Quiz 7 Review

Question 1

STM Capacity

Answer 1

+7/-2 pieces of information

Question 2

STM Chunking

Answer 2

• combining bits of information into meaningful groups
• Experts use chunking to remember complex information
• Chess board experiment
   Experts chunked locations into meaningful patterns
   Recalled more when patterns were realistic

Question 3

Maintenance rehearsal

Answer 3

repeating information to keep it in STM

Question 4

Elaborative rehearsal

Answer 4

linking information in a meaningful way to improve STM

Question 5

Levels-of-processing model

Answer 5

• the more deeply we process info, the better we remember it
• Semantic processing is best

Question 6

Long-term Memory

Answer 6

Our permanent store of information
* Includes facts, skills, experiences
* Long duration and unlimited capacity

Question 7

LTM vs STM

Answer 7

The order of the word matters for how well we remember it
* Serial position curve: people have generally better memory for words at the beginning and end of the list

Question 8

Primacy effect

Answer 8

tendency to remember words from the beginning of the list
- Word gets encoded into LTM

Question 9

Recency effect

Answer 9

the tendency to remember words from the end of the list
- Word is still stored in STM

Question 10

Types of LTM

Answer 10

• Explicit memory
• Implicit memory

Question 11

Explicit memory

Answer 11

conscious memories we recall intentionally
o Semantic memory: knowledge of facts
o Episodic memory: autobiographical memory

Question 12

Implicit memory

Answer 12

unconscious memories we do not reflect on deliberately
o Procedural memory: memory of how to do things, including motor skills and habits
o Priming memory
o Conditioning memory – classical conditioning
o Habituation memory

Question 13

How do we get info into LTM?

Answer 13

Encoding: a mechanism that transfers information from STM to LTM

Question 14

Things that help to encode:

Answer 14

o Maintenance rehearsal
o Elaborative rehearsal – why care about it?
- For the test
Best ways to study:
 Don’t highlight or copy, take notes in your own words
 Ask yourself f questions as you read or study
 Come up with examples that apply to you
 Teach a friend

Question 15

Retrieval

Answer 15

a mechanism that transfers information from LTM to STM
o What helps?
- Encoding specificity: we remember info better under the conditions present at learning

Question 16

Context-dependent learning

Answer 16

we recall information better in the same place we learned it
o Godden and Baddeley – 1975
o Scuba divers learned lists of words on land or underwater
o Tested in the same or opposite environment
o Remembered best when tested under the same conditions

Question 17

State-dependent learning

Answer 17

we recall information better in the same cognitive state we learned it in
o Psychological state (mind)
o Physiological state (body)

Question 18

Memory Fallibility

Answer 18

• memory isn’t perfect
• memory is a reconstruction
  –> memory+context+other experiences+typicality
  –> memories may shift with time

Question 19

Flashbulb memories

Answer 19

extremely vivid and detailed memories
- Feel special, stand out to us
- Important or tragic events
–> 9/11, JFK assassination
challenger explosion, etc.
- Thought to be photographic in
detail. immune to decay
But..
- Tests find major distortions in these
memories over time
–>Just like reqular memories,
carry same reconstructive
nature and distortion
- There’s nothing special about
flashbulb memories. They’re
reconstructions too.
Even though thev feel special

Question 20

False memories

Answer 20

memories for events that never happened
- Elizabeth Loftus
* Famous for studying false memory
* 3 words to describe human memory
- Suggestive
- Subjective
- Malleable

Question 21

False memories can be formed in
therapy

Answer 21

• Suppressed memories
  recovered through therapy??
• Feel very real
• Can be very damaging
  Lost-in-the-mall experiment:
• Told participants they had been lost in the mall as a child. later asked them to recall the event
• People formed memories of events that never occurred
• Called parents, asked them to list and describe events that happened to you as a child
• Added false memories to see
  if people would falsely
  remember them
• People would
  “remember” that those
  things “actually
  happened” based on
  suggestion
• Seeing your mother as
  the trustworthy source

Question 22

Misinformation effect

Answer 22

Altering memories
by providing misleading information after
event
- Loftus & Palmer (1974)
* Asked people to estimate the speed of cars that collided in a car crash
* Everyone had same source, but people were questioned using different language
–> Estimate speed when
they “smashed” into
each other?
–> Estimate speed when
they “contacted” each
other
* Wording used changed
reported memories

Question 23

Eyewitness testimony

Answer 23

• often extremely influential in court cases
• eyewitness certainty and accuracy do not correlate
• Uncertainty but usually
  correct?
• Certainty but usually
  incorrect?
• Many eyewitnesses incorrectly identify culprits
• When people are stressed, their memory is impaired
• Cross-race identification is especially poor
• Presence of a qun lowers
  reliability
  –> Less time focusing on
  person’s face
  –> Guns are stressful!!!

Question 24

Amnesia

Answer 24

• usually misrepresented in movies (two types of amnesia)
• retrograde
• anterograde

Question 25

Retrograde amnesia

Answer 25

• Inability to remember old
  things
• Can think about it as the
  “recall process” being broken
• Reset on memory, can start from scratch and create new ones though
• Loss of episodic memory
  Implicit and semantic
  memories remain intact
  –> Remember how to
  walk, talk, speak
  english

Question 26

Anterograde amnesia

Answer 26

• Inability to form new
  memories
• Can think about it as the
  “encoding process” being
  broken
• Loss of ability to form new explicit memories
• Implicit memory remains
  intact
• Can learn to drive a
  manual car, then forget
  that you know how to

Question 27

HENRY MOLAISON:

Answer 27

• hippocampi removed to prevent seizures/ severe anterograde, some retrograde amnesia
• start-tracing task: required to trace an image in a mirror, challenging for everyone/ you get better at it over time.
• no explicit memory of the task, but got better at it; procedural memory remained intact
  TEACHES US: implicit memory is stored somewhere other than hippocampi

Question 28

CLIVE WEARING

Answer 28

• hippocampi destroyed by a viral infection; severe anterograde amnesia

Question 29

What did we learn from famous cases?

Answer 29

• hippocampus involved in forming new memory (but not in storing LTM)
• implicit/explicit memories rely on different parts of the brain
• semantic and episodic memory are stored and function separately