7 - LTM, encoding, retrieval and consolidation

Question 1

what is maintenance rehearsal

Answer 1

just rehearsing stuff with no intention to consider its meaning or making relevant connections

Question 2

what is elaborative rehearsal

Answer 2

rehearsing something while connecting it to other relevant or meaningful information

Question 3

explain Craik and Lockhart’s levels of processing theory

Answer 3

memory depends on the depth of processing

- shallow vs deep

Question 4

what is shallow processing

Answer 4

involves little attention to meaning, think maintenance rehearsal

Question 5

what is deep processing

Answer 5

involves close attention and elaborative rehearsal focussing on meaning and relationships with other information

Question 6

explain Crak and Tulving’s study on levels of processing

Answer 6

presented participants w words

• asked them three types of questions
  1. physical features of the words
  2. questions about rhyming of the words
  3. fill in the blank questions (shown ‘car’ asked if it fits in a fill in the blank)
• goes from shallow to deep processing
• best recall for deepest processing

Question 7

explain Boweer and Winzenz study on visual imagery and deep processing

Answer 7

asked if generating images in the head that connect to words enhances memory

• used paired association learning - list of word pairs is presented
• then present the first word and see if they can recall the second
• better recall (2x)! if they form an image of the two words interacting

Question 8

what is the self-reference effect

Answer 8

• memory improves when we relate words to ourselvs

- words relate to a large storehouse of knowledge (self knowledge) hence deeper processing

Question 9

what is the generation effect

Answer 9

generating material yourself enhances learning

Question 10

explain how the memory system uses organization to access information

Answer 10

• people tend to group relate terms together when remembering items from a list
• remembering words as members of a category is a retrial cue - helps us remember info stored in memory

Question 11

how dos presenting information pre-grouped categorically influence recall?
- explain the study

Answer 11

• Bower et al., presented two groups of participants with
  1. tree structured lists and asked to recreate the tree!
• average of 73 words from the four trees
  2. randomized trees - only good for 21

Question 12

does preventing organization from occurring inhibit recall?

- explain the study

Answer 12

yes, Bransford and Johnson

• text without context that makes it hard to understand in an organized way
• if they gave away the meaning of the text before (allowing for organization by meaning) they remembered 2x more from the passage than the other group

Question 13

explain Nairne’s evolutionary account of organization and memory

Answer 13

• = memory is shaped to facilitate survival
• had participants imagine they we’re stranded in grassland without survival materials
• presented a list of terms; asked how relevant they would be survival
• this survival task had better memory outcomes than other elaborative encoding procedures
• but also works if we imagine being chased by zombies, lol

Question 14

what is the retrieval practice effect

Answer 14

karpicke and Roediger

• 3 groups; all began by studying the pairs and being tested over again
• repeat study and test phase
  1. same procedure
  2. once they recalled a pair, they were no longer studied in the next sessions - but all were presented during the test phase (where all were always presented) until 100% recall
  3. same as 2 but also excluded from the test phase
• group 1 and 2 recalled 81% while 3 only recalled 30%
• testing effect

Question 15

what are the tools of effective studying (6)

Answer 15

1. elaborate
2. organize
3. take breaks between studying - shorter sessions with longer betweeen- spacing effect
4. avoid illusions of learning - fluency and familiarity
5. generate and test
6. active note taking

Question 16

familiarity vs fluency

Answer 16

fluency - reading and rereading makes the reading easier - seems like ur learning
familiarity - rereading increases familiarity which makes it seem like you remember it

Question 17

explain the cued recall task

Answer 17

• free recall; just gotta recall information
• cued recall; presented with retrieval cues to aid in recall
• usually words or phrases
• Tulving and Pearlstrone, for example
• cued condition had much better recall (40 vs 75%)

Question 18

explain Mantyla’s study on cued recall and self generation

Answer 18

presented 504 nouns

• asked participants to write down 3 associated words
• 91% recall when they presented these self generated retrieval cues
• didn’t work if they hadn’t made the list themselves
• retrieval cues are way better if created by the person doing the retrieving

Question 19

what is encoding specificity / context dependent learning

Answer 19

we encode information along with context

• best recall when we recall in the same context as encoding
• same thing in music vs noon-music conditions (Grant et al)

Question 20

what is state dependent learning

Answer 20

learning is associated with a specific internal state, like mood or state of awareness
- Metcalfe ; better recall if mood during testing is the same as mooed during learning

Question 21

what is transfer appropriate processing

- explain the study that determined this

Answer 21

increased performance when the type of processing matches in encoding and retrieval

• study; Morris
• presented a term, then another, had to answer yes/no
• 2 conditions
  1. meaning - yes no based on meaning appropriate
  2. rhyming - ibid but for rhymes
• better performance if the retrieval phase matched the encoding phase

Question 22

why is moris’ transfer appropriate processing findings detrimental to the levels of processing theory

Answer 22

we would predict ‘meaning’ condition to always have better recall

• but not in his study!
• deeper processing at encoding does not always mean better retrieval

Question 23

what is consolidation

Answer 23

the process that transforms new memories into a fragile state into a more permanent state that is resistant to disruption

Question 24

what is synaptic consolidation

Answer 24

structural changes in synapses that takes place in minutes or hours

Question 25

what is systems consolidation

Answer 25

gradual reorg of neural circuits that takes place more slowly than syn., over months and years

Question 26

explain Hebb’s theory

Answer 26

• repeated activity can strength a synapse by causing structural changes, increased NT release and increased firing
• changes that occur in the synapses activated around an experience provide a neural record of the experience

Question 27

what have modern researchers found about hebb’s theory

Answer 27

determined that activity at the synapse can cause chemical reactions that cause the synthesis of new proteins inducing structural alterations at the syn.

Question 28

what is long term potentiation

Answer 28

the strengthening of synaptic transmission resulting in enhanced firing of neurons after repeated stimulation

Question 29

how is Hebb’s neural theory of memory consistent with population coding

Answer 29

memories are represented by patterns of firing in the brain

Question 30

what is the standard model of consolidation

Answer 30

theory of memory

• hippo encodes new memories, connects with higher cortical areas
• over time, cxn between hippo and cortex weaken while cxns within the cortex strengthen
• occurs until the hippo is no longer involved in those memories

Question 31

what is reactivation

Answer 31

the process of replaying neural activity aiding to form direct connections between various cortical areas
- hippo facilitates the formation of memories in the cortex then backs away

Question 32

hw was the standard model based on findings from retrograde amnesias

Answer 32

graded amnesia - amnesia tends to be most severe for events that occurred right before the injury then less so for time before that
- decrease corresponds to the changes in connection btwn hippo and cortex - more hippo inv. = less stability and more disruption

Question 33

what is the multiple trace model

Question 34

explain Gilboa’s evidence for multiple trace theory

Answer 34

elicited recent and remote memories in people by showing them pictures
- hipp was active in recent and remote conditions
-

Question 35

explain Viskonta’s demonstration that the hippo changes its involvement in memory retrieval over time

Answer 35

shown images pairs and asked to visualize them interacting while under FMRI
- 10 mins and 1 week later
- saw the OG pair plus some others
- then did remember/know procedure
- more remember than know responses after 10 minutes
- remember responses decreased by 50% after a week
- important; diff between hippo activation in the remember/remember vs remember/know pairs over time
- remember/remember = high hippo activity
/ remember/know = low hippo activity (nearly zero_
- hippo involved n the episodic character of memories

Question 36

explain Bonnicis studies on autobiographical memory and the hippocampus (MVPA classifiers)

Answer 36

asked participants to recollect memories from 2 weeks and 10 years earlier

• a week later in a brain scanner, asked to recall 3 remote and 3 recent memories they had earlier
• asked to rate how vivid the images were
• most vivid images were analyzed using MVPA
• MVPA classifier could predict which recent or remote memories were being recalled based on activity in the hippo plus PFC and other cortical structures

Question 37

what are the two other differences between remote and recent memory recall in Bonnicis study
- take them together and consider findings

Answer 37

1. more info about remote memories was contained in the PFC compared to recent ones
2. info about recent and remote memories was represented throughout the hippo, with the posterior hippo containing more info about remote memories
   - sum; remote memories are represented in the cortex. but both are also represented in the hippo as well

Question 38

what is multivoxel pattern analysis

Answer 38

determines the pattern of voxel activation within structures

• first step; train a classifier to recognize the specific pattern of activity
• second; see if the classifier can discriminate the represented object or type of representation by its neural correlate
• usually pretty fuckin good

Question 39

does sleep enhance recall?

Answer 39

yes

Question 40

why does sleep enhance recall?

Answer 40

1. maybe bc less distractors to inhibit consolidation

2. consolidation seems to be enhanced during sleep

Question 41

is the improved consolidation universal in sleep?

Answer 41

sort of, but some memory types are better consolidated during sleep than others

• for example, task where one group was told they would be tested, the other told nothing
• expecting to be tested group did way better

Question 42

what is reconsolidating

Answer 42

memories become fragile when they are retrieved, then need to be consolidated again

Question 43

explain Nadel’s study on rat reconsolidation

Answer 43

conditioned the rat to freeze to the sound of a tone

• administered anisomycin, antibiotic that inhibits proteins synth. and so stops synaptic memory
• threee conditions

1. rat has tone and shock paired, then injected right away with anisomycin - when presented on day 3, no freeze
2. paired, then anisomycin the second day - no effects on freezing
3. paired, then elicited, then anysomycin – same outcome as one
   - pairing memory was stored then recalled, needed to be reconsolidated but prevented from happening by the drug

Question 44

explain Hupbach’s findings of memory reconsolidating in humans

Answer 44

two conditions

1. memorize the objects in the red basket, then next day cued to recall the procedure, then learn from a blue basket. Mistakenly remembered some of the blue basket when asked to recall the red
2. did red, then blue with no cueing to recall the procedure, then red again; much better performance comparatively
   - eliciting the procedure reactivated the memory of the red items, which were then reconsolidated alongside the blue ones in the first condition.

Question 45

explain Brunet’s application of reconsolidating research to PTSD

Answer 45

same deal as the anisomycin experiment in rats but the drug is propranolol (blocks activation of stress hormone receptors in the amygdala), had to reactivate the traumatic memory by recording a 30 minute explanation of the event

• ran w a placebo group too
• both had to listen to the recording a week later
• measured blood pressure, skin conductance
• propranolol had lower heart rate, skin conductance than placebo
• blocked stress response
• patients report decrease to stress

Question 46

explain Sederberg’s interpretation of Hupbach’s results

Answer 46

the temporal context model

• doesnt involve reconsolidation
• associate items from red basket with a context
• then same experimenter, blue basket is again present, asked to remember the testing procedure
• list B is learned in this list A context
• so then they are associated, so list B are then remembered as A
• old contexts can become associated with new memories without changing the content of the existing memories