Lecture 4 Flashcards
Clive Wearing
Memory imperfectly erased blackboard (as opposed to blank slate)
-Importance of this case
—unrivaled importance of learning and memory
—many different kinds of memory (not a single cohesive process)
What is memory
Key aspect of what makes us human
—it’s the capacity to preserve and recover information
Primary memory
-Active and conscious
-rapidly accessed
-limited in capacity
-forgotten quickly
(Short term)
Secondary memory
-Not currently in consciousness
-accessed more slowly
-unlimited in capacity
-forgotten quickly quickly
(Long term)
Modal model of memory
3 interconnected memory systems
1. Sensory
2. Short term
3. Long term
-Atkinson and shiffrin
—input from environment-> sensory memory -> short term memory (recall and rehearsal loop) -> long term memory (rehearsal and retrieval)
Sensory memory
Buffer system for stimuli received through the senses
-decays quickly
-large amounts of info
2 empirical findings
1. Something that looks or sounds like a stimulus continues to be present for a short time after stimulus is presented
2. Info can be extracted for a short time after stimulus is removed
Iconic sensory memory
Visual
-decays rapidly if not transferred to short term
Simplest type of memory
—early stages are probable best regarded as aspects of perception
Echoed sensory memory
Auditory
-decays rapidly if not transfer to short term
-simplest type of memory
—will need to fully be integrated with a broader theory of speech perception
Short term memory
Temporary storage of small amounts of material over brief delays
-attended info is retained for a short time (<18 seconds)
-limited capacity
-receives both info from sensory and long term
Short term memory
Temporary storage of small amounts of material over brief delays
-attended info is retained for a short time (<18 seconds)
-limited capacity
-receives both info from sensory and long term
Testing short term memory
-asses amount of info an individual can store after a single exposure
—tested either immediately or with short term delay
—retention span
Digit span test
-start with 2 or 3 digits
-increase until participant cannot realest list without error
—normal range is 7 +/- 2
Rehearsal
Process of maintains info in short term memory
-if you get distracted by something else you are likely to forget some or all of the items
Rehearsal prevention task
Task that prevents participants from maintaining info in ST
Chunking
Strategy to increase capacity of short term memory by arranging elements in groups that can be more easily remembered
-STM can usually contain only about 7 items (even chunked)
Pronunciation time
Amount of time it would take to say aloud items being rehearsed
Word length effect
Longer words are more difficult to maintain in working memory than shorter words
Working memory
Stores and manipulates info as to allow people to perform complex tasks
-can be viewed as an alternate/more delayed/more dynamic version of STM
Cognitive control
Also known as executive control/function
-manipulation of info in working memory allows us to
-plan
-task switch
-attention
-inhibition of inappropriate behaviors
Phonological loop
Maintains auditory memories by internal (subvocal) speech rehearsal
Visuospatial sketchpad
Holds visual and spatial images for manipulation
Episodic buffer
Hold info integrated across phonological loop, VS sketchpad and long term memory for a brief period of time
Central executive
Monitors and manipulates both working memory and buffers
-the “working” component of working memory allows us
Abilities:
-adding/deleting items in buffers
-selecting among items in order to guide behavior
N-back task
Participants are read seemingly random list of items (ex. Numbers)
- a certain item is a target
-whenever target is read, participant is to respond with the number that was read N numbers ago
Long term memory
-consists of info that is stored and brought back to short term memory for immediate use
-consists of many different division
Non-declarative memory
Associated with behavior that does not require conscious thought
Procedural memory
Concerned with mowing how to do things
Priming
Recognition of a particular item is facilitated by previous exposure to identical/similar item (the prime)
Spreading activation
Can be used to interpret the priming effects of words that are semantically related
Declarative memory
Contains knowledge that can be stated
Episodic memory
-details of personal life
Retrograde amnesia
Intact semantic knowledge, no personal episodic memory
-severity of damage predictive of how much loss
-almost always accompanied by anterograde amnesia
Anterograde amnesia
Loss of ability to form new memories
—Clive wearing
Semantic memory
Deals with general knowledge
Semantic dementia
Loos or inaccessibility to facts and concepts
Butcher-on-the-bus phenomenon
Feeling of knowing a person without ability to remember and previous meeting or anything else about them
Tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon
Knowing you know something without being able to quite recall it
-generic recall (recalling parts or attributes)
-may recall later after effort to recall has stopped
Hippocampus
-Part of limbic system
-associated with learning and memory
—encodes new memories
(Both conscious and unconscious)
—when we retrieve info it becomes activated
Bilateralism
There is a hippocampus in each hemisphere
-left has more responsibility with verbal memory
-right involved with memory of spatial world and directions within
Infantile amnesia
We recall very few memories from infancy and erly childhood
-goals of baby very different from those of adult
—development of other systems more important
-not a well developed self-system necessary for retrieval cues
Reminiscence bump
Increased recall of events between ages 10 and 30
-many first time, distinctive events occur during this time
—a critical period for self-development
Memory and aging
-healthy aging versus onset of pathology
-episodic memory declines while semantic memory is much less affected
—many older adults show negative self appraisal with their cognitive skills
Associative deficit hypothesis
Older adults have a deficiency in creating and retrieving links between single units of info
-ex. Face to name
Paired associative learning
Objects frequently seen together become linked in the mind (human memory relies heavily on associations)
-PAL is learning and recalling associations of two pieces of info
—unrelated pairs are harder to learn
Cue-response (word-word)
Learning phase:
-participants hear list of cue-response word pairs
Test phase:
-participants produce response given cue word
Bilinguals
Have less experience with one language (usage and experience is split)
-worse performance on language related tasks
-better executive control and distraction inhibition
—helps inhibit irrelevant associations
Aging and experience
As we age, we have more info/experiences stored
-we are continually encountering new words
Experience brings increasing info processing loads
-remembering birthdays
—performance confounded with age
Semantic diversity
Measures content variability of contexts of words we occur
-builds words strength based on semantic uniqueness in context
—captures association between words indirectly
SD as a measure of association
Words high in SD have both more association to other words in lexicon, and stronger levels of association
-high SD words should be relatively more difficult to form new associations
