REVIEWER FOR COGPSY John Locke (1632–1704) believed that humans

are born without knowledge and therefore must

(Chapter 1) seek knowledge through empirical observation.
Tabula rasa (meaning “blank slate” in Latin)- The
Cognitive psychology- is the study of how people idea is that life and experience “write” knowledge
perceive, learn, remember, and think about on us.
information.
Cognitive psychologist- study how people Psychologists today seek a synthesis between
perceive various shapes, why they remember the rationalist view of the world as a thesis and
some facts but forget others, or how they learn the empirical view as an antithesis.
language.
In the eighteenth century, German philosopher
Cognoscere- the word cognition derived, Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) dialectically
meaning “to know” or “to come to know”. synthesized the views of Descartes and Locke,
Dialectic- is a developmental process where arguing that both rationalism and empiricism
ideas evolve over time through a pattern of have their place. Both must work together in the
transformation. quest for truth. Most psychologists today accept
Kant’s synthesis.
A thesis is proposed. A thesis is a statement of
belief. For example, some people believe that Structuralism- It seeks to understand the
human nature governs many aspects of human structure (configuration of elements) of the mind
behavior (e.g., intelligence or personality; and its perceptions by analyzing those
Sternberg, 1999). After a while, however, certain perceptions into their constituent components
individuals notice apparent flaws in the thesis. (affection, attention, memory, sensation, etc.)

An antithesis emerges. An antithesis is a Functionalism- It suggested that psychologists

statement that counters a previous statement of should focus on the processes of thought rather
belief. For example, an alternative view is that than on its contents. Seeks to understand what
our nurture (the environmental contexts in which people do and why they do it.
we are reared) almost entirely determines many
aspects of human behavior.
Associationism- It examines how elements of the
A synthesis integrates the viewpoints. Sooner or mind, like events or ideas, can become
later, the debate between the thesis and the associated with one another in the mind to result
antithesis leads to a synthesis. A synthesis in a form of learning.
integrates the most credible features of each of
two (or more) views. For example, in the debate Behaviorism- It focuses entirely on the
over nature versus nurture, the interaction association between the environment and an
between our innate (inborn) nature and observable behavior.
environmental nurture may govern human
nature. Gestalt Psychology- It states that we best
understand psychological phenomena when we
Philosophy- seeks to understand the general view them as organized, structured wholes.
nature of many aspects of the world,
Cognitivism- is the belief that much of human
Physiology- seeks a scientific study of life- behavior can be understood in terms of how
sustaining functions in living matter, primarily people think.
through empirical (observation-based) methods.
Karl Spencer Lashley- He considered the brain
Rationalism- The belief that the route to to be an active, dynamic organizer of behavior.
knowledge is through thinking and logical
analysis. Donald Hebb (1949) proposed the concept of
cell assemblies as the basis for learning in the
Empiricism- The belief that knowledge is brain behavior.
acquired via empirical evidence which is
obtained through experience and observation.
Artificial intelligence (AI)- is the attempt by psychology, psychobiology, artificial intelligence,
humans to construct systems that show philosophy, linguistics, and anthropology.
intelligence and, particularly, the intelligent
processing of information
Broadbent’s filter model- The first complete
theory of attention that states that information (Chapter 2)
processing is restricted by channel capacity.
CHANNEL CAPACITY- THE MAXIMUM
AMOUNT OF INFORMATION THAT CAN BE Cognitive Neuroscience- is the field of study
TRANSMITTED BY AN INFORMATION- linking the brain and other aspects of the
PROCESSING DEVICE. nervous system to cognitive processing and,
ultimately, to behavior.
Intelligence- It involves the capacity to learn from
experience and the ability to adapt to the 3 major regions of the brain:
surrounding environment.
• Hindbrain- evolutionarily the oldest and
3 Stratum model of psychology: most primitive part of the brain.
• Midbrain-newer addition to the brain in
• Stratum I -includes many narrow,
evolutionary terms.
specific abilities (e.g., spelling ability,
• Forebrain- the most recent evolutionary
speed of reasoning).
addition to the brain. It is the last of the
• Stratum II- includes various broad
three portions of the brain to develop
abilities (e.g., fluid intelligence,
prenatally.
crystallized intelligence, short-term
memory, long-term storage and Forebrain:
retrieval, information processing speed).
• Stratum III- is just a single general • Cerebral cortex- is the outer layer of the
intelligence (Sometimes called g). cerebral hemispheres and play a vital
role in thinking and other mental
processes.
• Basal ganglia- are collections of neurons
Controlled experimental designs- an
crucial to motor function. Dysfunction of
experimenter will usually conduct research in a
the basal ganglia can result in motor
laboratory setting.
deficits which include tremors,
Psychobiological research, investigators study involuntary movements, changes in
the relationship between cognitive performance posture and muscle tone and slowness
and cerebral events and structures. of movement.
• Limbic system- is important to emotion,
o Self-reports (an individual’s own account of motivation, memory and learning. It
cognitive processes) allows us to suppress instinctive
responses (like the impulse to strike
o Case studies (in-depth studies of individuals)
someone who accidentally causes us
o Naturalistic observation (detailed studies of pain).
cognitive performance in everyday situations • Septum- is involved in anger
and nonlaboratory contexts). and fear.
• Amygdala- plays an important
Research based on self-reports, case studies role in emotion, especially in
and naturalistic observation is often particularly anger and aggression.
useful for the formulation of hypotheses. • Hippocampus= plays an
computer simulations, researchers program essential role in memory
computers to imitate a given human function or formation and is essential for
flexible learning and for seeing
process.
the relations among items
Cognitive science- A cross-disciplinary field that learned as well as for spatial
uses ideas and methods from cognitive memory.
 LOBES OF THE CEREBRAL HEMISPHERE:

• Thalamus- relays incoming • Frontal lobe- associated with motor

sensory information through processing and higher thought
groups of neurons that project to processes, such as abstract reasoning,
the appropriate region in the problem solving, planning, and
cortex. judgment.
• Hypothalamus- regulates • Parietal lobe- It receives inputs from the
behavior related to species neurons regarding touch, pain,
survival: fighting, feeding, temperature sense, and limb position
fleeting and mating. It is active when you are perceiving space and your
in regulating emotions and relationship to it—how you are situated
reactions to stress. relative to the space you are occupying.
• Brainstem- connects the The parietal lobe is also involved in
forebrain to the spinal cord. consciousness and paying attention. If
you are paying attention to what you are
Hindbrain: reading, your parietal lobe is activated.
• Temporal lobe- It is involved in retention
• Medulla oblongata- controls of visual memories. It matches new
heart activity and largely things you see to what you have
controls breathing, swallowing, retained in visual memory.
and digestion. • Occipital lobe- Associated with visual
• Pons- serves as a kind of relay processing and contains numerous
station because it contains visual areas, each specialized to
neural fibers that pass signals analyze specific aspects of a scene,
from one part of the brain to including color, motion, location and
another. form.
• Cerebellum - (from Latin, “little
brain”) controls bodily
coordination, balance, and
muscle tone, as well as some Neurons- Individual neural cells that transmit
aspects of memory involving electrical signals from one location to another in
procedure-related movements. the nervous system.

Left cerebral hemisphere is specialized for some Basic parts of neuron:

kinds of activity whereas the right cerebral 1.Soma (Cell Body)- Contains the nucleus of the
hemisphere is specialized for other kinds. cell (the center portion that performs metabolic
Karl Spencer Lashley- often described as the and reproductive functions for the cell).
father of neuropsychology, started studying Responsible for the life of the neuron and
localization in 1915. connects the dendrites to the axon.

The left hemisphere is important not only in 2.Dendrites- Branch-like structures that receive
language but also in movement. information from other neurons, and the soma
integrates the information. Learning occurs in
❖ People with apraxia—disorders of skilled conjunction with increased complexity in the
movements—often have had damage to branching structure of dendrites in the brain.
the left hemisphere.
3. Axon- A long, thin tub that extends (and
sometimes splits) from the soma and responds
to the information, when appropriate, by
Right hemisphere is largely “mute”. It has little transmitting an electrochemical signal, which
grammatical or phonetic understanding. But it travels to the terminus (end), where the signal
does have very good semantic knowledge. It can be transmitted to other neurons.
also is involved in practical language use.
4. Myelin- A white, fatty substance that Metabolic imaging techniques- rely on changes
surrounds some of the axons of the nervous that take place within the brain as a result of
system, which accounts for some of the increased consumption of glucose and oxygen in
whiteness of the white matter of the brain. Some active areas of the brain. The basic idea is that
axons are myelinated (in that they are active areas in the brain consume more glucose
surrounded by a myelin sheath) which insulates and oxygen than do inactive areas during some
and protects longer axons from electrical tasks.
interference by other neurons in the area, and it
also speeds up the conduction of information. Positron Emission Tomography (PET)-measure
increases in oxygen consumption in active brain
5. Nodes of Ranvier- Small gaps in the myelin areas during particular kings of information
coating along the axon, which serve to increase processing.
conduction speed even more by helping to
create electrical signals called action potentials, Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI)-
which are then conducted down the axon. A neuroimaging technique that uses magnetic
fields to construct a detailed representation in
6. Terminal Buttons- Small buttons found at the three dimensions of levels of activity in various
ends of the branches of an axon that do not parts of the brain at a given moment in time.
directly touch the dendrites of the next neuron.
Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS)- it is
7. Synapse- Serves as a juncture between the possible to examine causal relationships with
terminal buttons of one or more neurons and the this method because the brain activity in a
dendrites (or sometimes the soma) of one or particular area is disrupted and then its influence
more other neurons. Important in cognition as on task-performance is observed.
cognitive function is associated with the
efficiency of synaptic transmission of the nerve Magnetoencephalography (MEG)- It measures
impulses. Signal transmission between neurons activity of the brain from outside the head by
occurs when the terminal buttons release one or picking up magnetic fields emitted by changes
more neurotransmitters at the synapse. in brain activity.

Neurotransmitters- Chemical messengers for BRAIN DISORDERS:

transmission of information across the synaptic ❖ Strokes- occur when the flow of blood to
gap to the receiving dendrites of the next the brain undergoes a sudden
neuron. disruption. People who experience
Electroencephalograms (EEGs)- Recordings of stroke typically show marked loss of
the electrical frequencies and intensities of the cognitive functioning. The nature of the
living brain, typically recorded over relatively loss depends on the area of the brain
long periods. that is affected by the stroke.
▪ ischemic stroke- usually occurs
CT scan- consists of several X-ray images of the when a buildup of fatty tissue occurs
brain taken from different vantage points that, in blood vessels over a period of
when combined, result in a three-dimensional years, and a piece of this tissue
image. The aim of an angiography is not to look breaks off and gets lodged in
at the structures in the brain, but rather to arteries of the brain. Ischemic
examine the blood flow. strokes can be treated by clot-
busting drugs.
Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI)- reveals ▪ hemorrhagic stroke- occurs when a
high-resolution images of the structure of the blood vessel in the brain suddenly
living brain by computing and analyzing breaks. Blood then spills into
magnetic changes in the energy of the orbits of surrounding tissue. As the blood
nuclear particles in the molecules of the body. spills over, brain cells in the affected
Structural MRIs provide images of the brain’s areas begin to die. This death is
size and shape. MRIs allow for a much clearer either from the lack of oxygen and
picture of the brain than CT scans. nutrients or from the rupture of the
 vessel and the sudden spilling of (CHAPTER 3)
blood.
Perception- is the set of processes
▪ Typical symptoms include: by which we recognize, organize
and make sense of the sensations
• Numbness or weakness in the we receive from environmental
face, arms, or legs (especially stimuli.
on one side of the body)
Distal (far) object- is the object in the
• Confusion, difficulty speaking or external world
understanding speech
Informational medium- could be
• Vision disturbances in one or sound waves or can also be
both eyes reflected light, chemical molecules,
or tactile information
• Dizziness, trouble walking, loss coming from the environment
of balance or coordination
Proximal stimulation- occurs when
• Severe headache with no the information from light
known cause waves come into contact with the
❖ Brain Tumor- Also called neoplasms appropriate sensory receptors of the
which can affect cognitive functioning; eyes
tumors can occur in either the gray or
the white matter of the brain, with the Perception occurs when a
latter more common. Can be either perceptual object (i.e. what you see)
benign or malignant. is created in you that reflects the
➢ Symptoms: properties of the external world.
❖ Headaches (usually worse in the
morning) Light- is electromagnetic radiation
❖ Nausea or vomiting that can be described in terms of
❖ Changes in speech, vision, or wavelength.
hearing Cornea- is a clear dome that
❖ Problems balancing or walking protects the eye.
❖ Changes in mood, personality, or Pupil- the opening in the center of
ability to concentrate the iris.
❖ Problems with memory Vitreous humor- is a gel-like
❖ Muscle jerking or twitching (seizures substance that comprises the
or convulsions) majority of the eye.
❖ Numbness or tingling in the arms or Retina- where electromagnetic light
legs energy is converted into neural
❖ Head injuries result from many electrochemical impulses.
causes, such as a car accident, Fovea- which is a small, thin
contact with a hard object, or a region of the retina, the size of the
bullet wound. In closed-head head of a pin. When you look
injuries, the skull remains intact but straight at an object, your eyes
there is damage to the brain, rotate so that the image falls directly
typically from the mechanical force onto the fovea.
of a blow to the head.
In open-head injuries, the skull does Each eye contains roughly 120
not remain intact but rather is million rods and 8 million cones.
penetrated. Loss of consciousness
is a sign that there has been some Rods- are long thin photoreceptor,
degree of damage to the brain as a responsible for night vision and are
result of the injury. sensitive to light and dark stimuli.
Cones- are short and thick
photoreceptors and allow for the Pandemonium- refers to a
perception of color. They are more very noisy, chaotic place
highly concentrated in the foveal and hell.
region than in the periphery of the
retina. Perceptual constancy- occurs when
our perception of an
Pathway- in general is the path the object remains the same even when
visual information taken from our proximal sensation of
entering the human perceptual the distal object changes.
system through the eyes to its being
completely processed. Depth- is the distance from a
• 2 pathways: surface, usually using your own
1. dorsal pathway- is body as a reference surface when
called “the where speaking in terms of depth
pathway” and is perception.
responsible for
processing location and binocular disparity- your two eyes
motion information; send increasingly disparate
2. ventral pathway -is (differing) images to your
called “the what brain as objects approach you.
pathway” because it is
mainly responsible for Monocular depth cues- can be
processing the color, represented in just two dimensions
shape, and identity of and observed with just one eye.
visual stimuli.
Agnosia- have trouble to perceive
• Bottom-up theories describe sensory information.
approaches were
perception starts with the stimuli Simultagnosia- an individual is
whose appearance you unable to pay attention to more than
take in through your eye. one object at a time.

• Top-down theories states that Prosopagnosia- results in a severely

perception is driven by impaired ability to recognize
high-level cognitive processes, human faces
existing knowledge, and
the prior expectations that influence Optic Ataxia- is associated with
perception. damage to the “how” pathway

Direct perception- we do not need People with agnosia have normal

higher cognitive processes or sensations of what is in
anything else to mediate between front of them and they can perceive
our sensory experiences and our the colors and shapes
perceptions. of objects and persons but they
cannot recognize what the
Template theories- suggest that we objects are.
have stored in our minds
myriad sets of templates. rod monochromacy- also called
achromacy. People with this
Feature matching theories- we condition have no color vision at all.
attempt to match features of a It is thus the only true form of pure
pattern to features stored in color blindness.
memory, rather than to match a
whole pattern to a template or a
prototype.
 (CHAPTER 4) distracter stimuli increases, so does the difficulty
in detecting the target stimuli.
Attention
- The means by which we actively Guided-search model- suggests that all
process a limited amount of searches, whether feature searches or
information from the conjunction searches, involve two consecutive
enormous amount of information stages.
available through our senses, our Cocktail Party Problem – the process of
stored memories, tracking one conversation in the face of the
and our other cognitive processes. distraction of other conversations.
(1) Conscious processes- are
easier to study compared to Colin Cherry studied selective attention
unconscious processes
because we are not conscious
of these.
Theories of Selective Attention:
(2) Unconscious processes- you
are not aware o Broadbent’s Model
4 main functions of attention: o Selective Filter Model
o Signal detection and vigilance: We try to o Attenuation Model
detect the appearance of a particular stimulus.
Air traffic controllers, for example, keep an eye o Late-Filter Model
on all traffic near and over the airport.
Preattentive processes: These automatic
o Search: We try to find a signal amidst processes are rapid and occur in parallel.
distracters. For example, when we are looking
Attentive, controlled processes: These
for our lost cell phone on an autumn leaf-filled
processes occur later. They are executed
hiking path.
serially and consume time and attentional
o Selective attention: We choose to attend to resources, such as working memory.
some stimuli and ignore others, as when we are
Divided Attention- our brain's ability to attend
involved in a conversation at a party.
to two different stimuli at the same time, and
o Divided attention: We prudently allocate our respond to the multiple demands of your
available attentional resources to coordinate our surroundings.
performance of more than one task at a time, as
People with attention deficit hyperactivity
when we are cooking and engaged in a phone
disorder (ADHD) have difficulties in focusing
conversation at the same time.
their attention in ways that enable them to adapt
Vigilance- refers to a person’s ability to attend in optimal ways to their environment.
to a field of stimulation over a prolonged period,
3 primary symptoms: inattention, hyperactivity,
during which the person seeks to detect the
appearance of a particular target stimulus of and impulsiveness
interest. Most often treated with a combination of
psychotherapy and drugs.
Search- refers to a scan of the environment for
particular features—actively looking for o Change blindness- is an inability to detect
something when you are not sure where it will changes in objects or scenes that are being
appear. viewed.
Feature-Integration Theory - explains the o Inattentional blindness- is a phenomenon in
relative ease of conducting feature searches and which people are not able to see things that are
the relative difficulty of conducting conjunction actually there.
searches.
Similarity Theory - the data are a result of the
fact that as the similarity between target and
Spatial Neglect – One Half of the World Goes • Anoetic (non-knowing)- Procedural
Amiss- It is an attentional dysfunction in which memory
participants ignore the half of their visual field • Noetic (knowing)- Semantic memory
that is contralateral to (on the opposite side of) • Autonoetic (self-knowing)- episodic
the hemisphere of the brain that has a lesion. memory
Habituation- is an attentional phenomenon that - Non-conscious (also called unconscious) is
differs from the physiological phenomenon of the level of consciousness that operated without
sensory adaptation. our attention, continuously monitoring and
changing the contents of thought, and tracking
Adaptation- not accessible to conscious control
and changing behavior to address goals.
Arousal- is a degree of physiological excitation,
-Conscious is the basic level of awareness.
responsivity, and readiness for action, relative to
a baseline. Arousal often is measured in terms - Meta-conscious is the level of consciousness
of heart rate, blood pressure, at play when you direct your attention to your
electroencephalograph (EEG) patterns, and own state of mind.
other physiological signs.
Encoding is the process of transforming
Evidence also indicates that people with ADHD information into one or more forms of
have difficulty habituating to many types of representation.
stimuli.
Mind-Wandering
Automatic Processes- These are performed
without conscious awareness but one may be o The state in which your thoughts wander from
aware that they are performing them. a particular task without your realizing that this
has occurred; also referred to as zoning out.
Controlled Processes- require intentional effort
o The moment when you realize that you have
Automization - also called proceduralization; it “zoned out” is a moment of meta-consciousness.
occurs when many tasks that start off as
controlled processes eventually become Lucid dreaming- is a dream state in which we
automatic as a result of practice. are aware that we are dreaming. It is dreaming
with meta-consciousness, or what some
Persons who have dyslexia has their researchers call “reflective awareness”.
automization impaired and they frequently have
difficulty completing tasks, in addition to reading, Binocular rivalry – when a different image is
that are normally automated. presented to each eye, the viewer becomes
conscious of only one of the images at a time.
Stroop Effect - a phenomenon that occurs
when you must say the color of a word but not Visual Hemispatial Neglect- Lack of visual
the name of the word. awareness of objects located in the
contralesional field.
Mistakes We Make in Automatic Processes:
Split-brain and consciousness- a condition
Mistakes – errors in choosing an objective or in that is a consequence of surgery to control sever
specifying a means of achieving it. It involves epilepsy by severing the corpus callosum (the
errors in intentional, controlled processes. major fibre tract connecting the left and right
hemispheres) in the hope of isolating the
Slips- errors in carrying out an intended means
seizures to a single hemisphere.
for reaching an object. It often involves errors in
automatic processes. Phantom limb- is the feeling, following the
sudden loss of a body part, that it is still presen.
It occurs when a body part, such as an arm or a
Consciousness- Includes both the feeling of leg is suddenly lost (e.g.,through amputation).
awareness and the content of awareness, some
of which may be under the focus of attention.
(CHAPTER 5) 2. The levels of processing modeling- The
emphasis in this model is on processing as the
Memory- the means by which we retain and key to storage. The level at which information is
draw on our past experiences to use that stored will depend, in large part, on how it is
information in the present. encoded.
Recall – you produce a fact, a word, or other 3. An Integrative Model: Working Memory- holds
item from memory. only the most recently activated, or conscious,
Three Main Types of Recall portion of long-term memory, and it moves these
activated elements into and out of brief,
1) Serial Recall – you recall items in the exact temporary memory storage.
order in which they were presented
2) Free Recall – you recall items in any order 4. Multiple Memory Systems
you choose. 5. A Connectionist Perspective
3) Cued Recall – you are first shown items in
pairs, but during recall, you are cued with Mnemonists are people who demonstrates
only one member of each pair and are extraordinarily keen memory ability, usually
asked to recall each mate. It is also called based on using special techniques for memory
“paired-associates recall”. enhancement.
Recognition – you select or otherwise identify Synesthesia is the experience of sensations in
an item as being one that you have been a sensory modality different from the sense that
exposed to previously. Much better than recall has been physically stimulated.
Relearning – the number of trials it takes to Hypermnesia is a process of producing retrieval
learn once again items that we learned in the of memories that would seem to have been
past. Which you have to produce an answer, forgotten.
require expressive knowledge.
Amnesia is severe loss of explicit memory.
Explicit Memory – participants engage in
conscious recollection. They might recall or 1. Retrograde amnesia, in which
recognize words, facts, or pictures from a individuals lose their purposeful memory
particular prior set of items. for events prior to whatever trauma
induces memory loss.
Implicit Memory – participants use information 2. Anterograde amnesia is the inability to
from memory but are not consciously aware that remember events that occur after a
they are doing so. They can read a word traumatic event.
although a letter is missing.
Alzheimer’s Disease- A disease of older adults
Models of Memory that causes dementia as well as progressive
memory loss.
1. The Traditional Model of Memory
Dementia- is a loss of intellectual function that is
a) primary memory, which holds temporary severe enough to impair one’s everyday life.
information currently in use, and secondary
memory, which holds information
permanently or at least for a very long time.\
b) Sensory store (sensory memory)- is the
initial repository of much information that (CHAPTER 6)
eventually enters the short- and long-term
stores. Holds information for very short Forms of Encoding:
periods.
c) Short-term store (short-term memory)- 1.Short-Term Storage- acoustic code rather
holds memories for a few seconds and than a visual code.
occasionally up to a couple of minutes.
2.Long-Term Storage- semantically encoded,
d) Long-term store (long-term memory)- We
meaning, it is encoded by the meanings of
keep memories that stay with us over long
words.\
periods, perhaps indefinitely.
Interference occurs when competing information rather than after, learning of the to-be-
interferes with our storing information. remembered material.
Decay is when we forget facts just because time Serial-position curve- represents the probability
passes. of recall of a given word, given its serial position
(order of presentation) in a list.
Stress generally impairs the memory functioning.
However, stress also can help enhance the Schemas- are mental frameworks that represent
consolidation of memory through the release of knowledge in a meaningful way.
hormones.
Decay theory- asserts that information is
Rehearsal- the repeated recitation of an item, is forgotten because of the gradual disappearance,
one technique people use for keeping rather than displacement, of the memory trace.
information active.
Autobiographical memory refers to memory of
Hippocampus acts as a rapid learning system. an individual’s history. Autobiographical memory
is constructive. One does not remember exactly
Mnemonic Devices- These are specific what has happened. Rather, one remembers
techniques to help you memorize lists of words. one’s construction or reconstruction of what
Essentially, such devices add meaning to happened. People’s autobiographical memories
otherwise meaningless or arbitrary lists of items. are generally quite good but are still subject to
Metamemory- our understanding and reflection distortions.
upon our memory and how to improve it -One way of studying autobiographical memory
Retrospective memory- our memory for the past. is through diary studies.

Prospective memory- memory for things we -People with positive self-esteem remember
need to do or remember in the future. more positive events, whereas people with
negative self-esteem remember more negative
Parallel processing refers to the simultaneous events. Likewise, depressed people recall more
handling of multiple operations. negative memories than people who are not
depressed.
Serial processing refers to operations being
done one after another. Flashbulb memory—a memory of an event so
powerful that the person remembers the event
Exhaustive serial processing implies that the as vividly as if it were indelibly preserved on film.
participant always checks the test digit against
all digits in the positive set, even if a match were Transience. Memory fades quickly.
found partway through the list.
Absent-mindedness.
Self-terminating serial processing implies that
the participant would check the test digit against Blocking. People sometimes have something
only those digits needed to make a response. that they know they should remember, but they
can’t. It’s as though the information is on the tip
The entire retrieval process is not complete until of their tongue, but they cannot retrieve it.
the last item has been retrieved.
Misattribution. People often cannot remember
Interference Theory- The view that forgetting where they heard what they heard or read what
occurs because recall of certain words interferes they read.
with recall of other words.
Suggestibility. People are susceptible to
Retroactive interference (or retroactive inhibition) suggestion, so if it is suggested to them that they
occurs when newly acquired knowledge saw something, they may think they remember
impedes the recall of older material. seeing it.

Proactive interference (or proactive inhibition) Bias. People often are biased in their recall.
occurs when material that was learned in the
past impedes the learning of new material. In Persistence. People sometimes remember
this case, the interfering material occurs before, things as consequential that, in a broad context,
are inconsequential.
Repressed memories are memories that are
alleged to have been pushed down into
unconsciousness because of the distress they
cause.
- A number of factors, such as emotions, moods,
states of consciousness, schemas, and other
features of our internal context, clearly affect
memory retrieval.