Cognition Chapter 6

Chunk

A combination of letters, numbers, or sounds that constitute a meaningful whole

Echoic memory

A momentary sensory memory of auditory stimuli

Iconic memory

A momentary sensory memory of visual stimuli

Information remains in sensory memory for:

A second or a fraction of a second

Sensory memory

A type of storage that holds sensory information for a few seconds or less. High capacity, short duration (approx. 1 sec)

Being given the letters "C" and "T" to remember but incorrectly recalling them as "V" or "B" would be called:

Acoustic confusions

Working Memory

Active system of memory that could be used to mentally manipulate information as needed based on the current tasks

Which of the following cognitive functions use the processes of encoding, storage, and retrieval? Motion perception Learning names Applying previously learned math formulas on a test Remembering a friend's phone number

All of them

Joe and Margo are headed to the grocery store but need to write their grocery list first. Margo is reading off items to Joe to write down. As she is rattling off items, Joe exclaims, "Slow down! I can't keep all of these items in my mind long enough to get them written. I keep forgetting items." Margo has listed too many items and has exceeded his ________ for number of items he can store into his short-term memory.

Capacity

Which part of the Baddeley's working memory model is posited to control the flow of information?

Central executive

Long-term memory (LTM)

Continuous storage of information. High (possibly infinite) capacity and duration

Brown-Peterson task

Demonstrates that the number of items that can be kept in STM rapidly decays with the passage of time

Sarah is studying for her chemistry test. She decides to create mnemonic devices to better facilitate her ________ of the material.

Encoding

Chase and Simon (1973) tested short-term memory capacity between novice and expert chess players. What was the significance of their findings?

Expert chess players were more likely to remember only meaningful chunks of information that related to the game.

Decay

Fading away of memory over time

While completing a spatial rotation task (e.g., imagining rotating objects in your mind), which area of your brain may be active to support this task?

Frontal lobes

Working memory capacity has been correlated with, and shown to predict, which of the following?

General intelligence

Duration

How long information remains in memory

Capacity

How much information a memory system can hold

Your grandmother is excited because she just signed up to take a "brain training" course through an online game developer. You would tell her:

I hope you didn't pay a lot! Although working memory is important, the skills you learn may not transfer to tasks in your daily life.

Which of the following might you expect from someone with a higher memory span?

If working in a chaotic environment they may be better able to focus on the task at hand and ignore external visual and auditory information compared to someone with lower memory span.

Acoustic confusions

In memory research, the observation that people are likely to confuse similar-sounding stimuli (ex. c, v, t, b, p is harder to remember than c, j, m, r, q)

In general, where does working memory occur in the brain?

In several regions across the cortex

Why were phone numbers originally designed to have 7 digits?

It is the average capacity our short-term memory.

Order the following stores of memory in order of the duration they store information (longest to shortest).

Long-term memory Short-term memory Sensory-memory

Compared to sensory memory, Short-term memory has:

Low capacity: long duration

Delayed match-to-sample tasks

Memory test in which the subject is shown a picture, given a pause, then shown another picture and asked whether or not they were the same

The ability to "write" in the air with sparklers is theorized to be possible because of our:

Persistence of vision

According to Baddeley, trying to "replay" a phone number in your mind in order to remember it uses which part of your working memory?

Phonological loop

Partial-Report condition

Present 3x3 array of letters and participant is instructed to list the letters from only one row based on the pitch of a tone that was played after the letters disappeared

Whole Report

Presented 3x3 array of letters and participant is asked to list all the letters she saw, she was able to identify 3 or 4

Mary is trying to commit the names of her new co-workers to her long-term memory by associating each name with a rhyme or an object. During a company meeting a week later, she happily discovers that she is able to successfully ______ each name from her long-term memory.

Recall

Dustin has started dating Jolene and discovers that he is so infatuated with her that he struggles to even remember his old girlfriends' names. His inability to remember the older names is an example of:

Retroactive interference

Learning new material for the upcoming exam that makes it harder to remember material from the last exam is an example of:

Retroactive interference

Phonological loop

The auditory portion of STM

Retroactive interference

The disruptive effect of new learning on the recall of old information (ex. If learning your locker combination senior year of high school makes it hard to remember your combination from freshman year)

Proactive interference

The disruptive effect of prior learning on the recall of new information (ex. If I study for stats then for cognition, and then I have a hard time remembering the information from cognition)

Encoding

The initial processing of information

When a sparkler is twirled rapidly, people perceive a circle of light. This occurs because:

The length of iconic memory (the persistence of vision) is about 1/25th of a second

Short-term memory (STM)

The memory system in which information is held for brief periods of time while being used. Low capacity, medium duration (15-30 sec)

Central Executive

The part of working memory that directs attention and processing

Persistence of vision

The process by which the human brain retains an image for a fraction of a second longer than the eye records it (think sparklers)

Retrieval

The process of getting information out of memory storage

Rehearsal

The repetition of information in the STM which essentially 'reactivates' the initial encoding

Storage

The retention of encoded information over time

Modal Model

The three-stage memory model that divides memory into 3 areas--sensory, short term, and long term

Visual sketch pad

The visual portion of STM. Can be used to analyze and manipulate information of memory

The conclusion from the experiment in which a chess master and a chess novice (beginner) were asked to remember the positions of chess pieces on a chess board was that:

chess masters did better only when possible real game arrangements were used.

_______________ tests are one example of a task researchers to use to explore areas of the brain that are active while participants are actively trying to hold information in their working memory to apply to a future task.

delayed-match to sample

A brief store of auditory information will be held for a few seconds in the ________, a form of sensory memory.

echoic memory