week 7: space and time

Question 1

what areas of the brain are involved in memory for space

Answer 1

• medial temporal lobe
• left and right hemispheres
• hippocampus

Question 2

what specialized neurons are involved in spacial memory

Answer 2

place, grid, and boundary cells

Question 3

psychophysics

Answer 3

how our experiences of the world correspond to physical properties

Question 4

steven’s law of psychological magnitude

Answer 4

relation between actual and perceived magnitudes is a power function w formula Y=kF^n
- y= psychological mag
- f= physical magnitude
- n= power
- k=modifying constant
- close to 1 for most (basically perfect)

Question 5

category adjustment theory

Answer 5

• performance is a combo of both fine and course-grained memories
• objects in space are located within regions that serve as categories or schemas

Question 6

t or f: the more influence that fine-grained memories have during retrieval, the weaker the influence of course grained memories but not vise versa

Answer 6

flase, it is true but also vise versa

Question 7

mental maps: spacial theories

Answer 7

-assumes mental maps are structured using some sort of spatial info

Question 8

metric view of mental maps

Answer 8

mental maps correspond directly to the space they rep

Question 9

hierarchical view of mental maps

Answer 9

mental maps are organized into structures with increasingly small subdivisions (ex continent, country, province, city)
- more common view

Question 10

partially hierarchical view

Answer 10

• metric and regional info

Question 11

influence of routes

Answer 11

• more locations on a route = longer estimates distance

Question 12

accessibility along route

Answer 12

• if places were further apart based on the route, they were rated further apart even when they were close

Question 13

influence of time on mental maps

Answer 13

• bc things that are close in space are also close in time, they are confounded

Question 14

hybrid theories for mental maps

Answer 14

• assume a contribution of both spatial and temporal kinds of info
• dependent on the kind of learning

Question 15

influence of semantics

Answer 15

• spatial gradient of availability: spatial concepts influence comprehension (greater distance= longer it takes to read)

Question 16

spatial frameworks

Answer 16

• our understanding of various spatial regions and how they are defined
• Errors less common when you’ve actively navigated a space, because there is not just one orientation

Question 17

orientation effect

Answer 17

less errors when mental maps match orientation of map

Question 18

is spatial memory better for people who actively or passively navigate it

Answer 18

actively (not a single orientation but many)

Question 19

which type of knowledge remains in memory longer than other types: landmark, route, or survey

Answer 19

survey

Question 20

landmarks routes and surveys

Answer 20

• landmarks: salient locations in an enviro, large influence
• routes: view ppl have when navigating enviro (parietal lobe and basal ganaglia)
• surveys: spacial info from high overhead (maps), hippocampus

Question 21

what type of learning do people who are better at discerning orientation remember better

Answer 21

route

Question 22

what type of learning do people who are better at perspective tasks (mental rotation) remember better

Answer 22

survey

Question 23

three types of people in relation to individual differences and using spatial info to create mental maps

Answer 23

• integrators: can create, store, and integrate mental maps from navigation experience
• non-integrators: form mental maps from navigation experiences but have trouble reconciling multi experiences
• imprecise navigators: difficulty forming mental maps from nav experience

Question 24

three ways people use memory for time

Answer 24

• temporal distance: how long ago event occurred
• temporal location: knowledge of when event took place
• relative time: knowledge of relative order of two or more events (which came first)

Question 25

memory age effect

Answer 25

- ppl have difficulty placing events in time - better accuracy in ones temp memory for first event of a kind (primacy) and recent events (recency)

Question 26

accuracy effect

Answer 26

- the more detail is remembered abt an event, the better one's memory will be for when it occurred

Question 27

scale effects

Answer 27

- errors at one scale but accuracy at another (ex what week vs what day)

Question 28

forward and backward telescoping

Answer 28

- placing events more recently (forward) or further back in time (backward) than they actually occurred - backward is more common for recent events (100-1000 days) - 1000 days ago = forward

Question 29

distance based factors

Answer 29

- time estimates based on how far in the past the og event is from the present, using strength of memory - longer w out trace being assessed = weaker - stronger for more recent - also context, similar context = more recent estimate

Question 30

location based factors

Answer 30

- locating a memory in time based on its content - verdical memory of the date (not common but simplest) - more likely that inferences are made based on surrounding context - assumes temporal memories distorted by available contextual information

Question 31

relative time based explanations for temp memory

Answer 31

- info stored directly in memory - info abt events and their temp location are stored together - when making judgments abt relative positions of events in time - simplest version is that memories may contain direct info abt other events and their relation to one another - or activating a memory for an event can bring up associated events - assumes relative time memories are distorted bc of lost associations

Question 32

category adjustment theory and temporal memory (fuzzy trace, primacy/recency effects, scale effects, telescoping)

Answer 32

- fuzzy trace: we forget fine grained info first - primacy: usually mark an event boundary or temp boundary - recency: very little forgetting of fine grained or course grained - scale effects: diff scales are often categories so coarse can help - telescoping: tendency toward prototype of a coarse grained category

Question 33

temporal compression

Answer 33

- when we estimate how long an event lasted, there is tendency to misremember it taking less time than it did - greater for future thinking (temporal doppler effect)

Question 34

t or f: it takes less time for us to replay event than it does to experience them

Answer 34

true

Question 35

return trip effect

Answer 35

- memory for the time it takes to go to someplace seems longer than the time it takes to return