PSY 322 Exam 2

Question 1

Memory:

Answer 1

Memory: processes involved in retaining, retrieving, and using information about stimuli, images, events, ideas, and skills after the original information is no longer present. Active any time some past experience has an impact on how you think or behave now or in the future.

Question 2

Basics of memory: encoding, storage, retrieval

Answer 2

Encoding is the receiving and interpretation of information, acquiring information and transforming it into memory - fancy way of saying memorize

Storage refers to the storing of information

Retrieval is the process used to recall stored information, transferring information from LTM to working memory

Question 3

Sensory memory:

Short-term memory:

Long-term memory:

Control processes:
- Rehearsal:
- Strategies used to make a stimulus more memorable: like mnemonic devices to help memories things easier
- Strategies of attention that help you focus on specific stimuli:

Besides this it is passive and you have bins the three models and then draw from it when needed

Answer 3

Sensory memory: the initial stage that holds all incoming information for seconds or fractions of a second

Short-term memory: holds five to seven items for about 15 to 20 seconds.

Long-term memory: can hold a large amount of information for years or even decades

Control processes: active processes that can be controlled by the person
- Rehearsal: trying to remember a phone number for ordering pizza so repeating the number for active memory
- Strategies used to make a stimulus more memorable: like mnemonic devices to help memories things easier
- Strategies of attention that help you focus on specific stimuli: ways to put attention where you need to help you remember it

Question 4

Baddeley’s Working Memory Model: Central Executive, Visuospatial Sketchpad, Phonological Loop, Episodic Buffer

Answer 4

Central Executive: Acts as the attention controller and controls suppression of irrelevant information - Focus, divide, switch attention

Visuospatial Sketchpad: Creation of visual images in the mind in the absence of a physical visual stimulus, Memorize sentence and then consider each word (mentally) and Response is either
- Phonological: say “yes” if it is a noun and “no” if it is not
- Visuospatial: point to Y if word is a noun and N if word is not

Phonological Loop: Conducting two verbal tasks overloaded (reading and listening to music at the same time) and temporary hold verbal information
- Phonological similarity effect → Letters or words that sound similar are confused
- Word length effect - easier to remember shorter words like cat then like rutabaga

Episodic Buffer: Backup store that communicates with long-term and working memory components, Hold information longer and has greater capacity than phonological loop or visuospatial sketch pad
- Not everything is verbal or spatial there’s other stuff like feelings and senses that you don’t have words or pics attached to and will hold info a little longer

Question 5

Working memory:

Activity state:

Synaptic state:

Working memory differs from short-term memory (STM):

Answer 5

Working memory: Limited-capacity system for temporary storage and manipulation of information for complex tasks such as comprehension, learning, and reasoning (activate takes while short is passive) - set up to process different types of information simultaneously - Prefrontal cortex responsible for processing incoming visual and auditory information

Activity state: information to be remembered causes neurons to fire

Synaptic state: neuron firing stops, but connections between neurons are strengthened

Working memory differs from short-term memory (STM):
STM holds information for a brief period of time
WM is concerned with the storage, processing and manipulation of information, and is active during complex cognition

Question 6

Sensory memory: What is known about capacity and duration (and how we know it!)

Answer 6

Sensory memory: retention, for brief periods of time, of the effects of sensory stimulation, information decays very quickly so low capacity

Persistence of vision: retention of the perception of light → Trail of light from a moving sparkler - evidence of sensory memory and doesn’t last that long and it will disappear

Measuring the capacity and duration of sensory memory (Sperling, 1960)
Array of letters flashed quickly on a screen and participants asked to report as many as possible
Whole report method: participants asked to report as many as could be seen average of 4.5 out of 12 letters (37.5%)
Partial report method: participants heard tone that told them which row of letters to report average of 3.3 out of 4 letters (82%)
Delayed partial report method: presentation of tone delayed for a fraction of a second after the letters were extinguished, performance decreases rapidly
Results of Sperling’s (1960) partial report experiments. The decrease in performance is due to the rapid decay of iconic memory (sensory memory in the modal model).

(Visual sensory memory also called) Iconic memory: brief sensory memory of the things that we see

Question 7

Short-term memory: What is known about capacity and duration (and how we know it!)

Answer 7

Short-Term Memory: Stores small amounts of information for a brief duration and includes both new information received from the sensory stores and information recalled from long-term memory

Measuring duration of short-term memory: Read three letters, then a three-digit number (xjf 678) and then participants start counting back until they get to those
Reduction in performance explained by decay, the vanishing of a memory trace due to the passage of time and exposure to competing stimuli - people did worse bc of decay so by time passing things fall out but also competing info

Capacity of short-term memory: Digit span - how many digits a person can remember
Stretching short term capacity is chunking - Chunking: small units can be combined into larger meaningful units

Question 8

Anterograde amnesia:

Retrograde amnesia:

Graded amnesia:

Answer 8

Anterograde amnesia: A person cannot remember new information but can remember events from before the onset of amnesia, can’t make new memories in the future - every 30 secs keep rebooting only have short term memory

Retrograde amnesia: A person can remember new information but cannot remember events from before the onset of amnesia, loss of memory for events prior to the trauma - worse to those close in time to when the injury occurred and further back in time memory is more intact

Graded amnesia: memory for recent events is more fragile than for remote events

Question 9

Dissociations between STM and LTM (this is how we know they’re separate systems!)

Answer 9

STM depends upon intact corticostriatal systems, whereas LTM depends upon intact medial temporal lobe systems.

Question 10

H.M.: what type of amnesia he had and why

Answer 10

surgery removed hippocampus
Retained short-term memory (STM) but unable to transfer info to long-term memory (LTM)
Unable to form new LTMs
Short term memory okay but long term memory impaired

anterograde amnesia

Question 11

Clive Wearing: what types of amnesia he had and why

Answer 11

Suffers from anterograde amnesia and retrograde amnesia due to a bout with viral encephalitis in his 40s. This means that he remembers very little from his past and cannot make new memories either.
Short term memory okay but long term memory impaired

Question 12

Dissociations between episodic and semantic LTM

Answer 12

Episodic memory involves mental time travel (memory for personal experience)
Tied to personal experience; remembering is reliving or “self-knowing”

Semantic memory does not involve mental time travel (memory for facts)
General knowledge, facts like “Knowing”

Separation of Episodic and Semantic Memories: fMRI demonstrates that retrieving episodic(right prefrontal) and semantic(left) memories activate different areas of the brain

Episodic and Semantic Memory Interaction:
Episodic can be lost, leaving only semantic (Acquiring knowledge may start as episodic but then “fade” to semantic)

Semantic can be enhanced if associated with episodic
Autobiographical memory: specific experiences, includes semantic and episodic
Personal semantic memory: semantic memories that have personal significance

Question 13

Long-term memory: What is known about capacity and duration (and how we know it!)

Answer 13

Long-Term Memory: “Archive” of information about past events and knowledge learned, works closely with working memory, storage stretches from a few moments ago to as far back as one can remember, more recent memories are more detailed

Question 14

The serial position curve: primacy (LTM) and recency (STM) effect, best memory for items at beginning and end of the list

Answer 14

Distinction between short-term and long-term memories using the serial position curve

Notice that memory is better for words presented at the beginning of the list (primacy effect) and at the end (recency effect).

Primacy effect gave more time to rehearse information, more likely to enter long-term memory (LTM)

Recency effect: Stimuli in STM

Question 15

Coding in Short-Term Memory:

Coding in Long-Term Memory:

Answer 15

Coding in Short-Term Memory: placing words in categories based on meaning
Visual - holding an image in your mind that you recently saw
Auditory - representing the sound of letters in mind just after hearing them

Coding in Long-Term Memory: recalling generally plot of a novel you read last week
Recognition memory: identification of a previously encountered stimulus
Visual - visualizing museum you were at last summer
Auditory - repeating song heard many times before

Question 16

KF > accident damaged parietal lobe

Answer 16

Impaired STM (reduced digit span) but functional LTM
Able to form and hold new memories

Question 17

Types of LTM: Explicit vs. Implicit

Answer 17

Explicit: conscious → episodic is personal events and semantic is facts

Implicit: unconscious → procedural, primiming, conditioning

Procedural: Skill memory: memory for actions, perform procedures without being consciously aware of how to do them, people who cannot form new LTMs can still learn new skills (e.g., HM)

Primiming: Presentation of priming stimulus changes person’s response to a test stimulus
- Repetition priming: Test stimulus the same or similar to priming stimulus
Called implicit memory; person may or may not remember original presentation of priming stimuli

Conditioning: Pairing a neutral stimulus with a reflexive response, involves implicit memory when person has forgotten about original pairing of the stimulus and the response

Question 18

Encoding: Maintenance Rehearsal vs. Elaborative Rehearsal

Answer 18

Maintenance rehearsal
Repetition of stimuli that maintains information but does not transfer it to LTM
When you repeat things to yourself over and over again but it doesn’t necessarily go to long term because there is more effective things you can do to help with that - repeat phone number

Elaborative rehearsal
Using meanings and connections to help transfers information to LTM
Having a song or acronym to remember it more effectively

Question 19

Levels of processing in memory (you should know all about Craik and Tulving’s experiment)

Answer 19

Memory depends on how information is encoded - how did you when you first encounter what time of work did you do first when you met the memory meaning that better memory like deep could make it easier in the future to remember

Depth of processing
Shallow processing: little attention to meaning, focus on physical features, poor memory
Deep processing: close attention to meaning, better memory

(a) Sequence of events in Craik and Tulving’s (1975) experiment. (b) Results of this experiment. Deeper processing (fill-in-the-blanks question) is associated with better memory - participants sit down and showed a screen and then shown a word and then asked a question about the word and did not tell participant to memorize word, first question was the word in all caps, second conduction does this word rhyme with blank, third condition was does this word fit in this sentence so if the word was bird they would say does bird fit into the sentence do birds sit in nests, between the three conditions: fill in blanks at 80%, decrease to 50% with rhyme, and at capital letters like 10%. This is because it just takes looking at words to see if it’s all caps, no extra word required, for rhyming you don’t really need to think about it that much, filling in blanks takes more work therefore that amount makes them remember it more. So how much work are you putting up front will help you later, when retrieval comes more likely to remember.

Question 20

Factors that aid encoding (imagery, self-reference, generation, etc)

Answer 20

Visual imagery - could help remember word pairs such as boat-tree and they could either just repeat the worlds or make an imagery in their mind of a boat and a tree and when test time came it was easier to remember the paired associative memory when using imagery.

Self-reference effect - best memory for filling in the blank meaning helps, what could make it even better is saying does that word connect to you and then pairing it to yourself will help you remember.

Generation effect

Organizing to-be-remembered information - Bransford & Johnson

Relating words to survival value

Retrieval practice: practice questions or test yourself from the book is example of this bc the act of testing yourself improves memory

Question 21

Organizing to-be-remembered information - Bransford & Johnson

Answer 21

Bransford & Johnson (1972) - used difficult to comprehend story with three groups
Presented difficult-to-comprehend information
Experimental Group 1 saw picture that helped explain the information before reading it
Experimental Group 2 saw picture after reading the passage
Control Group did not see the picture
Group 1 outperformed the others → so having a image or a way to organize info you have to remember makes it easier to remember it - organizational context to aid in learning you will do better
Having a mental framework of comprehension aided memory encoding and retrieval
Picture used by Bransford and Johnson (1972) to illustrate the effect of organization on memory

Question 22

Ways of testing memory: recognition vs. recall, and free recall vs. serial recall vs. cued recall

Answer 22

Cued recall: ways to study recall getting into long term memory
Most of our failures of memory are failures to retrieve
Cue presented to aid recall - cue recall is you have something you need to memorize and given a cue to help you memorize
Increased performance over free recall - hewitt class exams
Retrieval cues most effective when created by the person who uses them - obviously
A serial recall task requires participants to recall a list of items in a specific order, usually the order in which they were presented.

Question 23

Encoding specificity (learning information together with its context)

Answer 23

Encoding Specificity: Context dependent memory (learn info along with your environment so the context you are with - example being in this classroom can act as a retrieval cue) - We learn information together with its context - Best recall occurred when encoding and retrieval occurred in the same location (match conditions)

Question 24

State-dependent and context-dependent learning: matching conditions at learning and test

Answer 24

State-Dependent Learning: same as Encoding Specificity: Context dependent memory
Learning is associated with a particular internal state - Better memory if person’s mood at encoding matches mood during retrieval

Matching the Cognitive Task: Transfer-appropriate processing - memory task results improve if the type of processing used during encoding is the same as the type during retrieval

Question 25

Hebb and long-term potentiation

Answer 25

Hebb (1948) (cells that fire together, wire together)
Learning and memory represented in the brain by physiological changes at the synapse, Neural record of experience , You can see a record of learning and memory at the synaptic level if everything is run by the NS

Long-term potentiation (LTP)
Enhanced firing of neurons after repeated stimulation
Structural changes and enhanced responding

Question 26

Consolidation:

Synaptic consolidation:

Systems consolidation:

Standard model of consolidation:

Multiple trace model of consolidation:

Answer 26

Consolidation: Transforms new memories from fragile state to more permanent state - need this to create new explicit memories - from new fragile memories to permanent ones

Synaptic consolidation: rapid, occurs at synapses - seconds to mins so very short rapid time frame at the synaptic level - one neuron talking to another

Systems consolidation: gradual, reorganization of neural circuits - days, weeks, months, years so overtime how the memories can get filled away and we reorganize circuits to more efficiently run

Standard model of consolidation: After encoding, activity of hippocampus fades with time

Multiple trace model of consolidation: new more recent model → difference says use hippocampus the whole time
Hippocampus is activated during retrieval of both recent and remote memories
Response of the hippocampus can change over time

Question 27

Reconsolidation (think of the two studies we talked about, one with rats, the other with PTSD patients)

Answer 27

Reconsolidation: Memory Updating - Retrieved memories become fragile and are consolidated again
Memory is a “work in progress” … constantly constructed and remodeled in response to learning and conditions
Once memory saved and filled sway can be really strong but when you have to retrieve you have to reconsolidate which could make them change

Rat - Reactivating a memory can make it vulnerable to change, Injected drug to rats and inhibits protein synthesis and makes consolidation not work

Posttraumatic stress disorder causes severe emotional responses to traumatic memories
Participants reactivated a traumatic memory
Drug administered to block amygdala stress receptors during reconsolidation of memory
Later reactivation of same memory showed lower stress responses

Question 28

Autobiographical Memory (AM):

Answer 28

Autobiographical Memory (AM): Memory for specific experiences from our life, which can include both episodic and semantic components, Mental time travel, Multidimensional (Spatial, emotional, and sensory components)

Question 29

Reminiscence bump: what is it, when do we see it, and what are the hypotheses about it?

Answer 29

The reminiscence bump is the increased proportion of autobiographical memories from youth and early adulthood observed in adults over 40, Memory is high for recent events and for events that occurred in adolescence and early adulthood (between 10 and 30 years of age)

Self-image hypothesis: Memory is enhanced for events that occur as a person’s self-image or life identity is being formed, People assume identities during adolescence and young adulthood, Many transitions occur between ages 10 and 30

Cognitive hypothesis: Encoding is better during periods of rapid change that are followed by stability, Evidence from those who emigrated to the United States after young adulthood indicates reminiscence bump is shifted

Question 30

Flashbulb memories: what are they, why do they exist, and what is special about them?

Answer 30

Flashbulb Memories - Memory for the circumstances surrounding shocking, highly charged important events
Highly emotional, vivid, and very detailed, Flashbulb memories are not “photograph” memories, They can change with the passage of time
Narrative rehearsal hypothesis: Repeated viewing/hearing of event
TV, newspaper, radio, talking with others
Could introduce errors in own memory

Question 31

War of the Ghosts demonstration. What information gets lost with repeated recall? What gets added? What gets modified and how?

Answer 31

Memory = what actually happens + person’s knowledge, experiences, and expectations

Bartlett’s “war of the ghosts” experiment: Had participants attempt to remember a story from a different culture, Repeated reproduction

Results: Over time, reproduction became shorter, contained omissions and inaccuracies, Changed to make the story more consistent with their own culture

Question 32

Source monitoring: source misattributions, “Becoming famous overnight” experiment

Source memory:

Source monitoring error:

Cryptomnesia:

The Illusory Truth Effect -

Answer 32

Source memory: process of determining origins of our memories

Source monitoring error: misidentifying source of memory - Also called “source misattributions”

Cryptomnesia: unconscious plagiarism of another’s work due to a lack of recognition of its original source

After 24 hours, some non famous names were misidentified as famous – Explanation: some non famous names were familiar, and the participants misattributed the source of the familiarity, Failed to identify the source as the list that had been read the previous day

The Illusory Truth Effect - Enhanced probability of evaluating a statement is true after repeated presentation

Question 33

Pragmatic inferences:

Answer 33

Pragmatic inferences: based on knowledge gained through experience
Memory often includes information that is implied by or is consistent with the to be remembered information but was not explicitly stated, Memory can be influenced by inferences that people make based on their experiences and knowledge

Question 34

Schemas and scripts

Answer 34

Schema: knowledge about some aspect of the environment - e.g., Post office, ball game, classroom

Script: conception of sequence of actions that usually occurs during a particular experience - Going to a restaurant; playing tennis

Schemas and scripts influence memory
Memory can include information not actually experienced but inferred because it is expected and consistent with the schema
Office waiting room: books not present but mentioned in memory task
The constructive nature of memory can lead to errors or “false memories”

Question 35

Misinformation effect (Loftus studies)

Answer 35

The misinformation effect: misleading information presented after someone witnesses an event can change how that person later describes the event - Misleading postevent information (MPI)

Loftus and coworkers (1975): See slides of traffic accident with stop sign, Introduce MPI: yield sign, Participants remember what they heard (yield sign) and not what they saw (stop sign)

Loftus and Palmer (1974): Hear “smashed” or “hit” in description of car accident
Those hearing “smashed” said the cars were going much faster than those who heard “hit”

Participants in the Loftus and Palmer (1974) experiment saw a film of a car crash, with scenes similar to the picture shown here, and were then asked leading questions about the crash.

Source monitoring error
Failure to distinguish the source of the information
MPI is misattributed to the original source

Lindsay (1990)
Heard a story; 2 days later again with some details changed
Told to ignore changes
Same voice for both stories created source monitoring errors
Changing voice (male to female) did not create as many errors

Question 36

Pros and cons to the constructive nature of memory

Answer 36

Advantages
Allows us to “fill in the blanks”
Cognition is creative
Understand language
Solve problems
Make decisions

Disadvantages
Sometimes we make errors
Sometimes we misattribute the source of information
Was it actually presented or did we infer it?

Question 37

Articulatory suppression causes a decrease in the word-length effect because

a.saying “the, the, the” fills up the phonological loop.

b.saying “la, la, la” forces participants to use visual encoding.

c.talking makes the longer words seem even longer.

d.elaborative rehearsal helps transfer information into LTM.

Answer 37

a.saying “the, the, the” fills up the phonological loop.

Question 38

When a sparkler is twirled rapidly, people perceive a circle of light. This occurs because

a.the trail you see is caused by sparks left behind from the sparkler.

b.due to its high intensity, we see the light from the sparkler for about a second after it goes out.

c.the length of iconic memory (the persistence of vision) is about one-third of a second.

d.Gestalt principles work to complete the circle in our minds.

Answer 38

c.the length of iconic memory (the persistence of vision) is about one-third of a second.

Question 39

The three structural components of the modal model of memory are

a.receptors, occipital lobe, temporal lobe.

b.receptors, temporal lobe, frontal lobe.

c.sensory memory, short-term memory, long-term memory.

d.sensory memory, iconic memory, rehearsal.

Answer 39

c.sensory memory, short-term memory, long-term memory.

Question 40

The conclusion from the experiment in which a chess master and a chess novice were asked to remember the positions of chess pieces on a chess board was that

a.chess masters outperform novices in all conditions.

b.chess masters have developed better memory skills than novices.

c.novices do better because they are not distracted by irrelevant knowledge about previous chess games.

d.chess masters use chunking to help them remember actual game arrangements.

Answer 40

d.chess masters use chunking to help them remember actual game arrangements.

Question 41

The primacy effect is attributed to

a.recall of information stored in LTM.

b.a type of rehearsal that improves memory for all items in a list.

c.recall of information still active in STM.

d.forgetting of early items in a list as they are replaced by later items.

Answer 41

a.recall of information stored in LTM.

Question 42

An example of a dissociation is evidenced by a brain-injured patient who

a.shows a significantly reduced digit span.

b.cannot recognize either familiar faces or familiar voices.

c.exhibits a recency effect but no primacy effect.

d.shows evidence for deeper processing and shallow processing.

Answer 42

c.exhibits a recency effect but no primacy effect.

Question 43

The following statement represents what kind of memory? “The Beatles stopped making music together as a group in the early 1970s.”

a.Episodic

b.Semantic

c.Procedural

d.Implicit

Answer 43

b.Semantic

Question 44

An item on an implicit memory test would most likely resemble which of the following?

a.”Report the first word that you associate with TREE.”

b.”Explain your earliest personal memory that relates to TREE.”

c.”Which of the following words is related to “plant,” TREE or SHOE.”

d.”Fill in the following with the first word that comes to mind: T _ _ E.”

Answer 44

d.”Fill in the following with the first word that comes to mind: T _ _ E.”

Question 45

Bransford and Johnson’s study had participants hear a passage which turned out to be about a man on the street serenading his girlfriend in a tall building. The wording of the passage made it difficult to understand, but looking at a picture made it easier to understand. The results of this study illustrated the importance of _______ in forming reliable long-term memories.

a. implicit memory during learning

b. an organizational context during learning

c. deep processing during retrieval

d. imagery

Answer 45

b. an organizational context during learning

Question 46

Shallow processing of a word is encouraged when attention is focused on

a. the number of vowels in a word.

b. the meaning of a word.

c. the pleasantness of a word.

d. the category of a word.

Answer 46

a. the number of vowels in a word.

Question 47

According to your text, imagery enhances memory because

a. research shows people like pictures better than words, so there is an enhanced emotional response.

b. the brain processes images more easily than the meanings of words.

c. imagery can be used to create connections between items to be remembered.

d. pictures fit better with our basic instincts because children learn pictures before reading words.

Answer 47

c. imagery can be used to create connections between items to be remembered.

Question 48

People often report an annoying memory failure when they walk from one end of the house to the other for something and then forgetting what they went to retrieve when they reach their destination. As soon as they return to the first room, they are reminded of what they wanted in the first place. This common experience best illustrates the principle of

a. the self-reference effect.

b. maintenance rehearsal.

c. levels of processing theory.

d. encoding specificity.

Answer 48

d. encoding specificity.

Question 49

Autobiographical memory research shows that a person’s brain is more extensively activated when viewing photos

a. the person has seen before.

b. of familiar places.

c. they took themselves.

d. the person has never seen before.

Answer 49

c. they took themselves.

Question 50

Asking people to recall the most influential events that happened during their college careers show that ____ in people’s lives appear to be particularly memorable.

a. peer-group experiences

b. academic challenges

c. the sophomore year

d. transition points

Answer 50

d. transition points

Question 51

Your text argues that the proper procedure for measuring the accuracy of flashbulb memories is

a. source monitoring.

b. scripting.

c. repeated recall.

d. pre-cueing.

Answer 51

c. repeated recall.

Question 52

Schrauf and Rubin’s “two groups of immigrants” study found that the reminiscence bump coincided with periods of rapid change, occurring at a normal age for people emigrating early in life but shifting to 15 years later for those who emigrated later. These results support the

a. cognitive hypothesis.

b. self-image hypothesis.

c. narrative rehearsal hypothesis.

d. autobiographical hypothesis.

Answer 52

a. cognitive hypothesis.