PSYB57H3 : Chapter 8
Document Summary
Memory connections provide more than just retrieval paths; connections are our memories. Search through memory begins at one node, and travels via connections until target info found: not all associations are of equal strength. There are superhighways and country roads , can go from one city to another via intermediate roads when there is not a direct road connecting the two cities. Some active intellectual engagement needed to create or strengthen connections. Nature of event crucial, and thinking about it in a distinctive way helps strengthen. Activation levels below response, subthreshold activation, can accumulate, so that inputs may add together or summate, to bring node to threshold. Like previously discussed, nodes that have recently fired can be thought of as warmed up . Key idea of associative network is that sub threshold activation can accumulate: why hints help us, and context reinstatement helps memory. Sometimes pairs of words were related, sometimes they weren"t.
