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PSY270 > Lecture 4: Short-Term Memory > Flashcards

Lecture 4: Short-Term Memory Flashcards

1
Q

What do we want to know about memory?

A
  • type of things our memory can hold
  • limiting factors of memory
  • processes that allow information to enter and exit memory
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2
Q

Describe the Atkinson-Shiffrin multi-store (modal) model of memory.

A
  • structural, serial, modular
  • memory stores: sensory, short-term, long-term
  • control processes: attention, rehearsal, transfer and retrieval
  • basic structure guideline
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3
Q

What is sensory memory?

A
  • limited capacity store (9-12 items) that holds basic sensory information for a very limited amount of time
  • different store for each of our senses
  • attention helps pass items in sensory store on to short-term memory
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4
Q

What are the limiting factors of short-term memory?

A
  • without rehearsal the duration of STM is only a few seconds (~10-30 s)
  • rehearsal keeps information in STM and helps pass it on to long-term memory
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5
Q

What is the “magic number” for short-term memory?

A

7±2

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6
Q

What did Naveh-Benjamin & Ayres discover about short-term memory?

A
  • when asking participants to remember a series of numbers, mean syllables per digit was inversely proportional the digit span in memory items
  • suggests that information in STM is stored acoustically
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7
Q

What evidence is there that information in the short-term memory is stored acoustically?

A
  • Naveh-Benjamin & Ayres study

- STM span is smaller for rhyming lists

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8
Q

How did Luck & Vogel discover the limit of visual short term memory

A
  • projected boxes with an assortment of items
  • after a delay subjects were shown another projection and asked if the boxes were the same
  • 1-3 items showed near-perfect accuracy, 4+ showed a sharp decline
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9
Q

What did Vogel & Michizawa discover about short-term memory?

A
  • using the Luck & Vogel boxes, they measured ERP from brain
  • brain activity plateaued after 4 items
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10
Q

What technique did Sternberg develop to research how items were retrieved from short-term memory?

A
  • participants asked to memorize or ignore a number of letters
  • after baseline period they decide whether they recognized a probe item as coming from what they had to memorize
  • manipulates number of mental scans but keeps encoding and response constant
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11
Q

What did Sternberg discover from his studies into short-term memory?

A

Reaction time increased as list length increased

Reaction time for present and absent trials was approximately the same

Overall, data suggests a serial exhaustive search
- May be parallel search but more load burdens the process

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12
Q

Describe the Brown-Peterson task.

A
  • present thing to remember
  • count backwards to prevent rehearsal
  • recall
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13
Q

What is interference theory?

A
  • theory of forgetting from short-term memory

Retroactive interference (RI): inhibitory effects of new information on old information

Proactive interference (PI): inhibitory effects of old information on new information

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14
Q

What did Wicken’s study show about memory?

A
  • several sets of fruits to memorize
  • final set was either fruits, vegetables, or careers
  • memory for careers set increased dramatically
  • shows effects of proactive interference
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15
Q

What is working memory?

A
  • limited capacity system but (like attention) it is not determined by any one factor
  • allows us to both temporarily store and manipulate information
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16
Q

Describe Baddeley’s working memory model.

A
  • consists of 3 auxiliary storage systems under central control
    > visuo-spatial sketchpad
    > phonological loop
    > episodic long-term memory
17
Q

What is the phonological loop?

A
  • limited storage for acoustic/verbal information
    > Phonological store
    > Articulatory rehearsal process
  • articulatory suppression provides evidence for articulatory rehearsal process
    > impairs mental arithmetic and reading comprehension
18
Q

What is the visuo-spatial sketchpad?

A
  • separate, limited short-term memory storage component for visual/spatial information
    > processing in visuospatial sketchpad mirrors processing of real items
19
Q

What is the episodic buffer?

A
  • used to integrate information from different modalities into a complete memory
    > binds information from WM components and LTM
  • limited capacity
  • controlled by central executive
20
Q

What is the central executive?

A
  • control centre for working memory
  • considered attentional control mechanism
  • required for initiating retrieval, planning actions and integrating information
  • does not have any storage capacity itself, but has attentional resources that can be shared among components
21
Q

What did Vogel et al. discover about the central executive in working memory?

A
  • people with high working memory capacity are better able to inhibit irrelevant information

In experiment:

  • high capacity processed two items and two items with distractors with the same amount of brain activity
  • low capacity processed two items with distractors and four items with the same amount of brain activity
22
Q

Compare and contrast dual task method and operation span.

A

DUAL TASK METHOD

  • based on the idea that WM resources are attentional resources
  • more cognitive load = more attentional resources used
  • researchers are interested in what happens to performance as WM resources become unavailable

OPERATION SPAN
- task requires storage and processing at the same time
(do the math problem + remember the words)
- span tasks correlate with many everyday tasks, including academic performance
- researchers are interested in individual differences in task performance

23
Q

How do we chunk information in memory?

A
  • put into meaningful units based on information in long-term memory
24
Q

Why is short-term memory span smaller for rhyming lists?

A
  • phonological similarity effect

- proves that some information is stored verbally/acoustically

25
Q

What did Posner discover about attention?

A
  • attentional shift to a target area occurs prior to any eye movement
  • spatial attention is not completely reliant on conscious visual input
26
Q

What is the articulatory rehearsal process?

A
  • converts sensory information into verbal codes
27
Q

What is articulatory suppression?

A
  • any kinds of sounds made when trying to rehearse an item (saying “lalalalala” during delay)
  • uses up rehearsal coding
  • impairs math and reading comprehension
28
Q

Give one example of retroactive and proactive interference.

A

If a student who is fluent in French starts learning Italian…

RETROACTIVE:
- they have trouble going back to French and only recall the Italian words

PROACTIVE:
- they have trouble learning Italian because the French is similar enough to throw them off

29
Q

What is recoding?

A
  • process of grouping items together, then remembering the newly formed groups
30
Q

What is release from PI?

A
  • release from proactive interference
  • when decline in performance caused by proactive interference is reversed because of a switch in the to-be-remembered stimuli
  • i.e. Wickens memory study fruits vs. vegetables vs. flowers vs. jobs
31
Q

What is a serial position curve?

A
  • graph of item-by-item accuracy on a recall task

- serial position refers to original position an item had in a study list

32
Q

What is a serial exhaustive search?

A
  • way in which information is retrieved from short-term memory according to Sternberg
  • memory set is scanned one item at a time (serial)
  • entire set is scanned on every trial, whether or not a match is found (exhaustive)
33
Q

What is the phonological store?

A
  • passive store component of phonological loop

- holds on to verbal information

34
Q

What is the articulatory loop?

A
  • component of the phonological loop involved in the active refreshing of information in the phonological store
35
Q

What is boundary extension?

A
  • when people tend to misremember more of a scene than was actually viewed, as of the boundaries of an image were extended further out
  • shows visuo-spatial sketchpad adding previous knowledge to a memory
36
Q

What is representational momentum?

A
  • phenomenon of misremembering the movement of an object further along its path of travel than where it actually was when it was last seen

PSY270 (10 decks)

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