Sensory, Short term and Working Memory. Flashcards
What is meant by encoding?
The function by which information is coded in a form that allows it to be stored in a memory.
Regarding memory what is meant by storage
The function by which information is retained in memory.
What is retrieval?
Function by which information is retained in memory
Differentiate between working and short term memory
STM is the store where information is temporarily held in an accessible state while WM is the system by which information is held and manipulated in order to perform a task.
What is meant by sensory memory?
A temporary sensory register that allows input form the sensory modalities to be prolonged. It has a large capacity but fades rapidly.
Name three forms of sensory memory stores
Iconic memory- visual stimuli, haptic memory- touch, echoic- auditory
Describe Sperling’s experiment
4x3 letter format was presented for 50 ms. In whole report condition subjects were able to recall 4-5 letters in average often from the same row. In the partial report subjects were shown the stimulus and then a tone was sounded to signal which row they had to recall. Subjects could usually recall three, this shows that more data was available than was suggested from the whole report. When testing the speed of decay by varying the lengths of time before the tone he found the advantage died after 50s.
What two functions of the sensory visual memory help us perceive movies?
Perception of constant illumination and perception of smooth movement.
How may visual processes be categorized?
Into two groups; A fast group involving processes related to detection of motion, depth and edges and a slower group with less sensitive temporal limits involved in higher level perception, including high-level motion processing, word recognition and the interpretation of colour and motion information.
Describe Darwin’s experiment on echoic memory store
Three number/letters were sounded into each ear as well as a third set which was sounded into both ears. Participants were asked to recount as many as they could and then in a separate trial asked to recount from a specific set as requested from a visual stimuli. The experiment had similar findings in that it decayed rapidly with the partial advantage dying after 4 seconds.
What is meant by shadowing?
A technique that involves repeating back an auditorily presented message.
Contrast the iconic and ehoic stores
The span of the memory seems less than that of the iconic store however the duration is longer. However this may represent a limitation of the procedure which arises from differences in the experiments.
What variation of the iconic memory experiment showed no advantage for the partial report condition? What does this suggest?
When asked only to report digits or letters. This suggests participants have access to a visual stimulus but have no way to categorize it or access its meaning.
What is meant by masking?
A reduced perception of a visual stimulus when another stimulus is presented in spatial or temporal proximity to it.
What do backwards masking procedures involve
The presentation of a masking stimulus immediately after the target stimulus. Recognition increases as the duration between the two stimuli increases
What name is given to the time between the onset of a stimulus and the presentation of a mask?
Stimulus onset asynchrony
What does the backwards masking technique suggest about the duration of echoic memory?
250ms, a lot shorter than the partial report condition.
What did Cowan further suggest about sensory memory?
It has two stages, the first being short, pre-perceptual phase lasting about 250ms while the second id longer, lasting several seconds and entails more substantial processing and access to the memory.
Describe an experiment which demonstrates haptic memory
Participants were trained to associate a letter with each of three sections of each of four fingers of each hand. A device administered a puff of air to some of these regions and participants had to report which by giving the letter. A small advantage was found in the partial report condition as long as it was under 800ms.
What is meant by rehearsal?
A set of processes by which we can act on currently active information
Differentiate between the two types of rehearsals in the Atkinson model
Maintenance rehearsals retains information in STM while elaborative rehearsal organises the information so that it can be integrated into LTM.
How can information in the STM be lost according to Atkinson?
Through decay (lost over time) or Displacement ( capacity.)
What are the three basic assumptions of the modal model?
There are separate long term and short term stores for memory, Processing the short term store determines memory storage in the long term store and short term memory is a limited capacity store.
What is digit span?
The number of digits that can be held in memory and is used as a measure of STM.
What is the estimated capacity of the STM
7+/-2 items
What is meant by chunking and what is it’s function?
A strategy to improve memory by grouping smaller units together into a larger unit or ‘chunk.’ This increases the STM capacity.
What effect do the size of the chunks have
the bigger they are the more memory is required and less items will be remembered.
What alternative number was given?
4
What is meant by the recency effect?
The tendency to remember numbers in the end of the list than than those from the middle
What is meant by the serial position curve?
This shows the probability of someone recalling a word in relation to its position in a list of words.
Name and describe another effect related to the serial position curve
The primacy effect describes the tendency to recall words from the beginning of the list.
What is the relationship between these effects and STM and LTM
Recency effect reflects items held in the STM while the primacy effect reflects items which have already been transferred to LTM.
Why do words in the middle of the list not get remembered as easily?
There is less time to transfer them to the LTM and so are displaced from the STM.
What evidence has been shown to support this?
interrupting the participants STM by getting them to count backwards in threes after the word list shows they retained the information from the start (LTM) but not the end (STM.) Also amnesiacs had intact recall for items at the end of the list rather than the start of it.
What is the estimated size of the recency effect
2.2 words, 2.2 proverbs or 1.5 unfamiliar sentences
What is meant by the negative recency effect?
Reflects a poorer memory for list end items compared to items from earlier input positions, in multi-list recall items.
What else can provide evidence for two separate storages?
The double dissociation of function refers to contrasting patterns of deficits in two patients or patient groups which provides evidence for functionally independent systems.
Give an example of a double association of function which provides evidence for LTM and STM stores.
KF sustained severe damage to the left parieto-occipital region of his brain in a motorbike accident. This impaired his language skills and STM (measured by recency and digit span) but left his LTM relatively intact. They found that his auditory STM was more impaired than his visual STM which could explain why he could still form LTM.
How does the case of KF affect the Atkinson and Shiffron model of memory?
It depicts the STM as unitary passageway to LTM which does not explain how KF could have an impaired STM but an intact LTM.
What is meat by the working memory?
Miller et al; A memory that allows us to make plans and keep track of goals. Cowan; The collection of mental processes that permit information to be held temporarily in an accessible state, in the service of a mental task.
Who developed and tested the most influential model of the working memory?
Baddely and Hitch
What three ways may researchers view the working memory
The focus of attention
The information that is temporarily activated in the system
A sensory-specific multi component storage system for short term storage and processing of information.
What three components contribute to the WM according to Cowan?
Temporary information that is not yet available to conscious awareness, memory within the focus of awareness and information stored within the LTM which is inactive but could be activated if relevant to the task.
What is the difference between Cowan’s and Baddely’s model of the working memory.
Cowan’s model says the nature of the representation may vary in WM but it does so within a single structure that has fixed properties in contrast to Baddely’s multiple component model which claimed the WM consists of storage and processing components.
How did Baddely define the working memory
a brain system which provides temporary storage and manipulation of the information for complex tasks such as language,learning and reasoning.
Name and explain the three main components of the working memory.
The central executive is the component of working memory proposed to control and coordinate the activity of the other components including the phonological loop and the visuo-spatial sketchpad.
The phonological loop is the component of working memory proposed for the temporary storage and manipulation of sound or phonological information. The visuo-spatial sketchpad is the component of working memory proposed for the temporary storage and manipulation of visual and spatial information.
What is the phonological loop comprised of?
A short term phonological store for auditory memory traces and an articulatory rehearsal component to reactivate memory traces.
Name and explain a fourth component introduced later in research
Episodic buffer is the component of working memory proposed for the temporary storage of information integrated from the phonological loop, visuo-spatial sketchpad and the LTM into single structures or episodes.
What disorder demonstrates that the ‘inner voice’ does not rely on speech musculature
Anarthria is a disorder affecting the motor function underlying speech.
What is the theorised capacity of the articulatory loop?
As many words as you can say in 2 seconds
What sub components does the phonological loop have
2, one acting as a storage for speech based information for about 2-3 seconds and an articulatory control process which allows the maintenance of information in the store and an articulatory control process which allows for the maintenance of information in the store and converts visual information to a speech based form.
How does visually presented information get access to the phonological loop? (inner speech)
via sub-vocal articulation by the articulatory control processes.
Name 4 pieces of evidence for the phonological loop
The word length effect, The effects of articulatory suppression, The irrelevant speech effect and the phonological similarity effect.
What is meant by the word length effect
Words that take longer to articulate take more time to refresh in the phonological store. This is backed up by cross linguistic differences. It is eliminated by sub vocal rehearsal.
What is meant by artulatory suppression?
The ability to rehearse sub vocally so that it reduces memory span and eliminates word length effect.
What is meant by the irrelevant speech effect?
Visually presented verbal material is poorer when irrelevant speech is presented during learning, any speech gains access to the phonological store and takes up capacity.
How may an office combat noise distractions
By adding a continuous noise signal to reduce the perception of acoustic change.
What is meant by the phonologically similar effect?
recall is poorer for an ordered list of items when the items sound alike. Items similar in meaning do not have this effect.If the phonological store uses a speech-based or phonological code, then refreshing the items in the store makes use of phonological fragments within the items; confusion arises as the number of shared fragments increases.
When does this effect disappear?
Under conditions of articulately suppression. It also may be diminished or absent when information from LTM comes into play (nursery rhymes etc)
Describe the patient PV
Had a left hemisphere stroke which affected her digit span down to 2 digits but left her fit to run a shop and go about day to day life with little trouble.
What is the estimated capacity of the visuo-spatial sketchpad
3-4 items
What two components comprise the VSS?
The visual cache stores visual information while the inner scribe allows spatial processing.
Describe the procedure of the brooks matrix task
Participants were asked to commit sentences to memory. One half were asked to memorize sentences which could be visualised using a 4x4 matrix grid with questions like “in the starting square put a 1” and “In the next square to the right put a two.” The other half were given questions that couldn’t be visualised by replacing the words up-down or left-right with good-bad or quick-slow.
What difference does it make to replace up-down with good-bad in the brooks matrix experiment?
Memorizing it required verbal coding using the phonological loop.
What were the results of the brooks matrix task
In the spatial condition they remembered 8 while in the verbal condition they remembered 6. For the spatial task auditory presentation was best but for the verbal task visual presentation increased performance.
Draw conclusions from the results of the brooks matrix task
Auditory presentation in the spatial condition frees up the VSSP for the primary task, while visual presentation in the verbal task frees up the phonological loop for the primary task.
What ariances of the brooks matrix task were utilised?
One tried to interfere with performance- tracking a moving target with a stylus while sentences were presented auditorily. This interfered with the spatial condition but not the verbal condition.
In an attempt to separate the effects of the visual and spatial components of this task, in one condition participants made brightness adjustments , requiring visual but not spatial while the other blindfolded participants tried to track a pendulum with a torch. The pendulum has a photosensitive cell which emitted a low tone when making contact with the light. Sentences were again presented auditorily. There was more interference in the spatial group.
Describe the brain damage and its effects on patient LH
He sustained bilateral damage occipitotemporal regions of the brain while his parietal lobes were unharmed. He performed well on tasks which required spatial manipulation however showed impairments on visual tasks which required him to make judgements about relative size, colour and form. This suggests an impaired visual cache but an intact inner scribe.
Describe the case of patient RT;
He had lesions on his right parietal lobe and part of his right temporal lobe. He had impaired spatial manipulation abilities, with poor performance on the rotation tasks.
How was the central executive described in Baddeley and Hitches original model?
A general processing mechanism that handles the more complex types of STM task that were not delegated to the PL or the VSSP. It coordinated the activities of the PL and VSSP and focused and switched attention.
What two types of conginite control did Norman and Shallice suggest?
Automatic and controlled processes.The automatic system allows us to perform routine and well practised actions through the selection of learned habits and schemas without the need for deliberate cognitive control. A second type of processing makes use of an attentional control mechanism which can interrupt automatic processing, select an alternative schema and allow attention to be directed towards a goal.
How do we perform complex actions through the automatic system of control?
Through the contention scheduling system, when our actions are directed by relevant schemas, activated by triggers in the environment.
What are the three levels of functioning according to the Norman and Shallice model?
- Fully automatic mode for routine actions
- An intermediate, partially automatic mode which allows attentional control for actions
- The deliberate control of action for non-habitual or novel tasks
What evidence is there for two seperate control systems?
Patients with damage to the prefrontal cortex experience problems completing tasks which require SAS type attentional control.
What may a person with damage to the prefrontal cortex experience?
Capture errors- a failure to override a routine set pf actions.
What name is given to these disorders that disrupt executive function and what damage appears to cause them?
Dysexecutive syndrome, usually associated to the dorsolateral prefrontal damage. Symptoms include disturbed attention, increased distractibility, difficulty in grasping the whole of a complicated state of affairs, can work with routines but cannot learn to master new types of tasks.
Name and explain two effects of dysexecutive dysfunction
Perseveration is the inappropriate repeating of an action. Utilization behaviour refers to dysfunctional automatic reaching for and use of objects in the environment.
What is the episodic buffer?
Allows information of different sources- interface between the modality specific systems of working memory and long term memory.
What is meant by self efficacy?
A person’s sense of their own ability to achieve a goal.
