Chapter 5: STM Flashcards
Memory
mechanism that allows us to retain, retrieve, and use information about stimuli, images, events, ideas, and skills over time; both passive and active processes
Stages of memory
encoding, consolidation, retrieval, reconsolidation
Encoding
initial perception of an event, including attention and pattern recognition
Consolidation
laying down and strengthening of memories in short-term or long-term
Retrieval
calling memories back up to consciousness
Reconsolidation
adaptive update mechanism allowing new information to be integrated into the initial memory representation; happens to all memories after retrieval
Atkinson and Shiffrin’s modal model of memory
input enters sensory memory, gets stored in short-term memory with rehearsal, then can be stored and retrieved from long-term memory
Sensory memory
brief persistence of the effects of sensory stimulation; initial stage that holds incoming information for seconds or fractions of a second
When is memory active?
any time a past experience has an effect on the way you think or behave now or in the future
Short-term memory
information that stays in our memory (5 to 9 items) for brief periods (10-20 s) of time without rehearsal
Long-term memory
information that is stored for long periods of time, from minutes to a lifetime
Control processes
dynamic processes associated with the structural features (types of memory) that can be controlled by the person and may differ from one task to another
Rehearsal
control process that operates on STM; repeating a stimulus over and over
2 strategies used that are examples control processes
strategies that help make a stimulus more memorable (e.g. chunking); strategies of attention that help you focus on particularly interesting or important information
Persistence of vision
the continued perception of a visual stimulus that lasts for a fraction of a second even after it is no longer present (e.g. trail of light left by a sparkler or pictures flashed in a movie theatre)
Whole report method (Sperling)
participants were tasked to report as many letters as possible from 12-letter display for 50 ms; reported an average of 4.5/12
Partial report method (Sperling)
participants tasked to report letters from a row once cued by a tone (high, medium, low) after the 50 ms 12-letter display; reported an average of 3.3/4 in a row
Delayed partial report method (Sperling)
letters were displayed then the cue tone was presented after a short delay; reported an average of 1/4 in a row after 1s delay
Iconic memory or the visual icon
brief sensory memory for visual stimuli
Echoic memory
persistence of sound that lasts for a few seconds after presentation of the original stimulus
Recall
participants are presented a stimuli then are asked to report back as many as possible after a delay; recollecting life events or facts
Digit span
the number of digits a person can remember
Luck and Vogel’s findings on digit span from change detection
participants are able retain about 4 items in their STM; the more items, the greater the decline in performance
Chunking (Miller)
small units like words can be combined into larger meaningful units like phrases and sentences; increases our ability to hold information in STM by relying on preexisting knowledge in LTM
Chunk
a collection of elements that are strongly associated with one another but are weakly associated with elements in other chunks
Alvarez and Cavanagh’s findings on change detection
participants’ ability to make the same/difference judgement depended on the stimuli’s complexity; greater amount of information, fewer items held in visual STM
Working memory
a limited-capacity system for temporary storage and manipulation of information for complex tasks like comprehension, learning, and reasoning
Components of working memory (Baddeley and Hitch)
phonological loop, visuospatial sketch pad, central executive
Phonological loop or verbal STM
holds verbal and auditory information; consists of the phonological store and the articulatory rehearsal process
Phonological store or inner ear
passive; linked to speech perception and internally hearing words; holds information for 1-2 s
Articulatory rehearsal/control process or inner voice
active but subvocal (no sound actually made); linked to speech production and used to maintain verbal information from the phonological store
Visuospatial sketchpad or visual STM
maintains visually presented information like drawings and kinesthetic movements; contains the visual cache and inner scribe
Visual cache or inner eye
passive; temporarily stores visual information that comes from perceptual experience and contains information about its form and color
Inner scribe
active; refreshes all stored information from the visuospatial sketchpad and briefly stores spatial relationships associated with bodily movement
Central executive
a control system that pulls information from LTM and coordinates the activity of the phonological loop and visuospatial sketchpad by dividing attention between tasks (“attention controller”)
Phonological similarity effect
the confusion of letters or words that sound similar; more likely to misidentify a visually displayed letter with other letters similar in sound rather than in appearance
Word length effect
memory is better for lists of short words than long words, which takes longer to rehearse and produce during recall
Articulatory suppresion
repetitively saying an irrelevant sound, which overloads the phonological loop and interferes with rehearsal; eliminates the word length effect
Evidence for phonological loop
phonological similarity effect, word length effect, articulatory suppression
Visual imagery
the creation of visual images in the mind without a physical visual stimulus
Shepard and Metzler’s findings on mental rotation
it takes longer to identify if objects are the same or different when there is a greater difference in their orientation
Evidence for visuospatial sketchpad
ability for mental rotation and memory for visual displays that are difficult to code into language
Perseveration
a breakdown in the central executive’s ability to control attention due to frontal lobe damage wherein a person repeatedly performs the same action or thought even if it’s not achieving the desired goal
Episodic buffer
provides extra capacity by storing information and temporal order; an integrative system that places events occurring in the loop and sketchpad into a coherent sequence or episode; connected to LTM
What limits VSTM capacity?
the number of items and the amount of information or complexity
Contralateral delay activity
EEG/ERP signal that increases as more items are stored in visual working memory; a neurological marker of working memory load ; measured in posterior parietal and temporal lobes 300-900 ms after onset
How do individual differences in selective attention affect working memory?
high efficiency individuals filter out irrelevant information or distractors while low efficiency individuals don’t
Serial position effect
items at the beginning and end of a list are more likely to be remembered
Primacy effect
items at the beginning of a list are rehearsed for a longer time and have less competition with other information
Recency effect
items at the end of a list are new in STM so they take less time to decay, and are usually recalled first; is eliminated as time between encoding and retrieval increases
Maintenance rehearsal
rote rehearsal that remains items in STM
Elaborative rehearsal
thinking about meaningful relationships among the items you’re encoding
Retroactive interference
something in the present makes it difficult to recall something you have learned previously
Proactive interference
something in the past makes it difficult to recall something you have learned recently
