PSC 130 Final (with previous midterm questions)

bro what

Ebbinghaus biggest difference in memory performance

test given 20 min after studying vs. 1 hour after studying

Baddeley functions of the central executive

• updating contents of working memory

• manipulating info in working memory

• coordinating concurrent mental activities

• inhibition of distracting info

what was necessary in levels of processing tests

use incidental coding tasks so that experimenters could manipulate how info was processed

relational encoding

helps form meaningful links between memories that might ultimately compete with one another

item-specific encoding

focus on distinct features of item

transfer appropriate framework

focused on cognitive processes and tests matching

Tulving’s encoding specificity principle

focused on contextual cues matching

proactive interference

learning 1 causes learning 2 to be slower

retroactive interference

learning 2 causes forgetting of learning 1

Von Restorff effect

isolated item is remembered better than others

recency effect

depends on time between items and time between study ends and recall begins

lag recency effect

when you recall an item, you recall other things that happened around the same time period; temporal organization

episodic memories

temporally organized, shown by lag recency effect; spatiotemporal from Tulving

generate-recognize model

recall involves two processing stages (generate and recognize), recognition only requires one

word frequency effect

an infrequent word is less likely to be recalled, but more likely to be recognized on a memory test

mirror effect

low frequency words = more hits and fewer false alarms

Bartlett

remembering is reconstructive and people use schemas to interpret info; focused on cultural and social elements

strength theory

weak memories: recognition and familiarity
strong memories: remembering and recall

dual process theory

recognition is supported by two processes: familiarity and recollection

familiarity

• perirhinal cortex

• supports recognition

• never fails

• item only

• fast

recollection

• hippocampus

• supports all recall and recognition

• sometimes fails

• item and context

• slow

false fame effect

you can be tricked into thinking that a regular person is famous if the name is not recollected from the study phase but seems familiar

“own race bias” in cross-race face recognition

explained by differences in past experience at recognizing faces of people from one’s own race vs. those from different racial categories

activity in perirhinal cortex

• decreases during processing of primed items relative to unprimed items

• also decreased with recognition confidence for familiar items

false fame effect, illusory truth effect, mere exposure effect

examples of how familiarity can influence decisions, opinions, and preferences

default mode network discussed in Why We Remember

default mode network is involved in complex thought processes, such as retrieving episodic memories, spatial navigation, and making sense of stories

why might you have trouble remembering something after you walk through a doorway

people form new event models after a change in spatial context

event segmentation theory

• people are able to retrieve info from within an event than across event boundaries

• people have better memory for actions that occurred at an event boundary

what an event boundary is triggered by

a prediction error

retrieval of episodic memories in Why We Remember

instead of replaying past events as they were, we use what we remember to imagine how the past could have been

event model

• helps reconstruct past, understand present, predict future

• generated from event schemas

• similar to working memory

event schema

• builds on knowledge of how different situations work

• structure/script

• similar to semantic memory

schemas and memory retrieval (soap opera effect)

• Ps use the schema to aid their memory retrieval of a story

• ^but they are also more likely to recall schema-consistent info that was not presented in the story

DRM paradigm

• patients and healthy controls studied lists of words that were all related to a critical lure that was not presented during study

• amnesiac patients made fewer false alarms to the related critical lure than did healthy controls

• controls used imagination as part of their memory retrieval

boundary extension study findings

drawings by amnesiac patients more accurately represented the objects relative to the background context than drawings by healthy controls

hippocampal damage vs healthy controls when imagining events

patients with hippocampal damage imagined much fewer details than healthy controls

according to the source monitoring framework:

accurate memory attributions depend on the availability of specific info, such as sensory details, about a past event

PFC damage

more likely to make false alarms on memory tests and confabulate due to impaired ability to determine the source of memories

spacing effect

distributed practice leads to better retention compared to massed practice

retrieval induced facilitation

• retrieval practice may enhance contextually-linked items

• in study with object and scenes linking them: an episode is reactivated during retrieval, not just access to a single object

best way to learn info in Why We Remember

• test ourselves on info, and make a best guess even if we’re not sure of the answer

• error-driven learning

retrieval induced forgetting

• retrieval can impair retention of competing info

• practicing some items improved memory for those items, but impairs memory of unpracticed competitors

repressed memories in Why We Remember

no evidence that memories are repressed, but traumatic memories for real events can be lost and then recovered in some cases

think/no think paradigm findings

• suppressing word after triggered association makes it hard to recall

• suppressing a memory involves increased activity in the prefrontal cortex and decreased activity in the hippocampus

what studies of memory implantation suggest

people can generate false memories by repeatedly attempting to recall an event that never happened

amygdala damage

patients show normal memory for neutral components of a story, but reduced recall of emotionally arousing components in comparison to healthy controls

hippocampus in fear conditioning

after extinction learning, animals with damage to the hippocampus do not show spontaneous recovery of fear in new contexts

consolidation can be disrupted if a protein synthesis inhibitor was administered:

immediately after a reminder of the CS

emotional/stressful events in Why We Remember

cortisol can promote plasticity, helping us remember what happened right before or right after the event

explanation for the relationship between emotional arousal and memory

transient release of norepinephrine increases the engagement of the amygdala, thereby improving memory for salient parts of a stressful event

default mode network

• activated during episodic memory retrieval

• may represent event schemas

• schemas can be decoded from brain activity during free recall

• activation increases at event boundaries

boundary extension and boundary contraction

• extension is bigger, contraction is smaller

• memory is biased to reconstruct a view that captures the most useful info in the environment

extinction

reconsolidation

massed practice

• how I cram for exams

• cramming several study attempts into a few sessions with a smaller gap in between

distributed practice

• spreading out study attempts with large gap in between; distributed across time

• effect: greater lags yield better memory

acute stress

cortisol spike leads to increased encoding and retention but decreased retrieval

chronic stress

• results in reduced hippocampus and anterior cingulate volume, reduced memory

• stress before retrieval hurts memory but stress before encoding can help or hurt