Chapter 6 & 7 - Long-term memory Flashcards
Three ways to distinguish between different types of memory
We will do this by considering the results of
(1)behavioral experiments,
(2)neuropsychological studies of the effects of brain damage on memory, and
(3)brain imaging experiments.
serial position curve - whose experiment does this stem from? What is the experiment? What two things do the results indicate?
Murdock
a memory experiment in which participants are asked to recall a list of words, a plot of the percentage of participants remembering each word against the position of that word in the list
indicates primacy effect and recency effect
primacy effect - what is it and what does it indicate?
memory is better for words at the beginning of the list
rehearsal - encoding into LTM
recency effect - what is it and what does it indicate?
most recent info is likely to be the first remembered -
STM encoding
what would happen if you had to count backwards during the serial position curve experiment?
you would erase the recency effect because those last few words wouldn’t stay in STM but the primacy effect would still occur because the rehearsal encodes them into LTM
what do the primacy and recency effects provide evidence for?
separation between STM and LTM
Coding
the form in which stimuli are represented in the mind. For example, information can be represented in visual, semantic, and phonological forms.
Examples of visual coding in STM and in LTM
visual coding in STM if you remembered the pattern by representing it visually in your mind
visual coding in LTM when you visualize a person or place from the past
Examples of auditory coding in STM and in LTM
Auditory coding in STM is illustrated by Conrad’s demonstration of the phonological similarity effect
Auditory coding occurs in LTM when you “play” a song in your head.
Examples of semantic coding in STM and in LTM
semantic coding in STM - Wickens experiment (fruits, professions, etc., word lists):
proactive interference
release from proactive interference - that occurs in the Wickens experiment depends on the words’ categories (fruits and professions)
Semantic coding in LTM - Sachs experiment:
had participants listen to a tape recording of a passage and then measured their recognition memory to determine whether they remembered the exact wording of sentences in the passage or just the general meaning of the passage
The finding that specific wording is forgotten but the general meaning can be remembered for a long time has been confirmed in many experiments
Recognition memory
Identifying a stimulus that was encountered earlier. Stimuli are presented during a study period; later, the same stimuli plus other, new stimuli are presented. The participants’ task is to pick the stimuli that were originally presented.
what is the predominant type of coding in STM?
auditory coding (rehearsal)
what is the most common form of coding in LTM tasks?
semantic coding
the strongest evidence for separation of STM and LTM in the brain is provided by what?
neuropsychological studies
Case of HM - what brain area affected? what was result of brain change? what did this change indicate about memory?
removal of hippocampus due to seizures
eliminated ability to form new LTM
STM remained intact
suggested that short-term and long-term memories are served by separate brain regions
hippocampus - where is it and what relation does it have to memory?
subcortical structure in the temporal lobe - important for forming LTM and also plays a role in remote episodic memories and in short-term storage of novel information
Case of KF -what brain area affected? what was result of brain change? what did this change indicate about memory?
damage to parietal lobe in motorbike accident
poor STM indicated by reduced digit span (2 digits)
recency effect was reduced
had functioning LTM indicated by abiity to form and hold new memories of events in life
together with HM, he establishes a double dissociation - supports that STM and LTM are caused by different mechanisms which can act independently
Can the hippocampus hold info for short periods of time? How do we know about this?
Ranganath and D’Esposito - brain scan while viewing familiar and novel faces experiment
concluded that the hippocampus is involved in maintaining novel information in memory during short delays
show that the hippocampus and other medial temporal lobe structures once thought to be involved only in LTM also play some role in STM
Tulving suggested that episodic and semantic memory can be distinguished based on the type of _______________ associated with each
experience
mental time travel
the defining property of the experience of episodic memory, in which a person travels back in time in his or her mind to reexperience events that happened in the past
experience of self-knowing or remembering
How does Tulving describe the experience of semantic memory?
knowing - does not involve mental time travel
neuropsychological evidence of episodic/semantic memory separation
case of KC - motorcycle accident - damage to hippocampus and surrounding structures
- lost episodic memory but semantic memory largely intact
case of LP - Italian woman - encephalitis
- severe impairment of semantic memory but maintained episodic memory
(double dissociation)
two ways that episodic and semantic memories interact in everyday life
how knowledge (semantic) affects experience (episodic) - knowledge (semantic memory) guides experience and influences episodic memories that follow
the makeup of autobiographical memory - can include both episodic and semantic components
personal semantic memories
semantic memory that is associated with personal experiences
(e.g., the table near the window is our favourite one, that table is difficult to get in the morning)
experiences related to _________________ memories can aid in accessing _______________ memories
example?
episodic
semantic
you would be more likely to recall the name of a popular singer (semantic information) if you had attended one of his or her concerts (episodic experience) than if you just knew about the singer because he or she was a famous
is forgetting an all-or-nothing process? what are examples?
no - there are different degrees of forgetting and remembering
familiarity - someone seems familiar but you can’t remember their name or where you met them - associated with semantic memory
recollection - remembering specific experiences related to that person - associated with episodic memory
how can you measure familiarity and recollection?
the remember/know procedure
remember = remembering the circumstances under which you initially encountered the stimulus
know = stimulus seems familiar but you don’t remember experiencing it earlier
don’t know = don’t remember the stimulus (isn’t familiar) at all
What did the Petrican experiment show in relation to the remember/know procedure? what phenomenon does this illustrate?
remember responses decreased much more than know responses, meaning that memories for 40- to 50-year-old events had lost much of their episodic character
semanticization of remote memories - loss of episodic detail for memories of long-ago events
does the semanticization of remote memories only apply to long-ago memories?
no, also for periods as short as 1 week
what is some evidence for the connection between the ability to remember the past and the ability to imagine the future?
case of KC - lost episodic memory - also unable to describe personal events that might happen in the future
brain regions active while thinking about the past are also active when imagining the future
constructive episodic simulation hypothesis
The hypothesis proposed by Schacter and Addis that episodic memories are extracted and recombined to construct simulations of future events.
McDermott study
first-person perspective vs. third-person perspective
both remembered and imagined events were more likely to be “seen” from a third-person perspective, although there were slightly fewer third-person perceptions for the remembered past (71 percent) than for the imagined future (78 percent)
when mind wandering occurs, people are more likely to think about the ____________ than about the ____________ or ____________.
why is this?
future
past or present
to help people plan for the future by helping create simulations of the future from our episodic memories
damage to the DMN can cause problems in retrieving…
autobiographical memories
Explicit memories
Memory that involves conscious recollections of events or facts that we have learned in the past.
implicit memories
Memory that occurs when an experience affects a person’s behavior, even though the person is not aware that he or she has had the experience.
three parts of implicit memories
procedural memory, priming and conditioning
Procedural memory
Memory for how to carry out highly practiced skills. Procedural memory is a type of implicit memory because although people can carry out a skilled behavior, they often cannot explain exactly how they are able to do so.
what example demonstrates a link between semantic memory and memory involving motor skills?
Case of LSJ
skilled violinist who suffered a loss of episodic memory due to damage to her hippocampus caused by encephalitis, but who could still play the violin
Also lost much of her semantic world knowledge - further testing of LSJ revealed an interesting result: Although she had lost most of her knowledge of the world, she was able to answer questions related to things that involved procedural memory - about music (“Which instruments usually make up a string orchestra?”), driving (“How many sides does a stop sign have?”)
can amnesiac patients master new skills? what does this illustrate?
yes, amnesiac patients can master new skills even though they don’t remember any of the practice that led to this mastery
illustrates the implicit nature of procedural memory
expert-induced amnesia
Amnesia that occurs because well-learned procedural memories do not require attention.
The result of this automatic action is that when asked about what they did in carrying out a skilled action, the expert often has no idea.
Priming
A change in response to a stimulus caused by the previous presentation of the same or a similar stimulus.
repetition priming
When an initial presentation of a stimulus affects the person’s response to the same stimulus when it is presented later.
why is priming part of implicit memory?
is called implicit memory because the priming effect can occur even though participants may not remember the original presentation of the priming stimuli
how can you test implicit priming and ensure that the participant doesn’t remember the presentation of the priming stimulus? what’s an example of this?
test patients with amnesia - Graf experiment:
results of the word completion test, showing the percentage of primed words that were created, indicate that the patients with amnesia performed just as well as the controls
propaganda effect
People are more likely to rate statements they have read or heard before as being true, just because of prior exposure to the statements.
can occur even when the person is told that the statements are false when they first read or hear them
how is repetition priming different from subliminal priming?
because we are aware of the stimulus in repetition priming but may affect us without realizing
why is classical conditioning considered implicit memory?
This is implicit memory because it can occur even if the person has forgotten about the original pairing
Conditioning in real life is often linked to what? what is an example?
emotional reactions
you meet someone who seems familiar but you can’t remember how you know him or her - however, you feel either positively or negatively about the person
the character of Jason Bourne is related to what rare condition?
psychogenic fugue - Symptoms of this condition include traveling away from where the person lives and a lack of memory for the past, especially personal information such as name, relationships, place of residence, and occupation
the most common example of errors in memory terminology in movies is what?
loss of LTM is identified as a loss of short-term memory:
reflects a common belief that forgetting things that have happened within the last few minutes or hours is a breakdown in short-term memory
Encoding
The process of acquiring information and transferring it into LTM.
maintenance rehearsal
Rehearsal that involves repetition without any consideration of meaning or making connections to other information.
elaborative rehearsal
Rehearsal that involves thinking about the meaning of an item to be remembered or making connections between that item and prior knowledge
levels of processing theory
Craik and Lockhart
The idea that memory depends on how information is encoded, with better memory being achieved when processing is deep than when processing is shallow.
Deep processing involves _______________________ and is associated with _________________
attention to meaning
elaborative rehearsal
Shallow processing involves ___________________ and is associated with _________________.
repetition with little attention to meaning
maintenance rehearsal
paired-associate learning - who and what?
Bower and Winzenz
learning task involving forming mental pictures/visual images to deepen processing
participants who had created mental images remembered more than twice as many words as the participants who had just repeated the word pairs
self-reference effect
Memory for a word is improved by relating the word to the self.
generation effect
Memory for material is better when a person generates the material him- or herself, rather than passively receiving it.
Participants who had generated the second word in each pair were able to reproduce 28 percent more word pairs than participants who had just read the word pairs
result of research that shows that participants spontaneously do what as they recall items?
why does this happen?
organize them
remembering words in a particular category may serve as a retrieval cue—a word or other stimulus that helps a person remember information stored in memory - a word in a particular category, such as fruits, serves as a retrieval cue for other words in that category
what is Gordon Bower’s “organizational tree”?
One group of participants studied four separate trees for minerals, animals, clothing, and transportation for 1 minute each and were then asked to recall as many words as they could from all four trees - Participants in this group recalled an average of 73 words from all four trees.
Another group of participants also saw four trees, but the words were randomized, so that each tree contained a random assortment of minerals, animals, clothing, and transportation
- participants were able to remember only 21 words from all four trees.
What happens when participants are prevented from organizing information in a coherent way?
extremely difficult to remember
Memory may function as what type of evolutionary function? who studied this?
through the process of evolution, memory was shaped to increase the ability to survive, especially in situations experienced by our ancestors, who were faced with basic survival challenges such as finding food and evading predators
Nairne
retrieval practice effect
elaboration that results in better memory can also be achieved by testing memory, or, to put it another way, to practice memory retrieval
When students are asked to describe their study techniques, the most popular are which two techniques? are these effective?
highlighting material in text or notes and rereading text or notes
research has generally found that these popular techniques are not very effective
what are 6 things you can do when studying to increase effectivity?
Elaborate
Generate and Test
Organize
Take Breaks
Avoid “Illusions of Learning”
Be an “active” note-taker
spacing effect
The advantage in performance caused by short study sessions separated by breaks from studying.
research also shows that memory performance is enhanced if what follows learning? why is this?
sleep - can improve consolidation
what two illusions of learning does rereading material cause?
fluency—that is, repetition causes the reading to become easier and easier
familiarity effect - Rereading causes material to become familiar, so when you encounter it a second or third time, there is a tendency to interpret this familiarity as indicating that you know the material
compared comprehension for a group of students who highlighted and a group who didn’t, Peterson found…
no difference between the performance of the two groups when they were tested on the material.
what are retrieval cues?
Locations, songs, smells, etc.
free recall
A procedure for testing memory in which the participant is asked to remember stimuli that were previously presented
cued recall
A procedure for testing memory in which a participant is presented with cues, such as words or phrases, to aid recall of previously experienced stimuli.
The results indicated that when the self-generated retrieval cues were presented, participants remembered ___ percent of the words but when the other-person-generated retrieval cues were presented, participants remembered only ___ percent of the words
91
55
Encoding Specificity
The principle that we learn information together with its context. This means that presence of the context can lead to enhanced memory for the information.
Godden and Baddeley experiment - what did it involve and what principle did it illustrate?
“diving experiment”
the best recall occurred when encoding and retrieval occurred in the same location
encoding specificity
State-Dependent Learning
The principle that memory is best when a person is in the same state for encoding and retrieval.
associated with a particular internal state, such as mood or state of awareness
Eich experiment - what did it involve and what principle did it illustrate?
“merry” or happy music, or “melancholic” or sad music while learning
they did better when their mood at retrieval matched their mood during encoding
state-dependent memory
Transfer-Appropriate Processing
retrieval is better if the same cognitive tasks are involved during both encoding and retrieval
Morris experiment - what did it involve and what principle did it illustrate?
two learning conditions - semantic/meaning (deeper) and rhyming (shallower)
The key result of this experiment was that the participants’ retrieval performance depended on whether the retrieval task matched the encoding task
shows that deeper processing at encoding does not always result in better retrieval, as proposed by levels of processing theory
transfer-appropriate processing
new memories are _______ and can therefore be __________
fragile
disrupted
Consolidation
The process that transforms new memories into a state in which they are more resistant to disruption.
Synaptic consolidation
A process of consolidation that involves structural changes at synapses that happen rapidly, over a period of minutes.
Systems consolidation
A consolidation process that involves the gradual reorganization of circuits within brain regions and takes place on a long timescale, lasting weeks, months, or even years.
Does systems consolidation follow synaptic consolidation?
No, it’s more accurate to think of them as occurring together - but at different speeds and at different levels of the nervous system
who discovered that learning and memory are represented in the brain by physiological changes that take place at the synapse which became the starting point for modern research on the physiology of memory?
Donald Hebb
long-term potentiation (LTP)
One of the outcomes of structural changes at the synapse is a strengthening of synaptic transmission.
The increased firing that occurs in a neuron due to prior activity at the synapse.
The first time that neuron A is stimulated, neuron B fires slowly – However, after repeated stimulation, neuron B fires much more rapidly to the same stimulus
Once it became clear that the _______________ is essential for forming new memories, researchers began determining exactly how it responds to stimuli and how it participates in the process of systems consolidation
hippocampus
what are the two models of consolidation which focus on the role of the hippocampus in memory?
standard model of consolidation
multiple trace model of consolidation
standard model of consolidation
Proposes that memory retrieval depends on the hippocampus during consolidation, but that once consolidation is complete, retrieval no longer depends on the hippocampus.
with the passage of time, connections between the hippocampus and cortical areas weaken – and connections between cortical areas strengthen until, eventually, the HC is no longer involved in those memories
Reactivation
A process that occurs during memory consolidation, in which the hippocampus replays the neural activity associated with a memory. During reactivation, activity occurs in the network connecting the hippocampus and the cortex. This activity results in the formation of connections between the cortical areas.
retrograde amnesia
Loss of memory for something that happened prior to an injury or traumatic event such as a concussion.
graded amnesia - what is it and what model of consolidation does it correspond to?
When amnesia is most severe for events that occurred just prior to an injury and becomes less severe for earlier, more remote events.
corresponds, according to the standard model, to the changes in connections between the hippocampus and cortical areas shown – as time passes after an event, the cortical representation becomes stronger
multiple trace model of consolidation
The idea that the hippocampus is involved in the retrieval of remote memories, especially episodic memories. This contrasts with the standard model of memory, which proposes that the hippocampus is involved only in the retrieval of recent memories.
proposes that the hippocampus remains in active communication with the cortical areas, even for remote memories
How does the hippocampus response change over time?
The hippocampus response remained high for RR pairs (the ones that remained episodic at 1 week), but dropped to near zero for RK pairs (the ones that had lost their episodic character at 1 week)
supports the idea that the hippocampus response changes over time, but only for stimuli that have lost their episodic character - found that hippocampus responding is connected with episodic memories, which are still present a week after learning pairs of pictures
classifier
a computer program designed to recognize patterns of voxel activity and can then make predictions based on those patterns -
multivoxel pattern analysis
A procedure for determining the pattern of voxel activation that is elicited by specific stimuli, within various structures.
more information about remote memories compared to recent memories is contained in the…
prefrontal cortex
information about both recent and remote memories is represented throughout the _______________, with the ________________________________
containing more information about remote memories
hippocampus
posterior hippocampus
Why does going to sleep shortly after learning enhance memory?
One reason is that going to sleep eliminates environmental stimuli that might interfere with consolidation.
Another reason is that consolidation appears to be enhanced during sleep.
Reconsolidation
A process proposed by Nader and others that occurs when a memory is retrieved and so becomes reactivated. Once this occurs, the memory must be consolidated again, as it was during the initial learning. This repeat consolidation is reconsolidation.
when a memory is retrieved (remembered), it becomes _________, like it was when it was originally formed - and before it has been reconsolidated, it can be _________________________.
fragile
modified or eliminated
What was the first evidence that reactivating a memory can open it to being changed?
Nader’s rat experiment using anisomycin
result shows that when a memory is reactivated, it becomes fragile, just as it was immediately after it was first formed, and the drug can prevent reconsolidation
memory becomes susceptible to being changed or disrupted every time it is retrieved - what purpose may this have?
updating memory can be crucial for survival
who/what provided evidence for the effect of reactivation in humans?
Almut Hupbach
reminder group and the no-reminder group
This idea that memories can be changed, has led to practical applications designed to treat what? how?
conditions such as posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
The basic method involved is to reactivate the person’s memory for the traumatic event and then administer the drug propranolol - blocks activation of stress hormone receptors in the amygdala - a part of the brain important for determining the emotional components of memory
Per Sederberg and coworkers (2011) have proposed another explanation for Hupbach’s results which does not involve reconsolidation - what is it?
temporal context model (TCM)
proposes that considering storage is unnecessary because Hupbach’s result can be explained by contextual associations
Three types of encoding specificity
Context dependent memory
State dependent memory
Mood dependent memory
Is there empirical evidence for the difference between STM and LTM?
yes - Murdock experiment - serial position curve - primacy and recency effect
The case of Clive Wearing - video
Was a musician
Viral encephalitis - severe damage to the temporal lobes (hippocampus) as well as the left frontal lobe (which results in emotional behaviour and repeating himself a lot)
Exists in the moment - no encoding into LTM - no episodic memories but does have some semantic and does have implicit memories
Always thinks he’s been awake for about 2 minutes
what activity did we do in the lecture regarding encoding information semantically?
paragraph about the kids playing with glasses, spyglass and Galileo
Remembering general facts of the paragraph - we remember the gist pretty well
Remembering the exact wording of a sentence - this is very difficult
what is another term for explicit memory? implicit memory?
declarative
nondeclarative
Evidence of different underlying brain mechanisms between Declarative and Nondeclarative memory
KC vs. Italian woman (neuropsychological evidence)
what did the tower of Hanoi activity in the lecture illustrate?
implicit memory and repetition priming
Can test cognitive skills by measuring how many moves and how long it takes
If it’s presented again a year later - you will complete it in the same or less moves in less time even though you don’t really remember the task
Even amnesiacs will have this effect of repetition priming
Hyde & Jenkins experiment:
what is it and what principle does it illustrate?
levels of processing
List of words - two groups:
Pay attention to whether the letter “o” is present (shallow processing)
Pay attention to whether the item would be useful while camping (deep processing)
Processing the words at a “deep level” = memory
Participants didn’t know they would receive a memory test (incidental learning)
How does transfer-appropriate processing apply to learning for an exam?
How will you be tested for the exam? If it is all multiple choice then you should practice in multiple choice form. If it’s fill in the blanks, you should practice key terms. If it’s short answer, you should expand on key terms by thinking of scenarios, how key terms relate to each other. If it’s essay form, answer essay questions as best you can in practice.
How you are tested really matters for how you should study.
Match the type of encoding with type of retrieval you expect on the exam.
Encoding specificity:
Context in which we learn is linked to the encoding of information - context is a _________________
retrieval cue
Lowe study - what was it and what did it illustrate?
blackouts from drinking
Cannot recall events during drinking
Returning to the drunken state will help bring back those memories
state-dependent memory
how does state dependent memory relate to preparing for a test?
Relates to test anxiety - heightened during testing but not during studying - do relaxation techniques before test to bring you back to relaxed state
Drinking coffee while studying? - drink coffee while test taking
how does mood dependent memory relate to preparing for a test?
Being in same mood results in best performance on testing
For testing - do something to match mood before test (watch a video, listen to music)
Sleep deprivation mimics what?
aging - cognitive impairment - performance of someone in their 20s who are sleep deprived perform as if they are in their 60s/70s - cognitive deficits in attention/memory
There is contemporary research that, in addition to the hippocampus, structures in the ___ lobe may be linked with ___ memory.
temporal; long- and short-term
The accuracy of recalling items in a list decreases as the length of the list increases due to…
distraction
When Javier talks about last night’s basketball game with his friend Carol over coffee, what internal thoughts reflect Javier’s working memory?
“The game was close and exciting.”
What tool did doctors use to measure the short-term memory capacity of KF following his motorcycle accident?
digit lists
Which term best reflects the aspect of memory that people lose with age?
experience
Suppose you recall that you had a pleasant conversation with a cashier the other day when you went to get coffee. This memory should be viewed as primarily being ___.
episodic
Regarding a person’s future, episodic memory seems to be ________.
adaptive
According to the standard model of consolidation, activation in the cortex
occurs in a number of different areas.
what is produced during the process of synaptic consolidation?
proteins
In the context of memory, what distinguishes reconsolidation from consolidation?
modification
What is the consequence of injecting a rat with anisomycin?
Doing so inhibits the formation of new memories.
Without ________, reconsolidation of a memory would not be possible.
fragility
If you have participated in paired-associate learning, then you likely…
heard a variety of words paired with other words and had to recall which word was paired with another.
Results of Tulving and Pearlstone’s experiment with retrieval cues reflect that…
The cued recall participants recalled nearly twice as many items as the free recall participants.
Devon and Yoshi always create True-False flash cards to help them study for Mrs. Singleton’s weekly True-False history quizzes. What strategy are Devon and Yoshi using to help enhance their performance on the quizzes?
transfer-appropriate processing
