Naive mnemonics—Mnemonic
techniques that people naturally use without formal training or instruction.
Nerve Growth Factor—a substance
that occurs naturally in the body and enhances the growth and survival
of cholinergic nerves.
Network models—Models of
memory where ideas are linked together in a network of interconnections.
Neural nets—Interconnected
neurons hypothesized to mediate memories (see cell assemblies and
macrocolumn).
Neurofibrillary tangles—Twisted
nerve fibers and tangles of dead neurons called senile plaques that
are believed to be involved in memory losses in Alzheimer's disease.
Neuron—The
smallest anatomical unit of the nervous system. A neuron consists
of a cell body, dendrites and an axon, and is separated from other
neurons by a space called a synapse.
Neurotoxic—poisonous to
nerves or nerve tissue.
Neurotransmitter—A substance
that neurons release into synapses and that stimulates other neurons.
Any of a wide variety of chemicals stored at the ends of axons
in synaptic vesicles. When liberated by an electrical impulse (an
"action potential"), these chemicals exit the axon terminal
and flood into the synaptic cleft, traveling across it and lodging
in receptors on the dendrites of connecting neurons. The reception
of neurotransmitters by an adjacent neuron will initiate either
an excitatory or inhibitory electrical effect. The remaining neurotransmitter
is either broken down in the synaptic cleft, or taken back up by
the original neuron to be recycled.
New approach to improving memory
abilities—The improvement of memory ability by affecting
memory directly or indirectly through other psychological functions
(physical and mental condition, memory attitudes, perception and use
of the physical environment, social interaction).
Next-in-line effect—The
poor recall a person in a group has for what was said by others who
spoke just before or after this person.
Nonverbal memory language—Gestures,
facial expressions, and nonverbal sounds that a person remembers.
Norepinephrine—A neurotransmitter
substance that can enhance subsequent memory performance (see neurotransmitter).
Nucleus basalis of Meynert —A
small group of cholinergic nerve cells in the forebrain and connected
to areas of the cerebral cortex.
Number-letter mnemonic—A
mnemonic in which a person first memorizes number to letter pairs
with the digits 0 to 9. Later the letters of words may be memorized
by converting the letters into numbers. Also, numbers may be memorized
(such as historical dates) by converting numbers in to letters.
Occipital
lobe—This
lobe is dedicated almost entirely to managing vision and its associated
functions. It receives and processes all visual stimuli delivered
by the optic nerves and via the thalamus, and relays the processed
information back through the midbrain to the muscles of the eyes,
as well as to the inferior temporal lobe, the association areas of
the parietal lobe, and the frontal lobe. Primary among its duties
(aside from vision itself) is the interpretation of upside-down images
as mapped onto the retina by the eye's lens, allowing us to perceive
the world right side-up. A lesion in the visual cortex can produce
a wide range of symptoms, from not being able to see in your peripheral
field of view, to complete blindness.
Old approaches to improving memory
abilities—Methods of memory improvement developed from 100
years ago to more than 2000 years ago, which are being repackaged
and promoted to this day.
Olfactory cues—Smells that
are present during learning.
Organic memory disorders—Disorders
with a physiological basis that may impair memory (such as a head
injury, certain diseases, and toxic agents).
Organization—Grouping items
together because of some shared characteristic.
Overlearning—Continuing
to study material after complete recall has been demonstrated.
Parietal lobe—
This lobe is the control center for all the body's somatosensory
input, and gives us our sense of touch, our ability to understand
form through touch, and our recognition of stimuli from our own
bodies (pain, temperature, pressure, etc). It also aids in some
speech and visual functions.
the homunculus: spinal nerve fibers run through the thalamus,
which distributes them to specific sections of the parietal lobes.
These connections come together to form a map of the body's entire
surface, called the homunculus. Visual representations of the
homunculus are odd-looking, because far more area is given to
some bodily surfaces than others. Largest are the connections
for our lips, hands, ears, and genitalia.
Wernicke's area: part of the section of the parietal lobe adjacent
to the temporal lobe is known as Wernicke's area. This section
of the cortex controls our understanding of the auditory and visual
aspects of language. Patients with damage to Wernicke's area are
faced with the unusual symptom of failing to understand language
while still being able to produce its component sounds.
Pattern recognition—The
recognition of an arrangement of different kinds of stimuli.
Peg system—A mnemonic in
which a person first memorizes a series of mental hooks on which to
"hang" items to be learned. For example, a person first memorizes
a series of number-object pairs, usually in a rhyme ("one is a bun,
two is a shoe, three is a tree, etc."), and then mentally places each
item on a list to be learned on an object, resulting in rapid learning
of the list.
Person schema—An idea about
a person that is built up through experience about a person (their
traits and typical behaviors).
Phases of memory processes—Registration,
retention, and remembering.
Photographic memory (eidetic imagery)—The
ability to remember a perfect image of a visual stimulus after the
stimulus has been removed from view.
Physical conditions that impair
memory performance—Fatigue, lack of sleep, medicines, major
and minor health problems, poor nutrition, sensory deficiencies, and
use of adverse substances.
Pituitary gland—This
endocrine structure might be called the "master" gland,
because its own activity regulates the hormonal secretions of so many
other glands throughout the body. This gland controls bone and muscle
growth, the proper formation of reproductive structures, sexual maturation,
and sexual and reproductive function. Its close collaboration with
the hypothalamus means it also plays a key role in the regulation
of basic bodily functions and biological drives.
Placement and Intentions—Placing
objects in conspicuous locations facilitates the remembering of an
intention.
Pollyanna principle—Information
and events are more likely to be free recalled if they are pleasant.
Pons—The
pons sits directly above the medulla oblongata and beneath the midbrain.
It serves mainly to connect the two hemispheres of the cerebellum
through its network of large nerve fiber bundles, and can be identified
as a bulge directly in front of the cerebellum on the brainstem. The
pons contains nuclei that deliver messages about movement and location
for many parts of the body, back and forth between the cerebral cortex
and medulla oblongata, and plays a role in establishing regular sleep,
breathing, and tasting functions.
Positron emission tomography (PET)—A
picture of the brain by measuring the amount of glucose taken up by
different groups of neurons may be obtained by injecting radioactively
labeled glucose into the bloodstream and radiation detectors (see
MRI and CAT scans).
Posttraumatic amnesia (PTA)—An
amnesia from the onset of a coma to the recovery of continuous memory.
Presenile dementia—Dementia's
that occur before the age of 65 years.
Primacy effect—The superior
recall of the initial items in a list.
Primary memory—Consciousness
(sometimes regarded as short-term memory).
Priming—The increase in
trace strength due to familiarizing oneself with the material to be
learned or retrieved.
Proactive interference (PI)—The
effect of prior learning on the recall of something learned more recently.
Procedural memory—Memory
for actions or sequences.
Prodigious savant—A person
who performs cognitive tasks at an exceptional level, but who is mentally
retarded.
Production deficits—When
an individual fails to generate an appropriate memory strategy for
a memory task.
Proprioceptive cues—Information
about what body parts are doing when something is learned.
Proposition—A unit of knowledge
that can be asserted as being either true or false.
Prosopagnosia—A disorder
in which a person cannot recognize the faces of familiar people.
Prospective memory—Remembering
to carry out intended acts (see retrospective memory).
Pseudodementia—A severe
form of depression resulting from a progressive brain disorder in
which cognitive changes mimic those of dementia.
Psychogenic amnesia—An
amnesia due to an extremely stressful event (see psychogenic fugue
and multiple personality disorder).
Psychogenic fugue—An amnesia
in which a person loses his or her identity because of an extremely
stressful event (see psychogenic amnesia and multiple personality
disorder).
Reality monitoring—Detecting
whether a memory pertains to an event that actually occurred or that
one imagined.
Realization—Incidental
remembering.
Recall—Saying or writing
what was presented or what occurred.
Recall congruency—The effect
of mood on the recall of information during recall (see encoding congruency).
Recency effect—The superior
recall of the final items on a list.
Recent memory—Memory for
events that happened several hours or a few days previously.
Receptor site—The sites
on the postsynaptic membrane that are affected by neurotransmitters.
Recognition—Indicating
whether or not something was presented previously.
Reconstruction—Guessing
what might have occurred or what might be true when one cannot recall
this.
Refreshing—Reviving a memory
by presenting some record of the event.
Reminding—Presenting a
cue in order to lead a memory to be remembered.
Reminiscence—Repeated attempts
at recalling autobiographical experiences, usually for pleasure.
Remote memory—Memory for
events that happened a long time ago.
Repisodic memory—A memory
that blends the memories of similar episodes.
Repertoire (of memory techniques)—A
set of task-specific techniques tailored to particular memory tasks.
Repression—Inability to
recall extremely unpleasant memories or experiences.
Resource-allocation hypothesis—Inability
to recall due to attempting too many cognitive tasks.
Response bias—The tendency
to recall information in a way that will be acceptable to others.
Reticular formation—This
network of nerve fibers is bi-directional and runs along the spinal
cord through the medulla oblongata, pons, and midbrain, carrying sensory
impulses to the thalamus and cerebral cortex. When sensory stimuli
are carried to the brain stem, they stimulate the reticular formation,
which in turn stimulates the alertness of the cerebral cortex. It
functions as a gatekeeper in that it determines which sensory messages
to carry all the way to the cerebrum, and also helps control heartbeat,
digestion, sleep, breathing, and overall awareness.
Retrieval—Intentional remembering.
Retrieval practice—Development
of skill at retrieval through repeated attempts at a remembering task.
Retrieval structure of a trace—One
of the four aspects of a trace that may be formed by a mental manipulation.
A retrieval structure is developed by creating trace information that
suggests the information in another trace.
Retroactive interference (RI)—Difficulty
in remembering something learned in the past due to interference produced
by recently learned information.
Retrograde amnesia—A loss
of memory for events prior to a concussion or brain damage.
Retrograde facilitation—The
facilitation of memory performance after electrical stimulation of
the brain.
Retrospective memory—Recall
of past events or information (see prospective memory).
Ribonucleic acid (RNA)—Chemical
chains that some believe retain individual memories.
Right hemisphere—Many
of this hemisphere's functions are intricately entwined with those
of the left, but the right hemisphere is more dominant in the areas
of creativity, intuition, pattern perception, spatial understanding,
rudimentary understanding of language and emotion.
Savant—A person of great
learning or a certain mental skill.
Savings—A measure of what
is retained from original learning.
Schema—A memory for a person,
object, situation, or event that is built up through experience.
Scopolamine—A drug that
appears to interfere with the use of memory.
Script—A type of schema
that describes common, frequently occurring events.
Secondary dementia's—Dementia's
due to illnesses that do not attack the brain.
Secondary memory—Information
in long-term memory.
Selective recall—The superior
recall for information that is consistent with a person's attitudes.
Self-observation of memory performance—Taking
account of one's memory performance in a variety of memory tasks such
as by completing memory questionnaires or by keeping a memory diary.
Self-reference effect—Superior
recall due to deciding how well the material applies to oneself.
Self-schema—A memory about
oneself, one's traits, and one's behaviors.
Self-terminating serial search—An
item by item search of memory until the correct item is found.
Semantic memory—Memory
for knowledge.
Senile dementia—A dementia
developed after the age of 65 years.
Sensory memory—The brief
memory for something just seen, heard, smelled, or touched.
Sensory
neuron—These
neurons contain multiple dendrites to receive input, which is relayed
to the cell body in the middle, and sends its output via an axon to
the next recipient neuron. They are responsible for transmitting information
from many kinds of sensory receptors in the body's tissues (everything
from feeling a cold breeze on your skin to the hair cells in your
ears that detect sound) back to the nervous system for processing.
Sensory register—The component
of the memory system responsible for sensory memories.
Serial learning—Learning
a sequence of items in order.
Serial position curve—The
probability of recall according to the order in which items were studied.
Serial search—The retrieval
of items in memory in the order they were stored.
Short-term memory (STM)—The
retention of small amounts of information for about 30 seconds or
less.
Skilled memory theory—A
theory that individual differences in memory performance derive from
differences in practice at memory tasks.
Social context techniques—Social
behaviors that eliminate social factors harmful to performance.
Social information—Information
about the attitudes, roles, and means-for-impressing others that affect
memory performance.
Social memory-factors—Social
tasks that make demands on memory (such as cocktail parties or receiving
lines).
Spacing effect—Superior
recall due to separating study sessions.
Spread of activation—Excitement
that moves along the links of a memory network.
Stages of memory techniques—A
technique is elicited, modified to the particular task, applied to
the task, and assessed for its effectiveness.
State dependent memory—The
facilitation in recall when memories are retrieved in the same "state"
that a person was in when the memory was formed.
Story mnemonic—A mnemonic
in which a person creates a story out of the words on a list.
Strength mental techniques—Techniques
that increase the strength of the traces being studied.
Strength of a trace—One
of the four aspects of a trace that may be affected by a mental technique.
Stress—Mental or emotional
disturbance that disposes people to be absentminded.
Study formulas—Key words
that are intended to orient a person for studying.
Subjective organization—The
organization of words into groups in memory on the basis of meaning
common to the words.
Superimposition method—A
test for eidetic imagery in which a person superimposes the image
of one array of dots on another dot pattern.
Superstitious environmental techniques—Objects
that some people believe will bring good luck to their memory performance.
Suppression—The forgetting
of a memory by deliberately trying not to think about it.
Symbolic memory tasks—Tasks
whose performance convey respect or affection and affects the relationship
between people.
Symbolic reminders—Culturally
established symbols that convey that a memory task is to be performed.
Synapse—The space between
neurons in which neurotransmitters are secreted.
Synesthesia—Where sensation
in one sensory modality (e.g., hearing) evokes a sensory experience
in another modality (e.g., vision, touch, etc.).
Tagging—The theoretical
assumption that memories are marked when they are encountered again.
Task situations—Categories
of daily life in which memory tasks occur: home life, work, obligations,
or recreation.
Task-specific techniques—A
technique that is especially effective for a particular kind of memory
task.
Task variables—The characteristics
of a particular memory task or situation in which the task is performed.
Technical mnemonics—Mnemonics
that people use after formal training or instruction (see naive mnemonics).
Temporal
lobe—Located
on the sides of the brain just above and behind each ear, the temporal
lobes are primarily responsible for processing auditory information
from the ears and relaying it to both Wernicke's area on the parietal
lobes and the motor projection area of the frontal lobes. The temporal
lobe also houses some peripheral language and speech functions,
and gives us our musical abilities.
Perhaps most importantly,
the temporal lobes are home to two vital structures. First of these
is the hippocampus, which guides short-term memory formation, as
well as the retention of auditory and visual memories; the second
is the amygdala, which communicates heavily with the hippocampus
to initiate social behavior, primarily fear and anxiety responses,
and manages sexual drives. It is believed that these two areas,
combined with the temporal lobes' other functions, come together
to lend humans their sense of individual identity.
Test anxiety—Fear and nervousness
that interferes with memory performance.
Test wise—An ability for
taking tests.
Thalamus—This
lower section of the forebrain acts as the primary integrator and
relay center. It processes information coming from all the sensory
pathways (except smell) before relaying it up to the cortex. It
is also responsible for sending out motor signal responses to the
proper cortical areas.
The thalamus is also
a gatekeeper to the cortex; it determines which stimuli actually
reach our consciousness, and which can be dismissed without cerebral
input. The thalamus is centered directly at the base of the cerebral
hemispheres, on either side of the 3rd ventricle, and receives connections
from the spinal cord via the more primitive brain stem.
Theory of disuse—Forgetting
due to people not making use of information in memory.
Time-gap experience—The
feeling that little or no time has elapsed when actually a considerable
lapse has occurred.
Tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon—When
a person cannot recall a word but can recall some details about the
word (like how many letters it has, what letter begins the word).
Top-down processing—Tasks
that require active organization and elaborative processes.
Trace—A memory record of
the details of an event or concept.
Transfer-appropriate processing—Superior
recall which occurs when the kind of processing in recall is the same
as was used when items were learned.
Transient global amnesia (TGA)—An
amnesia that lasts only briefly (minutes, hours, or days).
Two-stage model of memory formation—A
model of memory formation in which memories are first represented
in short term memory and then in long term memory.
Warm up—The increase in
speed and proficiency at performing a memory task that results after
initially attempting the task.
Wernicke's area—
a section at the upper end of the temporal lobe and a section of the
parietal lobe adjacent to this area in temporal lobe in the left hemisphere
is known as Wernicke's area. This area controls our understanding
of the auditory and visual aspects of language. Patients with damage
to Wernicke's area are faced with the unusual symptom of failing to
understand language while still being able to produce its component
sounds.
Weschler Memory Scale (WMS)—The
oldest known memory battery which assesses memory for personal and
current information, orientation, mental control, logical memory,
digit span, visual reproductive memory, and associative learning.
Whole report procedure—Recall
of an entire stimulus array.
Working memory—A component
of the memory system that holds information for approximately one
minute and where elaboration on the information produce long term
memories.
Yerkes-Dodson Law—The relationship
between arousal and performance wherein performance increases from
low to intermediate levels of arousal but decreases at high levels
of arousal.
