Cognitive Psychology Exam 2 Study Guide

Flashcards covering key concepts related to working memory, long-term memory structure, memory encoding, and retrieval, including definitions, effects, and theories.

Baddeley’s model of working memory

Working memory is composed of a central executive (PFC/ACC), a phonological loop (Wernicke’s/Broca’s Areas), a visuospatial sketchpad (visual cortex), and an episodic buffer (parietal lobe)

Phonological loop

Handles verbal and auditory information, storing auditory information in the absence of a stimulus.

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. Impairs working memory.

Visuospatial Sketch Pad

Handles visual and spatial information, storage of visual images in the absence of a stimulus

Mental Rotation

Tasks can illustrate the visuospatial sketchpad, tasks that call for greater rotations take longer

Central Executive

Acts as the attention controller. Focus, divide, and switch attention. Controls suppression of irrelevant information

Episodic Buffer

Backup store that communicates with LTM and other WM components. holds information longer and has a greater capacity than phonological loop or visuospatial sketchpad.

Working Memory Capacity Limits

About 5-10 verbal items forward, 3-7 verbal items backward, 3-4 colored squares, 1-2 complex shapes, but can be more when information is chunked

Working Memory Storage Duration

Roughly 15-20 seconds for verbal information in the absence of rehearsal

Effects of Damage to the Prefrontal Cortex

Problems controlling attention and difficulty with working memory

Serial Position Curve

Curve for memory of items in a list

Primacy Effect

Memory is better for stimuli presented at the beginning of a list; more time to rehearse information, more likely to enter long-term memory

Recency Effect

Memory is better for stimuli presented at the end of a list. Stimuli still in STM

Misinformation effect

When misleading information after an event changes how that event is later recalled.

Episodic Memory

Involves mental time travel. Tied to personal experience; remembering is reliving. “Self-knowing”

Semantic Memory

Does not involve mental time travel. General knowledge, facts, “Knowing.”

Episodic-Semantic Interactions

Episodic memory can be lost, leaving only semantic. Semantic memories can be improved if specific episodes lead. Semantic memory can influence our memory decisions, especially when episodic memory is weak; recollection is unaffected by semantic memory

Autobiographical Memory

Memory for one’s own life. This can include personal semantic memories and episodic memory.

Personal Semantic Memory

Semantic memories that have personal significance

Implicit Memory

Occurs when learning from experience is not accompanied by conscious remembering. Forms include procedural memory (for skills/actions), priming (presentation of prime changes the response to test) and conditioning (classical/operant and may be basis of priming)

How Hippocampus Supports Perception, STM, and LTM

Binding of high-resolution, complex information, can be items and contexts, or high-resolution features within items

Effects if Time on Memory Details

Forgetting isn’t an all-or-none process. Contextual details get lost first, leaving mostly familiarity.

Constructive Episodic Simulation Hypothesis

Episodic memories are extracted and recombined to create simulations of future events. Helps us to anticipate future needs and guide future behaviors.

The Propaganda Effect

More likely to rate statements read or heard before as being true. Involves implicit memory because it can occur when people are not aware of previously seeing or hearing statement

Levels of Processing Theory

Memory depends on how information is encoded, via its depth of processing at encoding.

Shallow Processing

Occurs when there is little attention given to meaning, such as when there is a focus on physical features or simple rehearsal. Results in poor memory.

Deep Processing

Occurs when the meaning of the information encountered is focused on, such as when considering definitions of words or elaborating on what one experiences at the level of it’s meaning, and it results in better memory

Generation Effect

Generating a memory link oneself markedly improves memory for that link. If you want to remember an association, come up with your own way of making that association.

Self-Reference Effect

Memory for information related to one’s self/ self concept is much better than memory for information unrelated to one’s self

Effects of Stress on Memory Retrieval

Impairment, stronger for positive and negative information than neutral information. Suggests that memory retrieval of emotional information operates through at least partly different mechanisms from retrieval of neutral information. Retrieval practice can help to buffer against these effects.

Effect of Mental Framework on Memory

Having a mental framework for comprehension before learning improves memory for that information. A picture can help you remember a story that goes along with that picture, for example.

Effects of stress on Memory Encoding

Enhances encoding of things related to the stressor learned in close temporal proximity to the stressor, whereas stress impairs encoding of things unrelated to the stressor learned more than 30 mins after stress offset

Retrieval Cues

Remembering some information, such as a word stem or highly salient information, can facilitate your ability to remember other information that comes from that same category or context

Encoding Specificity

We learn information together with its context, and reinstating the encoding context at retrieval can facilitate memory

Systems Consolidation Theory (Standard)

Memories start in the hippocampus and over time move to the cortex for long-term storage. This theory was used to explain graded retrograde amnesia (recent memories are lost more than older ones)

Contextual Binding Theory (Newer)

The hippocampus and cortex do different jobs instead of storing the same memory at different times. Hippocampus to episodic as cortex is to semantic memories.

Contextual Binding Evidence: Graded Retrograde Amnesia

Happens less often with hippocampal damage than thought, episodic memories are usually not graded, semantic memories often show graded retrograde amnesia after hippocampal damage

Contextual Binding Evidence: fMRI Studies

Systems consolidation predicts that the hippocampus should be more active for recent memories than remote ones. In reality, studies usually find similar hippocampal activity for BOTH recent and remote memories

Memory Consolidation

Process by which experiences are transformed from an initial fragile state to a stronger, more permanent state

Long-Term Potentiation

Repeated or strong stimulation leads to a stronger connection between a presynaptic neuron and a postsynaptic neuron via structural changes at the synapse. These lead to an increase in the firing rate of the postsynaptic neuron from stimulation by the presynaptic neuron in the future

Effects of Post-Incoding Stress on Episodic Memory

Glucocorticoids (like cortisol) and norepinephrine enhance synaptic consolidation. Post-encoding stress appears to work through these mechanisms and/or immune mechanisms to enhance memory

Effects of Sleep on Memory

Sleeping reduces interference from environmental stimuli, producing better memory

The Reminiscence Bump

Memory is high for recent events and for events that occured in adolescence and early adulthood. Evidence from those who emigrated to the US after young adulthood indicates reminiscence bump is shifted

Self-Image Hypothesis

Memory is enhanced for events that occur as a person’s self-image or life identity is being formed. People assume identities during adolescence and young adulthood, especially between ages 10-30.

Cognitive Hypothesis

Encoding is better during periods of rapid change that are followed by stability

Cultural Life Script Hypothesis

Everyone has a personal life story and an understanding of culturally expected events, and personal events are easier to recall when they’re script-congruent. These culturally expected events tend to occur though young adulthood but are less common after age 30.

Flashbulb Memories

Memories of the circumstances around shocking or emotional events, feel very vivid and emotional and people usually feel very confident about these memories. Despite the confidence, people are often wrong about the correct details as they fade over time. Repeated talking about the memory can change it and increases confidence.

Basic Property of Memory

Memory is: What actually happened + Other things that happened later + Our own general knowledge about how things usually happen

Effects of Emotion on Memory

We remember highly significant or emotional events in our lives better and more vividly than mundane events, this becomes greater with time.

Effects of Schemas on Memory

Can facilitate familiarity-based memory for schema-congruent information, facilitate recollection-based memory for schema-incongruent information, and increase false recall of schema-congruent information that was not present. Shows the reconstruction of memories.

Misleading Information Effect

When presented after someone witnesses an event can change how that person later describes the event

Weapon Bias Effect

Tendency to focus on the weapon, results in narrowing of attention. Memory for everything, including the weapon, is worse when an event has a weapon that is used