Short Term Memory

Question 1

Sensory memory

Answer 1

The brief “buffer” that holds information for seconds, or fractions of seconds

Question 2

Echoic memory

Answer 2

Brief sensory memory for auditory stimuli; lasts a few seconds

Question 3

Iconic memory

Answer 3

Brief sensory memory for visual stimuli; lasts for fractions of a second

Question 4

What does it mean when we say sensory memory is precategorical?

Answer 4

It represents the physical properties but not

the meaning of the stimuli

Question 5

How can we determine the meaning of stimuli in our sensory memory?

Answer 5

In order to determine the meaning, you need to attend to the information and put it in STM

Question 6

Partial report procedure

Answer 6

Participants only reported the letters from one row

Question 7

Short term memory

Answer 7

• Memory mechanism that keeps a limited amount of information active for seconds (~1-20 seconds)
• Often thought to contain our current thoughts — our conscious experience

Question 8

Information that can be contained in STM

Answer 8

• Sensory information that was attended to
• Information retrieved from long-term memory
• Self-generated information that is the result of reasoning, etc. (e.g. doing a math problem in your head)

Question 9

Why do digit span and change detection tasks result in such different estimates of STM capacity?

Answer 9

STM capacity may reflect the number of chunk that people can hold in mind.

Question 10

Chunking

Answer 10

• Multiple items can be combined into meaningful chunks

- A chunk could be a letter, a word, maybe even a sentence

Question 11

Proactive interference

Answer 11

• When previously learned information interferes with your ability to learn new information
• People might “forget” letters so quickly because
  they’ve seen each letter so many times during the
  experiment

Question 12

Retroactive interference

Answer 12

The number of intervening items

Question 13

Decay

Answer 13

Time since number presented

Question 14

Working memory

Answer 14

• Working memory is an active process - it does not just maintain information, it also can manipulate information
• Working memory has separate stores for verbal and visual information
• Working memory includes a Central Executive which allocates resources to the different stores

Question 15

Phonological loop

Answer 15

Responsible for verbal STM; phonological store holds information for ~ 2s; articulatory control system is responsible for rehearsal

Question 16

Visuospatial sketchpad

Answer 16

Responsible for visual/spatial information; has analogical, visual representations

Question 17

Central executive

Answer 17

Attentional control system (“traffic cop”); modality free (doesn’t care if it’s phonological or visual in nature) and has a limited capacity

Question 18

Episodic buffer

Answer 18

Allows LTM to interact with working memory

Question 19

Persistence of vision

Answer 19

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 the persistence of vision.

Question 20

Perseveration

Answer 20

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.

Question 21

Activity-silent working memory

Answer 21

Short-term changes in neural network connectivity (a number of connections between neurons are strengthened) that has been hypothesized as a mechanism for holding information in working memory.