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.
