7.1 Flashcards
Hippocampus
Mediates conversion of short-term declarative memory into long-term declarative memory
Explicit memory (declarative)
Experiences, facts, things that can be reported/declared
Semantic Memory
Facts and knowledge
Episodic memory
Past events in specific places at specific times
Implicit memory (non-declarative)
Things that you demonstrate
Procedural memory
Skills and habits
Sensory memory
Highly detailed but short-lived impression of sensory information
Motor Sequence Learning
Studies procedural learning
-participants respond quickly to a target that can appear in four locations
-target seems to appear in randoms positions but they actually form a predictable sequence
-participants faster at responding to repeated sequences even when they are not aware there is a sequence
-amnesiac patients capable of motor sequence learning
Priming
perception, thought, or response is enhanced by prior exposure to an identical or related stimulus, action, or idea
Repetition Priming
people are faster at recognizing and responding to repeated items than new items
Associative priming
prior exposure to related items
ie. being exposed to nurse before being asked to name a word that starts w/ d - people more likely to say doctor
lexical decision task
participants asked to make rapid judgements about strings of words ie. do they spell out a word?
-people make this decision more quickly if for example candy is proceeded by the word sweet than if proceeded by the word prickly
perceptual priming
exposure to perceptual features
ie. seeing the word cat improves subsequent recognition of the word cot because they share perceptual features
conceptual priming
having previously processed the meaning of a related stimulus
ie. seeing the word cat improves subsequent recognition of the word dog bc they share conceptual features (both pet animals)
Repetition suppression
brain signal is reduced when a stimulus is repeated, suggesting that processing requires less effort or work after initial exposure
Statistical Learning
encoding patterns and regularities in the sights and sounds one experiences
Statistical Learning in Language (Saffran et. al. 1996)
Artificial language of 3 words created:
“pabiku” “golatu” and “daropi”
During familiarization phase: infant hears each word repeated 45 times in random order
During test phase: infant presented any of the 3 real words or a sequence of syllables with parts of two words combined
Results: infants attended to the “real” words for less time than the words made from combined syllables suggesting they became familiar with the real words through statistical learning and were able to recognize the syllables in the constructed words weren’t following each other before
Contextual cueing
learning where to attend to and what to expect based on statistical regularities in past experience
ie. pillows are usually found on beds so when shown a picture of a dorm and asked to look for a pillow likely to look at the bed
Amnesia
The incapacity to remember
Anterograde amnesia
Inability to remember new events occurring after the injury/damage/removal etc.
-inability to form new memories
Retrograde amnesia
Inability to remember events prior to injury/damage/removal
-Can’t remember the past
-loss of memories that were previously formed
Henry Molaison
Prior to surgery: seizures due to childhood accident
Surgery: Medial temporal lobe removed
-including hippocampus
Post surgery:
-epilepsy improved
-Above average intellect
-Normal perceptual and motor abilities
-Well-adjusted
-Complete anterograde amnesia: no new memories learned/formed
-Mild form of retrograde amnesia w/ a temporal gradient (1-2 yrs before surgery): the closer an event was to the surgery, the least likely it was to be remembered
-Always surprised it was not 1953 (when hippocampus was removed)
-Would always be shocked he did not look 27 (when hippocampus was removed)
-Relatively intact short-term/working memory
What can HM do?
Learn new behavioral skills
Acquire procedural memory
Normal Priming
Can learn conditioning tasks
Digit Span Test
Behavioral Skill that HM could still do post surgery
Remember list of 6-7 digits
