Memory Flashcards
Describe the major properties of and differences between sensory, short-term, working and long-term memory.
- Sensory Memory
- The short-lived retention
of sensory information,
measurable in
milliseconds to seconds,
as when we recover what
was said to us a moment
earlier when we were not
paying close attention to
the speaker - Sensory memory for
audition is called echoic
memory; sensory
memory for vision is
called iconic memory
- The short-lived retention
- Short-term memory
- The retention of
information over seconds
to minutes.
- The retention of
- Working memory
- A limited-capacity store
for retaining information
over the short term
(maintenance) and for
performing mental
operations on the
contents of this store
(manipulation)
- A limited-capacity store
- Long-term memory
- The retention of
information over the long
term, from hours to days
and years.
- The retention of
Explain the terms encoding, consolidation, storage.
- Encoding
- The processing of
incoming information to
be stored - Encoding consists of two
stages: acquisition and
consolidation- Acquisition: The first
step of memory
encoding in which
sensory stimuli are
acquired by short-term
memory
- Acquisition: The first
- The processing of
- Consolidation
- The process by which
memory representations
become stronger over
time. - Consolidation is believed
to include changes in the
brain system
participating in the
storage of information.
- The process by which
- Storage
- The permanent record
resulting from the
acquisition (creation)
and consolidation
(maintenance) of
information.
- The permanent record
Describe the major properties of working memory (familiarize yourself with maintenance, refreshing, rehearsal, manipulation, load).
Limited capacity store (load) for retaining information short-term (maintenance) and performing operations based on this information (manipulation)
Describe the main characteristics of the Baddeley and Hitch model for working memory.
A working memory system with a central executive controlling the phonological loop and the visuospatial sketch pad
Understand the different ways of learning through reward and punishment (positive/negative punishment and positive/negative reinforcement) and be able to give examples.
- Positive → Giving something to
- Negative → Taking something away
- Punishment → Bad
- Reinforcement → Good
Describe the different types of memory and their characteristics (see fig 9.2, only the types that we discussed) and the differences between these types. Be able to come up with an experiment to test each of these memory subtypes.
- Sensory memory. Short-term memory,
Working memory versus Long-term memory - Declarative memory
(Explicit)- Events (episodic memory)
- Facts (semantic memory)
- Medial temporal lobe, middle
diencephalon, and neocortex
- Non-declarative memory
- Procedural memory (Skills)
- Basal ganglia and skeletal muscle - Perceptual representation system
(Priming)
- Perceptual and association neocortex - Classical conditioning
- Cerebellum - Nonassociative learning (Habituation,
Sensitization)
- Reflex pathways
- Procedural memory (Skills)
Be able to describe the differences between episodic and semantic memory in detail. Describe behavioral tests to study semantic and episodic memory.
Episodic: life events, context associated, experiences
Semantic: factual world knowledge, concepts, objective
- picture naming task
Describe evidence showing that semantic vs. episodic memory are to some extent separable in the brain (by linking it to for instance dementia and amnesia)
- Dementia refers to impairment of cognitive
function - Amnesia refers to loss of memory
- loss of semantic memory connected to damage to the limbic system
Explain how semantic and episodic memory interact.
- episodic memory becomes semantic over
time - Semantic knowledge to explain the episodic
memory - Episodic memory can support semantic
memory and it helps remember semantic
Describe which memory functions are impaired and which ones spared after damage to the hippocampus and surrounding regions, relate this to the memory disturbances and related brain damage in patient HM and Alzheimer’s disease.
- consolidation from short term to long term
memory - like HM removal of hippocampus
- Amyloid plagues and neurofibrillary tangles in hippocampus cause shrinking
Describe in somewhat more detail the specific memory deficits in patient HM.
- Suffered from epilepsy
- Normal intelligence, no mental illness
- 1954: removal of hippocampus +
surrounding tissue (medial temporal lobe) - Result?
- Intact short-term, working and procedural
memory - Impaired long-term memory: partial
retrograde (few years) and complete
anterograde amnesia (for explicit memory)
- Intact short-term, working and procedural
Describe the types of amnesia (retrograde/anterograde).
- Retrograde
- The loss of memory for events that
happened in the past
- The loss of memory for events that
- Anterograde
- The loss of the ability to form new
memories
- The loss of the ability to form new
Provide evidence showing that declarative and nondeclarative/implicit memory (i.e. procedural memory, conditioning and priming) are largely separable in the brain.
- no conscious involvement in implicit memory
- Declarative (explicit): memories of events and facts
Describe the role of the parahippocampal area (i.e. perirhinal, entorhinal and parahippocampal cortex as a whole) in familiarity vs recollection.
- associated with many cognitive
processes, including visuospatial
processing and episodic memory - The region plays an important role in
memory encoding and retrieval.
Describe the role of the different areas within the medial temporal lobe in false memories.
- True remembering: hippocampus and visual
areas activated - False remembering: prefrontal cortex and
parietal cortex active
