Long Term Memory basis

Question 1

What is long-term memory?

Answer 1

Contains info about past events and learned information.

Question 2

Describe Murdoch’s serial position curve.

Answer 2

The serial position curve showed that people remembered better words depending on the order in which they were presented. People tend to remember the first and last words better.
Primacy –> 1st words are remembered better due to rehearsal –> transmission to LTM
Recency –> Last words are remembered better because they remain in the STM
Used to distinguish between STM and LTM

Question 3

Describe Glanzer and Cunitz’s experiment and how it relates to the primacy and recency effect.

Answer 3

Glanzer and Cuntiz introduced delay times after participants were exposed to a list of words. This way, they eliminated the recency effect. They showed that primacy and recency are independent (double dissociation).

Question 4

How can we encode things in LTM?

Answer 4

• Visual encoding
• Auditory encoding
• Semantic encoding (add a meaning dimension)

Question 5

Describe Wickens et al’s experiment testing for proactive interference.

Answer 5

1) Participants were given a list of 3 items connected by meaning. (kinds of fruit vs profession)
2) In between trials they were asked to count backwards.
3) On the 4th trial one group gets the same category and while another group gets a different category from what they had been getting.

Results: Those who received a different category did better on the 4th trial than what they had been doing before. They attributed this to a release from proactive interference. The information they previously received didn’t interfere with the new information, so it was easier for them to recognize the items. –> Shows information is encoded by meaning.

Question 6

What is proactive interference and how does it relate to semantic encoding?

Answer 6

When things we learn earlier affect things that we learn later. This is especially seen when things are similar. When the number of trials increases, we get more proactive interference.

Question 7

What did HM help show?

Answer 7

• Extreme epilepsy –> surgery
• His hippocampus was damaged and he couldn’t form new long-term memories, but his STM was fine. Showed that the hippocampus is important to form new long-term memories.
• He had trouble forming new episodic memories but there is controversy in whether he could form new semantic memories.
• Brain imaging before he died showed that his brain damage was more extensive than previously thought.

Question 8

What happened to KF and what did this show?

Answer 8

• Brain injury in motorbike accident.
• Impaired parietal lobe.
• Could form new long term memories, but had trouble with some aspects of STM.

Question 9

What is the difference between episodic and semantic memory?

Answer 9

Episodic –> memory for events, where a relationship between items is established. It has been called “mental time travel” and it is critical to plan for the future. If the memory concerns you then it is autobiographical.

Semantic –> memory for facts and knowledge.

You can have semantic info without episodic, but you can’t have episodic memory without semantic. Semantic memory informs episodic memory.

Question 10

What is Semanticization?

Answer 10

When memories that start as episodic are reduced to semantic over time.

Question 11

What sis KC show (Rosenbaum et al 2005)?

Answer 11

• Damaged hippocampus.
• Had no episodic memory (couldn’t recall past events)
• Semantic memory was intact.

Question 12

Describe the Remember-Know procedure.

Answer 12

Participants are presented with a list of words. Then, they are shown the list (+ more words) and asked to say if they remember, know, or don’t know a word. Remember implies remembering something about the encoding of the word.
Remember –> episodic
Know –> semantic

Question 13

What are the 2 ways of testing memory?

Answer 13

Recognition and Recall.
Recognition –> episodic and semantic (mostly familiarity with term)
Recall –> Mostly episodic

Question 14

What is the difference between explicit and implicit memory?

Answer 14

Explicit –> conscious (have experience of remembering it), declarative. Contains episodic and semantic memory. Know what.

Implicit –> unconscious (don’t recognize it as a memory), non-declarative. Contains: Procedural, conditioning, and priming. Know how.

Question 15

How do you test explicit memory?

Answer 15

• Recall tests
• Recognition tests
• Impaired in H.M
• Frontal and medial regions involved

Question 16

How do you test implicit memory?

Answer 16

• Still considered memory as prior experience affects new.
• Tested without telling participants that the study is about memory.
• Show participants word stems and see if they complete the words with previously seen words and compare with control.

Question 17

What are the 3 types of implicit memory and what are their function?

Answer 17

• Procedural
  –> Store how to perform (we aren’t aware of how to perform the skills either). You can have damage to your episodic memory and still be able to perform.
• Conditioned
  –> Relationship between a neutral stimulus and an unconditioned response when paired. E.g., something bad happens in a location and you associate the location with fear.
• Priming
  –> Previous experience changes response without conscious awareness. Repetition priming–> familiarity to something makes us trust it more. –> e.g, propaganda

Question 18

What is implicit learning?

Answer 18

• Proves that implicit memory is more complex than previously believed.
• Tested by showing participants sequences of random letters that follow a hidden pattern. Participants learn pattern without knowing it.

Question 19

Define encoding and retrieval.

Answer 19

Encoding –> processes involved in moving info from WM to LTM.

Retrieval –> processes involved in transferring info from LTM to WM.

Question 20

What are the 2 types of encoding?

Answer 20

Maintenance rehearsal –> repeating info, somewhat effective, gets better with more repetition.

Elaborative rehearsal –> use meaning and connections to encode information

Question 21

What does levels of processing theory propose?

Answer 21

The depth to which you process information affects your recall.

Shallow processing –> little attention to meaning, more focus on physical attributes, leads to poor memory.

Deep processing –> pays close attention to the meaning and yields better memory.

Craick and Tulving conducted a classic study that showed that semantic encoding led to more correct answers.

Question 22

What are some ways of improving memory encoding?

Answer 22

• Forming visual images to associate with stimulus.
• Self Reference effect –> making word relate more to you.
• Word pairs –> better memory if you generate a word to be associated with the target word.

Organizing information –> Organized lists make it easier to remember more words. Presenting a disambiguating stimulus (like a picture) helps guide the interpretation of confusing stimuli.

Question 23

What is retrieval practice?

Answer 23

Participants are shown info and then they either have to read the list of words or test their recall.

There is no difference between just reading and test recall in the first minutes, but when tested days after, the recall group prforms better.

Question 23

What are retrieval cues?

Answer 23

A piece of information is presented at the same time and context as the target. They help recognition a lot. The best target is the word itself.

We learn information together with its context. So, you do better when encoding and retrieval context match.

Question 23

Describe the diving experiment and other examples that show specificity coding.

Answer 23

Specificity coding –> you do better when you recall information in a similar context to the one when you encoded it.

Diving experiment –> Participants chose to encode list of words while underwater or on land. Regardless of where they were encoded, they performed better when they were tested in the same circumstances as the ones they were in when encoding.

Same seen with noise and mood conditions.

Question 24

What is transfer appropriate processing?

Answer 24

Idea that you should study in relation to how you are going to be tested.

Question 25

What is consolidation?

Answer 25

Idea that the more time information passes in the LTM, the more solid, stable it is. When you first learn something the information is vulnerable. The more consolidation the mosr resistant to forgetting.

Muler and Pilzecker –> when list 2 is presented shortly after list 1, it prevents lit 1’s consolidation. This could also be explained by retroactive interference?

Question 26

What is synaptic consolidation? and what is long term potentiation?

Answer 26

• Rapid process
• Memory is represented by changes in synapses
• Long Term Potentiation –> there is an increase in neuron firing after repeated stimulation due to synapse changes. Causes to need less input to produce the same response.

Question 27

What is systems consolidation?

Answer 27

• Slower changes
• Involves the hippocampus
  Stage 1: strong interaction between the hippocampus and the rest of the cortex.
  Stage 2: reactivation –> Interactions are replayed.
  Stage 3: Interconnections between cortex areas grow. The involvement of the hippocampus drops out.
• This was discovered based on what happens after a brain injury, as graded amnesia becomes less severe as you go further back in time. This suggests that old information has to be stored differently and that it’s more consolidated. There is also retrograded amnesia in which you forget events prior to brain damage.
• There is uncertainty regarding if the hippocampus drops out. There is evidence suggesting that it’s involved in recollection.

Question 28

What is the link between sleep and consolidation?

Answer 28

We still don’t know what the function of sleep is. Some suggest that we consolidate information when we sleep.
1 study –> people who slept shortly after studying words remembered them better.

2nd study –> people who slept knowing that they would have to remember words remembered them better.

However, the data doesn’t lead to super clear conclusions.

Question 29

What is the idea behind re-consolidation?

Answer 29

Every time we retrieve information, memories can be changed. This is consistent with reconstructive memory theory. It could also be that we are creating new memories instead of changing them.

Question 30

What is the reminiscence bump?

Answer 30

The tendency for middle-aged and elderly people to recall more personal memories from approximately 10 to 30 years of age than from other times in their lives.

• Self-image hypothesis –> better memory for life events that occur when forming self-image.
• Cognitive hypothesis –> Enconding is better for life events that occur during periods of rapid change.
• Cultural script hypothesis –> easier to retrieve information from moments where you are culturally expected to do something.

Question 31

Emotion and memory

Answer 31

Emotional words are better remembered than neutral words. Cortisol may play a role in memory consolidation.