Short Term Memory Flashcards
Three-component model (Atkinson and Shiffrin)
- Sensory register
If attended to what you’re sensing will go to the short-term store / short-term/working memory
- Short-term store
If you don´t rehearse/reactivate information in the working memory it will fade away.
- Long-term store
The Spelling experiment
Sensory registers
Brief pre-attentive representation of input from sensory modalities after the orginal input has ceased
Iconic memory
representastions of visul stimuli (duration 200-500 ms)
Echoic memory
representation in auditory system (duration: 3-4 seconds)
Haptic memory
representation in somatosensory system (duration: about 2 seconds)
Pre-attentive
It is there regardless if we attend to it.
Magical number 7 (George A. Miller)
- The short-time memory is able to store 7+-2 bits of information at a time
- Chunking: organising smaller bits of information into larger units (“chunks”) of meaning, you can remember 7 chuncks
- The short-term memory system has a limited capacity
Experiment: Word list task
Primacy effect:
if one reads 15 words and repeat the words it´s easier to remember the first word, (you have capacity)
- Recency: it´s also easier to repeat the most recent word (short-term memory)
- After doing the experiment ten times the participants were given five minutes to write down as many words as she could from all ten lists, she got a negative recency effect where she remembered the last word the least
- The loss of the recency effect for delayed recall indicates the exixstence of a short-term memory system which decays over time
Working memory
Not just a short-term memory storage, but rather a mental workspace which serves goal-oriented cognition
Includes both a storage component (containing the mental representation) as well as a processing component which transforms the stored/active representation (mental operations) -> Baddeley model
Baddeley´s multicomponent working memory model
- Visuo-spatial sketchpad: buffer in short-term memory that deals with visual/spatial information
- Phonological loop:
- deals with verbal auditory information
- Phonological buffer: holds speech-based info for short period of time 2-3 seconds
- Articulatory control process, allows for the maintenance of info in the phonological buffer (sub-voal rehearsal) and conversion of visual information (written word) to speech-based phonological form
- Episodic buffer:
- A global workspace that is accessed by conscious awareness
- Storage of the central executive that binds together information from the phonological loop, visuo-spatial sketchpad and long term memory into chunks/episodes
- Limited capacity (4 chunks/episodes)
- Controlled by the central executive
- Comparable to Conan’s Working memory model
- Central executive: tries to utilize the info of the slave systems
- Contention scheduling system: automatiske kontrollsystem som gjør det mulig for oss å gjøre rutiner/andre innlærte oppgaver som for eksempel å sykle
- Supervisory activating system (SAS): kicker inn når man gjør noe komplisert, her må man bruke SAS til å override den automatiske reaksjonen slik at man kan rette oppmerksomheten mot et mål
Sub-vocal rehearsal
- Rehearsel, i.e. Sub-vocal (inner) articulation, revives the memory trace, and the time it takes to rehearse determines memory span
- Note: this contradicts the idea that we have a maximum number of items we can keep up in working memory (re. G Miller´s magical number 7)
Word length effect
- An experiment where words with the same syllables but with different spoken durations (coerce VS bishop) are tested.
- Result: it´s not about the units, it´s about the length
The spoken duration not the length in syllables determines WM span
Evidence for the role of sub-vocal rehearsal
- Word length effect
Immediate recall of word list is better for a more quickly pronounceable words - interpretation: sub-vocal rehearsal Is faster - The effects of articulatory suppression
Overt articulation of distractor words while being engaged with the primary word list affects performance negatively - interpretation: overt articulation interferes with sub-vocal articulatory rehearsal - The irrelevant speech effect
Presenting irrelevant speech in the background during learning of target word list affects performance negatively - interpretation: interference of sub-vocal articulatory rehearsal by phonological input to the phonological buffer - The phonological similarity effect
Recall is poorer for list of verbal items when the items sound alike, relative to performance when items do not sound alike (and having comparable meaning) - interpretation: shared phonological “fragments” interfere with each other
This is evidence that the phonological loop is articulation based.
Conan´s WM model
- There’s no separate working memory, believes that the working memory is an activation of the long term memory
