Memory Flashcards
What is Atkinson and Shiffrin’s multistore model of memory
consists of modality-specific sensory stores, a short-term store of very limited capacity and a long-term store of essentially unlimited capacity capable of holding information over time
in this model, attention moves information from sensory stores to Short term memory and rehearsal then moves it to long term store
What are the 2 key sensory stores in the multi-store model of memory
iconic store
echoic store
these are brief sensory stores for visual and auditory information respectively
Describe of Sperling’s experiments in the 1960s
what were the results
what does this suggest about the iconic store
presented an array of numbers in a grid
Typically, participants could only report 4 or 5 of the letters correctly, but in a “partial report” condition, were able to report most of the letters from the requested line if the delay between removal of the array and presentation of the prompt was ~1 s or less.
suggests that information in iconic storage decays in less than a second
How did Treisman show the existence of an echoic store
presented participants with an auditory message to one ear and asked them 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.
suggests the persistence of unattended information in the echoic store is ~2 s, otherwise information decays
How did Miller (1956) investigate the capacity (or “span”) of short-term memory
by asking subjects to recall digit strings. Typically, participants could recall strings correctly up to a length of 7 ± 2 digits. This result held for other stimuli like letters or words
What did Miller conclude was the capacity for short term memory
could hold 7 integrated chunks of info
How can information be retained in short term memory
by rehearsing it
How did Peterson and Peterson study short term memory forgetting
what did they find
by asking participants to remember a 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
How did Waugh and Norman (1965) show short-term memory forgetting is due to interference from exposure to additional information, rather than the passage of time.
manipulated the speed with which digits that were to be remembered were presented to participants and found that digit recall was (more or less) unaffected
Give some criticisms of the Multistore Model of memory
falsely suggests processing in the short term is required for encoding into long term memory
assumes short term and long term stores are unitary, operating in a single, uniform way
According to the multistore model, processing in the short-term store is required for encoding into
long-term memory. How do we know this is not true?
patient KF, with defective short-term memory (digit span) but preserved long-term learning and recall, provides evidence against this claim
Another assumption of the multistore model is that the short-term and
long-term stores are unitary, operating in a single, uniform way. How do we know this is wrong
patient KF had 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
Which model, proposed by Baddeley and Hitch (1974), aimed to improve on the multistore model of memory
working memory model
Describe the working memory model
comprised 3 primary components:
an auditory-verbal phonological loop for short-term storage of speech-based information;
a visuo-spatial sketchpad for short-term storage of spatial and visual information;
a modality-free central executive, responsible for selecting and initiating cognitive processing routines
What is the phonological similarity effect
Baddeley (1966) found that 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.).
What does the phonological similarity effect suggest
that speech-based representations are used in storing the words, and that recall requires discrimination between memory traces, which is more difficult for similar phonological representations.
Describe the word length effect (Baddeley et al., 1975)
recall of a list of long words (such as OPPORTUNITY, ALUMINIUM, etc.) is typically worse than recall of a list of short words (such as WIT, SUM, etc.).
How did Baddeley confirm that the word length effect depends on the phonological loop
by asking participants to silently mouth digits (articulatory suppression) during presentation and recall of words. This manipulation eliminated the word-length effect, suggesting that phonological storage capacity is determined by rate of rehearsal.
What is the articulatory control process proposed by Baddeley
he drew a distinction between a phonological store, concerned with speech perception, and an articulatory control process linked to speech production that gives access to the phonological store
What can the phonological similarity and word length effect be attributed to
e phonological similarity effect can be attributed to confusions between similar representations in the phonological store,
the word-length effect can be attributed to the time taken to rehearse longer words via the articulatory control process.
What is the visuospatial sketchpad used for
the temporary storage and manipulation of spatial and visual information, including visual imagery.
How did Baddeley discover the visuospatial sketchpad
asked participants to encode material using either rote verbal learning or an imagery-based strategy.
When this task was combined with pursuit rotor tracking (tracking a moving light), performance using the imagery-based strategy was disrupted, whereas performance using the verbal strategy was unaffected. (Pursuit rotor tracking involves visual perception as well as spatial localization)
In Baddeley’s experiment to assess visuospatial sketchpad, he used pursuit rotor tracking, which uses visual perception and spatial localisation. What further experiment was done to assess whether both of these factors are important?
repeated the previous experiment, contrasting specifically visual (making brightness judgements) and specifically spatial (pointing at a moving pendulum while blindfolded, guided by an auditory tone) concurrent tasks.
Learning using the imagery-based strategy was most clearly disrupted by the spatial concurrent task.
How did Logie argue the visuospatial working memory could be divided
into 2 components:
visual cache
inner scribe
What is the visual cache
passively stores information about visual form and colour and is subject to decay and interference by new visual information.
What does the inner scribe do
processes spatial information and allows active rehearsal of information in the visual cache
How does neuropsychological data support the division of the visuospatial sketchpad
eg patient NL, who had preserved perceptual skills but could not describe details of a scene from memory
patient LH, who performed better on spatial processing tasks than on visual imagery tasks
If you are given a list of words to remember, and then immediately asked to recall them, what pattern is seen in your recall?
you will usually exhibit a serial position curve, with much better recall of the first few items in the list (primacy effect) and the last few items (recency effect)
What did Atkinson and Shiffrin attribute the recency effect to
is this a correct assumption?
the last few items still being present in the short-term store from the end of list presentation
yes - Glanzer & Cunitz (1966) showed that the recency effect could be eliminated if participants counted backwards prior to recall, supporting the link
with short-term memory.
What did Atkinson and Shiffrin attribute the primacy effect to
why
long-term memory, as counting backwards had no effect, whereas manipulating word familiarity, presentation rate, age of participant etc. affects primacy but not recency (Glanzer, 1972)
What damage did Patient HM suffer
why is he important for short/long term memory studies
medial temporal lobe damage
had impaired long-term memory but normal digit span
Give a patient who contrasts HM
patient KF, suffered parieto-occipital lobe damage and had intact long-term memory but very poor digit span
Which 2 patients demonstrate the difference between short and long term memory
patient KF, suffered parieto-occipital lobe damage and had intact long-term memory but very poor digit span
patient HM, who suffered medial temporal damage and had impaired long-term memory but normal digit span
Results from functional neuroimaging data have typically been consistent with the view that different brain areas may support short-term and long-term memory.
Where is short term memory found in the brain
inferior frontal and parietal cortex
What was the first rigorous experimental investigation of human long term memory
conducted by Ebbinghaus (1885), who taught himself lists of nonsense syllables and repeated them until he could recite them correctly twice. He measured the time to learn the lists, and then the time saved in relearning them after various delays.
He found that retention decreased with a longer retention interval, but that the rate of forgetting slowed down after the first hour or so.
What is the limit of long term memory capacity
theoretically unlimited
but only 10^15 neurons in brain and rate of acquisition is limited by our lifespan:
if a human studies the maximum of 100 stimuli per min over 70 years = theoretical capacity limitation of ~3 billion stimuli.
How does forgetting from long term memory change over time
very rapid over the first hour or so after acquisition, then reduces approximately logarithmically.
What causes long term memory forgetting
primarily to interference from other experienced events
What are the 2 main forms of interference which cause long term memory forgetting
proactive interference - when previous learning interferes with later
learning,
retroactive interference - when later learning interferes with previous learning.
Give Underwood’s example of proactive interference leading to long term memory forgetting
found that the more nonsense syllable lists a participant had
previously learned, the more forgetting of new syllables the participant exhibited after 24 hours
How can retroactive interference be demonstrated
in the way that eyewitness memory for an event can be interfered with by post-event questioning
How is long term memory divided?
explicit:
- episodic memory
- semantic memory
implicit:
- perceptual representation system
What is the difference between explicit and implicit memory
explicit memory typically requires conscious recollection of a previous experience, whereas implicit memory is usually facilitated in the absence of conscious recollection
if a participant is
asked to study a list of words: CHAIR, APPLE, ZEBRA, etc. how could you test for
a) implicit memory
b) explicit memory
a)might include fragment completion (“complete these words with the first word that comes to mind: A-PL-, B-E-D”); word stem completion (“complete these words with the first word that comes to mind: AP—, BR—”); or degraded word naming
b) cued recall (“recall all the animals in the list”); or free recall
(“recall all the words from the list”).
How do different levels of processing affect encoding for explicit and implicit memory
how was this tested
deeper levels of
processing improved explicit memory but had little effect on
implicit memory.
Words (e.g., BRAIN) were encoded using one of the following tasks: Does the word contain the letter R? Does the word rhyme with drain? Is the word part of the nervous system?
Evidence from which patients demonstrates that deeper levels of
processing improved explicit memory but had little effect on
implicit memory?
patients with amnesia as a result of damage to medial temporal lobe.
eg, on pursuit rotor or Gollin figures tasks, performance of amnesiacs improves over trials, despite the patients not being able to recall having done the test before
Give an example of a patient who exhibits impaired implicit memory but not explicit memory
patient, MS, whose lesion affected occipital cortex, performed as well as controls at explicit memory, but was severely impaired on the implicit memory task
Which lesion impairs explicit but not implicit memory
medial temporal lobe
Define episodic and semantic memory
Episodic memory is considered to be memory of specific events or episodes occurring in a particular time and place (e.g., remembering what you had for breakfast this morning).
Semantic memory, by contrast, is general knowledge about objects, people, facts, concepts and the meanings of words, without awareness of where or when the information was learned (e.g., knowing that breakfast is a meal that you eat in the morning).
True or false
semantic memory can be culturally shared
true
Episodic memory is specific to each person, whereas semantic memory can be culturally shared.
