Memory

Question 1

What are the three stages of memory?

Answer 1

Sensory memory, Short-term memory, and Long-term memory

Question 2

What is Sensory memory?

Answer 2

Lasts for only seconds and forms the connection between perception and memory.
-iconic memory is a form of sensory memory

Question 3

what is Iconic memory?

Answer 3

The sensory memory for vision studied by George Sperling in his Partial Report Paradigm Experiment. He found that people can see more than they remember. He would show them rows of letters for a fraction of a second and then asked them to write a particular line. While they could write down the line, they forgot the other letters in the time it took to write down the first line.

Question 4

Ulrich Neisser

Answer 4

Created the term “icon” for a brief visual memory and found that an icon lasts for about one second. He also descovered backward masking

Question 5

Backward Masking

Answer 5

When subjects are exposed to a bright flash of light or a new pattern before the iconic image fades, the first image will be erased. This also works for the auditory system as well. A mask is more successful if it is similar to the original stimulus

Question 6

Echoic Memory

Answer 6

The sensory memory for auditory sensations.

Question 7

What is Short-Term memory?

Answer 7

Temporary memory; lasts only a few seconds or minutes.

• Has capacity of about 7 items +or- 2 items
• Chunking and rehearsal can increase capacity
• Working memory is a type of short term memory needed for performing tasks
• STM is susceptible to interference

Question 8

Working Memory

Answer 8

The temporary memory that is needed to perform the task that someone is working on at that moment.

Question 9

What did George Miller find about short-term memory capacity?

Answer 9

Short-term memory has the capacity of about 7 items (+ or - 2 items)

Question 10

How does rehearsal effect STM?

Answer 10

Rehearsal is the key to keeping items in the STM and transferring items to long term memory. Primary rehearsal (maintenance) simply involves repeating material in order to hold it in STM. Secondary rehearsal (elaborative rehearsal) involves organizing and understanding material in order to transfer it to Long term memory

Question 11

What is the difference between primary and secondary rehearsal?

Answer 11

Primary (maintenance) rehearsal simply involves repeating material in order to hold it in STM. Secondary (elaborative) rehearsal involves organizing and understanding material in order to transfer it to long term memory

Question 12

What is Interference?

Answer 12

Short term memory is susceptible to interference or how other info or distractions cause one to forget items in STM. Proactive interference disrupting info that was learned before the new items were presented, such as similar words. Retroactive interference is disrupting info that was learned after the new items were presented

Question 13

What is the difference between proactive and retroactive interference?

Answer 13

• Proactive interference is essentially when old information prevents the recall of newer information.
  ex: when you get a new phone number, it might be really hard to remember because you keep recalling your ORIGINAL phone number
• Retroactive interference is when new information gets in the way of recalling older information!
  ex: accidentally calling your ex bf by your new boyfriends name!

Question 14

Long Term Memory

Answer 14

• Capable of permanent retention
• Most items are learned semantically, for meaning
• Retention is measured by recognition, recall, and savings
• Subject to the encoding specificity principle (material more likely to be remember if retrieved in the same context in which it was stored)
• Subject to same interference as STM
• NOT subject to primacy and recency effects

Question 15

How is Long Term Memory retention measured?

Answer 15

By

• Recognition: Simply requires subjects to recognize things learned in the past. ex: a multiple choice tests requires you to just recognize the answer in front of you
• Recall: Requires that subjects generate information on their own. ex: Cued Recall begins the task like a fill in the blank test. Free Recall is remembering with no cue
• Savings: measures how much information about a subject remains in LTM by assessing how long it takes to learn something the second time as opposed to the first.

Question 16

What is the Encoding Specificity Principal?

Answer 16

Material is more likely to be remembered if it is retrieved in the same context in which it was stored

Question 17

Episodic Memory vs Semantic Memory

Answer 17

• Episodic memory consists of details, events, and discrete knowledge
• Semantic memory consists of general knowledge of the world

Question 18

Explicit Memory versus Implicit Memory

Answer 18

• Explicit memory is knowing something and being consciously aware of knowing it, ex: knowing a fact.
• Implicit memory is knowing something without being aware of knowing it. ex: HM’s performance on a mirror-drawing task increased after several days of practice’ however, each day he would report he had never done the task before.

Question 19

Procedural Memory vs Declarative Memory

Answer 19

• Procedural Memory is knowing how to do something

- Declarative memory is knowing a fact.

Question 20

Hermann Ebbinghaus

Answer 20

• First person to systematically study memory.
• presented subjects with lists of nonsense syllables to study the STM.
• Proposed a Forgetting Curve that depicts a sharp drop in savings immediately after learning and levels off, with a slight downward trend although some psychologists doubt the ability to generalize this curve to other types of memory

Question 21

Fredrick Bartlett

Answer 21

Found that memory is reconstructive rather than rote. Using the story “War of the Ghosts”, he discovered that people are more likely to remember the ideas or semantics of a story than the details or grammar of a story

Question 22

Allan Paivio

Answer 22

suggested the Dual Code Hypothesis, this states that items will be better remembered if they are encoded both visually and semantically

Question 23

Fergus Craik and Robert Lockhart

Answer 23

Asserted that learning and recall depend on the depth of processing. Different levels of processing exist from the most superficial phonological (just being able to pronounce it) level to the deep semantic (meaning) level. The deeper an item is processed the easier it is to learn and recall.

Question 24

How do Behaviorists explain memory?

Answer 24

They explain memory through Paired-Associate Learning. One item is learned with and then cues the recall of another.

Question 25

Elizabeth Loftus

Answer 25

Found that memory of traumatic events is altered by the event itself and the way the questions about the event are phrased. ex: asking “how fast the cars were going when they crashed” will elicit higher speed estimates than “what was the rate of the cars upon impact?”.
This finding is particularly important for Law-Psychology issues such as questioning witnesses.

Question 26

Karl Lashley

Answer 26

Found that memories are stored diffusely in the brain

Question 27

Donald Hebb and E.R. Kandel

Answer 27

Donald Hebb put forth the idea that memory involves changes of synapses and neural pathways, making a “memory tree”. E.R. Kandel had similar ideas from studying the sea slug aplysia. Brain studies of young chicks also show that their brains are altered with learning and memory.

Question 28

Brenda Milner

Answer 28

Wrote about the patient “HM” who was given a lesion of the hippocampus to treat severe epilepsy. While he remembered things from before the surgery, and his short-term memory was still intact, he could not store any new long-term memories.

Question 29

Serial Learning

Answer 29

A list of information is learned and recalled in order (ex: the presidents of the united states).
-subject to primacy and recency effect

Question 30

Primacy and Recency Effect

Answer 30

When learning a list of information the first and last few items are the easiest to remember.

• First items are most remembered because they benefit from the most rehearsal/exposure
• Last items are easier to remember because there has been less time for decay

Question 31

Serial Position Curve

Answer 31

A U-Shaped graph that shows the the primacy and recency savings effect

Question 32

Serial-Anticipation Learning

Answer 32

This type of learning is similar to serial learning, however, instead of being asked to recall the entire list at once, the subject is asked to recall one item at a time.
-ex: When learning the U.S Presidents the subject would be presented with George Washington and then be expected to say John Adams. A few seconds later they would be presented with John Adams (confirming they were right) and be expected to say Thomas Jefferson.

Question 33

Paired-Associate Learning

Answer 33

We use this type of learning when we study foreign languages.
-ex: When studying spanish we remember that coche means “car” and hombre means “man”. We pair the Spanish word with the English word.

Question 34

Free Recall Learning

Answer 34

A list of items is learned, and then must be recalled in any order with no cue

Question 35

What 7 factors make items on a list easier to learn and retrieve?

Answer 35

1: Acoustic dissimilarity- the words on the list dont sound similar
2: Semantic dissimilarity- the words on the list dont have similar meaning
3: Brevity- shorter words and lists are easier to remember
4: Familiarity
5: Concreteness
6: Meaning
7: Importance to subject

Question 36

What are the two main theories that suggest the origin of forgetting?

Answer 36

Decay Theory and Interference Theory

Question 37

Decay Theory

Answer 37

• aka Trace Theory
• Memories simply fade with time
• This theory has been called too simplistic because other activities are known to interfere with retrieval

Question 38

Interference Theory

Answer 38

• Suggests that competing information blocks retrieval
• ex: if two groups of people learned a list of words, and then one group sleeps while the other group solves puzzles, the group that slept is more likely to remember more words from the list. For both groups the passage of time was the same but for the puzzle group competing information existed.

Question 39

Mnemonics

Answer 39

Memory cues that help learning and recall!
ex: the word OCEAN can help you remember the big 5 factors of personality: Openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, neuroticism

Question 40

The Generation- Recognition Model

Answer 40

Suggests that anything one might recall should easily be recognized. This is why a multiple-choice (or recognition) test is easier than an essay (or recall) test.

Question 41

Tip-of-the-Tongue Phenomenon

Answer 41

is being on the verge of retrieval but not successfully doing so

Question 42

State-Dependent Memory

Answer 42

• just like state dependent learning!
• Retrieval is more successful if it occurs in the same emotional state or physical state in which encoding occurred.
• This is why depressed individuals cannot easily recall happy memories and why alcoholics often remember details of their last drinking session only when under the influence of alcohol

Question 43

Clustering

Answer 43

The brains tendency to group together similar items in memory whether they are learned together or not. More often they are grouped into conceptual or semantic hierarchies.

Question 44

Incidental Learning

Answer 44

is measured through presenting subjects with items they are not supposed to try to memorize and then testing for learning

Question 45

Eidetic Imagery

Answer 45

Photographic memory, more common in children and rural cultures

Question 46

Flashbulb Memories

Answer 46

Recollections that seem burned in our brain such as “where were you when the world trade center collapsed?” or “where were you when you heard about 911”

Question 47

Is it easier to state the order of objects closer together on a list or farther apart?

Answer 47

In a recall task involving the order or items on a list, subjects can more quickly state the order of two items that are far apart on a list than two items closer together.
-ex: in a list of numbers, subjects can recognize 7 occurs before 593 more quickly than they can recognize 133 occurs before 136

Question 48

Tachtiscope

Answer 48

An instrument often used in cognitive memory experiments. its presents visual material (words or images) to subjects for a fraction of a second

Question 49

Zeigarnik Effect

Answer 49

Tendency to recall uncompleted tasks better than completed ones