Midterm #2 Flashcards

Question

What is the difference between general and specific interference?

Answer 1

general interference involves using different mechanisms but sharing resources specific interference involves using same mechanisms

Answer 2

presented 3 items, had to count backwards from a certain number during retention interval, and then recall the 3 items showed as the retention interval increased, proportion of correct recall decreased

Answer 3

compared forgetting of 3 letters to 3 words to 1 word using the same format as Brown/Peterson experiment found forgetting was same for 3 letters or words but less for 1 word - shows forgetting is not as simple as a function of decay

Answer 4

same experiment as Murdock and Brown/Peterson, but no practice trials observed no forgetting in trial 1, some in trial 2, more in trial 3, etc shows forgetting as a function of trials performed, not time/decay

Answer 5

proactive interference ex. # of previous times you had to remember the letters/words interferes with memory for current trial

Answer 6

``` # of trials # of items to be remembered ```

Answer 7

build-up of proactive interference

Answer 8

asked participants to remember 3 words from the same category for 3 trials - ex. remember 3 fruits for trial 1, 3 new fruits for trial 2, etc. on 4th trial, control group asked to remember 3 new fruits, experimental group got a new category got and was asked to remember 3 careers results showed experimental group was released from PI buildup with change in category, better results greater semantic difference between categories gives greater release from buildup

Answer 9

switched conditions from either garden flowers to wild flowers or indoor sports to outdoor sports one group not told about category switch, one told before being given the items, one told after being given the items results showed both groups told about the switch experienced some release regardless of the time they were told, showed PI release group not told about the switch experienced no release

Answer 10

no physiological evidence for separate STM and WM system different types of STM tasks performed in different parts of the brain

Answer 11

a set of mental activities are used in a coordinated manner

Answer 12

both assume pool of limited resources | both flexible in how resources are allocated across different tasks

Answer 13

"personal diary" autobiographical temporally dated - more recent memories are more available interference from similar episodes retrieval serves as input - constantly being updated

Answer 14

language, world knowledge not temporally dated very well organized - protects from interference not changed/modified by retrieval of info

Answer 15

direct - aka explicit - requires conscious awareness indirect - aka implicit - doesn't require conscious awareness

Answer 16

strategies designed to get info from short to long-term memory

Answer 17

varied number of rehearsal times for 3 items before counting backwards from a specified digit found that the more rehearsal trials one got, the higher the proportion of correct recall

Answer 18

asked people to speak their rehearsals out loud while studying a list of words counted the number of rehearsals for each word at each spot on the serial position curve ``` # of rehearsals correlated with recall accuracy in primacy and asymptote phases, but not recency - because recency effect is in STM not LTM like the rest of the curve ```

Answer 19

items from the middle of the list usually have lowest probability of recall, but if an item in the middle stood out (a name) it would likely be very well understood and easier to recall than its neighbours

Answer 20

keeping info alive in STM/WM - ex. saying something over and over - terrible for promoting info to LTM

Answer 21

promoting info to LTM | - ex. mental imagery

Answer 22

memory is an outgrowth of perception, a product of levels of processing distinguished between shallow (perceptual) vs deep (meaningful) processing

Answer 23

argued no STM and LTM, memory is just a byproduct of levels of processing deeper processing (imagery, association) better remembered than shallow processing (physical properties)

Answer 24

subjects studied lists under specific instructions - count letter of letters (shallow) - count e's - make pleasantness judgement (deep) one group just told to do the task, one told to do the task and that they would be tested, one group just told that they would be tested (use own strategies) pleasantness group all had same superior memory regardless of if they'd be tested or not

Answer 25

asked questions about a word at a structural (ex. is the word uppercase?), phonemic (ex. does the word rhyme with shout?), or semantic (ex. does the word fit in this sentence?) level participants didn't know memory would be tested semantic analysis resulted in highest proportion of words remembered correctly

Answer 26

group that was told how long their list would be showed recency effect when no delay, but negative recency effect when there was a delay group that didn't know how long a list would be did not show recency effect or negative recency effect - without knowing how many items to expect, won't switch to maintenance rehearsal (a poor way of memorization)

Answer 27

circularity - no independent measure of depth - hard to rank different "levels" in terms of meaningfulness without a direct measure of what meaningfulness is

Answer 28

when you give people related words, they take advantage of relations between the words and use them for organization and recall

Answer 29

we organize words even when they are random and unrelated leads to increased recall

Answer 30

52 index cards with a random word on each - experimental group told to organize the cards in 2-7 categories, had to sort and resort until they could sort them the exact same way twice in a row - control group paired with an experimental group member, had to learn someone elses categories experimental group took less trials to organize the words in the same way, but both groups had equal memory of the words shows we don't need many repetitions to study, just need to organize in a way that makes sense

Answer 31

2 groups, 1 categorized words and 1 did not 1/2 of each group didn't know about memory test (incidental), 1/2 did (intentional) all groups had equal performance except the group who didn't know about the test (didn't study) and didn't categorize the words shows categorization alone has same benefit as rehearsal for memory

Answer 32

information you generate is better remembered than information you hear/read

Answer 33

if presented a word, repeat it back aloud - ex. hot if presented a word and then a letter, say the opposite of the word that starts with the letter - ex. hot-c = cold subjects better recalled generated words than read words - deeper processing

Answer 34

memory is better for tasks one performs than tasks they imagine themselves doing, which is better than tasks they watch others doing

Answer 35

amount and nature of rehearsal level of processing organization generation

Answer 36

we know what part of the brain to look in to retrieve information

Answer 37

recall | recognition

Answer 38

memory search that depends on connections between items and events in memory connections help guide search by providing retrieval cues

Answer 39

the retrieval cue is the item itself "have you seen this?"

Answer 40

recollection | familiarity

Answer 41

retrieval of episodic information ex. recognizing someone because you remember meeting them at Wilf's last week

Answer 42

base recognition decision on sense of familiarity assumes sense is due to prior experience with event in absence of memory for specific details of experience

Answer 43

given a list of words to study for memory test later given new and old words, had to label them as new or old remembering old words depend on level of processing, recognizing new words depended on similarities/differences with old words

Answer 44

say old when it is old: hit say old when it is new: miss say new when it is old: false alarm say new when it is new: correct rejection

Answer 45

we tend to like things better if we have encountered it before even if this remembering is not conscious

Answer 46

participants read list of fake names aloud read a second list aloud, asked to rank this list based on how famous they were - immediate condition - delay condition (1 day later) delay condition more likely to classify fake names from list #1 as famous - attributed their familiarity to fame since they couldn't recall the first list immediate condition did not make false fame judgement since they could remember list #1

Answer 47

participants heard a list of facts, both true and false, asked to judge them on how interesting they were heard a 2nd list of facts, had to rank them on a scale of "certainly true" to "certainly false" rated sentences they had heard in first list as more likely to be true than those they had not heard before familiarity increases credibility

Answer 48

masked word identification - ex. table #### word fragment completion - ex. A_ _ A _ _ IN word stem completion - ex. CL_ _ _ speed word reading - say a word as fast as you can

Answer 49

had people read a list of words either 1 day or 1 week later had to do a recognition test (explicit) or fragment completion (implicit) recognition showed forgetting between 1 day and 1 week, fragment completion did not shows separation of implicit and explicit memory

Answer 50

subjects studied a list of words making judgements involving either rhyme (shallow) or semantics (deep) given either a recognition task (explicit) or a fragment completion (implicit) either visual (same modality) or auditory (different modality) shallow processing gave worse recognition memory than deep processing regardless of modality visual modality (same) gave better fragment completion than auditory modality (different) regardless of level of processing shows: levels of processing influences only explicit memory modality changes influence only implicit memory

Answer 51

encode read words by either reading or generating using an antonym tested using either recognition or masked word identification recognition test showed generation effect masked word test showed reverse generation effect - reading produces more priming on implicit memory

Answer 52

gave people pages of mirrored, inverse test to read with more practice reading became faster - procedural memory asked people to come back a year later, weren't perfect but still had retained a good chunk of skill - shows savings also showed above-change ability to read passages they had already read a year ago

Answer 53

separate memory systems in the brain explicit - retrieval from episodic memory implicit - activation in semantic and procedural memory

Answer 54

different processes occurring explicit - conceptually driven (top-down) implicit - data driven (bottom-up)

Answer 55

explicit - conceptually-driven/meaningful implicit - data-driven/perceptual

Answer 56

control condition was presented a list of words, given a free recall test without cues experimental group given either cue A or cue B beside each word, given a free recall test - if given the same cue at study and at test it helps, if given a different cue at test than hindered performance same cues at test and study did better than control group

Answer 57

step 1: presented a study list, each word with weak associate cue step 2: given another list of words and asked to free-associate (generating strong associates) step 3: asked to go back over generated words and see if any of them were the study list words step 4: given weak associate cues from step 1, asked to recall study list words results: - step 2: generated 70% of study words in free association - step 3: recognized only 24% of words in presence of strong associates - step 4: recalled 63% of study words with weak associates sometimes the word itself is not the best cue

Answer 58

subjects shown a list of 5 letter words to study given either a free recall test, a cued recall test (2, 3, or 4 letters), or a recognition test worst performance on free-recall, performance increased on cued-recall test as the # of letters in cue increased, recognition test showed best performance since the words were studied alone and not with cues, the word itself is the best cue

Answer 59

subjects given a target word and a high associate cue at test, given a different high associate cue performance very poor when switching cues - if cue is not encoded during study, will not be effective

Answer 60

varied encoding context for a target word to be either a rhyme or an associate (ex. rhymes with pain or associated with storms) at test, cue manipulated for how similar it would be to study cue - identical - similar (a different rhyme/associate) - different (opposite cue type) performance in each condition best when processed deeper identical cues showed best performance

Answer 61

the hypothesis that the more closely the processes at study and test are related, the better performance will be

Answer 62

in study phase, read of generate solutions to anagrams in test phase, read or generate item and then make a recognition decision performance is best if the same process (reading/generating) done at both study and test

Answer 63

subjects either saw words or pictures of an object at study at test, either given a word fragment or picture fragment to complete best performance occurred when processing task is the same at study and test

Answer 64

emphasizes that info about retrieval cues must be encoded at study for cue to be effective at retrieval

Answer 65

got groups of divers and gave them a list to study either on land or under water, then tested them either on land or under water performance is best when tested in same environment as study

Answer 66

put participants in a happy/sad mood via hypnosis had them learn a list of neutral words put back in either the same or different conditions and tested to recall the words best recall when in same mood as during study

Answer 67

put participants in happy/sad mood via hypnosis had them read a happy or sad story given a surprise recall test later when not under hypnosis best recall for story that matched their mood

Answer 68

function for caffeine, alcohol, marijuana participants drank coffee or a placebo drink later drank either the same drink as before or different best recall when in same state as study

Answer 69

recall depends more on retrieval cues than recognition, same conditions at study and test provide more cues

Answer 70

subject variables retrieval event variables encoding

Answer 71

participants read a list of words surrounding a central theme later reconstructed memory of theme, asked which words they had seen before list words highly associated with critical lures, makes you think these lures were present when they weren't

Answer 72

had subjects recall the events of a story they had heard noticed changes over recall

Answer 73

omissions - specific info drops out rationalization - increase sense of story, add info to explain incongruous aspects of story dominant themes - some themes become dominant and serve as anchor points - remember details related to these themes transformations - unfamiliar words/sequences of events transformed into familiar ones

Answer 74

recalling the same material on several occasions done by one person

Answer 75

transmit material to someone else "next in line" requires several people like "broken telephone"

Answer 76

comprehension is a constructive process remembering involves imaginative reconstruction we use schemas to organize events and experiences and to guide recall

Answer 77

subjects viewed a film of a traffic accident asked how fast the cars were going using a range of verbs (bumped, hit, collided, smashed) later, asked to estimate the speed the cars were going people presented the more aggressive verbs guessed faster speeds 1 week later asked if there was broken glass present at the scene, more subjects in "smashed" group said yes

Answer 78

subjects saw slides depicting an auto accident, 1/2 saw it with a yield sign and 1/2 saw it with a stop sign test 1: did another car pass while at the yield sign? - gives misinformation to those shown slide with stop sign test 2: after retention interval asked if there was a yield sign at the intersection - 25% of people who saw the stop sign said they saw the yield sign due to prior information

Answer 79

subjects witness an event given post-event info that includes misinformation asked to recall or reorganize info about the original event if info is consistent, performance goes up if info is inconsistent, performance goes down

Answer 80

contacted participants parents and asked for descriptions of evens when they were children asked participants about these events and false events showed providing participants "evidence" of false memories can increase their "memory" of the event

Answer 81

reduces it as they are more vigilant in their evaluations but does not eliminate it

Answer 82

woman was watching TV when someone broke into her home, surprised to see someone there and hit her and fled woman called 911 and gave police description for sketch artist Dom Thomson was walking down police station stairs when he was immediately arrested, he was a spitting image of the description had the perfect alibi: was being interviewed by the chief of police on live TV the woman had actually been watching this interview on TV, got Thomsons memory mixed up with her assailant gave false eyewitness testimony

Answer 83

had people sit in an office while waiting to participate in experiment once out of office, told the purpose was actually to test their memory on the contents of the office (incidental test) 1/3 of people recalled seeing books even though there were none - used schema of offices, produced false memory

Answer 84

subjects read a story, 1/2 with the name Gerald Martin and 1/2 with the name Adolf Hitler given a recognition test either 5 minutes or 1 week later - given 7 new and 7 old sentences - of 7 new sentences, 4 are neutral and 3 are thematically-related to Hitler after 5 mins, all subjects very accurate in deciding which sentences were old/new after a week: - subjects who read about Gerald Martin were still very accurate - subjects who read about Hitler confused thematically related sentences with old sentences demonstrates subjects integrated their new info with specific prior knowledge in their reconstruction

Answer 85

benefits - provide a framework/context for organizing or relating new info costs - difficult to remember later source of info when what we read is integrated with what we know

Answer 86

asked subjects to remember a sentence "the fish attacked the swimmer" - encoded: shark - since you don't picture the attacker to be a small fish, you picture it to be larger like a shark best cue for recall is therefore "shark" not "fish"

Answer 87

when you have domain-specific memory, you are more likely to make errors by recalling based on this prior knowledge ex. presented a list of animals that are also NFL teams, later may say a new animal/team was on the list because it fits in with your knowledge of the domain even though it wasn't when you don't have this knowledge, forced to memorize the list at random

Answer 88

episodic memory prior knowledge

Answer 89

set of techniques used to aid witnesses in recalling details and events - designed to provide large number/variety of retrieval cues to help reconstruct memory 1. recall events in different sequences 2. reconstruct environmental and personal context of event - state dependent memory 3. recall the event from multiple perspectives 4. report partial details and impressions - things you are unsure of

Answer 90

1. LTM is transient - tendency to lose access to info over time 2. absent mindedness - failure of attention during encoding 3. blocking - temporary loss, "tip of tongue" 4. misattribution - confusion of source memory 5. suggestibility - incorporate info provided by others into own recollection 6. bias - tendency for knowledge/beliefs to distort memory 7. persistence - tendency to remember things we would rather forget

Answer 91

loss of info proceeds in predictable fashion - non-linear - forgetting rapidly at first and then less rapidly Jost's Law of forgetting - given 2 associations of the same strength but of different ages, the older is forgotten slower rate of forgetting does not vary with degree of original learning - strong and weak memories are lost at the same rate

Answer 92

decay interference retrieval failure injury/disease

Answer 93

memories that are not rehearsed/activated fade over time possibly due to loss of neural connections

Answer 94

proactive interference = interference of earlier memories on later memories retroactive interference = interference of later memories on earlier memories

Answer 95

asked rugby players to recall names of other teams they play over a season different players played different # of games, 2 games ago could be 2 weeks ago for some players or 4 weeks for others test of decay theory: constant # of games, examined effect of retention interval test of interference: constant retention interval, examined effect of # of intervening games retention interval had little effect, # of intervening games had large effect - interference had far greater effect on real life phenomenon than did decay

Answer 96

retroactive interference interferes with new memories - forming new memories interfere with consolidation of old memories interference (both types) can interfere with retrieval of older memories due to cue overload - if too many events associated with the same retrieval cues, more difficult to retrieve individual memories

Answer 97

said if retroactive interference interferes with consolidation of recent memories, then going to sleep right after learning should reduce effects had subjects learn a list of nonsense syllables and then sleep or stay awake for 1-8 hours before retention test participants who went to sleep right after showed much better memory for nonsense syllables

Answer 98

can't retrieve some memories because we do not have appropriate retrieval cues

Answer 99

part 1: gave people a list of categorized items, asked to immediately recall in - ex. 4 metals, then 4 occupations, then 4 dog breeds, etc. - some people got 1 list, some got multiple part 2: asked to free recall first list part 3: asked to recall list using cues results: part 1: learning identical for each list (since recall is immediate) part 2: % recalled decreased as number of subsequent lists increased part 3: able to recall list as well as they could at original learning with cues effective retrieval cues can eliminate effects of interference

Answer 100

advantageous to forget past info that is no longer relevant to avoid a cluttered mind

Answer 101

memory for normal life experiences have some special influencing factors

Answer 102

items are better remembered when they have personal significance our self-schema is rich and detailed, serves to organize and associate self-relevant info leading to better memory

Answer 103

had subjects rate a list of adjectives in terms of how descriptive they were of themselves given surprise recall test the more self-relevant the adjectives were ranked, the better they were recalled

Answer 104

got high school graduates from recent, a few years ago, or many years ago and showed them names or faces of classmates found forgetting did not start until nearly 40 years after graduation - when aging effects would start to take effect anyways

Answer 105

vivid recollections that we have of the circumstances surrounding getting shocking news or experiencing traumatic events some can be incredibly accurate and remembered for years others can be very inaccurate though peoples still have high confidence that their memories are correct

Answer 106

the consequentiality of the event for that person if consequential, will be remembered

Answer 107

a loss of memory

Answer 108

disruption of memory for info learned before amnesia-causing event

Answer 109

disruption of memory for info learned after the amnesia-causing event

Answer 110

episodic not semantic or procedural

Answer 111

profound epilepsy, had surgery of hippocampus and related structures sharply reduced seizures but at the expense of severe anterograde amnesia similar symptoms to Korsakoffs syndrome (thiamine/B1 deficiency from alcohol abuse)

Answer 112

pricked patient with a pin during a handshake next day, patient could not remember meeting him yet would not shake his hand

Answer 113

found a woman walking aimlessly, she has severe amnesia and no wallet/ID asked her to dial a phone number, though she had no clue who she is calling, calls her mother - procedural memory from dialling the number often

Answer 114

biological: - consolidation (interruption by ECT, trauma, sleep benefits) - decay - disease behavioural: - retrieval failure - interference - context dependent forgetting (ex. change in location)

Answer 115

reduces complexity of environment how we identify objects reduces need for constant learning allows us to decide on appropriate action

Answer 116

the skill by which we group objects and events into classes so that unique things can be responded to similarly

Answer 117

determining what a set of stimuli have in common in a particular context

Answer 118

one you have intentionally set out to acquire and develop specific rules for

Answer 119

one that was incidentally acquired and is not necessarily conscious (or doesn't have explicit rules)

Answer 120

made up concepts defined by specific rules that define relevant rules/attributes used to study how people learn concepts/rules and classify objects/events

Answer 121

wholist - consider all values of first positive trial, eliminate dimensions as you go partist - select 1 or more dimensions and stay with them until they fail, then change the set

Answer 122

asked people to remember a letter string, cover it up, and write it down - done for a list - people thought it was an STM test all words actually followed a grammar scheme that subjects were not aware of given another set of letter strings, asked to identify which strings followed the same rules as the first list though they couldn't identify the rules/scheme, they had an above chance ability to identify which strings followed the same scheme

Answer 123

diagnosing a medical disease via symptoms

Answer 124

- tend to be in hierarchies - categories are ill-defined - features often correlated with each other, not independent - some exemplars are more typical or a category than other members - some categories are more basic than others

Answer 125

superordinate - ex. vehicle basic level - ex. car subordinate - ex. Honda

Answer 126

typical exemplars share more attributes with the category than atypical exemplars closer to the prototype of the category

Answer 127

told participants to write down the first members of each category that came to mind ex. Name the first 5 vegetables you think of individual experiences informs categorization and what you think of as typical and atypical

Answer 128

we usually use basic level names when we label objects we can name more common attributes of basic level we can form prototypes based on average pattern for basic level time to name/verify questions about categories is faster for basic memory tends to retain info at basic level

Answer 129

experts can identify subordinate categories in their area of expertise as fast as basic level

Answer 130

subjects told a story with either subordinate or superordinate terms later asked to report it back in recall and recognition tasks, falsely reported basic-level terms

Answer 131

quintessential example of a category

Answer 132

prototype models - store common features of exemplars during learning to form prototype for category - compare novel item to prototype instances models - store separate instances of categories during learning - retrieve instances and compare novel items to retrieve them

Answer 133

prototype - new item is added to prototype in memory exemplar - new item stored in memory as category exemplar

Answer 134

prototype - there are prototypes for each category that is an average of all encoded exemplars exemplar - each encoded exemplar is stored along with its category

Answer 135

prototype - new stimulus compared with stored prototype exemplar - new stimulus compared with stored exemplars

Answer 136

specifies the centre of a category rather than boundaries category membership based on family resemblance exemplars have graded membership - some closer to prototype than others

Answer 137

asked to study faces and their names later shown both new and old faces and asked to recognize which they had seen before recognized prototype for faces on old list even if that specific face hadn't been seen before, but they had seen faces that form the prototype

Answer 138

preserve info about variability in a category - ex. 19" pizza vs ruler preserve info about correlated features better explain pliability of mental categories - ex. goal-derived (what to eat when dieting) - ex. ad hoc (things that could fall on your head) - wouldn't have prototypes for new categories, must use exemplars drawn from memory

Answer 139

when learning/forming new categories when variability or correlations between features is important

Answer 140

for established or learned categories

Answer 141

which feature of prototypes/exemplars of a concept are important many concepts more complex than simply similarity or shared attributes of members of a category, prototypes and exemplars are not sufficient to represent all categorial knowledge