Lecture 16 Flashcards
Why should we care about short term memory?
Think about all the things you do in a day. You are using your short-term memory all the time!
Think about all the stuff you do in a day
- you use short term memory in all of this.
- we use short term memory all the time
What do we know about H.M?
Patient H.M., Henry Molaison
H.M.’s difficulty with remembering events (and facts) from his life, in juxtaposition to his intact ability to carry on a conversation, hold onto a phone number, etc, inspired many models of how memory works. These models emphasize a distinction between short-term memory and long- term memory.
Patient H.M.
- had intact ability to keep a conversation
- obervations like this inspired many models in how memory works
What is the difference between short and long term memory?
● Short-term memory (STM): a temporary memory that is maintained through active rehearsal
(Something you are keeping in your minds eye on the fly
- ex: remembering a phone number
^- would have to memorize it on the spot in the past)
● Long-term memory (LTM): permanent or near-permanent storage of memory that lasts beyond a period of conscious attention
(Lasts beyond a period of conscious attention)
What is the atkinson Shiffrin modal model?
Incoming information flows first into something called sensory memory—brief, transient sensations of what you have just perceived when you have seen, heard, touched, smelled, or tasted something
Elements of sensory information that are attended to are then transitioned to short-term memory (STM)
There they go through various control processes and in some cases are transferred into long-term memory (LTM).
Sensory stimulation:
Visual Auditory Etc.
Less than a second (sensory stimulation)
attention:
Short-term Memory
(Maintained via rehearsal or lost)
Seconds
Long-term Memory
Greater than Seconds (Minutes/Hours/Lifetime)
What we see here is an information processing path
- simulation / sensory information from the enviornemnt, this get encoded into our sensory memory (this is
a very brief form of memory) senses such as hearing touch etc. Once this information is attended to it goes to
our short term memory, you pay attention to something it goes into our short term memory this can be maintained or
lost. If it is maintained by rehersal it is going to eneter long term memory
- if we pay attention to something and reherse it we will remember it for a very long time is what this model is poisting
- In this model we can see a bidirectional arrow between short and long term memory, the idea behind these arrows is
that we can pull information in long term memory and use it in shoryt term memeory
^- ex: math problem -> need to pull out our knowledhe of math to dealk with these numbers
There are a lot of models of both short and long term memory
- This is one model that brings them together
- This model is dealing with how short term memory goes from short term memory to long term memory
- This model has some pros and cons to it
- This model came out in 1969 -> decade after first paper came out about patient H.M.
- Here you have some boxes and arrows
The Atkinson– Shiffrin Modal Model (1968)
Pros
● 1. There are lots of ways in which
short- and long-term memory differ
● 2. There are a lot of ways in which
these systems interact
(lots of ways short and long term memory differ and this model shows
that they are distinct from one another)
● Cons
● 1. Issues with the term short-term
memory
● 2. Issues with referring to working
memory as a “place”
● 3. Emphasis on rehearsal
- There are lots of ways in which
short- and long-term memory differ
Pro: STM vs. LTM differ (Serial Position Curve)
Box Tower Bed Pants Phone Dresser Flower Button Fly
Here we are looking at the relationship between STM and LTM via a task that plots memory accourding to serial position curves
- If she were to give us the words above and then immediotaley after saying fly she asked to tell her all we remember and
^- we will tend to remember the items at the end of the list and then the items at the start of the list
Performance follows a U shape
First you recall the end of the list (recency), then the first words (the ones you rehearsed; primacy)
Primacy effect due to long-term memory
Recency effect due to short-term memory
What this graph is showing is that you tend to have a high probality of recall for items at the end of the
list, we call this the recenty affect and then we do not recall much in the middle but do remembner things
from the start of the list, we call this the primacy effect
- The arugment here is that the recenty is driven by short term memory and the long term affect is driven by
long term memory
^- the receny effect are the items that are still living in your memory (they are still active)
^^- these are the items you have access to
^^- if you impose a delay between asking and telling them the list, the recency effect is abolished
- primacy effect is from long term memory
^- you rhearse them over and over until they get into your long term memory but then the list gets to long to
be able to do this for all of them
H.M.
H.M.’s difficulty with remembering events (and facts) from his life, in juxtaposition to his intact ability to carry on a conversation, hold onto a phone number, etc, inspired many models of how memory works. These models emphasize a distinction between short-term memory and long- term memory.
- There are a lot of ways in which
these systems interact
Pro: STM and LTM Interactions
● Think about chunking!
● Chunking (breaking information into smaller bits) is an essential tool for controlling our short-term memory and using it effectively to temporarily store as much information as possible
lots of ways short and long term memory interact this is just one of them
ex: ppl might be presented with a list of letters and instead of remembering all letter they may remember arcynum and chuck bits of information as one unit
^- such as phone numbers being XXX-XXX-XXXX
^^- makes it easier for ppl to remember information because they are organizing it in certain ways
COME BACK TO THIS LATER!!!!!!!!!!!!
