Short term and working memory

Question 1

The processes involved in retaining, retrieving, and using information about stimuli, images, events, ideas, and skills after the original information is no longer present.

Answer 1

Memory

Question 2

_____ is active any time some past experience has an effect on the way you think or behave now or in the future (Joordens, 2011).

Answer 2

Memory

Question 3

The model proposed by Atkinson and Shiffrin that describes memory as a mechanism that involves processing information through a series of stages, including short-term memory and long-term memory. It is called the modal model because it contained features of many models that were being proposed in the 1960s.

Answer 3

modal model of memory

Question 4

___ is an initial stage that holds all incoming information for seconds or fractions of a second.

Answer 4

Sensory memory

Question 5

____ holds five to seven items for about 15 to 20 seconds

Answer 5

Short-term memory (STM)

Question 6

_____ can hold a large amount of information for years or even decades

Answer 6

Long-term memory (LTM)

Question 7

The modal mode of memory proposed what three types of memory?

Answer 7

Sensory memory, Short-term memory and Long-term memory.

Question 8

Types of memory indicated by boxes in models of memory. In the modal model, the types are sensory memory, short-term memory, and long-term memory.

Answer 8

structural features

Question 9

In Atkinson and Shiffrin’s modal model of memory, active processes that can be controlled by the person and that may differ from one task to another. Rehearsal is an example of this.

Answer 9

Control processes

Question 10

The process of repeating a stimulus over and over, usually for the purpose of remembering it, that keeps the stimulus active in short-term memory.

Answer 10

rehearsal

Question 11

A brief stage of memory that holds information for seconds or fractions of a second. It is the first stage in the modal model of memory

Answer 11

Sensory memory

Question 12

The continued perception of light for a fraction of a second after the original light stimulus has been extinguished. Perceiving a trail of light from a moving sparkler is caused by this

Answer 12

Persistence of vision

Question 13

Procedure used in Sperling’s experiment on the properties of the visual icon, in which participants were instructed to report all of the stimuli they saw in a brief presentation.

Answer 13

whole report method

Question 14

Procedure used in Sperling’s experiment on the properties of the visual icon, in which participants were instructed to report only some of the stimuli in a briefly presented display. A cue tone immediately after the display was extinguished indicated which part of the display to report.

Answer 14

partial report method

Question 15

Procedure used in Sperling’s experiment on the properties of the visual icon, in which participants were instructed to report only some of the stimuli in a briefly presented display. A cue tone that was delayed for a fraction of a second after the display was extinguished indicated which part of the display to report.

Answer 15

delayed partial report method

Question 16

Process by which information is lost from memory due to the passage of time.

Answer 16

decays

Question 17

Brief sensory memory for visual stimuli that lasts for a fraction of a second after a stimulus is extinguished. This corresponds to the sensory memory stage of the modal model of memory.

Answer 17

iconic memory

Question 18

Brief sensory memory for auditory stimuli that lasts for a few seconds after a stimulus is extinguished.

Answer 18

echoic memory

Question 19

An example of ____ is when you hear someone say something, but you don’t understand at first and say “What?” But even before the person can repeat what was said, you “hear” it in your mind.

Answer 19

echoic memory

Question 20

A memory mechanism that can hold a limited amount of information for a brief period of time, usually around 30 seconds, unless there is rehearsal (such as repeating a telephone number) to maintain the information in short-term memory. Short-term memory is one of the stages in the modal model of memory.

Answer 20

Short-term memory (STM)

Question 21

Subjects are asked to report stimuli they have previously seen or heard.

Answer 21

recall

Question 22

The number of digits a person can remember. Digit span is used as a measure of the capacity of short-term memory.

Answer 22

digit span

Question 23

___, who summarized the evidence for this limit in his paper “The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two,”

Answer 23

George Miller (1956)

Question 24

Combining small units into larger ones, such as when individual words are combined into a meaningful sentence. Chunking can be used to increase the capacity of memory.

Answer 24

chunking

Question 25

Used in connection with the idea of chunking in memory. A chunk is a collection of elements that are strongly associated with each other but weakly associated with elements in other chunks.

Answer 25

chunk

Question 26

___ did an experiment using Luck and Vogel’s change detection procedure. But in addition to colored squares, they also used more complex objects

Answer 26

George Alvarez and Patrick Cavanagh (2004)

Question 27

What two proposals have been made about how the capacity of short-term memory should be measured?

Answer 27

“number of items” (Awh et al., 2007; Fukuda et al., 2010; Luck & Vogel, 1997) or “amount of detailed information” (Alvaraz & Cavanagh, 2004; Bays & Husain, 2008; Brady et al., 2011)

Question 28

A limited-capacity system for temporary storage and manipulation of information for complex tasks such as comprehension, learning, and reasoning.

Answer 28

Working memory

Question 29

_______ is concerned with the manipulation of information that occurs during complex cognition (for example, remembering numbers while reading a paragraph)

Answer 29

working memory

Question 30

Baddeley and Hitch’s (1974; Baddeley, 2000) model of working memory:

Answer 30

the phonological loop, the visuospatial sketch pad, and the central executive.

Question 31

The part of working memory that holds and processes verbal and auditory information.

Answer 31

phonological loop

Question 32

Component of the phonological loop of working memory that holds a limited amount of verbal and auditory information for a few seconds.

Answer 32

phonological store

Question 33

Rehearsal process involved in working memory that keeps items in the phonological store from decaying.

Answer 33

articulatory rehearsal process

Question 34

The part of working memory that holds and processes visual and spatial information.

Answer 34

visuospatial sketch pad

Question 35

The part of working memory that coordinates the activity of the phonological loop and the visuospatial sketch pad. The “traffic cop” of the working memory system.

Answer 35

central executive

Question 36

three phenomena that support the idea of a system specialized for language:

Answer 36

the phonological similarity effect, the word length effect, and articulatory suppression.

Question 37

An effect that occurs when letters or words that sound similar are confused. For example, T and P are two similar-sounding letters that could be confused.

Answer 37

phonological similarity effect

Question 38

The notion that it is more difficult to remember a list of long words than a list of short words.

Answer 38

word length effect

Question 39

Interference with operation of the phonological loop that occurs when a person repeats an irrelevant word such as “the” while carrying out a task that requires the phonological loop.

Answer 39

articulatory suppression

Question 40

The______ handles visual and spatial information and is therefore involved in the process of visual imagery

Answer 40

visuospatial sketch pad

Question 41

A type of mental imagery involving vision, in which an image is experienced in the absence of a visual stimulus.

Answer 41

visual imagery

Question 42

Rotating an image of an object in the mind.

Answer 42

mental rotation

Question 43

addeley describes the central executive as being an____

Answer 43

attention controller

Question 44

Difficulty in switching from one behavior to another, which can hinder a person’s ability to solve problems that require flexible thinking. Perseveration is observed in cases in which the prefrontal cortex has been damaged.

Answer 44

perseveration

Question 45

A task in which information is provided, a delay is imposed, and then memory is tested. This task has been used to study short-term memory by testing monkeys’ ability to hold information about the location of a food reward during a delay.

Answer 45

delayed-response task

Question 46

Shintaro Funahashi and coworkers (1989) conducted an experiment in which they recorded from neurons in a monkey’s ___while the monkey carried out a delayed-response task.

Answer 46

Prefrontal cortex

Question 47

Short-term changes in neural network connectivity that has been hypothesized as a mechanism for holding information in working memory.

Answer 47

activity-silent working memory

Question 48

The test used by Daneman and Carpenter to measure reading span.

Answer 48

reading span test

Question 49

Daneman and Carpenter concluded that _____ capacity is a crucial source of individual differences in reading comprehension

Answer 49

working memory

Question 50

An electrical potential, recorded with disc electrodes on a person’s scalp, that reflects the response of many thousands of neurons near the electrode that fire together. The ERP consists of a number of waves that occur at different delays after a stimulus is presented and that can be linked to different functions. For example, the N400 wave occurs in response to a sentence that contains a word that doesn’t fit the meaning of the sentence.

Answer 50

event-related potential (ERP)

Question 51

Suppose someone has told you a phone number, and you're repeating it over and over again to yourself with the hope that you'll remember it before you dial the number. This example is a type of a ___ called ___.

Answer 51

control process; rehearsal

Question 52

The trail left by a moving sparkler is an example of the ___ at work.

Answer 52

sensory memory

Question 53

suppose you're shown five rows containing five letters each. You're then told to recall only one row of letters. In doing so, you're utilizing ___.

Answer 53

the partial report method

Question 54

Iconic memory is to echoic memory as _____ is to _____.

Answer 54

vision; sound

Question 55

Remembering a fun family trip to the beach when you were six years old requires recalling a(n) ________ memory from ________ memory.

Answer 55

episodic; long-term

Question 56

Check My Work While taking this quiz, you are relying on which of the following?

Answer 56

. semantic memory

Question 57

Currently, it is generally believed that the upper limit for short-term memory is ___.

Answer 57

about 4 items

Question 58

When you're trying to understand what your professor is talking about in a lecture, which of the following is LEAST important to aid this process?

Answer 58

visuospatial sketch pad

Question 59

According to the phonological similarity effect, we're more likely to confuse words or letters that ___ similar. For example, "F" is more likely to be misidentified as ___.

Answer 59

. sound; "S"

Question 60

According to Broadbent, where does the process of rehearsal take place?

Answer 60

short-term memory

Question 61

What distinguishes working memory from short-term memory?

Answer 61

complexity

Question 62

If someone is showing perseveration, then they've likely had damage to the ___ lobe of the brain.

Answer 62

frontal

Question 63

___ has helped to bolster the idea that the ___ is important for holding information for brief periods of time.

Answer 63

The delayed-response task; prefrontal cortex

Question 65

When you go to the movies, how many distinct stimuli are being registered by your sensory memory each second?

Answer 65

24

Question 66

According to Baddeley, the central executive controls ________.

Answer 66

Attention

Question 67

At this point in time, what is considered the primary function of the episodic buffer?

Answer 67

storing information

Question 68

According to Stokes's model of activity-silent working memory, where is energy being directed during the silent state?

Answer 68

synapses

Question 69

According to the activity-silent working memory model, neurons fire ________.

Answer 69

at stimulus input and remembering

Question 70

Funahashi and Stokes both focused on which concept relating to memory?

Answer 70

delay

Question 71

Daneman and Carpenter's research on reading span looked at differences in memory ________ among individuals.

Answer 71

capacity