Week 8 & 9 - Memory

Question 1

Sensory memory

Answer 1

• iconic (visual) memory
• echoic (auditory) memory
• modality specific
• <1s

Question 2

short-term (working) memory

Answer 2

• central executive
• visuospatial sketchpad
• phonological loop
• episodic buffer
• 1-10s

Question 3

long-term memory

Answer 3

• declarative (explicit) memory
• non-declarative (implicit) memory
• > 10s

Question 4

Memory systems

Answer 4

• human memory consists of multiple subsystems
• each of them is supported by its own behavioural and neural mechanisms

Question 5

What does the sensory memory do?

Answer 5

• registers information about the environment and holds it for a very brief period of time

Question 6

Letter task for sensory memory

Answer 6

• after brief exposure (e.g. 50ms), observers are asked to recall the letters
• observers are able to report 3-6 letters

Question 7

Findings for sensory memory task

Answer 7

• many items are stored in memory intially
• while they are still in memory, observers can attend to some of the items and report them
• but they fade away quickly - that’s why observers can report only 3-6 items

Question 8

What does short-term memory do?

Answer 8

• an intermediate system in which information has to reside on its journey from sensory memory to long-term memory
• has a limited capacity to hold information

Question 9

Atkinson and Shiffrin’s (1968) theory

Answer 9

Proposes that as information is rehearsed in a limited-capacity short term memory, it is deposited in long-term memory

Question 10

Memory span of short-term memory

Answer 10

• the number of elements one can hold in short-term memory store
• it is usually around seven

Question 11

Is short-term memory distinct from long-term memory?

Answer 11

• different capacity limits - 7+2 does not apply to long-term memory
• damage to the medial temporal lobe (MTL) can cause severe amnesia (= impairment of long term memory) but it does not affect short-term memory

Question 12

Working memory

Answer 12

• a different way of characterising short-term memory
• overcomes many of the limitations of the short-term memory model

Question 13

Declarative memory (LTM)

Answer 13

• memories for facts and events
• you can explicitly remember these memories
• also called explicit memory

Question 14

Non-declarative memory

Answer 14

• memories that you cannot explicitly retrieve (e.g. motor skills)
• also called implicit memory

Question 15

Memory encoding

Answer 15

• the way information is processed affects how well it is encoded in long-term memory
• when info is processed in a deeper and more meaningful manner it will be better encoded

Question 16

depth of processing study Slamecka and Graf (1978)

Answer 16

Generate condition:
- what is a synonym of sea that begins with the letter o? (ocean)
- what is a rhyme of save that begins with the letter c? (cave)
Read condition:
- participants just read a rhyme pair or a synonym pair
Task:
recognition of the second word of a pair

Question 17

depth of processing

Answer 17

• synonym pairs were better recognised
• the generate condition yielded better recognition performance
• both are effects of deeper processing

Question 18

Incidental vs intentional learning

Answer 18

depth of processing, not whether one intends to learn, can determine the amount of material remembered

Question 19

Hyde and Jenkins (1973)

Answer 19

Group 1: judged whether a presented word contained letters e or g
Groupe 2: rated the pleasantness of the words
Half the participants were also instructed to memorise the words whereas the other half did not know that they would be tested on their memory for words

Question 20

Results of Hyde and Jenkins (1973) study

Answer 20

• The participants required to rate the pleasantness of the word recalled more words than those asked to check letters.
• Intention had no effect on memory

Question 21

Network of memory traces, Meyer and Schvaneveldt (1971)

Answer 21

• Participants were presented with pairs of words and nonwords
• They judged whether both items in each pair were real English words
• when two words in a pair were semantically related, participants made the judgement faster

Question 22

Network of memory traces

Answer 22

• memory traces are associated with each other (semantic and episodic info)
• activation of memory traces spreads from items currently or recently attended along paths of a network

Question 23

Interference effects - paired-associate learning experiment

Answer 23

• two groups of participants learn two lists of paired associates
• the experimental group usually performs worse when participants try to remember the A-B list
  (trying to memorise two overlapping lists (A-B and A-D) causes interference)

Question 24

Interference effects

Answer 24

• interference occurs only when one is learning multiple pieces of information that have no intrinsic relationship to one another
• in contrast, interference does not occur when the information is relevant, and can even be reversed
• learning relevant material does not interfere with a target memory
• facilitates the target memory (elaborative processing)

Question 25

Interference effects - famous people study

Answer 25

Participants learned little-known info about famous people - single condition: a target fact only - irrelevant condition: a target fact plus two unrelated facts - relevant condition: a target fact plus two related facts Task: participants were given names of the famous people and asked to recall the target facts

Question 26

Results of famous people study

Answer 26

single fact and relevant facts had better immediate recall results. Relevant facts had the best recall results after 1 week

Question 27

two theories of forgetting

Answer 27

the decay theory - memory traces decay as a function of time The interference theory - memory traces become less accessible due to increasing interference from competing memories - as time goes by, you learn more new things, thereby causing more forgetting

Question 28

Forgetting study Nelson (1971)

Answer 28

- participants learned, number-noun pairs (e.g. 43-dog) - 2-4 weeks later, they performed recall or recognition tests - they relearned the pairs they missed in test, but some of them were changed (e.g. 43-house) - they performed the memory test one more time

Question 29

Results from Nelson's (1971) study

Answer 29

- in the second test, unchanged pairs were recalled/recognised better than changed pairs - suggest that memory for missed pairs in the first test was not gone completely

Question 30

decay or interference?

Answer 30

- it is likely that forgetting does not just mean memories are gone - rather, interference should explain how memories can appear to be forgotten - eventually, it is hard to decisively determine whether memories have decayed or they are just being interfered

Question 31

Retrieval

Answer 31

- we make inferences at the time of memory retrieval - sometimes we are not even aware that we are making inferences rather than remembering what was actually studied

Question 32

Plausible retrieval

Answer 32

much of recall in real life involves plausible inference rather than exact recall

Question 33

Memory test for retrieval

Answer 33

exact: the heir married a lovely young women who had seemed to love him plausible: the heir got his french fries from his family's hamburger chain false: the heir was very careful to eat only healthy food Two conditions - exact recall - plausible retrieval

Question 34

memory test results

Answer 34

no delay: reaction time for exact recall was quicker than plausible retrieval 20 min delay: equal reaction time 2 day delay: plausible retrieval reaction time is quicker than exact recall

Question 35

Plausible retrieval

Answer 35

- people often judge what plausibly might be true instead of trying to retrieve exact facts - exact recall and plausible retrieval might be two different types of remembering - plausible retrieval might seem inaccurate, but in real-world settings it often works well

Question 36

False memory

Answer 36

- sometime we are required to clearly separate what we actually learned from our inferences (e.g. eyewitness testimony) - eyewitness are often inaccurate in the testimony they give

Question 37

False memory study, Loftus (1975)

Answer 37

- participants (who had witnessed a traffic accident) were asked about the car's speed when it passed a yield sign - however, there was no yield sign - many participants remembered having seen one

Question 38

source confusion

Answer 38

people confuse what they observe about an incident with what they learn from other sources

Question 39

non-declarative (implicit) memory

Answer 39

non-declarative memories cannot be consciously retrieved, but they manifest themselves in the form of improved performance

Question 40

procedural memory (skills and habits)

Answer 40

- implicit knowledge about how to perform tasks - shows up in amnesic patients - MTL is not critical for procedural memory - basal ganglia (and cerebellum) are important

Question 41

procedural memory study, Berry and Broadbent (1984)

Answer 41

- participants tried to control the output of a sugar factory by manipulating the size of the workforce - they saw a month's sugar output of the factory (e.g. 6000 tons) - they chose the number of workers for the next month (e.g. 700) - they were presented with the next month's output, and then chose the following months workforce Goal: keep the output between 8000 and 10000 tons

Question 42

Results of procedural memory task

Answer 42

- 60 trials - participants become good at controlling output - they were unable to state what the rule was and that their responses were on the basis of "some sort of intuition" (implicit procedural memory)

Question 43

Weather prediction task

Answer 43

- participants judged whether a given set of cards predicts sunshine or rain - they learned how to make correct predictions on a trial-and-error basis - a particular set of cards was associated with sunshine or rain either 75.57,43, or 25% of the time

Question 44

Weather prediction task participants

Answer 44

- amnesic patients who had extensive MTL damage - parkinson's disease patients who had damage on their basal ganglia but had intact MTL - neurologically-intact control participants

Question 45

weather prediction task results

Answer 45

- controls and amnesic patients predicted the weather better in later trials - parkinsons patients did not show similar improvement When asked about the task: - amnesic patients showed no memory of the task (procedural but not declarative memory) - parkinson's patients remembered performing the task very clearly (declarative but no procedural)

Question 46

Beilock et al (2002) study

Answer 46

- right footed experienced and novice soccer players dribbled through a slalom course two conditions: - skill-focused attention: participants paid attention to the side of their foot (inside or outside) that touched the ball while dribbling - dual task: they listened to a sequence of words while dribbling and repeated a target word when it occurred

Question 47

results of Beilock et al (2002) study

Answer 47

- when using participants non-dominant foot, dribbling time was shorter in the skill-focused condition than in the dual-task condition in both groups - when using dominant foot, dribbling time was: - Experienced players: dual task < skill-focused - Novice players: dual task > skill-focused

Question 48

Proceduralisation

Answer 48

- Skills are initially learned in an explicit fashion – As you learn them well, they will be automated (proceduralised) – The proceduralised representation allows for proficient execution because this representation is formed through extensive learning – Conscious attention to skill execution can make performance worse because it interferes with the proceduralised representation

Question 49

Priming

Answer 49

- An enhancement of the processing of a stimulus as a function of prior exposure to the stimulus - This enhancement takes place without conscious awareness

Question 50

Graf et al (1984) priming study

Answer 50

Amnesic patients and neurologically-intact control participants were tested Task 1: word recall - participants learned a list of words and then recalled them Task 2: word completion - they were presented with the first 3 letters of a word they had studies in task 1 and asked to make an english word using the first 3 letters - task 2 measured the percentage of completed words that matched the words presented in task 1

Question 51

Results of Graf et al (1984) study

Answer 51

- Amnesic patients performance on completion task showed that they maintained some memory for the studied words (couldn't explicitly recall) - Priming is a form of memory, which is dissociable from declarative memory - priming is different from procedural memory - doesn't require repetition

Question 52

Jacoby (1983) study

Answer 52

Participants learned words in three different ways * Word alone (e.g., woman) * In the presence of an antonym (e.g., man-woman) * Generate the word as an antonym (e.g., man-?) – Then their memory was tested in two different ways * Word recognition * Word identification

Question 53

results Jacoby (1983) study

Answer 53

explicit memory: generate had the highest rate of correct judgement followed by context and no context implicit memory: no context had the highest rate of correct judgement followed by context and generate

Question 54

Explanation of results of Jacoby (1983) study

Answer 54

- Declarative memory improved as the amount of elaborative processing increased, but non-declarative memory was best in the no-context condition - Priming was based on perceptual experience of seeing the words

Question 55

Neural mechanism of priming

Answer 55

- There is often decreased activity in cortical regions that corresponds to greater priming (e.g. when a picture is recognised faster due to priming it produced decreased activation in visual areas) - When primed, less activation is needed to tap into memory representations

Question 56

Conditioning

Answer 56

Learning and remembering through association (e.g. Pavlov's dogs)

Question 57

Unconditioned stimulus

Answer 57

a stimulus that inherently elicits a certain response

Question 58

Conditioned stimulus

Answer 58

through associative learning, a previously neutral stimulus starts eliciting the same response

Question 59

Extinction

Answer 59

in extinction, the original association is not extinguished; instead, it is just superseded by the newly created competing memory

Question 60

Appetitive Conditioning

Answer 60

– The conditional stimulus is paired with a pleasant reinforcing stimulus – Positive behaviour modulation * e.g., marketing and advertising

Question 61

D'Hooge et al (2017) conditioning study

Answer 61

– 111 participants viewed positive or negative scenes (happy or upset people) with either prominent or subtle brand placement – After viewing the scenes, participants rated the brands on their likability

Question 62

Findings of D'Hooge et al (2017) study

Answer 62

Brands placed prominently in positive scenes resulted in higher likability compared to those placed in negative scenes

Question 63

Fear conditioning

Answer 63

– The conditioned stimulus is reinforced with a negative unconditioned stimulus – Usually, things like a mild electric shock and a loud aversive noise (e.g., scream) are used as unconditioned stimuli – This gives the basis for modern exposure therapies for treating conditions like post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), anxiety, and phobias

Question 64

exposure therapy

Answer 64

- clients are gradually and repeatedly exposed to things that they fear - Through this repeated exposure in a safe environment, the clients acquire a new association between the things they are fearful of and a non-aversive outcome - The newly acquired association competes with and supersedes the conditioned response (i.e., extinction)