8&9. Memory Flashcards
what are the different types of memory?
sensory short term (working) long-term
how long does sensory memory last?
< 1s
How long does short-erm memory last?
1-10 s
how long does long-term memory last?
> 10 s
what is involved in sensory memory?
- Iconic (visual) memory
* Echoic (auditory) memory
what is involved in short-term memory?
- Central executive
- Visuospatial sketchpad
- Phonological loop
- Episodic buffer
what is involved in long-term memory?
- Declarative (explicit) memory
* Non-declarative (implicit) memory
what does the human memory system consist of?
• Human memory consists of multiple subsystems
• Each of them is supported by its own neural
mechanisms
what does sensory memory do?
Registers information about the environment and holds it for a very brief period of time
what did a study on sensory memory involve and what results were obtained?
• After brief exposure (e.g., 50 ms), observers are asked to recall the letters
• Observers are able to report 3–6 letters
• Observers are also aware that there were more
letters
– Because presentation was very brief, observers did
not have enough time to read and rehearse them
what do the findings of the study on sensory memory suggest?
– Many items are stored in memory initially
– While they are still in memory, observers can attend to some of the items and report them
– But they fade away quickly—that’s why observers can report only 3–6 items
what does sensory memory do?
Sensory memory doesn’t last long. This memory is modality-specific
– Masking effect
An intermediate system in which information has to reside on its journey from sensory memory to long-term memory
what is iconic memory in short term memory?
Visual sensory memory
what is echoic memory in short term memory?
Auditory sensory memory
What was Atkinson and Shiffrin’s (1968) theory of short term memory
Proposes that as information is rehearsed in a limited-capacity short-term memory, it is deposited in long-term memory
sensory memory -attention-> short term memory -rehearsal-> long-term memory
what is the capacity of short-term memory?
Short-term memory has a limited capacity to hold information
what is the memory span?
– The number of elements one can hold in short-term memory store
– It is usually around seven
which items in short term memory later remembered?
Items learned earlier and later tend to be better remembered (recency and primacy effect)
Is short-term memory distinct from long-term memory?
– Different capacity limits—the 7±2 limit does not apply to long-term memory
– Damage to the medial temporal lobe can cause severe impairment of long-term memory but it does not affect short-term memory
what is alan Baddeley’s theory of working memory and what does it benefit?
Alan Baddeley and Graham Hitch proposed a model of working memory in 1974, in an attempt to present a more accurate model of primary memory (often referred to as short-term memory). Working memory splits primary memory into multiple components, rather than considering it to be a single, unified construct. These elements are the central executive, visuospatial sketchpad and the phonological loop. Later the episodic buffer was added.
Alan Baddeley’s theory of working memory is a different way of characterizing short-term memory
• This model overcomes many of the limitations of the short-term memory model
– As a result, the working
memory model has replaced the short-term memory model
what is declarative memory?
– Memories for facts and events
– You can explicitly remember these memories
– Also called explicit memory
what is non-declarative memory?
– Memories that you cannot explicitly retrieve (e.g., motor skills)
– Also called implicit memory
what does the lack of agreement on terminology reflect in memory?
This lack of agreement on terminology reflects the complexity of memory research (and the fact that it is still work in progress)
what are the categories of declarative memory
episodic (events)
semantic (factss)
what is episodic memory?
specific personal experiences from a particular time and place
What is semantic memory
world knowledge, object knowledge, language knowledge, conceptual priming
what area of the brain processes declarative memory?
medial temporal love, middle diencephalon and neocortex
What are the categories of non-declarative memory?
procedural, perceptual representation system, classical conditioning, nonassociative learning
what is procedural memory?
Skill (motor and cognitive)
what part of the brain brain processes procedural memory?
basal ganglia and cerebellum
what is perceptual representation system?
does perceptual priming
what part of the brain processes perceptual representation systems?
perceptual and association neocortex
what is classical conditioning
conditioned responses between two stimuli
what part of the brain processes classical conditioning?
skeletal muscle
what is non-associative learning?
habituation and sensitization?
what part of the brain processes non-associative learning?
reflex pathways
what affects memory encoding?
The way information is processed affects how well it is encoded in long-term memory
– Depth (levels) of processing (Craik & Lockhart, 1972)
when will information be better encoded?
Information that is processed in a deeper and more meaningful manner will be better encoded
what was Slamecha and Graf’s (1978) study?
– Generate condition
• What is a synonym of sea that begins with the letter o?
(ocean)
• What is a rhyme of save that begins with the letter c? (cave)
– Read condition
• Participants just read a rhyme pair or a synonym pair
Task: recognition of the second word of a pair
results: • Synonym pairs were better recognized • The generate condition yielded better recognition performance • Both are effects of deeper processing
what can determine the amount of material remembered?
Depth of processing, not whether one intends to learn, can determine the amount of material remembered
what was Hyde and Jenkins’ (1973) study?
– Group 1: judged whether a presented word contained
letters e or g
– Group 2: rated the pleasantness of the words
• Half the participants were also instructed to
memorize the words
– The other half did not know that they would be tested on their memory for words
results:
incidental - words recalled (%) orienting task)
rate pleasantness: 68
check letters: 39
intentional - words recalled (%) orienting task)
rate pleasantness: 69
Check letters 43
how are memory traces associated with each other?
– Semantic information
– Episodic information
when does activation of memory traces occur?
Activation of memory traces spreads from items currently or recently attended along paths of a network
what does the property of a memory trace determine?
The property of a memory trace that determines how active the trace can become
how does memory strength increase and decrease?
Increases with learning, decays with time
what was Penfield and Robers (1959) study on forgetting?
– Electrically stimulated patients’ brain during surgery
– When the temporal lobe was stimulated, patients reported memories that they were unable to remember in normal recall
Is memory still in the brain, even when it seems forgotten?
what was Nelson (1971) study on forgetting?
– Participants learned number-noun pairs
– 2–4 weeks later, they performed recall or recognition
tests
– They relearned the pairs they missed in test, but
some of them were changed
– They performed the memory test one more time
what were the results from Nelson (1971) study on forgetting?
– In the second test, unchanged pairs were recalled/recognized better
– Suggest that memory for missed pairs in the first test was not gone completely
Even when people appear to have forgotten memories, sensitive tests can find evidence of some of them
What does most of recall in real life involve?
Much of recall in real life involves plausible inference rather than exact recall. Thisis called plausible retrieval
what are the two conditions in memory tests?
– Exact recall
– Plausible retrieval
In the following passage what is the exact, plausible and false:
The heir to a large hamburger chain was in trouble. He had married a lovely young woman who had seemed to love him. Now he worried that she had been after his money after all. He sensed that she was not attracted to him. Perhaps he consumed too much beer and french fries. No, he couldn’t give up the fries. Not only were they delicious, he got them for free.
– Exact
• The heir married a lovely young woman who had seemed to love him
– Plausible
• The heir got his french fries from his family’s hamburger chain
– False
• The heir was very careful to eat only healthy food
in plausible retrieval, what do people often judge?
People often judge what plausibly might be true
instead of trying to retrieve exact facts
what is the efficacy of plausible retrieval?
Plausible retrieval might seem inaccurate, but in real-world settings it often works well
what is false memory?
Sometimes we are required to clearly separate what we actually learned from our inferences
– e.g., eyewitness testimony
what is a good example of false memory?
Eyewitnesses are often inaccurate in the testimony they give
– Sometimes they are not even aware that they are making inferences rather than remembering what was actually experienced
what is source confusion in false memory?
People confuse what they actually observe about an incident with what they learn from other sources
What was Loftus (1975) experiment?
– Participants (who had witnessed a traffic accident) were asked about the car’s speed when it passed a Yield sign
– However, there was no Yield sign
– Many participants remembered having seen one
what is non-declarative (implicit) memory?
Non-declarative memories cannot be consciously retrieved, but they manifest themselves in the form of improved performance
what is procedural memory?
Procedural memory: implicit knowledge about
how to perform tasks
e.g. Most of us have learned to ride a bike but have no conscious ability to say what it is we have learned
what was Berry and Broadbent (1984) study on procedural memory?
– Participants tried to control the output of a sugar factory by manipulating the size of the workforce
– They saw a month’s sugar output of the factory (e.g., 6,000 tons)
– They chose the number of workers for the next month (e.g., 700)
– They were presented with the next month’s output, and then chose the following month’s workforce
– Goal: keep the output between 8,000 and 10,000 tons
• Participants were given 60 trials
• They got quite good at controlling the output
• However, they were unable to state what the
rule was
– They claimed that they made their responses on the
basis of “some sort of intuition”
– They acquired implicit procedural memory
what was Graf et al’s (1984) study on priming?
– Amnesic patients and neurologically-intact control participants were tested
– Task 1: word recall—participants learned a list of words and then recalled them
– Task 2: word completion—they were presented with the first 3 letters of a word they had studied in Task 1 and asked to make an English word using the first 3 letters (e.g., ban___ à banana)
Amnesic patients’ performance on word completion task showed that they maintained some memory for the studied words
– even though they couldn’t explicitly recall them in the recall task
what is priming?
- An enhancement of the processing of a stimulus as a function of prior exposure
- This enhancement takes place without conscious awareness
What is the process of working memory?
the central executive is split up into: the phonological loop (langauage), visuospatial sketchpad (visual semantics) and the episodic buffer (short-term episodic memory)
