Before Reading week Flashcards
what is an experiment
An experiment is a controlled situation in which a researcher manipulates variables of interest, measuring the effect of this manipulation while controlling for irrelevant variables
Why is memory studied
There are 3 main meanings to memory: WHERE info is stored, WHAT info is kept, & HOW info is acquired/stored/retrieved.
what are the primary components of an experiment?
The three primary components of an experiment include the independent and dependent variables, and control variables.
why is experimentation the preferred way of studying memory?
you can control all aspects and focus on desired variable which can be manipulated to cause an effect
what are other ways to study memory?
Case studies, correlation studies, quasi-experiments,
Advantages/disadvantages to case studies?
advantage: topics difficult for studying with large groups
disadvantage: provide minimal use in larger population, results can be influenced by researcher
advantages/disadvantages to correlational studies?
Advantage: assessing a dependent measure that exists without manipulation (looking at age as a dependent measure to memory
advantage/disadvantage to quasi-experiment
Advantage: looking at preexisting conditions tested in a controlled experiment (old vs young memory test)
How are theories and hypothesis different?
Theories are a principal explanation for how a process operates, can derive a hypothesis from a theory.
Hypotheses are educated guesses about how variations of an IV are related to an outcome of a DV
Ways to learn information so it will be better remembered later? Is this true for all types of info?
The more a piece of info is elaborated the more it becomes encoded into memory, so deeply thinking about information will be better remembered than if you rehearse it
flashbulb memory (hint 9/11)
Memory for circumstances which one learned of the event (situation), and often an emotional event shared with other people.
event memory
a memory for a fact about the flashbulb event (sitting in class and hearing about a plane hitting the WTC)
memory research aims to answer 2 questions:
- what is memory
- how does memory work
what kinds of information are easier/harder to remember?
Deeper encoded memory better remembered
poorly coded memory poorly remembered
difference between recall and recognition tests of memory?
Recall attempts to retrieve information from memory
Recognition is a process which the contents of the environment are compared with the contents of memory (primed by something to help recall)
types of recall
Cued recall
Free recall
Forced recall
Serial recall
Types of recognition
Yes/No recognition
Forced choice recognition
how can you correct for guessing on memory tests?
Discrimination
Signal Detection Theory
how to use Discrimination
subtract false alarms from the number of hits to account for guessing
Nature of the forgetting curve?
The Ebbinghaus forgetting curve suggests that we forget things rapidly but that we level out at a baseline.
When we go to re-learn something we start from that baseline and not ground zero.
Jost’s Law
suggests that older memories decay slower than newer ones
Chronometry
Mental chronometry is how fast your mind does something.
This is measured by recording response times like responding to a prompt on a screen as they give context whether chronometry of a given task is fast or slow
Cluster analyses for studying memroy
used to organize how info is organized in memory, to suggest how we can prime the recall of a memory
QALMRI
Question - scientific question
Alternative - Alt hypo
Logic - logic of experiment design
Methods - method for testing hypothesis
Results - results
Inference - what can we infer from results
Modal model of memory
3 components: iconic memory, short term memory long term memory
Has been disproven somewhat
sensory memory
Sensory memories are large in capacity, brief in duration, and modality-specific
What is stimulus persistence, provide an example
When a visual, auditory, or tactical stimulation is present then is removed, but still appears to be present (when your parent TELLS you to help with the dishes and you weren’t paying attention, you can pull info from sensory memory if your parent asks you if you heard them)
What is information persistence (blink and you see it)
Information persistence is info that can be extracted from a stimulus for a short time after tit has been taken away
What is iconic stimuli
The persistence is visual
What is echoic stimuli
The persistence is auditory
How many dots can one remember from a visual stimulus
One can remember 4-5 dots immediately.
What did Sperling (1960) do to study iconic memory? What did he find?
Presented matrix of letters for 50ms to Ss, then they report as many letters as possible, results showed that subjects could only recall half of the letters.
Why did Sperling use a tone to prime Ss with partial recall? What did this suggest?
Sperling used 3 different tones with three different sections of the test. When the corresponding tone is paired with the word list Ss were able to recall was almost perfect. This suggests that the capacity of iconic memory is much larger than we thought, longer the cue the less remembered.
Does echoic memory have a longer duration than iconic?
Yes. Changes more constantly than iconic, can recall 4 seconds back, longer than iconic memory
What is the modality effect?
higher level of recall of the last few items of a list when presentation is auditory as opposed to visual. It is usually attributed to echoic memory.
Which digits in list of #’s are remembered most often? Why?
First and last are remembered most because we rehearse the first few items in a list which go into STM, and the last few are pulled from the PAS.
What did Sperling’s letter test reveal?
Iconic memory held a small amount of information, approx 4-5, and decayed quickly
What is PAS (precategorical acoustic store)? What happens after this?
When items are represented acoustically, this unidentified acoustic information are stored very briefly in the PAS, then is either transferred to short-term memory or decays and lost.
What is the importance of PAS with the Modality effect?
If the PAS did not exist, there is no Modality effect because the last few items would not be stored and not able to be recalled.
What did a chess experiment comparing novice players to grandmasters find? What does this mean?
They found when chess pieces were laid out in common offensive/defensive positions the masters were able to remember a significant amount more than the novice players. But when pieces were randomly placed on the board there was no difference between how many were remembered. This shows the chess masters STM is not superior to novices as they were chunking information that were associated to chess plays, which is why they could not remember more pieces when pieces were randomly placed on the board.
What is the duration of STM? Is this due to decay or interface?
Duration is approx 30seconds and is due to interference.
What is interference? What is its relation to STM?
Interference is when information in stm interferes with or in some way blocks/displaces/hinders the retrieval of other information. Since stm has limited capacity, if new info is entered in here it will compete with the information already there.
Explain Brown-Peterson 1959 study on interference of memory
Brown and Peterson studied Ss ability to recall a letter trigram when asked to count backwards in a cognitively loading way. IV was how long they counted backward for, DV they proportion of the trigram correct. Results showed the longer they counted backward for the worse Ss did on trigram recall.
What is the Brown-Peterson paradigm? Why does accuracy decrease in their study?
Brown & Peterson found that Interference (no rehearsal) after 18 seconds Ss could only recall 10% of the letters. Accuracy decreases because without rehearsal information decays from STM
What did Keppel & Underwood (1962) suggest about decay vs interference?
They suggested that information doesn’t seem to decay over time, but from similar coding occurring causes interference as well as time.
Explain Sternberg’s 1966 study
In 1966 Sterberg presented short lists of digits to participants, afterwards Ss were asked asnwer whether number presented to them afterwards was old or new digit as quickly as possible. He found that regardless of if the number was new (respose no) or old (response yes) the time it took to respond was the same. Suggesting serial exhaustive search.
What are the three theories on how info is retrieved from stm by Sternberg?
Parallel, serial self-terminating, and serial exhaustive.
What is parallel search in stm? How would a parallel search look on a graph?
All information in the stm is available at roughly the same time and accessed in “parallel” which would make sense if contents is stored in stm or close to consciousness. The line would be flat regardless of location in number line
What is a serial self terminating search in stm?
Can either be self-terminating once the desired item is found, or an exhaustive search that goes through all items which takes longer because each item is looked at individually.
What is serial exhaustive search in stm? How would it look on a graph?
Exhaustive search that goes through all items on list regardless of location of the desired item.
Which of Sternberg’s theories of stm info retrieval was supported? How is this helpful?
Sternberg found that serial exhaustive search. This is useful because it shows us how stm is searched and our ability to report memories.
Explain Murdock (1962) study, what did he find?
Murdock studied peoples ability to recall words that are read out to them. Ss listened to a list of 20 words and were asked to free recall them for 90 seconds. They found that both the first and last words in the list are remembered the most, similar to the modality effect. Ss also recalled the first 3-4 words in the list first regardless of the list length.
What determines the curve they found in Murdock 1962 study? What causes one to remember the words at the beginning and the end of the list?
The words at the beginning of the word list are likely to be remembered by the Primacy Effect, which may occur because we rehearse these items which store them into LTM. Words at the end of a list are likely to be remembered because of the recency effect which suggests words in your stm are dumped.
What happens when words on a list are said quickly? How will this impact the recency and primacy effects?
When words are listed quickly, the recency effect stays the same, the primacy effect will be reduced.
What happens if the word list is longer? How will this impact the recency and primacy effects?
The longer the list, the more there will be a reduction in the primacy effect, no impact on the recency effect.
What happens if Ss are asked to delay in recalling words? How will this impact the recency and primacy effects?
If there is delay in rehearsal from being told the list, a decrease in recency effect.
What is the best predictor of working memory? What is this connection to IQ?
Memory span tasks are best predictors of working memory, the better one does at this task the higher their IQ tends to be
What are the properties of working memory?
Maintenance, reactivation, limited capacity, and manipulation.
What is Maintenance of working memory?
A central function, brief few seconds, and achieve a specific goal.
What is reactivation of working memory?
Keeps info in an active state, keeps one focused, sometimes requires rehearsal. Keeping on task or rehearsing a list of numbers. Shared with STM
What is limited capacity of working memory?
The number of items that can be kept in working memory is small (exact amount is unknown), only lasts for a few seconds. An example is trying to remember the list of items your mom wanted you to get from the store, but not being able to remember them all mentally. Shared with STM
What is manipulation of working memory?
Can organize, associate, transform information held in mind. An example of this would be repeating a list of number in reverse order.
Baddeley’s OG multicomponent model assumes working memory does not include what?
Haptic memory
What changed in Baddeley’s newer model of working memory?
info can come from LTM into STM
Why is it called working memory and not stm
Because it is thought that STM is better seen as a place where cognitive operations are carried out
How do we test working memory
test by doing complex span tasks, these tasks include: reading span task, comprehension span, operation span.
what are some major findings which support a phonological loop? (Hint: 3 findings)
Syllabilic Word length effect: the more syllables the harder it is to remember
Articulatory suppression: a reduced verbal span when people trying to remember a set of items.
Irrelevant speech effect: the phonological loop is less efficient when there is irrelevant speech in the background
What does central executive do with working memory?
Prevents interference tasks
What is the central executive?
Most important component of the working memory model, attentional control system that decides what info is worked on
What are the components of Baddeley’s working memory model?
Visuo-spatial sketchpad
called the “inner eye”
deals with how people look and the location of objects related to others
Helps with route planning by pulling info from LTM into working memory
Visuo-spatial sketchpad and manipulating information (4 & sideways D)
VSS can manipulate LTM info, as well as transform it.
Describe Kosslyn et al. 1978 sudy of information processed by VSS
- Ss memorizes fictional landmarks on island
- pulled map away and had Ss press button to determine how long it would take to get from one point to another
- Found people can mentally determine how long a walk would take in real time
What are components of the phonological loop?
Phonological store
Articulatory loop
5 aspects of the phonological store
- Inner ear
- retains speech-based information
- brief in duration
- without rehearsal, info decays
- info is useless after 2 seconds
2 major functions of the articulatory loop
- translates visual information into phonological information and deposits it in the phonological store
- refreshes the information in the phonological store in prevent decay
4 phenomena of the phonological loop
- phonological similarity effect
- effects of articulatory suppression
- irrelevant speech effect
- the word length effect
What is the phonological similarity effect
memory is worse for items that sound alike than items that sound different, occurs for both auditory and visual stimulus
why does the phonological similarity affect auditory and visual stimulus?
information from auditory stimulus is stored phonologically,
Visual stimulus are translated into a speech-like form by the articulatory loop then retained in phonological store
Describe Peterson & Johnson 1971 study on articulatory suppression on auditorily vs visually presented words. Include IV, DV, Results
IV 1 = interaction between visually presented and auditory presented words, then
IV 2 = articulatory suppression of similar sounding words
IV 3 = phonological suppression of similar looking words
DV = # of correct words
Results = Articulatory suppression seems to decrease the ability to use phonological loop on visual information
Irrelevant speech and implications for studying
irrelevant speech harms the ability to recall things that get translated into verbal material, not good to have noise when studying
what are the attributes of Cowan’s embedded process model
Level 1 - activated memory
Level 2 focus of attention
Attributes of Cowan’s level 1 of WM?
no fixed limit on #, ltm representations in activated state, decay rapidly if not rehearsed
Attributes of cowans level 2 of WM?
focus of attention
limit of 4 items
controlled by a central executive
What does Engle’s attentional model focus on/highlight most?
attentional control has 2 components:
1. scope of attention (how many things can one hold in mind)
2. control of attention (how effectively is attention directed)
Which part of the brain is associated with central executive
frontal & parietal lobe
what can be inferred from Vogel et al. (2005) study on working memory?
working memory performance depends on attentional control
define collective memory
shared representation of the past, affects group identity, stored in people’s memories and written books
what can be inferred when asking people about prideful or shameful events in relation to a groups collective memory? (3)
National identity can be shaped by more than memories of pride alone
High agreement for ashamed events suggests that these events may be as important as positive events for national identity
Education shapes collective memory
moving past things can make pride
What is non-declarative memory?
memory without “conscious” awareness (learning to ride a bike, procedural memory)
what is declarative memory?
memory requiring conscious recollection of certain facts/events
is non-declarative distinct from declarative memory?
yes, studies of amnesia patients with impaired explicit memory but not explicit memory.
What is the most basic associative memory?
classical conditioning
How is conditioning thought to work?
Through a stimulus stimulus conditioning
what is thorndike’s law of effect
response consequence determines whether it is strengthened or weakened
(+) effects lead to response strengthening
(-) or neutral effects lead to response weakening.
what are the most basic forms of non-declarative memory
priming, classical conditioning, and procedural OR motor skill learning
can people with amnesia still play/learn things?
yes.
How do we develop procedural memory?
three stages:
1. cognitive stage
2. associative stage
3. autonomous stage
Describe the 3 stages of procedural memory develpoment
- Cognitive stage is conscious and deliberate actions
- Associative stage has quicker and easily retrieved memories but deliberate
- Autonomous stage is unconscious and automatic actions
what parts of the brain are used in triarchic theory
Representation system: takes over after considerable practice, executes automatically
cognitive control network: takes over after a few trials, uses dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, anterior congulate cortex, posterior parietal cortex, inferior frontal junction
Metacognitive system: formation of new skills, uses anterior prefrontal cortex
how do experts perform compared to novices when asked to focus on speed versus accuracy?
Experts: higher accuracy = poor performance
higher speed = better performance
Novice: Higher accuracy & speed = same results
would all tasks require high cov/ work to perform well?
NO! some cases show low cognitive control leads to higher performance
define implicit memory
any form of memory that does not require consciousness and can operate without a person being aware that memory is being used
what is incidental learning?
people do not know they’re learning, method used to test memory, different levels include shallow encoding
how long can implicit memory last?
Koler’s 1976 study showed up to ONE YEAR, other studies show up to 67 YEARS
can we recall an implicit memory years later?
Yes! but savings of memory are required
how can one test implicit memory?
incidental encoding
filled delay between study and test
believable cover story
fast paced retrieval task
test for awareness afterwards
what does process pure mean?
if participants notice a connection between study and test, can start to intentionally retrieve information
what is priming? list subcategories and examples of each
exposure to some information makes you faster/more accurate at retrieving that information on a subsequent trial.
Repetition priming - relies on perceptual overlap (seeing words earlier)
semantic priming - relies on semantic overlap (doctors to nurses)
repetition priming
relies on perceptual overlap
semantic priming
relies on semantic overlap
List indirect tests of verbal memory
word fragment completion
word-stem completion
lexical decision
naming task
word fragment completion
P_ _S_N
goal for Ss is to complete word with firs that comes to ming
word-stem completion
Per_ _ _
lexical decision
word or non-word decision
black vs blort
priming = decreased latency when reading a primed word
naming task
read words aloud, recorded by a voice key
priming = decreased latency when reading a primed word
perceptual identification
brief exposure to a stimulus, attempts to identify if stimulus is old or new.
Priming ^ acc of identification of recently exposure
Gomes & Mayes (2015) asked
“do you expicitly identify an object at encoding in order to show priming for it?”
Which property is is shared by ltm and STM?
Maintenance, reactivation, limited capacity
