Test 1

Deletion in Central Executives

- "Delete" no longer relevant information - Some information that was previously relevant is no longer relevant - Things that have not been removed initially - Takes a certain amount of time for it to be removed - Clean the clutter that we do not need anymore - Access and deletion are important because they allow us to what is relevant--reduce distraction

Coglab Memory Span

- 3 stimuli--> digits, letters, and words (3 span tasks) - After a set of one of the stimuli is presented, we must recall them in the right order - All the span tasks were intermixed - Starting set size for each one was 3, if you passed the set size would increase by 1, if you failed it goes down one in next trial-- can get to a maximum set size of 10 - 30 trials, 10 for each type of stimuli Independent variable: - Type of stimuli, digits vs. letters vs. words Dependent variable: - How many you can recall in the right order Predictions: - Remembering more digits than the other two stimuli-- it is assumed that we have to recall more digits in our lifetime Our data supports the prediction significantly -- Remembered average set sizes of: Digits: 7.92 Letters: 7.33 Words: 4.50 - Anova Test (more than 2 variables) - Digits significantly better than words, letters significantly better than words, no significant difference between digits and letters

Episodic Buffer

- A component of the Baddeley Hitch model of working memory model that assumes a multidimensional code, allowing the various subcomponents of working memory to interact with long-term memory - Seems to be the 4th component of WM-- storage system that can hold around 4 chunks of information in multidimensional code - Suggested that information retrieved from this storage was conscious

Supervisory Attentional System (SAS)

- A component of the model proposed by Normal and Shallice to account for the attentional control of action - This is able to intervene, either in favor of one or other of the competing options or else to activate strategies for seeking alternative solutions - Crucial for SAS - In its absence people revert to habit-based control-- responding automatically to whatever is around - Connected to the frontal lobe

Raven's Progressive Matrices

- A fluid intelligence test - Does complex span performance predict fluid intelligence? - There is a correlation when removing the storage component--there is a need for attentional control, working memory capacity to perform well on these fluidity intelligence tests

Cogmed

- A memory training program presented in a format resembling a computer game - After people trained-- improvement in their Working Memory - Generalizable - Tested the improvement: Independent variable: which test they took Dependent variable: how well they performed Those who took the Cogmed test performed significantly better

Theories as Models

- A method of expressing a theory more precisely, allowing predictions to ma made and testes - Came about by the introduction of computers-- how did that change how we study memory ? - Experimentation - The computer metaphor--like human memory-- comprising of one or more storage systems

Free Recall

- A method whereby participants are presented with a sequence of items which they are subsequently required to recall in any order they wish - Depends on how fast you read the list and how you read the words

Masking

- A process by which the perception and/or storage of a stimuli is influenced by events occurring immediately before presentation (forward masking) or more commonly after (backwards masking) - Brightness Masking-- The degree of masking increases when the mask becomes brighter (or is presented closer in time to the stimulus) - Pattern Masking-- a mask comprising of broadly similar features to the target

Binding in Visual STM

- A process by which we combine separate features (say shape and color to create a red circle) - Can be tested showing participants a red triangle and then asking if the stimuli had red, or if it was a triangle, separating the two parts - They were asked in a shape only condition, in a color only condition and in a binding condition-- usually perform equivalently in each of the conditions showing that binding might occur automatically - In another experiment, they added an attentional task-- this did not seem to affect any of the conditions showing that binding occurs automatically but remembering it was not - Refers to the linking of features into objects or of events into coherent episodes-- Episodic Buffer might use this

Articulatory Suppression

- A technique for disrupting verbal rehearsal by requiring participants to continuously repeat a spoken item - It disrupts the rehearsal process-- not able to refresh the memory trace by subvocally pronouncing the remembered material - When using articulatory suppressing both similar and dissimilar items will be retained but at a lower and equivalent leverl

Long Term Recency

- A tendency for the last few items to be well recalled under conditions of long-term memory - Think the last few games you played in

Irrelevant Sound Effect

- A tendency for verbal STM to be disrupted by concurrent fluctuating sounds, including both speech and music - Compared to masking or auditory speech perception - In terms of music-- findings that music interfered with digit recall - Found that vocal music was more disruptive than instrumental music - Strong evidence that this effect is based on the disruption of memory for serial order

Verbal Learning

- A term applied to an approach to memory that relies principally on the learning of lists of words and nonsense syllables - Associations that were applied between the stimuli and the responses - Mapping phenomena

Short Term Memory Store (STM)

- A term applied to the retention of small amounts of material over periods of seconds -

Alternate Attention

- Ability to alternate our attention - Think Multitasking - Fixation Cross-- a way to make sure the participants pay attention to the screen

Key for the Central Exectives

- Access - Deletion - Restraint

Active Rehearsal in Visual STM

- Activation of brain activity increased with the increase in number of items presented - Unsuccessful trials tended to be correlated with lower activation - What is stored in visual STM?-- binding

5 operations of working memory associated with self-regulation

- Active representation - Executive attention - Goal shielding - Suppression of ruminative thought - Down-regulation of unwanted effect and craving

How to test that high span subjects have higher attentional control?

- Add a secondary task to their attention-- added a cognitive load - Impacted the high span subjects but did not affect the low span subjects - This proves the seperation of attentional control that is giving these high-span subjects an advantage

Glanzer and Cunitz-- affecting recency effect

- Affects recency but leaves primacy intact - They gave subjects a 15 item list of words, then subjects were to write down as many of the word they could remember - Divided the subjects into three groups (one that recalled the list right after exposure, one that had to count backwards from 100 for 10 seconds, and the third to count down for 30 seconds) - The results showed that counting backwards made the recency effect worse, but it did not impact the primacy effect - This can be referred to as a dissociation-- dissociating the recency from the primacy effect - Another experiment in the book: - If subjects were to backwards for 20 seconds between each item in the list and before and after the list was presented-- the recency effect re-emerged - Shows that there is a specific retrieval strategy

Sensory Input Process (Modal Model)

- All the information coming in

How do Phonological Loop and Visuospatial sketchpad work together?

- Articulatory Suppression (for the phonological loop) vs. Suppression for visuospatial sketchpad disruption (tapping a series of spatial locations) -- names of shapes were held in the phonological loop (disrupted by articulatory suppression) and that the creation of novel objects in sketchpad (disrupted by spatial suppression)-- good example of how they can work together - Both can disrupt each other - Object-based imagery-- can be disrupted with presented with irrelevant imagery

Echoic Memory

- Auditory sensory store - It is going to hold all of the sounds you just perceived for about 3 seconds - Very good evolutionary advantage-- interpret speech sounds and stringing them together - Example-- when you are listening to someone and then you are able to repeat what they just said because of your echoic memory

The Central Process (Modal Model)

- Being able to understand the flow of information from one store to another - The different sizes in the arrows shows the amount of information that flows from each store - Sensory Input - Attention - Rehearsal - Encoding - Retrieval

Corsi Span Task

- Block tapping task-- computerized Corsi Span Task - Tap two blocks, then must tap the same two blocks in the right order, then if you do that correctly, you add one to the set size - Tends to be 5 +/- 2 (a little smaller than the phonological loop)

Iconic Memory

- Briefly holds a visual representation of everything you are perceiving at that point in time - Think lighting-- it flashes for about 1 millisecond and then there are usually a few bolts, but our experience is that it looks like one bolt of lighting that lasts one second-- false - Tested by Light vs. dark during intervals - Indirect function-- forms part of the process of perceiving the world - Two early stages of process-- information read off retina and then fed to a more durable short term store

Schema

- Britain approach to understanding memory - Memory error in terms of cultural assumptions - Proposed by Bartlett to explain how our knowledge of the world is structured and influences the way in which new information is stored and subsequently recalled - Relied on much more complex tasks to study this

Evidence/Experiment on Echoic Memory

- Can be seen through recency effect-- the last words shown are likelier to be remembered - The recency effect is removed when there is another spoken word interposed between the stimuli - If there is not a speech based word-- such as a buzzer, there is no disruption to the recency effect

Selective Attention

- Choosing what stimuli to pay attention to - Your ability to attend to one thing and to ignore all of the irrelevant stimuli

Complex Span Tasks

- Complex span task-- must hold information, but always alternating your attention away from that information, and then alternating it back - Alternating your attention back and forth--carrying out two tasks and seeing if you can retain information from one of the tasks -Interesting because it varies among individuals -That variability has predictive values--correlated highly with many cognitive abilities (reading, language, comprehension, reasoning, intelligence tests, etc...)

Modal Model

- Consists of an architecture of stores and control processes (reflected by the arrows - Sensory store - Short term store - Long term memory - A term applied to the model of memory developed by Atkinson and Shiffrin (1968) - Type of memory as distinction

Evidence/Experiment for Iconic Memory

- Control-- presented with a visual array of 12 letters in 3 rows - Asked to recall on of the 3 rows after the stimuli were shown (without letting them know which line would be cued) -- Should test a total capacity of memory store when recall was tested immediately - A later experiment built off of this and tested the idea of the lighting between the intervals - Found that the brighter the light between intervals of these letters, the poorer the recall performance was-- process known as masking

Counting Span (Engell's)

- Display on the screen that has targets vs. distractors - Your task was to count those displays that are targets - All varying set sizes - Must give the count in each display in the order that they were presented

Operation Span

- Engle and Colleagues - Trying to measure the central executive by-- measuring attentional capacity - Your capacity for attentional good performance - Capacity to control your attention (to engage in inhibitory processing etc...) Simple tasks vs. Complex span task -That variability has predictive values--correlated highly with many cognitive abilities (reading, language, comprehension, reasoning, intelligence tests, etc...) - Correlation but we think these correlations as having predictive abilities

Non-Word Repetition Test

- Evidence for the fact that the phonological loop helps learn new languages - A test whereby participants hear and attempt to repeat back nonwords gradually increasing in length - Tested language impaired children, non impaired children of the same age and a group of 6-year olds who were matched for language development as the impaired children but with lower level of nonverbal performance (being younger) - Those with impaired language development performed the worse

Glanzer and Cunitz Experiment

- Experiment on primacy vs. recency effect - 2 experiments-- one that affected primacy and left recency intact, and one that affected recency and left primacy intact

Working Memory in Children and Education

- Findings on working memory are consistent with predictions on children - Low WM scores was associated with children were referred to as "dreamy" and "inattentive" -Many of these children were diagnosed with ADHD

Working Memory Capacity (defined by Engell's)

- Focussed on the central executive - Opens up with the idea that capacity refers to the ability to use attention to maintain or suppress information - It is not just memory store, but deletion, restraint, etc...

Retrieval

- Getting info out of memory

How to Test Restraint in the lab

- Habitual vs. Less common response - To perform accurately we have to go with the less common response - In order to do this, we must inhibit the habitual response - Think Stroop task - Think Simon says

Ebbinghaus

- He proved it was possible to experiment--moved away from psychophysics - He served as his own subject in these experiments - Used the nonsense syllable (devoid of meaning but verbally learnable aka zug) - Brought up the question of learning interacted with what we already know--associations - Verbal Learning

Retention

- Holding onto information - Consolidation--> make permanent

Major problems with 3 component Model of WM (central executive, Phonological loop, visuospatial sketchpad)

- How is linked to LTM - How do they interact? - 4th component to WM-- Episodic buffer

Encoding

- How we acquire information

Van Restroff Effect

- If the middle words in a list that you must recall are very distinct and salient, you might be able to remember the middle part of the list

The Inner Scribe

- In the Visuospatial sketchpad thought to be like the articulatory control processes in the phonological loop - Believes that there is an active rehearsal - Rehearsal is like redrawing and revisualizing something over and over again

Visual Cache

- In the visuospatial sketchpad-- thought to be like the phonological store - Temporary store and holds information for a few seconds and then that information decays

Rehearsal Process (Modal Model)

- Information in short therm store that can stay for longer if you rehearsed/repeated it until you no longer need it

Cristalized intelligence

- Intact information that is unchanging - Increases when we get older because we keep building on it

Why do we care about recency vs. primacy effect?

- It splits longterm memory (primacy effect) with short term memory (recent effect) - Shows us there is more than one type of memory-- people used to think of memory as a single system - Both of these systems are coming from one memory system-- independent systems - This means we can find manipulations that might affect the primacy effect but not effect receny and vise-versa

Sensory Store

- Large capacity - Short duration (1/2-3 seconds of time and then the information is lost) - Visual sensory store-- iconic memory - Auditory sensory store- echoic memory - Important because it allows you to decide which memory is important enough to move into the short term store - A term applied to the brief storage pf information within a specific modality

Benefits/disadvantages of Training Working Memory

- Little evidence that it generalizes to real-world environment - Durability of improvement is up for debate - Potential achievement of generalizability can be attained by looking at specific components in the Working Memory

Digit Span

- Maximum number of sequentially presented digits that can reliably be recalled in the correct order - Likely remember more than other span tasks

Who is better at spatial thinking?

- Men are better than women at spatial thinking - Those who report more vivid imagery have poorer performance on visual memory-- use vividness as a sign of accuracy - Spatial manipulation can be taught-- in a one day extensive course, the gender difference disappeared - Articulatory Suppression (for the phonological loop) vs. Suppression for visuospatial sketchpad disruption (tapping a series of spatial locations) -- names of shapes were held in the phonological loop (disrupted by articulatory suppression) and that the creation of novel objects in sketchpad (disrupted by spatial suppression)-- good example of how they can work together

Clive Wearing Memory

- Much of his memory capacity destroyed by disease - Could not store memory for more than periods of seconds - One part of Clive's memory was unimpaired-- the part concerned with music - This showed that memory was not a single simple system--had many different components

Stroop Task

- Name the font of the color - Need to inhibit the more Dominant response - Congruent condition vs. incongruent response (much harder Engell's: - Compared to when it was never congruent vs. congruent 50% of the time, and then congruent 75% of the time - Was hardest at 75% of the time-- low span did twice as many errors under these conditions than the high span - 0% and 50% congruency did not have different results between high vs. low span subjects - When they are never congruent--you are always restraining, whereas if there is 75% congruent-- it is hard to shift from inhibition to not - Works with restraint

Phonological Similarity Effect

- Occurs when presented with short list of items (7-10) and to remember the list and in the order they were presented-- working memory - Worse memory for items that sound alike (this is even true when the items are visually presented) - This is evidence for both of the components of the phonological loop because the articulatory control process has to make a sound based code-- this is why it is more likely to make mistakes when things sound similar - Must rehearse these sounds and can make sound based errors if they sound the same - A tendency for immediate serial recall of verbal material to be reduced, when the items are similar in sound - Decreases when the lists are increased in lengths-- this means that similarity of meaning becomes much more important - Thought to occur during retrieval-- when the items are read out from the short-term memory trace

Proactive Interference (Engell's)

- Old information that impacts the acquisition of new information - Example-- parking on campus, previous parking spots are making it hard for you to remember your new parking spots - They looks at relationship of proactive interference with working memory by: - They got 3 lists of 10 words - Then they had to do a filler test (a task to fill up time) and then test the memory - Then asked to retrieve as much information as they can - They did this a few times and with more set of 10 words you start to see proactive interference - Will be harder to remember more words with more lists - The high span subjects have higher working capacity, therefore attentional control, and they can then suppress and inhibit interference from the earlier lists-- they have lower proactive interference than the low span subjects and can recall more words from the following lists

Evidence for speech-based code

- Phonological Similarity Effect - Word Length Effect

Access in Central Executives

- Prevent irrelevant info from entering the Working Memory - Want to prevent access to relevant information - We want the content of consciousness to be only information and things that are relevant - "Bouncer" function

Semantic Coding

- Processing an item in terms of its meaning, hence relating it to other information in long term memory

Reading Span Task (Engell's)

- Read a series of sentences out loud, and all of them were presented with an unrelated word - They were then told to recall the unrelated word(s) in the order they were presented - All varying set sizes

Reasons why philosophical Approach has limitations for memory explanation

- Reliance on introspection and the capacity to report and reflect our on-going thoughts--not a reliable way of indicating how our mind works for 2 reasons: 1. People differ in what they experience 2. We are only consciously aware of small portion of out mental mechanisms - Therefore need empirical evidence

Memory Span

- Requires two things: 1. Remembering what the items are 2. Remembering the order in which they were presented - Easier when you use the process of chunking-- the number of chunks vs. the number of items

Attentional Controller

- Responsible for controlling our attention - There are multiple domains of attention - Focussing our attention - Selective attention - Divided attention - Alternate attention

Restraint in Central Executive

- Restrain inappropriate responses so suitable response can be made - In any given situation there are multiple responses you can make to the situation - One of these responses might be better response than the others - Want to inhibit the rest of the responses to get the best response to any given situation

Phonological Store

- Retains speech-based information for short period of time-- if not doing anything with that information, it can be lost in two seconds - Auditory speech is thought of as feeding right into the phonological store - Visually presented items can also feed into the store if they are nameable - Subvocal or vocal articulation-- being able to say the item to yourself

Gestalt Psychology

- Rooted in Europe and North America - An approach to psychology that was strong in Germany in the 1930s and that attempted to use perceptual principles to understand memory and reasoning - Study of perception to understand human memory - Focussed on internal representation rather than observation

Encoding Process (Modal Model)

- Smaller arrow (than attention)-- moving from short therm store to long term store - Filtering through the information to see which information might be transferred into the long term store - Rehearsal and encoding can be synonymous with each other

Attention Process (Modal Model)

- Smaller arrow than sensory input - It is determining the amount and type of information that is transferred from sensory story to short term store - Anything not attended to is simply lost/gone

Hofmann, Schmeichel & Baddeley 3 main components of Self-Regulation

- Standards of thoughts, feelings and behavior that individuals endorse mentally, represent and monitor - Sufficient motivation to reduce discrepancy between standards and actual state - Sufficient capacity to achieve this in light of obstacles and temptations in the way (the one related to working memory capacity)

Antisaccade Task (Engell's)

- Stare at a fixation in the middle of the screen-- and an attention seeking cue is flashed on one side of the screen, and then the stimulus is flashed on the other side of the screen and this is the stimulus you want to recall - Automatic and habitual response that your eyes want to look at the cue, but the target is going to appear on the other side of the task - Compared high vs. low WM span-- it slowed down people with low WM span more than those with high WM span-- even though it lowered performance in each group -- Those with lower span WM have lower attentional control than those high span subjects--better at inhibiting that automatic response- they have better restraint - Prosaccade task-- the cue will appear on the same side as the target

Long Term Store

- Stored representation of everything one knows and has experienced - Think instruments or what you ate for dinner last night etc... - Unlimited capacity-- enormous - Long duration-- memories that will stay with you your entire lifetime - A system or systems assumed to underpin the capacity to store information over long periods of time - Explicit vs. declarative memory and implicit vs. non declarative memory

Visuospatial Sketchpad

- Stores visual information (colors, shape, etc...) and spatial info (location, movement, sequences) - Visual working memory - Based on a series of discreet eye movements -Spatial question (where): Where was the yellow dot located on the line? - Object question (what): What shape was located on the line - Spatial memory reduced by movement and pattern memory reduced by color-- this can be seen when adding a potentially interfering activity between the stimuli -Corsi Span Task

Evidence of Working Memory as Mental Workspace?

- Studies of attention, individual differences on complex tasks - Memory Span

Retrieval Process (Modal Model)

- Taking information that is held from long-term store and pulling it into the short term store - Believed that information in the long-term store is passive (subconscious)

Fluid Intelligence

- Tasks that require you to think on your feet - Often can be times-- what you can do and how quickly you can do it - Think of puzzles, mazes.... - Raven's Progressive Matrices

The Short-Term Store

- Temporary, can hold information for about 18-20 seconds - Limited capacity--> holds 7 +/-2 pieces of information

Working memory span

- Term applied to a range of complex memory span tasks in which simultaneous storage and processing is required - Does an excellent job of predicting a wide range of cognitive skills, including performance on the reasoning tasks often used to assess intelligence

Visuospatial Sketchpad different from Phonological Loop

- Tested visuospatial Working Memory task with different interference (concurrent) tasks-- what is disrupted - Vandierendonck Corsi Block Tapping Task - We pair one of the tasks (say Corpsi Span Task) conducted concurrently with Task A

Object based Memory

- Tested with simple stimuli-- easily replicable - Ecological validity-- demonstrating laboratory findings in the real world

Central Executive

- The biggest evolution of our short term memory - Multipurpose processes - Think of attention - CEO of the system - Responsible for relaying information to the phonological loop and visuospatial sketchpad - Directs the phonological loop and visuospatial sketchpad - Coordinates/integrates info from phonological loop and visuospatial sketchpad -Keeps track of info, organizes info, sequence information (what came first, second, third....) Example-- N-Back task (2 Back test) - Attentional Controller - Working memory is assumed to be directed by central executive-- an attentional controller rather than a memory system Two modes control: 1. One of which is automatic and based on existing habits 2. Other depends on an attentionally limited executive Major functions: 1. Capacity to direct focus on task at hand 2. Dividing attention between 2 or more tasks-- evidence shown in studies with Alzheimer patients

Inter-Stimulus Interval (ISI)

- The interval time between stimuli

Chunking

- The process of combining a number of items into a single chunk typically on the basis of long-term memory - Shows how LTM can affect STM

Reductionism

- The view that all scientific explanations should aim to be based on a lower level of analysis: psychology in terms of physiology, physiology in terms of chemistry and chemistry in terms of physics

Similarities between Phonological Loop and the Visuospatial sketchpad

- The visuospatial sketchpad is structures in a way that parallels the phonological loop - Believes there is a storage component-- Visual Cache (just like the phonological store)-- Temporary store and holds information for a few seconds and then that information decays - Believes there is an active rehearsal-- the Inner Scribe (just like the Articulatory Control Process) The Evidence: -Looked for a visual similarity effect (similar to the phonological similarity effect) - We are going to have a shorter memory span for stimuli that are visually similar than though that are visually dissimilar - Tested this by showing strings of letters that are a mix of lower or uppercase letters - The task was to remember the letters in the right order and whether it was upper or lower case - The case of the letters makes the task visual because you have to remember how it looks

Psychological Theory

- Theories are like maps-- this was decided after much controversy of what a theory should look like between 1930-1950s - Each map serves a different purpose--different levels of explanation on different issues - Many of the theorists tended to agree with each other--but often used different terminology -

Glanzer and Cunitz-- affecting primacy effect

- This experiment they affected primacy but not recency - They manipulated the amount of time between each word in the list (inter-timulus interval) - First group-- the amount of time between each word was 3 seconds - Second group-- the ISI was 6 seconds - Third group-- the ISI was 9 seconds - Their results showed that it did not affect the recency effect and that the primacy effect was affected later in the list (2-3 words, not the first) - ISI is affecting the primacy effect-- as the ISI increases than the primacy affect increases as well - Another form of dissociation-- we can affect primacy without impacting recency

CogLab Operation Span

- This is considered a complex task (versus the simple tasks that we have seen to this point) -Must do a math problem (and read them outloud) and verify whether the answer is right or wrong, then we are shown a word, then another math problem (continues to alternate) -- then must recall the words in the right order - The set sizes were 2-6 (of words)-- while alternating between the math problems and the words - There were 18 trials-- the first 3 were practice trials, the next 15 were real trials (3 trials for set sizes, with 5 different set sizes)-- these were in randomized order - In terms of working memory-- must use the phonological loop -In terms of the central executive-- must switch between doing math and the order of the words (alternating attention) - Must hold and maintain information while also shifting our attention away from the sequence to perform the math problems - No independent variable-- nothing is being manipulated - Get scored on the math part of it-- also getting scored on whether or not we were able to recall sequence - We are scored on the sum of all the set sizes of all of the sets we got correct--the total score - No predictions and no independent variable Results: -Math accuracy: 98.73 - Operation Span: 48.77 (out of 60) Purpose of this task: - It is a nice individual measure of working memory capacity in terms of the central executive - There are substantial individual differences between central executive capacity -They want the math score to be above 83%-- they want to make sure you are actually paying attention to the math-- if you disregard the math it becomes a simple task (the word span task) - One sample T-test or Z-test to compare this sample and see if it differs significantly from this population

Frontal Lobe and the Central Executive

- Those with damage tend to have problems with attentional control - You can see this when people repeatedly perform the same task wing-- making the same mistake repeatedly - When people fail to focus attention and simply respond to whatever environmental cues are present-- utilization behavior - Associated with SAS-- dysfunctional SAS when frontal lobe does not function properly - Another function is to monitor behavior-- failure to do this leads to confabulation

Articulatory Control Processes

- Translates information into speech based code and deposits it into the phonological store - Refreshes a trace in the phonological store (rehearsal)

Hofmann, Schmeichel & Baddeley 3 Basic Executive Working Memory Functions

- Updating - Inhibiting - Shifting

Differenced between visual STM and LTM

- Visual STM has limited capacity - Differ in capacity - In ability to store complex stimuli - In encoding speed

Evidence in differing visual LTM and STM encoding speed

- Vogel presented arrays of one to four colored squares and interrupting the displays with a mask after delays ranging from 100-350 ms. - Participants were able to register at a rate of approximately 50ms per stimulus leveling off at around 2.5 squares _ LTM tends to benefit from longer exposure -- presenting stimuli for a longer amount of seconds

Modal Model and Primacy vs. Recency Effect

- Was designed to explain the primacy and the recency effect - Long term-- primacy; short term--recency - The primacy is used to show the processes that go into long-term store and the recency effect is used to show the processes that is used to get into short term store - This is why larger ISI leads to better primacy-- this is because you have more time for encoding and rehearsal-- there is more processing that each word can undergo - ISI does not effect recency effect-- counting backwards affects the recency effect because now the numbers are newly in your short term store instead of the items in the list - If you count backwards for 30 seconds, your short term store can only retain information for about 18-20 seconds, then you are given no time to rehearse the information and you forget the list - It does not affect the primacy effect because the words at the beginning of the list have already made it to the long term store - The middle words are in no-mans land-- Van Restroff Effect

Vandierendonck Corpsi Span Task

- We pair one of the tasks (say Corpsi Span Task) conducted concurrently with Task A - Had subjects conduct the Corpsi (block tapping task)-- but there were three groups Group 1-- Just have to do the task alone (control group) Group 2-- Do the task simultaneously, they have to engage in articulatory suppression (for example counting 1,2,3,4...) Group 3-- Do the task simultaneously with matrix-tapping task-- this task is like visuospatial version of articulatory suppression-- they have to tap certain spots on a screen over and over again--typing out a pattern Predictions: -Predicted that group 2 would perform worse than Group 1-- the phonological loop is taking care of the counting - Predicted that group 3 would be equally as bad as Group 2 as compared to Group 1 Results: - Group 1 and Group 2 do the same because Group 2 is using two different systems (the visuospatial sketchpad and the phonological loop) so there is no interference - Group 3 is going to do worse because it is using the visuospatial sketchpad for 2 tasks, and therefore there is interference in performance

Memory

- We think of memory as the mental store of information and experiences--> content - Can also be thought of as processes, structures, what goes into acquiring and recalling information - It underlies almost every aspect of our behavior - Encoding - Retention - Retrieval How do these 3 components interact?

Utilization Behavior

- When patient only focusses on what is environmentally present - Patient inhibitedly makes use of whatever is around - Ex-- drinking somebody's tea cup because the cup is present

Confabulation

- When people with damage to the frontal lobe cannot monitor properly - Recollection of something that did not happen

Word Length Effect

- Word Span Task - A tendency for verbal memory span to decrease when longer words are used - Short words recalled better than longer words - Critical-- how long it takes to say the word-- the longer it takes to say a word, the fewer words there are to remember The parts of the phonological loop that drive this are: - The rehearsal time - Articulatory control process - Longer takes to say a word-fewer times the word can be rehearsed -- reflexes the rehearsal process only - Articulatory suppression reduces world length effect - Occurs during both rehearsal and recall-- time based rehearsal process - Can be rested using articulatory suppression

Working Memory System

- You are aware and conscious of your working memory - Made up of the central executive, the phonological loop and the visuospatial sketchpad (short term memory) - A memory system that underpins our capacity to "keep things in mind" when performing complex tasks - Form of mental workspace - Assumed to be linked to attention and to be able to draw on other resources within short term and long-term - A system that not only temporarily stores information but also manipulates it so as to allow people to perform such complex activities as reasoning, learning and comprehension - STM forms part of the Working memory system

Double Dissociation

- You can dissociate in both directions-- aka we can dissociate recency from primacy and primacy from recency

N-Back Task (2-Back)

- You need both the phonological loop and the central executive loop - Need the central executive to keep track of the sequence and the organization of the items - If you want to do a visuospatial sketchpad version of n-back--abstract shapes that do not have a specific label to them - Factors from the inhibitory processing - Uses deletion (from the inhibitory processing from the central executive system) - Can also use restraint because we have the urge to say the same when we see two letters back to back are the same

Evidence for Similarities between Phonological Loop and Visuospatial Sketchpad

-Looked for a visual similarity effect (similar to the phonological similarity effect) - We are going to have a shorter memory span for stimuli that are visually similar than though that are visually dissimilar - Tested this by showing strings of letters that are a mix of lower or uppercase letters - The task was to remember the letters in the right order and whether it was upper or lower case - The case of the letters makes the task visual because you have to remember how it looks - They also focus on two categories of letters, those where the uppercase form of the letters look really different--they compared it to those with the uppercase and lowercase form look very different from one another - Created sets of letters that look similar or dissimilar Results: - Those in similar sets (similar upper and lower case letters) were not well remembered as those sets with dissimilar uppercase and lowercase letters

5 Influences on LTM in Free Recall (primacy effect)

1. Presentation rate: slower is better 2. Word frequency: familiar words are easier 3. Imageability of the words: words that are visualized are better 4. Age of the participants: young adults remember more than children or the elderly 5 Physiological state: drugs such as marijuana and alcohol impair performance

Functions of the Phonological Loop

2 Hypothesis: 1. It might have evolved to assist language comprehension 2. Phonological loop has evolved to help us learn language - A problem in the phonological loop can also impair learning to read and grammar Evidence for the 2nd hypothesis: - Looked at people with a phonological loop deficit - Tested this by trying to make PV to learn 8 new Russian words by associating them to her native language - The control participants were able to learn the new words by PV was not - To test this further, they added a disrupter to the phonological loop for all participants-- predicting that all participants would struggle like PV - When participants were told to repeat an irrelevant sound during learning-- it did in fact disrupt foreign language learning -- but had no effect on learning pairs in native language words _ in another study, they varied either the phonological similarity or the length of the foreign words - This impaired performance more substantially - Semantic coding - Non-word repetition test

How the 3 components of Human Memory interact?

Aka (encoding, storing, retrieval) - The method of registering material or encoding determines what and how the information is stored, which in turn will limit what can subsequently be retrieved

Model where Information comes in from Environment

Environment--> Sensory memory--> Short term Memory--> Long Term memory - used to be widely accepted in the 1960s - Too simple-- expanded to the modal model

Evidence in differing visual LTM and STM Capacity

Evidence-- Phillips presented participants with a series of checkboard patterns varying in complexity from 4x4 to 8x8 with half the cells white and the other half black - After about 0-9 seconds, a test stimulus followed that either showed an identical matrix or changed one of the box colors - One immediate test, the results were almost perfect, but declined over time with more complex patterns-- showing poorer performance Independent Variable-- size of the matrix and time till test stimulus was presented Dependent Variable-- How well they performed on the task - In another study, instead of the squares being black and white, they had colors--these colors could then be verbalized-- meaning they can be remembered non-visually - To prevent the verbalization-- participants had to repeat an auditory sequence (one, two three, etc...) - Performance declined as the number of squares increased-- but capacity was limited to 3-4 squares LTM has a larger capacity - Evidence: - Participants were shown 2560 color slides for 10 seconds each - Their memory was tested several days later by presenting 2 items, one that was categorized as "old" and one categorized as "new" -- participants were correct 90% of the time

Serial Position Curve

Scored subjects accuracy within a memory test with a list - What proportion of times did you correctly recall the item in a certain order - If it worked well, generally a U shaped position

Alzheimer patients and dividing attention (central executive)

Study 1: - Assessed the capacity to combine activities between 3 groups Group 1: Alzheimer patients Group 2: Elderly participants (control) Group 3: Young participants (control) The tasks: 1. Visuospatial tracking task-- Keeping a stylus on a moving light 2. Verbal task involved with digit span Then asked all groups to perform the tasks at the same time -- the control groups had a moderate drop in performance whereas Alzheimer patients dropped dramatically - The deficit did not occur with single-tasks but with dual tasks

Dichotic Listening Task (Engell's)

Subjects were getting auditory information going into both ears--they were to repeat the information that was given into one ear and inhibit the information given in the other ear - In the imaginary sound ear, their name was given - Those with low span subjects heard their name 65% more than the high span subjects because they were not able to inhibit their attention as well as those high span subjects - Works on access (vs. the other two that work with restraint)--must prevent access into central executive so that you stay unaware of the stimulus

CogLab for Phonological Similarity Effect

The task: - Presented with a series of letters (the stimuli) sometimes they sounded similar and sometimes they sounded different, also in some cases we were to count out loud before the stimuli was present or remain silent - The set size was 7 for every one trial - 8 trials within each type of the 4 conditions Predictions: - Similarity effect-- Prediction would be that we would do worse with the string of similar sounding letters - Articulatory Suppressing-- Would make performance worse for both similar and dissimilar sounding items-- equivalent performance in the end - It is supposed to make performance in the similarity effect decrease of disappear all together - Those processes that are used to create the phonological code and rehearsal is impeded when counting out loud before hand-- using the same speech mechanism-- interference, therefore performance suffers - Those dissimilar items (that usually have the advantage) go down when using articulatory suppression because of interference-- they then do as poorly as the similar items Independent Variables: - Similar vs. dissimilar items and suppressed vs. articulated Dependent Variable: - Accuracy of correct recall-- collected in proportion - It had an interaction effect-- one effect changes as a function of the other variable

What impairs working memory and therefore self-regulation

Things like: - Cognitive load - Ego depletion - environmental or environmental stressors - alcohol intoxication etc....

Phonological Loop

Verbal information-- speech like information - Forms part of the multicomponent of working memory - Assumed to have memory traces which can be refreshed with subvocal rehearsal which depends on a subvocal articulatory process Consists of two components: - Phonological store - Articulatory Control Processes