Psychology Memory Keywords - Lydia

Front 1

Short-term memory (STM)

Back 1

Your memory for immediate events. Short-memories last for a very short time and disappear unless they are rehearsed. The short-term memory store has a limited duration and limited capacity. This type of memory is sometimes referred to as working memory because it is used in comprehending language, solving problems, and so on. It is related to long-term memory in several fundamental ways.

Hint 1

What is it used for?

Duration and capacity?

Front 2

Long-term memory (LTM)

Back 2

Your memory for events that have happened in the past. This lasts anywhere from 2 minutes ago to 100 years. The long-term memory store has potentially unlimited duration and capacity.

Hint 2

What is it used for?

How long can it last?

Duration and capacity?

Front 3

Duration

Back 3

A measure of how long a memory lasts before it is no longer available. STM has a very limited duration (a memory in STM doesn't last long), whereas LTM has potentially unlimited duration. A memory in LTM could, theoretically, last for the whole of a person's life.

Front 4

Capacity

Back 4

This is a measure of how much can be held in a memory. It is measured in terms of bits of information such as number of digits. STM has a very limited capacity (less than 7 'chunks' of information) whereas LTM has potentially unlimited capacity.

Front 5

Encoding

Back 5

The way information is changed so that it can be stored in memory. Information enters the brain via the senses (e.g the eyes and ears). It is then stored in various forms, such as visual codes (like a picture), acoustic forms (sounds), or a semantic form (the meaning of the experience). Information is represented as sounds), whereas information in the LTM tends to be encoded semantically (i.e information is represented by its meaning).

Hint 5

Visual codes?

Acoustic forms?

Semantic forms?

Front 6

Chunking

Back 6

Miller proposed that the capacity of STM can be enhanced by grouping sets of digits or letters into meaningful units or 'chunks'. For example it is easier to remember 100 1000 10 10000 than 10010001010000.

Front 7

Sensory store/memory

Back 7

This is the information at the senses - information collected by your eyes, ears, nose, fingers and so on. Information is retained for a very brief period by the sensory registers. We are only able to hold accurate images of sensory information momentarily (less than half a second). The capacity of This is the information at the senses - information collected by your eyes, ears, nose, fingers and so on. Information is retained for a very brief period by the sensory registers. We are only able to hold accurate images of sensory information momentarily (less than half a second). The capacity of sensory memory is very large. The method of encoding depends on the sense organ involved, e.g visual for the eyes or acoustic for the ears.

Front 8

Central executive

Back 8

Monitors and coordinates all other mental functions in working memory.

Front 9

Phonological loop

Back 9

Encodes speech sounds in working memory, typically involving maintenance rehearsal (repeating the words over and over again). This is why this component of working memory is referred to as a 'loop'.

Subdivided into:

Phonological store (inner ear)

Articulatory process (inner voice)

Hint 9

Subgroups?

Front 10

Visuo-spatial sketchpad

Back 10

Encodes visual information in terms of separate objects in ones's visual field.

Front 11

Episodic buffer

Back 11

Receives input from many sources, temporarily stores this information, and then integrates it in order to construct a mental episode of what is being experiences right now.

Front 12

Word-length effect

Back 12

The observation that people remember lists of short words better than lists of long words.

Front 13

Eyewitness testimony

Back 13

The evidence provided in court by a person who witnessed a crime, with a view to identifying the perpetrator of the crime. The accuracy of eyewitness recall may be affected during initial encoding, subsequent storage and eventual retrieval.

Front 14

Misleading information

Back 14

A question that, either by its form or content, suggests to the witness what answer is desired or leads him to the desired answer.

Front 15

Cognitive interview

Back 15

A police technique for interviewing witnesses to a crime, which encourages them to recreate the original context in order to increase the accessibility of stored information. Because our memory is made up of a network of associations rather than of discrete events, memories are accessed using multiple retrieval strategies.