Neuropsychology Of Memory Flashcards
What is the outline of the multi-store model of memory?
Sensory input goes to sensory memory
Attended information goes to short term memory
Rehearsal leads to encoding into long term memory
By retrieval, information will be entered into short term memory and rehearsed
Some information (unrehearsed) will be lost over time
What is sensory memory?
Sensory input that we receive and then attend to
Sensory memory holds a large amount of sensory information for only a few hundred milliseconds
There is a unique sensory store for each of the special senses
Any traces of sensory input are lost unless they move into short term memory
What are the two divisions of long term memory?
Explicit (declarative) - conscious knowledge
Semantic - facts
Episodic - events of your life
Implicit (non-declarative)
Procedural - memory of action sequences
Emotional conditioning - memory of emotional responses (priming, fight or flight)
What are the three components of short term (working) memory?
Phonological loop (verbal)
Visuospatial sketchpad
Central executive system
What are the components of the phonological loop?
A store that can hold memory for a few seconds
A rehearsal process to hold this for longer
What are the components of the central executive?
Habitual control -automatic habits/schemas
A supervisory activating system that intervenes to overrule habitual control
How does the episodic buffer feed into the transfer of short term memory to long term memory?
The episodic buffer is thought to create a novel episode, using previous memories to contextualise information from the loop or sketchpad and using the executive resources to maintain this.
What areas of the brain does the phonological loop involve?
Broca’s and Wernicke’s areas
What areas of the brain does the episodic buffer involve?
Parietal lobe (perceptual processing)
What areas of the brain does the cebtral executive I nvolve?
Prefrontal cortex
Anterior cingulate cortex - attentional control
What areas of the brain does the visuospatial sketchpad involve?
Occipital cortex
How might a functional memory disorder present?
Attentional difficulties
Recognition memory is worse than recall
Less of past memory
How might organic temporal lobe impairment present?
Deficits in the learning and retention of new information
Difficulties generating categorical information
Anterograde amnesia
How might a frontal lobe memory impairment present?
Problems finding words
What theories of forgetting apply to short term memory?
Trace decay
Displacement
What theories of forgetting apply to long term memory?
Interference
Retrieval failure
Lack of consolidation
What is the trace decay theory?
Memory traces fade over 15-30 seconds unless there is a process of rehearsal
What is the displacement theory?
Short term memory can only hold small amounts of information
When it is full, new information displaces old information
What are the primacy and recency effects?
First and last information are remembered best
Primacy - information received first is more likely to be rehearsed and transferred into long term memory
Recency - information received last is not displaced form short term memory and can be rehearsed
What is the interference theory?
Memory can be interfered with by past or future learning
Information in the long term memory may become confused or combined with other information
What are the two types of interference?
Proactive interference - difficulty learning a new task because of an old task
Retroactive memory - forgetting a previously learned task due to learning a new task
What is consolidation?
The process of modifying neurons in order to form new permanent memories
What is the retrieval failure theory?
Information is in the long term memory but cannot be accessed
This may be due to an absence of retrieval cues
Forgetting is greatest when context and state are different at the time of encoding and retrieval
What is restoration in rehabilitation?
Processes of recuperation of in the brain to restore a function
What is compensation in rehabilitation?
Working around a deficit
When can restoration of memory take place?
Early after the loss event (weeks after injury)
