Memory and Amnesia Flashcards

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1
Q

What is the first step in remembering something?

A

Attention

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2
Q

What are three main parts of the memory process?

A

Encoding → Processing of information into the memory system

Storage → Retention of encoded material over time

Retrieval → Process of getting the information out of memory storage

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3
Q

What is meant by tip of the tongue retrieval?

A

Use of a cue can aid retrieval

Effort required for retrieval

Memories have to be above a certain threshold to be retrieved

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4
Q

What is neurogenesis?

A

Process by which new neurons are formed in the brain

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5
Q

How is neurogenesis important in how we define memory?

A

Hippocampus is especially ‘plastic’ and vulnerable brain region = Possibly explains reconstruction as new cells don’t have connection to previous learning

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6
Q

What are two common misconceptions about memory and the brain?

A
  1. Memory can be full
  2. We only use 10% of the brain
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7
Q

What is forgetting?

A

Forgetting is not the opposite of remembering - it’s functional to remembering (as we don’t need to remember every detail) unless it becomes pathological

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8
Q

What adaptive reasonings for forgetting?

A

Not useful to maintain detailed information in the memory permanently

Loss of access to information via disuse - adaptive feature (neurogenesis) that allows updating rather than a failure of the system (Bjork, 1978)
- Memories of childhood become less accessible to make room for relevant information

Impossible to live at all without forgetting

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9
Q

What are metaphors of memory? (any examples)

A

Metaphors of memory change depending on time and context - Memory doesn’t work like any of the metaphors proposed

E.g.
Wax tablet
Parchment
Papyrus
Warehouse
Computers

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10
Q

How do we approach memory being reliable?

A

Need to define normality within imperfect systems to diagnose memory deficit (e.g. EWT)

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11
Q

How does eyewitness testimony show the unreliability of memory? What does it demonstrate about the brain?

A

Eyewitness testimony - Brain reconstructs events (organ of representation) in accordance of their own perspective and experience

Memory is somewhat subjective

Leading questions in context can be easier to trick our memory

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12
Q

What is the information deficit model? Why is it criticised?

A

Information deficit model:
Memory isn’t exactly what occurred in the first place - Idea that a lack of information causes lack of memory = Not a good model to inform people!

In reality:
System developed so we make mistakes as it is functional for survival
E.g. Make mistake that grass moving automatically means danger of a tiger so we survive

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13
Q

What did Bartlett (1932) say about memory and what research did he undertake?

A

Memory reconstructs our experiences rather than play back our experiences

‘War of ghosts’ Study

Aim → Investigate how memory of a story is affected by previous knowledge

Does cultural background and unfamiliarity with a text lead to distortion of memory?

Hypothesis → Memory is reconstructive and people store & retrieve information according to expectations formed by cultural schemas

People witness the same event yet when asked to recall have different descriptions or when asked to recall a story to their peers, each describes it differently

Individuals remember in terms of what they know and understand about the world

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14
Q

How does expectation influence our perception?

A

Process what we expect to process (guided by expectation)

E.g. Man from Kentucky developed a thought screen helmet that protected from alien abduction - since he believed it did that, in essence it did that purpose

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15
Q

What are some example of failures in memory? (only failures if they become pathological)

A

Not notice something
Notice but don’t encode in memory
Encoding but not consolidating
Consolidating but not retrieving
Retrieving but wrongly
Retrieving rightly but fast forgetting

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16
Q

Why do we need our brain to be an organ of re-presentation?

A

Need system of representation rather than recordings of events to plan the future

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17
Q

What is a cost of having the brain as an organ of re-presentation?

A

Cost is that our memory system is fallacious and prone to errors

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18
Q

What is change blindness?

A

Failure to detect that a visual object has moved, changed or been replaced by another object

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19
Q

What was Simons and Levin (1987) experiment on change blindness?

A

When asking for directions, actor asking for directions changes mid way through

PPT mostly didn’t notice that the stranger they were interacting with had changed

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20
Q

What was Rosiell and Scaggs (2008) experiment on change blindness?

A

Asked students to look between differences in scenes(97% rated scenes as familiar but only 20% actually noticed the change)

LTM for complex scenes is less detailed than we expect it to be

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21
Q

What was De Vito et al. study on EWT? What did it show about memory?

A

Questionnaire of 180 healthy PPT at a train station

Clock broken at bomb attack but later fixed but 92% PPT still thought clock was broken at the time of the bomb attack (10:25) when asked because of notoriety of event (infamous picture of clock in the press)

Attempts to produce stable symbols might be the basis for the development of pervasive and consistent false memories

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22
Q

What was Loftus and Palmer (1974) experiment on EWT and impact of leading questions?

A

PPT asked to estimate vehicle speed when the cars ‘collided’, ‘bumped’, ‘smashed’, ‘hit’ or ‘contacted’

PPT in the contact condition estimated the lowest speed, then hit, bumped, collided, smashed

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23
Q

What is binocular rivalry?

A

Visual phenomenon that occurs when dissimilar monocular stimuli are presented to corresponding retinal locations of the two eyes

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23
Q

What are the two traditions of neuropsychology?

A

Classical neuropsychology - What functions are disrupted by damage to region X?
- Addresses functional specialisation
- Uses group study methods

Cognitive neuropsychological approach - Can a particular function be spared/impaired relative to other cognitive functions?
- Addresses building blocks of cognition
- Tends to use single case methodology
- Deficits that arise as a result of brain damage can be used to explain how the normal brain operates

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24
Q

What is phrenology?

A

Phrenology is a pseudoscience which involves the measurement of bumps on the skull to predict mental traits

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25
Q

What are the beliefs in phrenology?

A

Different parts of cortex serve different functions
Differences in personality traits manifest in differences in cortical size and bumps on the skull
Crude division of psychological traits (e.g. love of animals)
Not grounded in science

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26
Q

What is meant by diagnosis?

A

Diagnosis needs to be precise rather than generic terms such as ‘knee pain’
Diagnosis - ‘To know thoroughly’ by scrutinising signs and symptoms

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27
Q

What are the four steps of neuropsychological diagnosis?

A

Interview (exploring the symptoms)
Screening (test battery to identify areas of problems)
Full-blown neuropsychological examination (to reach a clinical labelling)
Experimental tests as hoc devised or derived from literature (to make the diagnosis precise)

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28
Q

What is cognitive offloading?

A

The use of physical action to alter the information processing requirements of a task so as to reduce cognitive demand.

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29
Q

What ‘effect’ did Sparrow et al. (2011) find in relation to cognitive offloading?

A

Google effect - Cognitive consequences of having information at our fingertips (Sparrow et al., 2011)
- 60 PPT asked to type 40 factual statements
- Group 1 - Told to save what they had typed
- Group 2 - Told to erase what they had typed
- Group 2 remember significantly more than group 1 - thinking
something will be available later leads to poorer memory

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30
Q

What is the testing effect?

A

Memory increased when some of the learning period is spent retrieving the to-be remembered information
Retention interval - Knowledge of something is more likely to remain if practised sooner

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31
Q

What did Thomas et al. (2018) find out about self-testing?

A

Self-testing soon after a lecture at various subsequent times leads to much better learning and less stressful exam performance

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32
Q

What did Corua and Higham (2018) find out about whether to re-study or self-test?

A

Delayed testing/recall is better than immediate testing
Those who studied in the first session and tested in the next had significantly better recall than the study-study condition

33
Q

Why do we need single-cases to help understand memory and amnesia or cognitive neuropsychology in general?

A

We want individual data to understand and figure out how the mind works (via cognitive neuropsychology)

34
Q

What are the main questions in neuropsychology and how would they be answered by cognitive neuropsychology/neuroscience?

A

Domain of clinical neuropsychology
What has happened to Mr Smith to cause him to show particular symptoms

  • Cognitive neuroscience would say Mr Smith shows his deficits because of damage to a certain area

Domain of cognitive neuropsychology
What does the pattern of impaired and intact capabilities shown by Mr Smith teach us about how the normal mind and brain work?

  • Cognitive psychology would say he shows deficits he does because of damages to psychological processes which mediate impaired function
35
Q

Are single cases limited to neuropsychology?

A

No - Used in anthropology - E.g. theories though brain enlargement preceded the ability to walk upright but a single case proved it wrong

36
Q

What is HARKing?

A

Creating a hypothesis after results are shown

This stigmatises explanatory research - not valued in its native form

37
Q

What are double dissociations? How is normality defined?

A

Comparing patient X with Y (e.g. compare PPT with different impairment, one can do a skill and the other can do another skill that the other can’t)

Use brain without lesion to define what is normal & see how PPT they fall within the range of normality

When observed we are allowed to postulate that the two relevant memory systems involve different cognitive systems possible mapped onto different neuronal networks

If PPT can do task A but not task B - is it because task A is easier? - Get other PPT to undertake and find that they can do task b but not A - suggests each task uses a different system

38
Q

Which area of the brain impacts facial recognition if damaged?

A

Fusiform

39
Q

What is orientation agnosia?

A

Dissociation between good knowledge of object identity and loss of knowledge of object orientation

40
Q

How does human face processing work?

A

Strong top-down component

  • Sensory input with even the slightest suggestion of a face will result in the interpretation of a face
41
Q

What is Bruce and Young’s cognitive model of face processing?

A

(see lec notes for diagram)

Face –> Structural encoding
- Directed visual processing (unknown faces)
OR
- Face recognition units (familiar faces)
- Persona identity nodes
- Name retrieval

42
Q

What is prosopagnosia?

A

Face blindness

43
Q

What are De Renzi et al. (1991) two subtypes of agnosia?

A

Apperceptive prosopagnosia → inability to even perceive and cognitively process the face
Associative prosopagnosia → inability to recognize or apply any meaning to the face, despite perceiving it

44
Q

What is dichotomania?

A

Overwhelming imperative to dichotomize (e.g. short term vs long-term as the systems are independent)
Know they are dichotomous because of double dissociations
Two kinds of people - Those who think there are two kinds of people and those who don’t

45
Q

What is Capgra’s Delusion?

A

Associative prosopagnosia
Lack of emotional recognition (couldn’t tell who his wife was) but has cognitive recognition (can tell who is old and young)

46
Q

What were Brain (1954) case studies into visualisation?

A

PPT could no longer visualise plans for new buildings or familiar routes but had no difficulty drawing building plans

Dissociation between phenomenological experience of visual imagery and performance on VI tasks

47
Q

How have we found different types of amnesia?

A

Found by testing different memory functions - again through the principle of double dissociation

48
Q

What is the difference between neurogenic amnesia and psychogenic amnesia?

A

Neurogenic - Due to brain lesions
Psychogenic - Due to psychological factors

49
Q

What are the different definitions of amnesia?

A

Acquired impairment of explicit long-term memory - when remembering it requires overt reference to the learning phase

Short-term memory and implicit learning are preserved, the other components of memory may be spared or only mildly affected (e.g. semantic memory & procedural memory)

Pathological shrinking in the hippocampus over time

50
Q

What is global amnesia?

A

Introduced to combine verbal and non-verbal memory disorder

51
Q

What is pure amnesia?

A

Identifies absence of associated cognitive impairments and affects both recall and recognition - Does it actually exist?

52
Q

What are different potential causes of amnesia?

A

Can arise from neurosurgery (e.g. HM)
Traumatic head injury
Stroke
Poisoning
Substance abuse
Hypoxia (lack of oxygen)
Alzheimer’s disease
Drugs
Vitamin deficiency
Malnutrition
Alcoholism
Stress

Each can result in loss of memory but depending on the location it occurs, it will impact memory differently

53
Q

What is the case example of LC?

A

Had a mini stroke - impaired thalamus
Had normal STM, procedural, general knowledge, retrograde memory, autobiographical
Poor anterograde long-term, poor learning (verbal and spatial)

54
Q

What is the difference between short-term memory (STM) and long-term (LTM)?

A

STM = Memory for information currently “in mind”, limited capacity
Limited capacity, limited duration, temporary store
LTM = Stored information that need not be presently accessed or even consciously accessible, has virtually unlimited capacity
Unlimited storage, permanent
All information from minutes, hours, days and years ago is in LTM unless it is presently brought to mind (enters STM)

55
Q

What is declarative and non-declarative memory?

A

Declarative - Explicit memory (e.g. Episodic and Semantic)
Non-Declarative - Implicit memory (e.g. Procedural, Classical conditioning)

Damage to hippocampus - impacts long-term explicit memories

56
Q

What is the case of HM?

A

Had medial temporal lobe removed to treat epileptic seizures (hippocampi were removed)
Could remember procedural memory but not episodic memory - no recall of learning the skill
Had severe anterograde amnesia and retrograde memory deficits extending back 10 years

57
Q

How do we forget? What are different theories/types?

A

Ebbinghaus’ forgetting curve - Memory decays over time
Trace decay theory → The memory trace fals so is no longer available/retrievable
Interference theory → Some memory traces interfere with the retrieval of others
Proactive - Early learning interferes with later
Retroactive - Later learning interferes with newer learning

58
Q

What is the benefit of minimal interference in a task?

A

Word list retention improved massively in amnesics when there was minimal interference compared to interference (interference in this case = picture naming)

59
Q

What are serial position effects and the impact on recall in amnesiacs vs non-amnesiacs?

A

In free recall, more items are recalled from start of list (primacy effect) and the end of the list (recency effect)
First items recalled tend to be from end of list
Middle of list is forgotten

Amnesiacs show no primacy effect
Patients like HM remember last few words
Recency effect intact but primacy effect gone: no encoding benefit

60
Q

What is Shallice and Warrington (1970) case study of KF?

A

Had deficits in STM but not in more LTM like episodic memory
Primacy effect intact
Recency effect impaired
Complements amnesic patients

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61
Q

What were the differences in short-term store vs long-term store with HM?

A

Global amnesiacs (e.g. HM)
- Normal digit span
- Impaired LTM
- Damage to medial temporal lobe

62
Q

What were the differences in short-term store vs long-term store with KF?

A

Normal LTM for word lists
Impaired digit span
Damage to left parietal lobe

63
Q

What were the differences in short-term store vs long-term store with KC?

A

Impaired episodic memory but intact semantic memory - sharp dissociation between them
MRI displaying extensive damage

64
Q

What evidence is there for retrograde loss (double dissociations between episodic and semantic memory)?

A

KC (Tulving et al, 1988) - Cannot recollect personally experienced events from birth but (pre-trauma) maths, history, geography and general knowledge are well-preserved

Green and Hodges (1996) → Progressive loss of knowledge about public figures in patients with “semantic dementia” who showed no detectable increase in retrograde amnesia for personal experiences

Different brain areas may be responsible for different aspects of memory, hence different lesions may result in different pattern of spared and impaired memory functions

65
Q

What part of memory is the hippocampal formation responsible for?

A

Episodic memory (events)

66
Q

What part of memory is the Parahippocampal region responsible for?

A

Semantic memory (Facts)

67
Q

What did Graham et al. (2000) suggests double dissociation between?

A

Early Alzheimer’s patients
Semantic dementia patients

Shows the hippocampus and perirhinal cortex may be
critical for the processing of scenes and objects

68
Q

What are the taxonomies of LTM?

A

Declarative versus non-declarative systems:
Declarative (explicit) - Accessible to conscious awareness, usually intentional recollection
- Tested by recall or recognition
Nondeclarative (implicit) procedural - usually not accessible to conscious awareness, demonstrated through performance
- Tested by priming tasks

69
Q

What are the types of declarative memory?

A

Episodic: Memory for individual episodes have a contextual tag
Semantic: Memory for information (general knowledge) with no contextual tag

70
Q

What is the Prefrontal Cortex (PFC)?

A

Prefrontal cortex (PFC) of frontal lobe is involved in online maintenance and manipulation of information (includes working memory and other process such as encoding)

71
Q

What does damage to the Prefrontal Cortex (PFC) cause?

A

Patients with PFC lesions - often have disorganised memory
Confabulation following PFC damage
Confabulations = False and sometimes self-contradictory memories that the patients believes to be real (i.e. without intention to lie)
Associated with damage to different regions than in classical amnesia
E.g. Knows he is married but gets the amount of time of marriage wrong or some discrepancies
Executive dysfunction due to frontal lobe

72
Q

What is the difference between retrograde and anterograde amnesia?

A

Retrograde amnesia → Impaired recall and recognition of memories of facts and personal episodes acquired before brain damage
Anterograde amnesia → Impaired recall and recognition of facts and personal episodes encountered after the occurrence of the brain damage
Most people with amnesia difficulty with acquiring new memories (anterograde amnesia) and remembering events from before brain injury (retrograde amnesia)

73
Q

Do cases of pure retrograde amnesia exist?

A

Not ever fully proven

74
Q

How does implicit learning occur?

A

Implicit learning occurs through classical and operant conditioning

75
Q

How does HM show implicit learning?

A

Milner (1968) → Showed HM learned Gollin incomplete picture task - Show outlines of a fish - learn that vague outline is the start of a fish, don’t remember learning it/seeing it before
Amnesic learns but forgets when/how they learned but still have the implicit memory

76
Q

What are implicit memory tasks?

A

Researcher asks the participant to perform some kind of cognitive task, such as filling in the blanks
- Word completion - Involves filling in gaps to form words
- Better at filling in the gaps of words you have seen before
Repetition priming - Gives the participant a question along with a previously presented cue that could evoke words that may be related to the cue

77
Q

What memory systems are impaired in amnesia?

A

STM - spared
Non -declarative memory - spared
Episodic memory - definitely impaired
Semantic memory - typically impaired
Amnesia shows these types of memory are different from one another

Any content of memory (e.g., events, abilities, notions), independently of the modality of learning, can be retrieved either implicitly or explicitly.
Expert drivers remember how to drive implicitly, but in specific situations (e.g., while parking uphill) they may rely explicitly on learned manoeuvres.

78
Q

What is digit span like in amensiacs?

A

Amnesics have normal digit span (Baddeley & Warrington, 1970)
HM could remember a number for 15 minutes by continuously repeating, but forgot it within 1 minute of stopping and had no recollection of attempting it (Milner, 9171)
Had intact procedural memory and could learn new motor tasks - e.g. Mirror tracing task

79
Q

What did Gabrieli et al. (1995) find about implicit and explicit memory?

A

Patient MS
29 year old - right handed male
Intractable epilepsy: Surgery removed right BA
Compared MTL amnesiacs and healthy controls
Amnesics show implicit memory and poor explicit memory in word completion task and word recognition task
Became blind in left field
Explicit memory task
Shown 24 words, later shown 48 word
Conclusion - Double dissociation between explicit and implicit memory
Explicit memory has some distinct processing from implicit memory
‘Conceptual’ priming intact

80
Q

What is an example of group dissociation in neuropsychology of memory?

A

Double dissociation - Non-declarative perceptual motor tasks versus declarative verbal memory tasks

Huntington’s patients (progressive deterioration of caudate nucleus of basal ganglia) ^verbal memory but decreased perceptual motor

Alzheimer’s patients (progressive deterioration of medial temporal structures) ^ perceptual-motor but lower verbal memory

Visual and spatial double dissociation

81
Q

What did Darling et al. (2009) find?

A

Visual and Spatial Double Dissociations

Spatial interference (tapping) or visual interference (dynamic visual noise) were presented during retention
Appearance versus location interacted with the type of interference task
Different subsystems within visuo-spatial working memory support memory for appearance and memory for location