PSY 322 EXAM 2

What is memory?

The processes involved in retaining, retrieving, and using information about stimuli, images, events, and skills after the original information is no longer present

Long term memory: visual

Visualizing what the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., looked like when you saw it last summer

Episodic Buffer

Backup store that communicates with long-term and working memory components Hold information longer and has greater capacity than phonological loop or visuospatial sketch pad

Working Memory

Baddeley and Hitch Limited-capacity system for temporary storage and manipulation of information for complex tasks such as comprehension, learning, and reasoning

visuospatial sketchpad

Brooks (1968) Memorize sentence and then consider each word (mentally) Response is either Phonological: say "yes" if it is a noun and "no" if it is not Visuospatial: point to Y if word is a noun and N if word is not Shepard and Metzler Creation of visual images in the mind in the absence of a physical visual stimulus Mental rotation task

Episodic vs. semantic memory

Episodic: Mental time travel can be lost Semantic: General knowledge, facts can be enhanced if associated w/ episodic

Short term memory: Visual

Holding an image in the mind to reproduce a visual pattern that was just seen (Della Sala et al., 1999.)

Modal Model Short Term Memory

Includes both new information received from the sensory stores and information recalled from long-term memory Chunking: small units can be combined into larger meaningful units Ericsson and co.: Trained a college student with average memory ability to use chunking Chase and Simon: Memory for chess pieces on a board. Re. (a) The chess master is better at reproducing actual game positions. (b) Master's performance drops to level of beginner when pieces are arranged randomly

Maintenance vs elaborative rehearsal

Maintenance: Repetition of stimuli that maintains information but does not necessarily transfer it to LTM Elaborative: Using meanings and connections to help transfers information to LTM

Serial Position curve

Memory better for stimuli presented at beginning Primacy effect gave more time to rehearse information, more likely to enter long-term Memory better for stimuli presented at end of list Recency effect: Stimuli still in STM

Implicit Memory

Occurs when learning from experience is not accompanied by conscious remembering

Phonological Loop

Phonological similarity effect Letters or words that sound similar are confused Word length effect Memory for lists of words is better for short words than for long words Takes longer to rehearse long words and to produce them during recall Articulatory suppression Speaking prevents one from rehearsing items to be remembered Reduces memory span Eliminates word length effect Reduces phonological similarity effect for reading words

Short term memory: semantic

Placing words in an STM task into categories based on their meaning (Wickens et al., 1976)

Long term memory: semantic

Recalling the general plot of a novel you read last week (Sachs)

Long term memory: auditory

Repeating a song you have heard many times before, over and over in your mind

Short term memory: auditory

Representing the sounds of letters in the mind just after hearing them (Conrad, 1964)

Working Memory vs. STM

STM holds information for a brief period of time WM is concerned with the storage, processing and manipulation of information, and is active during complex cognition

Coding in long term memory

Semantic coding in long term memory Recognition memory: identification of a previously encountered stimulus

Patient H.M.

Surgery removed hippocampus Retained short term memory (STM) but unable to transfer info to long term memory (LTM) Unable to form new LTM's

Schrauf and Rubin's "two groups of immigrants" study found that the reminiscence bump coincided with periods of rapid change, occurring at a normal age for people emigrating early in life but shifting to 15 years later for those who emigrated later. These results support the a. cognitive hypothesis. b. self-image hypothesis. c. narrative rehearsal hypothesis. d. autobiographical hypothesis.

a. cognitive hypothesis.

The primacy effect is attributed to a. recall of information stored in LTM. b. a type of rehearsal that improves memory for all items in a list. c. recall of information still active in STM. d. forgetting of early items in a list as they are replaced by later items.

a. recall of information stored in LTM.

Articulatory suppression causes a decrease in the word-length effect because a. saying "the, the, the" fills up the phonological loop. b. saying "la, la, la" forces participants to use visual encoding. c. talking makes the longer words seem even longer. d. elaborative rehearsal helps transfer information into LTM

a. saying "the, the, the" fills up the phonological loop.

Shallow processing of a word is encouraged when attention is focused on a. the number of vowels in a word. b. the meaning of a word. c. the pleasantness of a word. d. the category of a word.

a. the number of vowels in a word.

Encoding

acquiring information and transforming it into memory

The following statement represents what kind of memory? "The Beatles stopped making music together as a group in the early 1970s." a. Episodic b. Semantic c. Procedural d. Implicit

b. Semantic

Bransford and Johnson's study had participants hear a passage which turned out to be about a man on the street serenading his girlfriend in a tall building. The wording of the passage made it difficult to understand, but looking at a picture made it easier to understand. The results of this study illustrated the importance of _______ in forming reliable long-term memories. a. implicit memory during learning b. an organizational context during learning c. deep processing during retrieval d. imagery

b. an organizational context during learning

An example of a dissociation is evidenced by a brain-injured patient who a. shows a significantly reduced digit span. b. cannot recognize either familiar faces or familiar voices. c. exhibits a recency effect but no primacy effect. d. shows evidence for deeper processing and shallow processing.

c. exhibits a recency effect but no primacy effect.

According to your text, imagery enhances memory because a. research shows people like pictures better than words, so there is an enhanced emotional response. b. the brain processes images more easily than the meanings of words. c. imagery can be used to create connections between items to be remembered. d. pictures fit better with our basic instincts because children learn pictures before reading words.

c. imagery can be used to create connections between items to be remembered.

Your text argues that the proper procedure for measuring the accuracy of flashbulb memories is a. source monitoring. b. scripting. c. repeated recall. d. pre-cueing.

c. repeated recall.

The three structural components of the modal model of memory are a. receptors, occipital lobe, temporal lobe. b. receptors, temporal lobe, frontal lobe. c. sensory memory, short-term memory, long-term memory. d. sensory memory, iconic memory, rehearsal.

c. sensory memory, short-term memory, long-term memory.

When a sparkler is twirled rapidly, people perceive a circle of light. This occurs because a. the trail you see is caused by sparks left behind from the sparkler. b. due to its high intensity, we see the light from the sparkler for about a second after it goes out. c. the length of iconic memory (the persistence of vision) is about one-third of a second. d. Gestalt principles work to complete the circle in our minds.

c. the length of iconic memory (the persistence of vision) is about one-third of a second.

Autobiographical memory research shows that a person's brain is more extensively activated when viewing photos a. the person has seen before. b. of familiar places. c. they took themselves. d. the person has never seen before.

c. they took themselves.

Long-term memory

can hold a large amount of information for years or even decades

An item on an implicit memory test would most likely resemble which of the following? a. "Report the first word that you associate with TREE." b. "Explain your earliest personal memory that relates to TREE." c. "Which of the following words is related to "plant," TREE or SHOE." d. "Fill in the following with the first word that comes to mind: T _ _ E."

d. "Fill in the following with the first word that comes to mind: T _ _ E."

The conclusion from the experiment in which a chess master and a chess novice were asked to remember the positions of chess pieces on a chess board was that a. chess masters outperform novices in all conditions. b. chess masters have developed better memory skills than novices. c. novices do better because they are not distracted by irrelevant knowledge about previous chess games. d. chess masters use chunking to help them remember actual game arrangements.

d. chess masters use chunking to help them remember actual game arrangements.

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 a. the self-reference effect. b. maintenance rehearsal. c. levels of processing theory. d. encoding specificity.

d. encoding specificity.

Asking people to recall the most influential events that happened during their college careers show that ____ in people's lives appear to be particularly memorable. a. peer-group experiences b. academic challenges c. the sophomore year d. transition points

d. transition points

Serial Position

distinction between short and long term memories Read list, write down all the words you remember

Short-term memory

holds five to seven items for about 15 to 20 seconds

Sensory memory

the initial stage that holds all incoming information for seconds or fractions of a second

Retrieval

transferring information from LTM to working memory