Basic processes

Question 1

What are basic processes?

Answer 1

Frequently used rapid memory activities
Building blocks of cognition
Large, direct contributors to memory development

Question 2

Name basic processes (8)

Answer 2

Association
Recognition
Recall (and imitation)
Generalisation
Inhibition
Processing capacity
Processing speed
Insight

Question 3

What is association?

Answer 3

Process of associating stimulus and response

Question 4

Association is present from what age?

How do we know?

Answer 4

Birth
Newborns quickly learned to turn to the left for sweet solution when tone sounded or right when buzzer sounded; associated tone/buzzer and sweet solution (Siqueland and Lipsitt, 1966)

Question 5

What are the two types of recognition?

Answer 5

Implicit - memories cannot be verbally described or visualised as mental image; may be unconscious
Explicit - memories can be verbally described or visualised as mental image; conscious

Question 6

Implicit memories form from what age?

What brain areas are involved?

Answer 6

Birth

Areas involved in implicit processing such as striatum and cerebellum

Question 7

Explicit memories form from what age?

What brain areas are involved?

Answer 7

6-8mo

Areas involved in explicity processing such as PFC and amygdala

Question 8

Explicit recognition is accurate from what age?

Answer 8

4yo - accurately recognised 100% of pictures (Brown and Scott, 1971)

Question 9

How can implicit recognition be measured?

Answer 9

Galvanic skin response, preferential looking, habituation paradigms, sucking, facial expressions, eye-tracking

Question 10

What is insight?

Answer 10

Abrupt, rapid learning

Question 11

What is generalisation?

Answer 11

Association generalises to other similar stimuli

Question 12

Integration of experiences occuring close together in time can be explained by the time window concept. What is this?

Answer 12

There is a certain period during which children integrate info and strengthen initial memories. After this period, similar experiences are stored separately and aren’t integrated.

Question 13

What is inhibition?

Answer 13

The process of preventing irrelevant ideas intruding and stopping oneself doing pre-learning action.

Question 14

What brain areas are important for inhibition?

How do we know?

Answer 14

Frontal lobe areas.
Between 6 and 12mo, infants show the ability to correctly perform A-not-B task which requires inhibition and show increased frontal lobe activity while doing so (Bell and Fox, 1992)

Question 15

Name two tasks demonstrating inhibition.

Answer 15

Piaget's A-not-B task (must inhibit tendency to reach where object was previously hidden in location A and reach for where it is now in location B)
Marshmallow test (one marshmallow in front of child, left alone in room, can eat now (instant gratification, smaller reward) or wait and get another one (delayed gratification, bigger reward))

Question 16

What is processing capacity?
How does this change with age?
5yo have a processing capacity of what?
8yo have a processing capacity of what?
Adults have a processing capacity of what?

Answer 16

The amount of info we can actively process at one time; this increase with age
5yo recall 3-4 items
8yo recall 5-6 items
Adults recall 7 items

Question 17

How does processing speed change with age?

This is due to what?

Answer 17

Increases most rapidly at young age; this increase continues into adolescence but is slower
Due to increased speed (more physically mature children have higher processing speed)