Chapter 8: Memory Pt.II

Question 1

What are three types of dissociations between declarative memory and priming? Be able to provide one example of each type of dissociation.

Answer 1

Functional dissociations: (occur when experimental factors produce different types of effects on different types of memory.) Developmental dissociations: (occur when different forms of memory are differentially influenced by developmental or aging factors. word stem completion and real) Pathological dissociations: (occur when different types of memory are differentially affected by drugs, brain damage, or TMS. [Medial temporal lobe damage impairs episodic memory but not priming. Occipital lobe damage impairs priming but not episodic memory])

Question 2

What is repetition suppression? How does repetition suppression differ in the left and right fusiform gyrus?

Answer 2

Repeated experiences with a stimulus lead to suppressed activity over time. (R fusiform g, only if target/prime identical. L.fusiform g if different (more semantic representation of stimulus)

Question 3

When does repetition enhancement occur?

Answer 3

creation of new representations and increase in activity that results from the repitionn of stimulus during priming associated with priming for novel stimuli. Shows larger effects when the tests are implicit (e.g., word association tests) than explicit. (inferior frontal gyrus)

Question 4

What is the spreading activation theory? How is it related to semantic priming?

Answer 4

When one node in a network is activated, surrounding nodes are also more likely to become activated. Activation of one idea activated others

Question 5

What brain area appears to be linked to semantic priming? What declarative memory function does this brain area serve?

Answer 5

Left anterior temporal lobe (same area involved with semantic memory…). Atrophied in dementia patients with impaired semantic knowledge. This area shows (semantic-based) repetition suppression. Semantic priming also leads to a reduced N400 waveform, which is associated with semantic processing demands.

Question 6

Describe the modification theory and the acquisition theory of priming. Describe an experiment that supports the acquisition theory.

Answer 6

Modification Theory: (Priming alters a pre-existing memory representation. Priming activates nodes in a network; subsequent exposures are processed more efficiently due to this first activation.) Acquisition Theory: (Priming leads to new representations of stimuli. )

Question 7

-What brain areas are involved with motor skill learning? Provide an example of motor skill learning.

Answer 7

Often learning with sequence tasks. It is impaired in patients with basal-ganglia damage, but is preserved in patients with medial-temporal-lobe damage. fMRI shows activation of the striatum (caudate and putamen). (parietal: bod in space. Premotor: mimicking. Basal Ganglia: habits)

Question 8

Describe the logic behind a skill learning study involving prisms.

Answer 8

Participants wore prisms that altered their visual image horizontally or vertically. Were required to adapt so that they could track objects in the altered environment. Adaptation to novel sensory-motor relationships activated the posterior parietal cortex. TMS impaired this ability.

Question 9

What are some examples of perceptual skill learning?

Answer 9

Improved processing of perceptual stimuli based on familiarity. Examples: improved language skills with increased exposure; mirror drawing. Mirror drawing activates the occipitotemporal and parietal regions (in both the dorsal and ventral visual pathways), and the striatum.

Question 10

What brain area is associated with perceptual expertise? Describe the Greeble study.

Answer 10

Expertise is associated with activity in the fusiform face area. (bird and car experts)

Question 11

What is probabilistic classification learning? Describe one paradigm used to test this. What brain area(s) seem to be involved with cognitive skill learning?

Answer 11

Learning to classify stimuli or make decisions based on statistical information. Ex. Weather-Prediction Task: (People eventually learn these tentative relationships, despite the fact that no explicit rule exists.) Cog Skill learning in striatum, medial-temp lobe.

Question 12

What is the difference between trace and delay conditioning? Which one is a form of declarative memory and which one is a form of non-declarative memory. How did researchers make this distinction experimentally?

Answer 12

Delay Conditioning: (The CS is still present when the US starts. Both stimuli end at the same time. No memory trace is necessary. Cerebellum, non declaritive) Trace Conditioning: (There is a brief interval between the end of the CS and the beginning of the US. A memory trace is required. Hippocampus, declaritive) Had people watched w tone going off and puff of air so delay occurs regardless if people realize the puff/tone are related.

Question 13

Describe the memory deficit of Patient K.C.

Answer 13

Traumatic head injury following a motorcycle accident. Damage to the medial temporal lobes, frontal, parietal, and occipital cortex (especially in the LH). Severe retrograde and anterograde amnesia. No episodic but preserved semantic

Question 14

What do developmental amnesia and semantic dementia tell researchers about the role of temporal-lobe structures during declarative memory?

Answer 14

impaired episodic memory, but preserved working memory (developmental amnesia). Patients with damage to the left anterior temporal cortex have impaired memory for semantic information, but normal episodic memory. (semantic dementia)

Question 15

What is the cognitive map theory? What is the relational theory of hippocampal function? Provide one piece of evidence (i.e., a research study) in favour of each theory.

Answer 15

Cog Map Theory: (Hippocampus mediates memory for spatial relations among objects in the environment. Rodents have hippocampal place cells that are activated in specific locations in the environment.) Relational Memory Theory: (Items are stored in ‘memory space’ in which relationships are coded by overlapping cues. Neurons don’t represent a global topography. Neurons represent relationships amongst cues. taught rats to choose cups that were associated with odors that had been differentially rewarded.)

Question 16

What is the episodic memory theory of hippocampal function?

Answer 16

Episodic Memory Theory: The hippocampus is critical for all forms of episodic memory (item and context), but not for semantic memory. Hippocampal damage has a much larger effect on recollection than familiarity.

Question 17

What is the delayed-nonmatching-to-sample task?

Answer 17

Flash one item then cue then show two items and participant must say what wasn’t shown. Mishkin found that amnesia only occurred when both structures (hippo and amygdala) were lesioned. Amnesia only occurred when the cortex surrounding these structures was also damaged.

Question 18

According to the item-in-context theory, what are the declarative-memory functions of the hippocampus, parahippocampal gyrus, medial entorhinal cortex, lateral entorhinal cortex, and perirhinal cortex?

Answer 18

ITEM IN COTEXT THEORY: . Perirhinal cortex and lateral entorhinal cortex are involved with memory for items [what, ventral]. Parahippocampal and medial entorhinal cortex are involved with memory for context [where, dorsal]. The hippocampus is involved with both systems. Thus, it is involved with both item and context memory. HIPPO-PERHIRHINAL THEORY: Hippocampal processing is spatial in nature and is (relatively) slow. Perirhinal processing is item-based in nature and is (relatively) fast, encoded novelty of items

Question 19

What is transfer-appropriate processing?

Answer 19

Memory success is a function of the overlap between encoding and retrieval operations. If you encode stimuli while focusing on semantics (e.g., the hippocampus is part of the temporal lobes), retrieval is superior if the test also involves semantics. The same for phonology…although nothing rhymes with hippocampus. Retrieval reactivations likely involve both sensory aspects of encoding as well as strategies used during encoding (e.g., imagining the sound of a train). Levels of processing

Question 20

What is the sensory/functional theory of conceptual knowledge? Provide one piece of evidence in favour of this theory.

Answer 20

Conceptual knowledge is organized by sensory (form, colour, etc.) and functional (movements, uses, etc.) properties of the objects or concepts. An iced cappuccino would have visual (brown), somatosensory (cold, crystal-like texture), and gustatory (sweet, yummy) responses in the appropriate sensory cortices. Linguistic stimuli activated brain regions related to the different sensory and functional characteristics of the word. Words associated with movements were related to the face (e.g., lick), the arm (e.g., pick), or the leg (e.g., kick), and activated motor regions associated with those regions of the body.

Question 21

What did Uncapher and colleagues (2006) find in relation to feature binding during encoding?

Answer 21

showed participants words of different colours. The words were also in different quadrants of the screen. At test, participants were shown more words. Asked whether the words were old or new. If old, they were asked for the words’ colour and location. The researchers then correlated the participants retrieval abilities with the fMRI activity during encoding. Regions of the brain involved with colour and location processing were active during the formation of memories for these features. BUT, when both characteristics were recalled, there was a unique activation. Intraparietal sulcus. This area appears to be involved with binding separate features into a single percept.