Long Term Memory Systems

Question 1

What is non-declarative, explicit. Procedural memory?

Answer 1

Typically reflected through changes in behaviour eg. How to ride a bike. Doesn’t involve conscious recollection. Preserved in amnesiacs

Question 2

How much info can our LTM store?

Answer 2

Reber 2010, 2.5 petabytes. (Computer metaphor)

Question 3

Describe the effects of anterograde amnesia

Answer 3

Marked impairment in ability to remember new info learned after the onset amnesia

Question 4

Describe retrograde amnesia

Answer 4

Problems remembering events prior to the onset amnesia. Usually graded in nature.

Question 5

Describe common etiologies of amnesia

Answer 5

’ bilateral stroke
‘ closed head injury-multiple cog imp
‘ chronic alcohol abuse leading to a thiamine deficiency and Korsakoff’s syndrome.
‘ bilateral damage to the hippocampus and adjacent regions of the medial temporal lobes (bilat re sections no longer preformed)

Question 6

Ashcraft 2006 (evidence for distinction between STS & LTS)

Answer 6

Serial position effect.

Fast-recall task of list of words

Most words in middle forgotten

Primacy effect: first words looked over more and so stored in LTM

Recency effect: last words still available in the STM

Question 7

What is declarative/explicit memory?

Answer 7

Long-term memory for facts and events that can be ‘declared’. Involves conscious recollection. Impaired in amnesiacs

Question 8

Craik and Lockhart (1972)

Levels of processing

Answer 8

Making things meaningful makes them more memorable.

Deeper levels of processing encourage better recall because of distinctiveness and elaboration

Question 9

What is a common criticism of the LOP framework?

Answer 9

That it describes rather than explains

Question 10

What is self reference effect?

Answer 10

Rogers, kuiper & kirker 1977

Participants asked to process a list of words according to following conditions;
Physical characteristics 
Acoustic characteristics 
Semantic characteristics
Application to themselves

Best recall with self reference

Question 11

What is context dependence? (Godden & Baddeley, 1975)

Answer 11

Learning phase: on shore or 20ft under water

Test phase the same recalled words better

Question 12

what is retrieval based learning? (Karpicke, 2012)

Answer 12

Practicing retrieving info is best way of making it last in your LTM. Effects last over time.

Question 13

What is the ‘Expecting to teach effect’

Answer 13

Participants studied a 1541 word passage. And expected to either teach it or be tested on it. Participants who were going to teach it recalled more

Question 14

Roediger 1980, metaphors of memory

Answer 14

An aviary
A library
A computer hard drive
A video recorder

Question 15

What is a recovered memory case (2009)

Answer 15

Claims that the person had no knowledge of any abuse until it suddenly came back many years later

Question 16

What is the permastore?

Answer 16

Bahrick 1984: analogy to permanent frozen polar regions, very long, stable memories.

Bahrick, Bahrick and Wittlonger 1975: even after 25 years former students showed they forgot remarkably little about their classmates

Bahrick, Hall and Da Costa (2008): Collage graduates memory of their grades remained fairly constant over spans of up to 54 years

Question 17

Not all memory is stored accurately. Describe Bartlett and ‘war of the ghosts’

Answer 17

Bartlett was interested in what happens when info is passed from one culture to another. Used a North American story.
Participants do not recall the story verbatim but reconstruct the details according to pre existing schemata.
Not always clear and misleading.

Question 18

According to Bartlett….

Answer 18

We try to make sense of new information and relate it to information we already know. We make an effort after meaning.
We get the idea of schema or script into which new information can become assimilated

Question 19

What are schemata?

Answer 19

The use of past to deal new experience

Stored framework about some topic

General knowledge structure used for understanding

Question 20

What are the functions of schema?

Answer 20

(General) to help us understand incoming information

(Specific) categorise new instances
Infer additional attributes
Guide interpretation attention

Not always accurate
Eg. Stereotypes

Question 21

How do schemata effect recall?

Answer 21

Anderson and pitchert (1978) found that people remember more details relevant to Their schemata

Question 22

Tukey and Brewer (2003) eye witnesses

Answer 22

Eyewitnesses have better recall for schema-related info. They generally interpret ambiguous info as being constant with the schema.

Question 23

What is weapon focus effect

Answer 23

The presence of a weapon causes eyewitnesses to fail to recall other details.

Question 24

Describe the effect of anxiety and stress on memory

Answer 24

Deffenbacher et al (2004) meta-analysis.

Negative impact on eyewitness identification accuracy

Reduce ability of eyewitness to remember culprit, crime scene and action details.

Question 25

What is the effect of leading questions?

Answer 25

Loftus and Palmer (1974)

Trigger word
Speed estimation? Smashed v contacted

Question 26

What is the effect of post-event misinformation?

Answer 26

Lotus, Miller and burns (1978)

Stop v yield
75 v 41% accuracy

Memory can be distorted by the way questions are phrased

Question 27

What is transactive memory effect?

Answer 27

Memory conformity for details that is affected by how well you know/like the person you are discussing with