Chapter 5- STM and working memory

Question 1

Memory

Answer 1

The process involved in retaining, retrieving, and using information about stimuli, images, events, ideas, and skills after the original information is no longer present. Your memory is activated whenever a past event affects the way you think or behave.

Question 2

Sensory memory

Answer 2

When your perception continues for a fraction of a second after the presentation of a stimulus (briefly retains sensory stimuli). This is what makes it possible to perceive movies, and what is active when something is briefly illuminated, like when a face is illuminated by a flash of light.

Question 3

Short term/working memory

Answer 3

Information that stays in our memory for brief periods (10-15 seconds). Anything longer than this is long term memory!
We can make the information persist by rehearsing it, like when you repeat a phone number to yourself until you can write it down.

Question 4

Long term memory

Answer 4

Stores information for longer periods of time, from minutes to many years. Includes episodic, semantic, and procedural memory.

Question 5

Types of LTM (3)

Answer 5

1. Episodic memory is the memory for experiences
2. Procedural memory is the memory for tasks that involve muscle coordination, like riding a bike.
3. Semantic memory- memory for facts, or for the names of objects

Question 6

The modal model of memory (Atkinson and Shiffrin, 1968)

Answer 6

This model proposed 3 types of memory:
1. Sensory memory- initial stage that holds all incoming information for seconds or fractions of seconds.
2. Short term memory- can hold 5-7 items for 15-20 seconds
3. Long term memory- can hold a large amount of information for years or decades.

Question 7

Control processes

Answer 7

Atkinson and Shiffrin also proposed control processes- dynamic processes associated with the structural features that can be controlled by the person and can differ from one task to another.

Question 8

Rehearsal

Answer 8

Repeating a stimulus over and over, like repeating a phone number so you can remember it. Eventually, the number can be stored in LTM and then recalled to STM as you remember it. This is an example of a control process- in order for the number to enter STM, all information that enters the eyes enters sensory memory. The person must also use selective attention to focus on the information they want to store in STM.

Question 9

Encoding

Answer 9

The process of storing information in LTM. Retrieval is the process of remembering information stored in LTM.

Question 10

Persistence of vision

Answer 10

The continued perception of a visual stimulus even after it’s no longer present. It only lasts for a fraction of a second, so it’s not obvious when a stimulus is presented for a long period of time.
However, with brief stimuli, it’s more noticeable.

Question 11

How is a sparkler’s trail an example of persistence of vision?

Answer 11

When a sparkler is moved through the air, it appears to create a trail of light. There isn’t an actual trail, your mind just creates a perception of it.

Question 12

How is a projector’s shutter an example of persistence of vision?

Answer 12

A single film frame is put in front of a projector lens, the projector’s shutter opens and closes, and the image on the film frame flashes onto the screen. When the shutter closes, the screen is actually dark before it moves on to the next frame. This occurs many times per second, and we do not perceive the darkness in between frames due to persistence of vision.

Question 13

Sperling’s experiment

Answer 13

Measuring the capacity and duration of the sensory store. Sperling wanted to determine how much information people can take in from stimuli. Used partial report, whole report, and delayed partial report methods

Question 14

Whole report method

Answer 14

Sperling flashed a series of letters on a screen very briefly (for much less than a second) and asked participants to report as many letters as possible.
This part of the experiment is called the whole report method- participants were asked to report as many letters as possible, and could recall 4.5 out of the 12 letters.

Question 15

Partial report method

Answer 15

To prevent “fading” of the stimulus, participants were asked to report the letters in a single 4 letter row. After the letters had disappeared, a tone sounded to indicate which row to report- the letters were no longer visible, but participants could direct their attention to the trace of the letters in their mind. They could report 3.3 of the 4 letters.

Question 16

Delayed partial report method

Answer 16

The letters were flashed on and off and the cue tone was presented after a short delay. Participants were only able to report about 1 letter in the row. This decrease in performance is due to decay of iconic memory

Question 17

Iconic memory

Answer 17

Brief sensory memory for visual stimuli- corresponds to the sensory memory stage of the modal model.

Question 18

Echoic memory

Answer 18

The persistence of sound, and lasts for a few seconds after the stimulus is presented, like sensory memory for auditory stimuli. This is like when you say “what?” after a person says something, but then you hear what they said in your mind.

Question 19

Recall

Answer 19

Participants are presented with stimuli and asked to report the stimuli back after a brief delay

Question 20

What is the duration of short term memory?

Answer 20

Participants will forget information, such as a sequence of numbers, within 15-20 seconds if they do not rehearse the information.

Question 21

Digit span

Answer 21

The number of digits a person can remember, one way of measuring STM capacity.
The average capacity is 5-9 items- this was suggested by George Miller (1956). STM capacity can be described as a bottleneck

Question 22

Change detection

Answer 22

STM capacity has been set at 4 items from more recent research (Luck and Vogel, 1997). Two displays are flashed briefly, one after the other, for less than a second. Participants were asked to indicate whether the two displays were the same or different. The task is easier if the number of items in the displays is within the limit of STM. Performance began decreasing when there were 4 or more squares in the displays.

Question 23

Chunking

Answer 23

Miller (1956) describes chunking as the fact that small units (like words) can be combined into larger meaningful units (like phrases, sentences, or paragraphs). A random series of 8 words, for example, is much easier to remember if they can be rearranged into meaningful phrases or even into a sentence. Chunking can increase the memory span to 20 words or more, and it allows the STM to deal with daily tasks, like chunking letters into words during reading.

Question 24

Chunk

Answer 24

A collection of elements that are strongly associated with one another but are weakly associated with elements in other chunks. Chunks are defined by prior knowledge. “Zoo” is more meaningful when grouped with “city” but not when grouped with “child”.

Question 25

Alvarez and Cavanagh change detection

Answer 25

Used Luck and Vogel’s change detection procedure and used complex stimuli. Participants indicated whether anything had changed in between 2 scenes. Participants’ ability to make a judgment that scenes were the same or different depended on the complexity of the stimuli- the memory for squares was better than the memory for cubes. Suggests that the quantity of information rather than the number of items can influence the capacity of STM

Question 26

Working memory

Answer 26

A limited capacity system for temporary storage and manipulation of information for complex tasks like comprehension, learning, and reasoning. The manipulation component of working memory was not included in the modal model

Question 27

What is the different between STM and working memory?

Answer 27

While short term memory is mainly concerned with storing information, working memory is concerned with manipulating it. Also, STM has only one component while WM has multiple

Question 28

Which situations require working memory?

Answer 28

Used when solving math problems mentally- you have to hold numbers in your head in order to solve each component of the problem. In addition, working memory can be used to understand language. It holds sentences or phrases during a conversation so an individual can understand what another person is speaking about.
An individual can hold on to the first sentence while hearing a second sentence and making connections between the two.

Question 29

What observation caused Baddeley to propose the components of working memory?

Answer 29

Baddeley found that participants could remember a short string of numbers while doing another task, like reading or solving word problems.
According to the modal model, this should not be possible because doing one task would occupy the entire STM.

Question 30

3 components of working memory (Baddeley and Hitch)

Answer 30

1. Phonological loop
2. Visuospatial sketchpad
3. Central executive

Question 31

Articulatory rehearsal process

Answer 31

Component of the phonological loop. Responsible for active rehearsal that stops items in the phonological store from decaying

Question 32

Phonological loop definition

Answer 32

Holds verbal and auditory information and has 2 parts: phonological store and articulatory rehearsal process. Responsible for remembering a phone number, understanding a lecture.

Question 33

Phonological store

Answer 33

Component of phonological loop, has a limited capacity and holds information for a few seconds. Responsible for passive retention

Question 34

Visuospatial sketchpad definition

Answer 34

Holds visual and spatial information. Responsible for solving puzzles, remembering the layout of your college campus

Question 35

Central executive definition

Answer 35

Pulls information from LTM and coordinates activity of the phonological loop and visuospatial sketchpad by focusing on specific parts of a task and dividing attention between multiple tasks. Sort of like the control center of working memory

Question 36

Phonological similarity effect

Answer 36

Confusion of letters or words that sound similar. Participants were asked to write down letters that had been flashed on a screen. Although they were only seeing the letters, they often made mistakes by including letters that sounded similar to the target letter, not letters that looked similar to the letter. Can also apply to auditory sources like similar pitch as well as ASL (similar hand movements in signs)

Question 37

What causes the phonological similarity effect?

Answer 37

Occurs when words are processed in the phonological store part of the phonological loop- we often remember information based on how it sounds, even if we see it visually.

Question 38

Word length effect

Answer 38

Occurs when memory for lists of words is better for short words than for long words. Even if a list has the same number of words, the list with shorter words is easier to remember. This is because longer words take more time to pronounce and rehearse.

Question 39

Articulatory suppression

Answer 39

When other stimuli interfere with subvocal rehearsal and memory is reduced. Participants are instructed to repeat irrelevant sounds to prevent them from rehearsing the information they need to remember. Also eliminates word length effect since the phonological loop is overloaded.

Question 40

Visuospatial sketchpad function

Answer 40

Involved in the process of visual imagery- the creation of visual images in the mind in the absence of a physical visual stimulus.

Question 41

Mental rotation

Answer 41

Shepard and Metzler found that participants solved problems of objects with different spatial arrangements by rotating the objects in their mind- WM is responsible for this since it involves manipulation. The VSP is activated since the task involves rotation through space. Involves similar neural processes to mental imagery.

Question 42

Capacity of the visuospatial sketchpad

Answer 42

Della Sala- participants were instructed to complete patterns based on visual memory only- these patterns could not be verbally encoded. Participants could remember an average of 9 squares- tt’s possible that these squares can be chunked into subpatterns

Question 43

How does interference affect the visuospatial sketchpad?

Answer 43

Interference can also affect the operation of the visuospatial sketchpad.
Doing another visuospatial task, such as pointing, when attempting to remember a pattern overloads the visuospatial sketchpad. An articulatory task such as speaking would provide less interference.

Question 44

Functions of the central executive

Answer 44

Baddeley- the central executive controls how attention is focused on a certain task, and how it can be divided or switched between tasks. Related to executive attention- when driving and talking on the phone, attention must be divided between phonological and sketchpad tasks. Initiates retrieval and decision processes

Question 45

Which area of the brain plays a role in working memory?

Answer 45

The frontal lobe plays a role in working memory. People with frontal lobe damage have trouble controlling their attention

Question 46

Preservation

Answer 46

people with frontal lobe damage may repeatedly perform the same action or thought even if it is not achieving the desired goal. If a problem is easily solved with a particular rule and then that rule is changed, the person will continue to follow the old rule

Question 47

Why was the episodic buffer added to Baddeley’s model?

Answer 47

Working memory can hold more information than would be expected just from the phonological loop or visuospatial sketchpad- this is not explained by Baddeley’s model. People can remember long sentences, which is related to both chunking and long term memory. The episodic buffer is a new component to address these abilities

Question 48

Episodic buffer function

Answer 48

It can store information to provide extra capacity, and it is connected to the LTM, so information can be exchanged between working memory and LTM.
This model also shows that the visuospatial sketch pad and the phonological loop are linked to long term memory.

Question 49

Phineas Gage

Answer 49

Damaged his prefrontal cortex due to an injury. Although he survived, his personality changed and he experienced low impulse control, poor ability to plan, and poor social skills.

Question 50

Frontal lobe functions

Answer 50

The frontal lobes are involved in mental functions like personality and planning, and damage causes problems with controlling attention.

Question 51

Delayed response task

Answer 51

Required a monkey to hold information in working memory during a delay period. A monkey observes food in a tray, then a wall comes down. When the wall comes back up, the monkey must remember where the food is located and choose the correct well. When their PFC is removed, they have difficulty with this task.

Question 52

What does the delayed response task suggest?

Answer 52

This suggests the PFC is important for holding information for short periods of time. The PFC and frontal cortex aren’t adequately developed until 8 months, which could explain the lack of object permanence in infants.

Question 53

How do prefrontal neurons hold information?

Answer 53

One study recorded neurons in a monkey’s PFC- a fixation point (X) appeared in the middle of the screen, and a square flashed on the side. When the square disappeared, the neuron that had been stimulated by the square kept firing during the delay. This is a neural record of the square in working memory. When the X appeared again, the monkeys moved their eyes to the part of the screen where the square had been. Neurons responded only when the square was flashed in a certain location and continued responding during the delay. Information about location remains available for as long as the neurons are firing.

Question 54

How else can information be held in working memory other than neural firing?

Answer 54

Stokes suggested that information can be stored by short term changes in the connectivity of neural networks. The information to be remembered causes neurons to fire (activity state), but the firing doesn’t continue. It causes a synaptic state where the connections between neurons are strengthened.

Question 55

Activity-silent working memory

Answer 55

Information to be remembered causes neurons to fire (activity state), but the firing doesn’t continue. It causes a synaptic state where the connections between neurons are strengthened.
This is called activity-silent working memory, which only lasts a few seconds. When the memory is retrieved, there is a pattern of firing in the network.

Question 56

Reading span test

Answer 56

Participants read 13 to 16 word sentences and after the last sentence, they were asked to recall the last word of each sentence in order the sentences were presented. Their reading span is the number of sentences they could read and correctly recall the last words.
Spans ranged from 2-5 and were highly correlated with SAT verbal test scores and their performance on reading comprehension tasks.

Question 57

What do the results of the reading span test indicate?

Answer 57

These results indicate working memory capacity is an important source of individual differences in reading comprehension skills.

Question 58

How does working memory capacity influence an individual’s response to distractors?

Answer 58

Vogel measured event related potentials during a change detection task. The high capacity working memory group had a response when exposed to distractors, but they caused a larger response in the low capacity group.
For the high capacity group, the central executive was functioning well by helping participants to better allocate attention- these individuals may be better at “tuning out” distractors.

Question 59

Cognitive control

Answer 59

A set of functions which allow people to regulate their behavior and attentional resources and to resist the temptation to give in to impulse. People with poor cognitive control are easily distracted, and individual differences in cognitive control are also related to individual differences in working memory.

Question 60

Memory can be described as

Answer 60

Both a process (of retaining information for later retrieval) and storage (enabling retrieval of information)

Question 61

Is memory like a camera or computer?

Answer 61

Realistically, we can’t remember everything, and we might not want to store unpleasant memories. We have an adaptive memory system that is as good as it can be given neural substrates and environmental pressures.

Question 62

How does memory act as a gateway?

Answer 62

Not everything gets in, not everything stays in, and not everything is retrieved.

Question 63

How does memory act as a workspace?

Answer 63

It keeps things available, is responsible for attention, and is capable of short term verbatim recall

Question 64

William James 2 components of memory

Answer 64

1. Primary memory- short term that lasts a few seconds, holds information in the conscious state
2. Secondary memory- longer term (unlimited duration) that could be brought back into consciousness.

Question 65

Span of apprehension

Answer 65

The number of items recallable after any short display. Iconic memory is limited in terms of this span instead of capacity limit.

Question 66

Decay

Answer 66

Forgetting as a passive process like fading. Happens automatically over time. Can occur in visual memory, like with Sperling’s experiment.

Question 67

Erasure

Answer 67

The loss of the original information, can occur with visual memory

Question 68

Interference

Answer 68

Forgetting caused by an intervening stimulation or mental processes. For example, it’s very difficult to rehearse numbers and read at the same time.

Question 69

What conclusions could be drawn from Sperling’s whole report method?

Answer 69

Not all 12 letters are stored in sensory memory- we can only store 4-5 letters
Or, all of the letters were represented, but they faded so quickly you would only be able to retrieve 4-5 of the letters.

Question 70

Conclusions from Sperling’s partial report task?

Answer 70

Instead of a capacity limit, iconic memory is limited in terms of its “span of apprehension”. In this task, the span was 9, not 4.5 as found in the previous task

Question 71

Backward masking

Answer 71

Presenting a mask immediately after stimulus, results in the inability to recall anything. The mask would be another visual stimulus like hashtags if a sequence of letters or numbers was to be remembered

Question 72

Purpose of sensory memory

Answer 72

It makes perception and meaning extraction possible- permits the sampling of “enough” information to
recognize objects and events in the world
u It allows attention, consciousness, STM to gain access to information

Question 73

How does information complexity determine STM capacity?

Answer 73

It’s more difficult to remember depending on the information- it would be more difficult to remember seven greebles than seven colors, because the greebles aren’t really meaningful and are more complex

Question 74

Dysexecutive syndrome

Answer 74

Caused by damage to the frontal lobes and results in disruption to the central executive. People with DS continue to pursue goals that are no longer relevant (preservation) and experience heightened distractibility when focused on a goal.

Question 75

Prefrontal cortex function

Answer 75

Plans problem solving tasks, allocates attention to switch between multiple tasks.

Question 76

Dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and cingulate cortex function

Answer 76

Selective attention to stimuli, manages attentional switches between tasks

Question 77

Parietal lobe function

Answer 77

Uniting various parts of experience into episodic whole.

Question 78

Irrelevant speech effect

Answer 78

Difficult to keep information in the phonological loop when around irrelevant sounds present in the environment.

Question 79

Broca’s area

Answer 79

Responsible for language production and located in the left hemisphere. Rehearsal requires connectivity between Broca’s and Wernicke’s area (language comprehension).

Question 80

Representational momentum

Answer 80

As a target item moves down a “path” and then disappears, people tend to misremember the object as farther down the path than it actually was. WM simulates the path of the object even after it disappears.

Question 81

Episodic buffer

Answer 81

Updated component from the original WM model, communicates with LTM. This is the part of working memory in which information from different sources are combined into new episodic memories- memory for experiences and events. This is where mnemonic devices like chunking occur.

Question 82

Dual task

Answer 82

Doing more than one task at a time. The primary task is the task we’re most interested in, like remembering letter sequences. The secondary task is the task to be performed simultaneously, like saying words/point to them in the interference demo.

Question 83

Dual task findings (Logie, Zucco, and Baddeley)

Answer 83

Primary tasks included a visual memory span task or letter span task. Secondary tasks included mental addition or mental imagery. It was found that a secondary task does not impinge on performance as much (minor decline in performance) if using a different WM component. There was a substantial decline in performance if the task used the same WM component

Question 84

Smith and Jonides

Answer 84

Focused on finding differences in brain activation for encoding and maintenance of verbal vs. visual working memory. Presented 3 WM tasks: verbal, spatial, and object

Question 85

Which regions of the brain are associated with each WM task? (Smith and Jonides)

Answer 85

1. Verbal- Broca’s area, left parietal cortex
2. Spatial- occipital and parietal lobe
3. Object- inferior temporal cortex, posterior parietal cortex
   WM is dependent on a distributed network of areas across prefrontal (central executive), parietal, temporal, and occipital regions of the brain

Question 86

Sternberg working memory task (methods)

Answer 86

Participants were given a short list of letters at one per second. Recognition test- a probe letter was displayed at the end and participants were asked whether the letter was on the list and reaction time was measured (DV). IV- number of items in memory set and whether the probe was in the memory set

Question 87

Sternberg working memory task hypotheses (3)

Answer 87

1.) Parallel Search: all items in memory set are scanned at once.
2.) Serial Exhaustive Search: all items in memory are scanned one-
at-a-time. Scanning does not stop when the probe is found.
3.) Serial Self-terminating Search: Contents of STM are searched until the probe is found, then the search is stopped.

Question 88

Serial Exhaustive Search

Answer 88

All items in memory are scanned one-
at-a-time. Scanning does not stop when the probe is found. In the Sternberg WM task, this had to be true for “no” trials because you’d have to exhaustively scan all options before you can confidently make a “no” decision

Question 89

Sternberg working memory task results

Answer 89

Evidence for serial exhaustive search- yes and no responses had approximately the same reaction time. If WM had been serial self terminating, yes responses would have a quicker reaction time. The search through SM is very fast, about 38 ms per item.

Question 90

Sternberg working memory task finding

Answer 90

When scanning short-term memory there is a
serial exhaustive search, meaning that all items
are scanned one-at-a-time and does not stop
when the probe is found. We scan the entire set in memory