cognition- short term memory and working memory

Question 1

multi store model (atkinson-shiffrin 1971)

Answer 1

refer to slide 3

Question 2

definition and function of short term memory (STM)

Answer 2

-capacity for holding a small amount of information in mind in an active, readily available state for a short period of time
- holds activated info from sensory memory for further processing

Question 3

what is chuncking?

Answer 3

groups of items that have been collected together and treated as a single unit (mathy and feldman 2012

Question 4

state- the capacity of the STM may be increased by chunking

Question 5

state- chunks rely on previous knowledge stored in long-term memory

Question 6

decay

Answer 6

information may decay over time without rehearsal

Question 7

state- STM vs working memory are different concepts with overlapping components

Answer 7

short term memory:
- short term storage of information

working memory
- short term storage of information and manipulation of this information

Question 8

working memory model baddeley and hitch 1974

Answer 8

slide 17

Question 9

what is a phonological loop

Answer 9

process and store briefly in a phonological (speech based) form

Question 10

what 2 parts does the phonological loop consist of and what is it

Answer 10

phonological store
-holds auditory info passively online

rehearsal process
- refreshes into the phonological store item by item

Question 11

evidence for rehearsal

Answer 11

phonological similarity effect
- people show poorer recall when items are phonologically similar than when they are phonologically dissimilar (baddeley, 1996)

Question 12

evidence for rehearsal

Answer 12

word length effect
- recall decreases as the length of the word increases (baddeley et al., 1975)

Question 13

phonological loop in learning a and language

Answer 13

neuropsychological evidence suggests the loop is important to language learning because patients with impairments cannot learn new languages

Question 14

what is the function of the visuospatial sketchpad and what are the 2 sub components to it?

Answer 14

• temporary storage and manipulation of visual and spatial info

2 components (logie, 1995)
- the visual cache - store information about visual form and colour
- the inner scribe - process spatial and movement info

Question 15

central executive

Answer 15

• a flexible system responsible for the control and regulation of cognitive processes
• it is the most important and versatile component of working memory
• it is heavily involved in almost all cognitive activities but does not store information

Question 16

episodic buffer

Answer 16

• to hold integrated information from phonological loop, visuospatial sketchpad and LTM in the form of unified representations.
• the capacity pf episodic buffer is around 4 chunks (integrated units of information; Baddeley, 2012)

Question 17

WM model evaluation

Answer 17

 Strengths (compared to the Multi-store Model)
- WM is concerned with both active processing and transient information storage
-. WM consists of independent subsystems.
- WM model does not over emphasize the importance of rehearsal for STM retention.
- WM model can be applied to more real life tasks.

 Weakness
 Lack of knowledge on central executive and episodic buffer.
 There could be more domain-specific components.
 Lack of knowledge on the interactions of different components