Cognition

Memory
- Memory is the cognitive process that allows individuals to
retain knowledge of information and events and is the result
of three processes: encoding, storage, and retrieval.
Information-processing model of memory
- A memory is a sequential process moving through three
distinct stages: Sensory memory, short-term memory, and
long term memory.
- Information flows from one stage to the next as it is encoded,
stored, and retrieved.
Working Model
- There is a central executive that controls and directs
attention through a visuospatial sketchpad (visual picture)
and a phonological loop (verbal rehearsal).
- Items must go through the working memory to get to longterm storage and must return to working memory to be
consciously recalled.
Encoding
- During Encoding, information is combined, organized, and
placed into memory.
- If information received from the environment does not get
placed into memory or if it is not attended to, it will not move
past this stage and be referred to as an encoding failure.
- Automatic Processing: carrying out mental activity quickly
and without effort.
- Effortful Processing: requires attention and generally results
in longer lasting memories.
- Selective Attention plays a critical role in determining what
information gets transferred from sensory memory to shortterm memory, or from short-term memory from long term
memory.

- Levels-of Processing model of memory: The attention given to

the process of encoding will impact future recall. Deeper
levels of processing as opposed to shallow levels of
processing create more durable memories that can be
recalled easier.
o Rehearsal involves the deliberate, conscious repetition
of information
o Elaborate rehearsal that utilizes connections to
previously learned material provides better retention
rates.
o Maintenance rehearsal involves merely repeating the
information.
o Self-reference effect: the tendency for an individual to
have improved recall for information that personally
relates to their lives.
- Ways of encoding
o Visually low recall rate
o Acoustically had better recall
o Semantically highest recall rate
Storage
- Sensory Memory contains two types of memory:
o Iconic Memory: (visual sensory store) The retention of a
brief visual image for a fraction of a second so that a
person can keep track of an experience from moment to
moment.
o Echoic Memory: Storage of a brief auditory stimulation
for a few seconds.
- Sensory memory is capable of storing enormous amounts of
information, but most of it disappears very quickly, either by
entering short-term memory or a lack of attention.
- Short-term memory allows information to be stored long
enough to solve problems.
o George Miller said that the short-term memory can
contain 7 items plus or minus 2.
o Rehearsal allows items in short term memory to be
retained and facilitates the transfer of material from
short-term to long-term memory.

o Chunking: Grouping related items into a meaningful unit

can increase the amount of material that can be stored
in the short-term memory.
Long-term memory
- Generally permanent storage of containing a limitless amount
of information.
- Explicit memory: can be consciously recalled when requested
and sometimes becomes disrupted because of age or
amnesia.
o Semantic Memory: General Knowledge
o Episodic Memory: Personal Events
Flashbulb memories: especially detailed event that
is highly personal and intensely emotional.
- Implicit Memory: Created indirectly, without conscious effort
and can be tested through behavioral responses.
o Priming occurs when, after being exposed to a stimulus,
an individual is unconsciously more likely to be able to
recall that same stimulus.
o Procedural Memory: consists of long-term memory of
skills, habits, and cognitive rules involved in a particular
task.
Cognitive Processing
- Automatic (unconscious) Processing: interpreting music takes
little effort and almost no conscious awareness of completing
the activity.
o Best left to tasks that are less important to survival.
- Controlled (conscious) Processing: A conscious decision is
being made regarding how and when to play the note.
- Serial Processing: Problem is solved one step at a time and
uses the solutions of one problem as input for the next
problem in much the same way that computers work.
o Retrieving information from short-term memory involves
serial processing. Searching long-term memory is not
suitable however.

- Parallel Processing: Many different independent problems are

solved all at once.
o Much faster than Serial processing but more memory
involved.
- Connectionist or Parallel Distributed Processing Model:
Encoding of memories happen through the building of
connections and that retrieval occurs through the spreading
of activation within this large network.
o Memories are not localized and detached from one
another allowing them to be recalled one at a time.
o Neural Network.
o Parallel Processing involves the activity of a
combinations of many neurons firing in multiple brain
areas at once.
Retrieval
- Retrieval or the recovery of information from memory storage
can either occur rapidly with little to no effort or require
attention
- When new information is not similar to previously stored
data, memory takes more effort.
- Recall: the ability to retrieve information or experiences from
memory consciously without clues.
- Recognition: Ability to remember information consciously
through the use of previously learned material.
o Serial Position effect states that if we are presented with
a list, we will remember best the items at the beginning
and the end and the recall for items presented in the
middle will be the worst.
Primary and Recenery Effect.
- Retrieval Failure: Inability to retrieve information that has
been successfully stored in the long memory.
Memory Retrieval Cues

- Priming: Memory retrieval is aided for an individual if he or

she has been exposed to a stimulus previously. This prior
exposure or priming will make it more likely that the person
will recall that some or a similar stimulus later.
- Mood-congruent: Memory retrieval is aided if an individual is
in the same emotional state when the person is try to
remember something as when he or she first encoded the
information.
- Context-dependent: Memory retrieval is aided if an individual
is in an external environment similar to the one where the
material was originally encoded.
- State-Dependent: Memory retrieval is aided if the individual
is in the same physical and mental state as when the
information was encoded.
Forgetting
- Herman Ebbinghaus
- Forgetting Curve: Graphed representation of how much
information was lost over time.
o Greatest rate of forgetting occurs within the first day
after learning.
o Relearning the same material would happen in less time
than it took to memorize the material in the first place.
- Overlearning: Continuing to rehearse material after you have
mastered it has been shown to reduce the amount of
forgetting and help individuals hold on to material over
longer periods of time.
Brain Damage and Forgetting
- Alzheimers: Causes memory loss due to the deterioration of
neurons producing acetylcholine.
- Injury in Specific Regions.
o Hippocampus: problems with encoding new explicit
memories.
o Cerebellum: loss of memories related to movement or
certain conditioned reflexes
o Amygdala: Disruption of ability to encode and retrieve
the emotional aspects of memory

o Prefrontal Cortex: Problems recalling episodic memories

and determining the order in which events occur.
Suppression and Repression
- Suppression: Motivated forgetting to block out painful
memories.
- Repression: Refer to unconscious motivated forgetting of
upsetting memories or unacceptable urges and desire.
Amnesia
- Infantile Amnesia: Individuals can not remember events from
infancy to age 5
o Hippocampus is not matured enough to be able to store
memories.
- Retrograde Amnesia: Inability to remember events or
information that was stored before the illness or injury that
resulted in amnesia.
- Anterograde Amnesia: Inability to retain memories for events
after the injury or disease that resulted in amnesia.
Decay
- Decay Theory suggests that memories disappear with time if
they are not retrieved.
Interference
- Forgetting occurs because two memories are interfering with
each other.
o Memories lost not because they have disappeared, but
because the brain cannot find them in the clutter of
competing alternative responses.
- Proactive Interference: Previously learned information
interferes with the ability to recall a new memory.
- Retroactive Interference: When recently learned information
prevents the recall of old memories.
Memory Constitution
- Elizabeth Loftus

- Memory is not as accurate as we believe it is and that

eyewitness testimony is unreliable because false memories
or confabulations can be created easily through suggestion.
o A False Memory is created when a persons actual
memory becomes distorted because the person
unconsciously adds or removes information received
from other sources.
- Misinformation Effect: Researchers give participants subtle
misleading information cues that alter their memories by
adding the false information to their recollections.
- Source Amnesia: Difficulty recalling the origin of where a
particular memory was acquired, despite having strong
recollection or the actual detail.
Brain and Memory
- Memory does not reside in one specific place in the brain.
- Long-term potentiation: Repeated stimulation of neural
networks strengthens the connections between neurons and
results in the formation of new synapses leading to learning
and memory creation.
Memory Improvement
- Mnemonic Strategies
- Use of Imagery
- Method of Loci
- Peg-word Mnemonic system.
o Person first memorizes a series of words connected to
numbers.

Language
- A form of communication consisting of symbols that can be
arranged to derive meaning
Basic Units of Language
- Spoken Language is made of phonemes, morphemes, and
grammar.
o Phonemes: Smallest Units of sound in a language. First
sound babies make.
o Morphemes: Smallest unites of meaning in a language
that result from a combination of phonemes.
Can be whole words, or prefixes and suffixes.
o Grammar: Rules that define how a language is used so
that people speaking the same language understand
each other.
Semantics: Part of grammar that relates to
meanings of words and their combinations.
Syntax: Part of grammar that refers to the order of
how words can be arranged.
Language Acquisition
- Language development is a complex process influenced by
the interaction of biology, cognition and culture.
1. Babbling (4-6 Months): First speech-like but meaningless
sounds infants make, including phonemes that are not a part
of the childs native language.

2. One-Word Stage (10-18 Months): Stage when infants

communicate by using only single words, called holophrases,
to express themselves.
3. Two-Word Stage (18-24 Months): Stage when the child
communicates in two word phrases called telegraphic
speech.
4. Telegraphic Speech (18-30 Months): Type of speech that
begins in the two word stage and continues until about 30
months as children build utterances containing more words.
This speech contains only the words essential to meaning,
typically nouns and verbs, and lacks other parts of speech.
5. Overgeneralization: Error in language when young children
apply rules about grammar to every example before they
start learning exceptions. (Two pet mices instead of Two
pet mice)
6. Overextension: Error in language when young children are
too broad in their use of a particular word. (All snacks as
cookie)
7. Underextension: Error in language when young children are
too restrictive in term of how they use a word. (Doll only to
my doll )
8. Sentences (2+ years): Following the development of
telegraphic speech, children quickly begin to create complete
sentences and gradually become capable of more
sophisticated grammar.
- Nativist Approach: Contends that language development is
the result of a genetically based innate ability. Humans,
therefore, must come equipped with a language acquisition
device or a built-in biological readiness to learn grammatical
rules for any language.
o Noam Chomsky.
o Children learn language much too quickly for it simply to
be the result of imitating others or responding to
rewards and punishments. Grammar and syntax are
acquired even if children are not corrected for the errors
that they make.

- Humans can learn a language when they are young but find it
difficult to learn a new language when they are older.
Language and Thought
- Linguistic Determinism: the language that a person speaks
determines how they think. (E.g Native Americans will think
differently from English Speakers).
o Benjamin Whorf
o Many psychologists disagree with this theory, but many
believe that it does have an influence of thought.
Thinking
- The Area most directly associated with the complex
processes of planning, choice, judgment, impulse control and
even humor is the prefrontal cortex.
- Mental Images: Complex cognitive representations for objects
and ideas that are not immediately present are a critical part
of the thinking process.
- Concepts: Mental Categories we create for objects or
experiences that are similar to one another, allowing us to
represent information about large numbers of specific events,
objects and ideas in an efficient way.
o Concepts allow us to communicate easily, to remember
more, and to solve problems.
- We typically condense the common features of similar objects
by creating a prototype, or a best example of a category.
- When faced with new experiences, we solve problems of
identifying them and predicting their impact on us by
assessing their resemblance to our prototypes.
- Prototypes also color the ways in which we perceive things.
Problem Solving
- Insight
- Metacognitive processing: Deliberate and conscious process
of talking oneself through a problem, contributes to problems
solving.
o Expands their awareness of the problem solving process
by watching themselves trying out solutions.

- Trail and Error: Individuals attack a problem by making

random guesses using little reason or analysis.
o Better for low number of possible answers.
- Algorithm: A strategy that involves using a set of rules that if
followed correctly will guarantee a solution.
o Potential drawbacks for this method are that a specific
algorithm does not exist for every problem, and while
algorithms guarantee a solution, their extensive time
commitment may be problematic.
- Heuristics: Problem-solving strategy that is likely to produce a
solution quickly, but does not guarantee a correct answer.
o Mental Shortcuts or rules of thumb.
o Representativeness: Judging the likelihood of an event in
terms of how well it seems to match a particular
prototype, which can result in either a correct or
incorrect analysis of the situation.
o Availability: Judging the likelihood that an event will
happen in terms of how readily it comes to mind, based
on either personal experience or exposure through the
media.
Reasoning
- Deductive reasoning: Individuals start with a premise they
have strong reason to believe is accurate and then create
conclusions based on that initial premise.
- Inductive Reasoning: Individuals basing a conclusion on what
is most likely truth-based on specific examples or
determining general principles from analyzing examples.
o Susceptible to Belief Bias
Obstacles to Reasoning
- Conformation Bias: the tendency to selectively attend to
information that is consistent with our viewpoint and ignore
or minimize beliefs that challenges our beliefs.

- Belief Perseverance: Tendency to hold onto a belief even after

it has been disproven.
- Anchoring Bias: Leads an individual to place too great an
emphasis on an initial estimate when making decisions under
conditions in which one is unsure.
- Framing Effect: When individuals reach a conclusion to a
problem solely based on how its worded.
- Mental Set: Tendency for people to cling to old methods of
solving problems even when they are no longer working.
- Functional fixedness: Occurs when the set of ideas people
have about the purpose or use of objects prevents them from
using objects in new ways.
Creativity
- The ability to generate novel and useful products or solutions
to the problem.
- Convergent Thinking: One correct answer through applying
consistent rules and categorizing events.
- Divergent Thinking: Produce a variety of solutions to any
particular problem.