Memory

Question 1

Definition of memory?

Answer 1

The mechanism that allows us to retain, retrieve, and use information (about stimuli, images, events, ideas, skills) over time.

There are both passiv and active processes.

Question 2

Stages of Memory?

Answer 2

1. Encoding
   Initial perception of the event (includes attention & pattern recognition)
2. Consolidation
   Laying down and strengthening over time
   -> Short Term
   -> Long Term
3. Retrieval
   Calling it back later, remember!
4. Reconsolidation
   Adaptive update mechanism allowing new information to be integrated into the intital memoery representation (editing)

Question 3

Modal model of memory (Atkinson and Shiffrin)?

Answer 3

Input -> Sensory Memory -> Short-term Memory (Rehearsal: a control process) & Output
<-> Long-term Memory

Question 4

Sensory Memory?

Answer 4

• Retention, for brief periods of time, of the effects of sensory stimulation
• Capacity large but info decays very quicklyy
• Persistence of vision - retention of the perception of light (e.g. Sparkler’s trail of light)

Question 5

Sensory memory capacity study (Sperling)

Answer 5

• Display of letters flashed for 50 milliseconds

Whole report method: report as many as you can, average recall of letters 4.5/12

Partial report method: A bried tone AFTER the flash indicates which row to report (high/medium/low). Average recall of letters 3.3/4 in a given row, a higher %

Conclusion: people store more information in short-term memory than they’re able to recall

Question 6

Delayed partial report method in Sensory memory capacity study (Sperling)?

Answer 6

Showed the letter, had a delay (of varying length), and then a brief tone indicating which row to report.

The longer the delay, the fewer letters participants were able to recall. Even after 1/10th of a second a significant amount of decay has occurred -> Very fast decay

Question 7

Short term memory systerm?

Answer 7

Short-term memory (STM):
The memory system holding moment-to-moment thoughts and perceptions in mind

Working memory (WM):
Allows manipulation of information in STM and is key for encoding of long-term memory (LTM)

Question 8

What are Control Processes? + (3)

Answer 8

Active processes that can be controlled by the person
- Rehearsal
- Strategies used to make a stimulus more memorable
- Strategies of attention that help you focus on specific stimuli

Question 9

Prior knowledge - Chunking?

Answer 9

• Items can fit together eadily as a distinct pattern
• For words or pictures to ve a chunk you need to be familiar and available in long-term meomory
• Suggests that STM overlaps with, and relies upon, LTM to function efficiently

Memory span is influenced by preexisting knowledge -> IMPORTANT!

Question 10

Serial Position Effect?

Answer 10

Remembering a list of items, items at the beginning and the end are more likely to be remembered

Primacy effect:
More rehearsal
Less competition

Recency effect:
Newly in STM
Usually recalled first

Question 11

What happens to the serial position effect when increasing the delay between the encoding phase and the retiving (recall) phase?

Answer 11

The primacy effect is stronger (more time to rehearse) than the recency effect no longer the advantage of newly in STM

Question 12

Maintenance rehearsal?

Answer 12

Rote rehearsal that maintains items in STM

Eggs, cheese, butter, eggs, cheese butter etc.

Question 13

Elaborative rehearsal?

Answer 13

Thinking about meaningful relationships among the items you’re encoding, draw parallels to LTM

Example, mind-mapping organising things visually

Question 14

Retroactive interference?

Answer 14

Something in the present makes it difficult to recall something that you learned previously

Example, getting a new phone number makes it difficult to remember the old one, it is making over the other memory

Question 15

Proactive interference?

Answer 15

Something from the past makes it difficult to recall something that you learned recently

Example, learing spanish but grammar is different from grammar in english

Question 16

Limitation of Model Model?

Answer 16

STM is described as too passive, it is really much more active in manipulating information

Question 17

Broad definition of Working Memory? (Baddely & Hitch) WILL BE ON EXAM

Answer 17

Limited capacity system that allows us to store and manipulate information temporarily so that we can prefrom everyday tasks

Question 18

Working memory?

Answer 18

Temporary memory system that you USE to do more complicated cognitive tasks:
- Learning, reasoning, comprehension
- ACTIVE rather than passive
- Key for laying down long term memories

Question 19

Baddely and Hitch Model?

Answer 19

Input -> Sensory memory & Decay ->

Visuospatial Scratchpad <->Central Executive <-> Phonological loop

<-> Long term memory

Question 20

The basic idea of the Baddely & Hitch model is that working memory is composed of 4 subsystems?

Answer 20

1. Central executive
2. Verbal short term memory
3. Visuospatial short term memory
4. Episodic buffer

Question 21

Phonological loop?

Answer 21

• Verbal short term memory
• The subsystem dedicated to temporary storage of spoken and written material

Contains two subcomponents:
- Phonological store (inner ear, passiv)
- Articulatory control process (inner voice, active)

Question 22

Phonological loop?

Answer 22

• Verbal short term memory
• The subsystem dedicated to temporary storage of spoken and written material

Contains two subcomponents:
- Phonological store (inner ear, passive)
- Articulatory control process (inner voice, active)

Question 23

Phonological store (inner ear)

Answer 23

• Linked to speech perception
• Holds spoken words in mind for 1-2 seconds
• Called inner ear because it is like internally hearing words
• Passive

Question 24

Articulatory control process (inner voice)

Answer 24

• Linked to speech production
• Used to rehearse and maintain verbal information from the phonological store (keep it refershed!)
• As long as we keep repeating it, we can retain the information in working memory
• Subvocal -> no sounds actually made
• Active

Question 25

Visuospatial sketchpad?

Answer 25

- Visual Short Term memory - Maintains visually presented information: - Drawings - Remembering kinesthetic (motor) movements Contains two structures: - Visual cache - Inner scribe

Question 26

Visual cache, substructure of Visuospatial sketchpad?

Answer 26

- "inner eye" - Temporarily stores visual information that comes from perceptual experience and contains information about the form and color of what we perceive - Visual equivalent of phonological store - Passive

Question 27

Inner scribe, substructure of Visuospatial sketchpad?

Answer 27

- Refreshes all of the stored information contained in the visuospatial scratchpad (computer screen) - Briefly stores spatial relationships associated with bodily movement - Visual equivalent of articulatory control process - Active (Important for mental rotation tasks)

Question 28

Evidence for Phonological Loop? Phonological similarity effect

Answer 28

Phonological similarity effect: Letters or words that SOUND similar are confused

Question 29

Evidence for Phonological Loop? Word-length effect

Answer 29

Word-length effect: Memory is better for lists of short words than for lists of long words. Takes longer to rehearse long words and to produce them during recall

Question 30

Evidence for Phonological Loop? Articulatory suppression

Answer 30

Prevents one from rehearsing items to be remembered: - Reduced memory span - Eliminates word-length effect

Question 31

Evidence for Visuospatial Sketchpad? (2)

Answer 31

Mental rotation takes longer when shapes are rotated further (in degrees) Memory for visual displays that are difficult to code into language

Question 32

Central Executive?

Answer 32

A control system NOT a memory store - Coordinates activities of the other subsystems - Guides attention and allocates resources to maximize performance - Coordinates, manipulates, and updates the content of the subsystems - Key for laying down long term memory!

Question 33

Episodic Buffer?

Answer 33

Extra capacity: Stores information, supplements phonological loop and visuospatial sketchpad - Communicates with LTM Integrative system: Places events occurring in the sketchpad and loop into a coherent sequence - Keeps track of episodes

Question 34

Episodic Buffer puts the element of TIME or temporal order into working memory model?

Answer 34

- A third "assistant" system in Baddeley model - Combines information from other subsystems, and long term memory into sequences or episodes Example, remembering a sentence that is 15-16 words long versus a random list of 5-9 words

Question 35

Working memory and stress? (3)

Answer 35

- WM gets worse above a certain level of stress - Exercise and sleep alleviate stress - Individual differences in working memory capacity

Question 36

Visual Short Term Memory: Change Detection Task?

Answer 36

- Demonstrates the capacity of visual short term memory - Results showed that change detection perforemace declined when there are more than 4 objects - Suggestion that visual short term memory capacity is ~4 objects - Results also demonstrated same capacity for feature-conjoined objects -> suggestion that VSTM stores "objects", not features Other study showed that VSTM is limated bu BOTH the number of objects and amount of information

Question 37

Individual differences in visual short term memory?

Answer 37

- Correlates with measures of fluid intelligence

Question 38

What accounts for differences in VSTM capacity?

Answer 38

- Different number of 'slots' (~4 or 5 objects) - Different executive control efficiency Efficient mechanisms can select only the most relevant information for storage

Question 39

ERP Component, Contralateral Delay Activity (CDA)?

Answer 39

- EEG signal that increaese as more items are stored in visual working memory - Neurological marker of working memory load - Measured in posterior pariental and posteripr temporal lobes, 300-900ms after onset - 'Contralateral' becuase hemispheres responf to the opposite side of the visual field

Question 40

Differences in VSTM, study by Vogel et al.?

Answer 40

Results suggests efficiency of selective attention varies substantially across indiviudals - High efficiency individuals filter out irrelevant info - Low efficiency individuals don't filter out distractions, thus waisting cognitive resources. Indiviudal differences in working memory result from individual differences in selective attention!