Information Processing Theory and the Dual-store Memory Model

Question 1

What are the two ways to interpret memory?

Answer 1

Sometimes memory refers to a process of saving information for a period of time; on other occasions, it refers to a particular part of the human memory system (e.g. working memory).

Question 2

What is storage?

Answer 2

The process of putting new information in memory.

Question 3

Encoding is the process in which people ___ information to ___ storage.

Answer 3

modify; optimize.

Question 4

What is retrieval?

Answer 4

The process of finding or recalling information previously stored.

Question 5

What are the three components of the dual-store model of memory?

Answer 5

Sensory register, working memory, and long-term memory.

Question 6

Sensory register/memory store information ___ly in a relatively ___ form beyond the duration of a ___, for recoding into another memory (such as working memory) or for comprehension.

Answer 6

brief; unprocessed; stimulus.

Question 7

Does iconic memory retain information longer than echoic memory? Or is it the other way around?

Answer 7

Echoic memory retain information longer.

Question 8

One possible reason why auditory input (echoic memory) lasts longer than visual input (iconic memory) is that a major source of auditory input-human speech-can be ___ only within its sequential ___. For example, we can only understand the sentence I scream for ice cream with the assistance of for.

Answer 8

understood; context.

Question 9

Please name two factors that account for the rapid disappearance of information from sensory register/memory.

Answer 9

Interference: new information replaces the information already there; decay: existing information in the sensory register quickly fades away over time.

Question 10

In most cases, the way for moving information from a sensory register to working memory is to _________ it.

Answer 10

pay attention to.

Question 11

Waving hands to get friends’ attention in a carnival indicates that ___ (six letters) can affect attention.

Answer 11

motion.

Question 12

Large letters drawing one’s eyes exemplary ___ can affect attention.

Answer 12

size.

Question 13

Toy manufacturers use bright colors in the toys they make, because ___ can affect attention.

Answer 13

intensity.

Question 14

A picture of a woman with two heads and three legs drawing one’s attention, because ___ (7 letters starting with n)can affect attention.

Answer 14

novelty.

Question 15

The fact that you look longer of the word rabbit in the sentence I took a walk to the rabbit this morning illustrates that ___(11 letters starting with in) can get one’s attention.

Answer 15

incongruity.

Question 16

Stimuli with strong ___ associations attract attention, such as the word “death”, “killing”, and “suicide”.

Answer 16

emotion.

Question 17

I love learning Japanese, so whenever I hear someone speaking Japanese, my attention is drawn because stimuli with ______ attracts attention.

Answer 17

personal significance.

Question 18

An infant looks at where its mother points at because ___ cues attract attention.

Answer 18

social.

Question 19

The inability to focus on both the figure and the background, or the figure-ground perception in Gestalt psychology, suggests that attention involves a ___ processing capacity.

Answer 19

limited.

Question 20

Why can we walk and talk but can barely talk when learning to drive?

Answer 20

Because walking has become automatic for us, thus requiring less attention; while learning to drive requires our full attention.

Question 21

Functions of working memory 1: it identifies information in the sensory register that warrants ___.

Answer 21

attention.

Question 22

Functions of working memory 2: It saves information for a longer period of time for further ___.

Answer 22

processing.

Question 23

George Miller (1956) characterized working memory’s capacity as the magical number ___, plus or minus ___.

Answer 23

7;2.

Question 24

According to Miller, although the number of information ___ can’t be increased beyond ___+/-___, the amount of information in each ___ can be increased.

Answer 24

units; 7; 2; unit.

Question 25

What is chunking?

Answer 25

It’s the process of combining pieces of information in some way, such as remembering the numbers 1 5 2 1 0 6 0 8 1 4 6 8 as 152 106 081 468.

Question 26

Alan Baddeley suggests that a ______ in working memory can keep a small amount of auditory information fresh through constant repetition.

Answer 26

phonological loop.

Question 27

A ______ allows ___(12 letters starting with m) and short-term retention of visual material.

Answer 27

visuospatial sketchpad; manipulation.

Question 28

In 2000, a further subsidiary of the central executive, ______, was introduced.

Answer 28

episodic buffer.

Question 29

An episodic buffer is where information from ___ input ___ and also ______ memory can interact and integrated into an overall understanding of a particular situation or episode.

Answer 29

multiple; modalities; long-term.

Question 30

___ and ___ have been offered as explanations for working memory’s short time span.

Answer 30

Decay; interference.

Question 31

The ______ is, “head of the head”, in that it controls and monitors the flow and use of information throughout the memory system.

Answer 31

central executive.

Question 32

______ can result in learners’ considerably different central executive abilities within a particular age-group-that is, learners differ in how effectively they control what they attend to and in how extensively and effectively they process it.

Answer 32

Effortful control.

Question 33

A good deal of information stored in working memory is encoded in an ___ form, especially when the information is language-based. For example, in a study by Conrad in 1964, when adults are required to write down the six-letter sequence they just saw, the incorrect letters were typically similar in ___ -not ___ - to the letters they actually saw.

Answer 33

auditory; sound; appearance.

Question 34

What manages the activities of the phonological loop, the visuospatial sketchpad, and the episodic buffer?

Answer 34

Central executive.

Question 35

Please name three processes that affect the functioning of working memory.

Answer 35

Organization; retrieval; maintenance rehearsal.

Question 36

In memory research, ___ is a process in which two or more pieces of information are pulled together into an integrated unit to improve memory performance.

Answer 36

organization.

Question 37

___ information in order to keep it ___ in working memory is a process known as maintenance rehearsal.

Answer 37

Repeating; alive.

Question 38

______ is a useful strategy for keeping the information in working memory, but it’s not an effective strategy to keep the information in long-term memory.

Answer 38

Maintenance rehearsal.

Question 39

Being able to remember a greater number of short words than longer words is a phenomenon known as _________.

Answer 39

word length effect.

Question 40

The knowledge of how things are, were, or will be is called ______.

Answer 40

declarative knowledge.

Question 41

What are the two forms of declarative knowledge in memory?

Answer 41

Episodic memory and semantic memory.

Question 42

The knowledge about how to do things is known as ______.

Answer 42

procedural knowledge.

Question 43

What is conditional knowledge?

Answer 43

It is knowledge about how to respond under different circumstances.

Question 44

What are productions?

Answer 44

When procedural knowledge involves conditional knowledge-what to do under varying circumstances, it’s also encoded in the form of productions.

Question 45

Productions can be best described as a set of _________ rules.

Answer 45

if-then. For example, productions for riding a bicycle would include rules such as if I want to speed up, then I pedal at a faster rate.

Question 46

What is conceptual knowledge?

Answer 46

Conceptual knowledge involves the integration of numerous concepts plus other declarative knowledge-and sometimes procedural knowledge as well-into general understandings of certain situations or phenomena.

Question 47

What is explicit knowledge?

Answer 47

Knowledge we can easily recall and explain.

Question 48

What is implicit knowledge?

Answer 48

Knowledge we can’t consciously recall or explain but that nevertheless affects our behavior.

Question 49

What is priming?

Answer 49

It is a phenomenon in which recent exposure to a stimulus facilitates later processing of the same or similar stimulus.

In a study by Ratcliff and McKoon in 1981, college students were asked to identify whether they have seen some nouns after learning some sentences either contain or not contain those nouns. They correctly indicated having seen a noun significantly faster if it immediately followed a noun that had been in the same sentence they have learned.

Question 50

___ is essential for explicit memory.

Answer 50

Attention.

Question 51

Learners can process only a ___ (7 letters starting with l) amount of information at a time.

Answer 51

limited.

Question 52

What is cognitive load?

Answer 52

It is a certain amount of information that learners must simultaneously think about, along with certain ways that they must think about it, in order to make sense of and remember what they’re studying.

Question 53

Learners must be ___ about the information they study and learn to keep their cognitive load at a reasonable level.

Answer 53

selective.

Question 54

The limited capacity of working memory forces learners to condense, ___, and synthesize the information they receive.

Answer 54

organize.

Question 55

Learners might be able to expand the limited capacities of their attention and working memory, but if so, probably only _________.

Answer 55

a little bit.

Question 56

What is activation?

Answer 56

It is the process of preparing information ( either previously stored information or new information) for processing, in other words, by bringing information to working memory.

Question 57

Activation almost invariably spreads from one piece of information to ___ pieces, and this phenomenon is called ______.

Answer 57

associated; spreading activation.