Chpt 5: Working Memory (PSY311) Flashcards
Def: memory
the process involved in retaining, retrieving, & using info abt stimuli, images, events, ideas, & skills after the original info is no longer present.
Active any time some past experience has an effect on the way one thinks or behaves now and in the future.
Def: acquisition
gain new info & knowledge
Def: storage (cognitive Psych)
processing of retaining & motoring info
Def: LTM
responsible for storing info for a longer period of time which can extend from minutes to one’s lifetime.
Are experiences from the past
After ________ made his diagram, Atkinson & Shiffrin introduced theirs for memory which is called the ____________________.
Broadbent, Modal Model of Memory
What’s included in the Modal Model of Memory?
Sensory memory
STM
LTM
Def: sensory memory
initial stage that holds all incoming info for secs or fractions of a sec.
STM: holds _____ things for about 15-20secs.
5-7
Def: iconic memory
brief sensory memory of things we see.
Persistence of vision.
Def: echoic memory
brief sensory memory of things we hear
Responsible for persistence of sound
Lasts for a few secs after presentation of the original stimulus.
Def: control processes
dynamic processes associated with the structural features that can be controlled by the person & might differ from one task to the next.
Def: rehearsal
repeating a stimulus over and over, as you might repeat a telephone number in order to hold it in your STM.
Def: retrieval
a process of remembering info that is stored in our LTM.
Def: persistence of vision
continued perception of a visual stimulus even after it is no longer present.
Ex: sparklers on the 4th of July
Explain Sperling’s 1st experiment
Sperling wondered how much info we can take from just briefly presented stimuli.
He conducted an experiment where he showed participants 12 letters on the screen that only shows for 50milsecs.
He used the whole report method which is possible from the entire 12-letter display.
Participants were able to gt 4.5 out of the 12 letters.
Those who saw all of the letters reported that their perception faded rapidly as they were reporting the letters, their STM was able to store 4 to 5 letters at a time.
Explain Sperling’s 2nd experiment
Sperling wondered if they were able to remember the letters if there were fewer.
Devised another experiment called the Partial Report Method where a 12-letter display for 50ms and there was a tone immediately after the letters were shown that told them which row to report. (high for top, med for middle, & low for bottom)
The participants correctly reported an average of abt 3.3 of 4 letters in that row.
He concluded that the participants were unable to report all of the letters bc the others quickly faded before doing so
Explain Sperling’s 3rd experiment
Sperling’s 3rd experiment, Delayed Partial Report Method in which the letters were flashed on and off & then the cue tone was presented after a short delay.
Participants were able to report only slightly more than 1 letter in a row.
Sperling concluded that your STM registers all or most of the info that hits our visual receptions, but that info decays within less than a sec.
This brief sensory memory for visual stimuli is called the iconic memory/visual icon which corresponds to the sensory memory stage of Atkinson & Shiffrin’s modal model
Explain the Peterson & Peterson experiment
Peterson & Peterson (‘59) used the method of recall to determine the duration of STM.
Presented participants with 3 letters, like FZL or BHM, followed by a 3-digit number.
Participants were instructed to begin counting backwards by 3s from that number.
After intervals ranging from 3-18secs, participants were asked to recall the 3 letters.
Participants correctly recalled 80% of the 3 letter groups when they had counted for only 3secs, however after counting for 18secs, recalled abt 12% fo the groups.
Why is the Peterson & Peterson experiment important?
Results like these have led to the conclusion that the effective duration of STM (when rehearsal is prevented, as occurred when counting backwards) is abt 15-20secs or less.
Def: digit span
the number of digits one can remember.
The average capacity of STM is abt ___ items, abt the length of a phone number.
5-9
Explain the Luck & Vogel experiment
Luck & Vogel (‘97) conducted a series of experiments using the Change Detection demonstration.
Task was to determine what had changed between the 1st & 2nd pictures.
Change detection has also been used with simpler stimuli to determine how much info a person can retain from a briefly flashed stimulus.
Their experiment indicates that performance was almost perfect when there were 1-3 squares in the arrays, but that performance began decreasing when there were 4 or more squares.
Def: chunking
describes the fact that small units (like words) can be combined into larger meaningful units, like phrases, or even larger units, like sentences, paragraphs, or stories.
Def: a chunk
a collection of elements that are strongly associated with one another but are weakly associated with elements in other chunks.
Chunking in terms of meaning ________ our ability to ____ info in STM.
increases, hold
Recalling a sequence of up to 8 unrelated words, but ______ the words to form meaningful sentences so that the words become more _______ associated with one another ________ the memory span to 20 words or more.
arranging, strongly, increases
Explain the Ericsson & Co demonstration
Ericsson & Co (‘80) demonstrated an effect of chunking by showing how a college student with average memory ability was able to achieve amazing feats of memory.
S. F (participant) was asked to repeat strings of random digits that were read to him.
S.F had a typical memory span of 7 digits, after extensive training, he was able to repeat sequences of up to 79 digits without error.
He did this by chunking in order to recode the digits into larger units that formed meaningful sequences.
He was able to do this bc he incorporated his knowledge of running marathons into a chunking method.
__________ enables the limited-capacity _____ system to deal with the large amount of info involved in many of the tasks we perform everyday.
Chunking, STM
Explain the Alvarez & Cavenagh experiment
Alvarez & Cavanagh did an experiment using Lock & Vogel’s change detection method. But, they used colored squares and more complex objects.
The participants task was to indicated whether the 2 displays were the same or diff.
The participants’ ability to make the same/diff judgment depended on the complexity of the stimuli.
Alvarez & Cavenah conducted that the greater the amount of info in an image, the fewer items that can be held in visual STM.
Info doesn’t just sit in our STM; it can be __________ in the service of mental processes like computation, ________, & reasoning.
manipulated, learning
Def: working memory
a limited-capacity system for temporary storage & manipulation of info for complex tasks like comprehension, learning, & reasoning.
The fact that STM & the Modal Model do not consider ________ processes that unfold over time wi what led Baddeley & Hitch to propose the name working memory rather than ______, be used for the STM memory process.
dynamic, STM
STM or Working Memory, which of those terms do current researchers use?
Both
In Baddeley’s experiment on the Modal Model, he found that participants were able to _______ while simultaneously ______________ numbers.
read, remembering
Def: forgetting curve
when info is lost after 10-20secs without the ability to rehearse.
Def: primacy effect
better recall of items at beginning of list. More gets encoded + more rehearsal
Def: recency effect
better recall of items at the end of list. Most recent items still active in our STM
What 3 components did Baddeley proposed?
Phonological loop
Visuospatial Sketch Pad
Central executive
What 2 things are included inside of the Phonological Loop?
Phonological store
Articulatory rehearsal process
Def: phonological loop
holds verbal & auditory info.
Def: phonological store
limited capacity & holds info for only a few secs
Def: articulatory rehearsal process
responsible for rehearsal that can keep items in the phonological store from decaying.
Def: visuospatial sketch pad
holds visual & spatial info.
Ex: using your own mental map when finding where your class is on campus.
Def: central executive
where the major work of working memory happens: Pulls info from the LTM & coordinates the activity of the phonological loop & visuospatial sketch pad by focusing on specific parts of a task & deciding how to divide attention between different tasks.
This is the traffic cop of the working memory system.
Ex: ignoring the radio while you’re focusing your attention on the directions.
Its goal is to store info but to coordinate how info is used by the phonological loop & visuospatial sketchpad.
Baddeley defined the central executive as the attention controller bc it determines how attention is focused on a specific task, how it’s divided between 2 tasks, & how it’s switched between tasks
3 phenomena that support the idea of a system specialized for language:
Phonological similarity effect
Word Length Effect
Articulatory Suppression
Def: phonological similarity effect
The confusion of letters or words that sound similar.
Occurs when words are processed in the phonological store part of the phonological loop.
Explain the Conrad demonstration on phonological spatial effect
a series of target letters on a screen & instructed his participants to write down the letters in the order of which they’re presented.
Participants made errors, they were most likely to misidentify the target letter as another letter that sounded like the target.
Def: word length effect
Occurs when memory for lists of words is better for short words than for longer words.
Explain the Baddeley & Co experiment on Word Length Effect
Baddeley & Co found that ppl are able to remember the number of items that they can pronounce in abt 1.5-2secs.
The number of swords you can share should be close to your digit span.
Def: articulatory suppression
Occurs memory is reduced when speaking interferes with rehearsal while a person is prevented from rehearsing items to be remembered by repeating an irrelevant sound.
Explain the Baddeley & Co illustration on articulatory suppression
The first task was to read a list and recall as many words as they can.
The 2nd task was to read the following list while repeating “the, the, the” outloud. Then turn away and recall as many words as you can.
They found that repeating those words not only reduces the ability to remember a list of words, it also eliminates word length effect.
Def: visual imagery (in the visuospatial sketch pad)
the creation of visual images in the absence of a physical visual stimulus.
Explain Shepherd & Metzler’s experiment
measured the reactions of participants’ reaction time to decide whether pairs of objects were the same or diff.
They looked at 2 pictures of a random prism that appears to be different but are the same but diff viewpoints.
The first pic took 2secs to figure out that there’s no diff and the 2nd pic took 4secs
Def: mental rotation
when you mentally rotate objects in your mind while problem solving.
Explain the Sala & Co experiment
Sala & co presented participants with a tasks that involved a pattern of squares
Sala presented his participants with patterns randoming from a small 2x2 matrix with 2 shaded squares to a 5x6 matrix with 15 squares shaded in.
He found that participants were able to complete patterns consisting of an average of 9 shaded squares before making mistakes
Why is the Sala & Co experiment important
This illustrates that it’s possible to remember the patterns & this illustrates the operation of visual imagery.
Participants were able to combine the pattern into subpatterns which is also a form of chunking that could increase the number of squares that you’d remember
Explain Brooks’ experiment
Brooks did experiments in which he demonstrated how interference can affect our operation for our visuospatial sketchpad.
Participants had to visualize a large F with different corners (inside or outside) labeled.
Their first task was to visualize an F starting from the upper-left corner and moving around the outline of the F in a clockwise direction.
Their 2nd task, they had to visualize the F again but they had to move around the outline of the F in clockwise direction in their mind, they had to say out or in if the corner is an outside corner or an inside corner.
Our visuospatial sketch pad becomes ____________ when they are holding an image in their mind while pointing at both visuospatial tasks.
overloaded,
The Central executive: the component that makes working memory ______, bc it’s the control _______ of the working memory system.
work, center
One way that the central executive has been studied is by assessing the behavior of patients with _________________
brain damage.
Our _______ lobe plays a huge role in our working memory.
frontal
The patients with frontal lobe damage have issues ________ their attention.
controlling
Def: Perseveration
repeatedly performing the same thing or thought even if it’s not achieving the desired goal.
Def: episodic buffer
can store info (providing extra capacity) & is connected to our LTM (making interchange between working memory & LTM possible).
The episodic buffer represents another step in the evolution of Baddeley’s Model, which has been stimulating research on working memory for 40+ years since it was 1t proposed.
The episodic buffer represents a way of increasing storage capacity & communicating with LTM.
The PFC is important for holding ______ for ______ periods of time.
info, brief
Your PFC is involved in ________________
object permanence.
Something happened, followed by a ______, which is brief for working memory; then, if memory is successful, the person __________ what has happened.
delay, remembers
Explain the Funahashi & Co experiment
Funahashi & Co conducted an experiment which they recorded from neurons in a mokey[s PFC while the monkey carried out delayed-response tasks.
The monkey 1st looked at a fixation point, marked with an X, while a square was flashed at one position on the screen.
The flashing of the square caused a small response in the neuron.
After the square went off, there was a delay of a few secs.
After the delay, the fixation X went off, which signaled the monkey to move their eyes to where the square was being flashed.
The monkey’s ability to do this provides us behavioral evidence that the monkey remembered the location of the square.
What was the key result in the Funahashi experiment?
The key result was that Funahashi found neurons that responded only when the square was flashed in a specific location & that these neurons continued responding during the delay.
Firing of these neurons indicated that an object was presented at a specific place, & this info abt the object’s location remains available for as long as these neurons continue firing.
What did Stokes do?
Made a model that showed the activity state, in which info is remembered and causes a number of neurons to briefly fire.
The firing doesn’t continue, but causes the dynamic state in which a number of connections between neurons are strengthened
Activity-silent working memory lasts only for ________secs, but it’s long enough for working memory.
a few
When the memory is being _______, the memory is indicated by the pattern of _______ in the network.
retrieved, firing
In Stoke’s model, info is held in memory not by _________ nerve firing but by a quick change in the ____________ of neurons in a network.
continuous, connectivity
Working memory involves __________ processes that extend beyond our ____.
physiological, PFC
Rebecca wants to reorganize the furniture in her bedroom. Instead of drawing out her plans, she decides to mentally picture where her furniture will go. By doing this, she is using her…
A) Phonological Loop
B) Mind Palace
C) Articulatory process
D) visuospatial sketchpad
D
Kyle is asked to remember a string of 10 digits. Which type of task is he being asked to do?
A) Digit Span
B) numeric recognition
C) stroop test
D) numerwang
A
Tina is a new server who has a large party of 10 guests. When taking orders, her pen runs out of ink and she has to try to remember the orders with her memory. She is able to remember the first 3 and last 3 orders, but has to go back to the table and ask about the middle 4 orders. This pattern of recall mimics the _______ found in list memorization tasks.
A) Item Position List
B) order or memory graph
C) position bell curve
D) serial position curve
D
A car speeds by Herbert, as it passes, he is barely able to glance at the license plate for a split second. Though he was only able to see the license plate for a very small amount of time, he has access to the visual information of the plate for a few seconds after the car passes. This is due to which memory system?
A) Echoic Memory
B) iconic memory
C) eye memory
D) sight memory
B
The process by which many bits of information (like the numbers that represent a date) can be recalled because they are grouped together and stored as one unit of information is called
A) Chunking
B) priming
C) grouping
D) synthesizing
A
