mem and cog exam 1 Flashcards
covers lectures 1-9
What is the depth of processing theory?
There is no STS or LTS, it is just about our level of processing (encoding) that determines the strength of the memory (Craik & Lockhart). Challenged multi-store-theory by offering alternative explanation of same data.
What counts as shallow processing?
visual features and surface sounds, rote repetition
what counts as deep/semantic processing?
deriving meaning and associations
does intention to learn have effect on memory?
it may affect how we go about learning, but alone, it has no effect
What is an issue with depth-of-processing?
it is a circular argument since ‘deeper’ processing is just operationalized as better recognition/recall which then asserts that deeper processing leads to better memory. We need to measure it independently of presumed memory benefits to avoid this (neuroimaging)
Is our brain more active (deeper processing) when pronouncing something backward or imagining it?
imagining
What is the subsequent memory procedure?
read list in scanner, do memory test when out, then look back at fMRI to see what the brain was doing in incorrect vs correct encoding of the list
What is transfer- or test- appropriate testing?
performance will be best when the test measures the same skill used in encoding (ie semantic w/ standard test and rhyming w rhyming test)
What factors does memory strength depend on?
encoding and retrieval factors. Best memory when the encoding and retrieval cues match up.
what are available vs accessible words?
accessible - words encoded and retrieved
available - words encoded and stored, but may need to be made accessible through a cue
What did Baddeley’s underwater experiment show?
better recall when test environment matched encoding environment (land vs pool)
what is cartesian dualism?
we have two substances: thinking substance and extended substance. each mind is a separate individual mental substance.
What is psychology?
the science of behavior and mental processes
What was James’ method for studying the mind?
Introspective observation
What are some measures that were included in introspection?
self-report by trained observers, reaction time, word association
What did Wundt do and what was his school of thought?
he established the first psychological lab. Structuralism - trying to find the elemental structures that make up the conscious experience (like chemistry)
What was the controversy over introspection that ended it’s popularity?
whether or not an ‘imageless thought’ could occur - does thinking require imagery?
What is the law of effect?
Behavior leading to desirable consequences more likely to be repeated & vice versa - operant conditioning
what is mental chronometry ?
measuring reaction times
How did Gestalt theory differ from structuralism?
suggested viewing the ‘whole’ was more important than the individual elements for perceptual organization
what discovery was made that moved us back in the direction of studying cognition?
Tolman found that reinforcement was not necessary for rats to learn and that there was a ‘cognitive map’ they held of the maze –> mental representation. Showed it was possible to use behavioral measures to infer mental states.
What is the difference between place cells and grid cells? where are they found?
Place cells - fire when animal in specific spot (hippocampus)
grid cells - create virtual map of the environment (entorhinal cortex)
Until when did behaviorism dominate the US?
1950s
what is cognitive psychology
the information processing approach
What is inference to the best explanation (aka abduction)?
Postulate unobservable (theoretical) entities
(e.g., cognitive maps in the case of Tolman’s rats)
to systematize and explain the pattern of
regularities in the data.
How are sentences organized?
hierarchically, words groupes into structural units phrases (phase structure tree diagrams)
What are tests for phrase structure?
substitution test (ie can it be replaced w pronoun) and movement test (ie does it have to move w another word to make sense?)
How does human language work and what does it depend on?
requires the algorithmic manipulation of phrases by depending on grammar rules
What is the definition of memory span?
the sequence length that yields perfect recall 50% of the time
what’s the golden memory span number
7+ or - 2
What strategies did CF use to recall sequences up to 80?
chunking into meaningful units (he mostly used things related to running). Can then make chunks into groups in hierarchy to provide retrieval cues (example of active top-down processing
What paradigm was evidence for iconic memory?
partial report paradigm -> longer delay after letter array, less of a memory trace and worse recall
What are 3 kinds of evidence that STS and LTS are separate?
1) error patterns in memory span tasks (STS uses phonological code, misremember more off of mishearing things, LTS works with semantics and errors are mostly from semantic confusions)
2) serial position curves in free recall tasks (primacy bc of rehearsal and LTS, recency effect bc of memory trace in STS)
3) double dissociations after brain lesions
How does presentation rate affect serial position curve?
faster presentation impairs earlier items, but does not get rid of recency effect
What is the Brown-peterson distractor task and what does it say about decay theory?
learn list and then during retention period have to count backward by threes which disrupts rehearsal and memory trace (abolishing recency effect) and decreases memory span because of retroactive interference AND proactive interference
what can you conclude if there is a double dissociation?
that the two items/areas/constructs are completely independent from each other
What is a neuropsychological double dissociation?
A complementary pattern involving two tasks in two patients with
lesions in two different brain areas
What are the 3 stores in the MSM
sensory registers, short term store, long term store
what are the control processes in the MSM
attention, rehearsal, organization, retrieval, elaboration
How was H.M.’s impairment explained by the MSM?
He had good performance on STM tasks but bad performance on LTM tasks. In MSM, this means that the ‘path’ from STS to LTS was destroyed but STS still intact
How are patient KF and patient HM related and what does their relationship say about the MSM?
They have double dissociation - HM good STS bad LTS, KF bad STS good LTS. Shows that STS and LTS are separable and that STS is not a ‘path’ to LTS (rather, there must be many different routes) which goes against the MSM
retroactive interference
new material overwrites previously learned material
proactive interference
old material overwrites newly learned material
What is the probe digit task?
memorize a list, then provided with probe and have to think back in list to what the number after that probe was. Causes retroactive interference & reduces rehearsal.
What mostly causes proactive interference?
similarity
Are WM components gateways to LTM?
no
what is the episodic buffer used for?
for temporary binding. Brings together
phonological, visual,
spatial and other
information into a
single, temporary
memory trace
What does the central executive do?
coordinates and controls the processing of information
what is working memory?
a limited capacity system allowing the
temporary storage and manipulation of
information necessary for such complex tasks
as comprehension, learning, and reasoning.
what are the three sources of information in WM?
Perceptual inputs
Information retrieved from long-term memory
New structures constructed on the fly
What are the two alternate metaphors for the relationship btwn LTM and WM?
as two seperate places/buffers
WM as a state of activation in LTM
What is the span of the phonological loop by implicit verbal rehearsal?
2 seconds
What evidence supports the phonological loop?
- Speech rate correlates with memory span (ppl w faster speech rate have longer memory span)
- Articulatory suppression reduces the memory span (had to speak out loud while words were being presented, preventing rehearsal. was worse for long words vs short words but when they had to articulate them the effect was the same btwn word length)
- Phonological similarity reduces the memory span
- Irrelevant speech reduces the memory span
What evidence shows that WM components are dissociable ?
in dual-task paradigms, interference only occurs when the two tasks use the same mechanism
What is the normal visual memory span
5-6
what is the double dissociation found using corsi block test
pt w occipital or parietal damage impaired, but performance goes back to normal when they can see the numbers. dissociable verbal and visual memory.
Evidence that phonological loop and visuospatial sketchpad are separate
Visuospatial (imagery) task impaired by pointing but not verbal
What is the method of Loci?
use preexisting and spatially rich structure in LTM and then ‘place’ items inside of that place and walk through it to retrieve items (used by memory champion). Uses verbal and visual memory systems.
What is the homunculus?
the ‘little man’ in our head; central executive. more of a placeholder until we have better explanation.
What is dysexecutive syndrome?
from lesions to PFC, problems w/ executive functions (planning, organization, behavioral control)
How much of the cortex does the PFC take up?
1/3
What is the peristimulus time histogram and what does it estimate?
- Collect data from the same neuron
on multiple trials for each condition. - Align all spike trains at the onset
(or offset) of the stimulus. - Divide the time line into bins.
- Count how many spikes fall into
each bin. Construct a histogram. - Calculate spikes per second.
- The PSTH estimates the
instantaneous firing rate as a function of time
What is the delayed non match to sample task?
study WM in monkeys
4 phases: inter-trial baseline, monkey moves sample object for reward, screen obscures monkey view during 15 sec delay, monkey chooses novel non match object
What does delayed non match to sample task show us?
We have active working memory trace, persistent firing of neuron holding on to red novel stimulus which goes back down when monkey moves to get reward
What is the spatial non match to sample task? What does it show? Where did they measure this activity from?
- Eye-tracking test of
spatial WM. - Monkeys must move
its eyes to a cued
location after a
delay. - Analogous to the
delayed non-match-
to-sample task
four phases: fixation, cue, delay, response
There are sensory, memory and response neurons that correspond to the phases of the trial.
DLPFC
What are memory fields? What task were they observed in?
neurons that activate for the spatial location of cue (stimulus specific activity) in the spatial non match to sample task. errors when these neurons fail to maintain their activation (don’t hold onto memory trace of location). they’re in the PFC.
are WM maintenance and manipulation dissociable? how?
Yes. Monkey self-ordered search w/ pots. 10 sec delay means WM is needed. monkeys have DLPFC lesions. Were fine w/ recognition tasks w new pots but if the same pots were used, they were impaired bc of proactive interference. Maintenance fine, manipulation not.
What processes are the VLPFC involved in?
- Encoding, rehearsal, and retrieval of information
- Corresponds to phonological loop & visuospatial
sketchpad in Baddeley’s WM Model
what processes are the DLPFC involved in?
- Monitoring and manipulation (cognitive control) of stored information
- Corresponds to Central Executive in WM Model
What is the supervisory attentional system?
modifies behavior when the automatic response is inappropriate (stroop task)
What fMRI data supports the dissociation of phonological buffer and visuospatial sketchpad
- Self-ordered tasks:
a) Abstract hard-to-verbalize
stimuli -> right DLPFC activity
b) Verbal stimuli -> bilateral
(right and left) DLPFC activity
How does WM result from functional interactions between PFC and the rest of the brain?
Frontal lobes coordinate the recruitment
and activation of posterior brain systems
that store sensory representations and
action-related functions (frontal-posterior circuits)
What are the gradients of goal abstraction as related to brain areas?
- Anterior PFC ->
abstract goals & plans - Premotor area ->
specific action plans - Primary motor cortex ->
muscle commands - Evidence: lesions, double
dissociations, imaging
Where is attention regulated & parts of experience unified into single whole episodes?
fronto-parietal lobe
Where is visual imagery produced?
anterior right occipital cortex
Which areas did spatial task activate the most?
sections of occipital & parietal lobes toward posterior
Where is spatial info maintained and visual attention directed?
inferior intraparietal sulcus
(superior maintains both visual and spatial info ab to-be-remembered items)
Which areas do WM depend on most?
prefrontal, parietal, temporal regions
What is the distributionist view?
- Equipotentiality:
- Lashley’s (1929) data:
- Trained rats to do a maze
- Brain lesions and sections at diverse locations
- It made little difference where the lesion
was, just how much tissue was damaged. - Hypothesis: Most brain areas are
equipotential – each area takes some
part in every function, and all functions
are spread over most of the brain. - Lashley did not endorse such extreme
views. Today the equipotentiality thesis
is considered a mere strawman
what is the localist view?
- Functional specialization
in the brain. Examples: - Hippocampal lesions –>
anterograde amnesia - Frontal lesions –>
e.g., Broca’s aphasia - Prefrontal lesions –>
e.g., Phineas Gage - Interactive network:
- Each function still engages much
(though not all) of the brain, but
the different areas are not
interchangeable.
What is the theory of modularity of the mind? What are the characteristics of the fodorean modules?
According to this prominent
theory, the mind contains
multiple distinct and relatively
independent modules. (swiss army analogy)
Fodorean modules:
* Domain specific
* Informationally encapsulated
* Mandatory application
what lesions -> disorders support functional specialization?
- Hippocampal lesions –> anterograde amnesia
- Temporal cortical lesions –> semantic dementia
- Frontal lesions –> Broca’s aphasia
- Prefrontal lesions –> e.g., Phineas Gage
What is the modern view of functional systems?
Memories are distributed across thousands of
synapses and multiple brain areas, but still not
equipotentially throughout the brain
Memories are distributed across thousands of
synapses and multiple brain areas, but still not
equipotentially throughout the brain
orchestra analogy
Who was patient P.Z.?
had korsakoff’s syndrome, bad retrograde amnesia and ribot’s gradient pattern around autobiographical memory - was tested on events from his own autobiography
Where did clive wearing have damage to? What symptoms resulted from this?
left and right temporal lobe and part of right frontal. High emotionality, 7 second memory span. From encephalitis. Could still remember his wife but thought that she has been gone for years. anterograde amnesia.
What was H.Ms memory pattern?
good STM (procedural memory, but could not form new semantic knowledge), bad LTM. Severe anterograde amnesia and temporally graded retrograde amnesia. Intact immediate (working) memory
What tasks could HM perform normally? What does this indicate about explicit and implicit memory systems?
sequence learning, word stem completion, priming, classical conditioning, mirror tracing. Supports dissociation of explicit and implicit memory. Explicit memory depends on MTL, implicit does not
Who is patient LP?
encephalitis (damage to left posterior temporal lobe), severe anterograde and retrograde amnesia for semantic knowledge but not for autobiographical (dissociation)
What is pick’s disease?
semantic dementia
Difference in the contextual encoding of semantic and episodic memories:
episodic: tagged w/ spatial and temporal context
semantic: not necessarily tagged w context
What is caused by lesion to MTC and hippocampus?
global anterograde amnesia
Where did people think memories were stored before HM?
cerebral cortex
what is the power law of relearning equation?
((number of repetitions it took to learn from scratch - number of repetitions it took to relearn) / number it took to learn from scratch) * 100%
What is the pattern of the forgetting curve ?
- Typical result in the
Ebbinghaus tradition - Plot savings against the
number of days between
learning and testing - Steep forgetting at first
- Then slowing down
- Asymptote > 0
What is the learning curve pattern?
- Typical pattern:
- Big gains at first
- Then slowing down:
Diminishing returns
What is the power law of practice?
A.k.a. Law of Diminishing Returns
* The time to execute a response
decreases with practice:
* RT = a + b N −c
* RT: response time
* N: number of repetitions
* a: asymptote
* b: improvement
* c: learning rate
for recognition task when plotted on log-log axis, a straight line indicates power law.
What did they find in the practice with mental arithmetic study?
Performance
continues to
improve even after
10,000 trials!
* Two subjects
* Longitudinal
experimental design
What did they find in the cigar rolling study?
- Expert cigar rollers
- Cross-sectional
experimental design - Some had 10 million
repetitions! - Time continues to
improve until it hits the
rock-bottom possible on
the equipment.
What was the BBC study?
- Radio BBC-1 had a lengthy advertisement campaign
concerning a planned change in station frequencies: - Two months, frequent repetition with slogans, jingles, etc.
- Door-to-door interviews with 50 regular listeners:
- Estimated average of 1000 repetitions per participant.
- Almost all listeners knew the change was coming.
- 84% remembered the date of change.
- Almost none knew details such as the new radio frequency.
- Conclusion: Repetition by itself does not guarantee
remembering.
What’s the subsequent memory procedure?
- Used to identify cortical areas whose BOLD
responses during memory encoding predict
which stimuli will be retrieved successfully later - Event-related design for fMRI experiments
- Study a list of words in the scanner, sequentially
- Subsequent recognition memory test 20 min
later, outside the scanner: correct=1, incorrect=0 - Data analysis: Look for voxels whose BOLD
response across trials correlates with subsequent
recognition of the respective words: 101100111…
what brain areas are most implicated in memory encoding?
- Meta-analysis of 74 fMRI studies using the
subsequent memory (SM) procedure - SM effects were mainly associated with:
- Left inferior frontal cortex (incl. Broca’s area)
- Bilateral posterior parietal cortex (PPC)
- Bilateral medial temporal lobe (MTL)
- As we know, MTL includes the hippocampu
Characteristics of early synaptic plasticity:
lasts a few hours
vulnerable to disruption
no protein synthesis required
characteristics of synaptic consolidation
more permanent
less vulnerable to disruption
requires protein synthesis
How many pictures were tested in the recognition memory study for large amounts of material?
10,000
What is the word frequency effect?
- High-frequency words (e.g., “market”) are easier
to recall but harder to recognize. - Low-frequency words (e.g., “sextant”) are harder
to recall but easier to recognize.
what superiority effect does method of loci leverage?
picture superiority effect
Proactive vs retroactive interference
- Retroactive interference: New material
“overwrites” previously learned material - Proactive interference: Old material
makes it harder to retrieve subsequently
learned material
What causes interference?
cue overload and response competition
Which early model postulated that rehearsal determined how strong the LTM trace would be?
Atkinson and Shiffrin model (MSM)
In indoor/outdoor scenes did shallow or deep processing lead to greater accuracy?
shallow
w/ the pictures of faces did shallow or deep processing lead to greater accuracy?
deep
What was the Tulving and thompson study on cognitive context?
Optimal memory performance
occurs when the cognitive
operations at encoding and
retrieval are congruent.
* People were presented with 24
word pairs. Words to be recalled
in CAPS (e.g., BUG); encoding
context was a weak (plant) or
strong (insect) association word
* A closely related concept is the
so-called encoding specificity
principle (Tversky, 1974)
Why does the recognition superiority effect occur
Bc the retrieval cues mimic the encoding cues
Bottom-up vs top-down processing of memories
bottom up - rote rehearsal, memory trace copy of info taken into cognitive system, reactivated when retrieved
top-down - people construct their memories using memory strategies and knowledge (inspired by Bartlett’s constructionist view)
age differences in metamemory
preschoolers grossly overestimate and don’t correct for when they’re wrong, third graders overestimate but correct for miscalculation, adult ‘feeling of knowing’ judgements reasonably accurate
What is a field memory?
when we feel like we’re reliving a memory, perspective taking , common when asked about emotional experiences
Where do we have decision making processes in memory?
RDLPFC
What were the effects found in the subliminal learning study?
- Memory performance improved a
little (as shown on left panel) - Big effect on participants’ beliefs
about their memory (right panel) - In sum, some improvements did
occur, but always based on tape
label, never on tape content. - There is no evidence of any
subliminal training effect. - There is evidence for a placebo
effect induced by the tape label.
Why is distributed practice better for faster learning and better retention?
mirror tracing. - massed practice, 1 min intervals, 1 day intervals
- Attenuation of attention during massed
practice. People get tired… (Duh!) - Encoding variability: Multiple contexts
afford a more varied set of possible cues - Overnight consolidation of the synaptic
changes induced on each session: - Long-term synaptic plasticity requires
protein synthesis, which takes time.
What is the generation effect?
- “Read” condition:
- sea – ocean
- save – cave
- “Generate” condition:
- Synonym
- sea – o….
- Rhyme
- save – c….
- Items generated
by learners are
remembered better
What is the SQ3R method?
- A procedure designed to improve the
understanding and remembering of texts: - Survey: Skim the headings
- Question: Formulate questions about the text
- Read: Actively read the text
- Recite: Answer the Qs you developed earlier
in your own words - Review: Test yourself. Don’t just re-study!
Examples of visual imagery mnemonics:
- Keyword method
- Bizarre imagery
- Method of loci
- Peg-word method
Examples of verbal mnemonics:
Narrative chaining method
* Acronym-based method:
Keyword method
creating phrase that mimics word (lo siento)
no better than rote rehearsal after a week delay or more.
Method of Loci
- Use a pre-existing and spatially rich
structure in LTM. E.g., imagine the layout
of your house (or garden, etc.) - Visualize the new items in familiar places.
Memorize what is where. - At retrieval time, “walk” along the
imaginary path and “collect” the items
uses verbal and visual memory. accuracy impaired (no better than rote rehearsal) when they also had to track bc disrupts visual retrieval.
Peg-word method
memorize visual pairings to numbers. Then visualize word from list with the image that corresponds to the number it is in the list.
Components of lifespan memory profile:
- Curve shows idealized findings (based
on actual research) for a 50 year old
person asked to remember events over
his/her lifespan. Word-cueing method. - Three components:
- Recency effect covers 15 yrs. Stable
memory before that. - Reminiscence bump: More memories
from adolescence and young adulthood. - Infantile amnesia: No memories from the
first 3 years of life, very few memories
from years 4 and 5.
did emotionality ratings affect recall in autobiographic memory (marigold linton) study?
no, similar events blended together.
What did Usher and Neisser show about infantile amnesia?
- Memory for 4 verifiable and datable events
- Birth of sibling
- Hospitalization
- Death of family member
- Family move
- Figure shows proportion of those who
had the experience that could recall it. - Unpleasant events not different – so no
evidence for repression
explanations for why infantile amnesia occurs:
- Maturation of the nervous system:
- Hippocampus
- Prefrontal cortex
- Reorganization of cortical representations:
- Sense of self
- Language
- Freud: Repression of traumatic memories
results of memory for high school classmates study:
- Classmate
photos and
names from
high-school
yearbooks (ppl age 17-74) - Recall declined
but recognition
was consistent
what was the family foreign language study?
- Learn 300 English-French pairs
- 50 word pairs at each of 6 conditions:
- 3 schedules x 2 numbers of learning sessions:
- Schedules differed in spacing of training: 14, 28, 56 days
- 13 or 26 learning sessions, each carried to mastery
- Once the English meaning was correctly recalled, the
French word was removed from the list (for that session).
Therefore words were all recalled once but practiced a
varying number of times. - The project spanned 9 years! A family affair.
- Main result: Distributed practice is beneficial!
- 13 sessions at 56-day spacing = 26 sess. at 14-day spacing
Spacing effect: better recall w/ longer retention interval
what is the now print! hypothesis?
Brown & Kulik hypothesized based on this evidence that strong emotions trigger
a special mechanism that produces highly durable and accurate memory.
What is a flashbulb memory?
Memory for one’s personal experience at
the time of an emotionally charged event.
do flashbulb memories use special mechanisms?
No,
* Emotional experiences are remembered like others that we
attend to and rehearse.
* Greater exposure to media information about public, dramatic
events, and talk more about such events. (Neisser, 1982).
* Because of their low frequency, memories for dramatic events are
more distinctive, and are not subject to the same interference from
memories of similar memories. (McCloskey, Wible, and Cohen, 1986)
* Memory for dramatic events may be reconstructed from general,
schematic information about public disasters (e.g., that people were
shocked upon hearing the news). (McCloskey, Wible, and Cohen, 1986)
