Lecture 7 Flashcards
What is episodic and semantic memory and what tends to be most affected in temporal lobe amnesia?
Episodic memory (what, where and when?) is disrupted in temporal lobe amnesia, but semantic memory (ability to pull up facts, e.g capital of france or meaning of words)? Tends to be unaffected. Skill learning is also intact.
What is priming and what is the result for temporal lobe amnesia individuals
Priming involves presenting a word (e.g Hare for a brief (35 ms)) time period, if a word fragment is given such as (H_R_) they will then be more likely to spell out the primed word. This occurs for both individuals with temporal lobe amnesia and for normal individuals.
Habits and temporal lobe amnesia?
habits are intact in temporal lobe amnesia.
How can transience occur?
transience/memory decay can occur due to trace decay (cessation of neural firing for short term memory or weakening of synapses for long term memory.), through retroactive interference (new learning interfering with old, e.g used to know spanish, now learning italian the spanish has more errors), or through proactive interference, old learning interfering with new (e.g normally park in same place, park is taken, can’‘t find car whhen done).
What is blocking as it applies to memory?
blocking is when we are sure we know something but can’t bring it to conscious thought. This occurs when there is enough activity to trigger the feeling of knowing the awnser, but not enough to activate the trace. This is intact in amnesia.
What is absentmindedness?
absentmindedness is the result of shallow encoding of events usually due to a failure to pay attention (its when you forget what you were supposed to do).
What is memory persistance and its relationship with trauma?
Memory persistance is a result of enhanced arousal and attention which leads to enhanced memory in cases of traumatic events. Poor memory following trauma, when it occurs, may be a result of context effects or a disruption of the biological processes.
Why is it important how we ask questions?
Memories can be effectively changed based on terms used to ask questions (e.g more likely to say they saw glass if asked about two cars smashing into each other as opposed to hitting each other even though both groups saw the same movie).
What is reconsolidation?
Reconsolidation is the idea that short term memory gets consolidated into long term memory, this then is retrieved back into short term memory(becoming labile again), this can then be modified and reconsolidated back into long term memory.
