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)
What can we conclude from studies of non-word repetition?
The purpose of the phonological loop is to encode and remember words that are new/novel/meaningless.
What real-life application can non-word repetition findings relate to?
Learning languages
Finnish children’s capacity for learning English could be predicted by their capacity for non-word repetition better than other cognitive measures
What brain imaging study was done to investigate neural correlates of the phonological loop?
Clark & Wagner (2003) - fMRI learning and remembering pseudo-words versus familiar words
Explain what participants had to do in Clark & Wagner’s (2003) fMRI study
Participants were scanned whilst encoding stimuli of either pseudo-words or familiar words
Tested on their recognition memory of stimuli intermixed with new words
Had to say which words were old (previously seen) and which words were new
How did the researcher’s look at activation in participants brains during encoding of pseudo-words?
Brain activation during encoding of pseudo-words - brain activation during encoding of real words
Looked at this contrast of activation
According to Clark & Wagner’s (2003) study, which brain regions relate to the phonological loop?
Left inferior pre-frontal cortex
Bilateral inferior and superior parietal cortices
These brain areas were active during the pseudo-word learning
What else did Clark & Wagner (2003) find in relation to brain activity and learning pseudo-words?
Positive correlation in terms of activity
The greater activity in the left inferior prefrontal cortex and bilateral superior parietal cortex and inferior parietal cortex, the greater the likelihood of remembering the pseudo-words.
This is because learning the pseudo-words requires more phonological loop activity.
What 3 brain regions are suggested to be a biological basis for the phonological loop?
Left inferior pre-frontal cortex
Bilateral superior parietal cortex
Inferior parietal cortex
What brain region is suggested to be crucial for the temporary rehearsal and sub-vocalisation of verbal material?
Left inferior frontal cortex
What brain region is suggested to be crucial for inner speech?
Left inferior frontal cortex
What is inner speech necessary for?
Articulatory control processing
What can happen if the left inferior frontal cortex is damaged?
Inner speech can be abolished/lost
What is an interesting finding about damage to the inferior frontal cortex and verbal STM?
Even if inner speech is abolished, verbal STM can be intact due to the role of visual imagery.
Visual imagery from other parts of the brain may compensate to make up for what is being lost by the inner speech. Plasticity.
