Exam 2 Flashcards
Understand the memory systems and the differences between short-term and working memory understand the process of spreading activation in the context of memory Understand how studying memory deficits help us learn about the nature of memory
What is the oldest form of memory
Procedural memory
William James can be credited for developing which theory of memory
Short term memory vs Long-term memory
What is primary memory according to James
A memory system proposed by William James (1890); thought to be the area where information is initially stored so that it is available for consciousness, attention, and general use.
What is secondary memory according to James
A memory system proposed by William James (1890); thought to be the long-term storage area for memories.
Which memory systems were included in the Modal Model of Memory
Atkinson and Shiffrin (1968) Model Includes
1) sensory memory,
2) short-term memory,
3) long-term memory
Explain the hierarchy of memory systems
Memory system
1. Sensory memory
a. Echoic memory
b. Iconic memory
c. Etc.
- Working memory/Short-term memory
- Long-term memory
a. Declarative memory (explicit)
i. Episodic memory
ii. Semantic memory
b. Non-Declarative memory
i. Procedural memory
ii. Priming
Brief definition of short term memory by Atkinson & Shiffrin’s model
Short-term memory, which receives information from both sensory memory and longterm memory. Sensory memory is capable of registering a large quantity of information. However, most of that information fades from memory (decays) unless it is given attention. Lasts about 18 seconds, unless it’s rehearsed.
What is consolidation
The process through which memory traces are stabilized to form
long-term memories.
What is chunking
A strategy used to increase the capacity of STM by arranging elements in groups (chunks) that can be more easily remembered. However, given its limited capacity, it seems unlikely that the short-term memory system can handle much more than four chunks of information at a time.
Brief definition of long term memory by Atkinson & Shiffrin’s model
Long term memory: information that is stored and brought back to short-term memory for immediate usage.
Which form of memory is not in the modal model of memory
working memory
What is working memory
Working memory “involves the temporary storage and manipulation of information that is assumed to be necessary for a wide range of complex cognitive activities. Working memory is the system that pulls all the other memory systems together, enabling us to work with different types of information in a dynamic fashion.
What is the phonological loop
The phonological loop temporary store of linguistic information. It represents the entirety of short-term memory as conceptualized by the modal model of memory.
What is the episodic buffer
What manipulates and moves information to and from long-term memory
The visuo-spatial sketchpad: a separate component of working memory that we use for non-verbal information. Both the phonological loop and the visuo-spatial sketchpad interact with long term memory also
What is a fluid system
Cognitive processes that manipulate information. (unchanged by learning)
- Cognitive executive
- Visio spacial sketch pad
- Phonological loop
- Episodic …
What is a crystalized system
Cognitive systems that accumulate long-term knowledge.
What does the central executive do
selects and integrates information across three subsystems.
- Visuo-spatial sketchpad,
- episodic buffer,
- phonological loop
What part of the brain is singled out as particularly important for working memory
dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC)
What is declarative memory
One of two major divisions of memory, also known as explicit memory; the memory system that contains knowledge that can be stated
What is episodic memory
The subdivision of declarative memory concerned with personal experience
What is semantic memory
The subdivision of declarative memory concerned with general
knowledge (e.g., facts, words, and concepts).
Describe the relationship between episodic and semantic memory
It’s important to note that episodic and semantic memories are not mutually exclusive. For example, you might remember the day in grade two when Mrs Butterworth taught you that Ottawa is the capital of Canada. It was only after rehearsing your episodic memory of the lesson that you were able to store the fact in your semantic memory. In other words, episodic memory can serve as a gateway for the formation of semantic memory.
Which structure is associated with semantic memory
Hippocampus
How can someone learn new things with a damaged hippocampus
Repitition
Why are smells so tied to memories
connection between neurones (epithelium and hippocampus)
Remains in place
even as new olfactory neurons are generated to replace those that have died.
What is the perceptual representation system
A memory system containing very specific representations of events that is hypothesized to be responsible for priming effects.
Compare episodic memory and perceptual representation system
Episodic memory system = deeper understanding of information,
Perpetual = information on a more superficial level
Define priming
Priming is the unconscious process through which our response to a given stimulus is facilitated by previous exposure to a related (or identical) stimulus, making our response both quicker and more accurate than it would otherwise be
What is procedural memory
Knowing how to do things.
Physical skills and cognitive skills
eg ability to ride a bike or read
What is tacit knowledge
Knowing how to do something without being able to say exactly what it is that you know.
Which memory do we acquire later in life
Episodic memory, around 4-6 years old
What is the butcher-on-the-bus phenomenon
Feeling of knowing a person without being able to remember the circumstances of any previous meeting or anything else about them.
Failure of episodic memory.
What is the tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon (TOT)
Knowing that you know something without quite being able to recall it.
Failure of semantic memory.
What is spreading activation
Quillian (1969) & Collins and Loftus (1975).
When you search a semantic network, you activate the paths where the search takes place.
The activation spreads from the node at which the search begins.
What is mind popping
involuntary semantic memory (e.g., a tune) pops into your mind
without any episodic context.
you don’t recall any autobiographical information that triggered the semantic memory;
it just pops up / appears irrelevant to what you are currently thinking about.
Kvavilashvili and Mandler (2004) call this mind popping.
Which type of memory declines with age
Episodic memory
What is the associative deficit hypothesis
older adults have a deficiency in creating and retrieving links
between single units of information.
The problem is not
that older people don’t recognize names or faces, they don’t bind them together as easily.
Older adults have trouble in situations requiring the “merging of different aspects of an episode into a cohesive unit”
Which type of memory is not affected by age
Mitchell and Bruss (2003)
Implicit / semantic memory
able to form implicit memories just as easily as younger people.
They respond to priming = younger people.
Implicit memory appears to be stable across age.
What is Korsakoff’s syndrome
A form of amnesia affecting the ability to form new memories, attributed to thiamine deficiency and often (though not exclusively) seen in chronic alcoholics.
What is the disconnection syndrome
Person able to acquire new information while not aware that learning has taken place.
It’s as if there are at least two memory systems (Tulving, 1985) that normally interact but have become disconnected.
Implicit & Explicit memory in amnesic patients
Suck at explicit memory tasks
& better on those requiring implicit memory.
People with amnesia may be able to form associations, and learn new material.
This learning is available only in implicit form.
Which memory is affected by Alzheimer’s
progressive, begins with deterioration of episodic memory.
decline in ability to retain recently acquired information (early stages)
Eventually will loose semantic memory
Storage problem
Not so much retrieval problem.
What is prospective memory
The intention to remember to do something at some future time.
What type of learning is good for those with memory disorders
Sheer repetition makes a difference,
important that the teacher help the patient avoid errors.
Errorless learning to maximize patients’ ability to use whatever memory resources they still have
What is the mystic writing pad model showing
The trace model
Showing with a toy writing tablet that retains fragments of old messages even after they have been “erased.” In time, these fragments accumulate and begin to overlap, so that they become increasingly hard to read.
Describe Neisser’s reapparance hypothesis
Neisser’s term for the now rejected idea that the same memory can reappear, unchanged, again and again.
What is a flashbulb memory
Vivid, detailed memories of significant events.
Does not support trace memory & not quite how we thought it was (fades & modifiable)
Describe the Now Print! Part of the flashbulb memory theory
The point when a
1) relevant 2) surprising experience is “flashed,” and preserved in long-term memory,
It is thought to be resistant to change.
What are the five stages of the Brown and Kulik’s model of flashbulb memory
- Surprisingness (can fail due to inattention)
- Consequentiality (if not pertinent to self likely to forget it)
- Create the flashbulb memory
- Rehearsing the memory
- Retelling the memory (where it changes a lot)
How do flashbulb memory get impacted over time
1) Generalize
2) Fade
3) Retelling changes it
They feel more intense but are not more accurate.
What is the consolidation theory
Memory traces are not fully formed immediately after an event
They take some time to consolidate.
What is retroactive interference
«Movement forward»
New leaning modifies old leaning
Describe reconsolidation
Hypothetical process where a memory trace is revised and reconsolidated.
the context in which you recall a flashbulb event may be quite different from the context in which you originally experienced it. This provides an opportunity for revision of the memory trace, although the extent of such revision is controversial.
A memory trace can be reactivated and reconsolidated indefinitely. Thus we have no reason to believe that a memory trace is necessarily a faithful rendition of the original experience.
Describe the process of rationalization
The attempt to make memory as coherent and sensible as possible.
It is imaginative reconstruction, or construction, built out of the relation of our attitude towards a whole active mass of organized past reactions or experience, and to a little outstanding detail which commonly appears in image or in language form
Explain faulty source monitoring or source monitoring framework
The theory that some errors of memory are caused by mistaken identification of the memory’s source.
What is the principle of encoding specificity
the principle of encoding specificity: that a cue is more likely to lead to the recall of a particular item if the cue was initially encoded along with that item
Tulving argued that the ability to remember a given item depends on how that item was encoded at input. In other words, the nature of the encoding will influence the memory trace.
What is state-dependent learning
state-dependent learning: the idea that recall is best when the mental or physiological state of the learner is consistent across encoding and retrieval.
While recall was indeed better for many participants in the congruent condition, confidence levels were also much higher, even among those who were wrong.
What is the difference between a script and a schema
one feature that distinguishes a script from a schema is that a script refers to a particular sequence of events or actions
How does sleep impact memory
It proposes that newly encoded memories are repeatedly activated during sleep, and that through this repeated activation, more stable memory traces are formed that can be further integrated with existing long-term memories
susceptibility to false-memory formation increased for participants who were already sleep-deprived when they encoded the original information and then were exposed to false information
What is an important component that may explain childhood amnesia (before 3)
children experience events will change as they develop the ability to describe them using language and this change may cause them to lose contact with early memories
What is the memory bump
An increase in the number of memories between 10 and 30 years of age over what would be expected if memories decayed smoothly over time. They tend to focus on the periods when they were making formative decisions. Between the ages of 10 and 30 are particularly memorable because of their importance in the formation of a person’s identity. Emphasize the importance of what they call life scripts
What type of cues tend to lead to more memories between age 6 and 10
The odour cue produced more memories from between ages 6 and 10 than did the verbal cue.Thus odours may bypass verbally encoded memories and make contact with memories formed so early in life that they were not encoded in words.
How is distinctiveness associated with memory bump
Distinctiveness (discussed below) is the notion that relatively novel events will tend to be remembered better than events that are similar to one another. The second and third decades of life are a period when people are likely to experience a number of distinctive events
Describe the levels of processing
The more deeply we process an event, the more thoroughly we will comprehend it. The more important an event is to us, the more effort we will put into comprehending it, and thus the more likely we are to recall it accurately. Thus depth of processing is a continuum that ranges from registering an event purely in terms of its physical characteristics to analyzing it in terms of its meaning and relationship to other things that you know
From shallow to intermediate to deep processing
How is elaboration useful for memory
There is evidence that the more distinctively an item is elaborated, the better it will be remembered
Elaboration has been defined as “extra processing . . . that results in additional, related or redundant” material, while distinctiveness, in a broad sense, refers to the precision with which an item is encoded
Describe how aging impacts the levels of processing
specific and general levels of representation: As people age they tend to forget specific details but to remember deeper, more general meanings.
What is Jost’s law of forgetting
Of two memory traces of equal strength, the younger trace will decay faster than the older one.
What is Ribot’s law of retrograde amenesia
Older memories are less likely to be lost as a result of brain damage than are newer memories.
Describe the law of progressions and pathologies
A “last in, first out” principle referring to the possibility that the last system to emerge is the first to show the effects of degeneration.
What is the dual-coding theory
The theory that there are two ways of representing events, verbal and non-verbal.
What are logogens
The units containing the information underlying our use of a word; the components of the verbal system. Logogens operate sequentially. When you listen to a sentence, for example, the words are not present all at once, but come one after the other
What is an imagen
The units containing information that generate mental images; the components of the nonverbal system. Imagens operate synchronously: the parts they contain are available for inspection simultaneously.
What are features of Paivio’s thoery
According to Paivio’s (1971) theory, words that easily elicit a mental image—that is,
words with a high degree of imagery—tend to be concrete (e.g., table), whereas words that don’t easily elicit a mental image tend to be abstract (e.g., purpose). Concreteness is define as the degree to which a word refers to “concrete objects, persons, places, or things that can be heard, felt, smelled or tasted” (Toglia & Battig, 1978). In other words, concreteness is the degree to which a word refers to something that can be experienced by the senses.
What is concreteness of Paivio’s theory
According to Paivio’s (1971) theory, words that easily elicit a mental image—that is,
words with a high degree of imagery—tend to be concrete (e.g., table), whereas words that don’t easily elicit a mental image tend to be abstract (e.g., purpose). Concreteness is define as the degree to which a word refers to “concrete objects, persons, places, or things that can be heard, felt, smelled or tasted” (Toglia & Battig, 1978). In other words, concreteness is the degree to which a word refers to something that can be experienced by the senses.
Thus there are some words, such as pain and love, that are not concrete but still elicit vivid mental imagery. These words often refer to emotions. Thus in addition to external sources of imagery there are internal, emotional sources.
What is the relationship between concreteness and learning
Notice that learning was best when both words were concrete and worst when both were abstract. A concrete word can be coded by both the verbal and non-verbal systems, whereas an abstract word will tend to be coded only by the verbal system because it is not likely to elicit much of an image. The fact that a concrete word is coded in two systems means that it is more easily available to memory than an abstract word that is coded in only the verbal system
What is the left and right hemisphere theory
The theory that the left hemisphere of the brain controls speech and is better at processing verbal material than is the right hemisphere, which is better at non-verbal tasks.
After a review of the relevant neuroimaging research, Fiebach and Friederici (2003, p. 66) concluded that the evidence “does not fully support the assumption of a specific right-hemispheric involvement during the processing of concrete relative to abstract words.”
What is the method of loci
The idea was to establish a cognitive map of a large building and place in each of its various loci an image representing one of the things to be remembered; then recalling those things would simply be a matter of mentally strolling through the building and collecting the images.
What is the won Restorff effect
If one item in a set is different from the others, it is more likely to be recalled.
What is the special places strategy
Choosing a storage location that other people will not think of; the problem is that when the time comes to retrieve the item, you may not think of it either.
What is meta memory
Beliefs about how memory works.
What is the apoptosis theory of synesthesia
Perhaps adult synesthesia occurs when this pruning process fails to run its course, and what were supposed to be transient connections end up being permanent. It has been suggested that, in the case of synesthetes, the ‘pruning’ gene is defective,” resulting “in cross-activation between areas of the brain”
What is an icon
The initial, brief representation of the information contained in a visual stimulus.
What is eidetic imagery
Images projected onto the external world that persist for a minute or more even after a stimulus (e.g., a picture) is removed.
What is cognitive dedifferentiation
Fusion of perceptual processes that typically function independently. (e.g. synesthesia & eidetic imagery)
How is vividness related to visual imagery
The answer is that vividness of visual imagery does not appear to be a good predictor of superior performance on memory tasks.
However, vividness is not an index of the accuracy of memory, only of its richness.
What are objective and categorical distances in imagery
objective distances
The true distances between objects in the real world, which are preserved in our mental images.
categorical distance
The number of units traversed during mental scanning: for instance, landmarks on an island map, rooms in a building, or counties in a state.
How did Neisser think of imagery
It was not so much that participants were more sensitive to stimuli falling within the imaged region as it was that they were better prepared to pick up stimuli falling within the area of a projected image. Farah characterized this process in terms used by Ryle (1949) and Neisser (1976). Neisser defined an image as a readiness to perceive something
suggests that imagery is an active process that prepares you for perceiving information, and not just a passive representation of information.
What are egocentric perspective transformations
You imagine yourself moving, while the objects in the environment remain still.
What is an earworm
A conscious experience of sound—typically a short phrase of catchy music— that seems to get stuck on replay in your head.
What are phonemes and morphemes
The smallest unit in language. Phonemes are combined to form morphemes.
morpheme
The smallest unit in language that carries meaning.
How does Chomsky look at language
This observation, and others like it, led Chomsky to make a sharp distinction between grammar and semantics, the study of meaning. He argued that the processes that make a sentence grammatical are different from the processes that make a sentence meaningful.
What are grammatical transformations
Rules operating on entire strings of symbols to convert them to new strings.
Explain Competence vs Performance in language
We may have an internalized system of rules that constitutes a basic linguistic competence, but this competence may not always be reflected in our actual use of the language (performance).
What are deep and surface structure
The meaning is at one level, called the deep structure, whereas the words are at another level, called the surface structure. The distinction between deep and surface structure allows us to understand a number of interesting linguistic phenomena, including ambiguous sentences.
Why is ambiguity in language useful
the existence of ambiguity in language illustrates why we need to make a distinction between deep and surface structure. The same surface structure can be derived from different deep structures. The different meanings of the above sentences, for example, are carried by two different deep structures. Meaning is not given on the surface of a sentence: it is given by the deep structure interpretation of the sentence. When we understand a sentence, we transform a surface structure into a deep structure.
What is the innateness hypothesis
The hypothesis that children innately possess a language acquisition device that comes equipped with principles of universal grammar
What is the poverty of stimulus argument
The argument that the linguistic environment to which a child is exposed is not good enough to enable language acquisition on its own.
Overall set “Hierarchy of memory systems” by Atkinson & Shiffrin (1968)
The updated table for memory systems by Jonathan
We could add sensory like touch etc.
