Memory Flashcards
Definition of memory?
The mechanism that allows us to retain, retrieve, and use information (about stimuli, images, events, ideas, skills) over time.
There are both passiv and active processes.
Stages of Memory?
- Encoding
Initial perception of the event (includes attention & pattern recognition) - Consolidation
Laying down and strengthening over time
-> Short Term
-> Long Term - Retrieval
Calling it back later, remember! - Reconsolidation
Adaptive update mechanism allowing new information to be integrated into the intital memoery representation (editing)
Modal model of memory (Atkinson and Shiffrin)?
Input -> Sensory Memory -> Short-term Memory (Rehearsal: a control process) & Output
<-> Long-term Memory
Sensory Memory?
- Retention, for brief periods of time, of the effects of sensory stimulation
- Capacity large but info decays very quicklyy
- Persistence of vision - retention of the perception of light (e.g. Sparkler’s trail of light)
Sensory memory capacity study (Sperling)
- Display of letters flashed for 50 milliseconds
Whole report method: report as many as you can, average recall of letters 4.5/12
Partial report method: A bried tone AFTER the flash indicates which row to report (high/medium/low). Average recall of letters 3.3/4 in a given row, a higher %
Conclusion: people store more information in short-term memory than they’re able to recall
Delayed partial report method in Sensory memory capacity study (Sperling)?
Showed the letter, had a delay (of varying length), and then a brief tone indicating which row to report.
The longer the delay, the fewer letters participants were able to recall. Even after 1/10th of a second a significant amount of decay has occurred -> Very fast decay
Short term memory systerm?
Short-term memory (STM):
The memory system holding moment-to-moment thoughts and perceptions in mind
Working memory (WM):
Allows manipulation of information in STM and is key for encoding of long-term memory (LTM)
What are Control Processes? + (3)
Active processes that can be controlled by the person
- Rehearsal
- Strategies used to make a stimulus more memorable
- Strategies of attention that help you focus on specific stimuli
Prior knowledge - Chunking?
- Items can fit together eadily as a distinct pattern
- For words or pictures to ve a chunk you need to be familiar and available in long-term meomory
- Suggests that STM overlaps with, and relies upon, LTM to function efficiently
Memory span is influenced by preexisting knowledge -> IMPORTANT!
Serial Position Effect?
Remembering a list of items, items at the beginning and the end are more likely to be remembered
Primacy effect:
More rehearsal
Less competition
Recency effect:
Newly in STM
Usually recalled first
What happens to the serial position effect when increasing the delay between the encoding phase and the retiving (recall) phase?
The primacy effect is stronger (more time to rehearse) than the recency effect no longer the advantage of newly in STM
Maintenance rehearsal?
Rote rehearsal that maintains items in STM
Eggs, cheese, butter, eggs, cheese butter etc.
Elaborative rehearsal?
Thinking about meaningful relationships among the items you’re encoding, draw parallels to LTM
Example, mind-mapping organising things visually
Retroactive interference?
Something in the present makes it difficult to recall something that you learned previously
Example, getting a new phone number makes it difficult to remember the old one, it is making over the other memory
Proactive interference?
Something from the past makes it difficult to recall something that you learned recently
Example, learing spanish but grammar is different from grammar in english
Limitation of Model Model?
STM is described as too passive, it is really much more active in manipulating information
