Cognitive Psych Exam 2
capacity is not just
a function of number of items/chunks
The word-length effect shows that it is more difficult to remember
a list of long words than a list of short words.
episodic buffer
a storage component of working memory that combines the images and sounds from the other two components into coherent, story-like episodes
procedural memory
a type of implicit memory that involves motor skills and behavioral habits: tying shoes, riding a bike, playing a piano (gets better with practice, and does not need to be conscious to improve)
What process/processes schemas affect?
encoding, storage, and retrieval
decay
fading away of memory over time
serial position curve
graph depicting both primacy and recency effects on people's ability to recall items on a list
recency effect
tendency to remember words at the end of a list especially well: explanation says last words spoken are still in short term memory
George Miller - Magical number 7
the average is usually seven plus or minus two: so either five or nine
Central Executive
the control center of working memory; it coordinates attention and the exchange of information among the three storage components: more complex
sensory memory
the immediate, very brief recording of sensory information in the memory system
elaborative rehearsal/ Processing
the linking of new information to material that is already known; apply studying to your life/ teach to others
Digit Span (average)
the number of digits a person can remember 5-9
Shallow processing of a word is encouraged when attention is focused on
the number of vowels in a word
Memory
the process involved in retaining, retrieving, and using information about stimuli, images, events, ideas, and skills after the original information is no longer present
According to Brown and Kulik's concept of flashbulb memory, people now in their early 20s do not hold a flashbulb memory for the attacks of 9/11 because
in 2001 they were too young to realize how consequential the event was.
Sperling concluded
short-lived sensory memory registers all or most of the information that hits our visual receptors, but that info decays within less than a second
Godden and Baddeley (1975) "diving experiment (external cues)
showed the context-dependent learning mattered: People studied underwater and took test underwater but also on land and tested to see if there was a correlation between wear you encode and where you recall: the people whose conditions matched it was shown they did better on tests
Chunking
small units can be combined into larger meaningful units; collection of elements strongly associated with each other but weakly associated with elements in other chunks: for example CIA FBI USA
episodic memory
specific episodes/ personal experiences with a time and place stamp Truth of the memory is based on your personal belief
Goodwin and colleagues (1969) (internal cues)
state dependent learning: Medical students studied for tests while intoxicated versus sober and when it matched they did better.
encoding specificity
states that we encode information along with its context: going to grandma's house you remember things from years ago
retrieval cues
stimuli that aid the recall or recognition of information stored in memory
PL
systems of working memory holds onto verbal info "silent speech" that rehearse info Capacity limited by how much can be rehearsed
self-reference effect
tendency to better remember information relevant to ourselves (What word describes you?)
primacy effect
tendency to remember words at the beginning of a list especially well: explanation says subjects had time to rehearse the beginning and transfer to LTM
Memory as Reconstruction/ Schema based memory
you reconstruct your past experiences using your schema: Influence memory processes: Encoding, Storage, and Retrieval
Semantic can influence
The formation of Episodic memories: (the knowledge we have influences the way we interpret events in our life) like schemas
Modal Model of Memory
The model proposed by Atkinson and Shiffrin that describes memory as a mechanism that involves processing information through a series of stages, including short-term memory and long-term memory. It is called the modal model because of the great influence it has had on memory research.
iconic memory
a momentary sensory memory of visual stimuli
free recall
a procedure for testing memory in which the participant is asked to remember stimuli that were previously presented in any order: No cues or hints are given to help (for example a list of sentences)
Compared to the whole-report technique, the partial-report procedure involves
a smaller response set
visuospatial sketchpad
holds visual and spatial information: involved with visual imagery
When light from a flashlight is moved quickly back and forth on a wall in a darkened room, it can appear to observers that there is a trail of light moving across the wall, even though physically the light is only in one place at any given time. This experience is an effect of memory that occurs because of
iconic memory
Memory is not
only of events in your life
Verbal stimuli with Verbal Task
overloads the Phonological loop
Slamecka and Graf generating information
pairing words: lamp-shade Active learning better than passive learning
The most common type of coding in short term memory
phonological coding: auditory/ verbal
Encoding
the processing of information into the memory system
long-term memory
the relatively permanent storage of information
An item on an implicit memory test would most likely resemble which of the following?
"Fill in the following with the first word that comes to mind: T _ _ E."
The key to remembering is
Connections
Imagery
Images help create connections Interactive images help memory
According to the levels of processing theory, which of the following tasks will produce the best long-term memory for a set of words?
Making a connection between each word and something you've previously learned
Schema
an organized mass of past experience Set of knowledge you use your schema during input and recall to make sense and process
Things not consistent with a schema
are not easily remembered
echoic memory
auditory sensory memory
You have been studying for weeks for a nursing school entrance exam. You love the idea of becoming a nurse, and you have been enjoying learning about the material for your exam. Each night, you put on relaxing clothes and study in the quiet of your lovely home. Memory research suggests you should take your test with a _____ mind set.
calm
Long term memory
can hold a large amount of information for years or even decades
forced choice recognition
choose one item among several where only one is correct (multiple choice or matching)
phonological similarity effect
confusion of letters or words that sound similar: you confuse F with X when you hear it but not when you see it
According to the _____ approach to memory, what people report as memories is based on what actually happened plus additional factors such as other knowledge, experiences, and expectations.
constructive
Bartlett's experiment in which English participants were asked to recall the "War of the Ghosts" story illustrated the
constructive nature of memory.
Memory for a word will tend to be better if the word is used in a complex sentence (like "the bicycle was blue, with high handlebars and a racing seat") rather than a simple sentence (like "he rode the bicycle"). This probably occurs because the complex sentence
creates more connections.
cued recall
cues and hints given to help retrieval ( fill in the blank)
Peterson and Peterson studied how well participants can remember groups of three letters (like BRT, QSD) after various delays. They found that participants remembered an average of 80 percent of the groups after 3 seconds but only 10 percent after 18 seconds. They hypothesized that this decrease in performance was due to _____, but later research showed that it was actually due to _____.
decay; interference
organization
grouping things in your memory to better remember them: plum, grape, apple elaborative deep encoding linking new info to prior knowledge Provides support for new info and cues for how to find it
phonological store
has a limited capacity and holds information for only a few seconds
Baddeley's working memory model three components
1. Phonological loop 2. Visuospatial sketchpad 3. Central Executive Explained dynamic processes involved in cognitions and two tasks simultaneously
What is a difficulty in studying flashbulb memory?
Accuracy is measured by consistency between reports.
The war of ghosts
An experiment where participants read a short story and then recalled what happened and tried to be as accurate as possible
Encoding is better for
elaborated info
According to the levels of processing theory, memory durability depends on how information is
encoded.
Two types of declarative memory are _____ and _____ memory.
episodic; semantic
A lesson to be learned from the research on flashbulb memories is that
extreme vividness of a memory does not mean it is accurate.
Priming effects
facilitated processing of a previously presented stimulus ( saying bird and getting the people to fill in the bird blank)
Deep processing
focused on meaning and connections with existing knowledge
semantic memory
general information with no time or place stamp: this could be accurate or inaccurate information (the source is forgotten)
retrieval success depends on
good connections
Research shows that _____ does not improve reading comprehension because it does not encourage elaborative processing of the material.
highlighting
What approach did Bartlett use to study memory?
qualitative, using correspondence between the actual story and its recall
Bartlett shifted from what to what
quantitative to qualitative
The primacy effect is attributed to
recall of information stored in LTM.
This multiple choice question is an example of a ____ test.
recognition
correspondence
they compared what they wrote to the original piece
Motivation of money
told before studying they'd get money told after studying they will get money not told about money The results were not different
Memory performance is enhanced if the type of task at encoding matches the type of task at retrieval. This is called
transfer-appropriate processing
Episodic can be
used to infer semantic: (use your experiences to guess the facts of the world)
Memory does not work like a
video recorder
Brown-Peterson Paradigm
1. People were presented with 3 consonants 2. Next they were given three digit numbers and to count backwards by threes: for example 213, 210,207, ect 3. Then they were to recall the sequence of consonants in intervals varying from 3s to 18s
three parts of modal's model
1. Sensory memory 2. Short-term memory 3. Long-term memory
The effective duration of short-term memory, when rehearsal is prevented, is approximately
15-20 seconds
Duration of short term memory
15-20 seconds or less
How many items held in STM/ capacity?
4-9 The greater amount of information in an image, the fewer items that can be held in visual short term memory
The "magic number," according to Miller, is
7 plus or minus 2.
phonological loop two components
A slave system that briefly holds verbal and auditory info: stores memory and repetition to refresh trace phonological store and articulatory rehearsal process
maintenance rehearsal
A system for remembering involving repeating information to oneself without attempting to find meaning in it: over and over again
What eliminates the word length effect and why?
Articulatory suppression eliminates the word length effect because saying "the" over and over prevents the rehearsal of the little words so there is no effect between short and long words
Rogers et al. (1977)
Asked does this word describe you? it revealed the self reference effect
Brown and Kulik (1977) FBM
Asked people if they remembered the JFK assassination: however no accurate empirical evidence
Encoding (Schema Theory)
Based on what schema is active, directs attention, captures information, extracts gist
Testing
Being tested improves memory
conway's 1994 consequentiality study
British: more accurate memory after one year because it was more consequential to them then to Americans
They work together
Episodic is the gateway to Semantic: When you learn something broad you forget the source but remember the fact)
Regarding free recall of a list of items, which of the following will most likely cause the recency effect to disappear?
Counting backward for 30 seconds before recall
Craik and Tulving (1975)
Different levels of processing: 1. physical characteristic shallow 2. rhyming deeper 3. fill-in-the-blank deepest This experiment didn't really prove much because it could be argued either way which one was deeper or not
Neurological evidence for two types of declarative memory
Frederick was a golfer who had okay semantic memory: he had okay semantic memory but could not remember personal experiences Italian woman: had some personal memories, but could not remember certain facts and words and people's faces
Tulving (1975)
Gave people a list of words and the people who organized the most remembered the best
Brewer and Treyens (1981) "office"
Had experimenters wait in the office and then took them away and had a surprise test asking what was in the room
Neisser's response
He hypothesized that self-narrative was what kept the stories going. Emphasis on retelling
If basketball legend Shaquille O'Neal wanted to remember his 16-digit credit card number, which of the following memory techniques would you recommend?
He should think of the numbers as a sequence of basketball statistics.
Which of the following is NOT an example of semantic memory?
I remember the day we learned about how talking on cell phones can impair driving ability.
decay vs interference Forgetting can be due to
INTERFERENCE They said people have a harder time doing 18 seconds because of decay: however, a new researcher proposed that it's due to interference after a long time doing trials you get confused and so its not due to decay and time but getting confused
Intentional Results
It doesn't make a difference what they were told: whether it was incidental or intentional the processing was the same
Flashbulb memory is best represented by which of the following statements?
It is memory for the circumstances surrounding how a person heard about an emotional event that remains especially vivid but not necessarily accurate over time.
Dual Task Logic
It's used to test the function of short term memory: for example presenting a string of numbers, read a paragraph and then recall the numbers
simple recognition
Judging accuracy of given information (true or false)
shallow processing
Little or no attention to meaning or connections with existing knowledge
Given what we know about the operation of the phonological loop, which of the following word lists would be most difficult for people to retain for 15 seconds?
MAC, CAN, CAP, MAN, MAP
implicit measures
Measures memory indirectly: like incidental learning maybe
Implicit memories
Memories we are not aware of: consist of Procedural memory, Priming, and Conditioning
generation effect
Memory for material is better when a person generates the material him- or herself, rather than passively receiving it.: creating an image in their head like a boat on a tree: remembers more than just repeating it
flashbulb memory
Memory for the circumstances in which one first learned of a surprising and consequential event
Main claim of FBM
Memory is frozen forever in a picture unaffected by time; vivid memory
Simultaneous Evidence
Neuroscientist show brain activation in both sections of the brain
Storage (Schema Theory)
New info is stored with schema Updated by later additions schemas constantly changing
Is repetition enough to store in LTM??
No bitch... You become fluent in one situation but you did not learn the material
Does it matter if you are trying to learn information?
No it matters what you do
Are FB memories different from ordinary memories?
No, the only difference between ordinary and FB memories is that people are highly confident that they remember the Flashbulb memories right even though they don't
Mantyla (1986)
People were presented with 600 nouns and they were told to write down three words that reminded them of each singular noun A surprise test asking them to recall words by showing the three words: incidental learning showed that 90% of the 600 nouns could be recalled 55% when the cues were made from someone else 17% with no cues
Brown and Peterson Results
People who only counted fro 3 seconds recalled 80% correctly People who counted for 18 seconds recalled 12% correctly
Hyde and Jenkins (1973)
Rating and recall involving different levels of processing (pleasantness, frequency in language, occurance of letters etc.) Shallow: if there was an e or g Deep: pleasantness More people remembered the pleasantness
Which of the following involves procedural memory?
Reading a sentence in a book
Retrieval (Schema Theory)
Reconstruction is a combination of what remains and the schema information
persistence of vision
Refers to the way our eyes retain images for a split second longer than they actually appear, making a series of quick flashes appear as one continuous picture: like seeing a sparkler
Test-Retest Paradigm
Researchers compared the accounts of men and women who talked about JFK's assassination over years and there were many inconsistencies and errors
Difference between short term memory and working memory
STM is concerned with storing info for a brief period of time Working memory is manipulating info (remembering a sentence in a conversation)
Which of the following is NOT an example of an implicit memory?
Semantic memory
Verbal stimuli with Spatial Task
Share responsibility to perform so performance does not suffer
Bartlett's criticism
So Ebbinghaus wanted to focus on the forgetting curve so he took away the meaning but he got criticized for this because there is meaning in everything Bartlett argued against simple stimuli (nonsense syllables) Cannot study memory in isolation Memory depends on making sense of information
Neuropsychological evidence for there being STM and LTM
Some people have good long term memory, but can't make new memories: Clive Wearing only had 1 minute span could not encode new info
Brooks review: in a task involving verbal stimulus what is easier?
Spatial response
double dissociation
Suggests that the conscious part of the long term memory has two parts that co-exsist
Intrusions
The parts of the story they added to fill up the space and rationalize pieces of the story, based on schemas
Omissions
The parts of the story they left out
Office experiment results
There were no books in the office but students remembered books Reports were a mix of what they saw and expectations of their schemas
Intention Testing
There will be a test versus incidental learning
What happens when experimenters made people count backwards from 30 seconds after saying list of words?
They prevent the rehearsal of the last words and take the last couple words out of the short term memory which eliminates the recency effect
declarative memory (two types)
This a part of long term memory that is conscious and can be brought to the mind and used in many ways Episodic and Semantic
Roediger and Karpicke (2006)
Two groups read passage had a distraction, then half were told to reread the passage and the other was told to recall People who were tested improved over time
Sperling's experiment on sensory memory (partial report method)
Was shown a list of rows of 12 letters Then heard tone telling them which row after it was already gone and people were able to remember
People often report an annoying memory failure when they walk from one end of the house to the other for something and then forgetting what they went to retrieve when they reach their destination. As soon as they return to the first room, they are reminded of what they wanted in the first place. This common experience best illustrates the principle of
encoding specificity
The emphasis of the concept of working memory is on how information is
manipulated
Morris et al. (1977)
meaning or rhyming condition Memory for meaning was 33% Memory for rhyming was 49%
Explicit measures
measures memory overtly: so subjects know they are being tested for memory retrieval
levels of processing theory
memory depends on the depth of processing that an item receives
word length effect
memory for lists of words is better for short words than for long words: experiments showed people remembered 77% of short word lists and 60% of long words This occurs because it takes longer to rehearse the long words and produce them during recall Longer words fill up the phonological loop capacity
transfer-appropriate processing
memory is enhanced if the type of task at encoding matches the type of task at retrieval
Eich and Metcalfe (1989) internal cues
mood dependent learning Studied sad/ happy Test sad/ happy when it matched they had better recall
Neisser proposed that
narrative rehearsal explains flashbulb memory.
Tulving and Pearlstone (1966)
presented people with a list of words one group had cue recalls other group was just normal
articulatory suppression
reduces memory because speaking interferes with rehearsal: saying "the, the, the, the, the," while reading becomes hard because it overloads the phonological loop
Coding
refers to the form in which stimuli are represented
A patient with impaired episodic memory would most likely have the greatest difficulty in
remembering where a best friend had moved.
Elaborative rehearsal of a word will LEAST likely be accomplished by
repeating it over and over.
Serial recall
reproducing information from memory in the order in which it was learned
articulatory rehearsal process
responsible for rehearsal that can keep items in the phonological store from decaying
Experiences of how memories, even ones from a long time ago, can be stimulated by locations, songs, and smells highlight the importance of ____ in LTM.
retrieval cues
Articulatory suppression causes a decrease in the word-length effect because
saying "the, the, the" fills up the phonological loop.
In the experiment in which participants sat in an office and then were asked to remember what they saw in the office, participants "remembered" some things, like books, that weren't actually there. This experiment illustrates the effect of _____ on memory.
schemas
Most common type of coding in long term memory
semantic/ meaning
Sensory memory
the initial stage that holds all incoming information for seconds or fractions of a second
short-term memory
the system involved in holding small amounts if info for a small period of time: can hold 15-20 seconds
Mental Coding can be (3 things)
visual, phonological, or semantic
The defining characteristic of implicit memory is that
we are not conscious we are using it.
