Human Memory Flashcards
Memory
Ability to retrieve inf. over time.
Sensory Memory
Where sensory inf. is kept for a few seconds or less.
Short-Term Memory
Where non-sensory inf. is kept for more than few seconds but less than a minute.
Long-Term Memory
Where inf. is kept for hours, days, weeks or years.
Iconic Memory
Fast-decaying store of visual inf. (Sensory Memory)
Echoic Memory
Fast-decaying store of auditory inf. (Sensory Memory)
Iconic Memory Test
Sperling (1960), Letters flashed for 1/20th of a second, P’s couldn’t recall, When rows were paired with tones - recall improved.
Peterson & Peterson (1959)
Decline of STM, 3-letter strings, 80% recall after 3 sec. but 20% after 20 sec.
Rehearsal
Keeping inf. in STM by mentally repeating it.
Chunking
Combining smaller pieces into large more manageable chunks.
Working Memory (Baddeley, 2000)
Active maintenance and manipulation of inf. in STM storage.
Visuospatial Sketchpad
Briefly stores visual and spatial inf. (Slave System).
Phonological Loop
Briefly encodes mental representations of sounds. Made up of a Short-term store and Articulatory rehearsal system (enables to remember inf. by saying it back to yourself) (Slave System).
Central Executive
Attentional system that coordinates and controls plans of action and output.
Episodic Buffer
Temporary storage space where inf. from LTM can be integrated into Working Memory.
Interference
Drop in accuracy and response time performance when two tasks tap into the same system.
Patient H.M.
Patient who had a bilateral medial temporal lobectomy to surgically resect the anterior two thirds of his hippocampi, parahippocampal cortices, entorhinal cortices, piriform cortices, and amygdalae in an attempt to cure his epilepsy. He could not remember anything after the surgery.
Consolidation
Process of how inf. must pass from STM to LTM in order to be remembered.
Encoding
Transforming perceptions into memory.
Storage
Maintaining information in memory over time.
Retrieval
Bringing to mind information that has been previously encoded and stored.
Schemas
The use of schemas as a basic concept was first used by a British psychologist named Frederic Bartlett as part of his learning theory. Bartlett’s theory suggested that our understanding of the world is formed by a network of abstract mental structures.
Elaborative Encoding
Actively relating new information to knowledge that is already in memory.
Craik and Tulving (1975)
Craik & Tulving found that participants were better able to recall words which had been processed more deeply - that is, processed semantically, supporting level of processing theory.
Which parts of the brain do Semantic judgements stimulate?
Lower left frontal lobe.
Which parts of the brain do Organisational judgements stimulate?
Upper left frontal lobe.
Which parts of the brain do Visual judgements stimulate?
Occipital lobe.
Visual Imagery Encoding
Storing new information by converting it into mental imagery.
Method of Loci
Method of memory enhancement which uses visualizations with the use of spatial memory, familiar information about one’s environment, to quickly and efficiently recall information. The method of loci is also known as the memory journey, memory palace, or mind palace technique.
Organisational Encoding
Categorising information by noticing the relationships between a series of items.
Mnemonics
A mnemonic device, or memory device is any learning technique that aids information retention in the human memory. Mnemonics make use of elaborative encoding, retrieval cues, and imagery as specific tools to encode any given information in a way that allows for efficient storage and retrieval.
Nairne (2007)
Found that when given 3 encoding tasks (Survival, Moving, and Pleasantness), Survival tasks had the best recall.
Eric Kandel
Sea slugs, electric shocks, tail withdrawal of gills, faster over time, therefore memories based on synaptic changes.
Long-Term Potentiation
In neuroscience, long-term potentiation is a persistent strengthening of synapses based on recent patterns of activity. These are patterns of synaptic activity that produce a long-lasting increase in signal transmission between two neurons.
What happens when rats take drugs that block LTP?
They turn into amnesiacs.
Spatial memory
Representation that encodes where something is.
NMDA Receptor
Hippocampal receptor site - influences the flow of information from one neuron to another across the synapse by controlling the initiation of LTP.
Encoding Specificity Principle
Memory researchers Thomson and Tulving suggest that recall is most effective when the conditions at the time of encoding match the conditions at the time of retrieval. These conditions may refer to the context in which the information was encoded, the physical location or surroundings, as well as the mental or physical state of the individual at the time of encoding.
Transfer Appropriate Processing
Type of state-dependent memory specifically showing that memory performance is not only determined by the depth of processing, but by the relationship between how information is initially encoded and how it is later retrieved.
Explicit Memory
One of the two main types of long-term human memory. It is the conscious, intentional recollection of factual information, previous experiences and concepts.[1] Explicit memory can be divided into two categories: episodic memory, which stores specific personal experiences, and semantic memory, which stores factual information.[
Implicit Memory
One of the two main types of long-term human memory. It is acquired and used unconsciously, and can affect thoughts and behaviours. One of its most common forms is procedural memory, which helps people performing certain tasks without conscious awareness of these previous experiences. Evidence for implicit memory arises in priming, a process whereby subjects are measured by how they have improved their performance on tasks for which they have been subconsciously prepared.
Autobiographical memory
Autobiographical memory is a memory system consisting of episodes recollected from an individual’s life, based on a combination of episodic and semantic memory. It is thus a type of explicit memory.
Flashbulb memory
A flashbulb memory is a highly detailed, exceptionally vivid ‘snapshot’ of the moment and circumstances in which a piece of surprising and consequential news was heard.
Which part of the brain seems to play an important role in episodic memory?
Medial Temporal Lobe
Transience
Forgetting what occurs with the passage of time.
Ebbinghaus forgetting curve
The forgetting curve hypothesizes the decline of memory retention in time. This curve shows how information is lost over time when there is no attempt to retain it. A related concept is the strength of memory that refers to the durability that memory traces in the brain. The stronger the memory, the longer period of time that a person is able to recall it. A typical graph of the forgetting curve purports to show that humans tend to halve their memory of newly learned knowledge in a matter of days or weeks unless they consciously review the learned material.
Serial Position Effect
Serial position effect is the tendency of a person to recall the first and last items in a series best, and the middle items worst. The term was coined by Hermann Ebbinghaus through studies he performed on himself, and refers to the finding that recall accuracy varies as a function of an item’s position within a study list.
Primacy effect
The phenomenon that when people are asked to recall in any order the items on a list, those that come at the start of the list are more likely to be recalled than the others
Recency effect
The phenomenon that when people are asked to recall in any order the items on a list, those that come at the end of the list are more likely to be recalled than the others
Retroactive Interference
Later learning impairs memory for information acquired earlier.
Proactive Interference
Earlier learning impairs memory for information acquired later.
Absentmindedness
Absent-mindedness is where a person shows inattentive or forgetful behaviour. Absent-mindedness is a mental condition in which the subject experiences low levels of attention and frequent distraction.
Divided Attention
Maintaining more than one source of information.
Retrospective memory
Information learned in the past.
Prospective memory
Remembering to do things in the future.
Anterograde amnesia
Inability to transfer new information from the STS into LTS.
Retrograde amnesia
Inability to retrieve information that was acquired before a particular date.
Fugue State
Amnesia of your previous life and identity
Explanations for Childhood amnesia?
Neurological and Developmental. (elaborate)
Metamemory
Subjective awareness of one’s own memory.
Feeling of Knowing (FOK)
FOK judgments focus not on the actual answer to a question, but rather on whether an individual predicts that he or she does or does not know the answer.
Source monitoring
Recall of when, where and how information was acquired.
Memory Misattribution
Assigning a recollection to the wrong source.
3 Types of source monitoring???
Internal = Thinking about doing vs. doing External = Distinguishing between two external sources Reality = Distinguishing between a real and imaginary event
Deja Vu
The illusion (feeling) of having previously experienced something actually being encountered for the first time.
Deja Vecu
The most common déjà vu experience of realizing (certain) that something said or done occurred previously in one’s experience.
False Recognition
A feeling of familiarity about something that hasn’t been encountered before.
Which brain region is activated during false memories?
The Hippocampus - just like with true memories.
3 ways in which cognitive biases can influence memory
- Altering the past to fit the present (consistency bias)
- Exaggerating differences between past and present (change bias)
- Distorting the past to make us look better (egocentric bias)
Persistence
Intrusive recollection of events that we wish we could forget.
Which brain region responds most strongly to emotional events?
The Amygdala.
Name Shacter’s 7 sins of memory
- Blocking
- Bias
- Suggestibility
- Transience
- Absentmindedness
- Misattribution
- Persistence
Patient KF (Warrington and Shallice, 1969)
???
Acoustic Confusions (Conrad, 1964)
???
Baddeley, Thomson & Buchanan, 1975
Memory span is poorer for long words.
Articulatory suppression
saying ‘the the the’ while learning???
Why can’t people with Alzheimer’s walk and talk at the same time?
Their Executive Functions (Processing) is damaged.
Bransford and Johnson (1972)
Balloon study???
De Groot (1965)
Expertise in chess. Chess experts much better than chess novices in recalling positions BUT When pieces are shown in random positions (not from a real game), then Experts are no better than novices)
Morris et al., 1985
Expertise in soccer - Memory for scores by soccer experts and novices
Logie et al., 1992
Expertise in burglary - Memory for Features of Houses
Steve Falloon (Ericsson & Chase, 1984)
Could repeat back up to 80 random digits.
Shereshevskii (Luria, 1968)
Extensive use of imagery???
Reason (1990)
Diary Study – over 2 weeks, 30 students reported total of over 400 ‘slips of action’
Roediger and McDermott (1995)
???
Loftus, Miller & Burns (1978)
- Participants viewed a car accident at a road junction
- At what speed was the car travelling when it passed the barn on the way to the road junction?
- No barn was present in the original scene but later, the participants recalled seeing a barn.
Fisher & Geiselman, 1992
The Cognitive Interview ???
Rivard, Fisher, Robertson, Mueller, 2014
???
Loftus and Pickrell (1995)
Implanted childhood memories - Lost in the supermarket
Hyman, Husband and Billings (1995)
Disrupting a wedding - false memories???
Reason (1990)
Diary study - over 2 weeks, 30 students reported total of over 400 ‘slips of action’.
What is the explanation for action slips?
2 modes of thinking:
- Closed Mode
- Conscious control of our behaviour
- Requires concentration but is relatively free of error
- Difficult to do anything else at the same time. - Open Mode
- Automatic control of behaviour
Action slips occur when the wrong mode is selected..
What are the explanations for flashbulb memories?
- Effect of surprise
- Not for Moon landing though - Effect of personal interest
- Effect of emotional content
Example of Unconscious Transference
Thomson misidentification:
- Person accused of the crime was an innocent bystander at the time of the crime (Interviewed on a television programme being watched by the victim at the time of the attack).
