Memory

Question 1

steps of learning and memory

Answer 1

1. Encoding of information into memory;
2. Storage of information within the memory system;
3. Retrieval of stored information from memory.

Question 2

iconic store

Answer 2

brief sensory store for visual information

Question 3

George Sperling 1960

Answer 3

experiments to understand iconic store :

12 lettres in grid array

flashed for .. ms

“partial report” condition: participants had to report either the top, middle or bottom row of letters

able to report most of the letters from the requested line, but only if the delay between removal of the array and presentation of the prompt was ~1 s or less.

–> information in iconic storage decays in less than a second.

Question 4

echoic store

Answer 4

sensory store for auditors modality

Question 5

Anne Treisman 1964

Answer 5

participants presented with an auditory message to one ear

asked to repeat the message back aloud while ignoring a second message being presented to the other ear.

If the second, ignored, message was actually identical to the first but started at a different time, participants only noticed they were the same if they started within 2 seconds of each other.

–> persistence of unattended information in the echoic store is ~2 s, otherwise information decays.

Question 6

George Miller ( 1965 )

Answer 6

capacity ( span ) of short term memory

recall of strings correctly up to a length of 7 +- 2 digits

also letters/ words

–> short-term memory : 7 integrated units of information ( chunks )

Question 7

short-term store:

Answer 7

Atkinson & Shiffrin
information currently held in mind
limited capacity

Question 8

retention of information in short term memory

Answer 8

rehearsing

longer in short-term –> higher chance in long term

Question 9

Rundus 1971

Answer 9

hypothesis: longer in short-term –> higher chance in long term

20 words :
rehearse the list out loud.

asked to recall the words –> more frequently a word had been rehearsed, the more likely it was to be recalled on the word recall test.

The exception to this was the last few words in the list, which always had a high likelihood of recall irrespective of the amount of rehearsal. the recency effect

Question 10

recency effect

Answer 10

observation that the last few items in a list are often much better remembered than items from the middle of the list

last few items still being present in the short-term store from the end of list presentation

supported by Glanzer & Cunitz ( 1966 )
–> recency effect eliminated if participants counted backwards prior to recall –> information displaced from short term memory –> supports link with short term memory

Question 11

Peterson & Peterson (1959)

Answer 11

duration of short-term memory

remember a 3-letter stimulus for a few seconds while counting backwards in threes. The ability to remember the stimulus diminished rapidly, suggesting that information decays from short-term memory within a matter of seconds.

however, Waugh&Norman ( 1965)

Question 12

Waugh&Norman ( 1965)

Answer 12

remember a 3-letter stimulus for a few seconds while counting backwards in threes. The ability to remember the stimulus diminished rapidly,

manipulated the speed with which digits that were to be remembered were presented to participants and found that digit recall was (more or less) unaffect

–> short- term memory forgetting is due to interference from exposure to additional information, rather than the passage of time

Question 13

primacy effect

Answer 13

Earlier items in a list also tend to be better remembered than those in the middle

Atkinson & Shiffrin : items are recalled from long-term memory.

Glanzer & Cunitz :
primacy effect was unaffected by counting backwards after list presentation –> supports. hypothesis of long term memory

Question 14

Criticism Multi Store Model

Answer 14

processing in the short-term store is required for encoding into long- term memory

underestimates importance of depth of processing ( vs time in short term memory ) for information to be stored in long term memory

short-term and long-term stores are unitary, operating in a single, uniform way

Question 15

patient KF

Answer 15

defective short-term memory (digit span)

but preserved long-term learning and recall
–> evidence against claim that need short for long

Warrington & Shallice (1972):

worse short-term memory for auditory letters and digits than for visual stimuli, suggesting that there may be distinct short-term memory stores for different kinds of material

Question 16

Baddeley & Hitch (1974)

Answer 16

dual-task methodology:

auditory rehearsal of digits did not affect the number of errors made in a concurrent grammatical reasoning task.

–> distinction between an auditory-verbal short-term store and a central information processing system involved in reasoning.

Question 17

Working Memory Model

Answer 17

Baddeley & Hitch (1974) to address limitations of multi-store model : determined on basis of numerous dual-task experiments

4 primary components:
an auditory-verbal phonological loop
–> short-term storage of speech-based information

a visuo-spatial sketchpad
–> short-term storage of spatial and visual information

a multimodal episodic buffer –> holds and integrates information from the phonological loop, visuo-spatial sketchpad and long-term memory;

a modality-free central executive
–> responsible for selecting and initiating cognitive processing routines.

Question 18

phonological loop

Answer 18

a slave system for the temporary retention of spoken verbal material such as a phone number

storage capacity determined by rate of rehearsal ( Baddeley 1975)

Question 19

visiospatial sketchpad

Answer 19

a slave system for the temporary storage and manipulation of spatial and visual information, such as the location of a phone number on the page of a phone book

Question 20

episodic buffer

Answer 20

a limited capacity system for integrating phonological and visuospatial representations with information from long-term memory

Question 21

central executive

Answer 21

a modality-free processing system involved in coordinating the operation of the other systems for performing demanding cognitive tasks

Question 22

Robbins et al. (1996)

Answer 22

involvement of working memory components in chess move selection

testing the effect of several concurrent tasks: rapid word repetition, sequential key pressing and random number generation.

The key pressing task (which involved the visuo-spatial sketchpad) and the random number generation task (which involved the central executive) affected the quality of chess moves selected,

word repetition task (which involved the phonological loop) had no effect.

–> chess move selection involves the central executive and visuospatial sketchpad, but not the phonological loop.

Question 23

phonological similarity effect

Answer 23

Baddeley (1966):

serial recall of a list of phonologically similar words (such as FEE, HE, KNEE, etc.) was significantly worse than from a list of phonologically dissimilar words (such as BAY, HOE, IT, etc.), whereas visual or semantic similarity had little effect on recall

• -> speech-based representations used to store words
• -> recall requires discrimination between memory traces
• -> more difficult if words sound same

–> attributed to confusions between similar representations in the phonological store

Question 24

world length effect

Answer 24

Baddeley et al 1975

recalling long words worse than recalling same words

mean digit span differs across cultures:

digit span in speakers of Chinese (in which digits are relatively quick to say) is greater than in speakers of Welsh (in which digits take longer to say)

depends on phonological loop:
word length effect eliminated if participants mouthed words ( articulatory suppression )

• -> phonological storage capacity determined by rate of rehearsal
• -> time taken to rehearse longer words via the articulatory control process induce world length effect

Question 25

articulatory control process

Answer 25

linked to speech production --> gives access to phonological store

Question 26

phonological store

Answer 26

concerned with speech. perception

Question 27

Baddeley et al 1975 visiospatial

Answer 27

participants : encode material using either rote verbal learning or an imagery-based strategy. Performance of imagery-based strategy disrupted using pursuit rotor tracking (tracking a moving light), verbal strategy was unaffected

Question 28

pursuit rotor tracking

Answer 28

involves visual perception as well as spatial localization

Question 29

visual cache

Answer 29

passively stores information about visual form and colour and is subject to decay and interference by new visual information

Question 30

inner scribe

Answer 30

processes spatial information and allows active rehearsal of information in the visual cache

Question 31

Baddeley & Lieberman (1980)

Answer 31

asked participants to encode material using either rote verbal learning or an imagery-based strategy concurrent tasks: visual ( making brightness judgements ) spatial ( pointing at a moving pendulum while blindfolded, guided by an auditory tone ) --> learning using imagery based strategies--> disrupted by spatial concurrent tasks --> Logie visiuospatial working memory can be divided into two components

Question 32

neuropsychological data supporting visual cache and inner scribe distinction

Answer 32

Beschin et al. (1997) reported patient NL, who had preserved perceptual skills but could not describe details of a scene from memory. Farah et al. (1988) reported patient LH, who performed better on spatial processing tasks than on visual imagery tasks.

Question 33

Baddeley et al 1984

Answer 33

articulatory suppression does reduce memory span for visually-presented material (e.g., from ~7 to ~5 items), but does not eliminate it as would be predicted by the phonological loop model.

Question 34

Chincotta et al. (1999)

Answer 34

studied memory span for Arabic numerals (1, 2, 3, etc) and digit words (one, two, three, etc), finding that participants used both verbal and visual representations in performing the task

Question 35

reason for episodic buffer

Answer 35

verbal and visual information must be combined and stored somewhere in working memory - -> Chincotta 1999 - -> Baddeley 1984 - -> patients with severely impaired short-term phonological memory, with an auditory span of only 1 digit, can typically recall up to 4 digits with visual presentation memory span for meaningful sentences can be as much as 15-16 words, vastly exceeding normal phonological loop capacity (Baddeley et al., 1987) --> not due to long term memory --> severely amnesic patients can also exhibit normal immediate sentence span ( Baddeley & Wilson (2002) )

Question 36

episodic buffer location

Answer 36

right frontal cortex Prabhakaran et al. (2000): activation in right frontal cortex stronger for retention of integrated than modality specific information posterior regions exhibited material-specific working memory effects (phonological loop and visuospatial sketchpad)

Question 37

major functions of central executive

Answer 37

switching attention between tasks planning sub tasks selective attention : ignoring certain stimuli updating and checking the contents of other w. m stores

Question 38

main method used to study central executive

Answer 38

random generation - difficult to generate random non stereotyped patterns ( repetition, lettres in alphabetical order acronyms are often generated )

Question 39

Baddeley 1996

Answer 39

asked participants to hold 1-8 digits in mind while trying to generate a random sequence of key-presses on a key-pad randomness decreased as digit memory load increased --> greater demand on general-purpose, limited capacity central executive affected decreasing randomness: alternating between lettres and numbers --> rapid switching of attention between tasks function of central executive not affecting randomness: alphabet counting

Question 40

dysexecutive syndrome

Answer 40

damage to frontal lobes impairments to function of central executive

Question 41

D’Esposito et al. (1995)

Answer 41

dorsolateral regions of the frontal lobe showed greater activation under dual-task than single-task conditions.

Question 42

Duncan

Answer 42

lateral frontal cortex as the neural basis of general intelligence --> a specific system involved in control of diverse forms of behaviour

Question 43

factors affecting long-term retention

Answer 43

practice level of processing ( Craik and Lockhart 1972 - thinking about a words meaning considerably better memory than simply repeating it : semantic ( meaning based ) > phonological ( sound based) > perceptual ( visual or auditory) processing ) elaborating systematic organisaton spacing learning

Question 44

forgetting from long term memory

Answer 44

very rapidly during first hour. then logarithmically primarily due to inference from other experienced events Jenkins & Dallenbach (1924) - forgetting greater during wake than sleep hours Baddeley & Hitch ( 1977) - rugby players to recall names of teams played against. What mattered were the number of teams not the time when played against

Question 45

proactive inference

Answer 45

previous learning interferes with later learning - Underwood ( 1957 ) the more nonsense syllable lists a participant had previously learned, the more forgetting of new syllables the participant exhibited after 24 h

Question 46

retroactive inference

Answer 46

later learning disrupts things learned earlier | - eyewitness memory for an event can be interfered with by post-event questioning

Question 47

HM

Answer 47

1953 - 27 yrs - bilateral removal of medial temporal lobes to cure epilepsy epilepsy symptoms improved but ... amnesia unable to remember peoples names, words, objects regardless of sensory modality ``` but little change in intellectual functioning , language comprehension, perceptual functioning , reasoning abilities , semantic knowledge ability yo learn new motor skills short term memory ```

Question 48

amnesia

Answer 48

deficits both in remembering past events and imagining future experiences ( Hassabis et al 2007) retrograde amnesia anterograde amnesia

Question 49

explicit memory requires

Answer 49

conscious recollection of a previous experience

Question 50

implicit memory

Answer 50

revealed when performance on a task is facilitated in the absence of conscious collection

Question 51

explicit memory tasks

Answer 51

recognition cued recall free recall

Question 52

implicit memory tasks

Answer 52

fragment completion word stem completion degraded word naming

Question 53

what does manipulating factors in memory tests show

Answer 53

will either affect explicit or implicit memory --> two systems

Question 54

Jacoby & Dallas (1981) effect of different levels of processing at encoding

Answer 54

Deeper levels of processing improved explicit memory (as previously shown by Craik & Tulving, 1975), but had little effect on implicit memory. effect of modality differences between study and test, changing modality between study and test --> no effect on explicit memory, --> significantly reduced implicit memory.

Question 55

separation implicit explicit memory evidence

Answer 55

amnesia of damage to medial temporal lobe : on pursuit rotor or Gollin figures tasks, performance of amnesics improves over trials, despite the patients not being able to recall having done the test before (Warrington & Weiskrantz, 1970) --> can be impaired on explicit without being impaired on implicit and vice versa --> dissociable brain regions with functionally separate memory systems

Question 56

MS

Answer 56

lesion at occipital cortex performs well on explicit but not implicit memory tasks

Question 57

explicit encoding and or retrieval brain region

Answer 57

medial temporal lobe

Question 58

perceptual priming activity brain region

Answer 58

associated with implicit memory posterior region of the brain --> fusiform Cortex

Question 59

episodic memory

Answer 59

memory of specific events or episodes occurring in a particular time and place (e.g., remembering what you had for breakfast this morning) different for each person involving mental time travel

Question 60

semantic memory

Answer 60

general knowledge about objects, people, facts, concepts and the meanings of words, without awareness of where or when the information was learned

Question 61

Jacoby & Dallas (1981)

Answer 61

different levels of processing at encoding improved episodic memory, but had no effect on semantic memory

Question 62

double dissociation semantic episodic

Answer 62

jacoby (1983) double dissociation, whereby reading a word out of context at encoding improved participants’ semantic memory, whereas generating the word themselves improved their subsequent episodic memory. controversial: neuropsychological patients HM; extensive medial temporal lobe damage, showed a severe impairment on episodic memory tasks, but was able to name pictures of everyday objects, define concepts early life hippocampal damage : impaired episodic memory, well semantic memory