Cognitive Exam 2 - Essay Questions
Your text describes the process of consolidation regarding forming memories in the brain. Early research on consolidation led to the proposal of the standard model of consolidation. Begin your essay by explaining what the standard model claims about the role of the hippocampus in consolidation and the experimental results to support it. Then, describe the more recent research and experimental results that pose a challenge to the standard model.
Consolidation is defined as "the process that transforms new memories from a fragile state, in which they can be disrupted, to a more permanent state, in which they are resistant to disruption". The standard model of consolidation proposes that "incoming information activates a number of areas in the cortex". Experimentation that this was based off of was based off observation of sports injuries and the amnesia that can come from them. According to the standard model, the hippocampus is strongly active when memories are first form and initially recalled but becomes less involved as memories are consolidated, until eventually the connections between cortical areas themselves are sufficient to retrieve memories. Then in opposition to the standard model, the multiple trace model of consolidation says that the hippocampus is involved in retrieval of episodic memories even if they're from a very long time ago. Experimental evidence for this comes from Asaf Gilboa and coworkers (2004), which used old photographs of the participants. The results of this study showed that the hippocampus was activated during retrieval of both recent and old episodic memories.
An important application of memory research has been in understanding the nature of eyewitness testimony. Citing the research in your text, explain why people make errors in eyewitness testimony.
Eyewitness testimonies are testimonies by a person who was present at the crime about what he or she saw during commission of the crime. The acceptance of eyewitness testimony is based on two assumptions: (1) the witness was able to see the altercation clearly and (2) they are able to articulate and remember what they really saw accurately in order to identify the criminal correctly. There are many errors that can occur with eyewitness testimonies. There can be errors associated with perception and attention, as shown by the experiment by Wells and Bradfield (1998) that showed that when people are shown a video with a gunman in view for 8 seconds and then asked to pick him out of a group of pictures they were unable to recognize that the gunman was not in the lineup. There can also be misidentifications due to familiarity, which is shown by an experiment by Ross et al. (1994) which showed that subjects in his experimental group were three tis more likely to pick the male teacher than were subjects in the control group because they had seen the male teacher before. Another error that can occur are errors due to suggestion, which were examined by Gary Wells and Amy Bradfield (1998) which indicated that memory recall can be influenced depending on the wording of a question.
Compare and contrast levels-of-processing theory with transfer-appropriate processing. Describe experimental results for both and highlight their significance to our understanding of memory.
Levels-of-processing theory states that memory depends on the depth of processing an item receives (the difference between shallow processing & deep processing; little attention to meaning verses close attention). Craik and Endel Tulving (1975) did an experiment that tested the subjects' different levels of processing (ex: physical features of a stimuli were examined which used shallow processing) and then were tested on this information. The results of the experiment showed that deeper processing is linked with better memory. Transfer-appropriate processing demonstrates that matching conditions during encoding and retrieval improves performance. Donald Morris and coworkers (1977) did an experiment that showed that transfer-appropriate processing works through showing that retrieval is better if the same cognitive tasks are involved in both encoding and retrieval. The results showed that memory was better for those people who focused on what was tested on when studying the information.
Much attention has been focused on the misinformation effect because it provides a powerful demonstration of how suggestion can distort our memory for events. Define this effect and discuss how it has been demonstrated. Then, explain three mechanisms proposed to account for the misinformation effect, describing the experiments that have been done to test these mechanisms.
The misinformation effect is misleading information presented after a person witnesses an event can change how the person describes that event later. This has been expressed through experiments about how specific words suggest specific things to our memories. An experiment by Elizabeth Loftus and coworkers (1978) showed that the way things are worded changes how we recall a memory. The misinformation effect shows not only that false memories can be created by suggestion but also provides an example of how different researchers can interpret the same data in different ways. One explanation for the MPI effect proposes that the original information is forgotten of retroactive interferences, which occurs when more recent learning interferes with memory. Titcomb and Reyna's experiment (1995) came to the conclusion that exposure to MPI could interfere with remembering what happened when you originally viewed a stimulus. Another explanation for this effect is based on the idea of source monitoring. Stephen Lindsay (1990) looked at whether subjects who are exposed to MPI really believe they saw something that was only suggested to them. The results indicated that 27% of the responses of subjects in the difficult condition corresponded to the incorrect information in the misleading narrative.
Define working memory. Explain the functions of each of the three components of working memory and provide experimental evidence for the phonological loop, making sure you describe 1) the phonological similarity effect, 2) the word-length effect, and 3) articulatory suppression:
Working Memory is a limited-capacity system for temporary storage and manipulation of information for complex tasks such as comprehension, learning, and reasoning. The three components of working memory are the phonological loop, the visuospatial sketchpad, and the central executive. The central executive is the component that makes memory "work", because it is the control system and coordinator of working memory. The visuospatial sketchpad is involved in visual imagery, which is the creation of visual images in the mind in the absence of a physical visual stimulus. The phonological loop consists of two components: the phonological store (limited capacity and holds information for only a few seconds) and the articulatory rehearsal process (responsible for rehearsal that can keep items in the phonological store from decaying). There have been three phenomena that affect the phonological loop: the phonological similarity effect, the word length effect, and articulatory suppression. The phonological similarity effect is the confusion of letters or words that sound similar and R. Conrad (1964) did research on this that showed that if people messed the letters up then they typically said a letter that sounded like the target letter. The Word-Length effect occurs when memory for lists of words is better for short words than long words. Baddeley and coworkers (1984) did research on this topic that showed that people are able to remember of items that they can pronounce in 1.5-2.0 seconds. Articulatory Suppression is the effect in which repetition of an irrelevant sound results in this phenomenon that reduces memory because speaking interferes with rehearsal. This is also based on experiments by Baddeley and coworkers (1984) who found that repeating "the, the, the, the..." not only reduces the ability to remember a list of words, but it also eliminates the word length effect.