Memory

Question 1

What are the three steps in memory processing?

Answer 1

encoding, storage and retrieval

Question 2

What does encoding mean in regards of memory processing?

Answer 2

The processing of information into the memory system

Question 3

What does storage mean in regards of memory processing?

Answer 3

The retention of encoded material over time

Question 4

What does retrieval mean in regards of memory processing?

Answer 4

The process of getting information out of the memory storage

Question 5

What method can be used to contrast the effects of forgetting?

Answer 5

Testing effect

Question 6

What is the testing effect?

Answer 6

This is where memory is increased when some of the learning period is spent retrieving the to-be-remembered information

Question 7

What are the two main questions in neuropsychology?

Answer 7

(1) What has happened to a patient?

(2) What does the patient teach us about the way the normal mind and brain work?

Question 8

What is plasticity?

Answer 8

Plasticity is the brain’s ability to change as a result of experience; persists throughout life; changes in neural connectivity

Question 9

What is functional specialization?

Answer 9

The notion that different regions of the brain serve different functions

Question 10

The hippocampus is a fundamental aspect in the memory system, why is this?

Answer 10

Because most of the encoding and storage happens within its cells.

Question 11

What do single cases allow us to do?

Answer 11

Single cases allow us to change what we think we already know about reality
{Karl Popper: “no matter how many instances of white swans we may have observed, this does not justify the conclusion that all swans are white”}

Question 12

When double dissociation occurs what can we claim?

Answer 12

When double dissociations are observed, we are allowed to postulate that the two relevant memory systems involve different cognitive systems possible mapped onto different neuronal networks.

Question 13

What is anterograde amnesia?

Answer 13

Impaired recall and recognition of facts and personal episodes encountered after the occurrence of the brain damage

Question 14

Who is the prototypical case for anterograde amnesia?

Answer 14

HM:
He had epileptic seizures at age 10 and was operated on after high school. Following the operation, he had profound amnesia. Several decades after the operation he still can’t remember his last meal, where he lives, or his own age.

Question 15

What brain functions are maintained and impaired in anterograde amnesia?

Answer 15

People with anterograde amnesia have a normal digit span but impaired long-term memory

Question 16

What are the components of short term memory?

Answer 16

Limited capacity
Limited duration
Holding available recent and relevant information in a temporary store

Question 17

What are the components of long term memory?

Answer 17

Unlimited storage
Relatively permanent
Store for episodic and semantic memory

Question 18

What is the primacy effect?

Answer 18

In free recall, more item are recalled from start of list

Question 19

What is the recency effect?

Answer 19

In free recall, more item are recalled from the end of the list

Question 20

What is the hippocampal formation responsible for?

Answer 20

Episodic memory [events]

Question 21

What is the Parahippocampal region responsible for?

Answer 21

Semantic memory [facts]

Question 22

What did patient KC’s case highlight?

Answer 22

Highlighted that semantic memory and episodic memory are two independent systems from one another

Question 23

What is a key point when thinking about memory?

Answer 23

What we remember is framed in what we believe in our expectations

Question 24

What is forgetting defined as?

Answer 24

It is defined as the lack of availability, partial or total, temporary or permanent, of memories of lived events or of information previously encountered, processed, or learned.

Question 25

When does forgetting occur?

Answer 25

It occurs when something is disregarded, erased, or transformed during encoding or retrieval. After the learning phase, information may be inaccessible because of inhibition, removal, or interference

Question 26

What is forgetting essential for?

Answer 26

It is essential for categorization, learning and abstract reasoning as well as for maintaining social and affective relationships.

Question 27

What are pathological signs revealing memory dysfunction?

Answer 27

Disproportionate or abnormally fast forgetting

Question 28

What are the two main theories for forgetting?

Answer 28

Trace decay theory and Interference theory

Question 29

What is Trace decay theory?

Answer 29

We forget because the memory trace fades, that is, the memory trace is no longer available

Question 30

What is Interference theory?

Answer 30

We forget because some memory traces interfere with the retrieval of others, that is, the memory trace is no longer accessible

Question 31

What does Ebbinghaus’s “curve of forgetting” show?

Answer 31

(1) A very fast early forgetting

(2) A very slow later forgetting

Question 32

What is an adaptative reason for forgetting?

Answer 32

The loss of access to information through disuses is seen not as a failure of the system, but an adaptive feature that facilitates updating

Question 33

What is transient epileptic amnesia?

Answer 33

It is a syndrome of temporal lobe epilepsy in which the principal manifestation of a seizure is a brief episode of amnesia during which other mental functions are predominantly or entirely preserved

Question 34

What is amnesia?

Answer 34

It refers to the acquired impairment of explicit long-term memory, that is, when remembering requires overt reference to the learning phase.

Question 35

What can cause amnesia?

Answer 35

It can be due to brain lesions (neurogenic amnesia) or to psychological factors (psychogenic amnesia)

Question 36

What is retrograde amnesia?

Answer 36

Impaired recall and recognition of memories of facts and personal episodes acquired before the brain damage

Question 37

What are the components of global amnesiacs?

Answer 37

normal digit span
impaired LTM
damage to medial temporal lobe

Question 38

When is a memory defined as implicit?

Answer 38

• A memory is defined implicit when the learned information is retrieved and used without awareness of remembering it and with no reference to the learning phase

Question 39

What is prefrontal cortex (PFC) involved in?

Answer 39

It is involved in online maintenance and manipulation of information
This includes working memory as well as ‘working with memory’ (i.e., encoding, retrieval and evaluation of information stored in long term memory)

Question 40

What is working memory?

Answer 40

Manipulation of information currently held in short- term stores

Question 41

What do patients with PFC lesions suffer from?

Answer 41

Disorganized memory

Question 42

What are confabulations?

Answer 42

false and sometimes self-contradictory memories that the patient believes to be real (i.e., without an intention to lie)

Question 43

What are confabulations associated with?

Answer 43

Associated with damage to different regions than in classical amnesia