PSY 271 Exam 2

measures of long term memory

-Free recall -Cued Recall -recognition -savings in relearning (easiest to hardest) Free recall: a way of testing memory in which the experimenter provides no cue other than the time and place in which the memory was encoded. Not given cue other than the point in time in which I was told to remember it. Cued Recall- a way of testing memory in which the experimenter provides the participant the time and place in which the memory was encoded, as well as some hint about the content of the to-be-remembered material. A hint about the object you were supposed to remember. Recognition test- a method of testing memory in which the experimenter presents the participants with the target material along with other material that was not initially encoded (distractors). The participant must select the target items from among the distractors. Multiple choice question. Recognize the information you are supposed to retrieve from long term memory. Savings in relearning- a way of testing memory in which the participant learns some material to a certain level. After a delay (days, weeks...) the participant must relearn the list to the same level. If the participant can reach the level in fewer trials in the second time, that has shown savings in relearning.

Baddeley's Working Memory Model

-central executive and three systems -visuospatial sketchpad, episodic buffer, phonological loop. -The central executive is the controller. Moves information from one memory store to another. Pulled fron long term into short term and working memory.

levels of processing

-involves encoding and depth Levels of processing framework The most important factor in whether something will be remembered is the depth of processing. Deep processing: greater degree of semantic involvement Shallow processing: thinking about surface characteristics (physical). Had participants read a list of words and answer a question about it. Craik and Tulving (1975) Participants answered questions leading to different levels of processing. Participants were told the study was a perceptual processing, not of memory. Semantic and category led to them most effective memorization. Structural was less than 25% and phonemic was 75%.

retrieval

-locating information in long term memory and moving it to short term memory/working Memory -can be thought of as accessing stored memories -many types of retrieval -recall -recognition -can often have problems with memory retrieval (modal model/multi store)

flashbulb memory

A very rich, detailed memory that is encoded when something that is emotionally intense happens. Brown and Kulik (1977) Where were you when JFK was assassinated? Participants reported very detailed memories Three characteristics of the memories: -very complete -very accurate -immune to forgetting Difficult to assess for accuracy We could ask people to compare what happened right after an event and one year later. (longitudinal) Tried with: attempted assassination of ronald reagab Explosion of challenger Assassination of swedish prime minister olaf palme Death of king baudouin of belgium People are very confident about their memories Talarico and Rubin (2003) September 11th, 2001 54 students went into the lab the day after and provided details of what happened and details of a memorable event from over the weekend. Contacted either 1, 6, or 32 weeks later. Asked to recall both events. (mundane and attack) Number of details decreased over time However, participants did not think they did. Participants think of flashbulb memories differently Memory was not better for 9/11 than everyday event.

full-report procedure

An experimental procedure in which, following the brief presentation of a matrix of unrelated consonants, the participant has to attempt to recall all of the letters in the matrix. Sperling (1960) Most advanced way of measuring iconic memory at the time. Still used today. Full report procedure: present 4-12 items (letters or numbers) to participants and report everything you can about these items. Generally, participants reported about 33% (4 items for a 12 item display) Early findings suggest that sensory memory holds very small amounts of information

Exemplar view

Argues that it is not prototypes stored but exemplars for a category. Actually store a number of exemplars that represent a range of examples in a category. Store enough that a prototype could be derived if necessary. Based on typicality. Prototype might be necessary when identification of an object is challenging. Might be an A typical member. Not storing every example but the most representative ones and if we encounter one not easy to identify, we can create a prototype out of exemplars we have stored for generalization. Store specific examples. Medin and Schaffer (1978) Store exemplars as you see them. Store exemplars for each size dog. Happens automatically. Store a range of objects and use them for identification. If none of them are good enough, a prototype can be derived. It is a process that occurs by necessity. We don't always need to create prototypes. Uses likelihood ratios. How likely something matches based on how much it looks like something in a category.

classical view

Concepts are represented as lists of necessary and sufficient properties. Meeting set criteria. Criteria of food is safe to digest and taste reasonably good. Other potential features of category food but these are necessary. Determine if an object belongs to a category by meeting a certain set of criteria for conclusion. Concepts: the mental representation that allows one to generalize about objects in a category. Feature lists. Mental representation of a list of necessary features. Contain all potential properties used to describe a category. Represents all objects that can be included in a category. Argues that lists of features are stored as a reference for identifying a new object and putting it into a category. Comparing feature lists of some object to feature lists of another object. Does it meet criteria for some category. Find the relevant category where this piece of information belongs. Once a category is found, identification occurs. Can create new categories if identification does not occur. Represents every exemplar within a category. Bruner, Goodnow, and Austin (1956) Participants learned categories through hypothesis testing. Shows cards that varied by 4 dimensions. Does the picture on the card fit into some sort of category. Number Shape Color number Ex. card with three green dots. Participants were then shown a card with three grey dots and one with 4 green diamonds. They were asked to choose where the three green dots should go. The correct answer is with the three grey dots. Participants had to determine what category the card belonged in as quickly as they could. Given some feedback on if they made a mistake. More than two categories. Participants seemed to discover most of the categorization. Suggests participants were creating feature lists. Cards were placed based on the number of features shared. Feature lists are created to represent categories of necessary and efficient properties. Problem with Classical View -category membership can be defined differently among different people. -there is no feature or group of features that is essential for category membership. -each member of a category will have some, but not all features of the category.

false memory

Dees (1959) Half of the time people falsely remember the word sleep from a list of words. False memory: a memory of an event that never occured that the participant nevertheless believes did occur. McDermott (1996) People learned the same list. After 2 days, people were more likely to remember sleep than any of the other words actually in the list. Reason people were more likely to remember that word is because it was stored somewhere because it was similar to the words on the list. Has something to do with the associations we make. All the words were related to sleep which means they somehow identified it in the recognition task.

Dual coding

Dual-coding theory postulates that both visual and verbal information is used to represent information (Sternberg, 2003). Visual and verbal information are processed differently and along distinct channels in the human mind, creating separate representations for information processed in each channel.

echoic vs. iconic memory

Echoic memory lasts longer. (2-5s for echoic vs 500ms-1s for iconic) Echoic memory has lower capacity (iconic nearly limitless). Have to have good recall cues. Both echoic and iconic are influenced by physical characteristics and stimulus meaning, not purely retention of meaningless, perceptual information.

episodic memory

Episodic memory is the memory of every day events such as (times, location geography, associated emotions, and other contextual who, what, when, where, why knowledge) that can be explicitly stated or conjured. It is the collection of past personal experiences that occurred at a particular time and place.

Levels of categorization

Hierarchical Categorization Rosch, Mervis, Gray, Johnson, and Boyes-Braem (1976) Three levels of organization: Superordinate: broadest and most distinct level of categorization Basic level: more narrow Subordinate: least distinct. Smallest amount of distinction between examples. Ex. superordinate: musical instrument. Basic level: guitar. Subordinate: classical and electrical guitar. Gets more detailed. Categorization at the basic level is most important because items are most differentiated between other objects. Easier to see and identify. First level to be learned. Learning how to categorize. Often easiest to work with and define. Most cognitive processes appear to function with respect to categorization

eyewitness memory

Loftus, Miller, and Burns (1978) Participants saw a slideshow of car accidents. Participants answered a questionnaire about the slide show. Some were misleading and asked about information that wasn't there. Did the car pass the yield sign? For half the participants, the information from the questionnaire did not match the slides. Later, participants were asked which sign was up. Participants who were misled were twice as likely to be mistaken and show evidence of false memories. Loftus and Palmer (1974) Short film of a car accident. Participants were asked different questions. How fast were the cars going when they hit each other Vaird the verb: hit, smashed, collided, bumped, contacted. Less violent action verbs reported speeds much lower. The more extreme the verb caused the participant to increase the speed the car was going. Knowledge of events was altered. Asked whether there was broken glass after the crash. In the video there was none. If the verb was smashed, 34% of participants thought there was broken glass. Lower percentages with other verbs Eyewitness memory is less likely to be accurate in some cases: -identifying a person of a different race -witness cross contamination -when the situation to be remembered was stressful -if the eyewitness was threatened. False memories show how easy it is to mislead people through misinformation effect. Retrieval of information about crimes can often be inaccurate.

implicit memory

Memories we don't deliberately remember or reflect on consciously

Hierarchical model

Natural Categories Categorization can occur at a number of levels and derive distinct categories from existing categories. Dogs can be divided into small, medium, and large with different exemplars in each level. Can occur until you can no longer divide distinct categories from a specific exemplar. Possible that an exemplar can also represent a category. Ex. Chihuahua. Depends on context and how you use information. -each level can be divided -fewer exemplar at each level -Certain exemplars are more representative. Some are more typical than others. Hierarchical Categorization Rosch, Mervis, Gray, Johnson, and Boyes-Braem (1976) Three levels of organization: Superordinate: broadest and most distinct level of categorization Basic level: more narrow Subordinate: least distinct. Smallest amount of distinction between examples. Ex. superordinate: musical instrument. Basic level: guitar. Subordinate: classical and electrical guitar. Gets more detailed. Categorization at the basic level is most important because items are most differentiated between other objects. Easier to see and identify. First level to be learned. Learning how to categorize. Often easiest to work with and define. Most cognitive processes appear to function with respect to categorization Differentiation: a comparison of the number of characteristics the members of a category share and the number of attributes that are different from other categories. Rosch Had participants look at various pictures of objects and had to identify whether it belonged to a category or not. There were different levels of categories used. The basic level had the shortest reaction time. Shows cognitive function works best at basic level Tanaka and Taylor (1991) What about experts? Performed the same experiments as before. Wanted to see if there was a difference for experts in a specific field. Always had faster reaction time at basic level. But for the category that the participants were an expert in, the reaction time was around the same for basic level and subordinate level. Expertise caused faster identification of related information at lower levels of categorization. Ability to identify some information you know well. Becoming more sensitive.

forgetting long term memory

Occlusion Memories become hidden or covered by other memories. Memories are accessed by associations. A cue may be associated with a target memory just as strongly as ever, but is associated with other memories more strongly. (associational chain) Ex. Connection between yellow and school bus becomes stronger (associational chain). Building a new connection that could form a stronger connection. Process by which we may have associational change we build that are stronger than previous ones we have learned. Unlearning The associations between a cue and a target weaken due to new learning The strengthening of a new association causes weakening in old associations. Ex. Connection between school bus and color yellow becomes weaker if a new color was to be put on a school bus like blue. Possible to unlearn association. Don't have connections anymore. Decay The link between a cue and a target memory spontaneously decays over time rather than due to new learning. However, memory might not decay because of the passage of time, but rather due to a process that occurs in time. Time is the primary factor. Blue school buses are outlawed and people have to drop off kids at school. Blue school bus is forgotten over time. Forgetting in long term memory may occur in the frequency in which we activate associations. If we do not activate associations often, we will begin to forget.

Brown-Peterson Task

Participants heard a trigram of three consonants followed by three numbers. They counted back from the number by threes. After a delay they were asked to repeat the three letters. The counting was meant to interrupt rehearsing. The longer the delay, the less the participants were able to repeat the letters. -shows that participants forget even a small amount of information over a very short period of time if they are distracted.

rehearsal

Rehearsal process allows info to be manipulated and repeated so we remember it easier. Encoding from short term to long term. The more you retrieve the information, the easier it is to remember. -repeating information to keep it alive in short term memory/working memory -the repetition of information is necessary for encoding information into high memory Stores -two different types of rehearsal -maintenance rehearsal -involves keeping information in short term/ working memory -not sufficient for encoding information into long term memory -elaborative rehearsal -involves connecting information in working memory to information in long term memory -processing information more deeply at a semantic level. (modal model/multistore)

relational-organizational hypothesis

Relational-Organizational Hypothesis- The idea that visual imagery aids memory by producing a greater number of associations. * He believed that imagery improved memory not because images are necessarily richer than verbal labels because imagery produces more associations between the items to be recalled.

encoding and emotion

Rubin and Kozin (1984) Report your clearest memories of childhood. Common reported events: -birthdays -car accidents -early romantic experiences Cahill and McGaugh (1995) Showed slides of a boy visiting his father working at a hospital with a graphic surgery Two conditions: -surgery was real -surgery was a practice drill Two week later: participants who thought the surgery was real remembered the surgery in more detail. Forgot peripheral material. Those who knew the surgery wasn't real remembered more detail of the peripheral. Memory recall on the same day of the experiment was not different between conditions. Delay caused the people who thought it was real to remember it better.

memory path

Sensory stimulus-sensory memory-captures attention or doesn't (forgotten)- moves to short term and can be rehearsed or forgotten-then travel to long term meterm-16mory.

state dependent learning

State-dependent memory or state-dependent learning is the phenomenon through which memory retrieval is most efficient when an individual is in the same state of consciousness as they were when the memory was formed.

Chunking

Taking smaller units and grouping them in semantically significant ways. Most effect way of improving working and long term memory. -can encode much faster -use chunking in semantic memory. Primacy and Recency Effects Notice that the ability to remember something depends on when you learned it. Primacy effect: better memory for words at the beginning of the list. -more time for rehearsal Recency effect: better memory for words at the end of a list. -less interfering items -less time to forget (decay) Also suggests might be better off focusing on info in the middle, or further back in time. Simon (1974) Example of what working memory looks like in practice. Saw inconsistency is previous research. Capacity of primary memory when a semantic code is used. Is semantics important? How much can you store in working memory at one time? He tried to remember different types of syllables or words put together in a meaningful way. He could remember 7 one or two syllable words, 6 three syllable words, 4 familiar brief phrases, 3 familiar long phrases. Can remember less with increased complexity. But individual elements you remember seems to increase (phrases). Implies you can remember more. Elements within list can improve how much you remember. When words are in phrases, he could remember up to 22 words. People are overlooking importance of context.

forgetting curve

The forgetting curve hypothesizes the decline of memory retention in time. This curve shows how information is lost over time when there is no attempt to retain it.

Forgetting

The inability to recall information that was previously available. How is information lost from working memory. -Forgetting is due to both decay and interference.

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. -Moving from short term and working memory to long term memory. Now look at pulling from long term into working memory through elaborative rehearsal. (multistore model)

Typicality

Typicality: how representative a member of a category is or not. How well a specific exemplar represents other exemplars in a specific category. Used to describe any information. How dog like a particular dog is to other dogs in the category. Rosch (1973) Rank exemplars of the category bird on how bird-like each is. Rank from the most typical bird to the most atypical bird. Goes against the classical view of categorization. Participants are able to organize categories based on typicality. Existence of natural categories. Typicality is best explained by either probability theory. These theories are only different by the type of memory in long term memory. Breaking down exemplars into more refined categories to better distinguish between exemplars we might be working with.

spreading activation model

When part of the memory network is activated, activation spreads along the associative pathways to related areas in memory. This spread of activation serves to make these related areas of the memory network more available for further cognitive processing (Balota & Lorch, 1986).

articulatory control process

a component of the phonological loop that automatically refreshes and maintains the elements in the phonological store as if they were being rehearsed through a subvocal process (no sound is actually made)

schemata

a large unit of organized information used for representing concepts, situations, events, and actions in memory. Rumelhart and Ortony (1977) viewed schemata as the fundamental building blocks of cognition. packets of information

Echoic Memory

a momentary sensory memory of auditory stimuli; if attention is elsewhere, sounds and words can still be recalled within 3 or 4 seconds. Massaro (1970) Played a tone followed by a mask. Tone was high or low. Then played a different tone as the mask. Was asked to say what tone was presented before the mask. As the duration of mask increased, participants begin to perform much worse and confuse memory. Short tone: 90% correct Long tone: 60% correct 250ms- pivotal duration, after that the mask doesn't matter and stimuli moves from echoic to working memory. Information lives in the auditory nerve for 250ms. Decay begins immediately. Information begins to degrade. Darwin, Turvey, and Crowder (1972) Take on Averbach and sperling. Transfer visual to auditory. Bring participant in lab. Speaker is placed to left, right and behind. Would hear a string of letters and numbers through each speaker. Different for each speaker and told to report everything. People are worse with full report than partial report. Can only report 2 out of nine. Did better when heard all the information and given a tone of which string there were supposed to report. Up to 2s the participants could still identify. Delay time of cue did not matter until after 2s. Stays longer for echoic than iconic. Echoic memory lasts longer. (2-5s for echoic vs 500ms-1s for iconic) Echoic memory has lower capacity (iconic nearly limitless). Have to have good recall cues. Both echoic and iconic are influenced by physical characteristics and stimulus meaning, not purely retention of meaningless, perceptual information.

Iconic memory

a momentary sensory memory of visual stimuli; a photographic or picture-image memory lasting no more than a few tenths of a second. -Ex. Looking at something: Processed by eyes then moved to iconic memory, then moved to short term memory William Stanley Jevons (1871) Early study of sensory (iconic) memory Developed a procedure with a white and black tray. Had a bowl of pinto beans and would toss a handful of beans into the trays. He would quickly look at it and look away and see if he could report how many beans were in the trays. Could report with minimal error up to 5 beans. Errors increased with more than 5 beans. Span of apprehension for iconic memory without error is 4 beans At 50% accuracy, the span of apprehension was about 9. Briefly viewing something is not very scientific. Sensory memory is supposed to be something we are not conscious of. You have to present a stimulus and ask immediately what someone saw because if not the information could have gone from sensory memory to short term memory which means he could be reporting the contents of short term memory. Briefly viewed is not a very objective measure Sperling (1960) Most advanced way of measuring iconic memory at the time. Still used today. Full report procedure: present 4-12 items (letters or numbers) to participants and report everything you can about these items. Generally, participants reported about 33% (4 items for a 12 item display) Early findings suggest that sensory memory holds very small amounts of information Iconic memory: a large capacity, but rapid decay. Characteristics of Iconic Memory: -large capacity -spontaneous decay: how quickly does forgetting process kick in -brief duration -representation Sperling and Averbach (1961) Defined duration of short term memory. Varied cue onset in partial report procedure. Varied when the visual cue was shown. Good recall (150ms): 65-75% Medium recall (500ms): 25-65% Poor recall (1s): less than 25% Iconic memory lasts from 500ms to 1s. Can keep information in sensory nerves for around 1s.

working memory

a newer understanding of short-term memory that focuses on conscious, active processing of incoming auditory and visual-spatial information, and of information retrieved from long-term memory. -The brief, immediate memory for the limited amount of material that a person is currently processing. -part of working memory also actively coordinates ongoing mental activities -involved in actively manipulating information -contains a great number of theoretical process that allow for manipulating different types of information -information can be held indefinitely via active manipulation Forgetting: how is information lost from working memory Representation: how does working memory code information Capacity: how much information can working memory hold.

prototype theory

a representation that has all the features that are characteristic of a category. An object contains all features necessary to belong in some group. Categorization is based on mental representation of features that make up a category. Prototype is like a summary of all examples. Match number of characteristics an object shares with a stored prototype. Exemplars are combined to create a prototype. An amalgamation. Prototype may not actually exist in the real world. Unlikely that it actually exists as an exemplar in a real world. Helps us identify objects with ease. Template for identifying objects for group membership. This is seen in family resemblance. Each sibling has similarities with each other but also have defining features. Posner and Keele (1968) Categorization does not occur with respect to prototypes. Started with a prototype dot array and created examples from the array. Exemplars were created by moving these dots in different directions. Still resembles the whole but it is slightly different. Created four exemplars per category. Participants then categorized stimuli. Began randomly, but with feedback learned correct categorization. Place them as piles based on mental prototypes. Participants would see all exemplars for every category without seeing the prototypes and had to figure out how they would split up the cards and create independent piles based on categories. Would be told if made mistakes. Feedback became more detailed if they continued to struggle. Eventually, they could do it well without making mistakes. With new exemplars, they were able to sort without much feedback. Did the study again but included a recognition task. Had participants look at a few exemplars but included new exemplars they hadn't seen. Prototype cards were also included. Were given old exemplars (stimuli) , new exemplars, and the prototypes on a table. Had to identify the most familiar cards in each of the categories they saw before. Old items- 86% New items- 67% Prototypes- 85% Participants recognized old items and prototypes showed that they were categorizing based on a mental prototype. They had taken all exemplars they had been exposed to and created a mental summary.

visuospatial sketchpad

a storage component of working memory that maintains visual images and spatial layouts in a visuospatial code. composed of visual cache and inner scribe. Propose that spatial and visual information are separated. Klauer and Zhao (2004) Participants had to either remember the location of a dot or a chinese ideogram. 10s delay with an interference task. Choose from among 8 possibilities. Each one also consisted of either a spatial or visual interference task. Spatial task: 2 asterisks, 11 of which are moving, finding the stable one. Visual task: see 14 color patches, find the red patch among blue patches. Spatial: made spatial memory worse, but did not affect the visual task. Made remembering the dot location more difficult. Did not affect the chinese character. Visual task: Had a bigger impact on the visual task. More difficulty remembering the chinese character than the dot array. Each interference task had a different effect depending on the initial task.

Partial Report Procedure

a task in which observers are cued to report only certain items in a display of items. Display of 12 items. Displays disappear and a tone is played. Tone indicated which line the participant has to report. High medium low tone corresponds to line to report. Participants reported 75% of letters in the row assigned. With a one second delay before the tone, only 25% of the information was reported (recall). Capacity is large but you need a que to know which information to select. Which information to pull out of information stored. Sperling (1960) Used partial report study only for visual cues. Used vision and auditory information but should only use visual cues. Averbach and Sperling (1961). They would see a display with a delay and told them which line to read with a line. Only using visual cues. Results are the same. Large capacity lets people identify letters from a specific row. Replicated results using visual cues.

free recall

a way of testing memory in which the experimenter provides no cue other than the time and place in which the memory was encoded. Not given cue other than the point in time in which I was told to remember it. -measure of long term memory one of the easiest to remember

Short term memory

activated memory that holds a few items briefly, such as the seven digits of a phone number while dialing, before the information is stored or forgotten. -Sensory stimulus-sensory memory-captures attention or doesn't (forgotten)- moves to short term and can be rehearsed or forgotten-then travel to long term memory. -the part of memory that holds only the small amount of information that a person is actively using. -smaller capacity that sensory memory -information degrades rapidly unless consciously manipulated via rehearsal -used only to store information not manipulate -limited capacity -temporary store -shallow processing: rehearsal.

context-dependent learning

an increase in retrieval when the external situation in which information is learned matches the situation in which it is remembered

similarity

consists of classical and proportional views. in which categorization is assumed to be based on the similarity of an instance to some abstract specification of the category to one or more stored exemplars.

multistore model

information-processing model that describes a sequence of mental structures through which information flows.

Decay

loss of memory due to the passage of time, during which the memory trace is not used. spontaneous decomposition of the representation over time Altmann and Gray (2002) Decay is necessary, otherwise interference would be unbearable. A digit appears on a computer screen was categorized as -high or low -even or odd Only one categorization per time or run. Each run required participants to categorize a number of digits according to the initial run (presented before each run) Varied run length (some runs required categorizing 7 digits vs 30) Categorization type changed with each run Response time and errors increased the longer a rule was held in working memory. Forgetting is due to both decay and interference. Longer you hold the rule the harder it is to do the task accurately. -helps to fight against interference.

retroactive interference (Decay)

new learning interferes with old learning Reitman (1971) Brown Peterson task Varied the distraction task (signal detection task) Humming sound: listen for pure tone in background of white noise. Then hit a button or Listen to a syllable while looking for a target. (toh vs doh) still trying to remember the trigram Looking for a target created more interference. Retroactive interference is influenced by the similarity of the material. The auditory visual task (toh vs doh) was harder.

proactive interference (Decay)

older learning interferes with new learning Kepel and Underwood (1962) Brown Peterson task with practice Even after 18s delay: 1st trial-95% correct 2nd trial- 70% correct 3rd trial-55% correct 4th trial- 40% correct Indicated proactive interference: more trials you do, the worse you are able to remember the letters. Without practice would be decay. Proactive interference dissipates if the stimulus materials are changed.

scripts

one form of memory structure that evolve over multiple exposure to the same set of stimuli and/or repeated enactment of a particular behavior. a schema for rountine events.

serial position effect

our tendency to recall best the last and first items in a list Primacy effect: better memory for words at the beginning of the list. -more time for rehearsal Recency effect: better memory for words at the end of a list. -less interfering items -less time to forget (decay)

episodic buffer

part of Alan Baddeley's model of working memory that interacts with information in long-term memory. Allows for movement between phonological loop and visuospatial sketchpad. Both types of information work together.

central executive

part of Alan Baddeley's model of working memory that oversees the visuospatial sketchpad, phonological loop, and episodic buffer. Responsible for shifting and dividing attention. -the controller -moving information from one memory store to another. pulled from long term into short term and working memory.

phonological loop

part of Alan Baddely's model of working memory that allows for the repetition of verbal information to aid with encoding it into memory. -composed of phonological store and articulatory control process. -the phonological store is responsible for storing verbal information. Holds 2s of auditory information. -obligatory access: even if you are not trying to memorize, information goes through the store. -Cole and Welsh (1976) participants had to remember written letters (k,l). Then participants heard a text in German. Then told to repeat the letters again. Still interfered with the task. Even if you are not using the information, it can still be used by the articulatory control process.

semantic memory

part of representation. working memory codes semantically. coding by meaning.

implicit learning

people pay attention to individual exemplars, storing information about and representations of them in memory.

encoding specificity

phenomenon of remembering something better when the conditions under which we retrieve information are similar to the conditions under which we encoded it Godden and Baddeley (1975) Scuba Divers encoded and retrieved either underwater or on dry land (4 conditions) Learn info either on dry land or in water, and then recall either on dry land or in water Memory was about 40% better in the same context. Could the effect have been caused by the disruption of switching environments? Did them time it took to get in and out of gear to cause decay.

cognitive economy

refers to the simplicity and relevance of a categorization scheme or representation. It represents the economic world in a way that allows distinctions between otherwise generalizations over states of the world.

Henry Molaison

removal of hippocampus, could not commit anything to long term memory. not able to form new semantic memories.

Dual task method

research procedure where subjects are given two tasks to perform at once to compare with performance on one task alone to examine interference due to the second task. To test the function of STM, Baddeley and Hitch (1974) asked participants to perform: -a reasoning take (sentence-checking) -while reciting a list of 6 digits -according to multi store model the capacity of the STM would be taken up with the digit task. Findings: participants made very few errors on either task (although the speed of sentence checking was slightly lower than when done on its own) Baddeley and Hitch concluded that STM must have more than one component. Must be involved in processes other than simple storage (reasoning, understanding and learning) STM is a kind of workspace where a variety of operations can be carried out on both old and new memories. -Built Baddeley's working memory model off of this.

explicit memory

the act of consciously or intentionally retrieving past experiences

sensory memory

the immediate, very brief recording of sensory information in the memory system. -a large capacity storage system that records information from each of the senses with reasonable accuracy. -very short duration -acts as a buffer for information that enters through the 5 senses -operates outside of conscious awareness -directs information to attention if the information is important. -Sensory stimulus-sensory memory-captures attention or doesn't (forgotten)- moves to short term and can be rehearsed or forgotten-then travel to long term memory. Sensory memory is high capacity, very brief store (3 seconds), initial stimulus coding.

Encoding

the processing of information into the memory system—for example, by extracting meaning. -the initial acquisition of information -we take information from the world and move it to a more permanent memory storage -this process involves transforming information into representation that can be stored in the brain -repitition of information is necessary for encoding information into high memory stores. Multi-store model (atkinson and Shiffrin 1968) Sensory memory is taking input from the sensory system. Transfer from one storage to the next is encoding. Exists between every stage in the memory process.

Long term memory

the relatively permanent and limitless storehouse of the memory system. Includes knowledge, skills, and experiences. -deep processing: retrieval -the large capacity memory for experiences and information accumulated throughout one's lifetime -very long duration -believed to have an unlimited capacity -information in long term memory must first move through sensory and short term memory -information degrades slowly over time -memories stored in long term memory are based on semantic meaning.

procedural memory

type of long-term memory involving how to perform different actions and skills. Essentially, it is the memory of how to do certain things. Riding a bike, tying your shoes, and cooking an omelet are all examples of procedural memories