Short-Term Memory; Learning & Retention Flashcards
What are the theories of STM?
Parallel search, serial self-terminating search and serial exhaustive search
Which theories of STM assume no difference btw RTs for YES and NO responses
Parallel search and serial exhaustive search
What theories of STM predict increase in RTs with increse in set size
Serial self-terminating search and serial exhaustive search
Which theory of STM is most supported?
Serial exhaustive search
How is the mix of parallel and serial processes in STM called?
Cascading processes
What is the multi-component model of WM?
Model that divides WM into a visuospatial sketchpad, phonological loop and central executive
What are the components of a visuospatial sketchpad? Which of them is active which passive?
Visual cache (passive) and inner scribe (dynamic)
What are the components of a phonological loop?
Phonological store and articulatory rehearsal (subvocal speech)
What are the components of central executive?
Habitual control and supervisory activating system
What pathway does an auditory input follow in the phonological loop? What is a rehearsal process in phonological loop?
input -> phonological analysis -> STS -> phonological output buffer -> spoken output
Rehearsal: phonological output buffer -> STS/phonological analysis
What pathway does an visual input follow in the phonological loop?
visual input -> visual analysis -> STS -> orthographic to phonological recording -> phonological output buffer -> spoken output
What is a problem of serial order?
Question of how a serial order gets encoded in the phonological loop
What is a chaining model and what are its problems?
Model where each item is a cue for each consecutive item (automatic). Sequence gets disrupted by similar/repeating items at cuing
What are the 3 types of contextual models and their problems?
These models assume 2 separate mechanisms: one for registering an item, one for storing order
1. Ongoing contextual cue (similarity effect at retrieval)
2. First item = cue -> competitive cuing
3. First and last item = cues (protrusions from previous lists)
(transpose errors are most common)
What is a phonological similarity effect?
Worse recall when a sequence contains similar-sounding letters; meaning is not important
What is a word-length effect?
Worse recall for longer words
Loop hypothesis — overall list duration matters more
What is an irrelevant sound effect?
Worse recall when irrelevant sounds are presented before/after -> mnemonic masking
What is the function of the phonological loop?
New language acquisition:
Phonological store creates temporary representations for new phoneme secuences (language-independent)
Articulatory system facilitates learning through rehearsal using habitual articulatory rehearsal (language-dependent)
How is the visuospatial distinction demonstrated?
By double dissociation in visual task (disrupted by visual interference) and in spatial task (disrupted by spatial interference)
What is the relationship between visual imagery and verbal recall?
Spatial coding and visual imagery of interaction between 2 objects facilitates verbal recall
What is the function of the visuospatial sketchpad?
Necessary for engineering, architecture, scientific discovery, geographical knowledge, spatial orientation and semantic knowledge about how to use an object
What is the model of attentional control?
Divides the central executive into habitual control and supervisory activating system
What is the main task of the episodic buffer?
Integrating episodes from different dimensions, thereby creating new representations rather than just activating old memories
Where in the brain is the central executive localised?
Frontal lobes
Where in the brain is the phonological loop localised?
Mostly left hemisphere (temporo-parietal regions) + motor cortex for articulatory rehearsal
Where in the brain is the visuospatial sketchpad localised?
Mostly right hemosphere (occipital lobe) + motor cortex for inner scribe
What are the similarities btw WM and Gf?
- Common capacity constraint
- Related attentional control processes
- Rely on similar NNs
What is an N-back task?
Visual string -> spatial
Auditory string -> letters
decide if the targets were the same N trials back
What were the findings of Jaeggi et al. (2008) paper?
All training groups (8, 12, 17, 19 days) improved on N-back more that the control group (retest effect)
Only 17 and 19 days of training produced a significant difference with control group
8 days significantly differed from 17 and 19 days
12 days significantly differed from 19 days
Larger Gf gains in initially lower Gf, but also significant for initially higher Gf
WM training seems to improve Gf
What wast the main criticism of Harrison et al. (2013) about the paper of Jaeggi et al. (2008)?
Harrison et al. (2013) are saying that N-back task training did not improve Gf, it only improved some feature of the WMC. It does not transfer to Gf at construct level.
What were the tasks in complex-span training condition in Harrison et al. (2013)?
Operation-span and symmetry-span tasks
What were the tasks in simple-span training condition in Harrison et al. (2013)?
Letter-span and matrix-span
What was the task in control condition in Harrison et al. (2013)?
Visual search -> no WM load
What were the findings in Harrison et al. (2013) paper?
Complex-span training improved all near transfer tasks
Simple-span also improved running-span tasks and word- and arrow-span tasks
Control condition also improved word- and arrow-span tasks
Near transfer can be explained by participants developing strategies, not increase in WMC
Complex-and simple-span training improved secondary free-recall and keep-track task (moderate transfer)
No condition improved primary free-recall or visual-array task
No condition improved far transfer tasks (Gf)
What is testing effect?
Testing during study phase facilitates retention
In Roediger and Kapricke (2006) study on testing effect what were the results of the first experiment?
After 5 min RI, SS group performed better than ST group.
After 2 days and 1 week RI, ST group performed better than SS group.
SD after 1 week perofrmed better than SS after 2 days.
In Roediger and Kapricke (2006) study on testing effect what were the results of the second experiment?
After 5 min RI, STTT performed worse than SSST which performed worse than SSSS.
After 1 week, SSSS performed worse than SSST which performed worse than STTT.
SSSS rated texts as more boring and were more confident to remember well after 1 week.
Proportional forgetting (most to least): SSSS; SSST; STTT
What theories is the testing effect found by Roediger and Kapricke (2006) consistent with?
Transfer appropriate processing
Retrieval routes x stored events
Desirable difficulties
What is total time hypothesis?
It says that amount of time to study smth is fixed regardless of individual presentation duration
What is spacing effect?
Spaced presentation improves recall compared to massed presentation
What is the formula for proportional forgetting?
(initial recall - final recall) / initial recall
What were the general results of de Jonge et al. (2012) study on study-time distribution?
They found an inverted U-shape for Proportion Correct Recall in both experiments (4x4s being the best)
Poor initial recall (16x1s; 1x16s) -> high proportional forgetting
Good initial recall (4x4s) -> low proportional forgetting
What is effective study time hypothesis?
Some minimal amount of time is needed to form an association btw 2 words; if the pressentation time gets too long, participant will loose attention and bet bored
Same as Goldilocks hypothesis (just right, optimal)
What mechanisms explain the results of de Jonge et al. (2012) study on study-time distribution?
Spacing theories
Encoding variability -> more presentations = more different contexts encoded => better recall
Study phase retrieval account -> more repetition = more retrieval from LTM = more additional info stored with original memory trace => better recall
BUT some additional assumptions are needed! Since a lot of presentations for very short times worsened the recall (16x1s)
What is spacing effect?
AKA Distributed practice.
Effects of gap between exposures on later retention
What was the general design of Cepeda et al. (2008) study on spacing effect?
- First study
- Gap (0–105 days)
- Second study
- RI (7–350 days)
- Final test (recall and recongnition)
What were the 4 constraits the data of Cepeda et al. (2008) satisfied?
- Forgetting curve -> as RI increases, recall declines (for any gap)
- Increasing gap first increases and then decreases performance (for any RI)
- As RI increases, optimal gap increases
- As RI increases, gap/RI ratio declines
What is retention surface?
Test performance as a function of gap and RI
Large non-monotonic spacing effect
