Attention and perception part 2 unit 5

Question 1

What are the three memory stores in Atkinson & Shiffrin’s Three-Store Model of Memory?

Answer 1

Sensory Store, Short-Term Store (STM), and Long-Term Store (LTM)

Question 2

What is the main characteristic of the Sensory Store in the Three-Store Model?

Answer 2

It holds a limited amount of information for very brief periods.

Question 3

How is information transferred from the Sensory Store to Short-Term Memory (STM)?

Answer 3

Information passes from the Sensory Store to STM when we pay attention to it.

Question 4

In the Three-Store Model, what allows information to move from Short-Term Memory (STM) to Long-Term Memory (LTM)?

Answer 4

Rehearsal of the information.

Question 5

According to the Three-Store Model, how is information retrieved from Long-Term Memory (LTM)?

Answer 5

Information is retrieved from LTM to STM through retrieval strategies, such as recalling the context of the memory.

Question 6

What experiment did Sperling (1960) conduct to study the Sensory Store?

Answer 6

Participants were shown an array of letters for 50 milliseconds and asked to recall as many items as possible.

Question 7

What did participants report in Sperling’s experiment about their memory of the letter array?

Answer 7

They initially felt they could remember everything, but memory quickly faded as they tried to recall each item.

Question 8

What was Sperling’s conclusion about sensory memory based on his initial findings?

Answer 8

Sensory memory holds all stimuli briefly, but memory rapidly decays, especially by the time participants attempt to recall the 5th or 6th item.

Question 9

How did Sperling modify his experiment with the “partial-report procedure”?

Answer 9

He used a tone to cue participants to recall only one row of the letter array, improving recall accuracy.

Question 10

What did the “partial-report procedure” suggest about sensory memory capacity?

Answer 10

Sensory memory has a larger capacity (around 7-9 items) but decays very quickly.

Question 11

What role does attention play in the Three-Store Model of Memory?

Answer 11

Attention acts as a filter, selecting information from the Sensory Store to enter Short-Term Memory (STM). Only information we focus on moves to STM; the rest fades away.

Question 12

What hypothesis did Sperling form based on his experiment with rapid memory decay?

Answer 12

Sperling hypothesized that sensory memory holds all stimuli briefly, but the memory of these stimuli rapidly decays, making it hard to recall beyond the first few items.

Question 13

How did Sperling’s partial-report procedure work, and what was its purpose?

Answer 13

Participants were cued by a tone to recall only one row from an array of letters, which improved recall and tested the hypothesis that sensory memory holds more than initially reported.

Question 14

How did participants’ recall change when the cue tone was delayed by around 0.3 seconds?

Answer 14

Recall dropped to around 2 items per row, indicating that sensory memory fades significantly after 0.15 seconds.

Question 15

What conclusion did Sperling reach about the capacity of sensory memory based on his partial-report findings?

Answer 15

Sensory memory can initially hold around 8-9 items, but rapid decay limits the number of items we can retrieve after a brief delay.

Question 16

What happens to the information in the sensory store?

Answer 16

Information in the sensory store is largely preattentive, meaning that we don’t consciously process or become aware of it all.

Question 17

What did Sperling’s (1960) initial experiment reveal about the capacity of the sensory store?

Answer 17

Participants could recall about 4 items from a brief display, but reported that they initially remembered more, which quickly faded during recall.

Question 18

What hypothesis did Sperling form based on his experiment with rapid memory decay?

Answer 18

Sperling hypothesized that sensory memory holds all stimuli briefly, but the memory of these stimuli rapidly decays, making it hard to recall beyond the first few items.

Question 19

In the partial-report experiment, when did participants show the best recall performance?

Answer 19

Performance was highest when the cue tone was given before the letter array, allowing participants to focus on a specific row from the beginning.

Question 20

How long does information typically remain in Short-Term Memory (STM) without rehearsal?

Answer 20

Around 30 seconds, after which it is lost unless rehearsed.

Question 21

What is the capacity of STM according to Miller (1956)?

Answer 21

The capacity is about 7 items, plus or minus 2.

Question 22

How can the capacity of STM be increased?

Answer 22

By chunking information, such as grouping numbers or letters into meaningful units.

Question 23

What happens to information in STM when new items enter?

Answer 23

New items displace existing items, leading to loss of older information in STM.

Question 24

What distinguishes STM from LTM in terms of research evidence?

Answer 24

Amnesia patients can have impaired LTM but intact STM, and some brain-damaged patients have impaired STM but normal LTM, suggesting distinct systems.

Question 25

Why is STM considered a gateway in the Three-Store Model?

Answer 25

STM bridges sensory memory and LTM by processing and rehearsing information for long-term storage.

Question 26

What critique of the Three-Store Model challenges its simplicity?

Answer 26

It assumes STM processes all types of stimuli (e.g., visual, verbal) in the same way, which is an oversimplification.

Question 27

What does modern research suggest about the interaction between STM and LTM?

Answer 27

STM and LTM are integrated, with STM using information from LTM for processing (e.g., recognizing “ABC” requires stored knowledge of language).

Question 28

How does the Three-Store Model fall short in describing Long-Term Memory (LTM)?

Answer 28

It treats LTM as a single, uniform system, while modern research identifies distinct LTM types, such as explicit and implicit memory.

Question 29

What key concept is introduced in the Working Memory Model by Baddeley & Hitch (1974)?

Answer 29

STM is not a single store but a dynamic system for actively processing and integrating information.

Question 30

What are the four components of the Working Memory Model?

Answer 30

Phonological Loop: Handles verbal and auditory information.

Visuospatial Sketchpad: Deals with visual and spatial information.

Episodic Buffer: Integrates information from multiple sources and links STM with LTM.

Central Executive: Manages attention and coordinates the other components.

Question 31

How does the Working Memory Model differ from the Three-Store Model in its view of STM?

Answer 31

It sees STM as an active processor rather than a passive storage system, capable of handling multiple types of information simultaneously.

Question 32

What is a key prediction of the Multicomponent Model regarding dual tasks?

Answer 32

Tasks that use the same component (e.g., two verbal tasks) will interfere with each other, while tasks using different components (e.g., one verbal and one visual) can be performed together with less difficulty

Question 33

What is encoding in the context of memory?

Answer 33

Encoding is the process of transforming sensory input into a mental representation that can be stored in memory.

Question 34

What did Conrad et al. (1964) discover about STM encoding?

Answer 34

STM encodes information primarily using an acoustic code; participants were more likely to confuse acoustically similar items during recall.

Question 35

What evidence did Baddeley (1966) provide for acoustic encoding in STM?

Answer 35

Participants recalled fewer words from lists of acoustically similar words, suggesting STM primarily encodes based on sound rather than meaning.

Question 36

How is LTM encoding different from STM encoding?

Answer 36

LTM primarily encodes information semantically (based on meaning), as shown by participants falsely recognizing semantically similar distractors in recognition tasks (Grossman & Eagle, 1970).

Question 37

What experimental method is commonly used to test LTM encoding?

Answer 37

Recognition tasks where distractors are semantically similar or dissimilar to the original stimuli, revealing semantic encoding in LTM.

Question 38

What is explicit memory, and what are some examples?

Answer 38

Explicit memory involves the conscious recollection of information, such as recalling facts (e.g., the capital of France) or specific events (e.g., your last birthday).

Question 39

How does implicit memory differ from explicit memory?

Answer 39

Implicit memory is unconscious and involves the influence of past experiences on current tasks without deliberate recall (e.g., filling in a word fragment based on prior exposure).

Question 40

What happens to explicit and implicit memory with age?

Answer 40

Explicit memory tends to decline in young children and older adults, while implicit memory remains relatively stable across the lifespan.

Question 41

How do amnesia patients help distinguish explicit and implicit memory?

Answer 41

Amnesia patients often lose explicit memory (e.g., recalling past events) but retain implicit memory, performing well on tasks like word completion without conscious recall.

Question 42

What is priming, and how does it demonstrate implicit memory?

Answer 42

Priming occurs when exposure to one stimulus influences a response to a subsequent stimulus without conscious awareness, such as completing “imp_ _ _ _” as “implicit” after seeing the word earlier.

Question 43

How did Parkin & Russo (1990) show the role of attention in memory formation?

Answer 43

Dividing attention during a task disrupted explicit memory formation but had little effect on implicit memory, demonstrating that explicit memory depends more on focused attention.

Question 44

In Parkin & Russo’s study, what task measured explicit memory, and what task measured implicit memory?

Answer 44

Explicit Memory: Participants completed a free recall task, listing objects seen before.

Implicit Memory: Participants identified fragmented objects seen earlier without consciously recalling them.

Question 45

What conclusion can be drawn from the findings of attention-divided tasks on memory?

Answer 45

Divided attention disrupts explicit memory formation but does not significantly affect implicit memory, indicating they rely on different cognitive processes.