Understanding Psychology (10th Ed)

R E C A P / E V A L U A T E / R E T H I N K
K E Y T E R M S 
R E C A P 
What is memory?
• Memory is the process by which we encode, store, and 
retrieve information. (p. 209)
Are there different kinds of memory?
• Sensory memory, corresponding to each of the sensory 
systems, is the fi rst place where information is saved. 
Sensory memories are very brief, but they are precise, 
storing a nearly exact replica of a stimulus. (p. 210)
• Roughly seven (plus or minus two) chunks of informa-
tion can be transferred and held in short-term memory. 
Information in short-term memory is held from 15 to 
25 seconds and, if not transferred to long-term memory, 
is lost. (p. 211)
• Memories are transferred into long-term storage through 
rehearsal. If memories are transferred into long-term 
memory, they become relatively permanent. (p. 213)
• Some theorists view short-term memory as a working 
memory in which information is retrieved and manipu-
lated and held through rehearsal. In this view, it is a cen-
tral executive processor involved in reasoning and 
decision making; it coordinates a visual store, a verbal 
store, and an episodic buffer. (p. 213)
• Long-term memory can be viewed in terms of memory 
modules, each of which is related to separate memory 
systems in the brain. For instance, we can distinguish 
between declarative memory and procedural memory. 
Declarative memory is further divided into episodic 
memory and semantic memory. (p. 214)
• Semantic networks suggest that knowledge is stored in 
long-term memory as mental representations of clusters 
of interconnected information. (p. 217)
What are the biological bases of memory?
• The hippocampus and amygdala are especially impor-
tant in the establishment of memory. (p. 218)
memory p. 209