Ch.5, Short Term Memory Flashcards
Memory
process involved in retaining and retrieving and using info about stimuli images, events, ideas, and skills after the original info is no longer present
Long term memory
responsible for storing info for long periods of time
Episodic memory
life events
Procedural memory
skills and basic procedures
Semantic memories
memories of facts
Modal Model of Memory, Structural Features
66SENSORY, SHORT TERM, LONG TERM,
Three basic processes of memory
Sensory memory: info from sensory input; what we pay attention to is coded into short term memory (unrehearsed info is lost)
With rehearsal: goes into long term memory
Retrieval: need to return to short term memory to be able to retrieve it (ENCODING RETRIEVAL PHASE) THIS IS WHERE MEMORIES CAN BECOME CONTAMINATED BY DETAILS
PROS: takes into account three basic processes and acknowledges diff types of memory
CONS: possible to access long term memory without going through short term memory, rehearsal does not always lead to better memory; doesn’t always track in a linear way
Sensory memory
Sensory Memory
Large capacity; stores info for less than one second
Same modality as experience: visual experience becomes visual memory
Very Fast decay rate
Allows us to have a complete sensation to linger in memory for a very brief time after it actually ended
Persistence of visual perception
Sperlings Experiment
Immediate Tone: most people recalled 80% of letters
Every time tone was delayed, people recalled less
CONCLUSION: SENSORY MEMORY LASTS FOR LESS THAN ONE SECOND
We do seem to ‘See” or register more items in our sensory memory, but we simply cannot get the info out fast enough before we forget
Different modality has different sensory registers
Sperling’s experiment: participants see letter arrangement for 1/20th of a second; task was to remember them; some argue we can see all 12 items but forget before we can recall them, others argue we can only see 4 or 5 items
Atkinson and Shiffrin Control Processes
Dynamic processes associated with the structural features that can be controlled by the person and may differ from one task to another
Rehearsal: repeating a stimulus over abd over
Persistence of Vision
Continued perception of a visual stimulus even after it is no longer present
because the human eye and brain can only process 10 to 12 separate images per second, retaining an image for up to a fifteenth of a second. If a subsequent image replaces it in this period of time it will create the illusion of continuity.
Schachter’s view of memory
Schachter: Memory is not just replay: the bits of info we recover from the past are often influenced by our knowledge, beliefs and feelings; memory is set up to use the past to imagine the future
Hippocampus:
perates coding memories; damage to hippocampus has severe consequences for the ability to store memories
Process by which we encode, store, and retrieve info
Allows us to record and later retrieve experiences and info, critical to all everyday functions, and identity of the self: knowing who you are/how you relate to others is critical
Patient HM Case
Patient HM: lost his hippocampus, couldn’t make any memories whatsoever
Wicken’s Study on Semantic Coding
Wicken’s Study on Semantic Coding
Sensory Memory Across Modalities
Visual, less than one second: iconic store
Auditory info: echoic store, LASTS LONGER FOR ABOUT TWO SECONDS
Short Term memory Store
Can be phonological, visual, motoric, or semantic
Auditory: phonological (can misremember things based on things that sound similar)
Visual: visualize what slides look like during exam
Semantic Coding: focusing on meaning
Sperling’s whole report, partial report, delayed partial report method
Whole REPORT: participants asked to report as many letters as possible from an entire 12 letter display–OUTCOME: 4.5 out of 12 letters were reported, people couldn’t report more because of fading
Partial Report Method: saw display for same amount of time but this time they heard the high, medium, or low tone that told them which matrix to report, because tones were reported after the letters were turned off, the participants attention was directed to whatever remaining letters remaining after the letters were turned off
Delayed Partial Report Method: letters flashed on and off then cue tone was presented after short delay, extremely worse performance, could only report 1 letter in the display
Digit Span Test
measures the capacity of short term memory
Chunking
Small units such as words can be combined into larger meaningful units, like sentences, paragraphs or stories
Chunk: collection of elements strongly associated with one another, but weakly associated with elements in other chunks
Baddaley’s working memory model, 3 elements
Phonological Loop: consists of phonoliogical store, which has a limited capacity and holds info for only a few seconds
Articulatory Rehearsal Process, Phonological Loop: responsible for rehearsal that can keep items in the phonological store from decaying
Visiospatial Sketchpad: form picture in mind, holds visual and spatial info
Central Executive: pulls info from long term memory and coordinates the activity of the phonological loop and visiospatial sketchpad
Phonological Similarity Effect
Confusion of letters or words that sound similar; This effect is characterized as worse perfor- mance when the words in a list are phonologically simi- lar (e.g., bat, flat, mat) than when they are phonologically dissimilar (e.g., dirt, pen, hug). The phonological simi- larity decrement has been demonstrated repeatedly in word span tests.
Word Length Effect
Occurs when memory for a list of words is better for short words than for long word
Articulatory supression
Reduces memory because speaking interferes with rehearsal
Mental rotation
Rotating an image in your mind
