Test 2 Flashcards
Non-Declarative Memory
- skill memories
- non-verbal memory
- classical conditioning and biological reflex
Declarative memory
- Episodic
- Semantic
- Medial Temporal Lobe
Episodic Memory
- Specific memories of an autobiographical event
- Temporal and spatial components
Semantic Memory
- Factual memory
- Not tied to space and time
Flexibility of Communication
- Episodic: generally flexible (e.g even though you may have never verbalized it, you can)
- Semantic: same
- Procedural: not flexible
Conscious Accessibility
- Both semantic and episodic memories seem to be consciously accessible
Episodic v.s. Semantic
- Semantic appears to come first (e.g context to have episodic memories)
- Episodic memories are made after a single exposure
- Semantic memories are made after multiple exposures
Episodic in non-humans
- Tulving theorized that one must time travel to have episodic memories (e.g. re-live the event), therefore animals do not have it.
- Gorillas display name memory
- Jays can locate buried fruit
Memory Process
- Encoded
- Retained
- Retrieved
Memory and Prior Knowledge
- Memories are more easily formed in a context of information we already know
- Bransford and Johnson Balloon experiment
Levels of Processing
- Craik & Lockhart
- Shallow processing: analysis of information based on basic sensory characteristics
- Deep processing: analysis of information based on meaning (e.g. mental image, story)
Improving Memory
- Increase depth of encoding
- Organize information (create meaningful hierarchies and lists)
- Mnemonics: acrostics (cue = first letter of each word), narratives
Forgetting Curve
Ebbinghaus
- The majority of what we learn is forgotten within the first few hours or days
Depression & ECT
- ECT erases recent memories and new memories permanently
Transfer Appropriate Processing or Encoding Specificity
- Retrieval is more likely to occur if the cues at retrieval match the cues from encoding
Theories of Forgetting
- Decay
- Interference: Proactive & Retroactive
- Output Interference: attempting to retrieve the information actually interferes with retrieving it
- Intentional Forgetting: repression, Fuge
Interference
- When two memories overlap in content, both of them decrease in strength
Source Amnesia
- Misattributing the source of information to the wrong source
Cryptomnesia
- Mistakenly believing that our thoughts or ideas are novel
Imperfections of Declarative memory
Children susceptible to memory errors
- Ceci (1993) Children and false story implementation
- 50% of kids produced false stories
- 35% recognized stories that never occurred
- Ceci Sam Stone Story
- introduced stranger and said he was clumsy
- 72% claimed he had done bad deed and 44% said they had seen him do it
- Declarative Memory is reconstructive, not reproductive
False Memories
- False memories were created for adults regarding their childhood (pictures and stories)
- Loftus persuaded college students that they had a negative experience with strawberry ice cream and 41% believed it
- Area behind hippocampus is important in sorting novel info from old info
- Medial temporal lobe is the only area that can determine what is a false memory
Accuracy of declarative memory
1973 study showed that with the presentation of 10,000 photos could identify seen photos from novel ones at a 73% accuracy rate
Semantic Memory
- organized hierarchically
- Agnosia: Greek for not knowing
- Selective disruption of the ability to process certain information
- Loss of semantic information that links the perception to the object
- Visual, Auditory, and Tactile
Ribot Gradient
- Most memory that is impacted in amnesia is right around the time of the event
Consolidation Theory
- Hippocampus is initially important in the storage and retrieval of information, but over time this becomes less. Frontal lobe becomes more responsible as the information becomes more familiar
- Moscovitch & Nadel theorize that the hippocampus is actually always involved in memory and that it mediates storage and retrieval
Multiple Memory Trace Theory
- Episodic memories are encoded by both cortical and hippocampal neurons. Some memories are spared after hippocampal damage
Frontal Cortex & Memory
- Helps determine what is and is not stored
- Can selectively inhibit hippocampal activity
Subcortical Structures
- Diencephelon: mammilary bodies, thalamus, mediodosal nucleus
- Basal Forebrain
- Both connected to the hippocampus via the fornix
- If any of these is damaged, memory impairment may occur
Korsakoff’s
- Damage to mammilary bodies and mediodorsal nucleus
- Alcoholism and thiamin deficiency
- Lack of communication between frontal lobe and hippocampus
- Confabulation
Basal Forebrain
- Sends GABA and ACh to hippocampus to stimulate and inhibit memory storage and retrieval
- Affects plasticity of neurons in the hippocampus
Functional Amnesia
- Psychogenic Amnesia
- Decreased glucose metabolism in the medial temporal lobes
Flashbulb Memories
- number of consistent details decreased over time
- inconsistent details increased
- Different in terms of emotionality
- High level of emotionality may make us believe things that didn’t really happen
- media and other information may serve as interference
Working Memory
- STM that involves mental manipulation is referred to as working memory
- The maintenance and manipulation of STM is an executive function
Task Switching
- The process of completing one task while simultaneously holding the another task in mind to switch to
- Wisconsin Card Sort
Stimulus Selection and Response Inhibition
Stroop
Dorsolateral
- Higher order executive controls
- Monitoring and manipulating information
Ventrolateral
- Left Anterior: Semantic
- Left Posterior: Phonological
- Right: Visiospatial
ADHD and the FC
- Smaller right PFC
- Ritalin helps with dopamine stimulation and re-uptake inhibition
Skill Memory
- Behaviors that improve over time with practice
- Cannot be vocalized
Mundane Skills
- Learned movements that are guided by sensory input
Closed Skills
- Performing defined movements (e.g dance)
Open Skills
- Skills that require and adaptive and variable response based on the environment (e.g. catching a frisbee)
Tool Usage
- Involves perceptual and motor skills
Practice and feedback
- Thondike’s line experiment
Skill acquisition
- Over time, the amount of time needed to preform a skill decreases
Law of Diminishing Returns or Power Law of Learning
- Over time, room for improvement in a skill decreases
- enhancing practice can mediate this
- frequent = good short term
- infrequent = good long term
Constant Practice
- same conditions
Variable Practice
- different conditions
- better than constant
Transfer Specificity
- Restricted applicability of one skill to another domain or scenario
3 Stages of Motor Programs
- Cognitive: performing based on verbal rules
- Associative: Actions become stereotyped
- Autonomous: Automatic
Apraxia
- Lesions to the left parietal lobe
- Inhibit the planning and coordination of complex motor movements
- can make individual movements but not complex
