Week 3: Memory

Question 1

Atkinson and Shiffrin assume three structural components of memory, what are they?

Answer 1

1. Sensory registers
2. Short term storage
3. Long term storage

Question 2

Which four components of memory did Baddeley and Hitch come up with?

Answer 2

1. Phonological loop
2. Visuospatial system
3. Central executive
4. Episodic buffer

Question 3

Which component from Baddeley is proposed as a limited capacity storage system responsible for integrating information from several sources?

Answer 3

Episodic buffer (a limited capacity storage system responsible for integrating information from several sources to create a unified memory, sometimes referred to as a single ‘episode’)

Question 4

What is a component of the working memory model (Baddeley) that deals with spoken and written material?

Answer 4

Phonological loop (comprises a phonological store that is dedicated to working memory and that serves to temporarily hold verbal information, and an articulatory loop, through which inner speech is used to reactivate, or “refresh,” the representations in the phonological store, for example trying to remeber a phone number by repating it over an over)

Question 5

The phonological loop has two components, what are they?

Answer 5

1. Articulatory (which allows us to repeat words in a loop)
2. Acoustic (which holds words we hear)

Question 6

Associations between spatial background information and target information form the basis of …?

Answer 6

Episodic memory = memory of a specific event (where you parked your car this morning or the dinner you had with a friend last month)

Question 7

Where does the processing of faces, colours and motion take place?

Answer 7

Fusiform face area (within V4 and V5)

Question 8

Object information is processed via the …?

Answer 8

Perirhinal cortex (object recognition memory)

Question 9

Spatial information is processed via the …?

Answer 9

Parahippocampus -> important for spatial memory and navigation (a grey matter cortical region of the brain that surrounds the hippocampus and is part of the limbic system)

Question 10

What is the hippocampus used for?

Answer 10

Storage

Question 11

What is the diencephalon?

Answer 11

This connects the midbrain to the forebrain

It is a primary relay and processing center for sensory information

Question 12

What circuit is crucial for new memories?

Answer 12

Hippocampal-diencephalon circuit (often affected in Korsakoff)

Question 13

All forms of … memory have been demonstrated to be spared in Korsakoffs amnesia

Answer 13

Implicit (the information that we do not store purposely and is unintentionally memorized, we cannot consciously bring that memory into awareness)

Question 14

What kind of memory involves conscious remembering of prior episodes, often by means of intentional retrieval of those episodes?

Answer 14

Explicit memory (a type of long-term memory that’s concerned with recollection of facts and events)

Question 15

Amnesia in Korsakoff is a direct result of the inability to remember …?

Answer 15

(Explicit) contextual information (information about facts or events from a specific context, for example: associating a room with a terrible event)

Question 16

What is the difference between declarative and non-declarative memory?

Answer 16

Declarative memory allows us to consciously recollect events and facts (explicit)

Non-declarative memory is accessed without consciousness or implicitly through performance rather than recollection (implicit)

Question 17

There is evidence that both … context memory and … context memory are impaired in Korsakoff patinents

Answer 17

Temporal (time) and spatial (space)

Question 18

What refers to the loss of information that was acquired before the onset of amnesia?

Answer 18

Retrogade amnesia (when you can’t recall memories from your past)

Question 19

Which kind of amnesia refers to an impaired capacity for new learning?

Answer 19

Anterograde amnesia (you can’t form new memories)

Question 20

Context memory deficit is an important compenent of … amnesia

Answer 20

Retrograde
(context memory is the ability to remember emotional, social, spatial, or temporal circumstances related to an event)

Question 21

What kind of memory involves influences of prior episodes on current behaviour without intentional retrieval, and sometimes without conscious remembering of those prior episodes?

Answer 21

Implicit memory

Question 22

When the ability to maintain associative information over a brief period of time is impaired, it has to do with deficits in …

Answer 22

Contextual working memory (context memory is the ability to remember emotional, social, spatial, or temporal circumstances related to an event)

Question 23

What does the articulatory component of the phonological loop do?

Answer 23

It allows continued maintenance of material (inner speech is used to reactivate, or “refresh,” the representations in the phonological store)

Question 24

What does the acoustic component of the phonological loop do?

Answer 24

It allows simple judgements to be made under suppression

Question 25

The diencephalic-hippocampal memory system relies on (explicit/implicit) memory

Answer 25

Explicit (this circuit is involved in making new memories, often affected in Korsakoff)

Question 26

On what brain structures does implicit memory rely (5)?

Answer 26

Subcortical structures:
1. Thalamus
2. Basal ganglia
3. Hippocampus
4. Amygdala
5. Nucleus accumbens

Question 27

What is contextual memory?

Answer 27

The when and where of our experiences. Has to be linked with target information to get meaning

Question 28

What is target memory?

Answer 28

The information that is to be remembered. These target-context associations form the basis of episodic memory