Schemas:conceptual frameworks a person uses to make sense of the world(see Perception)
Ex. You do not expect to see your teacher at the store so you don't recognize her
State-Dependent Memory: occurs when you recall info easily when you are in the same physiological state when you originally encoded the information
Ex. Practicing an exam in the same room and same time that you will take the real exam.
Eidetic Memory: the ability to remember with great accuracy visual info on the basis of short term exposure
Ex. Sheldon Cooper from Big Bang Theory
How We Remember
Reconstructive Processes:the alteration of a recalled memory that may be simplified, enriched, or distorted, depending on an individual's experiences, attitudes, or inferences.
Recall: memory retrieval in which a person reconstructs previously learned material. The way you retrieve something is personal, and is based on a person’s knowledge, attitudes, and expectations. Therefore, recall always has confabulation.
Confabulation:the act of filling in memory gaps; adding additional information that is not memory.
The Misinformation Effect: occurs when a person's recall of episodic memories becomes less accurate because of post-event information.
Forgetting: when information that once entered long-term memory is unable to be retrieved. It may involve:
Decay: fading away of memory over time
Interference: blockage of a memory by previous or subsequent memories or loss of a retrieval cue
Repression: blockage of a memory due to emotional trauma
Amnesia: a loss of memory that may occur after a blow to the head, brain damage, drug use, or severe psychological stress.
Infant Amnesia:the lack of early declarative memories. -Freud thought that memories are repressed because of the emotional traumas of infancy - Others claim a biological approach that the hippocampus may not be mature enough in infancy to spark memories
So, How Can We Improve Memory?
Mnemonic Devices:techniques for using associations to memorize and retrieve information