Exam 2 COPY 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
A memory model proposed by Atkinson and Shiffrin (1968), consisting of sensory memory, short-term memory, and 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
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, while the episodic buffer is used to move information to and from long-term memory.
What is a fluid system
Cognitive processes that manipulate information. (unchanged by learning)
What is a crystalized system
Cognitive systems that accumulate long-term knowledge.
What does the central executive do
The central executive selects and integrates information from across the 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
It turns out that once a particular connection has been established between neuronal units in the epithelium and the hippocampus, it 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
The episodic memory system operates with a deeper understanding of information, whereas the deals with information on a more superficial level PRS
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
The memory system concerned with knowing how to do things. Physical skills are not the only ones stored in procedural memory: so are many cognitive skills, including the ability to 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
The feeling of knowing a person without being able to remember the circumstances of any previous meeting or anything else about him or her. (episodic memory)
What is the tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon (TOT)
Knowing that you know something without quite being able to recall it. (semantic memory)
What is spreading activation
Spreading activation was proposed by Quillian (1969) and elaborated by Collins and Loftus (1975). The idea is that when you search a semantic network, you activate the paths where the search takes place. This activation spreads from the node at which the search begins.
What is mind popping
An involuntary semantic memory occurs whenever a semantic memory (e.g., a tune) pops into your mind without any episodic context. That is, you don’t recall any autobiographical information that might have triggered the semantic memory; it just pops up by itself and appears to be 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
The hypothesis that older adults have a deficiency in creating and retrieving links between single units of information. Thus the problem was not so much that older people don’t recognize names or faces as it was that they don’t bind them together as easily as younger people do. 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) confirmed that older adults do seem to be able to form implicit memories just as easily as younger people. They also respond to priming just as readily as 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
They may be able to acquire new information and yet not be 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
amnesic patients do poorly on tasks requiring explicit memory, but much better on those requiring implicit memory. People with amnesia may be able to form associations, and thus learn new material. However, this learning would be available to them only in implicit, not explicit, form.
Which memory is affected by Alzheimer’s
The disease is progressive, beginning with a deterioration of episodic memory. A decline in the ability to retain recently acquired information is characteristic of the early stages
As the disease progresses, Alzheimer’s patients will show impaired semantic memory
This suggests that what Alzheimer’s disease involves is not so much the inability to retrieve existing knowledge as the deterioration of knowledge that once existed.
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, and it’s important that the teacher help the patient avoid errors. Errorless learning is widely believed to maximize patients’ ability to use whatever memory resources they still have
What is the mystic writing pad model
A model of memory based on 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.
Describe the Now Print! theory
The theory that especially significant experiences are immediately “photocopied,” preserved in long-term memory, and 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, likely to forget it and not create move on to the next stage)
- Create the flashbulb memory
- Rehearsing the memory
- Retelling the memory
How do flashbulb memory get impacted over time
Less specific answers (the name of a friend –> a friend), they are only easier to recall because of the rehearsing and/or the retelling + emotionality. Not because they are more accurate.
Decrease in consistency and increase in inconsistency
What is the consolidation theory
The classic theory that memory traces of an event are not fully formed immediately after that event, but take some time to consolidate.
What is retroactive interference
A decline in recall of one event as a result of a later event.
Describe reconsolidation
The hypothetical process whereby 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.
What is the given-new contract
A tacit agreement whereby the speaker agrees to connect new information to what the listener already knows.’
What is the code model of communication
A model of communication based on the information processing theory. According to Sperber and Wilson, the code model assumes that speaker and listener have a great deal of knowledge in common: otherwise the listener would not be able to decode the signal properly and arrive at the correct interpretation.
What is the inferential model of communication
The inferential model derives from the work of Grice (1957/1971, 1975), who analyzed communication in terms of intentions and inferences. A speaker intends to inform a listener, and the listener infers what the speaker intends
What are the four rules of conversational maxims
- Say no more than is necessary (maxim of quantity);
- Be truthful (maxim of quality);
- Be relevant (maxim of relation); and
- Avoid ambiguity and be clear (maxim of manner).
What is the ultimate goal of communication
Relevance
What is the egocentric speech
Speech that does not take the listener’s perspective into account. Egocentric speech declines as the child becomes socialized, and social speech develops in its place. Vygotsky argued that egocentric speech does not disappear but becomes inner speech.
Which memory system is engaged in inner speech
suggested that one way inner speech may be articulated is by means of the phonological loop part of working memory
What is the difference between surface dyslexia and phonological dyslexia
surface dyslexia
A form of dyslexia affecting only the ability to recognize words as entire units; the ability to read words letter-by-letter remains intact.
phonological dyslexia
A form of dyslexia affecting only the ability to read letter-by-letter; the ability to recognize words as entire units remains intact.
dual route theory
The theory there are two separate pathways for reading, one for comparing words to a mental dictionary and another for converting letters to sounds and stringing the sounds together to make words.
What is the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis
The hypothesis that two languages may be so different from one another as to make their native speakers’ experience of the world qualitatively different
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.
What is meta memory
Beliefs about how memory works.
Implicit & Explicit memory in amnesic patients
amnesic patients do poorly on tasks requiring explicit memory, but much better on those requiring implicit memory. People with amnesia may be able to form associations, and thus learn new material. However, this learning would be available to them only in implicit, not explicit, form.
Are short-term and working memory the same?
Nope
They are similar but different
What is spreading activation?
I don’t know yet … fill me in
How is spreading activation involved in memory
I don’t know yet… something about neural communication
Like William James said “we all know what attention is” for memory we think we know because we talk about
Long-term memory
Short-term memory
Working-memory
BUT …
These are just categories memory (does not fully describe what memory is)
There are other important memory systems
What are other important memory systems?
Declarative
Episodic
Semantic
Echoic
Iconic
Implicit
We add these to the classics
Long-term
Short-term
Working memory
What is semantic memory?
Knowledge of “rules” of something (no autobiographical time)
Words, concepts, things in general that we know eg. “what is semantic memory”
Ex salt is sodium chloride
What is Echoic memory
Short term memory in auditory perceptual systems (Brodbants model)
What is Iconic memory
Short term memory in visual system (perceptual from Brondbant’s model)
Which lasts longer the echo or iconic type of memory?
Echo
Episodic & Implicit memory fall under:
Declarative memory
Overall set “Hierarchy of memory systems” by Atkinson & Shiffrin (1968)
What did Atkinson & Shiffrin (1968) talk about but not include in their model
Echo & Icon (sensory memory)
The updated table of memory systems by Jonathan has 3 overarching categories:
- Sensory
- Short-Term/Working
- Long term
The updated table for memory systems by Jonathan
We could add sensory like touch etc.
Episodic memory
Have a “what” and “when” time component
Semantic memory
Has “what”
Unlike episodic has no ‘when’
Can semantic memory be separated from episodic memory
Yes
Eg Patient KC/NN had brain damage (knowledge of words somatic memory is intact)
He has issues with episodic memory
but 10min later - missed 2/4 and added 1 … when asked about words he was asked about was not good at it, a lot he did not remember.
But 3 min later (probe with non-declarative parts of memory) did not remember sanctuary then needed much phonological cues to even guess 1 of the 2.
Why do we think declarative and semantic must be separate systems
Brain injury studies
Eg NN/KC semantic words intact but not able to form declarative memories of what happened to him
Eg WJ has knowledge of stuff (semantic) but not where it came from (episodic)
When will someone with out brain damage remember the most past events?
Within 12 months = 70% of events (or maybe this is just WJ *Clarify)
What is retrograde amnesia
Inability to remember something from our own past
How did the anterograde amnesia manifest for the patient with brain damage WJ
nothing new could be encoded into episodic memory
When looking at the last 12 months there was a big difference
70% for others 5% for her
Can we damage just storage or just retrieval of episodic memory?
Yes
for all of the memory systems we can see that these can be broken down into two functions
Declarative (what and when)
Something we can easily talk about
Implicit & non declarative
Something that is hard to describe we can demonstrate but hard to talk about
Eg Bruno
What is the main form of non-declarative memory
Procedural memory
What is procedural memory
A memory of what we can do - Skill
Hard to explain, if we try, we have to go through a process of trying to understand and explain but still hard.
Eg Robots hard cuz we don’t understand but machine learning models help robots
Clive Wearing
Procedural memory intact (could retain new habits ex new music since his semantic memory reading music intact)
Skilled musician
30 sec of memory - not retaining new information (both retrograde and anterograde amnesia)
Diary - repeated experience of waking up … again and again …
What is anterograde amnesia
Antero - going forward
Inability to encode new memories (going forward in time)
What is anterograde amnesia
Antero - (nothing new)
Inability to remember things going forward in time
Could Clive Wearing learn new things?
Yes through procedural memory (play music) he can learn new habits (non-declarative)
Despite retrograde (things in the past get lost) and Anterograde amnesia (nothing new)
Priming worked on him
Priming
Non Declarative
Implicit process of activation storing or retrieving a memory
What is a prime
A stimulus that activates a probe/target (or response)
Consciously priming
A form of memory we don’t really know how to explain so unconscious
Eg. Weather related words primed the idea of … Hot Snow but Cold not on list
The Primacy effect
We remember the first things we are shown more than the middle
Had the most time to practice
The recency effect
We remember more the last things we have seen recently eg last word
In a list of words which will we be least likely to remember
The words in the middle
can priming pretend to mind read
Yes
Priming process they have implanted or activated a word from understanding spreading activation of network of words
can priming pretend to mind read
Yes
Priming process they have implanted or activated a word from understanding spreading activation of network of words
