chapter 5

Question 1

three things it’s a process of?

What is memory?

about what?

when?

Answer 1

process that is part of retaining, retrieving, and using information about stimuli, images, skills, events, ideas after the original info isn’t there

part of retrieving, retaining, and using info

after original info isn’t there

Question 2

What is the modal model of memory?

What does it describe?

What does it use as an analogy? What does it not do?

Answer 2

It is a functional processing model that uses a computer system analogy to describe what memory does

it describes what memory does but not in connection to brain functions

uses analogies of a computer system

Question 3

What does the modal model of memory do?

What two things does it assume?

Answer 3

It assumes multiple memory stores and assumes various control processes

memory stores: structures where info can be encoded

consciously controlled: it is selected to match the current task to goal

Question 4

What happens in the modal model of memory?

What three types of memory are involved?

Answer 4

Sensory signals are viewed then briefly is stored in sensory memory

Information is passed to a limited capacity, short term memory

Information can be encoded in unlimited long term memory (more or less permanently)

Question 5

What is sensory memory?

It collects what for what?

How much can it hold and how long?

Answer 5

It is a type of memory that registers most information that hits our sensory receptors

collects info and holds for initial processing

can hold a lot of memory for short period of time

Question 6

What is persistence of vision?

Answer 6

It is retaining perception of light

example: frames in film, sparkler’s trail of light

Question 7

What happened in the sperling experiment?

What was shown? What did they have to do?

What did the experiment measure?

Answer 7

Letter were flashed quickly on a screen, and participants were asked to report as many letters as they could

had to report the subset of letter indicated by a cue

measured the capacity and duration of sensory memory

Question 8

What did the sperling experiment find?

Answer 8

It found that visual sensory memory (iconic memory) has a large capacity but delays rapidly in second

Question 9

What is short term memory?

Where is info availible to?

It includes what recieved from where and from where?

Answer 9

It stores small amounts of info for a small period of time

Info is availible to consciousness

it includes both new and old info recieved from the sensory stores and info from long term memory

Question 10

What is the brown-peterson task?

What did the task consist of?

What were the results?

Answer 10

It is a task designed to measure the duration of short term memory

Read 3 letters, then a number, then count backwards by 3’s from number

Found the duration of short term memory when rehearsal is prevented, is about 15-20 seconds and that limited duration stm is bc of decay

Question 11

What is decay?

Answer 11

It is when memory traces weaken and fade overtime

Question 12

What is proactive interference?

Answer 12

It is when information previously learned interferes with new information learned

Question 13

What is the capacity of short term memory?

Answer 13

It differes depending on the type of information and the nature of the task

Question 14

What are span tasks?

What does it test?

Answer 14

It is a task that requires participants to remember a series of items and recall them in order

tests capacity for short term memory

Question 15

What did George Miller find out about stm capacity?

Answer 15

Discovered that most people have a capacity for 5-9 chunks of information

memory span isn’t limited to a quantity of information but by number of chunks

Question 16

What is chunking?

What is an example of an every day thing that we chunk?

Answer 16

It is grouping items of info into smaller meaningful units

Ex. Phone number is broken down into chunks

Question 17

What happened in the ericcson study?

How did the student remember the digits?

Answer 17

A college student with average memory was trained to use chunking to remember lists of numbers

The student had knowledge about running times so he remembered the numbers in terms of them because they were meaningful to him

Question 18

What is working memory?

Answer 18

it is a system where we temporarily store and use info for learning, reasoning, and understanding

Question 19

What is

What is Baddeley’s multi-component model?

what three components did the model consist of?

Answer 19

Baddeley created a working memory model that consisted of the phonological loop, the visuospatial sketch pad, and the central executive

Question 20

What is the central executive?

What 2 systems are involved?

What does it control and allow

Answer 20

It is an attention limited system that selects and manipulates material in two systems

two systems: phonological loop and visuospatial sketchpad

it controls our attention and allows us to focus, divide it, shift it, and surpress irrelevent info

Question 21

What is a phonological loop?

Which type of memory is it similar to

Answer 21

It temporarily holds verbal info,
ex. how things sound

It is pretty much verbal short term memory

Saying the word refreshes the memory and rehearsal increases span by 2-3 items

Question 22

What is the phonological simillarity effect?

Answer 22

it is when it’s harder to remember things when words sound similar, especially when the meaning is similar too

confuse words that sound similar not look similar

Question 23

What is the word-length effect?

Answer 23

we are better at remembering shorter words than longer words

this is because the longer they are the longer it takes to rehearse

Question 24

What is articulary suppression?

What does it prevent?

Answer 24

It is the process of obstructing memory performance by speaking while being presented with an item to remember

it prevents rehearsal , word-lenght effect, and phonological similarity

Question 25

What is the visuospatial sketch pad?

Answer 25

It holds visual and spacial info

some information is difficult to verbalize but can still be remembered

Question 26

What happened in the Brooks experiment?

What did results find?

Answer 26

Participants were instructed to either say “yes” or “no” if a word is a noun (phonological) or point to the letter “y” or “n” if a noun (visuospatial)

Pointing (visuospatial) was easier than speaking (phonological)

Question 27

Why was visuospatial task easier than a phonological task?

Answer 27

This is because having 2 verbal tasks ovearlods the phonological loop

works vice vera

whatever task takes more effort overloads it

Question 28

What is perserveration?

Damage in what area of the brain leads to this?

Answer 28

It is repeatedly performing the same behaviour even though it doesn’t accomplish the goal

Damage in frontal lobe leads to it

Question 29

The episodic buffer?

Answer 29

It holds info longer and adds additional capacity provided by phonological lopp and visuospacial sketchpad

Question 30

What areas of the brain are involved in working memory?

Answer 30

The frontal lobe, parietal lobe, and cerebellum

Question 31

What is a delayed response task?

Answer 31

It is any task that requires a participant to withhold and remember a specific response for a short time

Question 32

What are prefrontal brain lesions?

What does it indicate?

Answer 32

Monkeys with prefrontal brain legions aren’t able to successfully complete delayed responses

It indicates that prefrontal cortex play a role in remembering info for brief periods

Question 33

What happened during the funahashi experiment?

Answer 33

During the experiment, monkies looked at a central fixation cross while a visual stimulus was briefly show, after delayed the fixation cross was removed and monkey was required to go to the location where stimulli was

Question 34

What is the activity silent working memory?

Answer 34

Proposes that working memory can be mainatained for short periods without continous firing of action potentials

info is stored in short term changes in neural networks

Question 35

What was examined and what kind of task?

What happened during the individual difference experiment?

Answer 35

performance and brain activity was examined for a visual short term memory task

one group with high working memory capacity and one with low

Participants had to remember the location of red rectangles and had to ignore blue rectangles

Question 36

What did the results of the individual differences experiment find?

Were there any differences between the groups?

Which group was better at ignoring distractors?

Answer 36

Found that brain activity is the same between both groups when only red is shown, but blue rectangles caused an increase in response for the low-capacity participants

High capacity individuals were better at ignoring the blue squares and brain activity didn’t increase, and it wasn’t encoded in wm