Chapter 6

Question 1

What is serial position effect

Answer 1

Murdock had participants read the same sequence of words then graphed each word based on its position in the list and the frequency that it was correctly remembered, found that words at the beginning and the end of the list were more likely to be correctly remembered

Question 2

What is the primacy effect

Answer 2

Primacy effect refers to how words at the beginning of the list are more likely to be remembered because there is more time to rehearse them without interuption- ex can repeat the first word in the list once and give that rehersal 100% of your attention before the second word is presented whereas after the second word is presented when rehersing only have 50% of attention on it

Question 3

What is the recency effect?

Answer 3

Explains that we are more likely to be able to recall words that were later in a sequence because they are still in our short term memory when we are asked to recall. Cunitz and Glazner 1966 tested this had participants read a sequence of words then had them count backwards from 15 outloud, (if they were saying something else aloud it is likely to prevent them from saying the sequence in their mind/distract them from rehersing it) found that after this participants no longer were better able to remember items at the end of the list suggesting that the recency effect is the reason who individuals are better able to recall items at the end of a sequence

Question 4

What are the different types of coding and what forms of memory are they used in

Answer 4

The different types of coding are auditory coding, (storing information based on sound), visual coding (storing information based on images) and semantic coding, (storing information based on meaning) all can occur in both short and long term memory

Question 5

What is an example of auditory coding in short term memory?

Answer 5

The phonological similarity effect demonstrated by Conrad 1964 is an example of auditory coding in short term memory, phonological similarity effect refers to how when participants were shown the target letter F they were more likely to misidentify the target letter they had been shown as one that sounded similar like S rather then one that looked similar like E- proves that the participants were coding the letters by saying them in their head rather then by creating visions of them

Question 6

What is an example of auditory coding in long term memory?

Answer 6

Being able to recall the lyrics to your favourite song

Question 7

What is an example of visual coding in short term memory?

Answer 7

De Sala’s crossward puzzle pattern experiment demonstrates visual coding in short term memory, In de Sala’s experiment participants were presented with a black and white squre pattern that resembled a crossword found that participants could correctly recall patterns with up to 9 shaded squares - this was on the higher end of the number of digets that could be stored in short term memory (5-9) so theorized that the participants broke down the pattern into smaller simple ones rather then remembering each individual square demonstrating the use of chunking, (chunking info together so it becomes one item and therefore allows for more info to be stored in short term memory) in visually coded short term memory

Question 8

What is an example of visual coding in long term memory?

Answer 8

Being able to remember what your fifth grade teachers face looks like

Question 9

What is an example of semantic coding in short term memory

Answer 9

Wicken split participants into two groups had one group given a set of 3 fruit names each time in 4 different trails (where each set was different in each trial ex trail 1 participants given apple, orange and pear, and trial 2 participants were given lime, bannana and cherry) inbetween each trial participants were asked to recall the set they had just heard- found that recollection for the first tiral was high and then decreased with subsequent trials indicating proactive interferance, (proactive tense before active refers to the tense of the info in relation to the interferring info whose recall will be impaired with the interfearring info proactive refers to looking in the future so pro refers to the future proactive interferance refers to when info learned AHEAD/AFTER the interferring info’s recall is interfered with by the interferring info retroactive interference tense before active refers to the tense of the info whose learning is interferred with in relation to the interfearing info so retroactive interference refers to when info learned before the interfering infos recall is interferred with by the interferring info) then had one group the profession group be given a set of 3 profession names and then be asked to recall the set before being given a new set in the next tiral except for this group on the last tiral gave them a set of fruit names found that recall was high on the first trial decreased in the second and 3rd tiral and increased again in the 4th trial indicating that when the info learned proactive of the interferring info deals with a different category/has a different meaning proactive interferance will be minimized - since there was such a short delay and the meaning of the words, (weather they were categories of profession or fruit impacted their ability to be recalled it demonstrates semantic coding in short term memory)

Question 10

What is an example of semantic coding in long term memory?

Answer 10

Sachs 1967 had participants read a passage, wait during a delay and then presented them with 4 sentence options and asked them to identify which sentence was identical to one that had been in the passage, (ex. option 1. He sent a letter to the great italian scientist galileo (the correct option) option 2. The great italian scientist galileo sent him a letter, option 3. The great italian scientist galileo was sent a letter by him, option 4. A letter was sent by him to the great italian scientist galileo, found that participants were able to identify that option 2 the option where the word order was changed so that the menaing was different form the sentence they saw was not the sentence that they saw however were likely to misidentify sentence 3 or 4 where the word order was changed but the meaning remained as the sentence that they saw. This demonstrated that the individuals often remembered by general meaning rather then the exact word order. Since their was a longer gap and deals with memory based on meaning demonstrates semantic coding.

Question 11

How is which form of coding that is used determined?

Answer 11

Usually the type of coding that is used depends on the task ex likely to use auditory coding to remember a phone number (most likely to recall it by repeating it to yourself rather then visualizing its digits or recalling it by meaning)- auditory coding is the most often used type of coding for short term memory, more likely to use semantic coding to remember the plot of a novel that we read last week and most likey to use visual coding to recall what an illustration in that novel looked like.

Question 12

What areas of the brain are involved in longerm memory and what neuropsychological evidence is there for this?

Answer 12

Henry Molasion 1953 had his hippocampus, (in the temporal lobe) removed in an attempt to cure his epilepsy, found that he could make short term but not long term memories - he greeted his doctor as if he was meeting her for the first time every time he encountered her, suggests that the hippocampus and the medial temporal lobe is involved in long term memory.

Question 13

What areas of the brain are involved in short term memory and what neuropsychological evidence is there for this?

Answer 13

The parietal lobe is involved with making short term memories evidence KF–> involved in a motorcycle accident found that his short term memory was decreased –> he could only hold 2 digets in short term memory, (the average is 5-9 digets) and he had a decrease in the recency effect

Question 14

What do KF and Henry molasion 1953 demonstrate?

Answer 14

Demonstrates double dissociation henry molasion had his hippocampus removed and he could make short term but not long term memories, (this demonstrates that the hippocampus is involved with making long term but not short term memories but does not demonstrate double dissociation yet as it does not prove that a structure responsible for making short term memories is not also involved in making long term memories) KF had damage to his parietal lobe could form long term memory but had decreased short term memory this implies that the structures involved in making short term memory are different from the ones involved in making long term memories since Molasion demonstrated that the structures involved in making long term memories are different from the structures involved in making short term memories it demonstrates a double dissociation, this when paired with the modal model of memory which potrays short and long term memory as seperate boxes supports the idea that short term and long term memory are separate

Question 15

What evidence is there that short term and long term memory may occur not in entirely separate structures?

Answer 15

Ranganath and D’esposito 1967 showed participants a face, (sample face) and then had a delay of 7 seconds and then would show an image of a face (test face) and the participants would have to identify if the test face was the same as the sample face, participants were split into 2 groups one group was show sample faces that they had never encountered (novel faces) and the other group was shown sample faces that they had encountered in previous trials (familliar faces) group = they did this while the participants were in a brain scanning machine. Found that the hippocampus had increased activity when the novel face was shown which implied that the hippocampus and medial temporal areas were involved in holding novel information rather then just being involved in long term memory.

Question 16

what is a recall test and how does it differ from a recognition test

Answer 16

In a recall test the participant must produce a word from memory whereas in a recognition test the participant must choose which is the correct word from a few options

Question 17

How have episodic and semantic memory been distinguished from one
another? Consider both the definitions and Tulving’s idea of mental time travel.

Answer 17

Tulving 1975 - tulving like travelling - time travelling machine, episodic memory is like mental time travel we know what happened and the condition we were in when we experienced it happening- ex learning facts about the government in sixth grade is semantic however if we remember the exact condition we were in/under when we learned them then that is an episodic memory. Tulving explains that episodic memory allows us to perform mental time travel by allowing use to relieve the exact conditions we were in/under during an event by giving us information about them. Semantic memory on the other hand is memory of knowledge without memory of the state we were in when we learned it - it is the facts alone.

Question 18

Describe neuropsychological evidence for a double dissociation between
episodic and semantic memory.

Answer 18

KC experienced damage to the hippocampus had semantic memory but not episodic memory intact this means they could remember facts about their life like that their father had died but they could not remember the state they were in when they learned this info(where they were, how they felt, etc.) LP experienced inflammation in the brain found she could recall the events of her day so she still had her episodic memory intact but she struggled to go shopping bc she struggled to remember the meanings of the words on her list and could not remember information like that italy was in world war two proving that she did not have memory for facts, (semantic memory) - she only had memory of her personal condition/state throughout time, (episodic memory). Since we have someone with function a absent and function b present it suggests that function b is not created by what creates function a and since we have someone with function b absent and function a present it suggests that function a is not created by what creates function b so they have a double dissociation as in they are both created by seperate structures.

Question 19

Describe Levine’s “diary” experiment. What do the brain imaging results
indicate about episodic and semantic memory?

Answer 19

Levince placed individuals in a brain scanner and had them record either facts like the percentage of Japanese people living in Vancover in 1967, (semantic) or detailed accounts of personal experiences, (episodic) then had them listen to the recordings and placed them in a brain scanner and examined which areas of their brains were activated- found that there were mostly seperate structures with some overlap supporting the idea of division and interaction.

Question 20

Describe how knowledge (semantic) can affect experience (episodic).

Answer 20

If we are watching a baseball game our prior knowledge of the sport might influence the experience we have while watching it, if we do not know any facts - have any semantic memories regarding the sport - we will not know what is going on leading to us having a different experience, (creating different episodic memories) then someone who may be a big supporter of a certain team. Our prior knowledge maight also impact what we actually experience ex if we know that a certain hit means something we might look in a specific space that someone who does not know that would not.

Question 21

What is autobiographical memory? How does the definition of autobiographical
memory incorporate both episodic and semantic memory?

Answer 21

Autobiographical memory is memory of past events that have happened to us and includes facts, (info that is unchanging (semantic memories)) and memories of the personal state/conditions we were under during the experience (episodic memories) ex. we could remember that last week we went to Le Buzz, (a coffee shop) with Mary and Joe and we tried to select our favorite table by the window whcih it can be busy by during the morning, info like that it was with Mary and Joe is episodic memory and info like that Le Buzz is a coffee shop, our favorite table is by the window and that it can be busy in the morning is semantic info
semantic info - info that holds true across many circumstances either by not changing and being accepted as it is across lots of circumstances or being consistent across circumstances
Whereas episodic memories refer to an event specific to a certain period of time that is not regarded as the end all and be all for the event or how the event always goes.

Question 22

Describe how personal significance can make semantic memories easier to
remember. What happens to the “personal significance effect” in people who
have lost their episodic memories due to brain damage?

Answer 22

Moscovitch like milkovitch I could either know about the milkovitches through knowing that they are a family in the TV show shameless but not remembering the state that I was in when I learned that info, (then it is a semantic memory) however if I have a specific memory of watching the show and discovering who they were through that experience, (I know the state I was in when I found that info) it is an episodic memory- moscovitch and westacott 2003 if you know that Oprah is a famous person but don’t really know how you know this then you mainly have semantic knowledge of her but if you have a specific memory of watching one of her show at home and live once then you mainly have episoidic knowledge of her, (knowledge that you had to get through a specific experience rather then the knowledge you would generally experience across diff areas/time periods). Moscovitch and Westacott called facts that were associated with significant personal events autobiographically significant semantic memories, found that if their were episodic components- if the semantic knowledge was autobiographically significant semantic knowledge then individuals would be able to recall it more easily then if it was just semantic knowledge with no episodic components. This proves that episodic memory aids in the recall of semantic memory. Westacott and Moscovitch found that with individuals who had lost their episodic memory they had no greater ability to recall semantic info that was autobiogrphaically significant over semantic info that was not.

Question 23

Describe what happens to memory as time passes. What is the semanticization
of episodic memory?

Answer 23

Petrican, as we get older we might need to see a pediatrican petrican like pediatrican- tested a group of participants who had the average age of 63 on public events that had happened in the last 10 years or the last 40-50 years. Participants were asked to respond with remember if they could recall the event and the state they were in when they learned about the event, know if they could recall the contents of the event but not how they knew about the event and do not know if they could not remember if they had known about the event at all. They found that a larger ammount of participants responded that they did not know for events that had happened in the last 40-50 years compared with events that had happened in the last 10 years and that while the events that had happened later had higher rates of do not know the amounts of people who responded remember, (had episodic memories) of the events decreased more then the amount of people who responded know, (had semantic memories) of the events. The loss of episodic memories is referred to as the semantiacization of remote memories- it occurs with both more long term memories, like how at the time when we learned about the structures of the government in sixth grade we had remembered what we had done during that day but now we can not remember what we had done on the day we learned about the structure of the government but our memories of the structure of the government still remains; and more recent memories ex we can probably remember what we did this morning but not what we did this morning last week

Question 24

What is the remember/know procedure? How does it distinguish between
episodic and semantic memories? How has it been used to measure how
memory changes over time?

Answer 24

Remember/know procedure:
Participants are asked to respond with remember if they know that they are fammiliar with the stimulus and remember how they encountered it before, (this demonstrates episodic memory) know if they are fammilair with the stimulus but they do not know how they experienced it before, (this demonstrates semantic memory) and don’t know if they do not remember the stimulus at all.

Question 25

Describe the following evidence that indicates overlap between episodic memory for the past and the ability to imagine future events: (1) memory of people who have lost their episodic memory; (2) brain imaging evidence.

Answer 25

1) DB and KC both experienced damage to the hippocampus, which is associated with longterm memory whereas the parietal lobe is associated with short term memory, (demoed by KF) and experienced a loss of their ability to form episodic memories this resulted in them struggling to imagine future personal events- they could imagine what would happen in the future with politics/public events but not what their personal futures would look like. Have also found people with damage to the default network which is used the most for imagining future events struggled to retrieve autobiographical memories which given DB and KC's inability to imagine possible future or personal future scenerios based on the loss of episodic memory, which is one of the components of autobiographical memory it is clear that losing the ability to retrieve autobiographical memories as which occurs when their is damage to the default network impairs individuals abilities to imagine future scenerios.

Question 26

What is the constructive episodic simulation hypothesis? Describe McDermott’s experiment in which she compared the perspectives and viewpoints that people take when remembering the past and imagining the future.

Answer 26

Constructive episodic simulation hypothesis- idea that our imaginations of future events are created from taking episodic memories related to the subject and recombining them to construct new possible scenerios. McDermott like is the perspective from an MC der is it motted on something else so can see everything like its a movie- asked participants to recall past events and imagine future ones and then asked them for each if they recalled/imagined them from first or third person perspective. Found that the majority of people used third person perspective for both but people were slightly more likely to imagine future events from third person perspective then they were to recall past events. 71% of participants recalled past events from third person perspective, whereas 78% of participants imagined future events from third person perspective, also found that participants were more likely to have a below eye level perspective for imagining future events, were more likely to have an eye level perspective when recalling past events and equally likely to have an above eye level perspective for both- also found that participants perspectives in recalling past events and imagining future events were in the same distance away from the event. Since the eye perspectives had some simmilairty McDermott concluded that common processes are likely involved in recalling past and imagining future events

Question 27

What role does Addis and coworkers suggest for episodic memory? 

Answer 27

Addis like how I wanted to be able to take my understanding of the subject of fashion and recombine it to construct what ewould be in in the future so I could anticipate and better respond to it when addidas was popular. Addis 2007 believed that the role of the episodic memory was to create potential future scenerios rather then relive past events so we could best anticipate and respond to potential future scenerios.

Question 28

Distinguish between explicit memory and implicit memory.

Answer 28

Explicit memory is memory of learning from experiences that we are consciously aware of, whereas implicit memory is when learning from experiences occurs without us being consciously aware of it

Question 29

What is procedural memory? Describe the mirror drawing experiment and other examples from the chapter. Why is procedural memory considered a form of implicit memory?

Answer 29

Procedural memory is memory for skills that we have without being consciously aware of either how we learned to have the skill or being able to consciously explain the rules/steps involved in the skill. Ex case of violinist who developed amnesia - could learn to play new peices and improve even after having amnesia and not being able to consicouly recall having practiced the peices or what they had learned in previous practices that had led them to improve. The mirror drawing epirement involves placing the outline of a shape infront of a mirror and asking participants to trace the shape by only looking at the reflection of the shape in the mirror, (they were not allowed to directly look at the outline of the shape) a patient with amnesia managed to master this task even though he could not remember having practiced it befrore and each time he did the task he reported believing that it was his first time doing the task. Another example of procedural memory is expert induced amnesia how masters at a skill do not need to consiously think about it as they do it- (ex. master pianists actually found that they performed less well when they tried to focus on the speed at which their fingers went across the keys). An example of how procedural memory can also occur with cognitive processes is grammer, young children can often follow the rules of grammer without being able to actually state what those rules are. Procedural memory is a form of implicit memory because it involves an individual being able to do a skill but not being able to consciously remember the steps the skill was learned in or how they came to know the skill.

Question 29

What do recent experiments studying LSJ tell us about connections between procedural memory and semantic memory?

Answer 29

LSJ, (artist, violinist and pilot who experienced amnesia) found that she did not have memory for semantic facts like that vincent van gough had painted starry night that she had likely once known. When she was tested on identifying which artist created famous art peices she had a 2% accuracy whereas a controlled group of people with some art background had 71% accuracy. Given this she appeared to struggle to remember facts- however researchers found that LSJ could remember facts like how to remove excess paint from a paint brush, what the difference between acryllic and water color paintbrushes were and how many sides there were on a stop sign. All of these facts are associated with procedural processes indicating that semantic and procedural memory are linked.

Question 29

What is priming? Repetition priming? Describe the Graf experiment, including the results and how they support the idea that priming is a form of implicit memory

Answer 29

Priming occurs when the presentation of a certain stimulus, (the priming stimulus) changes how participants respond to a certain stimulus, (the test stimulus) in the future. Repitition priming is when the priming stimulus is the exact same as or resembles the test stimulus. Ex if you see bird in the priming phase you might respond to it more quickly in the testing phase, (this would demonstrate repitition because the stimulus shown in the priming phase is the same as or simmilar to the stimulus shown in the test phase and it is priming bc it involves showing one stimulus that changes how participants respond to a future stimulus) Graf experiment had 3 groups of participants, one group who had korsakoff's syndrome, (amnesia associated with alcholism), one group made up of individuals undergoing treatment for alcholism who did not have amnesia and one group who did not have alcholism or amnesia, presented the participants with a list of ten words and asked them to rank how much they liked each word- this made it so that they did not have an incentive to try to commit the words to memory and distracted them from thinking of doing so. He then did an explicit memory test where he asked participants to recall the ten words and an implicit memory test where he presented the first 3 letters of the 10 primed words as well as the first 3 letters of words that were not primed and told participants to fill in the blanks to create the first word with that number of letters and those first 3 letters that came to mind. On the explicit memory test he found that participants with amnesia did more poorley then participants without amnesia however on the implicit memory test he found that the individuals with korsakoff made the same number of words from the primed list as participants without amnesia, since both groups responded better to the words that they had been primed for but only when they were not asked to be consciously aware of the words that they were primed for suggests that the priming effect comes from implicit memory.

Question 29

What precautions are taken to be sure that people with normal memory do not use episodic memory in an experiment that is designed to test implicit memory?

Answer 29

Giving participants a task not related to memorizing the words when exposing them to the list in the priming phase- this prevents participants from knowing that their memory is being tested so it both gives them no incentive to commit the list to memory and distracts them from doing so. In the test phase giving participants a task like word completion, (where they are given the first three letters of words from the list and words not from the list followed by a certain number of spaces and told to make the first word that comes to mind) where it is not clear that they are being tested on memory so they will be less likely to feel the need to try to consciously recall the primed list and therefore are less likely to be using their episiodic memory Giving participants a test task that is not clearly a memory test and getting them to do it quickly ie asking them to click a certain key each time a 4 letter word is flashed across the screen as quickly as possible. Since they have to do the task quickly they will likely not have enough time to attempt conscious recall so if they have better accuracy or speed with primed words it likely indicates that their implicit memory was the cause of this. Giving participants with amnesia the same task and comparing results- if participants without amnesia are relying on their episodic memory then they will likely perform better then the participants with amnesia.

Question 30

Describe the Perfect and Askew advertising experiment. What is the propaganda effect, and why could it be considered a form of priming?

Answer 30

Perfect and Askew like the perfect way to a skew someone into buying something is to show it to them over and over again, had participants scan through magazine covers and told them to ignore the advertisments and then presented participants with advertisements that included ones included in the magazines the participants scanned and ones that were not included in the magazines the participants scanned then asked partcipants to rate the ads based on how eye catching, memorable, appealing and distinctive they were found that participants gave higher ratings to the ads that they had seen before. Perfect and Askew proved that the participants change in response was the result of implicit memory and priming by proving that the participants had little conscious recognition of the ads they had been exposed to before. When tested on weather or not they had been exposed to the ads while scanning them participants on average were only able to correctly identify 2.8 of the total 25 ads they had encountered while scanning as being ads they had encountered before. The propaganda effect demonstrated when participants are more likely to rank a statement that they have encountered before as being more believable then ones that they have not encountered before. This demonstrates priming rather then episodic memory bc participants ranked statements that had first been introduced to them as being false as being more believable, (which if they had full memory of being consicously aware of encountering the statement then it would more likely deter them from doing so) or could not recall having encountered the statements before.

Question 30

What is classical conditioning? Why is it a form of implicit memory?

Answer 30

Classical conditioning is when a formerly neutral stimulus is paired with an unconditioned stimulus which produces an unconditioned response so often that the formerly neutrel stimulus becomes seen as a predictor of the unconditioned stimulus leading to the exact same or a response related to the one given to the unconditioned stimulus being given to the now conditioned stimulus- this response is now called the conditioned response. Classical conditioning can be a form of implicit memory because we may not remember why we react the way we do to the conditioned stimulus- ex if they play a tone before they blow air into our eyes at the optomitrist and we come to blink when we hear that tone we might be unaware of why we do this- making it an implicit memory, (something that we learned through experience that we do not consicously remember having learned).

Question 31

Describe how memory loss is depicted in movies. How accurate are these depictions?

Answer 31

Bourne identity potrays a psychogenic feug where bourne has lost his past episodic memories but still can form new ones and retains some semantic and all procedural memories- can happen in real life where someone loses all previous episodic memories but can still make new ones - this is called a psychogenic feug. Finding Dory say she has no short term memory, not true patients with an inability to remember anything that happened longer then 1-2 minutes ago do exist however this is problems with long term not short term memory, (as short term memory has a duration of 15-30 seconds) since dory can remember the last 15-30 seconds she does not have a problem with short term memory but rather long term memory People can forget traumatic events non intentionally Women who had an automobile accident claimed that she had day to day amnesia like the love interest in 50 first dates, tested her did find that she could recall info she had learned on that day but not the day before- however when they mixed in the info that she learned a day before with some of the info she had learned that day she could recall it, they concluded that she did have some day to day amnesia- that she was not faking her condition, but the movie had skewed her understanding of it.

Question 32

describe rundus (1971) primacy effect experiment

Answer 32

All participants are presented with a list of 20 words where each word is presented at a rate of 1 word per every 5 seconds for both conditions asked participants to rehearse previous words that had been presented during the delay but did not specify an order to rehearse them in only difference was group 1 told to say them verbally whereas group 2 told to write them down, found that when rehearsing both groups started in the order the words had been presented in explainin ght eprimacy effect as occuring because the earlier words recieve more rehersal.