(2) STM and LTM

Question 1

What two types of memory did Freud suggest?

Answer 1

-Freud: 2 layers Surface (transitory) vs. Deep (permanent)

Question 2

What two types of memory did William James suggest?

Answer 2

-James: Primary (stream of consciousness) vs. Secondary Memory

Question 3

What are the Three basic memory systems?

Answer 3

• Sensory memory
• Short term/working memory (RAM)
• Long-term memory (hard drive)

Question 4

What are the general characteristics of sensory memory?

Answer 4

• Large capacity
• Literal record of perceptual experience
• But lost quickly (transient)

Question 5

How long does Iconic memory (or ‘Visual sensory register’) hold visual input for?

Answer 5

-Holds visual input for 250 msec – Representation is pre-categorical (literal record of percept)

Question 6

How long does Echoic memory (or ‘Auditory sensory register’) hold auditory input for?

Answer 6

-Holds auditory input for 2-3 seconds

Question 7

What was Sperling’s Iconic Memory Demonstration?

Answer 7

• A matrix of 12 letters and numbers will be very briefly flashed
• As soon as you see the information, write down everything you can remember in its proper location

Question 8

What was the free recall task?

Answer 8

• Present participants with a list of words (about 1015), e.g., trumpet, shirt, table, ….
• Participants to recall them in any order
• Plot the results according to how well the words were recalled at each serial position

Question 9

What causes Primacy gradient?

Answer 9

First few items can be rehearsed a lot and so more likely to move into long-term memory

Question 10

What causes Recency gradient?

Answer 10

last few items of the list are still in STM when you start to write the list down

Question 11

How can you reduce recency gradient?

Answer 11

If that’s true, a delay before writing down the items should allow time for STM to decay, and so reduce or eliminate the recency gradient…

Question 12

What is the free recall task with a filled delay?

Answer 12

• Present participants with a list of words (about 1015), e.g., trumpet, shirt, table, ….
• ADDITIONAL STEP: A ‘filled delay’ between last item and recall: participants undertake some secondary activity (e.g., counting backwards)
• Participants to recall them in any order
• Plot the results according to how well the words were recalled at each serial position

Question 13

Evidence for phonological coding in short-term memory?

Answer 13

• Phonological similarity effect
• Words that ‘sound’ alike more poorly recalled than dissimilar sounding words
• Baddeley (1966a, cited in Baddeley, 1990)

Question 14

What is the word length effect? (phonological coding in the STM)

Answer 14

• recall of words is worse for longer words than for shorter words
• The word-length effect is eliminated if phonological coding is prevented through ‘articulatory suppression’ (e.g., counting or repeating an Irrelevant word, “the, the, the…”)

Question 15

What was Atkinson and Shiffrin’s (1968) 3-Stage Memory Model?

Answer 15

Stimuli - sensory stores - STM (if repeated) - LTM

Question 16

What was Baddeley’s Working Memory model (short-term stores + controlled processing)?

Answer 16

SEE PIC

Question 17

What are the main characteristics of the short term memory?

Answer 17

• STM has a very limited duration
• STM also has a limited capacity: about 4 or 5 chunks
• STM tends to rely on a phonological code

Question 18

What did Standing (1973) find about the Capacity of long-term memory?

Answer 18

“Learning 10,000 Pictures”

• Participants could recognise 133/160 pictures selected randomly from about 10,000 pictures studied earlier
• Must have had a long-term memory trace of ~6,600 of the pictures
• “The capacity of recognition memory for pictures is almost limitless.”
• Pictures better recognised than words

Question 19

What is Explicit memory?

Answer 19

when retrieval of a memory is deliberate/requires conscious recollection. Also called declarative memory
-note that short-term remembering is also typically ‘explicit’

Question 20

What is Implicit memory?

Answer 20

when behaviour indicates that memories are being retrieved in the absence of a deliberate, conscious, attempt to retrieve them
-E.g., procedural memory - much of recognition memory is implicit (e.g., for very familiar faces; the meaning of common words)

Question 21

Explicit memories typically divided into two types (Tulving, 1983):

Answer 21

• Semantic memories (general knowledge about the world)

- Episodic memories (memories for experiences/events)

Question 22

What is semantic memory?

Answer 22

• Knowledge of facts, concepts, ‘general knowledge’
• Do dogs bark? – may be based on experience of dogs barking (i.e., an episodic memory) but doesn’t have to be, and you don’t have to remember any particular event
• Do dogs breathe air? – Very unlikely to be based on a specific episode

Question 23

What are the key features of LTM?

Answer 23

• LTM has (possibly) limitless capacity
• LTM has (can have) a very long duration
• LTM is better when we can rely on multiple different codes (hence picture superiority effect and imageability effect)
• There are different types of LTM
• Evidence that semantic memory is organised as a hierarchically structured network

Question 24

What are partial matches?

Answer 24

Due to spreading activation, and reliance on partial matches (Kamas & Reder, 1995) - We don’t always encode information perfectly, because it’s typically safe to rely on a partial match

Question 25

What is the evidence for the hierarchical structure of semantic memory?

Answer 25

-Speed of responding to questions about semantic concepts differs according to number of ‘vertical’ steps required through the network (Collins & Quillian, 1969)

Question 26

What is the evidence for spreading activation through that hierarchy?

Answer 26

Semantic priming (e.g., Meyer & Schvaneveldt, 1976)