Cognitive Glossary

Brown & Kulik’s theory that memories created as the result of high levels of emotion – particularly surprise – are like “photographs.” The theory argues that a lot of peripheral and irrelevant information is retained.

• Flashbulb memory

• Episodic memory

• Semantic memory

• Procedural memory

General knowledge of facts and people. Concepts and schemas and not linked to time and place.

• Semantic memory

• Episodic memory

• Procedural memory

• Working memory

The theory that when memories are accessed, they are not retrieved as a single, whole memory, but rather as a collection of independent memories put together. It is in this process that distortions occur.

• Reconstructive memory

• Declarative memory

• Procedural memory

• Sensory memory

The tendency to remember the most recently presented information better than information presented earlier.

• Primacy Effect

• Recency Effect

• Serial Position Effect

• Cognitive Dissonance

A mental shortcut that allows people to solve problems and make judgments quickly and efficiently.

• Algorithm

• Heuristic

• Trial and Error

• Intuition

The part of Baddeley & Hitch's Working Memory Model responsible for the control and regulation of cognitive processes.

It binds information from a number of sources into a coherent "episode", coordinates the "slave systems", shifts between tasks and handles selective attention and inhibition.

• Central Executive

• Phonological Loop

• Visuospatial Sketchpad

• Episodic Buffer

 describes the way people choose between alternatives that involve risk, where the probabilities of outcomes are known. The theory states that people evaluate these losses and gains using heuristics.

• Prospect theory

• Utility theory

• Game theory

• Behavioral economics

The component of Baddeley & Hitch's Working Memory Model responsible for processing auditory information.

• Phonological loop

• Visuospatial sketchpad

• Central executive

• Episodic buffer

Is a psychological phenomenon where the order in which items are presented significantly impacts how well they are remembered. Specifically, people tend to recall items at the beginning and end of a list or series better than those in the middle.

• The serial position effect

• The spacing effect

• The primacy effect

• The recency effect

Amemory error which produces fabricated, distorted, or misinterpreted memories about oneself or the world.

• Confabulation

• Repression

• Dissociation

• Amnesia