Memory Flashcards
What does memory do?
- routines and habits
- the sense of self
- social functions
- solving problems
Who is Clive Wearing?
- he had no episodic memory
- he only recognized his wife (semantic memory)
- very short memory
- other forms of memory remained intact
- he could play the piano (procedural memory)
What are the three stages of memory?
- encoding
- storage
- retrieval
What is encoding?
- learning new information
- forming new “memory trace” as a neural code
- when a memory trace is formed as a hippocampal-cortical activity pattern
- putting information into long term memory stores
What is storage?
- retaining encoded memory trace/neural code
- consolidation
- maintaining information in memory
What is retrieval?
- activating a memory trace via a cue (probe for that memory) for a purpose
- when a cue (part of memory trace) triggers pattern completion of the brain pattern
- re activating and using previously learned information
What is memory consolidation?
- encoding and time
- encoding to storage
- when a memory is transformed into a stable cortical pattern
What is the multi-store model?
- sensory input
- sensory memory - 1 second (information not transferred is lost)
- short term memory - 30 seconds (information not transferred is lost)
- rehearsal
- long term memory
What are the types of sensory memory?
- iconic
- echoic
- haptic
What are the types of short term memory?
- attentional control
- working memory
What are the types of long term memory?
- implicit
- explicit
What are the types of implicit memory?
- procedural memory
- priming
- emotional responses
What are the types of explicit memory?
- episodic
- semantic
What is sensory memory?
- automatic reflections of a sense
- information that’s present in the most unprocessed form
- 1 second
What is echoic memory?
- sound byte held for about 3 seconds
What is haptic memory?
- very brief memory of a touch
What is iconic memory?
- millisecond visual memory
- a persistence of vision (afterimages)
What is a positive afterimage?
- a visual memory that represents the perceived image in the same colours
- helpful for seeing things smoothly
- see 75 frames/second, movies are 24 frames/second, but view movies as a smooth event due to afterimage filling in holes
- look at, then look away but still see exact image
What is a negative afterimage?
- a visual memory is the colour inverse of the perceived image
- slightly longer than positive afterimage (few seconds)
- look at, then away and colours are inverted
What is Sperling’s experiment on how long sensory memory lasts?
- participants briefly (0.05 seconds) viewed a visual display - 12 letters
- recalled the letters
- whole report or partial report
What is the whole report?
- reported letters from the whole display
What is the partial report?
- reported only one row of letters at a time over trials
- another experiment the rows were paired with tones and the tones played after viewing the letters, people were able to name each row of letter after hearing the tone for the row
What is short term memory?
- attended information moves from sensory to short term memory
- the prefrontal cortex
- limited time capacity - about 20 to 30 seconds
- limited capacity - magical number seven plus or minus two
What are the types of serial position effects?
- primacy effect
- recency effect
What is the primacy effect?
- we’re really good at remembering the first items on a list
- more time for rehearsal and to go into long term memory
- better at remembering first items than all others
What is the recency effect?
- we’re really good at remembering the last things on a list
- but only for a few seconds after reading it
- if more than 30 seconds pass, this effect is eliminated
At a restaurant, a server took Billy, Barb and then Linda’s order, but didn’t write these orders down! Which person’s order is the server most likely to forget?
a. Linda
b. Barb
c. Billy
d. Linda and Billy equally
b
What is our short term memory limit?
Remembering 7 items plus or minus 2
How can we overcome our short term memory limits?
- chunking strategy
What is the chunking strategy/effect?
- grouping items together in a meaningful way so more information to be represented at one time
- chunking increases with knowledge
- expert chess players recall more pieces on a chess board than new chess players because they use knowledge of moves to chunk pieces together
- this effect is not present if the pieces are on the board randomly
What is working memory?
- retention and manipulation of information not in our environment in conscious awareness
- guides behaviour
- essential for many cognitive functions
What are the components of working memory?
- phonological loop
- visuo-spatial sketchpad
- episodic buffer
- central executive
What is the central executive?
- manages and manipulates information held in short term memory
- processing and manipulating
- conductor of the brain
- the coordinator of information between working memory areas
What is the phonological loop?
- hold sound and linguistic information in short term
- phonological store
- articulatory control loop
- the ability to store auditory information in your mind
What is phonological store?
- passive store for verbal information
- the inner ear
What is articulatory control loop?
- active rehearsal of verbal information
- the inner voice
- used to convert written material into sounds (reading)
- a specialized role in language
What is the visospatial sketchpad?
- the visual cache
- the inner scribe
- the ability to imagine and manipulate visual information in your mind
What is the visual cache?
- information about visual features (form, colour…)
What is the inner scribe?
- information about spatial location, movement and sequences
What is the evidence for separate short term memory stores?
- neuroimaging evidence
- double dissociation in neuropsychological cases
What is the neuroimaging evidence for separate short term memory stores?
- different areas of the brain are active for visual and verbal short term memory tasks
What are the double dissociation in neuropshycological cases?
- patient ELD has problems recalling visual spatial but not verbal material in the short term
- patient PV has problems recalling verbal but not visual material in the short term
- brain injury can selectively effect the phonological loop or the visuo spatial sketchpad
What is the episodic buffer?
- our conscious awareness
- integrates from short term and long term memory
- brings together visual and verbal information
- responds to central executive
- brings in relevant long term knowledge
- bridge between short and long term
Which aspect of working memory is critical for explicit awareness?
a. inner scribe
b. episodic buffer
c. long term memory
d. central executive
b
Implicit or explicit: playing the piano
implicit
Implicit or explicit: remembering your first piano lesson
explicit
Implicit or explicit: knowing the French word for burrito
explicit
Implicit or explicit: thinking about the ski trip you took last weekend
explicit
Implicit or explicit: humming that Justin Bieber song that you listened to everyday when you were growing up
implicit
What is encoding explicit memories?
- when information from short term stores are transferred to long term memory over some retention or time period interval
- then it becomes available for retrival
short term memory - encoding (learning) —– retention interval time —–> memory (recall)
Where does consolidation occur in the encoding explicit memories path?
- retention interval time
Who is Ebbinghaus?
- learned nonsense syllables (no meaning, could not use prior knowledge)
- tested memory at various intervals
- examined what was retained and forgotten
- created over 2000 cards of nonsense syllables
- learned sets of the syllables under struct testing conditions to remove confounds
- the forgetting curve
What were the strict testing conditions Ebbinghaus used?
- read the syllables without any inflection
- read them at a consistently fast pace: 2.5 items per second
- he did nothing else while running these experiments
What is the forgetting curve?
- memory loss is largest early on and slows down
- it is exponential
What is the spacing effect?
- forgetting is reduced when learning is spread over time
- repeated information is more valuable
- don’t cram
What is active rehearsal?
- the testing effect
- participants studied a text passage
- one group studied more, one took a practice test
- those who did the practice test did better on the final
- retrieving memories after the practice test leads to deeper encoding
What are the levels of processing theory?
- the strength of a memory (and potential for forgetting) depends on processes engaged at encoding
- shallow vs deep processing
- memory is stronger with deep processing, more elaborate memory traces
What is shallow processing?
- focus on sensory information
- superficial features
- Counting the number of letters in a word
- ex: learn new words in a new language, memorizing vocabulary words and their translations is shallow
What is deep processing?
- integrate higher-level knowledge (things we know) with learned information
- ex: learn new words in a new language, using the words in sentences is deep
- deep encoding improves memory
- Determining whether a word fits into a particular category (e.g., “is ‘apple’ a fruit?”)
What is the proof that deep encoding improves memory?
- people had better memory when they had to identity a face as a politician or actor than inverted or upright
- self reference effect
- mnemonics
- imagery