Attention and Memory 1

Question 1

What is a critical aspect of memory?

Answer 1

Sometimes it isn’t how much we are exposed to a stimulus for it to remain in our memory, it is also if we are paying attention to it.

Question 2

What is encoding?

Answer 2

The transformation of basic sensory stimuli into a form that can be utilised in memory.

Question 3

How is encoding an attention related?

Answer 3

They are critically intertwined as attention acts as a filter.

Question 4

How does attention act as a filter?

Answer 4

It can be an unconscious or autonomic response that filters sensory information. Filtering out irrelevant sensory information, and filter in information that we require or that is important to us.

Question 5

What is Broadbent’s theory of attention?

Answer 5

He argued that the attention filter happens early on in the selective attention process. Meaning that there would be no cocktail party phenomenon because all irrelevant stimuli would be filtered out before the brain facilitated any meaning to the sounds.

Question 6

How does Broadbent’s theory relate to the ‘cocktail party phenomenon’?

Answer 6

Due to Broadbent’s theory the ‘cocktail party phenomenon’ would not be true. This is because Broadbent believes in the early selection model of attention meaning all relevant stimuli would be filtered out before the brain facilitated any meaning.

Question 7

What are the different stages of attention filters, how do they work?

Answer 7

The filter could happen at different points in time.

Early selection model of attention. Stimuli is filtered out before the brain facilitates meaning.

Late selection model of attention. The brain processes more stimuli more deeply before it is filtered out and we focus on what we are interested in.

Somewhere between early selection and late selection there is a process where we understand meaning. The place in the middle where all sounds of the conversation is processed but the meaning associated with the sound.

Question 8

What is the role of attention in encoding?

Answer 8

The amount/ type of attention determines quality of encoding.

Question 9

What are the two rehearsal types that we use to process stimuli?

Answer 9

Maintenance rehearsal.
Rote repetition of information, without transformation into a deeper more meaningful code.

Elaborative rehearsal
Meaningful processing of information, deepening processes that relates to the world, perhaps through identifying the same words to other meaningful situations.

Question 10

What does the Craik and Tulving research tell us about how we learn?

Answer 10

The meaning of words, their semantic properties, creates deeper learning. It wasn’t about how much attention we paid but the type of attention we pay which allows us to encode new stimuli.

Question 11

What was the common pattern of words in the Craik and Tulving research?

Answer 11

The questions associated with the words facilitated the depth of learning. Those recalled the most had questions about the meaning of the words. Opposed to the superficial and phonological properties of the word.

Question 12

What are some ways to enrich encoding?

Answer 12

Elaborative rehearsal
Thinking about the material while trying to memorise.

Visual imagery
Concrete objects recalled better than abstract items

Self-reference encoding
Applying information processed to own self

Drawing on a few modalities of sensory input
if we are trying to learn a list of words we add to the auditory property of the words with a visual association

Question 13

What is Atkinson and Shiffrin’s model of memory?

Answer 13

Suggests that how we go from a stimulus to a memory is a process that processes through a sensory register, a short term memory store and a long term memory store.

Information that could be lost at each point is an influential aspect of this model.

Question 14

What is the sensory register in Atkinson and Shiffrin’s model and what are its two types, as well as their duration and capacity?

Answer 14

Argues we have a sensory system that registers (and briefly holds) information from the senses.

Two types. 
1. Iconic memory 
Related to the visual system. 
Duration of this memory is about 1/2 a second. 
A capacity of around 9 to 10 items. 

2. Echoic memory
   Related to the auditory system
   Duration of echoic memory is about 2 seconds.
   Has a capacity of ~5 items.

Question 15

Roger Sperling was an influential scientist in experimenting with sensory registers, specially iconic memory. What is the whole report task and its findings?

Answer 15

Sperling asked participants to recall as many letters that they could, called the whole-report task.

No matter the amount of letters presented, participants couldn’t recall more than 4.5 letters on average.

Question 16

What was Sperling’s partial report task, why was it created?

Answer 16

It was created to find wether the limit of 4.5 reflected the amount the participants could see or the amount they could recall.

Participants viewed a matrix of letters for a brief time. After letters disappeared participants were presented with a sound to tell them which row to recall (partial-position report task). The participants reported only what they remembered from the probed row.

Question 17

What were the findings of the partial position report task?

Answer 17

Sperling argued that the proportion of letters recalled from a given row must reflect the proportion of letters seen in the whole display.

Sperling found that the participants could recall about 75% of the letters in any row.
Thus, Sperling extrapolated that the participants must have ‘seen’ 9 of the 12 letters in the display.

Question 18

What is the partial category report?

Answer 18

presented matrices containing an equal number of both constants and digits and used two auditory probes to tell participants to report either the letters or the digits.

Sperling did not observe a partial report superiority effect when he used this partial category report task.

This suggests that the contents of the icon are not yet “recognised: - that the icon is just “raw visual imagery”.

Question 19

What is short term memory (STM)?

Answer 19

Intermediate storage system that briefly holds information prior to consolidation

Question 20

What were the findings of a digit span task in relation to STM?

Answer 20

We are very good at remembering up to a certain number of digits

When we move past 7 numbers of items, our short term memory starts diminishing, it has been found that there is a magic number of items that can exist in the short term memory, this is 7 +/- 2

This information stays in the STM ~20 seconds in duration with the 7 +/- 2 can be inflated

Question 21

How are STM and LTM associated?

Answer 21

We facilitate our short term memory by what is in our long term memory.

Question 22

What is chunking?

Answer 22

The process of units of subjective organisation. Like phone numbers.

Question 23

What are the traditional features of short term memory?

Answer 23

Duration can exceed 20s with rehearsal

Without rehearsal information is lost, called decay.

Information is also lost through interference.

Question 24

How did Baddeley formulate his theory of working memory?

Answer 24

He speculated that there are other products at work in short term memory, that it isn’t just a unitary system. He experimented by creating a dual-task technique where a concurrent memory task (e.g. digits) was combined with a task dependent on STM (reasoning)

Question 25

What are the main components of Baddeley’s theory?

Answer 25

Short term memory has multiple components in it

Central Executive
Attentional system which supervises and controls the two ‘slave’ systems

Visuospatial sketchpad
Responsible for setting up and manipulating visual and spatial images

Phonological (articulatory) loop/buffer
Responsible for the manipulation of speech-based information

Question 26

What are some aspects of LTM?

Answer 26

Storage system that retains informations for a long period of time

Has a large capacity

Long duration

Different types of LTM

Question 27

What is the serial position effect in retrieval?

Answer 27

Correctly recalled words based on their position on the list, named, the serial position effect. This is an experiment where encoding is based on the consolidation of encoding on STM and having to retrieve information from the LTM.

Question 28

What are the two effects at play in retrieval when looking at recall tasks?

Answer 28

The primacy effect
The likelihood words at the beginning of a list will be recalled

The recency effect
Likelihood that words at the end of a list will be recalled.

Question 29

What will constitute a U shaped curve on a recall task and why?

Answer 29

This will happen when there is a 0 second delay between each item on the recall task. Thus creating both a primacy and a recency effect across the serial positioning effect. Meaning that the 0 second delay is a test of STM.

Question 30

How is the recall effect eliminated in a serial position effect, why?

Answer 30

This will happen when there is a 15 second delay between items on a recall task. There is a primacy effect however the recency effect is gone because the duration of STM is 20 seconds, meaning that words at the end of the list have decayed from STM.

Question 31

What are some general effects when understanding memory recall and learning?

Answer 31

Primacy effect
memory best for things learned first

Recency effect
Memory is good for things learned last (only within the duration of STM)

Context
Memory is better when you are in the context you learned the material in.

Internal State
Memory is better when your internal state is the same as at the time of learning.