Unit 1 Flashcards
What is memory mainly understood as?
2 things
the ability to recollect past events and to bring learned facts and ideas back to mind
what must a full understanding of memory and related functions involve?
an understanding of the brain mechanism of:
- Acquisition
- Storage
- Retrieval
What does memory include?
- Happenings re-experienced concsiously
- Behavior in the absence of conscious awareness
- The mental activities of learning and memory that clearly have their neural counterparts in brain activities
What is memory by association?
Memory that event A was experienced either together with or immediately preceding event B
-> event B is recorded in the memory bank as an association from idea A to idea B
How do past experiences influence the progression of thoughts from one idea to the next?
By reviving associative sequences from memory, where event A triggers the recollection of event B.
what are theories about memory and other constructs essentially like?
like maps
-> they summarize our knowledge in a simple and structured way that helps us to understand what is known
what do our memories compromise?
not one but several interrelated memory systems
How did Ebbinghaus begin his studies regarding memory?
by simplifying the experimental situation and study memory using controlled systematic experiments with careful measurements of his own learning
What did Ebbinghaus measure?
the difficulty of learning a list by the number of study trials required for him to attain one errorless recitation of it
What did Ebbinghaus tought himself while serving as his own subject?
- Studying serial lists of 6 to 20 syllables (zug, pij, tev)
- Reading them aloud in sequence in pace with a metronome
- Trying to recite the series from memory.
What is verbal learning?
A term applied to an approach to memory that relies principally on the learning of lists of words and nonsense syllables
regarding what did ebbinghaus have strict controls?
- The timing
- Number of study trials
- Recall time permitted
- Retention Interval
- Learning materials of homogeneous difficulty
- The room in which he learned
- The time of day in every trial
Ebbinghaus - stages of acquisition of knowledge
What is Initial learning?
- The individual is exposed to the information to be learned for the first time.
- Retention is usually low, and the forgetting curve accelerates quickly
Ebbinghaus - stages of acquisition of knowledge
What is Consolidated learning?
- With practice and repetition, the information is consolidated in short- term memory and moves into long-term memory.
- Retention improves, and the forgetting curve becomes less pronounced.
Ebbinghaus - stages of acquisition of knowledge
What is sustained learning?
- As the information is continued to be repeated and reinforced over time, learning becomes more sustained.
- The information is retained for a longer period and is less susceptible to forgetting.
Ebbinghaus - stages of acquisition of knowledge
What is Mastery learning?
- The information has been learned so solidly that it is highly unlikely to be forgotten.
- Learning has become ingrained and enduring knowledge.
What is Ebbinghaus’ forgetting curve characterized by?
A rapid and pronounced loss of information in the first hours or days after learning it
-> after that, forgetting rate gradually decreased as time passed
Ebbinghaus’ forgetting curve
When do we forget most?
We forget most of what we learn in the initial hours after learning, and then we forget less as time goes on.
When studying a list of many pairs, each stimulus word initially shows what two effects?
- Generalization
- Confusion
-> based on the similarities (appearance or meanings) to other stimuli in the list
What is more effective, widely distributed study trials (1 per hour) or closely packed trials (1 per minute) for long-term retention?
widely distributed study trials (1 per hour)
What did Bartlett explicitly reject?
the learning of meaningless material as an appropriate way to study memory
What importance did Bartlett stress?
the importance of the rememberer’s “effort after meaning”
What can recall be substantially increased by?
using words in the list that have strong prior connections
-> subjects are likely to discover these inter-item relationships and use them for organizing their recall
e.g. consider -> considerar
What did Bartlett claim the study of memory errors could be explained by?
What did he propose?
study of the memory errors could be explained in the terms of the participants cultural assumptions about the world
-> he proposed that these depended on internal representations (schemas)
What is Paired-associated learning?
subject study a set of pairs of discrete units (syllables, words, pictured objects)
-> later asked to learn to recall a specific member of a pair (the “response”) when tested by presenting the other member of the pair (the “stimulus”)
Paired-associated learning
what lowers the difficulty of recalling?
increasing the prior familiarity and meaningfulness of the response terms
Paired-associated learning
What increases the difficulty of discriminating?
increasing the similarity among the nominal stimuli in the list of pairs
Paired-associated learning
How long does confusion between two similar stimuli persist?
until the subject selects a differentiating cue that distinguishes between them
What is assumed in traditional associationism and is it supported by evidence?
that learners are the passive tabula rasa (blank slate)
-> according to some results it is NOT true
How are learners in associationism?
very active in using what they aleady know to search for meaningful relationshps among the learning materials that they can utilize to ease their memorization task
what was the experiment “tour de force” regarding the power of retrieval cues about?
How was the experiment conducted?
Mantyla had subjects write 3 meaningful associates to each of 600 target words with no instructions for remembering
-> 7 days later: recall test
- Without associations: recalled 6% of the target words
- with 3 associates as cues: recalled 65% of 600 words
List of pairs
What happens to the correct association over repeated study trials when learning pairs?
It is strengthened sufficiently to win out in competition with both preexisting and generalized associates.
Lists of pairs
what will the generalization analysis that explains the fact that pairs with similar sitmuli and / or responses lead to?
confusion errors
what are clusters in memory recall?
Groups of items that are consistently recalled together.
When do clusters typically occur in memory recall according to Bousfield?
During repeated study and recall trials with the same list of unrelated words, showing increasing stereotypy or consistency
What are the clusters often?
idiosyncratic groups of 3 to 7 list words among which a subject finds some kind of meaningful relationship
How do clusters change with training?
the subjective clusters grow longer (include more items) and become more stable
What is a chunk defined as?
a familiar collection of more elementary units that have been interassociated and stored in memory repeatedly and that act as a coherent, integrated group when retrieved
What is the Free recall task?
following presentation of a set of discrete experiences (words, pictures…), subjects are asked to recall them in any order that they choose for convenience.
What is a Recognition test?
following presentation of a set of
discrete experiences (words, pictures…), subjects are asked to distinguish (from a longer list) which items were presented before and which items were not presented before.
What is error of commission?
EXAM
recall or recognize an item NOT included in the list
What is Error of omission?
EXAM
to not recall or recognize an item included in the list
What is easier than recall tests?
recognition tests
-> more sensitive for detecting small differences among weak associations
What is a “rule” for recall vs. recognition?
EXAM
Any S-R pair/single stimulus that is recalled can also be recognized
What can happen to memories during initial study trials, even if they aren’t accurately recognized or recalled yet?
EXAM
They can build up in a “subthreshold” manner, meaning memory traces are formed but not yet strong enough for accurate recognition or recall.
What continues strengthening the habit and its resistance to later forgetting?
EXAM
Repetitions beyond the point of recall (“overlearning”)
What is Short-term memory (STM)?
a theory-neural way to refer to the temporary storage of small amounts of material over brief delays
What can short term memory include?
visual, spatial, smell, touch information
What does STM show?
an extreme fragility, lasting only a few seconds after the subjects attention is drawn elsewhere
What were the STM models partly inspired by?
neurological patients (famous H.M.) with organic amnesia caused by bilateral damage to parts of the brain
which 2 brain areas are damaged in the patients with organic amnesia (Shortterm Memory)?
- the medial temporal lobe
- hippocampus
What do patiens with organic amnesia have?
an intact short-term memory and long-term memory but they are greatly impaired in transferring new verbal information to long-term memory
What may structures that produce durable long-term traces be?
somewhat independent from those responsible for
- short-term and
- maintenance of information
What should short-term memory be conceived as?
the temporary activation of information chunks in a single memory
WHat is Working Memory (WM) based on?
on the assumption that a system exists for the temporary maintenance and manipulation of information
What is Working memory helpful for?
performing many complex tasks
What do most assume working memory acts as?
a form of mental workspace, providing a basis for thought
Working Memory (WM)
What has Baddeley hypothesized?
several modality-specific short-term stores
-> calls it working memories
what is working memory usually assumed to be linked to?
attention and to be able to draw on other resources within short-term and long-term memory
Working Memory (WM)
what is the implication of Baddeleys hypothesis?
that adults have multiple regions for short-term storage of stimuli received from different sensory modalities
What are the 3 different regions for short-term storage of stimuli received from different sensory modalities?
- a phonological store for speech-based material
- a visuo-spatial store for visual images
- an “executive controller” that holds plans that program and coordinate the activities of the separate short-term stores
What is a test of verbal working memory?
Digit Span Backward
What is a test for visual-spatial working memory?
the backward span of the corsi block tapping test
What can Long-term memory be divided into?
Explicit (Declarative memory) and Implicit (Nondeclarative memory)
What can Explicit (Declarative memory) be divided into?
Episodic memory and Semantic memory
What does Implicit (nondeclarative memory) include?
Conditioning skills, priming, etc.
Long-term memory (LTM)
What is Explicit Memory?
- remembering specific events (meeting a friend)
- remembering facts or information about the world (the meaning of words)
Long-term memory (LTM)
what is implicit memory?
performance (driving)
What is the concept of Long-term memory?
(dividations)
EXAM
Long-term memory
- Explicit memory: Episodic memory, Semantic memory
- implicit memory
What is Semantic Memory?
Organized knowledge a person possesses about:
- words, verbal symbols and their meaning, referents, relations, rules, formulas, algorithms
-> general knowledge
What is episodic memory?
- specific event that occured at a particular time and place
- situations in which you actually re-experience some aspect of the original episode
What are episodic memories more susceptible to and usually accompanied by?
- more susceptible to forgetting
- usually accompanied by an explicit or implicit reference to, an image of, the time and/or place of the episode
What do Semantic memory and episodic memory involve?
2 systems
- Tulving: separate storage systems
- Baddeley: separate retrieval routes to a common store
What are 3 points of implicit memory?
- classical conditioning
- motor skills
- priming
What do implicit and explicit memory represent?
- a range of different learning systems
- different parts of the brain that have evolved for different purposes
What is autobiographic memory?
- dated episodic memory
- abstract generalizations about long stretches of their life that are not themselves distinct episodes
e.g.: people remember going to college for four years
What is source memory?
people remembering where and from whom they learned certain information
What are memories reconstructed to?
to satisfy self-serving motives
-> people remember themselves in a more favorable light than is warranted
What do people tend to do regarding their change in their memory and why?
they tend to distort their memory of how they used to behave and about their former opinions to be more consistent with their opinion of today
