-
Primacy effect
- definition:
- the enhanced ability to recall items that are displayed first; enhanced when presentation of the list is slower because it allows for more rehearsal in STM
- example:
- in a list of 15 words, the person recalls the first five better than words in the middle of the list or during a concert, you remember the first two songs the artist played more than you remember what was played in the middle
-
Curve of forgetting
- definition:
- - Ebbinghaus' representation of how one loses information over time
- - the curve shows that most forgetting occurs shortly after the initial learning and then plateaus over time - inverse of the learning curve
- - the longer one spends not engaged with the previously learned material, the more one will forget
- example:
- My aunt used to be fluent in French, but after a decade of not using it she has lost a lot of the vocabulary but her loss plateaued over time because she does still remember the basic
-
Mnemonic
- definition:
- - various schemes, strategies or procedures used to aid encoding and retrieval, some of which include acronyms, keyword methods, peg word method, narrative, etc...
- example:
- a first letter mnemonic to remember the treatment regimen for sprains - RICE (rest, ice, compression, elevation)
-
Remote associations
- definition:
- - Ebbinghaus' contrast to item-by-item by associations which says that associations can be created between non-adjacent items in a list - it's not as strong as item-by-item, but it does work
- example:
- instead of memorizing the original list of A-B-C-D-E, you could memorize A-C-E-B-D which would be a second degree transformation of the original list
-
Memory span
- definition:
- - the capacity of immediate memory
- - the span of immediate memory is the longest sequence of items that can be recalled in correct order after a single presentation
- - our spans seem to be limited to about seven items + or - 2 as stated by Miller
- example:
- remembering a 7 digit telephone number immediately after we have been given it
-
Von Restorff effect
- definition:
- idea that when we are presented with a list or group of items to remember we have a higher probability of remembering the most novel or distinctive item(s)
- example:
- during a PowerPoint presentation, if all the slides are silent and then one comes up with sound the students will be more likely to remember that slide and its information
-
Procedural learning
- definition:
- - acquisition of knowledge of how to do things and includes perceptual skills, motor skills, and cognitive skills
- - knowing how
- - characterized by the acquisition of generalized rules for performing a task or procedures
- - information may not be accessible to conscious verbal recall
- example:
- learning how to read text that has been inverted or mirror-reversed combines a cognitive skill and perceptual skill
-
Savings
- definition:
- - mathematical statement: (# of trials to learn - # of trials to relearn)/# of trials to learn
- - how much information we retain will produce more savings
- - the fewer relearning trials it takes the more savings
- - allows the detection and measurement of memory even in the absence of the ability to recall or recollect an experience
- example:
- listening to a song you haven't heard in years, the lyrics you remember are part of your savings and the lyrics you have to relearn (probably with just one relisten) are the relearning trials
-
Herman Ebbinghaus
- definition:
- - 1885
- - used serial learning, defined savings, the curve of forgetting, studied how acquisition and retention were affected by variables
- - contributions: methods for performing controlled verbal-learning experiments, means of quantifying the results, and describing the empirical effects of several variables on learning
- example:
- - came up with a list of nonsense syllables (CVC trigram - consonant-vowel-consonant)and worked to see how long it took to memorize the entire list
- - tested himself everyday until he learned them, and then quit practicing and kept track of how much he lost
-
Delta rule
- definition:
- - a formula for computing trial by trial increases in strength
- - the increment for each trial is a constant proportion of the difference between the maximum possible activation and the current level of activation - the amount of strength per trial
- - 1.0 or 100% is the greatest quantity possible
- - produces a classic learning curve
- example:
- name-person connection trials - over time and trials the name-person connection increases incrementally
-
Priming
- definition:
- - the facilitated response to a stimulus that has been recently experienced or has been "primed" in memory
- - long-term memory component consisting of repetition priming and visual object priming
- example:
- - in word stem completion tests, the word TABLE has been presented in the first phase; in the second phase only TAB___ is given and the subject is asked to complete the word with the first word that comes to mind
- - priming occurs when the word used to finish the stem is the word presented in the first phase
-
Amnesia
- definition:
- - loss of memory, either permanently or temporarily
- - causes - physical and psychological trauma (most common) and time (loss of memory that preceded or followed trauma - psychogenic)
- - types - retrograde (forgetting of events that occurred before the onset of the disorder) and anterograde (inability to form new memories or acquire new knowledge - after trauma)
- - both can occur simultaneously
- example:
- H.M. has anterograde amnesia from after his operation and he has experienced retrograde amnesia for some things that occurred before his operation
-
Relearning
- definition:
- - process in which a person tries to regain information that was previously learned
- - used in savings to determine how much was retained versus how many trials will need to be used to relearn lost material
- example:
- studying for a cumulative nursing final, relearning of already tested material should take less time to go over than it did when you were first tested on it
-
H.M.
- definition:
- - patient with damage to the interior of his temporal lobes - as a result of experimental surgery in 1953 for the relief of epilepsy, the hippocampus and other nearby structures on both sides of his brain were removed
- - Cannot form new long-term memories
- - But his STM is preserved
- - has anterograde amnesia from after his operation and has some retrograde amnesia for events prior to the operation
- example:
- cannot learn new facts, vocabulary, places, faces or mazes but he can carry on short conversations, and remember short strings of letter, digits or words
|
|
