Chapter 6: The Acquisition of Memories

Question 1

What are the three phases of memory?

Answer 1

Acquisition, storage, retrieval

Question 2

What type of approach is Waugh and Norman’s (1965) modal model of memory?

Answer 2

It is a ‘information processing’ approach.

Question 3

What are the components of the modal model?

Answer 3

Sensory memory, short-term memory, long term memory.

Question 4

What is Sensory memory?

Answer 4

• Information comes in via perception and leaves a brief imprint
• Either visual or auditory
• If attended to, the imprint enters into Working Memory

Question 5

What is iconic memory? Give an example.

Answer 5

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.

Question 6

What is echoic memory?

Answer 6

The sensory memory of sounds

Question 7

What is Working Memory?

Answer 7

• 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

Question 8

What is Long Term Memory?

Answer 8

• 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.

Question 9

What are the four fundamental differences between working memory and long-term memory?

Answer 9

(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.

Question 10

What does the serial position curve show us about working memory and long term memory?

Answer 10

They are two different stores.

Question 11

What is the serial position curve?

Answer 11

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)

Question 12

What does the serial position curve reveal?

Answer 12

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.

Question 13

Explain how primacy and recency happen?

Answer 13

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.

Question 14

Explain what happens to the primacy and recency effects when we include a UNFILLED delay after the presentation of the word list

Answer 14

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.

Question 15

What happens to the primacy and recency effects when we include a FILLED delay after the presentation of the word list?

Answer 15

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.

Question 16

Explain what happens to the primacy and recency effects when we present the word list at a faster.

Answer 16

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)

Question 17

Explain what happens to the primacy and recency effects when we present the word list at a slower rate.

Answer 17

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.

Question 18

Is the primacy effect altered if we change the rate of words in a word test?

Answer 18

Yes, it increases if you slow down the rate, and decreases if you speed up.
Recency remains unchanged in both conditions.

Question 19

Is the primacy effect altered if we add a filled or unfilled delay after the test?

Answer 19

Nope, primacy stays the same in both conditions, the delay only alters the recency effect: increases with unfilled delay, decreases with filled delay.

Question 20

What is the digital span task and what does it tell us about the capacity of working memory?

Answer 20

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)

Question 21

What is chunking?

Answer 21

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)

Question 22

What are operation-span tasks and what do they measure?

Answer 22

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.

Question 23

Describe a cultural difference in operation span measurement.

Answer 23

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

Question 24

What is the advantage of a larger WM?

Answer 24

Larger WM capacity allows you to process a lot more information, giving advantage in certain reasoning and comprehension tasks

Question 25

What are the components of the WM System?

Answer 25

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

Question 26

Describe the phonological rehearsal loop and its function

Answer 26

• Keeps sound based information in WM for short periods of time (less than 30sec)
  
  • Can free up the central executive to do other stuff.

Question 27

How do we know that the phonological rehearsal loop keeps sound based information and not visual information?

Answer 27

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.

Question 28

Why do we make sound based errors in recall?

Answer 28

Because we use sub-vocalisation to keep information in our WM.

Question 29

What happens when people are given a concurrent articulation task (saying tah-tah-tah) while trying to remember a list of words or numbers?

Answer 29

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.

Question 30

What are the two types of rehearsal and how are they different?

Answer 30

(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

Question 31

What does Hyde and Jenkin’s (1969) experiment tell us about intentional vs incidental learning?

Answer 31

Intention to learn isn’t necessarily the best learning method.

Question 32

What was Hyde and Jenkins intentional learning experiment?

Answer 32

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.

Question 33

How do “levels of processing” affect memory?

Answer 33

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%.

Question 34

Why do connections promote the retrieval of information from memory?

Answer 34

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.

Question 35

How does elaborate processing promote retrieval?

Answer 35

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)

Question 36

What did Craik and Tulving (watch study) show about elaborate encoding in their recall tests?

Answer 36

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]”

Question 37

What are mnemonic strategies?
Provide some examples.

Answer 37

Strategies for remembering things, usually names and lists.
Eg peg words and interactive imagery

Question 38

How do mnemonics work?

Answer 38

They organise the information that is otherwise random. They ‘peg’ the information to something else you are more likely to remember.

Question 39

What are the advantages and disadvantages of using mnemonic strategies?

Answer 39

They are much better than rehearsal for remembering stuff, but mnemonics don’t help you understand the information.

Question 40

What does Bransford and Johnson (1972) Laundry instructions tell us about memory and learning?

Answer 40

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.

Question 41

What is the relationship between acquisition, retrieval and storage of information?

Answer 41

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.