Chapter 6: The Acquisition of Memories Flashcards
What are the three phases of memory?
Acquisition, storage, retrieval
What type of approach is Waugh and Norman’s (1965) modal model of memory?
It is a ‘information processing’ approach.
What are the components of the modal model?
Sensory memory, short-term memory, long term memory.
What is Sensory memory?
- Information comes in via perception and leaves a brief imprint
- Either visual or auditory
- If attended to, the imprint enters into Working Memory
What is iconic memory? Give an example.
The sensory memory of images.
Sperling (1960) participants shown a grid of letters (like optometrist) for 50ms, then asked to recall all the words they saw. They mostly manage 3-4. If asked to recall a row, they can fairly accurately recall the entire row, even when the row is indicated after the flash of words. It shows that the entire imprint is in our iconic memory, but it fades too fast, before you can recite all the letters.
What is echoic memory?
The sensory memory of sounds
What is Working Memory?
- previously called Short Term memory (now called ‘working memory’ because of its active nature)
- where the information is briefly stored while it is being worked on.
- To keep information in here you need to rehearse it (maintenance rehearsal)
- Last for about 30 seconds
- Can hold 5-9 pieces of information
What is Long Term Memory?
- Vast memory storage that holds all our knowledge about the world, our beliefs, childhood memories etc
- If encoded properly, information from working memory can be transferred to long term memory.
What are the four fundamental differences between working memory and long-term memory?
(1) Size
-WM holds 5-9 pieces of information and lasts 30 seconds. LTM holds a vast quantity and can last 40-50 years
(2) Ease of Acquisition - easy to get information into WM, hard to get information into LTM
(3) Ease of Retrieval - easy to get info out of WM, difficult to get it out of LTM
(4) Fragility - WM is fragile (if someone disrupts the maintenance rehearsal, you’ve lost the memory) LTM is more robust.
What does the serial position curve show us about working memory and long term memory?
They are two different stores.
What is the serial position curve?
It maps the typical pattern of remembering things (eg word list). Typically U shaped (primacy high on the left, recency high on the right, un remembered words in the middle)
What does the serial position curve reveal?
On average we can remember 12-15 words (7-9 in WM and the first couple in LTM)
And that we remember the first few due to the primacy effect, and the last few due to the recency effect.
Explain how primacy and recency happen?
Primacy effect - is due to LTM… we remember the first few words because we have rehearsed them in the first few seconds of the test and they have made it into LTM.
Recency effect - is due to WM… we keep using a maintenance rehearsal to remember the words but once WM has reached capacity (5-9 words), earlier information is lost. The most recent words we hear are still in the WM.
Explain what happens to the primacy and recency effects when we include a UNFILLED delay after the presentation of the word list
An unfilled delay after the presentation amplifies the recency effect, because there is more time to rehearse those words and get them into LTM. Primacy will be unaffected.
What happens to the primacy and recency effects when we include a FILLED delay after the presentation of the word list?
The filled delay (eg counting backwards in 3’s from 200) occupies the WM (which is fragile) so it messes with the recency effect. Primacy effect stays same.
Explain what happens to the primacy and recency effects when we present the word list at a faster.
If you present words at faster rate the primacy effect is reduced (less time to rehearse and get them into LTM) and but the recency effect stays the same (same amount of time afterwards to rehearse)
Explain what happens to the primacy and recency effects when we present the word list at a slower rate.
Primacy portion of curve as well as middle of the curve is elevated because there is more time to rehearse each word, so you get further into the list to transfer the words into LTM. The recency effect is unchanged, because WM is about capacity, once it is reached, it’s done, it doesn’t matter how fast or slow that happens.
Is the primacy effect altered if we change the rate of words in a word test?
Yes, it increases if you slow down the rate, and decreases if you speed up.
Recency remains unchanged in both conditions.
Is the primacy effect altered if we add a filled or unfilled delay after the test?
Nope, primacy stays the same in both conditions, the delay only alters the recency effect: increases with unfilled delay, decreases with filled delay.
What is the digital span task and what does it tell us about the capacity of working memory?
Digit span task is a task designed to measure a person’s working memory. Participants repeat back a series of digits and each time they correctly recall the digits they are given a longer series, eg 852, 9845, 12845… and so on until they get it wrong. Most people can remember 7 numbers (at least five, no more than 9)
What is chunking?
Combing bits of information into a discrete groups. You can actually hold 7 chunks of information, eg: 0422/033/658 (I’m only remembering 3 pieces of information in this instance)
What are operation-span tasks and what do they measure?
Operation-span tasks are a more accurate way of assessing a person’s working memory because it includes a component that assesses the ‘working’ part of working memory. They generally include a calculation that you have to do before you try to remember the word. The words (with sums) are still flashed quite quickly on the screen.
–can also include a sentence task where you have to read aloud a sentence pair and remember the last word of each sentence that is flashed.
Describe a cultural difference in operation span measurement.
Different cultures may have better numerical fluency and are faster at solving maths problems so will show greater working memory than those cultures that have low numerical fluency. Similarly language speed makes a difference.
Wang et al found that Chinese kids had better working memories that American kids and they thought this due to better maths skills, and that Chinese words and numerals are faster to say
What is the advantage of a larger WM?
Larger WM capacity allows you to process a lot more information, giving advantage in certain reasoning and comprehension tasks
What are the components of the WM System?
The central executive (planning, processing, deciding) and its 3 agents that free it up to work:
Visio-spatial sketchpad
Episodic buffer
The articulatory/phonological rehearsal loop
Describe the phonological rehearsal loop and its function
- Keeps sound based information in WM for short periods of time (less than 30sec)
- Can free up the central executive to do other stuff.
How do we know that the phonological rehearsal loop keeps sound based information and not visual information?
We typically make sound based errors in recall, eg we might recall the letter S or X instead of F, rather than recalling E instead of F.
Why do we make sound based errors in recall?
Because we use sub-vocalisation to keep information in our WM.
What happens when people are given a concurrent articulation task (saying tah-tah-tah) while trying to remember a list of words or numbers?
It becomes much more difficult to remember the list of words. This is because the concurrent articulation task ties up the phonological loop and it reaches capacity and the words fall out.
What are the two types of rehearsal and how are they different?
(1) Maintenance rehearsal (eg sub-vocalisation/repeating information to keep it in phonological loop)
- not very effective at getting information into LTM and retaining it.
(2) Elaborative/relational rehearsal: thinking of the meaning of the information and how it is related to things we already know.
- More effective than maintenance rehearsal
What does Hyde and Jenkin’s (1969) experiment tell us about intentional vs incidental learning?
Intention to learn isn’t necessarily the best learning method.
What was Hyde and Jenkins intentional learning experiment?
Participants in 4 groups. One group knew they were getting a word test later (intentional), the other 3 didn’t (unintentional) First unintentional group was asked to find the E in each word, the second was asked to count the letter in each word, and the third unintentional was asked to rate how pleasant each word was. All groups were later given a recall test. Intentional group got 16 words, ‘E’ group remembered 9, ‘count letters’ did slightly better, the ‘pleasant’ group scored as high as the intentional group.
How do “levels of processing” affect memory?
The deeper the processing, the more attention to the meaning of the word, the better the recall.
Craik and Tulving showed this in 1975 - 3 groups of incidental learners, one asked about the case of the word, one asked to find a rhyming word, and the other asked to put the word in a sentence (ie think about the meaning). Case group recalled 10% of words, Rhyme group recalled 16% and Sentence group are recalled around 23%.
Why do connections promote the retrieval of information from memory?
The more connections that we have between memories, the more likely it is that one memory is going to trigger another memory, which triggers another memory, and so on, until we get to that desired information.
How does elaborate processing promote retrieval?
More deeply processed information leads to better recall, because it creates more connections and enhances the connections between memories. (more connections = more recall cues later on)
What did Craik and Tulving (watch study) show about elaborate encoding in their recall tests?
Words are remembered better if they are presented in complex sentences. For example: In the sentence “the man hobbled across the room and picked up the valuable [blank]” the word ‘watch’ is better remembered than if the sentence was “ he dropped the [blank]”
What are mnemonic strategies?
Provide some examples.
Strategies for remembering things, usually names and lists.
Eg peg words and interactive imagery
How do mnemonics work?
They organise the information that is otherwise random. They ‘peg’ the information to something else you are more likely to remember.
What are the advantages and disadvantages of using mnemonic strategies?
They are much better than rehearsal for remembering stuff, but mnemonics don’t help you understand the information.
What does Bransford and Johnson (1972) Laundry instructions tell us about memory and learning?
That having the context, ie understanding what the text means, makes it far easier to recall it later. (otherwise it was an abstract collection of sentences.) there’s far more connections to hook retrieval cues to.
What is the relationship between acquisition, retrieval and storage of information?
Memory acquisition cannot be separated from retrieval and storage. Organising information before it is stored helps later retrieval. Learning (acquisition of new knowledge) is easier if there is already information in storage to hook the new information to, in order to aid later retrieval.
