Lecture 14: Memory Flashcards
1
Q
What is memory?
A
- There is a lot more to memory than retrieving facts. *Memory has 3 function:
1. Natural inference system that allows us to store a few facts and derive others as needed.
2. Relate new events prior knowledge in order to understand them.
3. Deliver relevant knowledge when it is needed.
2
Q
What are the different types of memory?
A
- Long - term memory
- Explicit memory (Declarative memory) - memory with conscious recall.
- Episodic memory - Events you have experienced.
- Semantic memory - General knowledge. facts.
- Implicit memory (Non - declarative memory) - Memory without conscious recall.
- Procedural memory - motor skills, actions.
3
Q
What does the basic memory process?
A
- Encoding - code information and put into memory.
- Storage - Maintenance of information in memory/
- Retrieval - Recovering information from memory and bringing it into consciousness.
4
Q
What is encoding?
A
- Implicit information is treated bottom up (data driven)
- Few reinterpretation.
- Passive role.
- Explicit information is treated top down (concept driven)
- information is processed and reinterpreted before storing
- Active role (different for certain autistics).
5
Q
In what form is information encoded in the short term store?
A
- Early view was that information in short term memory was held in an acoustic verbal code (speech - like)
- Evidence: Conrad (1654) presented strings of letters visually to participants and recorded what kind of errors they made.
- When Ps incorrectly recalled some of the letters, they were most likely to recall a letter that sounded like the correct one they had seen.
- Evidence: Wickelgren (1995) found that recall was worse when distracter items rhymed with the items to be learned. Again evidence that the code was speech like.
- These studies led researchers to the conclusion that the short term store holds and uses a verbally based code, related to the spoken names of the stimuli.
- This is referred to as the acoustic - articulatory code because either
- The actual sound - acoustic code / The pronunciation - articulatory code could be important.
- Research has found that the short term store could retain semantic and visual codes too.
6
Q
What are multi - store models?
A
- Memory stores form the basic structure.
- Processes such as attention and rehearsal control the flow of information between them. But main emphasis was on structure.
7
Q
What is the sensory memory?
A
- Both visual and auditory stores hold more information that we can process.
- We need to attend to certain items in order to r- remember them.
- Two key characteristics:
- Limited capacity - measures of digit span (how many numbers people can recall)
- Fragility of storage:
- Information decays rapidly from the short term storage.
- Interference affects short term store.
8
Q
What is limited capacity?
A
*Grouping digits into smaller chunks makes it easier to remember than without.
9
Q
What is the fragility of storage?
A
DECAY
- Brown - Peterson effect
- Participants asked to study sets of 3 letters.
- Participants tried to recall original letters.
- Performance declined with the delay before recall.
INTERFERENCE
- Old information interferes with the ability to learn new material.
- If the task is to remember XCJ, HBR, TSV, then to also remember KRN would be difficult because the older items interfere with your ability to learn new items.
- But if the last item is 164, then the task is easier because it doesn’t interfere with what you have already done.
10
Q
What is the short term memory (STM)?
A
- The information processing approach sees STM as a short store of information that is later transported into LTM.
- Bradley & Hitch (1974) proposed a different view of STM which focuses on how information is used not just stored.
11
Q
What problems are there with the storage only model?
A
*By mid 1970s all sorts of role and functions were being attributed to the short term store, including problem solving comprehension and reasoning.
12
Q
What evidence is there to show that the 7+/-2 store might now be sufficient?
A
- Case studies of individuals with specific impairments in different types of short term memory recall.
- An individual who had a digit span of just two items which would suggest that her entire short term memory system was severely impaired/damaged.
- The short term store must consist of something other than a store - there must be other components capable of performing these other tasks.
13
Q
What is the Working memory?
A
- Bradley and Hitch (1974) argued in a now classic chapter, that the traditionally defined short term store is simply part of a larger system.
- This larger system they argued, was compromised of three components:
- Executive control system/central executive: supervises and regulates information in working memory. Allocates mental resources to tasks.
- Articulatory rehearsal loop/phonological loop: retention of verbal phonetic information.
- Visuospatial scratchpad: deals with the retention of visual information.
14
Q
What are the predictions of the Working memory model?
A
- If 2 tasks make use of the same component, they cannot be successfully performed together.
- If 2 tasks make use of different components, it should be possible to perform them as well as together as separately.
- Listening and doodling make use of separate working memory components - thus there is little competition for global mental resources which essentially increases your cognitive load and reduces performance.
15
Q
What Neurological evidence is there for the executive control system?
A
- From people with very specific deficits in certain cognitive abilities; say, the ability to recall sequences of digits like patient PV who had a digit span of only two.
- This suggests that the part of working memory dealing with the recall of digits can be selectively impaired. IF so, this suggests it is a separate component.
