Memory

Question 1

what is memory?

Answer 1

• A set of systems for encoding, storing, and retrieving information acquired through our senses,and for relating this information to previously acquired knowledge.
• The mental and neural representation of information we have experienced, imagined, and learned.

Question 2

Memory processes: Encoding

Answer 2

• Encoding: the processing of incoming information to be stored.
• Acquisition: registers inputs in temporary sensory storage
• Consolidation: creates a stronger representation to enable retrieval at a later time (results in “storage”)

Question 3

Memory Processes: Storage

Answer 3

After consolidation, long-term memories are stored throughout the brain as groups of neurons that fire together to regenerate the same pattern that created the original experience.

Question 4

Memory processes: Retrieval

Answer 4

•The creation of a representation that recreates elements of a previous experience, or the execution of a learned behavior
•The success of retrieval depends on interactions
between factors such as the match between the cues present at encoding and those present at retrieval, the strength of the memory trace, the recency with which the memory has been accessed….

Question 5

Sensory Memory

Answer 5

•A temporary, sensory-based, representation of input received through sensory channels.
•Provides a buffer (‘holding area’) between early sensory processes and later cognitive processes.
•Only some of the information stored in sensory
memory will be retained.
•Iconic (visual) and Echoic (auditory) memory.
•Brief duration (decays quickly)
•Large capacity (relative to STM).

Question 6

Atkinson and Shiffrin’s model of STM

Answer 6

•In the original model, STM was thought of as a temporary storage site - Structural account
•Capacity = 7 +/- 2 items, or about the amount of verbal information that can be rehearsed for 2 seconds.
•Duration= seconds to minutes, depending on ability to maintain attention on stimulus.
•Information kept active in STM through a
process of active rehearsal mediated by verbal representations
•Rehearsal results in transfer from STM to LTM storage site.

Question 7

Test for verbal STM

Answer 7

•Verbal STM capacity assessed using a
digit-span task

•Recall a random sequence of verbally presented digits in the order they were
presented
•Test of immediate serial recall
•Systematically increase length of sequence to determine the “span”.

Question 8

Test for STM Capacity for visual information

Answer 8

•The change-detection task briefly presents a sample array.
•After a brief retention interval, a test array
is presented.
•Participants compare the test array with their memory representation of the sample array to determine if there are any differences
•Response is “same” or “different”

Question 9

What is the level of processing theory

Answer 9

The more an information is process(think, repeat,…), the stronger representation it will make

Question 10

What is Chunking

Answer 10

the process of taking individual pieces of information (chunks) and grouping them into larger units. By grouping each piece into a large whole, you can improve the amount of information you can remember.

Question 11

Test for STM: Duration

Answer 11

•The Brown-Peterson task
•Remember 3 consonants “D-P-R”
•To prevent rehearsal participants were required to count backwards in 3’s until given a signal to stop
•For example: Participants hear “D-P-R – 306”
•The retention interval was manipulated
systematically:
•Memory probed (tested) after 3, 6, 9, 12, 15, or 18 seconds

Question 12

Different type of memory interferance

Answer 12

• Proactive interference: effect of previously learned materials on the acquisition and retrieval of newer materials
• retroactive interference: recent information gets in the way of trying to recall older information

Question 13

What do serial position effects tell us about the relationship between STM and LTM?

Answer 13

• The first few item are easy to recall due to opportunity to rehearse and place it in LTM
• The last few item are easy to remember because it is still in STM
• The middle item are the hardest, not long enough to enter LTM and short enough for LTM

Question 14

The Phonological Loop and test for it

Answer 14

•Working memory involves not just maintenance of information in a phonological store, but active manipulation of information
•For this reason, the digit-span backwards task is considered a test of phonological working memory, in contrast to standard digit
-span (forwards) which measures maintenance only.

Question 15

The visuo-spatial sketchpad

Answer 15

• The visuo-spatial working memory system temporarily holds visually based representations such as faces, objects, and written words.
• Enables the mental manipulation of visually represented information.
• mental rotation of objects
• the use of visual mnemonics
• mental arithmetic
• Cognitive maps for navigation

Question 16

Relationship between phonological loop and visual-spatial sketchpad

Answer 16

•Concurrent performance of a visuo-spatial task and a
phonological recall does not impair performance on either task.
•For example: A visuospatial task such as recalling the
pattern of coloured squares on a checkerboard does not interfere with a verbal digit-span task.
•Contrast with effect of non-attended speech in the auditory channel while trying to complete an auditory memory task –the non-attended speech effect occurs when performance on a verbal memory tasks declines in the presence of irrelevant speech.

Question 17

The Central Executive

Answer 17

•Executive processes are used in planning and coordinating complex behavior:
•Goal orientation
•Focus attention
•Control of social behaviour
•Switching between tasks, updating memory, inhibition
of distracting information
•Planning and problem solving
•Executive processes are governed by circuitry in the
pre-frontal cortex

Question 18

Basis of Working Memory

Answer 18

• Executive processes are based in a pre-frontal cortex networks
• The phonological loop is a left-hemisphere fronto-temporal lobe network.
• The visuo-spatial sketchpad is a right occipital-parietalnetwork.

Question 19

Two Major Divisions of LTM

Answer 19

Declarative memory (explicit):
•“Knowing what, why, and when”
•Facts, events, locations
•Hippocampal-dependent
Non-declarative memory (implicit):
•“knowing how”
•Motor skills (e.g., riding a bike)
•Cognitive skills (e.g, reading)
•Non-hippocampal-dependent

Question 20

Sub-divisions of Declarative Memory

Answer 20

Episodic memory:
•Knowledge of personally experienced events
•When/where memories
•Contextualised memory
•‘Mental time travel’
Semantic memory:
•General knowledge of facts about the world
•What/Why memories.
•Abstract knowledge
Declarative memory is revealed through explicit memory tests

Question 21

Sub-divisions of Non-declarative memory

Answer 21

-Procedural memory: learning and performance of motor and cognitive skills
-Priming: demonstrated by a change in the ability to identify a stimulus as the result of prior exposure to that stimulus, or a related stimulus. two types: Repetition priming and associative priming
-Associative learning (operant and classic conditioning)
-Non-associative learning:
•Habituation: learning to ignore a stimulus
because it is trivial (e.g., screening out
background noise).
•Sensitisation: Learning to attend to a
potentially threatening stimulus.

Question 22

Amnesias

Answer 22

•Deficits in memory caused by brain damage, disease, drug abuse, or psychological trauma.
Two type:
Retrograde amnesia: 
•An inability to remember knowledge acquired before the brain injury 
•Usually temporally graded 
•Anterograde amnesia: 
An inability to recall anything since
the time of the brain injury
•Inability to learn new information

Question 23

The role of hippocampus in consolidation of

declarative memories

Answer 23

• The temporal gradient seen for retrograde amnesia tells us that memories cannot be stored permanently in the hippocampi
• The severe anterograde amnesia that results from removal of the hippocampi bilaterally indicates that these structures must be crucial for the consolidation of new information.