A-Z of Memory

Introduction

A)

Absent-minded - being forgetful, often from a failure to pay attention to one's actions

Adaptive memory - that our learning and memory skills are tuned to solving fitness-based problems, reflecting how our memory evolved

Aging - the impact of time on an organism once maturity is reached

Alcohol - a chemical (ethanol) with psychoactive effects that is globally used as a recreational drug

Alzheimer's disease (AD) - the commonest form of dementia characterised by the presence of brain atrophy, amyloid plaques, and neurofibrillary tangles, along with pronounced cognitive decline

Amnesia - the loss of memory despite the sparing of other cognitive abilities

Amygdala - a limbic brain structure in the anterior part of the medial temporal lobes

Anaesthetics - see Unconscious learning

Anterograde amnesia - the failure to encode, consolidate, or retrieve new information that would normally reside in explicit long-term memory

Associative learning - the ability of organisms to make connections between related events in their environment

Autobiographical memory - individual personal episodes along with more general life information that concerns the same individual

Autonoesis - see Episodic memory, Remember

Availability heuristic - see Heuristics

B)

Bartlett - on the contributions of Sir Frederick Bartlett (1886-1969)

Bias - how our memories are shaped by learnt expectations and prejudices

Binding - the bringing together of different elements in space and time to create a cohesive entity, be it a sensory percept or a mnemonic representation

Blocking - 1) The ability of a previously acquired association to block further associative learning about the same contingency, 2) The ability of an initial (incorrect) recalled item to block the recall of other potential solutions

Bottom-up processing - see Top-down processing

C)

Caffeine - a widely used stimulant with some positive effects on cognition (see also Nootropics)

Central executive - a core component of working memory that helps to regulate attention, make decisions, and guide the brief holding of information

Change blindness - see Illusions of memory

Childhood amnesia (also called Infantile amnesia) - the inability to recall or recognise personal events from our earliest years

Classical conditioning -the associative learning of how one stimulus predicts another

Cognitive control - see Executive functions

Cognitive enhancers - see Nootropics

Comprehension and learning - see Understanding and learning

Concept learning - see Grandmother cells, Hub and Spoke model, Semantic memory

Conditioned taste aversion - the long-lasting, deep dislike of a taste that had been associated with feeling nauseous

Confabulation - the fabrication of narratives and other information, often to fill in memory gaps

Confirmation bias - see Bias

Consolidation - the progressive stabilization of information post encoding

Constructivism in memory - the belief that memories reflect our personal understanding of an event, rather than an objective representation

Context and memory - how the same contextual cues at learning and recall can benefit retrieval while changed contextual cues can disrupt retrieval

Cross-sectional study - see Longitudinal study

Curiosity - an intrinsic motivation to seek novel information and so reduce uncertainty

D)

Declarative memory - explicit long-term memory that incorporates both semantic and episodic memory

Deese-Roediger-McDermott paradigm (DRM) - using related words or images to create false memories of a never-presented, but closely related item

Default mode network - the network of brain areas that increases coordinated activity in between tasks, typically when self-reflecting or mind wandering

Demand characteristics - the array of cues that convey an experimental hypothesis to the participant

Dementia - an umbrella term that covers numerous neurological conditions that progressively disrupt brain function and cause the breakdown of multiple cognitive functions

Depression and memory - the impact of major depression on memory

Depth of processing - see Levels of processing

Developmental amnesia - a syndrome of memory loss and memory preservation seen after bilateral hippocampal damage in childhood

Diencephalon - a core brain area largely consisting of the thalamus, subthalamus, and hypothalamus

Digit span - see Memory span

Dissociative amnesia - see Psychogenic amnesia

Distributed practice - see Spaced training

Directed forgetting - see Motivated forgetting

E)

Ebbinghaus - Hermann Ebbinghaus (1850-1909) is principally famous for his systematic studies of rates of learning and rates of forgetting

Echoic memory - the brief sensory store for auditory information, including words

Ecological validity - a term typically used when considering how well a set of experimental findings can be generalized to real-world settings

Ecphory - when a cue helps trigger the memory of a past event

Eidetic memory - an unusually vivid form of visual memory that is highly accurate

Elaborative rehearsal - the process of considering the meaning of a stimulus and its implications, processes that create additional connections and enhance recall

Embodied cognition - the notion that the way we think is shaped by our bodily perceptions and experiences

Emotion and memory - the interplay between affect and the elements of memory

Encoding specificity principle - see Context-dependent memory and Ecphory

Engram - the enduring trace that records a memory and is potentially available for retrieval

Epigenetics - how cellular experiences may modify gene expression without altering the underlying (DNA) genetic code

Episodic buffer - a subsystem within working memory that provides a two-way bridge with episodic memory and other aspects of long-term memory

Episodic foresight (Episodic future thinking) - see Future memory

Episodic memory - our long-term memory for individual events located in a particular time and place (an episode)

Errorless learning - a method of teaching in which people are prevented as far as possible from making errors whilst learning a new skill or new information

Event segmentation - how a continuous stream of activity is broken down into meaningful units

Executive functions - an umbrella term for a set of related cognitive skills that help planning, problem solving, and adapting to new situations

Expert knowledge - the superior ability to acquire and retain new information within one's domain of expertise

Explicit (declarative) memory - the division of long-term memory that holds information over which we have conscious access and awareness

Extinction - the reduction in frequency or intensity of a conditioned response following the removal of reinforcement

Eyewitness memory - the study of how and when the remembrance of witnessed events may differ from reality

F)

False memory (syndrome) - personal narratives for events that never occurred

Familiarity principle - see Mere-exposure effect

Fear conditioning - learning in which a stimulus or context becomes associated with fear

Feeling of knowing - a sense of familiarity indicating the presence of a memory that cannot be fully retrieved

Flashbulb memory - a vivid, detailed memory of a surprising, emotional event that often includes what the observer was doing when the event occurred

Forgetting - the absence or error in a memory, whether by inadequate encoding, alteration, erasure, or retrieval failure

Forgetting curve - the decline in memory over time

Free recall - the recollection of information as it comes to mind without explicit cues or prompts

Fugue - a temporary loss of personal identity that appears unaccompanied by physical brain damage

Future memory (episodic future thinking) - our ability to imagine or simulate future autobiographical events

Fuzzy trace theory - see Gist

G)

Generation Effect - how self-generated information is remembered better than information that you have read or heard

Gist - that some memories only capture the essence of an experience, its gist

Grandmother cell - a neuron that only responds to a highly specific, complex stimulus (such as one's grandmother)

Grid cells - spatial neurons whose firing fields are organized in a horizontal lattice that covers the environment, with each firing field being equally spaced (forming a grid)

H)

Habit - a behaviour that can be performed without conscious control or a behaviour that is gradually acquired over many repetitive trials

Habituation - the gradual lessening of a reaction to a stimulus after the repeated presentation of the same or similar stimulus

Head-direction cells - neurons that selectively fire when facing a particular direction ('the brain's compass')

Hebb - Donald O. Hebb (1904-1985), a Canadian psychologist best known for his pioneering work on neural networks and learning

Heuristic - a cognitive shortcut (rule-of-thumb) that aids rapid decision making

Highly Superior Autobiographical Memory (HSAM) (also known as Hyperthymesia) - the ability to retain past autobiographical memories at exceptional levels of detail

Hippocampal formation (Hippocampus) - a medial temporal lobe structure that critically contributes to a range of memory functions, including those required for episodic memory and spatial navigation

Hippocampal replay - see Memory replay

H.M. - Henry Molaison (1926-2008) is the best-known and most studied case of amnesia

Homunculus - i) the seductive fallacy of a little human solving problems inside our head, ii) the outline of a human body across our motor and somatosensory cortices

Hub and Spoke model of semantic memory - a model of how we represent semantic information

Hyperthymesia - see Highly Superior Autobiographical Memory

Hypnosis and memory - on whether hypnosis can aid the retrieval of memories or disrupt aspects of memory

I)

Iconic memory - a brief visual store thought to combine two forms of visual persistence

Illusions of memory - when our recall or recognition of a past event markedly deviates from the real experience

Imagery and memory - how a mental pictorial representation impacts on memory

Imagination inflation (see also False memories) - how imagining events that did not occur increases the likelihood of believing in their reality

Imitation (Imitative learning) - social learning that involves copying the actions of others

Implicit memory (Nondeclarative memory) - that component of long-term memory which is not consciously accessible

Imprinting - whereby an animal learns, during a sensitive period, to confine its preferences to a specific stimulus (typically another individual), class of stimuli, or location

Inattentional blindness - see Illusions of memory

Incidental learning - learning that occurs without the explicit intention to learn and memorise

Infantile amnesia - See Childhood amnesia

Instrumental learning (Operant conditioning) - associative learning in which the likelihood or intensity of a response is regulated by its outcome

Interference - competition between similar information that can cause memory errors

Irrelevant speech (sound) effect - how background speech or word-like sounds can disrupt ongoing memory tasks and comprehension

Isolation effect - see von Restorff effect

J)

Jost's law - see Ebbinghaus, Ribot's law

K)

Korsakoff's disease (syndrome) - a form of organic amnesia associated with vitamin B1 (thiamine) deficiency, and most often seen in chronic alcoholics

L)

Latent inhibition - when a familiar stimulus takes longer to acquire a new association than a novel stimulus

Learning - at its simplest, learning is commonly defined as behavioral change brought about by experience

Learning-set - learning to learn, so that previous similar problems lead to the acquisition of a rule (learning-set) to help solve the same class of problems

Learning styles - a teaching vogue which presumes that students learn better when receiving information in their preferred medium (style), e.g., auditory, visual, or kinaesthetic

Levels of processing - the concept that the deeper you process information the better it is subsequently remembered

Lloyd-Morgan's canon - see Instrumental learning

Longitudinal study - repeatedly testing the performance of the same individual over time

Long-term memory - a repository of stored information that persists for minutes, days, or even years (sometimes referred to as secondary memory)

Long-term depression (LTD) - although the term can refer to a chronic depressive disorder, here it concerns a process that weakens connections between neurons, often acting in the opposite way to long-term potentiation (LTP)

Long-term potentiation (LTP) - the lasting strengthening of synaptic efficacy following pulses of stimulation

M)

Maintenance rehearsal - see Elaborative rehearsal

Mammillary bodies - see Diencephalon, Korsakoff's syndrome

Massed learning - see Spaced learning

Memory - the meaning of memory

Memory in sensitive plants and unicellular organisms, including slime moulds - on whether memory exists in organisms that lack neurons

Memory replay - the reactivation of sequential activity patterns in neuronal assemblies that replays their prior patterns of activity during learning

Memory span - a test of short-term memory in which a series of items are recalled in their order of presentation

Mental time travel - see Future memory (Future episodic memory)

Mere-exposure effect - how, after repeated exposure, a neutral stimulus acquires positive values

Metamemory - the introspective ability to monitor your own memory processes, including its content and capabilities

Method of loci - A memory aid (mnemonic) that involves making visual images of items to be remembered, and placing these images in a pre-set sequence of visualised locations

Mild cognitive impairment - a condition causing memory or other thinking problems that is often, but not always, a transitional phase leading to dementia

Mirror neuron - a neuron that increases its activity when performing an action and when observing that same action

Mnemonics - effortful cognitive strategies used to improve memory

Mnemonists - individuals who possess exceptional memory abilities, whether seemingly spontaneously or by dint of exhaustive training

Mood congruency - see Context-dependent memory

Motivated forgetting - an effortful process that helps us to forget unwanted memories

Motor learning - see Procedural learning

Multiple trace theory (of consolidation and retrieval) - that each retrieval effort creates a new memory trace, as a result of which the hippocampus remains necessary for the consolidation and retrieval of past episodic memories, irrespective of their age

N)

n-back task - where participants mentally hold a continuous sequence of items while checking for any repeats from a specified number of places (n) back in the sequence

Neurogenesis - the creation of new neurons

Nicotine - an addictive drug that activates one of the two major types of acetylcholine receptors (nicotinic) and is thought to influence cognition

Nondeclarative memory - see Implicit memory

Nootropics ('Cognitive enhancers', 'Neuroenhancers', 'Smart drugs') - chemicals and supplements purported to improve cognition, including learning and memory

O)

Observational learning - social learning based on imitation that makes it possible to acquire new behaviours and knowledge

Olfactory memory - memory for smells

Operant learning - see Instrumental learning

P)

Partial reinforcement extinction effect - see Extinction

Partial report method - see Iconic memory, Echoic memory

Pattern completion and Pattern separation - 'Pattern completion' is the process of retrieving a complete memory representation from a partial or degraded cue; 'Pattern separation' is the process of segregating similar experiences into distinct, dissimilar representations

Pavlovian conditioning - see Classical conditioning

Penfield (Wilder Penfield, 1891-1976) - see Engram

Perceptual learning - see Expert knowledge

Phenotype - the observable attributes displayed by an individual

Phonological loop - a working memory subsystem for speech-based sounds

Place cells - neurons that signal a specific location by increasing their activity

Prediction error - the mismatch between a prior expectation and the experienced event

Preverbal learning - that period of learning by infants prior to verbal communication, typified by other communication skills such as vocalizations, gestures, and eye contact

Primacy effect - the superior recall of the first few items in a sequence

Primary memory - see Short-term memory

Priming - when exposure to a stimulus (now 'primed') influences our response to a subsequent stimulus

Proactive interference - see Interference

Procedural memory - the implicit memory for skills, habits, and cognitive actions that are performed automatically and for which we lack conscious awareness of their underlying nature

Prospective memory - the cognitive ability to remember to perform an intended action or recall a planned intention at an appropriate future time

Psychogenic amnesia (or Dissociative amnesia) - a memory dysfunction, typically involving a loss of personal memories, which arises from psychological stress or trauma yet without detectable brain damage (or damage that could account for the degree of memory loss)

Q)

Qualia - the subjective conscious experience of a quality or property

R)

Reality monitoring - see Source monitoring

Recall - see Remember

Recency effect - the superior recall of information presented at the end of a list over those items presented in the middle

Recognition memory - the ability to detect the re-occurrence of a stimulus

Reconsolidation (and Reconstruction) - the process whereby the retrieval of a memory renders it unstable and prone to modification

Recovered memories - see Repression of memory

Rehearsal - the mental repetition of an item to prolong its storage

Reinforcement and Reward - terms describing how pleasant or unpleasant stimuli can influence the likelihood of a preceding action

Remember (Recall, Retrieve) - to access a memory (or past representation)

Remember/Know - see Recognition memory

Replication crisis (Reproducibility crisis) - a methodological crisis concerning how many published findings (e.g., in psychology) are difficult or seemingly impossible to reproduce

Repression (memory) - the self-removal of a traumatic memory that cannot be accommodated in conscious memory

Retrieval - see Remember

Retrieval effect (Retrieval practice effect) - see Testing effect

Retroactive interference - see Interference

Retrograde amnesia - the sudden loss of past memories, typically following a neurological insult

Ribot's law (1881) - that in retrograde amnesia, recent memories are more likely to be lost than older memories

S)

Savants - people who display spectacular feats of memory, the term 'savant syndrome' being largely reserved for those who also face neurodevelopmental challenges

Savings - using rates of relearning to assess original levels of learning and retention

Schema - an acquired mental framework that guides the interpretation, organization, and recollection of incoming information

Scripts - see Schemas

Semantic dementia - a subtype of frontotemporal dementia that predominantly affects language skills, in particular, word comprehension and naming

Semantic memory - a division of explicit long-term memory that holds general knowledge about the world, including facts, concepts, words, and number meanings

Sensitization - when the repeated exposure to a stimulus results in an amplification of responsiveness to that stimulus, and potentially to other stimuli

Sensory memory - see Echoic memory, Iconic memory

Serial position effect - see Primacy effect, Recency effect

Short-term memory - a store holding restricted amounts of information over short time periods

Smart drugs - see Nootropics

Source monitoring - the cognitive ability to identify the origin of a memory

Spaced training (Spaced learning) - how distributed practice results in more effective learning and more durable retention

State-dependent learning (State-dependency) - see Context and memory

Superstitious learning - the mistaken learning that occurs when an action is coincidentally paired with a reinforcer

Synaptic plasticity - see Long-term depression and Long-term potentiation

T)

Taxi drivers (London) - insights into brain plasticity and spatial learning made possible by the unique training demands on London taxi drivers

Testing effect - how taking tests during the learning phase facilitates later retrieval from long-term memory

Tip-of-the-tongue (tip-of-the-finger, tip-of-the-eye) - the feeling that you are on the brink of recollecting a word, but the correct word will not come to mind

Tobacco smoking - see Nicotine

Top-down processing (also Bottom-up processing) - how our prior knowledge and expectations influence perceptual and cognitive decisions

Trace decay - that memories get weaker over time, with time being the critical agent of forgetting

Transient global amnesia - an anterograde amnesia of sudden origin and brief duration that selectively affects the ability to make or access new memories while sparing other cognitive abilities

U)

Unconscious learning when anaesthetised - evidence that new implicit learning is possible despite being unconscious

Understanding and memory - the relationship between depth of understanding and subsequent memory (also see Constructivism, Elaborative rehearsal, Expert knowledge, Levels of processing, Mnemonics, Schemas)

V)

Visuospatial sketchpad - a subsystem within the multicomponent model of working memory that holds visual and spatial information

von Restorff effect (Isolation effect) - the enhanced memorability of an item that stands-out from the array by being different or unexpected

W)

White matter plasticity - how experience-induced changes to white matter accompany learning

Wisconsin Card Sorting Test - see Learning-set

Working memory - a cognitive system with limited capacity and temporary duration that actively holds information making it available for reasoning, decision-making, and planning (a more restricted definition applies to animal working memory)

Y)

Yerkes-Dodson law - see Emotion and memory

Z)

Zebra fish - a model vertebrate species that has optically transparent embryonic and young larval stages

Zeigarnik effect - that uncompleted or interrupted tasks are remembered better

Acknowledgements