Memory

Question 1

What is Sensory Memory’s capacity, duration and function?

Answer 1

• Function: To sustain information about identification
• Duration: 1/2-3 seconds
• Capacity: very large (“scenic)

Question 2

How did the Sperling study measure the duration and capacity of sensory memory?

Answer 2

• Had a block with a dot in the middle and then flashed 3 rows of four letters for about half a second (counted how many you could remember)
• had you only write down one row, but you didn’t know which row you had to write down until after
• varied the duration of the letters flashing to measure how long sensory memory lasted

Question 3

What is Echoic Memory and it’s duration?

Answer 3

• auditory processing
• duration = 3 seconds

Question 4

What is Iconic Memory and it’s duration?

Answer 4

• visual processing
• duration = 1/2 second
• *so quick that we have very little if any conscious awareness of it

Question 5

What are attention, rehearsal, encoding and retrieval?

Answer 5

• Attention: selects information from sensory memory
• Rehearsal: Maintains information in working memory
• Encoding: sends information to long-term memory
• Retrieval: Brings information from LTM to working memory

Question 6

What is short-term memory’s capacity, duration and function?

Answer 6

Function: to do conscious work, to think
Duration: 10-15 seconds without rehearsal
Capacity: 7 plus or minus 2 items

Question 7

How did Peterson and Peterson study the duration of short-term memory?

Answer 7

• Remember letters
• Count backwards by 7s
• Keeps you from rehearsing so we can see how quickly the memory fades

Question 8

What are long-term memory’s capacity, duration and function?

Answer 8

• Function: to tie together the past with the present
• Capacity: enormous (essentially unlimited)
• Duration: very long (essentially permanent)

Question 9

What is Episodic memory and examples?

Answer 9

• Everyday events and personal experiences (conscious)
• What did you have for breakfast today
• Who was the lecturer in psych 1001 last week
• Where were you on your 18th birthday

Question 10

What is Semantic memory and examples?

Answer 10

• general world knowledge that humans have accumulated throughout their lives (conscious)
• What is your mother’s first name
• What kind of bird is black and white, lives in the antarctic, and swims rather than flies

Question 11

What is Procedural Memory?

Answer 11

• knowledge about how to do things (unconscious)
• Tying your shoes
• Driving a car
• Juggling
• Playing a musical instrument

Question 12

Who is Clive Wearing? (Significance)

Answer 12

• has chronic anterograde and retrograde amnesia
• lost all memories of his past and cannot form new memories
• shows the importance of long-term memory in connecting past to present and guiding us in our actions

Question 13

What is the serial position effect?

Answer 13

• Performance is best at the beginning and end of recall vs. the middle
• creates a sort of curve that looks like a U

Question 14

What is recency?

Answer 14

• You are more likely to remember things that are more recent in your memory
• only effective if you are asked to recall shortly after the exercise

Question 15

What is primacy?

Answer 15

• You are more likely to remember things that occur at the beginning of a sequence
• more time for repetition/rehearsal

Question 16

What are the different kinds of long-term memory?

Answer 16

• Explicit –> in your awareness (episodic and semantic)
• Implicit –> outside your awareness (procedural, classical conditioning, priming)

Question 17

What is a mnemonic?

Answer 17

a memory aid, such as an abbreviation, rhyme or mental image that helps to remember something.

Question 18

What is imagery?

Answer 18

Creating an image of what a word looks like to help remember it

Question 19

What is the method of loci?

Answer 19

imagining walking through a familiar place with landmarks acting as memory cues

Question 20

What is the keyword method?

Answer 20

Imagining an interaction between words to help remember it

Question 21

What is a narrative technique?

Answer 21

Weave together a story to remember a list

Question 22

What is the misinformation effect?

Answer 22

when a person’s recall of episodic memories becomes less accurate because of post-event information

Question 23

What is source monitoring errors?

Answer 23

a type of memory error where the source of a memory is incorrectly attributed to some specific recollected experience

Question 24

What are examples of implanted memories?

Answer 24

• being lost in a mall as a child
• tying your shoes on the sidewalk as your friends walk ahead

Question 25

What kinds of things increase the likelihood of false memories?

Answer 25

• if the event was traumatic/negative
• Similarity with another memory
• Telling the story over and over again
• Misinformation

Question 26

What is anterograde amnesia and retrograde amnesia?

Answer 26

• Anterograde = you can’t form new memories
• retrograde = you can’t remember old memories

Question 27

What is the role of the amygdala in memory?

Answer 27

to attach emotional significance to memories

Question 28

What is a flashbulb memory?

Answer 28

a vivid, enduring memory associated with a personally significant and emotional event, often including such details as where the individual was or what he or she was doing at the time of the event

Question 29

What is the difference between recall, recognition, and relearning as measures of memory?

Answer 29

• Recall = doesn’t require a cue
• Recognition = requires a cue in order to recall
• Relearning = learning something that you have already learned prior

Question 30

What is encoding specificity (e.g., context-dependent learning; state-dependent learning)?

Answer 30

• context-dependent learning = being able to remember something when the context of the memory and your current context are similar
• state-dependent learning = being able to remember something when your current state of mind is similar to when the memory occurred
• encoding specificity = retrieval of memories are helped by the situation you are in when you are trying to recall them

Question 31

Who was Ebbinghaus, and what was his forgetting curve?

Answer 31

• a german psychologist
• information is lost over time when there is no attempt to retain it
• the speed of forgetting depends on a number of factors such as the difficulty of the learned material (e.g. how meaningful it is), its representation and other physiological factors such as stress and sleep

Question 32

In forgetting, what is the difference between decay and interference?

Answer 32

• Decay = forgetting due to the passage of time
• Interference = forgetting because other information in the LTM is interfering with the memory you are trying to retrieve

Question 33

What is retroactive interference?

Answer 33

when current information you are learning affects how well you remember previously learned information

Question 34

What is proactive interference?

Answer 34

when previously learned information affects how well you learn new information

Question 35

What is the tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon?

Answer 35

a state in which one cannot quite recall a familiar word but can recall words of similar form and meaning