Memory Flashcards
Case of H.M
- 9 years old
- hit by a bicyclist
- to stop seizures removed part of the temporal lobe
- resulting in loos of brain structures such as the amygdala, hippocampus etc
- lost ability to form new memories
- drew star better and better each time they met
memory
the ability to store and use information
doesn’t need to be a conscious recollection
What are the two broadest types of memory
explicit/ declarative memory
implicit/ non-declarative memory
explicit memory
conscious recall of facts and events
memories are deliberately accessed
implicit memory
not easily described using words
sensory memory
part of memory that holds sensory information for milliseconds to seconds
Visual sensory memory?
iconic memory
- a brief record of a visual scene
auditory sensory memory?
echoic memory
- short-term retention of sounds
testing iconic memory?
George Sperling experiment
- flashed three rows of four digits on screen long enough for iconic but not long enough for short-term memory to process (50miliseconds)
- modified experiment by introducing a delay after the flash and then asking the participants to recall the information
What was the result of the George Sperling experiment?
results dropped dramatically after introducing the dealy
suggesting we can “hold” a visual scene in our mind for a very brief period of time
Testing echoic memory?
- two different auditory pieces, ignore one listen to other
- ## short-term memory doesn’t work for ignored one, have to rely on echoic memory
results of echoic memory test?
delay of more than 5 seconds produced dramatically dropped memory results
What holds information longer, iconic or echoic memory?
echoic!
echoic memory can hold information for a few seconds
iconic memory can hold information for milliseconds to a second
What is the three-stage model?
a model introduced by Atkinson and Shiffrin classifying three memory stores
explain the three-stage model
classifies
- short-term memory
- long-term memory
- sensory memory
Short-term memory
stores a limited amount of information for about 2-30 seconds (long enough to dial a phone number)
long-term memory
stores a vast amount of information for 30 seconds to a lifetime
how does memory form?
sensory input –pay attention–> short term memory–repeat/ rehearse—-> long-term
What happens if we don’t pay attention to sensory input
the memory vanishes
What happens if we do not rehearse or repeat information in short-term memory
it will disappear
What is rehearsal?
the process of reciting or practicing things repeatedly
How long do we have to do rehearsal for it to maybe make it to long-term memory?
after about a minute or two the information might make it to long-term memory
encoding?
the process by which we attend to and process new information so it often goes to long-term memory
what is retrieval?
recovery of information stored in memory
what memory do we rely on to perform tasks and solve problems?
we want short-term memory to work
how much can short-term memory hold?
4-9 chunks or digits of data
average is 7 plus or minus two
why are phone numbers 7 digits long?
the magical number that people are better at remembering within the 4-9 digits
Peterson and Peterson experiment
- participants given list of three letter combinations
- asked to recall them after delays in time
- prevented “rehearsing” by performing a math problem during a delay
- after 18 seconds only 10% was recalled
What is working memory?
a phrase psychologists used to describe short-term memory ppl use to attend to and solve a problem at hand
- place where we temporarily store information while working
short-term vs working?
short term is duration of this type of memory
working is the function of this memory
Can working memories make it to long-term memory?
yes, if continuously practiced
What is “chunking”?
the best way to use working memory, as working memory has its limits
- helps recall later on
- transforming what you know into meaningful groups or chunks
Baddeley’s working memory model?
this model saw working memory is broken up into three stores all managed by the “central executive”
- visuospatial (images and spatial relations)
- phonological loop (sound and language)
- episodic buffer (temporary storage for specific events)
What was Baddeley’s theory?
there were three different processes to working memory:
- attending to a stimulus
- storing information
- rehearsing the stored information
How does the central executive manage the three stores of working memory?
- focusing and switching attention
- deciding where to focus attention in that moment and what aspects of a stimulus to focus on
how do we go from attending to a stimulus to storing a stimulus?
the information is sent to a temporary store… one of the three store of
visuospatial
phonological loop
episodic buffer
How much can the phonological loop store?
a limited number of digits or words for up to 30 seconds
- however it only lasts a few seconds if we attend to it and process it more deeply
How much can the visuospatial sketch pad store?
briefly stores up to 4 images
- will fade quickly if not attended to to process more deeply
do visuospatial and phonological store effect one another?
they don’t seem to
what does the episodic buffer hold?
critical events for a temporary amount of time that will eventually become long-term memories of specific events
how do long-term and working memory relate?
working memory can retrieve long-term memories to bring into the mental workspace
What is the serial position effect?
the tendency to recall items better depending on their place on a list
- recall items at the beginning and end of a list better than items in the middle of the list
primacy effect?
the tendency to remember items at the beginning of the list
recency effect?
the tendency to remember items at the end of a list better