Chapter 6: Test Yourself Review Questions
What are the connections between episodic and semantic memory?
1) Episodic memories can be lost, leaving only semantic memories: the knowledge that makes up semantic memories is initially attained through a personal experience that could be the basis of an episodic memory, but memory for this experience often fades, leaving only semantic memory 2) Semantic memory can be enhanced if associated with episodic memory: another connection between semantic and episodic memories is that semantic memories that have personal significance are easier to remember than semantic memories that are not personally significant 3) Semantic memory can influence our experience by influencing attention: a person's knowledge can influence episodic memory. For example, even though two people have seen the same football game, they remember different things about it because or their differing knowledge of football
How does the example of Tony and Cindy show how LTM and WM work together? (Hint: James Bond movie)
As Tony's working memory is holding the exact wording of that statement in his mind, it is simultaneously accessing the meaning of words from LTM, which helps him understand the meaning of each of the words that make up the sentence. Tony's LTM also contains a great deal of additional information about movies, James Bind, and Cindy. Although Tony might bifbxonsxjouksky think about all of this information, it is all there in his LTM and adds to his understanding of what he is heading and his interpretation of what it might mean. LTM therefore provides both an archive that we can refer to when we want to remember events from the past, and a wealth of background information that we are constantly consulting as we use working memory to make contact with what is happening at a particular moment.
What is classical conditioning? Why is it a form of implicit memory?
Classical conditioning occurs when the following two stimuli are paired: (1) a neutral stimulus that initially does not result in a response and (2) a conditioning stimulus that does result in a response. An example of classical conditioning from the laboratory is presenting a tone to a person followed by a puff or air to the eye that causes the person to blink. The tone initially does not cause an eye-blink, but after a number of pairings with the puff of air, the tone alone causes an eye-blink; This is implicit memory because it can occur even if the person has forgotten about the original pairing of the tone and air puff
What is the difference between explicit memory and implicit memory? What are the two types of explicit memory? The three types of implicit memory?
Explicit memory consists of episodic memory (memory for personal experiences) and semantic memory (stored knowledge and memory for facts). Both of these types of memory are called explicit, because their contents can be described or reported; Implicit memories are memories that are used without awareness, so the contents of implicit memories cannot be reported. One type of implicit memories that had influenced Cliff's behavior is priming (a change in response to stimulus caused by the precious presentation of the same or a similar stimulus). Another good of implicit memory is procedural memory, also called skill memory, which is memory for doing things. Finally, classical conditioning is another form of implicit memory. Classical conditioning occurs when pairing an initially neutral stimulus with another stimulus results in the neutral stimulus taking on new properties.
Describe the "time scale" of short-term and long-term memory. Are all long-term memories created equal?
Long-term memory covers a span that stretches from about 30 seconds ago to your earliest memories. Thus, all of this student's memories, except the memory "I just sat down" and anything the student was rehearsing, would be classified as long term memories; Although all of these memories are contained in LTM, recent memories tend to be more detailed, and much of this detail and often the specific memories themselves fade with the passage of time and as other experiences accumulate
Describe the Graf and the Warrington and Weiskrantz priming experiments. How do these experiments demonstrate that their participants are not aware of the initial priming stimuli?
Peter Graf and coworkers tested three groups of participants: (1) eight amnesia patients with Korsakoff's syndrome and two patients with another form of amnesia; (2) patients without amnesia who were under treatment for alcoholism; and (3) patients without amnesia who had no history of alcoholism. Graf and coworkers presented lists of words to their participants and asked them to rate each word on a scale of 1 to 5 based on how much they liked each (1 = like extremely; 5 = dislike extremely). This caused participants to focus on rating the words rather than on committing the words to memory. Immediately after rating the words in the lists, participants were tested in one of two ways (1) a test of explicit memory, in which they were asked to recall the words they had seen; or (2) a test of implicit memory, in which they were presented with three-letter fragments and were asked to add a few letters to create the first word that came into their mind. The results of the recall experiment show that the amnesia patients had poor recall compared to the two control groups. But the result of the implicit memory test tells a different story. These results, which indicate the percentage of primed words that were created in the word completion test, demonstrates that the amnesia patient performed just as well as the controls. This shows that priming can occur even when there is little explicit memory for the words. Warrington and Lawrence Weiskrantz tested five patients with Koraskoff's syndrome. The researchers presented incomplete pictures and the participant's task was to identify the picture. The fragmented version in was presented first, and then participants were shown more and more complete versions until they were able to identify the picture. The results, indicate that by the third day of testing these participants made fewer errors before identifying the pictures than they did at the beginning of training, even though they had no memory for any of the previous day's training. The improvement of performance represents an effect of implicit memory because the patients learned from experience even though they couldn't remember having had the experience
What is procedural memory? Describe the mirror drawing experiment and other examples from the chapter. Why is procedural memory considered a form of implicit memory?
Procedural memory is also called skill memory because it is memory for doing things that usually require action. The implicit nature of procedural memory has been demonstrated in amnesia patients who can master a skill without remembering any of the practice that led to this mastery; Mirror drawing, which involves copying a picture that is seen in a mirror. After a number of days of practice, H.M. became quite good at mirror drawing, but each time he did it, he thought he was practicing it for the first time. Jimmy G. could still tie his shoes, and Clive Wearing, who was a professional musician, was able to play the piano. In fact, people who can't form a new long-term memories can still learn new skills. K.C., who had lost his episodic memory because of a motorcycle accident learned how to sort and stack books in the library after his injury.
Describe the method of recognition, including how it differs from recall and how this method was used in the Sachs experiment involving the passage about Galileo
Recognition memory is the identification of a stimulus that was encountered earlier. The procedure for measuring recognition memory is to present a stimulus during a study period and later to present the same stimulus plus others that were not presented. In a recall test, the person must produce the item to be recalled. An example of a recall test is a full-in-the-blanks exam question. In contrast, an example of recognition is a multiple choice exam, in which the task is to pick the correct answer form a number of alternatives. A study by Jacqueline Sachs demonstrated the importance of meaning in LTM. Sachs had participants listen to a tape recording of a passage and then measured their recognition memory to determine whether they remembered the exact wording of sentences in the passage or the general meaning of the passage.
What was Jimmy G.'s problem, and why did it occur?
The damage to Jimmy G.'s memory has resulted in anterograde amnesia, the loss of ability to assimilate or retain new knowledge. Jimmy also suffers from some retrograde amnesia, the loss of memory for events that have happened in the past. His reality therefore can didgs if a few memories from long ago Knudsen shah had balls we within the last 30-60 seconds. This is a result of Jimmy suffering from Korasoff's syndrome which leads to the destruction of areas in the frontal and temporal lobes
What is the propaganda effect, and why could it be considered a form of priming?
The propaganda effect, in which participants are more likely to rate statements they have read or heard before as being true, simply because they have been exposed to them before. The propaganda effect involves implicit memory because it can operate even when people are not aware that they have heard or seen a statement before, and may even have thought it was false when they first heard it.
What is priming, and why is it called a type of implicit memory? What precautions are taken to be sure episodic memory is not accessed in an implicit memory experiment? What is repetition priming? Conceptual priming?
When we access explicit memory, we are conscious of doing so. The defining characteristic of implicit memory, in contrast, is that we are not conscious we are using it. Priming occurs when the presentation of one stimulus (the priming stimulus) changes the response to a subsequent test stimulus (the test stimulus), either positively (positive priming, which causes an increase in speed or accuracy of the response to the test stimulus) or negatively (negative priming, which causes a decrease in the speed or accuracy of response to the test stimulus). Priming is considered to be implicit memory because its effects can occur even though participants may not remember the original presentation of the priming stimulus when they are responding to the test stimulus; One way to minimize the chances that a person will remember the presentation of the priming stimulus is to present the priming stimulus in a task that does not appear to be a memory task. In addition to disguising the purpose of the priming stimulus, researchers have devised tests that do not directly test memory (word completion task); One type of positive priming, repetition priming, occurs when the test stimulus is the same as or resembles the priming stimulus (seeing the word bird may cause you to respond more quickly to another presentation of the word bird than another word you had not seen before); Conceptual priming occurs when the enhancement caused by the priming stimulus is based on the meaning of the stimulus (presentation of the word furniture might cause you to respond faster to a later presentation of the word chair)
How are episodic and semantic memory distinguished from each other?
When we say that episodic memory is memory for events and semantic memory is memory for facts, we are distinguishing between these two types of memory based on the types of information remembered. Endel Tulving has suggested, however, that episodic and semantic memory can also be distinguished based on the type of experience associated with each. The defining property of the experience of episodic memory is that it involves mental time travel. Tulving describes this experience of mental time travel/episodic memory as self-knowing or remembering. In contrast to the mental time travel property of episodic memory, the experience of semantic memory involves accessing knowledge about the world that does not have to be tied to remembering a personal experience. This knowledge can be things like facts, vocabulary, numbers, and concepts. When we experience semantic memory, we are not traveling back to a specific event from our past, but we are accessing things we are familiar with and know about. Tulving describes the experience of semantic memory as knowing, with the idea that knowing does not involve mental time travel
Describe the following evidence for the idea that semantic and episodic memories involve different mechanisms: (a) neuropsychological evidence; (b) brain imaging evidence
a) K.C., who at the age of 30 rode his motorcycle off a freeway exit ramp and suffered severe damage to his hippocampus and surrounding structures, lost his episodic memory, meaning he can no longer relieve any of the events of his past. He does, however, know that certain things happened, which would correspond to semantic memory. Thus, K.C. has lost the episodic part of his memory, but his semantic memory is largely intact. Opposite to K.C. was an Italian woman whom suffered from an encephalitis attack. After returning home from a 6-week stay in the hospital, she had difficulty recognizing familiar people; she had trouble shopping because she couldn't remember the meaning of words on the shopping list or where things were in the store; and she could no longer recognize famous people or recall facts such as the identity of Beethoven or the fact that Italy was involved in World War II. Despite this severe impairment of memory for semantic information, she was still able to remember events in her life. Thus, although she had lost semantic memories, she was still able to form new episodic memories. Table 6.2 summarizes the two cases we have described. These cases, taken together, demonstrate a double dissociation between episodic and semantic memory, which supports the idea that memory for these two different types of information probably involves different mechanisms. b) Brian Levine and coworkers had participants keep diaries on audiotape describing everyday personal events and facts drawn from their semantic knowledge. When participants later listened to these audio taped descriptions while in an MRI scanner, the recording of everyday events elicited detailed episodic autobiographical memories (people remembered their experiences), while the other recordings simply reminded people of semantic facts. These results and others indicate that while there is overlap between activation caused by episodic and semantic memories, there are major differences
Describe how differences between STM/WM and LTM have been demonstrated based on (a) the serial position curve, (b) neuropsychological evidence, and (c) differences in coding
a) Murdoch's serial position curve indicates that memory is better for words at the beginning of the list and at the end of the list than for words in the middle. Superior memory for stimuli presented at the beginning of a sequence is called the primacy effect. A possible explanation of the primacy effect is that participants had time to rehearse these words and transfer them to LTM. Superior memory for stimuli presented at the end of a sequence is called the recency effect. One possible explanation for the better memory for sorxs ag the end of fbd most is that ghe most recently presented words are still in STM. b) Clive Wearing has a functioning STM, as indicated by his ability to remember what has happened to him for the most recent 30 seconds, but is unable to form new LTMs. Another case of functioning STM but absent LTM is the case of H.M. His operation eliminated his seizures, but unfortunately also eliminated his ability to form new LTMs. Thus, the outcome of H.M.'s case is similar to that of Clive Wearinf and Mr. G, except that Clive Wearing's brain damage was caused by disease, Mr. G's by Vitamin deficiency, and H.M.'s by surgery. There are also people, such as patient K.F., with the opposite problem: normal LTM but poor STM. K.F.'s problem with STM was indicated by a reduced digit span. Even though K.F.'s STM was greatly impaired, she had a functioning LTM, as indicated by her ability to form and hold new memories of events in her life. Some brain imaging experiments have demonstrated activation of different areas of the brain for STM and LTM. The results indicated that probe words that were from the beginning of the list activated areas of the brain associated with both long-term memory and short-term memory. It would be expected that both areas would be activated because words at the beginning of the list would be in long-term memory and would then he transferred into STM when they were being recalled. In contrast, probe words from the end of the list only activated areas of the brain associated with short-term memory. c) auditory, visual, and semantic coding can occur for STM (with auditory and visual coding being the most prominent). LTM can involve each of these types of coding. For example, you use visual coding in LTM when you recognize someone based on his ID had appearance, auditory coding when you recognize a person based on the sound of his or her voice, and semantic coding when you remember the general gist or meaning of something that happened in the past. Although all three types of coding can occur in LTM, semantic coding is the predominant type of coding in LTM
