Cognitive Psychology Chp. 2

What does attenuation even mean? Where does attenuation occur? Why? What's a rutabaga?

An attenuator analyzes the incoming message in terms of physical characteristics, its language, and its meaning. Attenuation occurs in the dictionary unit which contains stored words and each has a threshold for being activated. Rutabaga isn't a word that's used often so its threshold is higher while a person's name will have a low threshold and is detected easily.

How do associations among ideas influence memory? Organization? Self-reference?

Associated Processes: attending, rehearsing, memorizing (encoding, storing), retrieval Paired-associate learning-a list of word pairs is presented, later the first word of each pair is presented and the person tries to remember the word it was paired with Organization- it's easier to organize stuff (i.e. organize words in a story Self-reference-relating things to yourself helps because you're linking it to what you already know Generation effect-generate an explanation (don't just memorize facts but explain why)

What are the differences in coding systems between STM and LTM? What kinds of research supports these distinctions?

Auditory STM- Conrad did a study where people saw a number of letters and were told to write them down in the order they saw them. When they made mistakes, it was mixing up letters that sounded alike rather than ones that look alike (F for S instead of F for E) Visual STM- Sergio Della Sala did research having participants fill in squares of matrixes. They could complete patterns consisting of about 9 shaded squares before making mistakes. Semantic STM-representing items in terms of their meanings. Wickens gave people lists of words to remember. First list would be something made up of fruits. Next list would be fruits, too and so would the third. For the fourth list, half of the people would then have a list of meat and the other half would get fruits. People would have a hard time remembering fruits because they already listed so many. People would find it easier to remember the meat because you're pulling from long term memory. Short term memory involves meaning and long term memory, it's not just acoustic. This experiment shows that words depend on categories and meanings. Proactive interference- the decrease in memory that occurs due to prior learning

What is Broadbent's filter model?

Broadbent's filter model of attention was meant to show how selective attention is achieved (messages, sensory memory, filter, detector, to short-term memory). This model has also been called the bottleneck model.

What is the duration of STM? How does the Brown-Peterson task work?

Brown-Peterson used recall to test duration of stm. 3 seconds. They would say 3 letters and then a number, person would count backwards by 3s from that number and then after delay would be asked what the 3 letters were.

What is change blindness? What does this tell us about attention and cognition?

Change blindness-the difficulty detecting changes in scenes. We naturally don't focus on everything. We are constantly missing environment stimuli.

What is task load? Why is this concept important in explaining the results of attention studies?

Cognitive load is the amount of a person's cognitive resources needed to carry out a particular cognitive task. Attention studies that involve low task loads only use small amounts of cognitive resources and will have better results.

What are cues? How do they function? How can you use this to advantage?

Complexity of coding is when the more you know or have read about something is the more likely you will be able to retrieve that information. The more cues you have (or the number of times you've heard it) the more times it has been encoded. Associating words with images.

Types of memory

Declarative memory- "knowing that" is conscious (completely aware of it), aka explicit memory Episodic memory-for personal experiences Semantic memory-dominant type of coding for LTM; memory for facts Implicit memory-aka non-declarative or unconscious; memories used without awareness; content can't be reported (one kind is classical conditioning) Procedural memory-type of implicit; aka skill memory; memory for doing things (i.e. ability to type)

What is the delayed response task? What is the PF cortex? Why is it important in short-term memory?

Delayed response task-task in which info is provided, a delay is imposed, and then memory is tested. Task used to study stm by testing monkeys' ability to hold info about location of food reward during a delay. Prefrontal cortex holds info for brief periods of time. Monkeys without this did worse. Funahashi found neurons that responded only when the square was flashed in a particular location and that these neurons kept responding during the delays. PF most closely associated with working memory.

What was Colin Cherry's dichotic listening study about? What does it tell us about attention?

Dichotic listening-done by Colin Cherry. People got two messages, one in each ear. The attended message is the message they are repeating. This is usually done easily. Shadowing is having someone listen to what's in the left ear and ignore what's in the right and then mumble what they were hearing in the left ear. Cocktail party phenomenon-when you're talking in a conversation and the place is full of noise and sound but you can hear your name from across the room.

What is the capacity of STM? What is chunking? Why is chunking important?

Digit span (5 to 9 items). 30 seconds before you start forgetting things. Mostly phonological. Chunking- small units can be combined into larger meaningful units, like phrases, or even larger units, like sentences, paragraphs, or stories. S.F. memorized numbers by chunking based on what he knew about running. Chunking enables the limited-capacity STM system to deal with the large amount of info involved in many of the tasks we do every day. Ericsson and chunking with S.F.

What is digit span? How is it measured? Why is it important?

Digit span-the number of digits a person can remember. It's measured by seeing how many numbers you can remember and write down in their order. Normal digit span is between 5 and 9. It shows how much short term memory can hold.

What is the encoding specificity principle?

Encoding specificity principle-the way you retrieve something is the way you encoded it; we learn info together with its context

What is encoding? Retrieval?

Encoding-the process of storing the number in long-term memory Retrieval-process of remembering info that's stored in long term memory

What experiment did Schneider and Schiffrin do?

Experiments required participants to 1. Hold info about target stimuli in memory and 2. Paying attention to a series of "distractor" stimuli and determining if one of the target stimuli is present among the distractor stimuli. Started with target number 3 or a letter. Distractors were always opposite of the target which is called consistent mapping condition because the participants knew this would happen. They tried to see if the target would be remembered. It took many repetitions to get better.

What was Donald Hebb's theory about memory and synaptic change?

Hebb believed that synaptic changes provide a record of experiences by strengthening the synapses by causing structural changes, greater transmitter release, and increased firing.

What is the role of the hippocampus in episodic memory? If the hippocampus plays a primary role in episodic memory, what happens to semantic memory?

Hippocampus is crucial for forming new LTMs. H.M. lost his ability to form new memories once his hippocampus was removed.

What did Eric Kandel contribute to our understanding of synaptic change?

Kandel-contributed the idea of long-term potentiation (LTP) which is enhanced firing of neurons after repeated stimulation. LTP is important because it shows that repeated stimulation causes not only structural changes but also enhanced responding.

What are late-selection models? What evidence supports late (rather than early) selection? Why throw stones at a bank?

Late selection models proposed that most of the incoming info is processed to the level of meaning before the message to be processed is selected. Throwing stones at a bank was in one ear while the other ear was hearing either "money" or "river" and it was found by MacKay that people were hearing what was in the other ear and decipher the message in correlation with the other word.

What is the levels of processing theory? What is deep processing? What is shallow processing?

Level of processing theory-idea that memory depends on how info is encoded, with better memory being achieved when processing is deep than when processing shallow Deep processing-involves attention to meaning and associated with elaborative rehearsal Shallow processing-involves repetition with little attention to meaning and is associated with maintenance rehearsal

What is the difference between location-based and object-based attention?

Location-based models of attention propose that attention operates on whatever stimuli are set at a particular location while object-based attention proposes that the enhancing effects of attention can be located on a particular object.

What is maintenance rehearsal? How does it influence LTM? What is elaborative rehearsal? How does it influence LTM?

Maintenance rehearsal-helps maintain info in stm/wm but it's not an effective way of transferring info into ltm; repeating something over and over to hold it in stm (telephone number) Elaborative rehearsal- when you take something and form a mental image to it or relate it to something you already know; good way to establish ltm by describing an approach to memory called levels-of-processing theory

How do sparklers and motion pictures help describe sensory memory

Persistence of vision-the retention of the perception of light in the mind. Being able to see the sparkler's path shows that it was still in your sensory memory for a fraction of a second.

Describe the 3 components of working memory? What evidence supports the phonological loop? The visuospatial sketch pad? The central executive? To explain all this, it helps to understand the following experimental tasks/results: phonological similarity effects, word length effects, and articulatory suppression effects.

Phonological loop, visuospatial sketch pad, and central executive. Phonological loop-consists of phonological store (limited capacity and holds info for a few secs) and articulatory rehearsal process (responsible for rehearsal that can keep items in the phonological store from decaying); holds verbal and auditory info; use when trying to remember a phone number or name. Visuospatial sketch pad-holds visual and spatial info; when you form a pic in your mind or solve a puzzle or find way around campus you use this Central executive-^ are attached to this; where the major work of working memory occurs; pulls info from ltm and coordinates activity of phonological loop and visuospatial sketch by focusing on specific parts of a task and switching from one part to another; main job is to decide how to divide attention between different tasks Working memory and the brain-something happens, followed by a delay, which is brief for working memory; then, if memory is successful, the person remembers what's happened

How does practice and automaticity affect attention? How is this concept important in life outside the laboratory?

Practice made it possible for Schneider and Schiffrin's participants to divide their attention to deal with all of the target and test items simultaneously. Many trials resulted in automatic processing which occurs without intention and at a cost of only some cognitive resources.

What is the neuropsychological evidence supporting the distinction?

Prefrontal cortex holds info for brief periods of time (working memory)

What is repetition priming? Why is it important?

Priming-a change in response to a stimulus caused by the previous presentation of the same or a similar stimulus (i.e. product placement being placed so you can recognize brands) Repetition priming-when the test stimulus is the same as or resembles the priming stimulus

What is retrograde amnesia?

Retrograde amnesia is when someone forgets their past. Retro means past.

Describe the 3 types of memory in the "modal model."

Sensory-initial stage that holds all incoming info for seconds or fractions of a second Short term-holds 5-7 items for about 15-30 seconds Long term-can hold a large amount of info for years or decades

What is the serial position curve? How do short-term and long-term memory help to explain the primacy effect? The recency effect?

Serial position curve- all things being equal, generally things at the beginning are easy to remember then things in the middle get a little harder and then at the end it's easier to remember again (i.e. word list on cog lab) Primacy effect- is explained by rehearsal and moving it to long term memory Recency effect- is because you're holding it in short term memory

What is state-dependent learning?

State dependent learning (place, mood, drugs)-strange experiments began with guy who invented working memory model, took a group of volunteers enrolled in scuba diving class, half sat in bleachers and had to memorize words, other group scuba dove to read words; found when you match encoding with retrieval then you get the best results. Principle that memory is best when a person is in the same state for encoding and retrieval (study drunk, take test drunk)

How does this chapter on attention fit into the top-down description of cognition? How does it fit with the bottom-up distinction?

Stimulus salience-the physical properties of the stimulus. This is bottom up processing because it depends on the pattern of light and dark, color and contrast in a stimulus. Top down is associated with scene schemas or an observer's knowledge about what's contained in typical scenes. People looking longer at things when they seem out of place shows that they use their knowledge.

What do brain imaging studies of humans show about working memory?

Studies show that those with high memory capacity (had better working memory) were more efficient at allocating attention from their central execs.

Modal model?

The Modal Model-proposed by Atkinson and Schiffrin; describes memory as a mechanism that involves processing info through a series of stages, including stm and ltm. Got its name because it contained features of many models that were being proposed in the 60s.

What is early selection? What is some evidence for and against early selection? What are some implications of early selection?

The early selection model is explains selective attention and believes filtering happens before the message is analyzed. This was proven wrong by Gray and Weddeburn's "Dear Aunt Jane" experiment and Moray's cocktail party effect with presenting the listeners name in one ear. According to Broadbent's model, info in the unattended message shouldn't be accessible to consciousness. Early selection theories of selective attention propose a filter that operates at an early stage in the flow of information.

What is consolidation?

The jello theory of memory. Consolidation takes place in the hippocampus, but not storage. Memories have to be put in the hippocampus and then sit there where they worked on at an unconscious level and then they get moved to a permanent location. It happens best during sleep. It's a biological process.

What is transfer appropriate processing? How was this illustrated in the laboratory? How does this apply to your studying?

Transfer appropriate processing- shows that memory performance is enhanced if the type of task at encoding matches the type of task at retrieval In an experiment, varies the type of task used for encoding and the task used for retrieval.

What is Treisman's attenuation theory?

Treisman's attenuation theory of attention-model of selective attention that proposes that selection occurs in two stages; 1. Attenuator analyzes the incoming message and lets through the attended message and 2. The unattended message but at a lower attenuated strength.

What is unilateral neglect? What does this tell us about attention?

Unilateral neglect-a problem caused by brain damage, usually to the right parietal lobes in which the patient ignores objects in the left half of his or her visual field. Attention causes distributed activity across the cortex.

What is the visual icon? Describe the basics of Sperling's classic studies (what is partial report? Whole report? A millisecond?)

Visual icon-aka iconic memory; short lived sensory memory registers all or most of the info that hits our visual receptors, but that this info decays within less than a second. Partial report-participants asked to report only some of the stimuli in a briefly presented display Whole report-participants asked to report all of the stimuli they saw in a brief presentation Sperling had a matrix and asked the participants at first to report all of the letters they could remember. He wondered if they couldn't remember because the image faded too quickly in the sensory memory. So he implemented the partial report and would cue a tone to tell the person which line they were to recite.

What are the problems with the modal model and viewing STM as an auditory storage system?

Working memory changes things. Short term memory involves meaning and pulling from long-term memory so it can't be just acoustic.

What is the role of task difficulty in the development of automaticity? In divided attention?

look up