Exam #2 Study Guide

Question 1

Unilateral neglect: what causes it and what are the symptoms?

Answer 1

Unilateral neglect syndrome is caused by damage to (often the right side) of the parietal lobe. It is a disorder in which patients ignore all inputs from one side of the body. The “where” system is damaged. Neglect occurs in real time as well as in memories of images/objects.

Question 2

What is selective attention?

Answer 2

The skill through which a person focuses on one input while ignoring other stimuli that are also present.

Question 3

Know the methodology and terminology associated with the dichotic listening task

Answer 3

Dichotic listening is a task in which participants hear two simultaneous verbal messages – in one ear each. Participants are instructed to pay attention to one input (attended channel) and ignore the other message (unattended channel). It was found that remarkably little was remembered from the unattended channel, but words of personal importance in the unattended channel seemed to catch attention. Researchers conducted shadowing tasks to ensure participants were paying attention.

Question 4

Inattentional blindness and change blindness

Answer 4

Inattentional Blindness: A pattern in which perceivers seem literally not to see stimuli right in front of their eyes; this pattern is caused by the participants focusing their attention on some other stimuli and not expecting the target to appear. A similar pattern of behavior can be observed in hearing (inattentional deafness) and sensory feeling (inattention numbness).

Change Blindness: A pattern in which perceivers either do not see or take a long time to see large-scale changes in a visual stimulus. This pattern reveals how little people perceive, even from stimuli in plain view, if they are not specifically attending to the target information.

Question 5

What is the cocktail party effect?

Answer 5

The phenomenon in which people are able to focus on one stimulus in a sea of many stimuli. E.g., focus on one conversation in a room of many voices and separate conversations.

Question 6

Early vs late selection models of attention

Answer 6

Early selection hypothesis: A proposal that selective attention operates at an early stage of processing, so that the unattended inputs receive little analysis.

Late selection hypothesis: A proposal that selective attention operates at a late stage of processing, so that the unattended inputs receive considerable analysis. Only attended channels reach consciousness.

Both hypotheses capture part of the truth. Attention can influence activity levels in the LGN. Attention changes the flow of signals within the nervous system before reaching the brain.

Question 7

Broadbent model vs attenuation theory

Answer 7

Broadbent model: limited capacity for paying attention conceptualized as a bottleneck, which restricts the flow of information. Similar to the early selection hypothesis.

Treisman (Attenuation) Model: Attended messages pass through the attenuator at full strength, and unattended messages pass through with reduced strength. Unlike in Broadbent’s model, unattended messages are still attenuated rather than eliminated. What is attenuated to after reaching the Hierarchy of Analyzers depends on what reaches an activation threshold.

Question 8

Time-course of attention in the brain (as measured by EEG)

Answer 8

In the brain, attended inputs increase N1 amplitudes 100ms post target presentation, but endogenous attention lasts longer.

Question 9

Spatial Cueing Task and spatial attention (effects on RTs and ERPs)

Answer 9

A task in which participants press a button as soon as a target stimulus appears while focusing their eyes on a central fixation cue. Prior to each trial, an arrow (correct 80% of the time) would appear to indicate where the target stimulus would appear.
It was found that response times were faster for valid locations compared to invalid locations. RTs were faster for valid locations vs neutral ones. And RTs were slower for invalid locations compared to neutral ones.

As observed in ERPs and fMRI scans, attended channels are prioritized and primed in the brain while unattended channels are deprioritized, e.g., contralateral enhancement (rapid and sustained contralateral amplification of electrocortical activity) when paying more attention to one area in space.

Question 10

Spotlight of attention

Answer 10

Factors influencing where we “shine” the “beam”
- Task goals
- Interests/Importance
- Visual prominence
- Predictability of scene
- Beliefs, cultures, expectations, etc.
- Collectivistic vs Individualistic cultures differ on time they spend looking at a central figure.

Question 11

Endogenous vs Exogenous control of attention

Answer 11

Endogenous control of attention: A mechanism through which a person chooses (often, on the basis of some meaningful signal) where to focus their attention.
Exogenous control of attention: A mechanism through which attention is automatically directed, essentially as a reflex response, to some “attention-grabbing” input. Some inputs, especially ones with moral or emotional overtones, can seize our attention in a largely uncontrollable fashion.

Question 12

Unilateral neglect and spatial vs object-based attention

Answer 12

Some experiments indicate that unilateral neglect syndrome is object-based rather than spatially based.

Question 13

Divided attention: task specific and task general resources, executive control, and automaticity

Answer 13

When attention is divided, we will be able to perform concurrent tasks if we have the resources (e.g., for problem-solving, reasoning, remembering) and energy supply required for both. If resources compete, multi-tasking will be difficult. Some resources serve as an energy supply used by all tasks, while others seem to be “mental tools”, one of these being executive control.

Executive control: The mental resources and processes that are used to set goals, choose task priorities, and avoid conflict among competing resources.
- Helps to control thoughts
- Allows shifts in plans/changes in strategy.
- Can only handle one task at a time.
- Damage to PFC can lead to deficits in executive control (display preservation error and goal neglect).

Automaticity: A state achieved by some tasks and some forms of processing, in which the task can be performed with little to no attention. In many cases, automatized actions can be combined with other activities without interference. Automatized actions are also often difficult to control, leading many psychologists to refer to them as “mental reflexes”. These processes can be brought into conscious operation, but this may make performance worse. The Stroop test demonstrates this.

Question 14

Primacy and Recency effects: Why do they occur and how can they be manipulated (experimentally)?

Answer 14

Primacy Effect: An often-observed advantage in remembering the early-presented materials within a sequence of materials. This advantage is generally attributed to the fact that research participants can focus their full attention on these items because, at the beginning of a sequence, the participants are not trying to divide attention between these items and other items in the series. Slower presentations of items enhances the primacy effect, assumedly because this increases processing of earlier items. Often contrasted with the recency effect.

Recency Effect: The tendency to remember materials that occur late in a series. If the series was just presented, the recency effect can be attributed to the fact that the late-arriving items are still in working memory (because nothing else has arrived after these items to bump them out of working memory).
Can be interrupted, delaying recall of items with a different task altogether displaces items from working memory, reducing the recency effect but not the primacy effect (as primacy relies on LTM, not WM, like recency). Often contrasted with the primacy effect.

Question 15

Working memory capacity: digit-span task methodology, verbal vs visual working memory capacity

Answer 15

Digit-Span Task: A task often used for measuring working memory’s storage capacity. Research participants are read a series of digits (e.g., “8 3 4”) and must immediately repeat them back. If they do this successfully, they are given a slightly longer list (e.g., “9 2 4 0”), and so forth. The length of the longest list a person can remember in this fashion is that person’s digit span. Also see operation span.

“7 plus-or-minus 2”: A range often offered as an estimate of the verbal number of items or units able to be contained in working memory.

Working-Memory Capacity: A measure of working memory derived from operation span tasks. Although termed a “memory capacity”, this measure can perhaps best be understood as a measure of a person’s ability to store some materials while simultaneously working with other materials.

Visual working memory capacity is generally speaking, about 4 objects. But, this number varies depending on the complexity/novelty of the object(s).

Question 16

Chunking

Answer 16

Chunks: The hypothetical storage units in working memory; it is estimated that working memory can hold 7 plus-or-minus 2 chunks. However, an unspecified quantity of information can be contained within each chunk, because the content of each chunk depends on how the memorizer has organized the materials to be remembered. Different strategies can “increase” what a chunk carries, but the plus-or-minus 2 rule still applies to these chunks.

Question 17

Operation span and correlates of this type of working memory capacity

Answer 17

Operation Span: A measure of working memory’s capacity. This measure turns out to be predictive of performance in many other tasks, presumably because these tasks all rely on working memory. This measure is also the modern replacement for the (less useful) measure obtained from the digit-span task.
The reading-span task measures operation span, and gives a good measure of someone’s WMC. Because it involves storing materials for later use while simultaneously working with other materials, it’s generally a good reflection of how someone’s WM functions in daily life.

A larger WMC predicts better performance in reading, reasoning, measures of cognitive/attention control, and standardized academic tests. These correlates do not appear in the digit-span task, and they suggest a link between working memory capacity and “intelligence”.

Question 18

The multicomponent model: central executive, visuospatial buffer, and articulatory loop

Answer 18

Multicomponent model: Working memory is divided into multiple components, featuring the central executive (“heart” of the system), visuospatial buffer, articulatory rehearsal loop (phonological buffer), and (perhaps) the episodic buffer.

Visuospatial Buffer: Used for storing visual materials - like mental images.

Articulatory Rehearsal Loop: One of the low-level assistants hypothesized as being part of the working memory system. This loop draws on subvocalized (produced in the supramarginal gyrus) (covert) speech, which serves to create a record in the phonological buffer. Materials in this buffer then fade, but they can be refreshed by another cycle of covert speech.

Phonological Buffer: A passive storage system used for holding a representation (essentially an “internal echo”) of recently heard or self-produced sounds.

Question 19

Maintenance vs Elaborative rehearsal (which is better? Why?)

Answer 19

Maintenance Rehearsal: A rote, mechanical process in which items are continually cycled through working memory, merely by being repeated over and over. Often contrasted with relational (or elaborative) rehearsal.

Elaborative Rehearsal: A form of mental processing in which one thinks about the relations, or connections, among ideas. The connections created (or strengthened) in this way will later guide memory search. Vastly superior to maintenance rehearsal, because it increases the number of retrieval paths and hence increases the chances of successful recall.

Question 20

Neural correlates of successfully remembered vs forgotten items

Answer 20

Remembered words result in greater PFC and hippocampal activation, whether or not a word is forgotten can be predicted by the participant’s mental activity when they first encountered the word.

Question 21

Incidental vs Intentional learning (how is intention to learn related to memory performance?)

Answer 21

Incidental learning: Learning that takes place in the absence of any intention to learn and correspondingly, in the absence of any expectation of a subsequent memory test. Contrasted with intentional learning.

Intentional learning: The acquisition of memories in a setting in which people know that their memory for the information will be tested later. Contrasted with incidental learning.

Intention is largely unrelated to memory performance. Instead, the level of processing predicts memory performance, and deep processing can take place in incidental or intentional learning.

Question 22

Shallow vs Deep processing: what are they and which is better?

Answer 22

Shallow processing: Thinking only about the material’s superficial traits.

Deep processing: Thinking about what the material means, typically associated with a greater probability of remembering the now-processed information

Question 23

Depth of processing and elaborate encoding effects: how is it related to retrieval?

Answer 23

Deep processing and elaborative encoding promote recall by facilitating later retrieval. This is because it creates more retrieval paths that the information may be accessed from.

Question 24

Explicit vs implicit memory

Answer 24

Explicit Memory: A memory revealed by direct memory testing, and usually accompanied by the conviction that one is, in fact, remembering - that is, drawing on some sort of knowledge (perhaps knowledge about a specific prior episode, or perhaps more general knowledge). Often contrasted with implicit memory.

Types of explicit/declarative memory:
- episodic memory (personal experiences),
- semantic memory (general knowledge)
Anterograde amnesia affects explicit memory while implicit memory remains intact.

Implicit Memory: A memory revealed by indirect memory testing and often manifested as a priming effect in which current performance is guided or facilitated by previous experiences. Implicit memories are often accompanied by no conscious realization that one is, in fact, being influenced by specific past experiences. Often contrasted with explicit memory.

Types of implicit memory:
Procedural (basal ganglia based), priming, perceptual learning, and classical conditioning.

Question 25

Amnesia: Retrograde vs anterograde, H.M., Korsakoff’s syndrome

Answer 25

Retrograde Amnesia: The inability to remember events that occurred before the event that triggered the memory disruption.

Anterograde Amnesia: An inability to remember experiences before the event that triggered the memory disruption. Often contrasted with anterograde amnesia.

Patient H.M.: Surgery sustained damage to the hippocampus. He suffered little to no loss of existing memories, but had extreme difficulty forming new, long-term memories. Findings from research involving H.M. posited the medial temporal lobe as being important for the memory system, he also demonstrated that we may have two memory systems (implicit and explicit) that work together but also separately. He participated in research for over five decades, and remains one of the most well known single patients in neuroscience.

Korsakoff’s Syndrome: As a result of long-time alcohol use and subsequent vitamin B1 (thiamine) deficiencies, hippocampal degeneration and severe anterograde amnesia. Patients with this syndrome display that their fear-learning (implicit) memory is intact.

Question 26

Memory impairments for hippocampus vs amygdala damage

Answer 26

Hippocampal/surrounding areas damage: May result in anterograde amnesia.
Amygdala damage: May result in damage to the implicit memory system, but leaves the explicit memory system intact (if hippocampus is undamaged).

Question 27

Memory Consolidation

Answer 27

Consolidation: The biological process through which new memories are “cemented in place”, acquiring some degree of permanence through the creation of new (or altered) neural connections.

Initially, memory is unstable and fragile. Therefore, the brain works to consolidate newly learned information into long-term memory, and this process can take time. The time it takes to consolidate new information will be largely dependent on the content being encoded, as well as the individual. The consolidation phase is theorized to be due to the hippocampus moving information to cortical areas. Sleep improves memory consolidation processes.

Reconsolidation: When a previous memory is retrieved, it may go through another consolidation process – this maintains, strengthens, and may even modify, existing memories. This process may be a reason for memory errors.

Question 28

Memory networks and spreading activation

Answer 28

Memory Network: Memory may be best thought of as a vast network of ideas (represented as nodes). These ideas are tied together via associations (or associative links)

Spreading Activation: A process through which activation travels from one node to another, via associative links. As each node becomes activated, it serves as a source for further activation, spreading onward through the network.

Priming may be a result of the different activation levels nodes may be at at a given time. If a node is recently and frequently activated, it will have a lower activation threshold and will therefore fire more easily.

Question 29

Encoding Specificity

Answer 29

Encoding Specificity: The tendency, when memorizing, to place in memory both the materials to be learned and some amount of their context. As a result, these materials will be recognized as familiar, later on, only if the materials appear again in a similar context.

Memory contains both the information learned as well as some of the context of when/where the information was encountered.

Question 30

Context dependent memory & state dependent memory

Answer 30

Context-Dependent Learning: A pattern of data in which materials learned in one setting are well remembered when the person returns to that setting, but are less well remembered in other settings.
E.g., those taught new materials underwater recall that information better when they return underwater rather than on land.

State-Dependent Memory: A pattern of date in which materials learned in one emotion and physical state are well remembered when the person returns to that physical and mental/emotional state. E.g., materials learned drunk are better remembered when a person is drunk again.

Question 31

Recognition vs. Recall

Answer 31

Recall: A task of memory retrieval in which the remembered must come up with the desired materials, sometimes in response to a cue that names the context in which these materials were earlier encountered (e.g., “name the pictures you saw earlier”), and sometimes in response to a cue that broadly identifies the sought-after information (e.g., “name a fruit”). Often contrasted with recognition.

Recognition: The task of memory retrieval in which the items to be remembered are presented and the person must decide whether or not the item was encountered in some earlier circumstance. For example, one might be asked, “Have you ever seen this person before?” or “Is this the poster you saw in the office yesterday?” Often contrasted with recall.

Generally, recognition performance is better than recall performance.

Question 32

Autobiographical Memory

Answer 32

Autobiographical Memory: The aspect of memory that records the episodes and events in a person’s life, a kind of episodic memory. Can be mediated by involvement in the event, emotions during the event, and the delay before recall of the event.

There are three kinds of autobiographical memory: Event-specific knowledge (minutes to hours), general events (days, weeks, months), and lifetime periods (spanning many years).

Demonstrates the self-reference effect – information relating to the self is better encoded than information not relating to the self, and our views of ourselves in the memory will lean positive. Also demonstrates the interference effect – people will misremember themselves to be more like they are now, and will incorporate new attitudes/beliefs into old memories.

Question 33

Reminiscence Bump

Answer 33

Reminiscence bump: The pattern in data in which people tend to remember the period of their late-teens to early-adulthood (10-30) the most vividly. This may be due to how formative/important these years generally are. This may also be due to the rapid changes followed by periods of general stability during this life period, which allows for increased encoding.

Question 34

Flashbulb memories, traumatic memories, and the emotional modulation of memory

Answer 34

Flashbulb Memories: A memory of extraordinary clarity, typically for some highly emotional event, that is retained over many years. Despite their remarkable vividness, flashbulb memories are sometimes inaccurate.
- Uneven in accuracy, these memories are vulnerable to co-witness contamination, lots of courses of reconsolidation, and “polishing-off” of the original story during retellings.

Traumatic events can cause extra-vivid and long-lived recollections of the traumatic event. This is partially due to the consolidation process – extreme physiological arousal promotes encoding/recollection. Traumatic recollections may emphasize sensory memory over the actual narrative of the event. Sometimes, traumatic memories are diminished by factors following the event, like sleep deprivation, head injury, or substance abuse. Stress may also worsen memory of details/unattended aspects of the traumatic event.

Question 35

The amygdala’s role in different forms of emotional memory (i.e., implicit vs explicit)

Answer 35

The amygdala plays a key role in supporting memory of emotionally arousing experiences – especially in the formation of implicit memory. The amygdala is involved in the creation of implicit emotional memories, just as the hippocampus is involved in the creation of explicit memories. The amygdala signals to the hippocampus that careful attention will be paid and very important events are unfolding, the hippocampus increases in activity, leading to more vivid LTM of the emotional event.

Question 36

How does emotion/the amygdala enhance explicit memory?

Answer 36

Emotion enhances consolidation by triggering a response in the amygdala, which in turn increases activation in the hippocampus. Emotion influences how well but also what we remember about an event, it will color one’s recollection of the event. High emotion will increase how much we pay attention to an event as it unfolds, which increases depth of processing. Emotion appears to “narrow” attention, causing one to pay attention to just a few aspects of the scene – fixing those aspects in memory but encoding less about all other aspects of the scene.

Question 37

Types of memory errors: Source misattribution, intrusion errors, schema-related errors, misinformation errors, and personal bias

Answer 37

Misattribution: A person may determine that something “rings a bell” or feels familiar, and they may determine this to be due to a distinct previous event when there was, in reality, no connection between the event and their feelings of familiarity.

Intrusion Errors: A memory error in which a person recalls elements that were not actually part of the original event.

Schema-related errors: Schemas produce predictable memory errors, they cause us to “regularize” the past. When we fill in blanks in memory, we may be filling them in based on schema-related knowledge about what would be expected, rather than what we actually saw. Specific episodes merge in memory to form schemata.

Misinformation Effect: An effect in which reports about an earlier event are influenced by misinformation that the person received after experiencing the event. In the extreme, misinformation can be used to create false memories concerning an event that actually never occurred.

Personal Bias: We tend to remember ourselves as more similar to our current-selves than we were (consistency bias), we also tend to remember ourselves in a more positive way than we may have actually been (we try to see ourselves in the best possible light).

Question 38

The amygdala’s role in different forms of emotional memory (i.e., implicit vs explicit)

Answer 38

The amygdala plays a key role in supporting memory of emotionally arousing experiences – especially in the formation of implicit memory. The amygdala is involved in the creation of implicit emotional memories, just as the hippocampus is involved in the creation of explicit memories.