Midterm 1 Flashcards
semantic memory
memory that contains conceptual and factual knowledge
procedural memory
memory that allows us to learn skills and acquire habits
episodic memory
• is thought by some to allow not only the ability to think of our personal pasts, but
also to mentally conjecture about our future, and to think of counterfactuals (or
things as if they were different than they actually are).
• It is focally related to the self as a person—these a memories of the person, not
just mere knowledge, or mere reflexes.
• They are autobiographical.
• Thought by Nelson and Tulving to come online late around the ages 3-4
• might be unique to humans.
field memory
memory in which you view the event from your own perspective (as a participant)
observer memory
memory that takes place from a birds eye view
overconfidence
the tendency to be more confident than correct- to overestimate the accuracy of our beliefs and judgements
generation effect (method of study)
states that the method of study that requires self generation of answers (free recall test) helps better with long term retention; better form of study than passive reading
repeated testing/ studying (method of study)
repeated study is effective for cramming but ineffective for long term retention
corrective feedback (method of study)
studies show that for children, corrective feedback should be delayed, it is best to force a child to find mistakes on their own; even when people are correct, feedback helps increase confidence; those who make errors then get correct answers do better the second time versus people who do well in the beginning
mass studying (method of study)
mass studying, also known as cramming, tends to satisfy instant gratification because knowledge is still within working memory, it yields less work, faster work, and makes the subject feel better; is not effective for long term retetion
spaced practices (method of study)
spacing out materials over extended periods of time; significantly better for long term retention
region of proximal learning
1) People first try to eliminate those items that they know they know.
2) Among those items that they do not know, they attempt to study in the order easiest to most difficult.
3) They stop when their jROL, that is, their perceived rate of learning approaches zero.
what is metacognition?
Knowing the self:
• Knowledge of your own thoughts
little evidence that any creature, other than humans older than about age
3-4, have this capability.
the relation between metacognitive judgments and study choice
people tend their study methods on what they think they know or don’t know
the honor choice paradigm
• experiments with college students in which they make metacognitive judgments and then
make choices of what they want to study.
• Their choices were then either honored or dishonored
• For the kids, if they want to mass practice and the experimenters dishonored their choice
by making them space, they perform better than those for whom the experimenters
honored their choice to mass practice.
• But for Columbia students, they want to mass practice and the experimenters dishonored
their choice by making them space, they perform worse than those for whom the
experimenters honored their choice to mass practice. Same for space practice.
• Main effect: Spacing is best in general…Interaction: spacing is even better if it is honored, and worse when it is not honored
implementation deficit
even if they know what they know and don’t know, people sometimes don’t know what to do with it.
• Grade 3 and 5 know they don’t know certain things, they choose to study what they
know!
differences between children and adults in their choice of massed and spaced practice
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distinction between semantic and episodic memory
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amnesia
a deficit in memory caused by brain damage or psychological trauma
be able to describe the case of KC and also the inferences that were made about this case.
- evidence for retrograde amnesia - couldn’t remember events before accident- that he used to like cars, he knew how to change a tire, but not how he knew
- evidence for anterograde amnesia- couldn’t describe his life, can’t recall words he was just asked to remember and define
- evidence for semantic memory- knew his birthdate, his address, where he was, saw a picture and knew it was his house
- evidence for state of consciousness- he could not really describe his own state of consciousness, he could not compare it to the past, state of consciousness was limited to the present
- not a lot of evidence for his theory of mind
Be able to argue for and against the idea that KC has no episodic memory at all
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priming in KC
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lexical decision
must determine if it is a word or not after being presented with a list of words- dependent variable is reaction time in answering this question
The reaction time is shorter for words already presented- this is called the priming effect
what happened to KC’s personality? theory of mind
no strong argument for his theory of mind
retrograde amnesia
partial or total loss of memory prior to trauma
stimulus bound
Being trapped in the present
• Thought to describe those who don’t possess episodic memory, which
involves transmitting oneself back in time and into a different space or
context, and experiencing what happened before.
• Schwartz tried to find out if any animals can do this, or whether animals
are trapped in the present, and bound to their immediate surroundings.
He looked to see if animals could recall what they had eaten, several
hours ago and who had given it to them
forgetting curve
hypothesis that memory deteriorates with time when no attempt is made to retrieve it
memory savings paradigm
This refers to the amount of information retained in the subconscious even after this information cannot be consciously accessed. Ebbinghaus would memorize a list of items until perfect recall and then would not access the list until he could no longer recall any of its items. He then would relearn the list, and compare the new learning curve to the learning curve of his previous memorization of the list. The second list was generally memorized faster, and this difference between the two learning curves is what Ebbinghaus called “savings”.
nonsense syllables and why you might want to use them
Ebbinghaus tried to purge his experiments of the confound of meaning. He used nonsense syllables and looked at relearning rates, using himself as a subject.
But his critics argue that this is not possible. That meaning is fundamental to learning/ memory.
primary memory
short term memory/ working memory for immediate retrieval of information
working memory
short term memory/ primary memory for immediate retrieval of information
short term memory
working memory/ primary memory for immediate retrieval of information
free recall
recall items, but order doesn’t matter
cued recall
given a cue and asked to recall
recognition
simple yes or now answer to “do you recognize this”
serial recall
asked to recall items in order- can be reverse order
serial position curve and what it was taken to mean. parts and systems they refer to dissociations…what are they in free recall and what are the implications?
serial position curve demonstrates how well we recall words in a series
words are best recalled in the beginning and the end
patterns are very much like the person’s stream of consciousness in the real world, with the most recent things coming to mind most often then less recent material, and then finally, with a low probability of events from the distant past
The similarity in patterns seen in lab situations have some bearing in the real world, and actually tell us something about what’s happening in our day to day memory
Separation of normally related mental processes resulting in one group functioning independently from another
intrusions
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effect of presentation rate, modality, stimulus meaningfulness, interference, delay, phonemic similarity
presentation rate: effects primacy modality: effects recency stimulus meaningfulness: effects primacy interference: effects recency delay: effects recency phonemic similarity: effects recency
patient and fMRI studies distinguishing working memory and long-term memory
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reasons for primacy effect
in a free recall test, people tend to remember the items at the beginning of the list as a result of the novelty effect
reasons for recency effects
in a free recall test, people tend of remember the items at the end of list as a result of those items still being within working memory
Atkinson and Shiffrin stm/ltm model and how it works
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criticisms of stm/ltm model
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default system
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chunking
chunking allows us to pack more information into fewer items
examples include phone numbers, acronyms
study with chess masters vs. controls
adult chess masters are better at remembering chess
positions than adult novices
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Study with children who were chess masters vs adults
adults in general are better at remembering chess
positions than children
levels of processing
• during encoding, we can process items at any one of
many points along a continuum of shallow to deep
deep level of processing leads to better recall
neural correlates of deep processing as opposed to shallow processing (see reading)
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main effect
a main effect is the effect of an independent variable on a dependent variable averaging across the levels of any other independent variables
interaction (be able to generate a few examples)
If we were examining the effect of two variables, gender and premature birth, on health outcomes, we would describe any difference in health outcome scores between genders as a main effect. Similarly any difference in scores of full term/premature birth would be described as a main effect. The presence of an interaction effect implies that the effect of gender on health outcome varies as a function of premature birth status.
Encoding specificity principle, and its application to levels of processing.
ESP-memory performance is based on what you use as a cue
levels of processing- the more deeply you process something, the better you can recall it
deeper processing leads to better recall
The LoP depends on the retrieval cue at the time of recall
encoding specificity and its relation to state dependent memory
ESP- memory performance is based on what you use as a cue
prototype
a model or image in which a concept is based that provides the framework for other models to be included
Galton’s early studies
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central tendency
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Carol Harris story,–memory effects
present the story of Hellen Keller but with the person named Carol Harris
The more time delay experienced by subjects at recall, the more likely they state that they read a story about Hellen Keller
Posner & Keele’s random dot prototype experiment, and what the effects were. Be able to explain this in detail
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false memory experiments and how they are similar or different from Posner and Keele random dot experiments.
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Be able to discuss the details of Roediger and McDermott’s false memory DREAM paradigm and what makes memory for the critical item more likely or less likely.
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split brain studies–how split brain works; why the operation was done; what the left and right hemisphere idfferences are in cognitive processing and in memory
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the Phelps and Gazzaniga schema experiment with JW.
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state dependence–be able to describe experiments
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variables that affect the false memory effect.
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mood congruence versus mood dependence
mood dependence- if on is emotional during the period of study, then should be emotional at the time of recall for better recall
mood congruence- if one is sad, they have better recall of words like “dark” or “moody” at time of recall regardless of the mood a time of encoding (congruence-content)
room dependence–does it matter
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demand characteristics
participants in an experiment will alter their behavior to fit what they see as the desires of the research study assistant
top down processing of meaning, and context effects, biases attention an memory
top down: goal directed, active, conscious, focuses on the big picture
top down versus bottom up
top down: goal directed, active, conscious, focuses on the big picture
bottom up: sensory, automatic, focus on the detail
Stroop effect
When the name of a color (e.g., “blue,” “green,” or “red”) is printed in a color not denoted by the name (e.g., the word “red” printed in blue ink instead of red ink), naming the color of the word takes longer and is more prone to errors than when the color of the ink matches the name of the color
differences between repeated reading and repeated retrieval of to-be-learned items.
repeated studying is better for short term retention than repeated testing but over time, repeated testing is better for long term retention
reasons for learning benefits of cumulative final exams
repeated testing is better for long term retention
deep processing tasks; shallow processing tasks
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Effect on cued recall of identical similar and different encoding/retrieval similarity for rhyme and associative context.
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Be able to discuss the benefits and deficits associated with hypnosis
relation of state dependence to multiple personality…is there such a thing?
hypnosis: top down processing can override your bottom up sensory output
hyponotized people can do better on stroop effect tasks because their top down system has been convinced that they can’t actually read the words (a usually bottom up process.)
voltunary vs. involuntary retrieval
Ebbinghaus also described the difference between involuntary and voluntary memory, the former occurring “with apparent spontaneity and without any act of the will” and the latter being brought “into consciousness by an exertion of the will”.
