PSYC 2650 Lecture Notes - Lecture 6: Context-Dependent Memory, Prefrontal Cortex, Spreading Activation

• School: University of Guelph
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYC 2650
• Professor: Naseem Al Aidroos

Document Summary

Spreading activation: activation of one concept primes activity for related concepts. Ex; saying red primes words like firetruck or rose because they are semantically related in terms of colour. Prime with word like red or a neutral prime such as xxxx . Supposedly, the prime word red should decrease response time for the word fire . This is an example of bottom-up, semantic priming. Think of them as bundles of information. Create associations between your evens and what you already know about the world (semantic memory) It is a combination of perceptual, motor, and emotional memory. Learn a series of words tested on memory later. As you are learning words, there is greater activation in your left, prefrontal cortex. Key to remembering = putting effort into encoding, rather than retrieval. Use elaborative rehearsal (understanding and making connections between things) rather than maintenance (just repeating the information in your head) Pleasantness of a word also helps retrieval.