Track 2

Unit 5

Cognitive psychology

Memory

Page 43

Build your vocabulary

1. Brain chemicals can make people feel very excited or very sad. These natural substances have an extremely strong influence on our feelings.

2. Many of our memories, such as the facts and ideas that we learn in school, are conscious. We can recall them and explain them to others.

3. In the past decade, researchers have learned many new things about how memory works. And even more progress is expected in the next 10 years.

4. Some of our knowledge about how to do things, such as riding a bicycle, is mostly implicit. We can ride the bicycle but, it’s very difficult to tell another person how to do it.

5. We often think about logical relationships when studying something. For instance, what is the reasonable cause of something, or what will be the likely result of some event?

6. When we do mathematics, we manipulate information in one part of our memory system by adding, subtracting or changing the numbers.

7. Some psychologists have studied the types of memory we have and how to improve memory. Thanks to the specialized study of the mind, we now know much more about memory than we did a generation ago.

8. When we feel strong emotions, our brains release substances. These substances go to specific parts of our brain and help us remember that event.

9. The most important function of our memory system is that it can retain information for long periods of time. Because of this, we can remember events that happened many years ago.

10. Some memories are stored only temporarily. They can be recalled very briefly and then they fade away.