Amnesia
A significant memory loss that is too extensive to be due to normal forgetting.
Anterograde amnesia
Loss of memories for events that occur after a head injury.
Attention
Focusing awareness on a narrowed range of stimuli or events.
Chunk
A group of familiar stimuli stored as a single unit.
Conceptual hierarchy
A multilevel classification system based on common properties among items.
Connectionist models
See parallel distributed processing (PDP) models.
Consolidation
A hypothetical process involving the gradual conversion of information into durable memory codes stored in long-term memory.
Decay theory
The idea that forgetting occurs because memory traces fade with time.
Declarative memory system
Memory for factual information.
Dual-coding theory
Paivio's theory that memory is enhanced by forming semantic and visual codes, since either can lead to recall.
Elaboration
Linking a stimulus to other information at the time of encoding.
Encoding
Forming a memory code.
Encoding specificity principle
The idea that the value of a retrieval cue depends on how well it corresponds to the memory code.
Episodic memory system
Chronological, or temporally dated, recollections of personal experiences.
Flashbulb memories
Unusually vivid and detailed recollections of momentous events.
Forgetting curve
A graph showing retention and forgetting over time.
Hindsight bias
The tendency to mold one's interpretation of the past to fit how events actually turned out.
Interference theory
The idea that people forget information because of competition from other material.
Levels-of-processing theory
The theory holding that deeper levels of mental processing result in longer-lasting memory codes.
Link method
Forming a mental image of items to be remembered in a way that links them together.
Long-term memory
An unlimited capacity store that can hold information over lengthy periods of time.
Long term potentiation (LTP)
A long-lasting increase in neural excitability in synapses along a specific neural pathway.
Method of loci
A mnemonic device that involves taking an imaginary walk along a familiar path where images of items to be remembered are associated with certain locations.
Misinformation effect
Phenomenon that occurs when participants' recall of an event they witnessed is altered by introducing misleading postevent information.
Mnemonic devices
Strategies for enhancing memory.
Motivated forgetting
Purposeful suppression of memories.
Nondeclarative memory system
Memory for actions, skills, and operations.
Overlearning
Continued rehearsal of material after one first appears to have mastered it.
Parallel distributed processing (PDP) models
Models of memory that assume cognitive processes depend on patterns of activation in highly interconnected computational networks that resemble neural networks. Also called connectionist models.
Proactive interference
A memory problem that occurs when previously learned information interferes with the retention of new information.
Prospective memory
The ability to remember to perform actions in the future.
Reality monitoring
The process of deciding whether memories are based on external sources (our perceptions of actual events) or internal sources (our thoughts and imaginations).
Recall
A memory test that requires subjects to reproduce information on their own without any cues.
Recognition
A memory test that requires subjects to select previously learned information from an array of options.
Rehearsal
The process of repetitively verbalizing or thinking about information to be stored in memory.
Relearning
A memory test that requires a subject to memorize information a second time to determine how much time or effort is saved by having learned it before.
Repression
Keeping distressing thoughts and feelings buried in the unconscious.
Retention
The proportion of material retained (remembered).
Retrieval
Recovering information from memory stores.
Retroactive interference
A memory problem that occurs when new information impairs the retention of previously learned information.
Retrograde amnesia
Loss of memories for events that occurred prior to a head injury.
Retrospective memory
The ability to remember events from the past or previously learned information.
Schema
An organized cluster of knowledge about a particular object or sequence of events.
Self-referent encoding
Deciding how or whether information is personally relevant.
Semantic memory system
General knowledge that is not tied to the time when the information was learned.
Semantic network
Concepts joined together by links that show how the concepts are related.
Sensory memory
The preservation of information in its original sensory form for a brief time, usually only a fraction of a second.
Serial-position effect
In memory tests, the fact that subjects show better recall for items at the beginning and end of a list than for items in the middle.
Short-term memory (STM)
A limited-capacity store that can maintain unrehearsed information for about 20 to 30 seconds.
Source monitoring
The process of making attributions about the origins of memories.
Source-monitoring error
An error that occurs when a memory derived from one source is misattributed to another source.
Storage
Maintaining encoded information in memory over time.
Tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon
A temporary inability to remember something accompanied by a feeling that it's just out of reach.
Transfer-appropriate processing
The situation that occurs when the initial processing of information is similar to the type of processing required by the subsequent measures of attention.