Memory

Question 1

3 Step Memory Process

Answer 1

1. Encoding
2. Storage
3. Retrieval

Question 2

Lesions to Hippocampal Formation

Answer 2

Affects Episodic Memory (Events)

Question 3

Lesions to Parahippocampal Region

Answer 3

Affects Semantic Memory (Facts)

Question 4

Binocular Rivalry

Answer 4

A phenomenon of visual perception in which perception alternates between different images presented to each eye.

Question 5

Levels of Processing Model (Craik and Lockhart, 1972)

Answer 5

The levels of processing model (Craik and Lockhart, 1972) focuses on the depth of processing involved in memory, and predicts the deeper information is processed, the longer a memory trace will last.

Question 6

Simons and Levin (1987)

Answer 6

Change Blindness

• Directions
• Cards
• Change Blindness Blindness

Question 7

Elizabeth Loftus

Answer 7

• Cars driving = Language of the questions can distort what we think we have seen
• Restaurant = Weapon focus and therefore less likely to identify the rest

Question 8

Why doesn’t our memory simply record events

Answer 8

1. We’d go insane
2. We need to plan for the future - therefore we need a system that represents past so that we could identify similar things later

Question 9

2 Theories of Forgetting

Answer 9

1. Trace Decay Theory

2. Interference Theory

Question 10

Ebbinghaus

Answer 10

Forgetting Curve

Question 11

Anterograde amnesia

Answer 11

Anterograde amnesia is a loss of the ability to create new memories after the event that caused the amnesia.

Question 12

Lynch and Yarnell (1973)

Answer 12

Shortly after concussion the memory is intact but few minutes after the players hardly remember anything about what happened. Amnesiacs have good STM

Question 13

Bjork (1978)

Answer 13

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

Question 14

Patient H.M.

Answer 14

• Had temporal lobectomy to treat epilepsy (including hippocampus)
• Severe anterograde amnesia
• Retrograde memory deficit about 10 years

Question 15

Patient KF (Shallice & Warrington, 1970)

Answer 15

The KF Case Study 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 STM components for visual information (VSS) and verbal information (phonological loop).

Question 16

Studies on memory patients reveal that STM and LTM…

Answer 16

These results provide evidence that STM and LTM are dissociable processes and are served by separate neurological systems: STM depends upon intact corticostriatal systems, whereas LTM depends upon intact medial temporal lobe systems.

Question 17

What Memory Systems are Impaired in Amnesia?

Answer 17

• STM – spared
• Non-declarative memory – spared
• Episodic memory – definitely impaired
• Semantic memory – typically impaired

Question 18

Baddeley &

Warrington (1970)

Answer 18

Amnesics have normal digit span

Question 19

Milner (1971)

Answer 19

HM could remember a number for 15 minutes by continuously repeating, but forgot it within 1 minute of stopping and had no recollection
of attempting it.

Question 20

Sir Frederick Bartlett’s input

Answer 20

Bartlett’s
central insight was that memory is not like a tape recorder: it doesn’t
faithfully play back our experiences. Instead, it changes or “reconstructs”
them imaginatively.

• War of the ghosts study

Question 21

Information Deficit Model

Answer 21

A common misconception about myths is the notion that
removing their influence is as simple as packing more
information into people’s heads. This approach assumes that
public misperceptions are due to a lack of knowledge and
that the solution is more information - in science
communication, it’s known as the “information deficit model”.
But that model is wrong: people don’t process information as
simply as a hard drive downloading data

Question 22

The Deese–Roediger–McDermott (DRM) paradigm

Answer 22

A procedure in cognitive psychology used to study false memory in humans.

The procedure typically involves the oral presentation of a list of related words (e.g. bed, rest, awake, tired, dream, wake, snooze, blanket, doze, slumber, snore, nap, peace, yawn, drowsy) and then requires the subject to remember as many words from the list as possible. Typical results show that subjects recall a related but nonpresented word (e.g. sleep), known as a ‘lure’, with the same frequency as other presented words.

Question 23

Collective representations

Answer 23

Formal questionnaire, 180 healthy
participants (daily commuters or workers
at the station). Relevant questions
focused on whether they remembered the
clock working normally or as set at the
explosion time during the last 16 years in
which it had been working.
92% stated that the clock has always
been broken; 79% claimed they had
always seen set at the crucial 10.25 time

Question 24

Serial Position Effect

Answer 24

In free recall, more items are recalled from start of list (primacy effect) and end of the list (recency effect)

Question 25

Serial Position Effect in HM vs KF

Answer 25

HM = No Primacy Effect
KF = No Recency Effect

Question 26

Role of Prefrontal Cortex in memory

Answer 26

• Working memory
• Working with memory (encoding/retrieval)
• Patients with PFC lesions have disorganised memory

Question 27

Confabulations

Answer 27

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

Often associated with PFC damage since it evaluates and manipulates memory

Question 28

Vicarious Pavlovian (classical)
conditioning

Answer 28

The learning of various attitudes, feelings, beliefs and emotions, not through direct exposure to a stimulus, but through observing how others react to it.

Question 29

Top 3 things that boost memory

Answer 29

• Spacing
• Elaboration
• Testing effect

Question 30

Patient KC

Answer 30

• Suffered from both anterograde and retrograde amnesia
• Results from studies on KC involving telling fictional stories found that Autobiographical Memory (AM) deficit is related to both inability to generate details from a memory storage, as well as, to problems with binding together the remaining pieces of information. Hippocampal damage may be a possible explanation, however this cannot be determined as K.C. suffered from lesions in several brain areas.

Question 31

Subcortical Structures

Answer 31

1. Hippocampus
2. Cerebellum
3. Amygdala
4. Basal Ganglia

Question 32

Cortical Structures

Answer 32

1. Frontal Lobe
2. Temporal Lobe
3. Parietal Lobe
4. Occipital Lobe

Question 33

Memory role of Hippocampus

Answer 33

Contains cognitive maps
- Place Cells -> John O’Keefe

Important in Encoding
- Damage = Anterograde Amnesia -> H.M. (+ 10yr Retrograde Amnesia)

Involved in Consolidation
- Lesions = Slower Consolidation

Hippocampal Formation -> Episodic Memory

Parahippocampal Region -> Semantic Memory

Question 34

Memory role of Cerebellum

Answer 34

Involved in Procedural Memory

Important in Motor Learning

Question 35

Memory role of Amygdala

Answer 35

Involved in Emotional Memory
- Pavlovian Conditioning of Fear

Important in Memory Consolidation
- Heightened Emotional Arousal = Faster Consolidation

Question 36

Memory role of Basal Ganglia

Answer 36

Involved in Implicit Memory

Important in Motor Learning

Question 37

Memory role of Frontal Lobe

Answer 37

Coordination of Information

Important in Working Memory

Involved in Prospective Memory

PFC Damage = Confabulations / Disorganised Memory

Question 38

Memory role of Temporal Lobe

Answer 38

Autobiographical Memory

Recognition Memory

Involved in Long-Term Memory

Question 39

Memory role of Parietal Lobe

Answer 39

Verbal Short-Term Memory

Question 40

Memory role of Occipital Lobe

Answer 40

Visual Memory