Memory Flashcards
Explain the difference between Levels of Processing (LOP) and Transfer Appropriate Processing (TAP).
LOP refers to semantic meaningfulness (shallow vs. deep) and accounts for much of how we remember information. TAP refers to the similarity of info at study and test, with the idea that our memory is more accurate when there is similarity of the info at study and test. Basically, memory is not only determined by depth of processing but by the relationship between how information is initially encoded and how it is later retrieved. TAP functions within the LOP framework.
What is Schemata?
stored body of knowledge about a topic (ex: your knowledge of dogs)
What are propositions?
representation of meaning that can be stored/retrieved from memory; in form of true/false statements (ex: a dog has fur)
What is a script?
representation of a complex event; allows for predictions (ex: what happens in a restaurant, e.g., seated, given menu, order food, served, eat, pay/include tip!)
What is autobiographical memory?
memory for significant life events; childhood amnesia during earliest (up to 5 yrs old?) years; episodic precedes semantic memory in development)
What is the connection between personal relevance and memory?
our memory is better for personally meaningful info
What eyewitness memory?
memory for a special event; often emotions involved; consider attentional narrowing as a factor; consider post-event info can alter one’s memory for the event (work of Loftus & colleagues: how fast was car going when it hit/smashed into the wall? Faster estimate with the verb smashed
What considerations should be made when interviewing an eye witness?
be careful re suggestibility of client; special interviews have been designed to minimize likelihood of implanting false memories
What is prospective memory?
remembering to do things (at a future time); motivation is important.
Explain Bower’s network theory
Bower’s network theory—we discussed this with emotions theories; emotions are included in network (nodes, spreading activation); led to following 2 constructs:
What is mood state dependent recall?
recall is most accurate when mood at study matches mood at test (someone who undergoes mood induction should remember info best learned in that mood when he/she is later in the same mood)
What is mood congruence?
recall is most accurate when mood matches content of the info to be recalled (ex: depressed people remember negative info)
What is consolidation?
process of putting info into LTM; hours to days; neural involvement of hippocampus and other brain structures necessary
Who was H.M.?
Henry Molaison; most famous amnestic case; had bilateral medial temporal lobectomy to cure his epilepsy. He developed severe anterograde amnesia and could not commit new events to explicit memory. However, working and procedural memory was intact (ie he could learn a new motor skill but didn’t remember learning them). This suggest that recall from STM and Procedural memory may be mediated by different area’s of the brain and encoding and retrieval of LTM may be mediated by different systems.
Who was Clive Wearing?
another famous amnestic individual; amnesia due to viral encephalitis; procedural memories (conducting; playing piano) intact. Declarative memories severely impacted.
What are some strategies for improving memory?
see end of Memory and Learning handout; include common sense approach re maximizing one’s attention, emotional outlook, study/test similarity; individualized, meaningful strategies; also an article in Memory II handout (last page) includes information about this.
Discuss short term memory (STM).
Primary, remains in consciousness after perceived, 7 +/- 2, recency effect of serial position, includes working memory
What is declarative memory?
- Explicit memory
- involves semantic(facts) and episodic (events) memory.
- conscious, intentional recollection of previous experiences and learned information (ie, what you had for breakfast, what you read in newspaper, world hx events, etc)
What is episodic memory?
- storage and retrieval of specific events
- linked to a specific place and time
- associated with conscious recollection
- associated with “self-knowing
- recently evolved, late- developing and early deteriorating.
What is Semantic Memory?
- General knowledge of objects, word meanings, facts, people
- Lacks a particular connection to time or place
- Associated with “knowing awareness”
What is nondeclarative memory?
- Implicit memory-
- memory for procedural (skills), priming, classical condition and nonassociative learning.
- unconscious, non-intentional form of memory (ie, use of language, motor skills, riding a bike, swimming, etc)
What are the tests of Episodic memory?
- Free Recall- recall in any order
- Serial Recall- recall in original order
- Cued Recall- “What word did you study with ‘cat’?”
- Forced Choice- “Which word did you study before: ‘ballet’ or ‘monk’?”
- Yes/No Recognition- “Did you study ‘ballet’?”
- note: Remember CVLT/HVLT
How does episodic memory differ from autobiographical memory?
episodic memory differs from autobiographical memory and is one’s daily memory for events (often insignificant in grand scheme of life
What consideration should be made when giving someone a mental screening test?
Beware of memory screening measure, such as in a mental status exam, where examiner asks client to recall names of 3 objects presented 5 minutes previously; client could be anxious or depressed which may lead to poor memory; or client may be able to complete short term tasks and still have a significant memory problem. Comprehensive memory and other cognitive testing may be necessary to sort out problems.
What are Dan Schacter’s 7 sins of memory
- Different types of forgetting: transience, absent-mindedness, blocking
- Distortions of inaccuracy: misattribution, suggestibility, bias
- Pathological remembrance: persistence
What is transience?
When memory becomes less reliable over time. This is typical when information isn’t used over time. (ie. I learned French but since I had no one to regularly speak it to, I lost what I learned) Rapid forgetting: short term and working memory (ie. can remember a phone number to dial on the phone but wont remember it after you don’t need it)
Discuss the theories of transience.
Cognitive psychologists: forgetting over time described mathematically- rate of forgetting is slowed down by passage of time
Neurobiological: loss of synaptic connectivity
Cognitive neuroscience analysis: amnestic patients forget experiences rapidly with varying degrees of forgetfulness.
What is absent-mindedness?
occurs when insufficient attention is applied to a stimulus at the time of encoding or retrieval and usually occurs with automatic actions. It is common of everyday activity (ie forgetting where I put my keys or where you parked)—In my case its just common everyday ;)
What is change blindness?
Related to absent mindedness- the surprising failure to detect a substantial visual change. A form of shallow encoding- Shallow encoding that does not proceed beyond a categorical level results in poor recollection of details and vulnerability to change blindness.
What are some retrieval problems related to absent mindedness?
Failures of Prospective Memory- when people forget to execute a task.
Everyday activities (ie forgetting to take meds)
Event-based and time based
What is blocking?
when you are provided with relevant cues to a sought-after item but are unable to elicit it. affects episodic ad semantic memory. subjective because people are aware of the block when it occurs (ie during and exam, cant remember what was studied). Blocking (especially TOT increases with age)
What is Tip of the tongue state (TOT)?
type of blocking when you are unable to produce a word or name but have a powerful subjective conviction that the item is available to memory. Occurs due to retrieval of incorrect items that interfere with access to the target such as “ugly sisters”(incorrect items that are related to target and recur during the retrieval attempt.
What is misattribution?
Situation when some form of memory is present but misattributed to an incorrect time, place or person.
What are the three forms of misattribution?
- People may remember an item correctly or fact from the past but misattribute the fact to an incorrect source (ie, don’t remember where you know a face from.)
- an absence of any subjective experience of remembering; people misattribute a spontaneous thought to their own imagination, when they are actually retrieving it form a prior experience. (cryptomnesia- unintentional plagiarism)
- When individuals falsely recall or recognize items or events that never happened.
What is suggestibility?
tendency to incorporated information provided by theory into one’s own recollections (misleading information). This is related to false and recovered memories of childhood and false confessions (ie, sexual abuse, etc)
What is the difference between misattribution and suggestibility?
misattribution can occur in absence of over suggestion.
What is bias?
the disturbing influences of present knowledge, beliefs, and feelings on recollection of previous experiences. Involve subtle influence of past experience on current judgments of other people and groups
What is retroactive explanation?
related to bias. people’s recollections tend to exaggerate the consistency between their past and present attitudes, beliefs and feelings.
Discuss consistency bias observed in romantic relationships.
present attachment ratings correlated highly with feelings/recall of past relationships.
What is persistence?
Remembering a fact or event that one would prefer to forget. Revealed by intrusive recollections of traumatic events, ruminations over negative symptoms and events, and by chronic fears and phobias. It can be influenced by current mood and emotions (ie dysphroic, suicidal depression)
What are some of the pros of the 7 sins?
In the case of transience, it is useful to forget some things such as phone numbers or where we parked yesterday. In the case of blocking, it is useful so that all information that is potentially relevant to a retrieval cue does not come to mind. In the case of absent-mindedness, if all events were recollected in elaborate detail, there would be overwhelming clutter.
What are some of the cons of the 7 sins?
gradual forgetting of the kind of documented human memory is not useful for an informational environment. Misattribution, suggestibility and bias, when such details are not initially well encoded, or become inaccessible over time, individuals may become vulnerable to any suggestions of others or past events that are only vague to them currently.
Discuss the measuring memory processes.
Encoding- immediate recognition (I will read you a list of words, after I have read them, you tell me as many of those words as you can remember.) Storage- delayed recall (after 20 minutes- “do you remember the list of words we tried to learn earlier?) Retrieval- expect recognition>free recall, Primacy effect- serial position curve. Working memory- post distractional tasks.
Discuss Long term Memory (LTM).
Secondary, involves semantic vs. Cognitive mediational, procedural vs. semantic, Habit vs. Memory, Knowing how vs. knowing what, Procedural vs. semantic/episodic and nondeclarative vs. declarative.
Discuss Baddely’s model of working memory.
4 component model
- Central Executive- modality free, resembles attention, deals with any cognitively demanding task, uses slave systems.
- Phonological loop- holds information in speech-based form
- Visiospatial sketch pad- specialized for spatial and visual coding and manipulation
- Episodic buffer- temporary storage system; holds and integrates information from phonological loop, VSSP and LTM
What is incidental memory?
memory for non-intentional memory - memory for information people are not asked to remember. (ie. to stay away from sharp edges, to wear shoes outside because you may hurt your feet)
What is procedural memory?
Type of implicit memory. It is memory for the performance of particular types of action; guides the processes we perform and most frequently resides below the level of conscious awareness. When needed, it is automatically retrieved and utilized for the execution of the integrated procedures; involved in both cognitive and motor skills (ie driving, tying shoes, to reading) accessed and used without the need for conscious control or attention.
What is priming?
type of implicit memory in which exposure to one stimulus influences the response to another stimulus. (ie, if you read a list of words that include the word “table” and you are later asked to come up with a word that begins with the letters “TAB” the probability of you choosing the word “Table” is higher)
Explain the serial position curve.
Serial position effect is the tendency of a person to recall the first (primacy effect) and last items (recency effect) in a series the best and the middle items the worst. When a person is anxious, they tend to remember the words at the beginning better than the words in the middle or at the end. When a person is malingering the tend to exhibit a flat line (equally low remembrance of beginning, middle and last words.) or a reduced normal pattern.
What is the difference between distractibility and hypervigilance?
distractibility is the inability to concentrate attention. The state in which attention is drawn to unimportant or irrelevant external stimuli. Hypervigilance is excessive attention and focus on all internal and external stimuli. It is usually secondary to delusional or paranoid states.
Explain Yerkes-Dodson Law.
Optimal performance occurs at intermediary (and not high or low) level of anxiety. At low arousal, one might be sluggish and inefficient. At high levels of anxiety, one might be equally inefficient or even worse.
What is neglect?
disorder of visual attention- involves right hemisphere damage in which the left side of objects and/or objects presented to the left visual field are undetected includes subject centered (egocentric) and object centered (allocentric) neglect. Main areas damaged are typically the areas located within the stimulus-drive or ventral attention network. This suggests that attentional problems of neglect patients depend on brain networks rather than simply on specific brain areas.
What is Subject centered (egocentric) Neglect?
brain damage typically in the right hemisphere and there is often little awareness of stimuli on the left side of the visual field. Occurs because of the nature of the visual system- information from the left side of the visual field proceeds to the right brain hemisphere.
What is Object centered (allocentric) Neglect?
lack of awareness of the left side of objects rather than simply the left side of the visual field. (ie only see the right side of a clock)
What is extinction?
a disorder of visual attention in which a stimulus presented to the side opposite the brain damage is not detected when another stimulus is presented at the same time t the side of the brain damage. Closely related to neglect however, most of the evidence suggest they are separate deficits.
temporoparietal function and intraprietal sulcus are likely damaged.
What is optic ataxia?
inability to reach a target accurately. Cant guide hand toward an object using visual information.
What is ocular apraxia?
inability to voluntarily control gaze. Difficulty in fixating the eyes.
What is simultanagnosia?
inability to perceive or attend to more that 1 object at a time. Cant perceive visual field as a whole.
What is Balint’s syndrome?
triad of sever neuropsychological impairments (optic ataxia, ocular apraixia and simultangnosia)
What is attentional narrowing?
Seen in GAD. Increased level of anxiety causes decrease in attentional scope. Purpose is to exclude irrelevant information and to improve efficiency. However, if there is too much anxiety, relevant info is excluded and functioning is compromised.
Explain the interaction of emotions with cognition.
Anxiety- function is to detect danger, affects attention. Focus is external and present time (ie flight or fight). Depression- function is to conserve energy, affects memory, focus is internal and past time.
What is interpretive bias?
Related to anxiety (ie GAD) interpreting ambiguous stimuli as threatening.
What are the stages of information processing?
- encoding- when info comes into our memory system, it needs to be changed into a form that the system can cope with. Includes visual, acoustic (principle for STM) and semantic (principle for LTM) coding.
- Storage- where memory is stored, duration (how long), capacity (how much) and what kind of information. Magic number 7 +/- 2, STM last 0-30 sec, LTM can last lifetime
- Retrieval- getting information out of storage. STM retrieved by sequentially, LTM retrieved by association, organization can help retrieval
Explain the hypothesized memory process.
incoming auditiory, visual, olfactory and tactile information goes through sensory buffers then are encoded. After encoding, info goes to short term storage and then are consolidated to long term memory then are retrieved.
What are action slips?
unintentional behaviors that are the result of absent-mindedness or a failure to pay attention. Typically occur when doing an automatic and familiar task and have insignificant consequences in our daily lives. (ie forgetting to stop at the store on your routine drive home, or when a waiter says “enjoy your meal” you respond “you too”)
Explain the KF case and how is supports the working memory model.
KF suffered brain damage from a motorcycle accident that damaged his short term memory. KF’s impairment was mainly for verbal information. His memory for visual information was largely unaffected. This shows that there are separate ST components for visual information and verbal information.
What is agnosia?
inability to process sensory information despite perceived abilities.
What is apperceptive agnosia?
deficits in visual processing therefore cannot recognize an object. Will not be able to copy an object
What is associative agnosia?
Visual processing is intact but object recognition is impaired; due to difficulty accessing relevant knowledge; (will call fork a spoon but would be able to copy it)
What is propagnosia?
“face blindness”-Caused by brain damage; inability to recognize or understand the face. May recognize face on some level (ie emotional cue without fully remembering)
What is Holistic processing?
Holistic processing involves strong integration of information from an entire object focusing on the relationships among features as well as the features themselves. Holistic processing of faces is more efficient and more reliable than feature processing. It is more rapid because facial features are processed in parallel rather than one by one
What is face-inversion effect?
Inverted faces are disproportionately harder to recognize that upright faces relative to objects.
What is the part-whole effect?
memory for a face-part is more accurate when presented within the whole face.
What is the composite effect?
perceiving half a face is more difficult when it appears against a different complimentary half.
Why may face processing be impaired?
Brain damage to face-processing region (fusiform gyrus; also occipital temporal regions); Face recognition is just harder because it involves making fine distinctions
What is the difference between posed and spontaneous facial expression?
Spontaneous-genuine (Duchenne); is congruent with feelings and involves the cingulate and basal ganglia. Posed lacks congruent feelings and involves the motor cortex of the lateral frontal lobe.
Describe the left and right hemisphere processing of perception.
the left hemisphere is verbal, analytic, has high spatial frequency and appreciates emotions as cognitive-labels emotions. The right hemisphere is visuospatial/perceptual, holistic/syncretic, low spatial frequency and emotions as feelings.
What are some explanations for change blindness?
scene representations may be limited/sparse due to lack of attentional focus; detailed representations may decay or be overwritten; it may be impossible to compare pre and post change representations; visual representations of pre-change stimulus may be limited to the unconscious.
What is attention?
state of vigilance/alertness; allows selection of some sensory inputs vs. other sensory inputs; mental concentration which allows one to focus on a particular task, that which controls access to conscious experience.
What is focused attention?
a situation in which individuals try to attend to only one source of information while ignoring other stimuli; also known as selective attention.
What is divided attention?
a situation in which two tasks are performed at the same time; also known as multitasking.
What is sustained attention?
focused and selective attention over a long period of time.
What is alternating attention?
Shifting between tasks.
What is visual mental imagery?
occurs when a visual short-term memory representation is present but the stimulus is not actually being viewed; it is accompanied by the experience of ‘seeing with the mind’s eye’
Explain Kosslyn’s Perceptual Anticipation Theory:
Assumes there are close similarities between visual imagery and visual perception. Visual images are depictive representations; Like pictures or drawings of objects that can be arranged in space; Formed in topographically organized brain areas forming the visual buffer; Predicts that perception and imagery should influence each other
Explain Dylyshyn’s Propositional Theory:
o Does not hold that mental imagery involves depictive representations
o Instead, people use tacit propositional knowledge
Generally unconscious, stored knowledge about objects
However, the nature of tacit knowledge is not very well defined currently
Explain Baddeley and Andrade (2000) theory on interference.
Since visual imagery and spatial tapping are assumed to share the visual buffer, doing both simultaneously should impair performance- support of perceptual anticipation
Explain Gibson’s direct perception for action.
o Suggested that perceptual information is used primarily in the organization of action
o Held that perception and action are closely intertwined
o One influences the other without any need for complex cognitive processes
o Took an ecological approach in this direct theory of perception
Describe Glovers Planning- Control Model.
o Planning System:
Mostly used before initiation of movement
Selects an appropriate target
Decides how the object will be grasped
Determines the timing of the movement
Uses both spatial and non-spatial information
Relatively slow
Planning depends on:
• A visual representation located in the inferior parietal lobe
• Motor processes in the frontal lobes and basal ganglia
o Control System:
Used after the planning system
To ensure that movements are accurate
Influenced by the target object’s spatial characteristics
Relatively fast
Control depends on:
• A visual representation located in the superior parietal lobe
• Motor processes in the cerebellum
What is cross modal attention?
- Integrating information- auditory and visual info
- The coordination of attention across two or more modalities
- In the real world, we often coordinate information from two or more sense modalities at the same time (cross modal attention)
- Lipreading, in which we use visual information about a speaker’s lip movements to facilitate our understanding of what they are saying
- Multimodal cells have been identified
What is the Ventriloquism effect?
o The mistaken perception that sounds are coming from their apparent source
o Certain conditions need to be satisfied for the ventriloquist illusion to occur
The visual and auditory stimuli must occur close together in time
The sound must match expectations raised by the visual stimulus, i.e, high pitched sound apparently coming from a small object
The sources of the visual and auditory stimuli should be close together in space
The ventriloquist effect is an example of visual dominance
The ventriloquist effect occurs automatically
What is split attention?
Allocation of attention to two (or more) non-adjacent regions of visual space
What is meant by a “zoom-like lens?”
Eriksen & St. James have argued that visual attention is like a zoom lens- narrow or broad; We can deliberately increase or decrease the area of focal attention just as a zoom lens can be adjusted to alter the visual area it covers
Explain the Mirror neuron system:
o Formed of neurons activated when animals perform an action and when they observe another performing the same action
o Facilitates imitation and understanding of others’ actions
o Area F5 and superior central sulcus in monkeys
What areas in human beings are similar to the mirror neuron system?
Ventral premotor cortex
Anterior intraparietal cortex
Superior intraparietal cortex
What is the role of the dorsal network on focused attention?
o Voluntary
o Endogenous
Controlled by the individual’s intentions and expectations
Involved with central cues are presented
More top-down processing
o Goal directed
o Controlled, effortful
o Stimulus selection, allocation
o More anterior frontoparietal
o The brain network involved in the goal- directed attentional system, based on findings from various brain-imaging studies in which participants were expecting certain visual stimuli.
o Posner and Peterson identified the dorsal attention network as goal-directed
Similar to central executive of working memory
What is the role of the ventral network on focused attention?
- Ventral
o Involuntary
o Exogenous
Automatically shifts attention
Involved with uninformative peripheral cues are presented
Stimuli that are salient or that differ from other stimuli are most likely to be attended to
More bottom-up
o Stimulus driven
o Automatic
o Disengage, shift, engage
o More posterior RIGHT frontoparietal
o The brain netweork involved in stimulus- driven attentional system based on findings from various brain imaging studies in which participants detected low-frequency target stimuli
o Posner and Petersen (1990) identified the ventral as stimulus attention system
Disengagement of attention- posterior parietal
Shifting of attention- superior colliculus
Engaging a new visual stimulus- pulvinar nucleus of thalamus
What are the findings of the filter theories?
o Some info may be selected early while other info is selected later
o Most parsimonious model involves a flexible filter to accommodate processing of different types of info
o Total available attentional capacity is allocated to processing
What is the difference between automatic and controlled (attention processes)?
Controlled Automatic Limited capacity Yes No Requires attention Yes No Flexible Yes No Serial vs Parallel Serial Parallel
- Automatic processing does not rely on conscious attention capacity
How would you improve multitasking by reducing interference?
- Task similarity- attention is more accurate when tasks are more different, i.e., less competition
- Practice- Improves attentional ability
- Task difficulty- Different levels of difficulty of tasks encourage better functioning overall
Describe Posner’s disengage, shift, engage—Ventral attention network
o Posner and Petersen (1990) identified the ventral as stimulus attention system
Disengagement of attention- posterior parietal
Shifting of attention- superior colliculus
Engaging a new visual stimulus- pulvinar nucleus of thalamus
