or complete inability to recall the recent past, while long term memories from before the event remain inapt.
Retrograde Amnesia
loss of memory from the point of some injury or trauma backwards, or loss of memory for the past.
Phonemes
basic sound units
Morphemes
smallest meaningful units of speech; simple words, suffixes, prefixes
Syntax
system of rules that governs how words are combined/arranged to form meaningful phrases and sentences; determined by word order
Overgeneralization
process of extending the application of a rule to items that are excluded from i
Language Acquisition Device
hypothetical module of the human mind posited to account for children's innate predisposition for language acquisition. First proposed by Noam Chomsky in the 1960s, the LAD concept is an instinctive mental capacity which enables an infant to acquire and produce language
Linguistic Relativity Hypothesis
way people think is strongly affected by their native languages; Sapir and Worf
Prototypes
objects or events that best represent a natural concept
Heuristic
problem-solving strategy; mental shortcut
Representative Heuristic
mental shortcut that involves people deciding whether an example belongs in a certain class on the basis of how similar it is to other items in that class
Belief Bias
endency to judge the strength of arguments based on the plausibility of their conclusion rather than how strongly they support that conclusion
Functional Fixedness
the inability to use objects in new ways
Convergent/Divergent Thinking
convergent-only one answer; answers are narrow in focus; divergent-thinking outside the box; generating as many unique answers as possible
Availability Heuristic
mental shortcut that involves making decisions on the basis of information that is available in a person's immediate consciousness.
Albert Bandura
Bodo dolls; observational learning
George Spearling
sensory and iconic memory
Hermann Ebbinghaus
memory, nonsense syllables-learning and forgetting curves
Memory
Learning that persisted over time, information that has been stored and can be retrieved.
Parallel Processing
The brain's ability to make sense of several different incoming stimuli at the same time