Wk4 - Phonological Loop Flashcards
Is memory unitary or non-unitary?
Non-unitary
What does non-unitary mean in terms of memory?
The types of memory are independent of one another
What evidence supports the idea that memory is non-unitary?
Double dissociations - brain damage can affect one type of memory but leave other memory types completely intact
What is the biological basis of STM dependent on? Explain this.
Sensory modality
Memory for verbal information might be dependent on brain regions involved in verbal processing
What is the WMM?
A model of STM processing, storage, and encoding
What does the WMM suggest?
Suggests that sensory modality of the information being processed is important
Who proposed the WMM?
Baddeley & Hitch
What are the 4 components of the WMM?
Phonological loop
Visuospatial sketchpad
Central executive
Episodic buffer
What does the phonological loop do?
Rehearses and encodes phonological/verbal information
What are the 2 parts of the phonological loop?
Temporary phonological store - can hold a speech-based memory trace for up to 2 seconds
Articulatory control process - maintains information in the phonological store via rehearsal
What is another name for rehearsal?
Sub-vocalisation
What evidence is there for the phonological store being speech-based?
Phonological similarity effect
What is the phonological similarity effect?
The idea that memory span for similar sounding words/letters is shorter than for dissimilar items.
This is because there are fewer distinctive features in similar sounding words/letters so these items are more susceptible to decay
What evidence is there for the articulatory control process?
Articulatory suppression
What happens in a cognitive experiment of articulatory suppression?
Participant utters irrelevant sounds whilst memorising information.
Participant is unable to rehearse the material because the irrelevant speech interferes with learning, rehearsal, and memory of the wanted items.
What is the phonological loop important for?
Phonological encoding
Acquisition of language
What evidence is there that suggests the phonological loop is required for language acquisition?
Studies on learning novel words.
Studies on non-word repetition.
What are the findings from the P.V study on learning novel words?
P.V had normal paired-associate learning for meaningful word pairs.
P.V had an impaired capacity for learning novel words.
What deficit did Patient P.V have?
A short-term phonological memory deficit
What do the conclusions from P.V study and the normal subjects study of learning novel words suggest?
The phonological loop is important for learning new/novel words
The phonological loop may not be important in understanding speech/verbal information that has already been learnt
What is the Patient P.V novel word study?
Patient P.V had to learn pairs of words.
Patient P.V was then given the first word of the pair and asked to provide the second word that goes along with it.
What is the normal subjects novel word study?
Participants had to say something out loud whilst remembering material
What did the normal subjects novel word study find?
Articulatory suppression disrupted learning/memory more so for novel phonological material than meaningful paired-associates.
What have studies of non-word repetition found?
The capacity for learning and phonological storage is better predicted by non-word repetition than other measures (e.g., digit span)
