6 - Memory

Question 1

define acquisition

Answer 1

gaining new info and placing into memory, and what we learn depends on what we already know

Question 2

define working memory

Answer 2

active store using attention and manipulating and organising thoughts whilst maintaining LTM items related to the current task

Question 3

what does the STM do

Answer 3

pays attention to info in sensory stores

Question 4

studies on KF found what

Answer 4

verbal STM poor visual fine, LTM unaffected so STM isn’t one unit and STM and LTM have different neural structures

Question 5

what is LTM encoding

Answer 5

creating memory representations semantically

Question 6

what is LTM consolidation

Answer 6

making memory representations stable through elaborative rehearsal

Question 7

define retrieval

Answer 7

reactivating stored and stable memory traces

Question 8

what are features of working memory

Answer 8

active, limited in size, easy to get info in/out, contents displaced easily when thinking of new topic

Question 9

what is working memory’s capacity

Answer 9

7 +/-2 but uses phonological loop and central executive

Question 10

what is working memory operation span

Answer 10

measuring working memory when it’s active through reading span which is # of sentences the last words of can be recalled

Question 11

what are concurrent articulation tasks

Answer 11

repeating sounds aloud, preventing speech production including subvocalisation

Question 12

what happens in concurrent articulation tasks

Answer 12

only phonological loop used and span drops to 3-4

Question 13

what lobe is responsible for artic loop

Answer 13

left parietal

Question 14

what lobe is responsible for the phon loop

Answer 14

left frontal

Question 15

what does the artic loop involve

Answer 15

rehearsing in our head what we want to say

Question 16

what is the phonological similarity effect

Answer 16

recall of characters is harder if there is more phonological similarity

Question 17

what is a phonological store

Answer 17

passive storage for holding a representation/internal echo of recently heard and self produced sounds which lasts for 1-2 secs

Question 18

what is subvocalization’s role in the phon store

Answer 18

silent speech maintaining auditory image

Question 19

describe the visuo-spatial sketchpad

Answer 19

visual cache, inner scribe recreating spatial relationships and creating mental images of new images or items from LTM

Question 20

what is the episodic buffer’s role

Answer 20

helping central executive organise ingo chronologically

Question 21

what does the central executive do with info in each stores

Answer 21

organises info into correct stores and determines what’s done with each stores info

Question 22

how is the central exec linked to LTM

Answer 22

brings items from LTM into consciousness

Question 23

list 4 other roles of the central exec

Answer 23

cog control
online manipulations
decision making and reasoning
making/implementing plans to reach goals

Question 24

what did Robbins et al find out about when people were playing chess at the same time as other stuff

Answer 24

random # gen using central exec had worse quality
tapping clockwise using VSS - worse quality
repeating see-saw - no diff compared to control

Question 25

in the primacy effect, why are we more likely to remember info we're first exposed to

Answer 25

use rehearsal so transferred to LTM but as more info arrives, attention is split to memorise so so later info rehearsed less

Question 26

what increases the primacy effect

Answer 26

familiar and common words

Question 27

why do we remember things better with the recency effect

Answer 27

because it's already in working memory and are thinking about it

Question 28

why is information in working memory readily available

Answer 28

no more info incoming to displace it

Question 29

how do nonsense trigrams reflect the serial position effect

Answer 29

backwards counting eliminates recency effect so found that earliest words had highest recall when counting and earli/latest words had highest recall when not counting

Question 30

what effect would slowing down the list of presentation have

Answer 30

WM unaffected as it's about capacity not duration so words exposed to earlier are recalled less

Question 31

3 types of memory

Answer 31

episodic, semantic, implicit

Question 32

4 types of implicit memory

Answer 32

procedural, priming, perceptual learning, classical conditioning

Question 33

what is perceptual learning

Answer 33

perceptual systems recalibrating due to new experiences

Question 34

what is priming

Answer 34

changes in perceptions and belief due to previous experiences

Question 35

describe lexical-decision task

Answer 35

being shown words then given string of letters to decide if word or not RT faster if related to previously presented words, showing memorisation without awareness

Question 36

describe what HM's memory was like

Answer 36

normal WM but couldn't make new episodic/semantic memories but could learn new implicit ones

Question 37

how is Corsi block tapping used to measure visuo-spatial memory

Answer 37

repeating sequence of taps of blocks without numbers | normal span 5-7

Question 38

describe mirror drawing and HM

Answer 38

reduced errors over days he practiced when doing drawing only being able to see hand in mirror reflection

Question 39

describe fragmented pictures and HM

Answer 39

fragmented pictures recognised better after practice and made few errors for each block but remembered task done before

Question 40

what is dysexecutive syndrome

Answer 40

damage to PFC leading to cog control and central exec processing abilities to be lost

Question 41

what regions are responsible for encoding as shown by a study

Answer 41

medial temporal lobes, including hippocampi/amygdale as more activity for remembered words at encoding

Question 42

what study was used to test consolidation

Answer 42

presenting famous faces from recent to old decades found more neural activity in MTL for recent decade faces as less consolidated

Question 43

what is the hippocampus important for

Answer 43

holding spatial/temporal context for episodic memories

Question 44

in amnesiacs, what type of memory is damaged

Answer 44

explicit as hippocampus damaged since patients feared blue light associated w loud sound as felt fear but couldn't recall the light's colour

Question 45

what brain structure is important for implicit memory

Answer 45

amygdala as patients with this damage had no fear response to blue light but recalled light's colour

Question 46

results from visuo-spatial sketchpad research where a probe appeared after a delay and parts asked if it was in the same place as the target

Answer 46

visual cortex activity during delay and early visual activity enhanced when holding location in spatial WM on brain side corresponding to the side

Question 47

define amnesia

Answer 47

specific loss/impairment in LTM without loss in general intelligence or other cog function, usually after a stroke, accident, or neurological disease

Question 48

what type of amnesia is most common

Answer 48

anterograde w varying degrees of retrograde

Question 49

what does brain damage affect

Answer 49

learning/encoding of some memory types but not others

Question 50

in anterograde amnesia, what is affected

Answer 50

explicit not implicit

Question 51

what is the temporal gradient of retrograde amnesia

Answer 51

most recent memories most easily forgotten, and this is measured using famous faces task

Question 52

focal retrograde amnesia is what

Answer 52

retrograde amnesia without anterograde amnesia

Question 53

what happened to KC's memory

Answer 53

had antero and retro but confined to episodic memories shown by learning new terminology but not remembering people or events during the time learning it

Question 54

why is there a distinction between the episodic and semantic memory typrs

Answer 54

different processes for learning these memory types which we know isn't due to time and exposure