Problem 2: Memory Flashcards
What is the function of short term memory?
It is responsible for holding onto a small amount of information that has been recently taken in from the environment. It has a small capacity and short duration
What is the function of long term memory?
It has a large capacity that contains memories for experiences and information that have accumulated throughout your lifetime
What did Miller mean by ‘the magical number 7’?
That short term memory can only hold up to 7 +- 2units at a time, so 5-9 units.
How does a chunk aid in remembering?
a chunk is a memory unit that consists of several components that are strongly associated with one another, through chunking you can retain more items at a time in short term memory
what is the Brown Peterson technique?
Participants were presented with items that they were instructed to remember, afterwards they had to do a distraction task to prevent mental rehearsal. -> it showed that material stored for only a few seconds is easily forgotten
What is the serial position effect? Which effects can be seen?
It’s a U-shaped relationship between a word’s position in a list and it’s probability of being recalled. The first decrease of the U-shape shows the primacy effect, the increase at the end of the U-shape shows the recency effect
What are semantics?
meaning of words and sentences
Wickens et al. tested Proactive interference, what does it mean and what were the results?
Proactive interference means that people have trouble learning new material because old material keeps interfering with their learning.
The experiment showed that if the new material is distinct from the old, interference will be little, you remember the new material almost as well as the old material
What is retrospective interference?
you have a difficulty in recalling old material because the new material is fresh in mind
What is the Atkinson Shiffrin model?
they propose that our mental processes are similar to those of a computer and that information processes through our cognitive system in a series of stages, one by one
What is Baddeley’s working memory model? What are the components and their functions?
Baddeley proposed that our working memory has 4 central components:
1: the central executive, our attentional system with limited capacity, cannot store information
2: phonological loop: processing & storing info briefly in a phonological or speech based form.
3: the visa-spatial sketchpad: temporary storage of visual and spatial information
4: episodic buffer: integrates information from the phonological loop and visuospatial sketchpad
What happens if two task require the same component of the working memory model? And what if it requires two different components?
same: can’t do task successfully because a component cannot multitask
different: possible to perform together & separately
The phonological loop consists of two parts, what are they and what are their functions?
1: phonological store - speech perception
2: articulatory process - speech production
what is the phonological similarity effect?
reduced immediate recall when words are phonologically similar
what is the word length effect? What is a possible explanation? What is the confounding factor?
the number of words immediately recalled is increased for shorter words than longer ones.
Possible explanation: more rehearsal for shorter than longer words within the same period of time
Confounding factor: could have been due to bigger orthographic neighbourhood of short words (words of the same length that only differ one or a few letters, are in the same orthographic neighbourhood)
