8 Erdfelder Flashcards
What is the survival processing effect in episodic memory?
The SPE refers to the phenomenon where the chance of successful retrieval of information is improved when individuals encode it in a situation that relates to survival. It is the best encoding procedure identified in human memory research. It enables humans to solve adaptive problems related to survival.
Describe a typical paradigm to establish survival processing effects
There are two groups
participants get scenario: EG: survival scenario: goal: food, dring, safety from predators, CG: moving scenario: goals: find housing, purchase estate, transport belongings
lost of 30 words concrete things (e.g. stone, rose)
presentation one by one for 5 seconds, then rating for each: how useful is this item?
then: non-verbal distractor task (e.g. sudoku)
then free recall in random order
CV: number of words remembered
Outline the richness–of-encoding explanation of the SPE in a few sentences. What are the core assumption?
Survival processing stimulates thoughts about object functions
thoughts require limited attentional ressources
words are linked to many possible object functions in memory
thoughts about functions later serve as powerful retrieval cues
Briefly describe two empirical results that support the richness-of-encoding explanation of the SPE
Scenario complexity: IV: complexity of scenario: A: one goal: find water (already sage from predators & food is available)
B: three goals: find water, food & safety from predators
less complex (A) => less richness of encoding => smaller effect of survival processing
Argument generation
Participants asked to come up with ideas why an object would be helpful
A: name on way to use it
B: name three ways to use it
higher retrieval in B
Describe the psychological-refractory-period paradigm, including the bottleneck model of cognitive processing that underlines the interpretation of PRP response time results. You may use a figure to facilitate the explanation of the PRP technique
The paradigm uses a sequence of two tasks, e.g.
task 1: relevance rating task -> IV: response time RT1
Task 2: tone classification (high/low) -> IV: Response Time RT2
participants instructed to first complete task 1, then Task 2
stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) is manipulated
100 ms between task 1 & task 2 onset
1000 milli seconds
prediction: image (pre-central processing, central processing, motor response)
Interpretation: central processing can only be used by one task at a time, the other processing phases can take place at the same time
What does effect propagation from Task 1 to Task 2 in the short SOA condition of the PRP paradigm mean?
In the short SOA condition, the task 2 stimulus is presented before the central processing of task 1 is completed. For task 1, there is a difference between the RT of the two scenarios. This means that the Central Processing finishes at different points in time which leads to the central processing of task 2 to start at different points in time which leads to them finishing at different time even if the time used for central processing of task 2 is the same. The time difference of task 1 has propagated into task 2.
Provide an empirical example for an effect propagation
Study (Kroneisen et al. 2023) 2 Groups
A: Survival Scenario
B: Moving Scenario
all participants rank concrete words according to how useful they would be in their respected scenaro
at the same time, they are supposed to classify tones (high/low)
Schedule: 1. Task 1 word rating onset
2. Task 2 tone onset
-> after a stimulus each: next round
Time between word & tone varied in 2 conditions (short: 100 ms, long: 1000 ms)
DV: Response times: time between stimulus onset & response
Results: Main effects of scenario & task, no interaction
How can we decide whether an effect propagation is due to differences in cenctral processing times or differences in precentral processing times (e.g. encoding times)? What are underlying assumptions? How can we test these assumptions?
Start with a task which does not differ between groups
then task survival rating vs. moving rating with short & long stimulus onset asynchrony each
prediction: different central processing time: difference between ET between groups is the same for short & long SOA
different precentral processing time: no difference between groups for RT2 + short SOA, bigger difference for RT2 + long SOA
Assumptions: central processing is a limited resource. It cannot work for both tasks in parallel
precentral & motor processing can run in parallel to each other & to CP
the different scenarios cause a difference in the precentral XOR central processing time
