Psych 351A: Midterm 3 Review (Long Term Memory)

How did Murdoch prove that LTM is distinct from STM

Hint: 2 effects

Used a free recall procedure and found evidence of a primacy and recency effect (which relied on LTM and STM respectively)

How did Rundus prove that the primacy and recency effect are actually due to LTM and STM

Re-did the free recall procedure by had participants rehearse out loud during presentation and recorded the number of times each word was rehearsed. 

Found that the number of rehearsals of each word was smaller as the serial position increased

What did Glanzer and Cunitz find with regard to delaying response in a free recall test

That after 30s delay the recency effect vanished (if one could not rehearse during those 30s)

Patient KF

Had damage to left parietal lobe leading to impaired STM and functioning LTM, was better for visually presented stimuli

Patient HM

Had bilateral medial temporal lobe and hippocampi damage leading to impaired LTM but functioning STM, also had severe anterograde and retrograde amnesia

What is the duration and capacity of LTM

Duration - storage stretches from a few moments to one’s entire life, with recent memories being more detailed

Capacity - very large, possibly infinite

Bradely et al many images test experiment

Had participants view 2500 images for 3 seconds each, then 10 mins after presentation passed participants had to determine over 300 images if they were in the original set, had 3 separate conditions.

What were the 3 testing categories of the many pictures testing experiment

Novel - second image shown was not in the original set

Exemplar - second image is the similar to an image in the original set but slightly different

State - second image was exactly the same as one in the original set but its state was different

What were the findings of the many pictures testing experiment

That memory was remarkably good in all three conditions, best in novel but pretty much the same in exemplar and state

What are the two major categories of LTM

Implicit - unconscious, non-declarative memory

Explicit - conscious declarative memories

How did HM demonstrate a single dissociation regarding implicit and explicit memory

Showed intact implicit memory (could learn mirror drawing) but his explicit memory was almost entirely gone

What are the two types of explicit memory

Episodic memory - memory for experiences, typically involves sense of time

Semantic memory - memory for facts, typically does not involve sense of time

How was a double dissociation demonstrated with regard to episodic and semantic memory

Patient KC - could still remember events from his past but only in the form of facts, caused by damage to hippocampus and medial temporal lobe (impaired on episodic, fine on semantic)

Patient IW - had difficulty recognizing people and other facts but could remember what she had done in recent days/weeks/months (fine on episodic, impaired on semantic)

What was the Petrican et al Remember/Know/Dont Procedure

Asked patients about events from their life and had them respond by saying they remember/know/don’t know events.

Found that participants “know” a lot more events, and that events from 40-50 yrs often not-know/remembered much more often 

What are the 3 types of implicit memory

Priming - presentation of one stimulus affects performance on another stimulus

Classical conditioning - repeated pairing of neutral stimulus with unconditioned stimulus leads to unconditioned generating a conditioned response

Procedural memory - skill memory for sequences of actions

What are the two types of priming

Repetition priming - implicit stem completion

Propaganda priming - participants more likely to rate statements read or heard before being true, even if originally told they are false

Mere exposure effect

Exposure to stimuli will lead to a higher familiarity and tendency to enjoy/dislike said stimulus (depending on one’s original feelings towards it)

Levels of processing theory

Quality of memory depends on how information is encoded, with processing either shallow or deep

What is the Craik and Tulving manipulated depth of processing experiment

Had participants judge words on increasingly deep processing with regard to memory, began with shallow (physical features of words), then deep (words rhyme with another), then deeper (does word fit into sentence)

Found that the deeper the processing the higher percentage of the words remembered

What is the problem with the levels of processing theory

Defines deep and shallow processing based on how well they are remembered, leads to circular reasoning

What 6 factors aid encoding?

Placing words in complex sentences

Visual imagery 

Self-reference

Generation

Organizing to-be-remembered information

Testing

T or F: LTM is content addressable

T, we retrieve memories based on what they are about, not where they are stored

T or F: Retrieval depends on retrieval cues

T, these are stimuli (symbols or words) that help us remember info

Tulving and Pearlstone category vs free recall experiment

Had two groups that both studied a list of words, one was told to recall the words in any order and the other was told to recall words from a specific category (i.e. given a cue)

Found cued recall group did much better, can conclude more specific retrieval cues aid recall

T or F: Self generated cues aid more accurate recall than outsider cues

T, demonstrated with the Mantyla retrieval experiment

Mantyla retrieval experiment

Hint: Nouns

Individuals saw 600 nouns and either read 3 association words for each or generated 3 association words for each and tried to recall the nouns. Was also a control group that did. not see any nouns only associated words and asked to guess nouns

Found that those with self generated cues did much better (controls did the worst)

What 3 factors aid encoding

Encoding specificity

State-dependent learning

Transfer-appropriate processing

Encoding specificity

We learn information together with its environmental context, proven using the Godden and Baddeley diving experiement

Godden and Baddeley diving experiement

Participants studied for a test either underwater or on land, then took the test in one of the two locations

Found that those who studied and tested in the same spot did much better regardless of location

State-dependent learning

Learning is associated with particular internal state

Those who studied and tested in the same state (happy/sad) performed better than those whose states differed

Transfer-appropriate processing

Learning is associated with the process that is used to encode information

Morris et al found that memory is enhanced if the encoding process is similar to retrieval process by varying the level of processing on two encoding tasks

Consolidation

Transforms new memories from a fragile state to a more permanent state, has two types

Two types of consolidation

Synaptic consolidation - involves structural changes at synapses, occurs over minutes/hours

Systems consolidation - involves gradual reorganization of circuits in brain, occurs over months/years

T or F: Subsequent info has an effect on earlier information and that information is more vulnerable right after encoding

T, as found by Muller and Pilzecker

Long-term potentiation

The strengthening of connection between synapses when an AP is repeatedly generated between two neurons, leads to more neurotransmitters on presynaptic side, which causes greater AP in postsynaptic neuron

Viskontas’ image-imagination pairing experiment

Hint: Hippocampus/cortex

Participants given pairs and asked to imagine items interacting, then presented a pairing and asked if they remember/know/don’t know the presented pairing

Showed that episodic memories depend strongly on the hippocampus but semantic memories do not

What can one conclude about consolidation with regard to Viskontas’ image-imagination pairing experiment with regard to the hippocampus and cortex

Immediate consolidation relies on hippocampus and cortex

Repeated consolidation will lead to semantic knowledge which is a represented in the cortex

Sleep and consolidation experiment

High school students learned 24 pairs of English-German words, either slept within 3 hours of learning or slept 10 hours after learning. Then tested 24-36 hours after sleeping

Found that  the former group did far better and can conclude that sleep is highly important for memory consolidation

Reconsolidation

When memory is retrieved it is reformed and is once again subject to interference

Nader et al rat shock experiment

Studied fear condition in rats by pairing tone and shock to make them freeze, had 3 conditions

3 conditions of the Nader et al rat shock experiment

Condition 1 - memory consolidation blocked when presented with tone on day 1, nothing on day 2, rat does not freeze on day 3

Condition 2 - tone/shock paired on day one, memory consolidation blocked on day 2, rat freezes on day 3

Condition 3 - tone/schock paired on day one, on day two memory consolidation blocked and rat played just tone, rat does not freeze on day 3

What was the point of condition 2 in the Nader et al rat shock experiment

Serve as control, to show rat does not lose the pairing on day 3 naturally

What was the finding of the Nader et al rat shock experiment

That reconsolidation is real and that blocked reconsolidation causes memory to be forgotten

T or F: Reconsolidation is present in humans

T, tested 2 groups that learned a list, one group was asked to recall the list on 2nd day of study which lead to interference with memory on day 3

Constructive nature of memory

Memory is dependent on what actually happened and knowledge, experience, expectations, etc.

Bartlett’s war of ghosts experiment (1932)

Had British participants attempt to remember a story regarding first nations

Found that over time reproduction became shorter, contained omissions/inaccuracies and changed the story to make it consistent with their culture

Source monitoring

Process of determining origins of our memories, also called source memory

Source monitoring error

Also called source misattributions, it is misidentifying the source of a memory

Cryptoamnesia

Unconscious plagiarism of another’s work due to lack of recognition of its original source

Jacoby’s famous overnight experiment

Had participants read a list of non famous names and then try to determine if names are famous or not either immediately after reading or 24 hours after reading

Found that a delayed test lead to some non-famous names being misidentified as famous due to increased familiarity with names and misattribution of familiarity

Pragmatic inferences

Inferences based on knowledge gained through experiences

Schemas

Knowledge about specific environmental contexts

Scripts

Knowledge about sequences of actions

Bransford and Johnson story time experiment

Had participants read a story that implied character was using a hammer or one that did not, then read them a new story that talked about the same character using a hammer and asked if the two stories were congruent

Found that the implied group was much more likely to say the sentences were congruent

DRM paradigm

Participants were shown a list of semantically related words and then a new list and asked if the words were from the new list. Some new words were lures such that they were semantically related to the original list

Found that lures were reported almost as often as actually words, and that individuals were highly confident on the lures actually be on the list

T or F: the DRM paradigm works even if one is aware of it

T, it makes no difference

Metamemory

Introspective knowledge about our own memory capabilites

Forgot it all along Coglab

Individuals were presented with a sequence of 44 word pairs, then presented with cues and asked to complete target words (sometimes context same/different from 44 pairs).

Showed participants pairs and asked if they had correctly remembered pairing in the previous portion of the experiment

What did the forgot it all along Coglab find

That people were more likely to forget that they correctly recalled a pairing if the context was different

What hypothesis can we formulate regarding the forgot it all along Coglab

That we are more likely to forget something previously remembered if we recall it in a different context

What can we say about recall context with regard to the forgot-it-all-along-phenomenon in the forgot it all along Coglab

Hint: Percentages

When recall context was different and the target was correctly recalled, participants subsequently incorrectly judged that they had forgotten the target 55% of the time

The forgot-it-all-along effect only happened 15% of the time when the context was the same for study, recall and judgement