Neuropsychology Of Memory

Question 1

What is the outline of the multi-store model of memory?

Answer 1

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

Question 2

What is sensory memory?

Answer 2

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

Question 3

What are the two divisions of long term memory?

Answer 3

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)

Question 4

What are the three components of short term (working) memory?

Answer 4

Phonological loop (verbal)
Visuospatial sketchpad
Central executive system

Question 5

What are the components of the phonological loop?

Answer 5

A store that can hold memory for a few seconds
A rehearsal process to hold this for longer

Question 6

What are the components of the central executive?

Answer 6

Habitual control -automatic habits/schemas
A supervisory activating system that intervenes to overrule habitual control

Question 7

How does the episodic buffer feed into the transfer of short term memory to long term memory?

Answer 7

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.

Question 8

What areas of the brain does the phonological loop involve?

Answer 8

Broca’s and Wernicke’s areas

Question 9

What areas of the brain does the episodic buffer involve?

Answer 9

Parietal lobe (perceptual processing)

Question 10

What areas of the brain does the cebtral executive I nvolve?

Answer 10

Prefrontal cortex
Anterior cingulate cortex - attentional control

Question 11

What areas of the brain does the visuospatial sketchpad involve?

Answer 11

Occipital cortex

Question 12

How might a functional memory disorder present?

Answer 12

Attentional difficulties
Recognition memory is worse than recall
Less of past memory

Question 13

How might organic temporal lobe impairment present?

Answer 13

Deficits in the learning and retention of new information

Difficulties generating categorical information

Anterograde amnesia

Question 14

How might a frontal lobe memory impairment present?

Answer 14

Problems finding words

Question 15

What theories of forgetting apply to short term memory?

Answer 15

Trace decay
Displacement

Question 16

What theories of forgetting apply to long term memory?

Answer 16

Interference
Retrieval failure
Lack of consolidation

Question 17

What is the trace decay theory?

Answer 17

Memory traces fade over 15-30 seconds unless there is a process of rehearsal

Question 18

What is the displacement theory?

Answer 18

Short term memory can only hold small amounts of information
When it is full, new information displaces old information

Question 19

What are the primacy and recency effects?

Answer 19

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

Question 20

What is the interference theory?

Answer 20

Memory can be interfered with by past or future learning
Information in the long term memory may become confused or combined with other information

Question 21

What are the two types of interference?

Answer 21

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

Question 22

What is consolidation?

Answer 22

The process of modifying neurons in order to form new permanent memories

Question 23

What is the retrieval failure theory?

Answer 23

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

Question 24

What is restoration in rehabilitation?

Answer 24

Processes of recuperation of in the brain to restore a function

Question 25

What is compensation in rehabilitation?

Answer 25

Working around a deficit

Question 26

When can restoration of memory take place?

Answer 26

Early after the loss event (weeks after injury)