Long-Term Memory

Question 1

Who was Clive Wearing?

Answer 1

Clive was a musician who suffered from a virus that harmed his hippocampus. This caused him to have severe amnesia.

-Intact working memory (can understand in the moment)
-Impaired Episodic Memory (Explicit memory type)

Question 2

What are the two different retrieval paths?

Answer 2

1. Recall: must locate an item in memory on your own; depends on the memory network; the option involves source memory; how information was learned interacts with how it is later received.
2. Recognition: Depends on a feeling of familiarity. You attribute this familiarity to an earlier encounter.

Question 3

What is encoding specificity?

Answer 3

Remembering both the material to be learned and the context of those materials (contexts and materials)

• Materials are better recognized as familiar if they appear in, or are cued by, a similar context. Similar context leads to an established retrieval path.

Question 4

What is context-dependent learning? What can help context-dependent learning?

Answer 4

New material is most likely to be recalled when the person is in the same mental, emotional, or biological state as when the material was learned. Ex: experiment with scuba divers learning underwater and land.

• Context-reinstatement (re-creating the context of feelings that were present during learning) can help this!
• Teaches us that memory depends on mental/psychological context not physical environment.

Question 5

When is encoding specificity NOT effective? Encoding specificity versus encoding variability?

Answer 5

If you know what the retrieval context will be like, maximize the match between encoding and retrieval (encoding specificity). Your memory will be tied to those specific contexts.

If you DON’T know what the retrieval context will be like, encode information in various ways (encoding variability).

Question 6

How does the neurological memory network work?

Answer 6

• Ideas are represented as nodes connected via associations. Activation travels within a network from node to node via associative links (spreading activation).
• A node’s activation level increases with increasing input from neighboring nodes. The node fires IF the response threshold is reached. When it is reached, it activates neighboring nodes.
• Summation: sub-threshold activation can accumulate.

Question 7

What is the Lexical Decision Task?

Answer 7

A task used to study semantic priming. It presents pairs of words and nonwords.

• Results: semantic priming (a prior event that produces a state of readiness based on meaning). Faster response for related words.
• Faster if words have been recently seen (even if participants have no recollection of the first exposure).

Question 8

Explain how familiarity and source memory are independent.

Answer 8

You can have familiarity without source memory (“Where do I know this person from”.

Capgras syndrome: loved ones are recognized without a sense of familiarity (source memory without familiarity)

Question 9

Explain how source memory and familiarity are distinguishable?

Answer 9

• Remember/know distinction: “Do you remember encountering the item or do you just know that you encountered it”?

-“Remember” judgment: accompanied by source information.

-“Know” judgments: accompanied only by feelings of familiarity (Followed by confidence rating).

Question 10

What are the two types of long-term memory? What are there subparts?

Answer 10

1. Explicit Memory (Episodic and Semantic Memory)
2. Implicit Memory (Procedural Memory, Priming Memory, and Classical Conditioning)

Question 11

What is the difference between explicit and implicit memory?

Answer 11

Explicit: knowledge that can be retrieved and reflected on consciously; requires effort to bring memories to the surface

Implicit: knowledge that can influence thought and behavior without conscious awareness; require little to no effort

Question 12

What are the three examples of implicit memory without source memory?

Answer 12

1. The Illusion-of-Truth Effect
2. The Line-up
3. False Fame

Question 13

Describe the Illusion-of-Truth Effect.

Answer 13

• People assume that what is familiar is correct.

-This is true even if the person was told the statement was false during encoding (lack of source memory)

Question 14

Describe the Line-Up Effect (aspect of Illusion-of-Truth Effect).

Answer 14

• Eyewitnesses may select someone from a photo lineup based on familiarity rather than recollection.

Question 15

Describe the False Fame Effect.

Answer 15

Some people falsely assume someone is famous if primed to recognize who is a famous person and who is not.

If told someone was not famous, immediately after participants would have a low false fame effect. However, 24 hours later, the false fame effect would be high.

Question 16

Describe the two types of amnesia.

Answer 16

1. Retrograde amnesia: inability to remember anything before brain injury.
2. Anterograde amnesia: inability to remember experiences after brain injury.

Question 17

Describe Patient H.M.

Answer 17

• H.M. received brain surgery to control epilepsy. The surgeon removed his hippocampus. Therefore, he lost his ability to form new explicit memories. He had an intact ability to form new implicit memories (Star Task: procedural memory).

Question 18

Describe Patient E.P.

Answer 18

E.P. had amnesia as a consequence of encephalitis (inflammation in the brain due to infection). He had damage to his hippocampus and the surrounding tissue.

• Inability to remember something that just happened. Anterograde amnesia.

Question 19

Describe Korsakoff’s syndrome.

Answer 19

• Anterograde amnesia caused by deficiency of thiamine (vitamin B1) owing to longtime alcoholism.
• Ediuard Claparede (The experimenter introduced himself to a woman with Korsakoff syndrome and pricked her hand. Later, the woman could not remember the experimenter but refused to shake his hand).

Question 20

What is the difference between single dissociation and double dissociation?

Answer 20

Single Dissociation: One patient who lacks either episodic or semantic memory but has the other memory in place.

Double Dissociation: Episodic and semantic memory are independent because two patients are lacking one but have the other intact.

Question 21

Explain double dissociation’s relationship to fear conditioning.

Answer 21

Two types:

1. Fear with no explicit memory, hippocampus (explicit) damage, normal on indirect memory tests, impaired on direct tests.
2. Memory with no fear; amygdala (implicit) damage; normal on direct memory test, impaired on direct tests