Introduction to Memory + Memory (neuroscience) + Structure of Long-Term Memory

Question 1

Define memory.

Answer 1

Memory is the process involved in retaining, retrieving, and using information about stimuli, images, events, ideas, and skills after the original information is no longer present.

Question 2

Models are definitively limiting, but in what way do they help us understand processes like memory?

Answer 2

One of the advantages of models is that they help organise what we know about an area. They can also help suggest questions to ask.

Question 3

Mention a memory model you need to know about.

Answer 3

The modal model of memory (momome).

Question 4

Why is the modal model of memory (momome) named such?

Answer 4

It is called the modal model of memory (momome) because it included many of the features of memory models that were being proposed in the 1960s.

Question 5

The modal model of memory proposes a division in memory. Which?

Answer 5

1. Sensory memory
2. Short-term memory
3. Long-term memory

Question 6

What is sensory memory?

Answer 6

Sensory memory is a structural feature of the modal model of memory. It is the initial stage that holds all incoming information for seconds or fractions of a second.

Question 7

What is short-term memory?

Answer 7

Short-term memory is a structural feature of the modal model of memory. STM holds 5-7 items for about 15-30 seconds.

Question 8

What is long-term memory?

Answer 8

Long-term memory is a structural feature of the modal model of memory. LTM can hold a large amount of information for years or even decades.

Question 9

What are control processes? Give an example of a control process.

Answer 9

The modal model of memory also describes the memory system as including control processes, which are active processes that can be controlled by the person and may differ from one task to another. An example of a control process is rehearsal.

Question 10

The modal model of memory also describes the memory system as including control processes, which are active processes that can be controlled by the person and may differ from one task to another. An example of a control process is rehearsal. Give more examples of control processes.

Answer 10

1. Strategies you might use to help make a stimulus more memorable, such as relating the numbers in a phone number to a familiar date in history.
2. Strategies of attention that help you focus on information that is particularly important or interesting.

Question 11

The process of storing information in long-term memory is called …

Answer 11

Encoding.

Question 12

The process of remembering information that is stored in long-term memory is called …

Answer 12

Retrieval.

Question 13

What is the difference between sensory memory and short-term memory?

Answer 13

Sensory memory gives us the ability to see a film as a moving sequence. This could possibly simply be a feature of our sensory apparatus’, and not necessarily something to do with memory..?

Question 14

We’ve all heard about our ability to remember 5-7 things for a short while, but what does the evidence tell us? Mention an experiment.

Answer 14

George Sperling (1960) flashed an array of letters on a screen for 50 milliseconds, and asked his participants to report as many of the letters as possible. They were able to report an average of 4.5 out of the 12 letters.

Question 15

George Sperling (1960) flashed an array of letters on a screen for 50 milliseconds, and asked his participants to report as many of the letters as possible. They were able to report an average of 4.5 out of the 12 letters. Explain this finding.

Answer 15

1. Maybe the exposure was so brief that participants only SAW 4.5 out of the 12 letters. From what we know about the eyes, this is not very likely.
2. Perhaps participants saw most of the letters immediately after they were presented, but their perception faded rapidly as they were reporting them. More likely!

Question 16

George Sperling (1960) flashed an array of letters on a screen for 50 milliseconds, and asked his participants to report as many of the letters as possible. They were able to report an average of 4.5 out of the 12 letters. He was however unsure if this was due to perception or memory, and wanted to test that. How did he do it?

Answer 16

He deviced the partial report method to determine which of these two possibilities was correct. In the technique, he flashed the matrix for 50 ms, as before, but immediately after it flashed, he sounded one of the following cue tones, to indicate which row of letters the participants were to report. When the cue tones directed participants to focus their attention on one of the rows, they correctly reported an average of about 3,3 of the letters. (82%).

Question 17

According to George Sperlings (1960) famous memory study, we have the ability to perceive and briefly hold a lot of information for a very short time, but our memory fades rapidly. How rapidly?

Answer 17

He varied the time delay between the presentation of the matrix and the cue tones. The result of the delayed partial report experiments was that when the cue tones were delayed for 1 second after the flash, participants were able to report only slightly more than 1 letter in a row, the equivalent of about 4 letters for all three rows - the same number of letters they reported using the whole report method.

Question 18

Can you recite Luis Bunuel’s words on the importance of (long-term) memory? (From his memoirs)

Answer 18

You have to begin to lose your memory, if only in bits and pieces, to realise that memory is what makes our lives. Life without memory is no life at all … Our memory is our coherence, our reason, our feeling, even our action. Without it, we are nothing … (I can only wait for the final amnesia, the one that can erase an entire life, as it did my mother’s … )

Question 19

The early research on our Short-term memory focused on answering two questions. Which?

Answer 19

1. What is the duration of SMT?

2. How much information can STM hold?

Question 20

A great many memory experiments use a recall test. What is a recall test?

Answer 20

A recall test is a test in which participants are presented with stimuli and then, after a delay, are asked to remember as many of the stimuli as possible. Memory performance can be measured as a percentage of the stimuli that are remembered.

Question 21

Speculate: Would a person’s recall ability be the biggest contributing factor for his or hers performance in a multiple choice exam?

Answer 21

It would very likely be a factor, but some argue that the multiple choice exam is a recognition test and not a recall test. Recognition tests measure how skilled people are at picking out an item they have previously seen or heard from a number of other items that they have not seen or heard.

Question 22

Roughly outline the results of Lloyd Peterson and Margaret Peterson (1959)s experiments on STM duration.

Answer 22

Using a recall test, Peterson and Peterson found that participants were able to remember about 80 percent of the letters after counting for 3 seconds but could remember an average of only 12 percent of the three-letter groups after counting for 18 seconds.

Question 23

What was wrong about Peterson and Peterson’s results?

Answer 23

Nothing, but their analysis was slightly off. When looking more closely at their data, G. Keppel and Benton Underwood (1962) found that there was little difference between the 3 and 18 seconds groups on the first trial, but that there was a considerable drop-off in performance after the first few trials. They suggested, then, that the drop-off in memory was due not to decay of the memory trace, but to proactive interference.

Question 24

What is proactive interference?

Answer 24

Proactive interference is when information that was learned previously interferes with learning new information.

Question 25

What is a common way to measure the capacity of the STM?

Answer 25

One measure of the capacity of STM is provided by the digit span - the number of digits a person can remember.

Question 26

Critique the digit span measurement.

Answer 26

One might say that measuring the STM by digit span has low ecological validity. This was tested in a 2003 study by Groth-Marmat G and Baker S. The results indicated that it was a weak association between the results of a digit span test and the Test of Everyday Attention.

Question 27

What do we know about the capacity of the STM as measured by experiments?

Answer 27

It is somewhere between 4 items (flashing arrays of coloured squares) or 5 to 9 items (digit span).

Question 28

What is chunking?

Answer 28

Chunking is combining units together into one unit. I.e. words into sentences and smaller numbers into larger ones.

Question 29

What is meant by coding information?

Answer 29

Coding refers to the way information is represented.

Question 30

Determining how a stimulus is represented by the firing of neurons is a physiological approach to coding. What other approaches are there?

Answer 30

The cognitive psychologist might take the mental approach to coding, by asking how a stimulus or an experience is represented in the mind.

Question 31

What different types of mental coding is there?

Answer 31

1. Auditory coding
2. Visual coding
3. Semantic coding

Question 32

What is auditory coding?

Answer 32

Auditory coding involves representing items in STM based on their sound.

Question 33

What is visual coding?

Answer 33

Visual coding involves representing items visually, as would occur when remembering the details of a floor plan or the layout of streets on a map.

Question 34

What is semantic coding?

Answer 34

Semantic coding is representing items in terms of their meaning.

Question 35

Give an example of an experiment that hints at the existence of auditory coding.

Answer 35

R. Conrad (1964) had participants observe a number of target letters flashed briefly on a screen. They were told to write down the letters in the order they were represented. Conrad found that when participants made errors, they were most likely to misidentify the target letter as another letter that sounded like the target. From these results Conrad concluded that the code for STM is auditory, rather than visual.

Question 36

Give an example of an experiment that hints at the existence of visual coding.

Answer 36

Sergio Della Sala and coworkers (1999) conducted an experiment in which participants were presented with a task of remembering matrixes with shaded squares (you can create a range of difficulties). These are intuitively difficult to code verbally, so he assumed they were dependant on visual memory. He found that participants were able to complete patterns consisting of an average of 9 shaded squares before making mistakes.

Question 37

Give an example of an experiment that hints at the existence of semantic coding.

Answer 37

Delos Wickens and coworkers (1976) had participants listen to three words and did a recall test. As with any recall test, there were proactive interference. However, in this experiment, they first trials were done with words from a similar category (fruits). When, on the fourth trial, the three words were from a “professions” category, there was a release from proactive interference, and performance increased.

Question 38

“As research on STM progressed, it became apparent that the concept of STM as presented in the modal model was too narrow. “ Why?

Answer 38

The problem was that STM was described mainly as a short-term storage mechanism. But the role of STM extends beyond storage. It is also involved in the transfer of information to and from the LTM.

Question 39

“As research on STM progressed, it became apparent that the concept of STM as presented in the modal model was too narrow. “ The problem was that STM was described mainly as a short-term storage mechanism. But the role of STM extends beyond storage. It is also involved in the transfer of information to and from the LTM. What happened to models of STM after this?

Answer 39

( Baddeley & Hitch, 1974 ) proposed a model that tried to explain new findings. In this model, the short-term component of memory is called working memory. Working memory is defined as a limited-capacity system for temporary storage and manipulation of information for complex tasks such as comprehension, learning, and reasoning.

Question 40

( Baddeley & Hitch, 1974 ) proposed a model that tried to explain new findings. In this model, the short-term component of memory is called working memory. Working memory is defined as a limited-capacity system for temporary storage and manipulation of information for complex tasks such as comprehension, learning, and reasoning. How does the definition of working memory differ from short-term memory?

Answer 40

1. Short-term memory is concerned mainly with storing information for a brief period of time, whereas working memory is concerned with the manipulation of information that occurs during complex cognition.
2. Short-term memory consists of a single component, whereas working memory consists of a number of components.

Question 41

Short-term memory consists of a single component, whereas working memory consists of a number of components. Which components?

Answer 41

1. The phonological loop
2. The visuospatial sketch pad
3. Central executive.

Question 42

What is the phonological loop?

Answer 42

A part of Baddeley and Hitch’s working memory model. It holds verbal and auditory information.

Question 43

What are the different components of the phonological loop, and what do they do?

Answer 43

The phonological loop holds verbal and auditory information. It consists of two components: the phonological store, which has a limited capacity and holds information for only a few seconds; and the articulatory rehearsal process, which is responsible for rehearsal that an keep items in the phonological store from decaying.

Question 44

What is the visuospatial sketch pad?

Answer 44

A part of Baddeley and Hitch’s working memory model. It holds visual and spatial information.

Question 45

What is the central executive?

Answer 45

A part of Baddeley and Hitch’s working memory model. It is where the major work of working memory occurs. The central executive pulls information from the long term memory and coordinates the activity of the phonological loop and visuospatial sketch pad by focusing on specific parts of a task and switching attention from one part to another. One of the main jobs of the central executive is to decide how to divide attention between different tasks.

Question 46

Mention three phenomena that support the idea of a system specialised for language - the phonological loop.

Answer 46

1. Phonological similarity effect
2. Word length effect
3. Articulatory Suppression.

Question 47

A phenomena that supports the idea of a system specialised for language - the phonological loop, is the phonological similarity effect. What is it?

Answer 47

The phonological similarity effect is the confusion of letters or words that sound similar. R. Conrad (1964) had participants observe a number of target letters flashed briefly on a screen. They were told to write down the letters in the order they were represented. Conrad found that when participants made errors, they were most likely to misidentify the target letter as another letter that sounded like the target

Question 48

A phenomena that supports the idea of a system specialised for language - the phonological loop, is the word length effect. What is it?

Answer 48

The word length effect occurs when memory for lists of words is better for short words than for long words. Baddeley has theorised that it could be because it takes longer to rehearse the long words and to produce them during recall.

Question 49

A phenomena that supports the idea of a system specialised for language - the phonological loop, is the articulatory suppression. What is it?

Answer 49

Articulatory suppression is a phenomena where memory is reduced because speaking interferes with rehearsal. (the the the the .. )

Question 50

Mention an experiment on the visuospatial sketch pad.

Answer 50

1. Shepard and Metzler (1971) looked at the reaction time for deciding whether two geometrical 3d figures were the same, varying only the degree of orientational difference. There was a correlation between the degree of orientational difference and the time it took to produce a correct answer. Maybe because the participants have to mentally rotate the objects?

Question 51

Baddeley eventually added a component to his working memory model in order to account for more evidence. Why and which?

Answer 51

Chunking greatly increases our ability to remember items, and Baddeley decided it was necessary to propose an additional component of working memory to address these abilities. The new component he called the episodic buffer. It can store information and is connected to the LTM. It’s a work in progress, but represents a way of increasing storage capacity and communicate with the LTM.

Question 52

Humans have at least two qualitatively different systems of information storage. These are generally referred to as ..

Answer 52

1. declarative memory2. nondeclarative memory

Question 53

Humans have at least two qualitatively different systems of information storage. These are generally referred to as declarative memory and nondeclarative memory. What is declarative memory?

Answer 53

Declarative memory is the storage and retrieval of material that is available to consciousness and can in principle be expressed by language (i.e. “declared”).

Question 54

Humans have at least two qualitatively different systems of information storage. These are generally referred to as declarative memory and non declarative memory. What is nondeclarative memory?

Answer 54

Nondeclarative memory (also referred to as procedural memory) is not available to consciousness, at least not in any detail. Such memories involve skills and associations that are, but large, acquired and retrieved at an unconscious level.

Question 55

The ability to remember a phone number is an example of …. memory

Answer 55

Declarative

Question 56

Knowing how to use your phone to dial a number is an example of …… memory

Answer 56

Nondeclarative

Question 57

In addition to the types of memory defined by the nature of what is remembered, memory can also be categorised …

Answer 57

Memory can also be categorised according to the time over which it is effective.

Question 58

Three temporal classes of memory are generally accepted. Which?

Answer 58

1. Immediate memory2. Working memory3. Long-term memory

Question 59

What is meant by immediate memory, a temporal class of memory?

Answer 59

Immediate memory is the routine ability to hold ongoing experiences in mind for fractions of a second.

Question 60

How is the capacity of immediate memory?

Answer 60

The capacity of immediate memory is very large, and each sensory modality appears to have its own semi-independent “memory register”.

Question 61

What is meant by working memory, a temporal class of memory?

Answer 61

Working memory is the ability to hold and manipulate information in mind for seconds to minutes while it is used to achieve a particular goal.

Question 62

What is meant by long-term memory, a temporal class of memory?

Answer 62

Long-term memory entails retaining information in a more permanent form of storage for days, weeks, or even a lifetime.

Question 63

What is an engram?

Answer 63

Engram is the physical embodiment of any memory in the neuronal machinery. (I think it’s a cognitive psychology term)

Question 64

The way in which immediate and short-term memories are gradually encoded as long-term memories is called..

Answer 64

memory consolidation.

Question 65

Mention two experiments on priming that is relevant for memory consolidation.

Answer 65

1. In a commonly used test, the subject is presented at time 1 with a list of words to study and is later tested using a word-stem completion task. The stems could also be completed from list B, which comprises words the subject did not see during the initial session. Subjects typically complete the stems with about 25% more studied that unstudied words; this percentage represents the effect of priming.2. The information stored in priming is not particularly reliable. A list of nouns of sweet objects is read aloud to a subject, and they are later asked to write down as many as they can remember from this list. Typically, about half the students report that the word “sweet” was included in the list, even though it was not.

Question 66

Give examples on how meaning influences memory.

Answer 66

1. The person who holds the world record for remembering the most digits of pi (67, 000), did so by associating the digits with musical notes and singing the number strings.2. A college student who was paid to remember randomly presented numbers increased his skill by associating the numbers with dates or times at track meets (he was a runner).

Question 67

What is conditioned learning?

Answer 67

The generation of a novel response that is gradually elicited by repeatedly pairing a novel stimulus with a stimulus that normally elicits the response being studied.

Question 68

Which forms of conditioned learning do we know of?

Answer 68

1. Classical conditioning2. Operant conditioning

Question 69

What is classical conditioning?

Answer 69

Classical conditioning occurs when an innate reflex is modified by associating its normal triggering stimulus with an unrelated stimulus; by virtue of the repeated association, the unrelated stimulus eventually triggers the original response.

Question 70

Classical conditioning was famously demonstrated by whom?

Answer 70

The Russian psychologist Ivan Pavlov.

Question 71

What is operant conditioning?

Answer 71

Operant conditioning refers to the altered probability of a behavioural response produced by associating the response with a reward.

Question 72

What is the most famous study on operant conditoning?

Answer 72

Frederick Skinner’s experiments at Harvard, where pigeons or rats learned to associate pressing a lever with receiving a food pellet.

Question 73

If the conditioned animal performs the desired response but the reward is no longer provided, the conditioning gradually disappears, a phenomenon called…

Answer 73

extinction.

Question 74

The ability to forget unimportant information may be critical for normal life. Although forgetting is a normal and essential mental process, it can also be pathological, a condition called ..

Answer 74

amnesia

Question 75

Two different types of amnesia. Which?

Answer 75

1. Anterograde amnesia2. Retrograde amnesia

Question 76

What is anterograde amnesia?

Answer 76

Anterograde amnesia is an inability to establish new memories.

Question 77

What is retrograde amnesia?

Answer 77

Retrograde amnesia is a difficulty retrieving memories.

Question 78

Which structures are associated with declarative memory disorders?

Answer 78

1. Thalamus2. Hippocampus3. Fornix4. Amygdala5. Mammillary body

Question 79

The hippocampus is located …

Answer 79

In the medial temporal lobe.

Question 80

There is an idea that long-term memory traces are distributed over the entire cortex. This was studied by Karl Lashley in the 1920s. What were his findings?

Answer 80

Lashley worked with rats and maze-learning whilst removing cortex. He summarised his findings in terms of what he called the mass action principle, which states that any degradation in learning and memory depends on the amount of cortex destroyed; and that the more complex the learning task, the more disruptive the lesion.

Question 81

“fun” fact: how was electroconvulsive therapy invented?

Answer 81

This remarkably useful treatment was discovered because depression in epileptics often remitted after a spontaneous seizure.

Question 82

What are common negative consequences of electroconvulsive therapy?

Answer 82

ECT often causes both anterograde and retrograde amnesia. Patients typically do not remember the treatment itself or the events of the preceding days, and their recall of events over the previous 1-3 years can be affected.

Question 83

How does our knowledge of electroconvulsive therapy aid us in our quest for knowledge of the localisation of memory?

Answer 83

The nature of amnesia following ECT supports the conclusion that long-term declarative memories are widely stored in the cerebral cortex, since the sis the part of the brain predominantly affected by this therapy.

Question 84

The retrieval of memories appears to involve which parts of the cortex?

Answer 84

The association cortexes, particularly the frontal cortex.

Question 85

Patients such as H.M., N.A., and R.B. had no difficulties establishing or recalling nondeclarative memories, indicating that such information is laid down using a different anatomical substrate from that used in declarative memory formation. Nondeclarative memory apparently involves …

Answer 85

.. the basal ganglia, prefrontal cortex, amygdala, sensory association cortexes, and cerebellum - but not the medial temporal lobe or midline diencephalon.

Question 86

Simple sensory-motor conditioning such as learning to blink following a tone that predicts a puff of air directed at the eye is severely reduced if ..

Answer 86

If the patient has suffered damage to the cerebellum.

Question 87

Learning new motor skills is incredibly difficult if you have suffered damage to …

Answer 87

the basal ganglia and prefrontal cortex.

Question 88

Memory and Aging. What is the most obvious way, post-mortem, you can see the brain deterioration from aging?

Answer 88

The average weight of the normal human brain steadily decreases from early adulthood onward.

Question 89

What is dementia?

Answer 89

Dementia is a syndrome characterised by failure of recent memory and other intellectual functions. It is usually insidious(stealthy) in onset but tends to progress steadily.

Question 90

What is the most common dementia?

Answer 90

Alzheimer’s disease is the most common dementia, accounting for 60-80% of cases in the elderly.

Question 91

Alzheimer’s disease afflicts a percentage of the U.S. population. X%

Answer 91

5-10%

Question 92

How many percent of the population over 85 years suffer from alzheimer’s disease?

Answer 92

45%.

Question 93

What are the earliest signs of Alzheimer’s disease?

Answer 93

Impairment of recent memory function and attention, followed by failure of language skills, visual-spatial orientation, abstract thinking and judgement.

Question 94

A tentative diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease is based on characteristic clinical features, but can only be confirmed by the distinctive cellular pathology evident in the post mortem brain. What are these histopathological changes?

Answer 94

1. Collections of intraneuronal cytoskeletal filaments called neurofibrillary tangles.2. Extracellular deposits of an abnormal proteins (called amyloid) in so-called senile plaques. 3. A diffuse loss of neurons.

Question 95

The histopathological changes present in the Alzheimer brain are most prominent in which structures?

Answer 95

1. Neocortex2. Limbic structures3. Brainstem nuclei

Question 96

Which structures are limbic structures?

Answer 96

1. Hippocampus2. Amygdala3. The cortices associated with those two.

Question 97

What seems to cause the early-onset AD?

Answer 97

Mutations of the APP (amyloid precursor protein) gene on chromosome 21.

Question 98

Why did researchers look at chromosome 21 for the cause of the early-onset AD?

Answer 98

Investigators long suspected that a mutant gene responsible for familial AD might reside on chromosome 21, primarily because clinical and neuropathology features similar to AD often occur in individuals with Down syndrome (which is caused by an extra copy of chromosome 21), but with a much earlier onset.

Question 99

What is apolipoprotein E (ApoE)?

Answer 99

Apolipoprotein E is a protein that normally chaperones cholesterol through the bloodstream. Warren Strittmatter and Guy Salvesen discovered this protein when they took the CSF of Alzheimer’s patients and mixed it with amyloid beta. Apolipoprotein E was found to bind to amyloid with great affinity.

Question 100

What is a protein isoform?

Answer 100

A protein isoform is any of several different forms of the same protein. Different forms of a protein may be produced from very closely related gene duplicates.

Question 101

Apolipoprotein E was found to bind to amyloid beta. Margaret Periack-Vance, Allen Roses and their colleagues had an interesting finding as well. What was it?

Answer 101

They found that affected members of some families with the late-onset form of Ad exhibited an association with genetic markers on chromosome 19. This finding was of particular interest because a gene encoding an isoform of ApoE is located in the same region of chromosome 19 implicated by the association studies.

Question 102

ApoE has how many alleles?

Answer 102

It has three major alleles: e2, e3, and e4.

Question 103

How do late-onset AD patients differ in their alleles for ApoE?

Answer 103

The frequency of allele e4 in the general population is 0.14, but in late-onset AD patients it’s 0.52.

Question 104

How many percent of individuals that have no alleles of e4 develop AD by age 75?

Answer 104

20%

Question 105

How many percent of individuals that have two copies of allele e4 develop Alzheimer by age 75?

Answer 105

90%

Question 106

Inheriting the e4 form of ApoE means you will get AD?

Answer 106

No. It increases the risk, and especially if you have both copies of it. But it’s not definitive.

Question 107

Short: What is the Fornix?

Answer 107

The fornix (Latin: arch) is a C-shaped bundle of nerve fibers in the brain that carries signals from the hippocampus to the mammillary bodies and then to the anterior nuclei of thalamus.

Question 108

Short: What is the mammilary body?

Answer 108

The mammillary bodies are a pair of small round bodies, located on the undersurface of the brain that, as part of the diencephalon, form part of the limbic system. They are located at the ends of the anterior arches of the fornix. Neuroanatomists have often categorized the mammillary bodies as part of the hypothalamus.

Question 109

R. Conrad (1964) had participants observe a number of target letters flashed briefly on a screen. They were told to write down the letters in the order they were represented. Conrad found that when participants made errors, they were most likely to misidentify the target letter as another letter that sounded like the target. From these results Conrad concluded that the code for STM is auditory, rather than visual. Critique this conclusion.

Answer 109

My hypothesis is that maybe this has something to do with whether the participants are reading it out loud or not. I think that his method encourages this, and that if all the letters were flashed on the screen at the same time the results might have been different.

Question 110

What is Korsakoff’s syndrome?

Answer 110

Korsakoff’s syndrome is a condition caused by a prolonged deficiency of vitamin B1, usually as a result of chronic alcoholism. The deficiency leads to the destruction of areas in the frontal and temporal lobes, which causes severe and permanent impairments in memory.

Question 111

The distinction between STM and LTM was studied in a classic experiment by B. B. Murdoch, Jr. (1962). Describe the study method and results.

Answer 111

He had participants read a list of words, then did a recall test. He discovered a recency effect and a primacy effect. Recent words were easily remembered, and the first words on the list were easily remembered.

Question 112

The distinction between STM and LTM was studied in a classic experiment by B. B. Murdoch, Jr. (1962). He had participants read a list of words, then did a recall test. He discovered a recency effect and a primacy effect. Recent words were easily remembered, and the first words on the list were easily remembered. His experiments, and the later follow-up experiments conducted by other researchers go by the name of a data presentation. Which?

Answer 112

The serial position curve. It indicates the percentage recall of each words against the word’s position on the list.

Question 113

What can explain the primacy effect in the serial position curve experiments?

Answer 113

One hypothesis is that the primacy effect occurs because participants have more time to rehearse earlier words on the list.

Question 114

One hypothesis to the cause of the primacy effect is that it occurs because participants have more time to rehearse earlier words on the list. Has this been tested?

Answer 114

Yes. Dewey Rundus (1971) derived a serial position curve by presenting a lost of 10 words at a rate of 1 word every 5 seconds and then asking participant sot write down all the words. This produced about the same results as the original experiment. He added a twist to his experiment by asking his participants to study the list as it was being presented by repeating the words out loud during the 5-second interval between words. His results indicated that the words presented early in the list were rehearsed more, and they were more likely to be remembered later. This result supports the idea that the primacy effect is related to the longer rehearsal time available for the earlier words on the list.

Question 115

We know that the STM has different “codes”. Is this also true for the LTM?

Answer 115

Yes. All three (semantic, auditory, visual) codes seem to be occurring in LTM. However, the most important code, seems to be semantic.

Question 116

Has there been performed research on LTM coding?

Answer 116

Jacqueline Sachs (1967) has participants listen to a tape recording of a passage and then measured the recognition memory to determine whether they remembered the exact wording of the sentences in the passage, or the general meaning of the passage. The latter was true. The finding that specific wording is forgotten by the general meaning can be remembered for a long time has been confirmed in many experiments.

Question 117

What are dissociations?

Answer 117

One of the basic principles of neuropsychology is that we can understand the effects of brain damage by studying dissociations - situations in which one function is absent while another function is present.

Question 118

What is a double dissociation, and why are they valuable to neuropsychology?

Answer 118

Alice can’t name objects, but she can reach to where it is located on the table when asked to. We can illustrate a double dissociation by finding another person who has one function present and another absent, but in a way opposite to Alice.Establishing a double dissociation enables us to conclude that two functions are served by different mechanisms and that these mechanism operate independently of one another.

Question 119

Use double dissociations to amount evidence for the hypothesis that STM and LTM are caused by different mechanisms.

Answer 119

1. Patients such as H.M. had functioning STM, but was unable to create new LTMs.
2. Patients such as K.F. had a normally functioning LTM, but had very poor STM as measured by digit span.

These essentially have the opposite problems, and function as a double dissociation for STM and LTM.

Question 120

What has been done to locate short- and long-term memory in the brain?

Answer 120

Both studies using dissociation and brain imaging.

Question 121

What brain imaging studies has been done on locating short-term and long-term memory in the brain?

Answer 121

Deborah Talmi and coworkers (2005) measured the fMRI response to tasks involving STM and LTM. They gave participants a list of words, and instead of a recall test they used a “probe word” - a word from an early or late position in the list that either occurred or did not occur. Probe words from the beginning of the list activated areas of the brain associated with both LTM and SMT, and probe words from the end of the list only activated areas of the brain associated with STM.

Important: The results of there brain imaging experiments have not been as clear-cut.

Question 122

Another word for declarative memory is …

Answer 122

Explicit memory.

Question 123

Another word for nondeclarative memory is …

Answer 123

Implicit memory.

Question 124

How do we distinguish between episodic and semantic memory?

Answer 124

These are both a type of explicit, declarative memory. Semantic memory is for facts, and episodic is for events. This is a distinction between the types of information that is being remembered. It is also possible to distinguish between them by the experience associated with each: episodic requires a kind of mental time travel.

Question 125

Semantic and episodic memory are both declarative memory types. They are often distinguished from each other. It is possible to distinguish between them by the experience associated with each: episodic requires a kind of mental time travel. If they are different in the way they behave, are they also different in the way they are? I.e. are they served by different mechanisms?

Answer 125

There has been found a double dissociation of episodic and semantic memory.
Case: K.C. lost his episodic memory as a result of severe damage to his hippocampus and surrounding structures. He is aware of the fact that his brother is dead, but cannot recall any experiences related to the death.
Case: Italian woman who suffered an attack of encephalitis at age 44. Later she suffered memory deficiencies such as failure to remember facts, or recognise famous people. She however had no trouble remembering events in her life.

Question 126

A double dissociation was found between semantic and episodic memory. Mention why this might not necessarily indicate that they are served by different mechanisms?

Answer 126

Although the double dissociation sports the idea of separate mechanisms for semantic and episodic memory, interpretation of the results of studies of brain-damaged patients is often tricky because the extent of brain damage often differs from patient to patient. In addition, the method of testing patients may differ in different studies. I also think it is problematic to generalise from brain damaged patients to the general population because of the extent of neuroplasticity.

Question 127

A double dissociation was found between semantic and episodic memory, but this is not sufficient evidence for the conclusion that they are served by different mechanisms. Are there other studies on this?

Answer 127

Evidence for separate mechanisms has also been provided by the results of brain imaging experiments. One study by Brian Levine and coworkers (2004) had participants keep diaries on audiotape describing everyday personal events, and facts drawn from their semantic knowledge. They later listened to these while in an fMRI scanner. The results indicated that while there is overlap between activation caused by episodic and semantic memories, there are major differences. This has been confirmed by other studies.

Question 128

There are a lot of connections in function between episodic and semantic memory. No research is cited in the book, but please mention anecdotal evidence for this connection.

Answer 128

1. Episodic memories can be lost, leaving only semantic memories.
2. Semantic memory can be enhanced if associated with episodic memory.
3. Semantic memory can influence our experience by influencing attention.

Question 129

Define priming.

Answer 129

Priming occurs when the presentation of one stimulus changes the response to a subsequent test stimulus, either positively or negatively.

Question 130

Priming occurs when the presentation of one stimulus changes the response to a subsequent test stimulus, either positively or negatively. Positively, how?

Answer 130

Positive priming which causes an increase in speed or accuracy of the response to the test stimulus.

Question 131

Priming occurs when the presentation of one stimulus changes the response to a subsequent test stimulus, either positively or negatively. Negatively how?

Answer 131

Negative priming, which causes a decrease in the speed or accuracy of response to the test stimulus.

Question 132

Repetition priming is what?

Answer 132

It occurs when the test stimulus is the same as or resembles the priming stimulus.

Question 133

Conceptual priming is what?

Answer 133

It occurs when the enhancement caused by the priming stimulus is based on the meaning of the stimulus. (e.g. the nail needle-task)

Question 134

Priming usually involves which category of memory?

Answer 134

Implicit memory.

Question 135

What studies have been performed on implicit memory?

Answer 135

Peter Graf and coworkers (1985) tested the memory function of amnesiacs with a method that both tested implicit memory through priming, and explicit memory through recall. They presented a list of words to the participants and asked them to rate them on a scale based on how much they liked the word. Then they were later asked either to recall the words presented or to complete three-letter fragments. The results were astounding: as expected the amnesia patients had poor recall, but they performed just as well as the controls in the implicit memory task.

Question 136

Peter Graf and his coworkers study of memory function of amnesiacs was a controlled laboratory experiment. Are there ecological studies on implicit memory and priming as well?

Answer 136

Lots! One is by T.J. Prefect and C. Askew (1994) who had participants scan articles in a magazine. Each page of print was faced by an advertisement. They were later told to rate a number of advertisements on various dimensions, such as how appealing, eye-catching, distinctive, and memorable they were. They gave higher ratings to the ones they had been exposed to than to other advertisements that they had never seen. When asked about which advertisements they recognised as having seen before, they only recognised on average 2.8 of the original advertisements.

Question 137

T.J.Prefect and C. Askew (1994) did a study that showed an effect that is very similar to a known effect of psychology. Which?

Answer 137

The propaganda effect: an effect in which participants are more likely to rate statements they have read or heard before as being true, simply because they have been exposed to them before. (if this is done on psychology students, that’s honestly a valid strategy seeing as most recently read statements are on the curriculum and could be relevant for an exam. Has this been tested on non-students?) This effect is true even when the person is told that the statements are false when they first read or hear them. (Begg et al., 1992).

Question 138

Procedural memory, or skill memory, has been shown to function in patients that are otherwise memory impaired. Mention one case.

Answer 138

1. H.M., whose amnesia was caused by having his hippocampus removed. He practiced a task called mirror drawing, and became better each time although he consistently believed that he was doing it for the very first time.