Learning and Memory

Question 1

Why understand the basic theories of how we learn and remember?

Answer 1

Because we are what we remember – memory underpins self identity and relates to our plans, expectations and feelings.

Because problems with learning and remembering are present in most illnesses you will diagnose and treat – from temporary to permanent, from mild to severe.

Question 2

Identify key theories and experiments that helped us understand how we learn and remember.

Answer 2

Early Significant memory experiments

The multi store model

Levels of processing model

Working memory model

Flashbulb memories

Interference theory explaining forgetting

The supervisory attentional system

The supervisory attentional system

Question 3

Describe the early significant memory experiments.

Answer 3

Capacity of short term memory was 7 chunks of information, plus or minus two (normal = 5-9 chunks of info)

Memory lasted 18 secs or less if not rehearsed.

Question 4

Describe the multi-store model.

Answer 4

• Memories start with info going into a sensory store consisting of mil second info most of which is lost/decayed. The useful, context relevant info is transferred to
• Short term memory store where information can sit for a time limited period (minutes, hours). If you think about certain new information sitting in there, you are rehearsing and strengthening the info. The more you rehearse the more likely the info is to go onto
• Long term store where info lasts days, years, decades, a lifetime.

Question 5

Describe the multi-storage model processes.

Answer 5

• Introduced the notion of cognitive processes which drove learning and memory.
• Memory processes were dynamic and ongoing, memory storage was more static and defined.
• Rehearsal was the process of actively using, attending to or analysing information which supported transfer of info into long term storage.
• Retrieval was the process of actively getting some information out of long term store to use in the here and now.
• Each type of memory storage box were cognitive components which varied in:
- The type of info they took or encoded
- How long they kept the info for, duration
- How much info was in the stores, capacity.

Question 6

SENSORY MEMORY

• Duration
• Capacity
• Encoding

Answer 6

SENSORY MEMORY

• Duration: 1⁄4 to 1⁄2 second
• Capacity: all sensory experience
• Encoding: sense specific

Question 7

SHORT TERM MEMORY

• Duration
• Capacity
• Encoding

Answer 7

SHORT TERM MEMORY

• Duration: 0-18 seconds
• Capacity: 7 +/- 2 items
• Encoding: mainly auditory

Question 8

LONG TERM MEMORY

• Duration
• Capacity
• Encoding

Answer 8

LONG TERM MEMORY
LONG TERM MEMORY
-Duration: Unlimited
-Capacity: Unlimited
-Encoding: Mainly semantic (but can be visual and auditory)

Question 9

Define the serial position effect.

Answer 9

When participants are presented with a list of words, they tend to remember the first few and last few words and are more likely to forget those in the middle of the list.

The tendency to recall earlier words is called the primacy effect; the tendency to recall the later words is called the recency effect.

Question 10

What is the implication of the primary and recency effects on memory?

Answer 10

• Supports the existence of separate LTM and STM stores because they observed a primacy and recency effect.
• Words early on in the list were put into long term memory (primacy effect) because the person has time to rehearse the word, and words from the end went into short term memory (recency effect).

Question 11

Describe the levels of processing model.

Answer 11

• How we could predict forgetting?
• How well you remember depends not on what store the info is in, but on how the info has been processed.
• The more we think about something, the better you remember it:
- In a shallow way; focusing on the sound or appearance of things mainly (more likely to be forgotten)
- In a deep way as you elaborate when rehearsing the info, thinking about its meaning (more likely to be recalled)

Question 12

Describe the working memory model.

Answer 12

• They viewed the short-term memory (STM) store as being over-simplistic and proposed a working memory model
• The model of short term memory had 2 components - a visuo-spatial sketchpad (the ‘inner eye’) and an articulatory-phonological loop (the ‘inner ear’), which processed different types of sensory info.
• Both work independently of one another, but we co-ordinated, monitored and instructed by a central executive.
• The visual and auditory stores and processes helped us understand how we recalled how to drink or learn a dance, or recognise a face or voice so well.
• We still don’t know that much about the central executive.

Question 13

Explain what is meant by flashbulb memories.

Answer 13

• Flashbulb memories as vivid and highly detailed snapshots created often (but not necessarily) at times of shock or trauma.
• They are long lasting memories of surprising, emotionally arousing news. Physiological arousal levels are important in this memory formation.
• The memories are self referent most often; we recall the feelings, the sensations rather than aspects of the event itself.
• We consider the memories to be ‘stuck’ at the sensory threat level, rather than processed into long term store normally. They are triggered by sensory info reminding or prompting recall.
• Aging does not seem to affect this type of memory.

Question 14

Describe the interference theory which explains forgetting.

Answer 14

• Interference theory proposes that interference occurs when learning of something new causes one to forget older material due to displacement.
• Proactive interference is when something learned a time ago stops you remembering something new (you should open the door this way, but you keep doing it like you have always done).
• Retroactive interference occurs when something you have recently learned changes, or interferes with, something you remembered in times gone by (you start to open the door the new way and swear blind you always did it like this).
• We do not exactly know why this sort of influencing or distorting of memory goes on, but it does.

Question 15

Explain what is meant by supervisory attentional system.

Answer 15

Proposed (a bit like the central executive) there was something that controlled what we attended to in order to remember new things, and what was so ‘overlearned’ that we recalled how to do this or that without full conscious awareness (‘I could do that in my sleep’ sort of tasks).

Question 16

Identify the main different types of memory.

Answer 16

Memory for events and facts = episodic memory.
Memory for automatic ‘how to do things’ = procedural
memory.

Question 17

What brain structures are involved in different sorts of memory?

Answer 17

The pre frontal cortex is involved in attention, SMT and is implied in retention of LTM

The medial temporal lobes are involved in conscious learning and ‘episodic memory’

Question 18

Identify the specific structures within the medial temporal lobe which are responsible for conscious learning and episodic memory.

Answer 18

• The medial temporal lobe feature the limbic system, which has the hippocampus, the amygdala, the cingulate gyrus, the thalamus, the hypothalamus, the epithalamus, the mammillary body and other organs, all involved in processing memory of some sort.

Question 19

Describe the function of the hippocampus as part of the medial temporal lobe, in conscious learning and episodic memory.

Answer 19

HIPPOCAMPUS is essential for the transference from short to long term memory, and for the control of spatial memory and behaviour. The hippocampus, unusually, can growing new neurons, although this ability is impaired by stress-related glucocorticoids.

Question 20

Describe the function of the amygdala as part of the medial temporal lobe, in conscious learning and episodic memory.

Answer 20

AMYGDALA performs a primary role in the processing and memory of emotional reactions and social and sexual behaviour, as well as regulating smell.

Question 21

Describe the function of the basal ganglia in memory formation.

Answer 21

The basal ganglia is a sub-cortical system (inside the cerebral cortex) essential to memory function, particularly the striatum (or neostriatum) which is important in the formation and retrieval of procedural memory.