Memory

Question 1

hava amina memory

Answer 1

Something happens and imprints on memory and then map it back onto experience to explain to someone what happened
(Experience→ ← Memory)

Question 2

memory types

Answer 2

Sensory memory, working memory, Long term memory

Question 3

Sensory memory

Answer 3

Brief memory of what’s happening rn

iconic and echoic

Question 4

Iconic–

Answer 4

visual (ex: look around and understand what’s happening in room around you)

Question 5

Echoic–

Answer 5

auditory (ex: helps remembering a sentence from beginning to end)

Question 6

Working memory–

Answer 6

consciousness, aspect that is currently active
Ex: holding all relative pieces in mind to do a math calculation
Keep a phone number locked in working memory by repeating it a ton of times
George Miller–magical number 7 +- 2
We can remember about 7 letters, digits, objects, or words
Chunking

Question 7

Chunking

Answer 7

grouping info into one memory; helps expand limits of working memory but working memory is still limited

Question 8

Long term memory

Answer 8

storage of things in memory for a long time

explicit and implicit

Question 9

Explicit memory

Answer 9

-things you can verbalize
Semantic
Episodic-

Question 10

Semantic

Answer 10

–knowledge of facts

Question 11

episodic

Answer 11

-what people usually mean when they say memory–the actual event
Does overlap with other neural patterns…overlap between firing of neurons–distributed representation
Memory retrieval…

Question 12

distributed representation

Answer 12

overlap between firing of neurons when u see same x in different y or different y in same x…pattern overlap of neurons when you see things that have similarities
lives in hippocampus

Question 13

Memory retrieval–

Answer 13

consists of reinstating the distributed representation created at encoding

Question 14

Retrieval cue–

Answer 14

can serve as seed for such reinstantiation–piece of memory that activates rest of memory pattern

Question 15

Consequences of distributed representations in memory:

Answer 15

Levels of processing
Encoding specificity
Context dependence

Question 16

Levels of processing

Answer 16

Deeper encoding=better memory bc wide pattern of neurons–more neurons, more potential retrieval cues
(Craik & Tulving, 1975) Does it rhyme? Sentence? Uppercase and lowercase? Remembering the sentence worked a lot better bc deeper level of processing

Question 17

Encoding specificity

Answer 17

Memory is better when retrieval cue overlaps with those available during encoding
Do these words rhyme? Are they semantically related? If the question matches the way you memorized answer it’s better (generally association > rhyme tho)

Question 18

Context dependence

Answer 18

Remember something better if ur in the same context/setting/place/state
Godden & baddeley (scuba test)
Drunk test

Question 19

Lexical decision test–

Answer 19

identify words as real or not and we respond differently if dr becomes before scalpel as opposed to professor before scalpel bc dr wakes up part of scalpel

Question 20

hippocampus

Answer 20

–convergence zone for every bit of little events/info brought together and encoded in memory
Without hippocampus, no memories formable
But! Consolidation! Memories don’t stay in hippocampus forever, only as its being encoded, so still can remember past

Question 21

Consolidation

Answer 21

the process of memories having been encoded are sent elsewhere

Question 22

Patient HM

Answer 22

–brain injury–from then on anterograde amnesia–

But he can still do completion-

Question 23

anterograde amnesia

Answer 23

inability to form new memories for events u experience and facts u encounter

Question 24

completion

Answer 24

-still access parts of memory but not explicit recall system memory

Question 25

implicit memory

Answer 25

things you hold but don’t verbalize/unconscious
priming
procedural

Question 26

Priming–

Answer 26

being able to respond based on memory

See HM, priming test

Question 27

Procedural–

Answer 27

memory of how to perform tasks

HM got better at this repeated task even though he never remembered having done it

Question 28

patient S

Answer 28

Ability to remember everything would also be bad
Alexander Luria studied S–S remembered everything/inability to forget so every time he had an experience it would activate all the memories of related experiences–drove him crazy
He became a hermit to limit his exposure so he wouldnt remember everything
Everything would be a retrieval cue and u would be overwhelmed with memories
Memory–priority list

Question 29

seven sins of memory

Answer 29

identifies the way in which memory goes wrong/things we would want to avoid that actually serve purpose for our mind
categories: forgetting, distortion, persistence

Question 30

forgetting:

Answer 30

(omission) absent mindedness, transience, blocking

Question 31

Absent mindedness

Answer 31

When u fail to connect sensory and working–dont pay attn to whats coming in so it never passes sensory

Question 32

Transience

Answer 32

Similar to a-m but breakdown is in working to long term
You kept info in working memory but it decays in a few min
U tried to pay attn but didnt do enough rehearsal and elaboration

Question 33

Memory process

Answer 33

Sensory (attn)–> working (rehearsal + elaboration) (encoding)–>long term (retrieval cue)–> working

Question 34

Blocking

Answer 34

Can’t get to info when u need it
Imagine that this pattern of neurons corresponds to “his name is Steve” but there’s going to be a lot of overlap when u think guy’s name is Steve and all those other memories would come back and overwhelm you but if u think ok his name starts with S–a limited retrieval cue
Blocking– activation of a memory inhibits activation of partially overlapping memory representations–as soon as u activate the pattern his name is steve the other neurons right nearby are blocked so you dont go crazy with memory
Tip of tongue phenomenon–if u ask a q that the answer is abstract and then u ask a q that the answer is abdicate u will have tip of tongue moment
blocking=one thing we have in mind blocks other things you have in mind
So patient s didnt do blocking

Question 35

why is distortion “good”?

Answer 35

the idea is that when our memory system is working properly, our brain tries to fill in information that’s missing in our memory, because that allows us to make sense of things. Without this, we wouldn’t really be able to make sense of our memories. One of the ways our brain does this is by listening to “suggestions,” which is where suggestibility comes from. So being a little bit suggestible is part of the normal system.

Question 36

why is forgetting “good”?

Answer 36

prevents being overwhelmed

Question 37

distortion

Answer 37

(commission) (remembering wrong/creating incorrect memory)

bias, misattribution, suggestibility

Question 38

bias

Answer 38

We fill in gaps like with perception/we make assumptions/our expectation can lead us to remember things that didnt happen
Info that reaches hippocampus is already filtered and preprocessed–some of it happens in prefrontal cortex which contributes to understanding meaning of info
Result of filtering is that hippocampus only stores aspects of experience that other regions determine essential
Bias also happens at time of retrieval, not just encoding
When u try to retrieve memory prefrontal cortex reprocesses info when u go to retrieve it and fill in gaps then
Examples: dieters think they lost more than they did; asked questions of same people twenty years later–people became more conservative as they got older–didnt remember how they felt twenty years ago and assume it was the same
Ask couple what they like about each other after a few weeks and then they break up within year and they ask again and they “hated” what they used to love

Question 39

Misattribution

Answer 39

Hippocampus doesnt just have to encode memories also has to remember where it came from–did i see it did i imagine it–deciding whether representation has external vs internal origins requires source attribution–what is source of information
We misremember where we learn something
Experiment: people ate peaches, imagined bananas in low detail, apples in high detail
People good at remembering that they ate a peach and that they didnt eat a banana but they thought they ate apples–misattributed memory and thought it came from real experience
Roediger and mcdermott (misattribution of word sweet to having seen all the other sweet-related words)
Donald thompson–arrested for rape of woman he had never seen but she described him perfectly–but at the time the rape happened he was live on 60 min–she had been raped right after 60 min so she associated it with him – misattributed
False fame effect–if people see two lists of famous/non famous people second round they also circle non famous as famous
Ronald reagan told story during his campaign–pilot and wounded gunner stayed together and died and everyone else lived–duplicate of a scene of 1944 movie–remembered the facts of situation as truth

Question 40

Suggestibility

Answer 40

1986–Gerald something convicted of molesting children and it turns out that he was telling truth and the kids had testified against him–good reason that the kids’ (especially kids) honest testimony can be totally wrong
False confessions – kids were being asked over and over did this happen bc one parent was suspicious and it spread
Asked leading questions
Easier to get this from kids than adults bc children think theyre supposed to say yes and then they start to believe it–led to changes in law about how ur allowed to ask people
Suggestibility–creation of false memory
Simple wording of question influences answer
“Went vs sped” influences answer of 15 mph vs 25 mph or people remembered stop sign when there wasnt one and there was yield sign so if the patterns overlap a lot cue picks up wrong one
Ask kids if they had an experience she knows they didnt have over and over again in addition to ones they really had and eventually they would think it happened

Question 41

persistence

Answer 41

Want to stop thinking about something but can’t
Donnie Moore pitched really badly and Angels lost entire world series when they were one strike away from winning and he could never play well again and he killed himself and apparently he could never stop thinking about
Event burned so heavily into your brain that everything is a retrieval cue and emotional/traumatic memory gets burned in this way
So many retrieval cues for that one memory that you can’t stop
Maybe drugs help?

Question 42

why do the seven sins happen

Answer 42

bc of useful things memory does