Memory is the learning that is stored over time, through the process of encoding, storing, and retrieval. Strength of memory is influenced by attention, motivation, and personal interest.

• Encoding involves forming a memory code for a word, emphasizing how it looks, sounds, or what it means. Encoding requires direct attention. 

  • Attention involves focusing awareness on a narrowed range of stimuli or events. Selective attention is crucial to everyday functioning, as we could not possibly give equal attention to all stimuli. (Ex. Texting and driving, checking SnapChat while listening to me)

• Storage involves maintaining encoded information in memory over time. Storage does not guarantee memory. (ex: “tip of the tongue” phenomenon)

• Retrieval involves recovering information from memory stores.

Without rehearsal, information in short-term memory is lost in seconds. 

• Decay (the loss of information over time) and interference (adding on of competing information) contribute to the loss of short-term memories.

• Tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon – the temporary inability to remember something you know, accompanied by a feeling that it’s just out of reach. 

• Memories are sketchy recollections that might be distorted and may include details that didn’t actually occur. The misinformation effect (studied by Elizabeth Loftus) occurs when participants’ recall of an event they witnessed is altered by introducing misleading post-event information.

• A source-monitoring error occurs when a memory derived from one source is misattributed to another source. Ex. You might take a “fact” read off a social media page about psychology as one you read in your psychology textbook, and swear you remember reading it. People often feel confident in their authenticity even though their recollections prove to be inaccurate. 

In 1953, the removal of H.M.’s hippocampus at age 27 ended his seizures, but also ended his ability to form new explicit memories. H.M. could learn new skills, procedures, locations of objects, and games, but had no memory of the lessons or the instructors. These are implicit memories and automatic processing-processed in other areas of the brain. H.M. also retained memories from before the surgery. 

Jill Price has hyperthymesia, meaning she is unable to forget anything. Her memory forms a “running movie” of images and information that run simultaneously with current stimuli. A possible problem of never forgetting: we might not focus well on current stimuli because of intrusive memories.

German psychologist Hermann Ebbinghaus wanted to understand more about why we forget things and how to prevent it. The theory is that humans start losing the memory of learned knowledge over time, in a matter of days or weeks, unless the learned knowledge is consciously reviewed time and again. Ebbinghaus experimented with his own ability to remember using a list of nonsense syllables, which he attempted to recall after different lengths of time. His research produced the forgetting curve – a visual representation of the way that learned information fades over time. 

In 1983, Dr. Vernon Neppe defined déjà vu as a “subjectively inappropriate impression of familiarity of a present experience with an undefined past.” When you have déjà vu, you feel like you’re experiencing something that you almost certainly couldn’t have, yet you have the eerie sense that you have experienced something before. What is happening is that the current situation you are experiencing is lighting up areas of the brain has used to store past experiences, giving the sense of a memory that doesn't exist.

• 1 – 5 months: reflexive communication

• 6 – 18 months: babbling, first words, one-word sentence stage

• 18-24 months: vocabulary spurt, rapid acquisition of new words

• 2 years: two-word sentence stage (telegraphic speech)

• 2.5 years: three-word sentence stage

• 3 – 3.5 years: expanded grammatical forms, four-word sentences

• 4 – 5 years: private speech, five-word sentences, well-developed and complex syntax

• 6 years: metalinguistic awareness – the ability to reflect on the use of language (literal and implied meaning)

Childhood is a critical period for mastering certain aspects of language before the language-learning window gradually closes. Lack of exposure to either spoken or signed language by about age 7, can cause them to lose their ability to master any language. Children exposed to low-quality language (such as 4-year-olds in classrooms with 3-year-olds, or some children from impoverished homes) often display less language skill. 

• Fast mapping is the process by which children map onto an underlying concept after only one exposure; Rapid growth of vocabulary

• The efforts to learn new words are not flawless. 

  • Overextension: when a word is used incorrectly to describe a wider range of objects or actions. Ex. “Ball” to describe anything round

  • Underextension: when a word is used incorrectly to describe a narrower set of objects or actions. Ex. “Doll” to describe one specific doll

• Telegraphic speech consists mainly of content words; articles, prepositions, and other less critical words are omitted. Ex. “give doll”, “more cookies”

• Over-regularizations occur when grammatical rules are incorrectly generalized to irregular cases where the do not apply. Instead of “He is the worst”, a child might say, “He is the baddest”.

• Bilingualism is the acquisition of two languages that use different speech sounds, vocabulary, and grammatical rules. Acquiring a second language is much easier for children than it is for adults. Bilingualism has been linked to better attention, working memory, abstract reasoning, and problem-solving.

The ability to use language in a basic way is not unique to humans. While groups of animals have their own forms of communication, they have also demonstrated the ability to learn human language. 

• • Ex. Kanzi, Koko

If a goal is readily attainable, there isn’t a problem. In problem-solving situations, one must go beyond the information given to overcome obstacles and reach a goal.

• Cognition refers broadly to mental processes or thinking.

• Problem-solving refers to active efforts to discover what must be done to achieve a goal that is not readily attainable. 

• Insight occurs when people suddenly discover the correct solution to a problem after struggling with it for a while.

Types of Problems:

• Problems of Inducing – require people to discover the relations among numbers, words, symbols, or ideas; Ex. Analogies, series completion 

• Problems of Arrangement – require people to arrange parts of a problem in a way that satisfies some criterion; Ex. Anagrams, “string problem”

• Problems of Transformation – require people to carry out a sequence of transformations in order to reach a certain goal; Ex. River crossing problem

The availability heuristic involves basing the estimated probability of an event with the ease of which relevant instances come to mind.

• • If many of your friends’ parents are divorced, you would report the divorce rate to be high, based on the available information. This can lead to a biased estimate.

The representativeness heuristic involves basing the estimated probability of an event on how similar it is to the typical prototype of that event.

• • If you flip a coin six times, the likelihood that you will get all tails is the same as getting three heads and three tails, however, most would report the second combination to be more likely. 

A psychological test is a standardized measure of a sample of a person’s behavior. They are used to measure the individual differences among people in their abilities, aptitudes, interests, and aspects of personality. Psychological testing originated with efforts to measure general mental ability.

• • Intelligence tests measure general mental ability. 

  • Aptitude tests assess specific types of mental abilities (ex. Verbal reasoning, numerical ability, abstract reasoning, spelling, language usage).  

  • Achievement tests gauge a person’s mastery and knowledge of various subjects (ex. Reading, history, etc.)

  • Personality tests measure various aspects of personality, including motives, interests, values, and attitudes. 

• Fluid intelligence involves reasoning ability, memory capacity, and speed of information processing.

• Crystallized intelligence involves ability to apply acquired knowledge and skills in problem solving. 

The normal distribution is a symmetric, bell-shaped curve that represents the pattern in which many characteristics are dispersed in the population.

In this system, raw scores are translated into deviation IQ scores that locate subjects precisely within the normal distribution, using the standard deviation as the unit of measurement. 

Modern IQ tests indicate exactly where you fall in the normal distribution of intelligence. IQ scores are relatively unstable during the years of early childhood, and have little indication of how intelligent the child will become. IQ scores become more accurate predictors between ages 7 and 9. Although it is true that those who have higher IQ scores are more likely to end up in high-status jobs, higher IQ scores have not been strongly correlated with income or job performance. 

Adoption studies have shown that children often demonstrate IQs similar to that of their foster parents. Further evidence of the importance of environment is shown when siblings raised together are more similar in IQ than those raised apart, even if they’re identical twins. Children raised in substandard circumstances show a gradual decline in IQ as they get older. If removed and put in enriching environments, their IQ will increase.

The Flynn Effect: IQ tests are periodically re-normed so the mean score remains 100, but as decades pass, the standards needed to achieve that score increase and become more difficult. 

Even when raised in different environments, identical twins display greater similarity in IQ than fraternal twins reared together. These results indicate that heredity is a stronger influence than environment in the case of intelligence. 

A hereditability ratio is an estimate of the proportion of trait variability in a population that is determined by variations in genetic inheritance; Ex. The hereditability ratio for height is 90% while weight is 85%

Hereditability ratios for IQ vary considerably, falling between 40% and 80%. This would mean environment would account for 20% to 60%. This ratios vary based on the group statistics and the level of diversity in the group and their surroundings.  

Western cultures use IQ tests far more than non-Western cultures. Although many non-Western countries accept such tests, they don’t translate well. Non-western cultures have different language and cognitive frameworks that make it difficult to structure questions that would yield legitimate results. Some cultures don’t measure intelligence by tests, but by other traits ad skills valued by their people. 

Socioeconomic Disadvantage: Most minority groups have endured a long history of economic discrimination and are overrepresented in lower classes. A lower class upbringing tends to work against the development of one’s full intellectual potential. 

Stereotype Threat: negative ideas or feelings of stigmatized groups’ intellectual abilities create feelings of vulnerability (i.e. failure might be attributed to their race or gender, leading to a lack of motivation and poor performance)

• Enlargement of particular areas of the brain has been associated with higher IQ scores. 

• Those who score higher IQ scores as children are more likely to live longer lives. 

• Robert Sternberg proposed Triarchic Theory of “successful intelligence”: analytical, creative, and practical intelligence. 

• Howard Gardner’s Multiple Intelligence Theory states that humans exhibit eight types of intelligence: logical-mathematical, linguistic, musical, spatial, bodily-kinesthetic, interpersonal, intrapersonal, and naturalist.