short term and working memory

Question 1

what is the stage theory of memory/multi-store model of memory (Atkinson and Shiffrin)

Answer 1

information received from environment
->
enters sensory memory (brief, automatic)
->
enters short term memory
->
enters long term memory

Question 2

Sperling - sensory memory study

Answer 2

grid of letters displayed for 500ms, PPs required to remember as many letters as possible

• could only remember 3-4 letters

however, when arrow points to row immediately after stimulus and PPs were asked to report only that row, and could now report the entire row

suggests entire stimulus was stored, but decayed away before it could be reported

Question 3

what is short term memory?

Answer 3

a temporary storage place for information

Question 4

STM - Peterson and Peterson

Answer 4

• PPs shown nonsense trigram
• after 30 seconds could recall perfectly
• problems if PPs had to perform tasks during retention phase, such as counting backwards in threes

suggests there is loss from short term storage called delay

Question 5

what is the working memory

Answer 5

a limited capacity system for temporary activation and manipulation of information for complex tasks (I.e., what you are currently working on)

Question 6

how is the working memory different from STM?

Answer 6

may have several subcomponents

activated status rather than storage

manipulate information

Question 7

what are the subcomponents of WM (Baddely and Hitch working memory model)

Answer 7

• Visuospatial sketchpad
• central executive
• articulatory/phonological loop

Question 8

what does the central executive do?

Answer 8

allocates attention to inputs

directs operations of other components

has strictly limited capacity

Question 9

what does the articulatory/phonological loop do?

Answer 9

verbal rehearsal loop

holds words when we speak aloud

organises info in serial and temporal fashion

Question 10

visuospatial sketchpad

Answer 10

stores visual and spatial information

Question 11

physiology of working memory

Answer 11

central executive in prefrontal cortex

Question 12

what are primacy and recency effects?

Answer 12

we tend to remember words at the beginning and end of the list

Question 13

what is the effect of delay on the primary/recency effect?

Answer 13

delay eliminates recency effect but primacy effect remains

Question 14

what are explicit and implicit memories?

Answer 14

explicit = things you can verbalise, conscious

implicit = things that are difficult to verbalise, unconscious (e.g., riding a bike)

Question 15

what are the three major processing stages of learning/memory?

Answer 15

encoding:
- processing of incoming information and experiences
- creates memory traces
- split into acquisition and consolidation

storage:
- retention of memory traces

retrieval:
- accessing stored memory traces
- may help with decision making and change behaviour

Question 16

what is the difference between retrograde/anterograde amnesia?

Answer 16

retrograde = loss of memories made prior to lesion/trauma

anterograde = loss of memory of events that happen after lesion/trauma