Quiz 4 Flashcards
Atkinson and Shiffrin Modal Model of Memory
- Sensory memory
- Short-term memory
- Long-term memory
Sensory memory
Initial stage that holds all incoming information for seconds or fractions of a second
STM characteristics
STM holds 5-7 items for about 15-20 seconds
LTM
Can hold a large amount of information for years or even decades
Control processes
Dynamic processes associated with structural features that can be regulated by the person and may differ one task to another
Types of control processes
- Selective attention
- Rehearsal
- Memory strategies
Memory
Processes involved in retaining, retrieving, and using information about stimuli, images, events, ideas and skills after the original information is no longer present
2 types of sensory memory
- Iconic
- Echoic
According to Atkinson and Shiffrin, … is/are structures and …. is the information stored in the structures
- stores
- memory
What types of memory are there?
- Sensory memory
- STM
- LTM
What is the modal model of memory?
Influential information-processing model of memory
- 3 structures: sensory, STM and LTM
- Control processes
Sensory memory characteristics
- 1st temporary store of info
- Hold basic sensory info after stimulation
- 2 types (iconic and echoic)
- Lasts very brief time
- Info from sensory to STM
A lot of information is recorded in the sensory memory. True or false?
True
Information in the sensory memory decays very quickly (100-500 msec). True or false?
True
Evidence for sensory store
Transaccadic integration and saccades
Transaccadic integration
We can scan our surroundings with quick eye movements called saccades, and from the resulting sequence of images we build a unified percept by a process known as transaccadic integration
Saccades
Fast eye jumps between fixation points
Examples of saccades
- Thunder
- Sparkler through air
Persistence of vision
Continued perception even after gone due to retention (storing) in sensory store
Sperling study sensory memory - ICONIC
Grid with letters remember as many as possible.
1. Whole report
2. Partial report
3. Delay of arrow/tone
Sperling study sensory memory - ICONIC (results)
More letters remembered in experiment 2, and the longer the delay the less words they remembered
Sperling study sensory memory - Conclusion
Sensory memory registers all or most of the info that hits the visual receptors but the info decays quickly
- Large capacity
- Retain: 8-9 items
- Duration brief
Short-term memory
The ability to hold information for a short period of time
Example of STM measure
Digit Span Forwards
Working memory
The ability to hold information for a short period of time and to manipulate or process it
Example of WM measure
Digit Span Backwards
In the modal model of memory the structural features are…
the types of memory which are indicated by a box (the stores)
Digit span forwards is a task that measures…
STM
Garden path sentences are evidence of…
working memory
Interference logic
If one task interferes with your ability to complete another task, the two tasks must draw on a common system
Random number generation is a task for…
working memory
Random number generation task shows that WM and … are related
reasoning
According to Atkinson and Shiffrin, control processes are…
dynamic processes associated with the structural features that can be regulated by the person and may differ from one task to another
The process of storing information in long-term memory is called…
encoding
The process of remembering information that is stored in the long-term memory is called…
retrieval
Persistence of vision
Retention of perception in the mind
- Ex. perceiving sparkler light is still there when it is not
Sparker’s trail are an example of
persistence of vision
Sperling’s experiment - Sensory memory (Method)
Presented with random letters
1. Whole report
2. Partial report method
3. Delayed partial report method (cue was presented with different delays)
Sperling’s experiment - Sensory memory (Results)
- Partial report (condition 2) was able to recall the highest amount of letters
- In the delayed cue, when cue was delayed there was a significant decay in recollection
Iconic memory
Visual
Echoic memory
Auditory
What is the duration of STM?
15 TO 20 seconds
Peterson and Peterson - STM (method and results)
Experiment with 3 letters and a number (remember the letters)
1. Could begin recall right after number
2. Had to begin recall after a 18 seconds of delay
- Participants did better in condition 1 because there was no delay
- 18 seconds impacted more after later trials
Proactive inference
Inference that occurs when information that was previously learned interferes with learning new information
Follow up study of Peterson and Peterson (18 secs study) by Keppel and Underwood showed that the drop-off in memory was not due to passive decay of the memory trace over time but due to…
proactive interference
Retroactive interference
When new learning interferes with remembering old learning
Do retroactive interference and proactive interference occur simultaneously most times?
Yes
Keppel and Underwood argued that the rapid forgetting that Peterson and Peterson had observed was not due to the fact that the participants had to wait 18 seconds for recall, but rather…
the interference caused by all of the information the participants had learned earlier
What is one measure of the capacity of the STM
the digit span
Chunking
Enables the limited-capacity STM system to deal with large amounts of information
Is it true that some people are able to store more items in their STM than others?
Yes, not necessarily because their STM capacity is larger but because they use very effective control processes
Ericsson and colleagues - S.F student STM
College student with average memory ability went from recalling 7 digits to around 70 (sessions of memory training)
- He used chunking to be able to do this
Luck and Vogel change detection study - STM (method and results)
2 displays with shapes and colors - participants have to say whether displays stayed the same or different
- It became harder when the items became greater then the capacity of STM
Results:
- Performance decreased rapidly when there were 4 or more items
So, STM can store around 4 items
Correlation between STM capacity and…
complex cognitive tasks
- Verbal and visual learning
- Reasoning/problem solving
- Social cognition
Alvarez and Cavanagh’s study wanted to see how much info can be held in STM (method and results)
They did change detection with items that ranged from low information (ex. colored square) to high information (ex.cube)
- Six items were showed
- Colored squares were remembered more than cubes
The greater amount of info in an image, the fewer items that can be held in visual STM
Which studies looked at visual STM capacity?
- Alvarez and Cavanagh
- Luck and Vogel
Change detection
What led researchers to believe that STM might be better called working memory?
The idea that STM is involved with dynamic processes
- Example: retrieval
WM vs STM
WM manipulates, STM does not
Who proposed the name working memory?
Baddeley and Hitch
Baddeley’s working memory model (Tripartite model)
- Phonological loop
- Central executive
- Visuospatial sketch
Changes with respect to STM that Baddeley’s working memory model suggests:
- From a single system to at least 3 separable but interacting subsystems
- From assumption of series of successive stages of info processing to model capable of parallel processing across the different subsystems
Phonological loop is responsible for…
verbal and auditory information
Visuospatial sketch pad is responsible for…
Visual and spatial information - when you form a picture in your mind
Ex. finding your way around campus
The phonological loop consists of 2 components:
- Phonological store
- Articulatory rehearsal process
Phonological store
Has a limited capacity and holds information for only a few seconds
- passive store
- holds verbal/acoustic info
Articulatory rehearsal process
Responsible for rehearsal that can keep items in the phonological store from decaying
- verbal and auditory info
When you are trying to remember a telephone number of a person’s name, or to understand what your cognitive psychology lecturer is talking about, you are using…
A. Visuospatial sketch pad
B. Phonological loop
B. Phonological loop
When you form a picture
in your mind or do tasks like solving a puzzle or finding your way around campus, you are using
your…
A. Visuospatial sketch pad
B. Phonological loop
A. Visuospatial sketch pad
The … … is where the major work of memory occurs
central executive
What does the central executive do?
- Pulls info from LTM
- Coordinates activity of phonological and visuospatial by focusing on specific parts
- Decides how to divide attention between different tasks
The central executive is the “… …” of the working memory model
traffic controller
Imagine you are driving in a strange city,
a friend in the passenger seat is reading you directions to a restaurant, and the car radio is
broadcasting the news. Describe which parts of Baddeley’s model would do what
- Phonological loop: taking verbal directions
- Visuospatial sketch pad: visualize a map of the streets leading to restaurant
- Central executive: coordinating anb combining these 2 kinds of info and helps ignore other info
Examples of tasks that assess working memory capacity
- Reading span
- Operation span
Reading span
- Presentation of sentences
- In between presentation of unrelated words
- Remember unrelated words
Operation span
- Presentation of math operations
- Presented with unrelated words
- Remember unrelated words
Phonological/acoustic similarity effect
The confusion of letters or words that sound similar
Conrad (1964) flashed a series of target letters on a screen
and instructed his participants to write down the letters in the order they were presented. This study is an example of which effect?
Phonological/acoustic similarity effect
Conrad - Phonological/acoustic similarity effect (method and results)
- Flashed target letters on screen and instructed participants to write down letters in order
- More mistakes with confusable (similar-sounding) letters
- But not by letters that looked like the target
The study by Conrad on the acoustic similarity effect shows evidence that…
- the phonological buffer stores info in an acoustic form
- evidence for recoding (from visual to acoustic coding)
Word length effect
The observation that our memory for lists of words is better for short words than for long words
According to Baddeley, items that can be pronounced are more easily
remembered
Baddeley study - word length effect
Participants remembered short words more than long words
Conclusion: takes longer to rehearse them in phonological loop
Articulatory suppression
When a person is prevented from rehearsing the items to be remembered by repeating an irrelevant sound
Baddeley study - Articulatory suppression
- Reading a list of words and then recall
- Reading a list of words while saying “the, the, the” out loud and then recall
- “The, the the” reduced the ability to remember list of words and eliminated word length effect
- Rehearsing is necessary for refreshing phonological storage
- Shows interference logic
The visuospatial sketch pad is involved in the process of…
visual imagery
Visual imagery
the creation of visual images in the mind in the absence of a physical visual stimulus
Phonological loop effects:
- Phonological similarity effect
- Word length effect
- Articulatory suppression
Visuospatial sketch pad effects:
- Comparing visual objects
- Recalling visual patterns
- Holding a spatial stimulus in mind
Shepard and Metzler - Comparing visual objects (and visual imagery)
Measured reaction time to decide whether pairs of objects were the same or different
- Items with greater differences in rotation had slower reaction times
- People used mental rotation
Mental rotation
When you rotate and image of one of the objects in your mind
Della Sala - Recalling visual patterns (and visual imagery)
Ppts presented with small to large patterns
- Ppts were able to complete patterns consisting of an average of 9 shaded squares before making mistakes
Brooks - Holding a spatial stimulus in the mind (and visual imagery)
Visualizing letter F
1. Point out for outside corner and in for inside corner
2. Say in or out
- Pointing task is more difficult (holding image of letter and pointing are both visuospatial)
The mission of the central executive is not to store information but to coordinate how information is used by the phonological loop and visuospatial sketch pad. True or false?
True
A typical behavior of frontal lobe patients is…
perseveration (repeatedly performing the same action or thought even when it is not achieving the desired goal)
Vogel study
Divided ppts in 2 groups based on test performance of working memory.
- High capacity WM: held more items
- Low capacity WM: held less items
ERPs collected (ability to filter out info)
- Individual differences in WM capacity influence how many items can be stored AND how effectively irrelevant info is kept out
The episodic buffer can…
store, link and integrate different kinds of information
from all the subcomponents of working memory and from LTM
Example of transaccadic integration
Persistence of vision
How is working memory measured?
Span tasks
Sperling argued that the capacity of SM is
8 to 9 items
WM span tasks
- Reading span
- Listening span
- Arithmetic span
People with high working memory spans have better comprehension of text. True or false?
True
Working memory is not involved in reasoning and intelligence. True or False?
False
Raven’s progressive matrices task
- Raven scores worse for older people
- Raven better if WM is good
- WM scores worse for older people
In Raven’s, if an old and young person have the same working memory score then their Raven’s core is…
the same
Reading span task
The garden path sentence
- Reading a sentence and then adjusting its meaning
WM
Syllogism
A form of logical reasoning where a conclusion is drawn from two given or assumed premises.
Reasoning experiment WM
Inference in dual-task: People were asked to generate random numbers while solving syllogism
- Random number generation impaired performance on solving syllogism
To solve reasoning problems we tend to use
mental models/pictures
Visual semantics (in LTM) is linked to what in WM
visuospatial sketchpad
Episodic LTM is linked with what in WM
Episodic buffer
Language (in LTM) is linked with what in WM
Phonological loop
Was LTM always included in Baddeley’s memory model?
No, it was not originally included
The phonological loop includes:
- a passive storage
- a (subvocal) rehearsal process
Baddeley’s study of articulatory suppression is evidence for
phonological rehearsal
What do we know about the rehearsal loop?
- Helps keep info in buffer
- Converts non-acoustic input to acoustic info via rehearsal loop
Articulatory suppression experiment 2 possible interpretations
- written info cannot be converted via the loop
- input cannot be rehearsed and thus decays
Word length effect or speed of speech
Subjects can generally remember about as many words as they can say in 2 secs. So, you can remember more words when shorter
Reading experiment - articulatory suppression
Read lists with and without suppression
Results:
- Reduced recall with suppression
- Elimination of acoustic similarity effect
- Elimination of word length effect
Implications:
- Rehearsal is needed to convert non-acoustic input
Listening experiment - articulatory suppression
Heard list with and without suppression
Results:
- Reduced recall with suppression
- Evidence of acoustic similarity effect
Implications:
- Buffer decays without rehearsal
Which experiments of articulatory suppression are evidence for recoding?
- Acoustic similarity effect
- Reading Articulatory suppression
Evidence that shows that phonological loop is acoustic
- Acoustic similarity effect
- Articulatory suppression
Evidence for speech rehearsal
- Listening articulatory suppression
- N-back PET imaging
Engaging in articulatory suppression while presented with a list of words to read and remember reduces the likelihood that you will confuse…
similar sounding words in the list
Suppose subjects were given one of the following lists to study. At the end of the list, subjects had to
immediately write down all the words they heard. On which list would they be least likely to remember the word CHAIR?
A. hair, fare, bear, lair, chair
B. table, sofa, desk, bed, chair
C. recall for chair would be roughly equal on all lists
A. hair, fare, bear, lair, chair
What area of the brain is associated with subvocal (silent) rehearsal?
Broca’s area in the left frontal lobe
PET Verbal WM Task: N-back task (design)
PET scanning experiment with 2 conditions: control and experimental
- DV: What area of the brain is active in the verbal memory condition?
- C: Is this a P?
- E: Did you see a “P” 2 back?
PET Verbal WM Task: N-back task (results)
Using subtractive logic, only Broca’s area in the left hemisphere was active when doing a verbal WM task
PET Verbal WM Task: N-back task (implications)
Rehearsal during a verbal working memory task involves the same system as speech production EVEN
THOUGH it is a silent rehearsal (=subvocal speech)
In the PET Verbal WM Task: N-back task, the processes subtracted are…
remember letter - (minus) identify letter = brain areas related to rehearsal
Phonological loop is associated with what part of the brain?
Left hemisphere
Visuospatial pad is associated with what part of the brain?
Right hemisphere
Phonological store is also referred as:
buffer
The rehearsal loop
1. transforms non-acoustic into…
2. refreshens…
- acoustic
- buffer
What are the two limitations of the phonological loop?
- Size (4 + or -)
- Speed (2 secs)
What is the limitation of the phonological loop related to size?
Chunking effects due to capacity of store
What is the limitation of the phonological loop related to speed?
Time effects due to decay and speed of rehearsal
The store/buffer can only hold … chunks of meaningful info
3-5 (revised down to 3-4)
The speed limitation explains that
we can fit 2 seconds worth of info in the rehearsal loop
Limitation of speed: Memory span is better:
- for short words compared to long words
- for words that are pronounced quickly
- for people who speak quickly
- in languages where words are pronounced quickly
Which language pronounces words more quickly? (in order from faster to slower)
- Chinese
- English
- Welsh
Executive functions are situated mainly in…
prefrontal locations of the frontal lobe
Executive function and self-regulation skills are…
the mental processes that enable us to plan, focus attention, remember instructions, and juggle multiple tasks successfully
Baddeley’s list of functions of the central executive
- Controlling and allocating attention
- Coordinating current activity of working memory with goals
- Task switching (Multi-tasking)
- Selection and launching responses
- Inhibiting associated but inappropriate responses
- Controlling the interface between STM and LTM
- Chunking
Ellen’s summary of Baddeley’s list of functions of the central executive
- Supervise attention
- Planning/coordination
- Monitoring/error correction
Articulatory loop transforms….
visual info into auditory
Frontal lobe syndrome
- Distractibility, difficulty concentrating
- Unable to Stroop
- Alz hard to follow convo
when multiple people
- Problems with organization, planning
- Perseveration: fail to stop inappropriate behavior
- Alz keep asking same
questions - Ex. utilization behavior
- Alz keep asking same
What are the three ways in which you can show a double dissociation?
- Clinical impairments
- Imaging task
- Behavioral studies
Jonides: Double dissociation
- Memory condition: is there a circle where a dot was?
- Control condition: is a circle over a dot?
Subtraction method
- Phonological right hemisphere
- Visuospatial left hemisphere
The visuospatial sketchpad has 2 constituent parts:
- Visual cache: shape and color
- Inner scribe: arrangement of objects
In Baddeley’s WM model, can you use two system at once for multitasking? What about one system for 2 different tasks?
- 2 systems yes
- 1 system no
KF case study
Shows that the systems in Baddeley WM model are separate
- Accident
- Verbal memory impaired
- Visual processing mostly intact
Lawyer case study - frontal lobe
Stroke
- Intelligent but can’t apply
- Can’t problem solve
- No planning
Phoneme
Any of the perceptually distinct units of sound in a specified language that distinguishes one word from another
Characteristics of phoenemes
- Smallest unit of speech
- Around 40 phonemes in most languages
- Different phonemes in different languages
Ashcraft and Kirk experiment - math + another task
Two math problems one more simple one more complex
1. In control they both did around the same in performance
2. In the condition in which they also had to do a letter task, the more difficult condition did worse
Conclusion: letter memory task drained some of the working memory resources required by the maths task
Beilock and Carr - WM + stress
When tested under high-pressure:
- Performance decreases for difficult problems
Conclusion: worrying uses some of the WM capacity needed
Ramirez and Beilock - eliminating worrying
Control: took a math pretest, given instructions about how to create pressure, and waited to take post test
Experimental group: took same pretest and received same pressure instructions, asked to write about thoughts and feelings about upcoming test
Performed similar in pretest but under pressure errors increased for control control group
Mrazek study - mindfulness
Whether a two-week training course in mindfulness could reduce distracting thoughts and improve WM
- Mindfulnes improved WM capacity and verbal reasoning
Monkey experiment- delayed response task
- Reward in one of two dishes
- Both dishes covered
- Delay
- Screen raised
They can do this but, damage to prefrontal cortex significantly impacts this
Monkey experiment - firing neuron
there were neurons that responded only when
the square was flashed in a particular location and that these neurons continued responding
during the delay
Utilization
Using an object the correct way but in an inappropriate way
Which of the following is NOT characteristic of patients with frontal lobe syndrome?
Spatial neglect
