Memory Flashcards
Remember stuff about memory!
What does memory consist of?
Information we have stored; experiences and general knowledge.
What three mental processes are involved in memory?
Learning information, retrieving that information later on, and using the information.
What four types of information is memory key for processing?
Object recognition, imagery, language, and decision making.
What two things explain how memory is coded?
Levels of mental representation and the nature of representation.
What two things are involved in “levels of mental representation”?
Memory for overall meaning vs. details.
What two things are involved in “nature of representation”?
Perception-like vs. abstract ideas.
How many pictures were presented in the Levels of representation: Visual (Mandler & Ritchey, 1977) study?
8 pictures
What were participants tested on in the Levels of representation: Visual (Mandler & Ritchey, 1977)?
Both old pictures and changed pictures.
What were the independent variables in the Levels of Representation: Visual (Mandler & Ritchey, 1977) study?
Change type, which were either “token” or “type”
In the Levels of representation: Visual (Mandler & Ritchey, 1977) study, what was the “token” condition?
A change in detail.
In the Levels of representation: Visual (Mandler & Ritchey, 1977), what was the “type” condition?
A change in overall meaning.
In the Levels of representation: Visual (Mandler & Ritchey, 1977), what was the dependent variable?
The percentage of correct rejections of changed pictures.
What were the results of the Levels of Representation: Visual (Mandler & Ritchey, 1977) study?
For the “token” condition, there was a 60% correct rejection rate. In the “type” condition, there was a 94% correct rejection rate.
According to Wanner (1968), which is better, our memory for meaning or our memory for actual words?
Our memory for meaning.
What were the conclusions of the Levels of representation: Visual (Mandler & Ritchey, 1977)?
For both visual and verbal, meaning is remembered better than details.
According to Fletcher & Chrystler (1990), when are differences more pronounced?
When there are longer delays.
What is a practical implication of the Levels of representation: Visual (Mandler & Ritchey, 1977) study?
Cognitive economy.
What is cognitive economy?
The need to manage one’s mental resources, including time, effort and specific processing tools.
What is a perception-like mental representation?
Perceptual details are represented.
What are abstract ideas in mental representation?
Perceptual details are stripped away; proposition and networks of propositions.
What is amodal perception?
Perceiving something as a whole when only parts are actually seen.
What is a proposition?
THe smallest unit of information that can stand alone. It has a truth value (can be judged as true or false).
In the statement “Jack searched the NY Times for the weather forecast”, what are the two propositions?
Jack searched the NY Times, and Jack searched for the weather forecast.
What can be represented by a proposition?
Sentences, events, and pictures.
Name a disclaimer about propositions
Alternative “rules” exist; variations of same theme.
What is a propositional network?
Representations containing multiple linked propositions.
What is some evidence of propositional representations.
Words are more strongly connected in memory when they come from the same proposition.
In the Weisberg (1969) study on propositions, what was the procedure?
Participants read and memorized the sentence “Children who are slow eat bread that is cold.” They were then given a cue (bread) and responded with the first word from the sentence that came to mind.
What were the results of the Weisberg (1969) study on propositions?
“Slow” was in a different proposition from the word “bread”, but technically closer to “bread’ in the sentence.
“Cold” was further away from “bread” in the sentence, but in the same proposition.
Participants almost always recalled “cold” rather than “slow” though.
What is the conclusion of the Weisberg (1969) study on propositions?
Connections between concepts in memory depend more on membership in propositions than physical position (proximity) in the sentence.