T1 L9 Basic principles of memory

Question 1

Who drew a distinction between primary & secondary memory?

Answer 1

William James

1890

Question 2

Describe primary memory

Answer 2

Portion of present space of time
Linked to conscious experience
Retrieval is effortless

Question 3

Describe secondary memory

Answer 3

Genuine past
Unconscious - permanent
Retrieval is effortful

Question 4

What is sensory memory?

Answer 4

Sensations persist after the stimulus has disappeared
Subject to very rapid decay
Stores exist for visual & auditory sensory information

Question 5

Describe Sperling’s first experiment

Answer 5

Presented matrix of letters for 1/20 seconds
Subjects had to recall as many letters as possible
Subjects only recalled 5-6

Question 6

Describe Sperling’s second experiment

Answer 6

Sounded low, medium or high tone immediately after matrix disappeared which corresponded to 1 row
Recall was almost perfect

Question 7

What is working memory?

Answer 7

Short-term store

Question 8

What is the short term store for?

Answer 8

A work space to solve problems

Question 9

Describe the dual task

Answer 9

Baddeley - 1986
B is preceded by A - BA True / false
A is not followed by B - BA True / false
Performed while remembering string of digits

Question 10

Describe the results of the dual task

Answer 10

Reasoning time increases with digit load
Increase in reasoning time is modest
Error rate does not increase

Question 11

What is the evidence for the phonological store?

Answer 11

Phonological similarity effect

Word length effect

Question 12

Describe the phonological similarity effect

Answer 12

Baddeley - 1966
Presented lists of 5 words to write down in order
List A - phonological words
List B - same length
List C - Semantic words
List D - Random

Question 13

What were the results of the phonological similarity effect?

Answer 13

Large effect of phonological similarity

No effect of semantic similarity

Question 14

Describe the word length effect

Answer 14

Baddeley 1975

Shown lists of 5 words with increasing length

Question 15

What are the results of the word length effect?

Answer 15

Correct recall related to number of syllables

Strong correlation between reading speed & correct recall

Question 16

Describe the visuospatial sketchpad

Answer 16

Necessary for holding a sequence of visually guided actions

Necessary for seeing in the mind’s eye

Question 17

What is the evidence for the visuospatial sketchpad?

Answer 17

De Renzi & Nichelli - 1975
Showed some patients with brain damage had impaired digit spans, some had impaired spatial spans

Della Sala - 1999
Viewing abstract pictures interfered with visual task but tracing outline of a series of pegs interfered with spatial task

Question 18

What is the visuospatial sketchpad divided into?

Answer 18

Visual cache

Inner scribe

Question 19

What is visual cache?

Answer 19

Passively stores visual information about form & colour

Question 20

What is inner scribe?

Answer 20

Stores spatial & movement information & can rehearse contents of visual cache

Question 21

Who introduced the concept of levels of processing?

Answer 21

Craik & Lockhart - 1972

Question 22

What did Roediger & Karpicke do in 2006?

Answer 22

Encoding evidence: study-test versus studying alone

Question 23

Describe the study-test versus studying alone experiment

Answer 23

Students were tested or restudied the passage

Memory was tested after 5 mins, 2 days or 1 week

Question 24

What were the results of the study-test versus studying alone experiment?

Answer 24

Advantage for the study-test conditions after the delay
Studying & then testing yourself leads to better retention
Retrieval practice effort

Question 25

What did Morris propose in 1977?

Answer 25

2 acquisition conditions
2 test conditions
Processing is goal directed
Shallow processing task might be better if retrieval uses the same type of processing
Transfer appropriate processing

Question 26

What did Godden & Baddeley do in 1975?

Answer 26

Subjects learnt list of words on land or under sea
Subjects tested for words on land or under sea
Context dependent memory
Also occurs for mood