Memory: Encoding

Question 1

What 3 things are episodic memories made of?

Answer 1

• Contextual information
• Details about an event
• Relations of details

Question 2

What did Craik et al (1996) find about divided attention and memory?

Answer 2

Dividing attention during encoding significantly impairs memory

Question 3

What is the role of the hippocampus in relation to memory?

Answer 3

Binding items with context to create memories

Question 4

Uncapher and Rugg (2009) conducted an fMRI study on attention and memory; what did they find?

Answer 4

Participants attended to either colour or location;
- attention boosted source memory for the attended feature
- hippocampus activated more when encoding attended features

Question 5

What is the picture superiority effect?

Answer 5

• Pictures are easier to remember than words
• As are mentally imageable and concrete words

Question 6

What does Paivio’s (1971) Dual Code Theory suggest?

Answer 6

An image presented with a verbal code produces a richer memory trace

Question 7

What is a limitation of Paivio’s (1971) Dual Code Theory?

Answer 7

Explains the picture superiority effect but does not predict it

Question 8

What is the Von Restorff effect?

Answer 8

A memory boost from processing difference in the context of similarity

Question 9

How did Ensor et al (2019) abolish the picture superiority effect?

Answer 9

They made the words more distinctive using colours and fonts

Question 10

What 3 things did Borkin et
al (2013) find make data visualisations more memorable?

Answer 10

• Objects
• Colour
• Complexity

Question 11

What did Naspi et al (2021) find in relation to meaning and memorability?

Answer 11

Images are less memorable when their concepts share more features with other concepts

Question 12

What did Rust and Mehrpour (2020) find in relation to the memorability of people vs natural scenes, typical vs atypical objects?

Answer 12

• Images with people are memorable, but images of natural scenes aren’t.
• Atypical versions of objects are memorable

Question 13

What did Bower et al (1975) find in relation to ‘droodles’?

Answer 13

Free recall of (re-drawing) droodles was much better when story was known; understanding reflects prior knowledge schemas

Question 14

What did van Kesteran et al (2013) find in relation to related vs unrelated course content?

Answer 14

Memory for course-related (schema) information was better than unrelated (no schema) information 24 hours later

Question 15

What did van Kesteran et al (2014) find in their fMRI study of encoding schema-related vs unrelated facts?

Answer 15

Schema-related:
- higher activation of medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC)
- lower activation of medial temporal lobe (MTL); inc. hippocampus
- mPFC activation predicted course performance in year 2

Question 16

What is the prediction error/distinctiveness effect?

Answer 16

Unexpected objects remembered better than neutral objects

Question 17

What is the schema effect?

Answer 17

Expected objects remembered better than neutral objects

Question 18

What does the Levels of Processing Theory suggest about memory encoding?

Answer 18

Memory encoding is a byproduct of ongoing processing

Question 19

What does PFC damage do?

Answer 19

Impairs memory control; does NOT cause amnesia

Question 20

What is the dorsolateral PFC involved in?

Answer 20

Organisation in encoding and executive functions

Question 21

What is the ventrolateral PFC involved in?

Answer 21

Semantic encoding and semantic control

Question 22

What did Long et al (2010) find in relation to the activation of brain areas during encoding?

Answer 22

Activation of DLPFC predicted:
- later semantic clustering
- increased activation of hippocampus

Question 23

What did Carr et al (2013) find in their fMRI study of distinctive processing?

Answer 23

Faces more likely to be recollected if people judged their distinctiveness; processing distinctiveness boosted hippocampal activation