Vocabulary
Autobiographical memory
Memory for the events of one’s life.
Consolidation
The process occurring after encoding that is believed to stabilize memory traces.
Cue overload principle
The principle stating that the more memories that are associated to a particular retrieval cue, the less effective the cue will be in prompting retrieval of any one memory.
Distinctiveness
The principle that unusual events (in a context of similar events) will be recalled and recognized better than uniform (nondistinctive) events.
Encoding
The initial experience of perceiving and learning events.
Encoding specificity principle
The hypothesis that a retrieval cue will be effective to the extent that information encoded from the cue overlaps or matches information in the engram or memory trace.
Engrams
A term indicating the change in the nervous system representing an event; also, memory trace.
Episodic memory
Memory for events in a particular time and place.
Flashbulb memory
Vivid personal memories of receiving the news of some momentous (and usually emotional) event.
Memory traces
A term indicating the change in the nervous system representing an event.
Misinformation effect
When erroneous information occurring after an event is remembered as having been part of
Mnemonic devices
A strategy for remembering large amounts of information, usually involving imaging events occurring on a journey or with some other set of memorized cues.
Recoding
The ubiquitous process during learning of taking information in one form and converting it to another form, usually one more easily remembered.
Retrieval
The process of accessing stored information.
Retroactive interference The phenomenon whereby events that occur after some particular event of interest will usually cause forgetting of the original event.
Semantic memory
The more or less permanent store of knowledge that people have.
Storage
The stage in the learning/memory process that bridges encoding and retrieval; the persistence of memory over time.