cognitive psych exam 2

Short term memory is ONLY about…

Storage

Working memory is about

manipulating the information ex; solving a multiplication problem and thinking/working through it

There are 3 stages of memory- Atkinson and Shiffrin's model of memory

Sensory memory, Short-term memory, long term memory.

then ATTENTIONN

Sensory memory holds all incoming Info for <1 sec

STM: Holds 5- 9 items for 15- 20 secs.

then REHEARSAL

long term memory holds a large amount of info for years

Atkins and Shiffrin proposed controlled process

which are dynamic processes associated with the structural features that can be controlled by the person and may differ from one task to another.

Example of controlled process that operates on STM is Rehearsal

which is repeating a stimulus over and over like a phone number.

Encoding

is a process of STM- into LTM is called encoding

What is the process of remembering info that stored in LTM is called

Retrieval

Sensory Memory

is the retention for brief periods of time, of the effects of sensory stimulation

What are examples of effect of visual stimulation?

Trails left by moving sparkler or even seeing a film

Delayed partial report method

devised by Sperling it is a method in which the letters were flashed on and off then presented with a cue tone after a short delay.

Maintenance rehearsal helps

STM- not effective for LTM learning

Ionic Memory- ex; trail of sparkler or frames in film

Brief sensory memory for visual stimuli that lasts for a fraction of a second after a stimulus is extinguished. This corresponds to the sensory memory stage of the modal model of memory. Ionic memory has a large capacity but a very short duration

Echoic Memory

Brief sensory memory for auditory stimuli that lasts for a few seconds after a stimulus is extinguished.

Operation span

includes the processing and math manipulation factor into the memory. Memory span does not address this. It is harder to do manipulation with math problems. This supports that there is only a single source when using OP span.

Badley’s model of working Memory

3 components: Phonological loop, Central executive, Visual spatial Sketchpad

Phonological loop

Verbal and auditory info- listening to music is activating the loop. it contains storage and manipulation of information

Central executive

is allocating resources to the other components- this component determines where attention and energy is focused - it is essentially supported by any experiment pertaining to focused attention.

Visual spatial sketch pad

Deals with visual and spatial information. The images’ location, layout- this includes single bucket and storage for visual information.

working memory

is set up to process different types of info simultaneously, it has trouble when similar types of information are presented at the same time.

Phonological similarity effect

You can mistake a similar sounding word in an auditory task, example: Confusing letters with each other like B sound and D sound.

Word length effect

effect explains that we have better working memory capacity for shorter words instead of longer words, good examples of a short word would be like CAT.

Articulatory supression

Repeating a word out loud interferes with rehearsal

Mental rotation learning task

task that explains how it takes longer for a person to recognize a shape in terms of rotation, the more it is rotated from its original position the harder it is to recognize.

Visual imagery

Being able to recreate or remember something that cannot be verbally represented

Episodic buffer

was added because Badley’s original model could not explain how high our working memory capacity is.This combines components from the other two systems and adds in a component of time.

What are Sperlings three different types recall methods?

Whole report method, partial report method, and delayed partial report

Whole report

recall everything

Partial report

Recall only a signaled portion immediately after presentation

Delayed partial report

recall a signaled portion after a delay to measure how fast ionic memory decays

What is mental imagery?

Experiencing a sensory impression in the absence of sensory input.

Wundt proposed

that images were one of the three basic elements of consciousness, along with sensations and feelings. He also proposed that because images accompany thought, studying images was a way of studying thinking

What are the different types of imagery? Because it is not just visual.

Audio; hearing a song in your head, you are mentally hearing the sound.

Smell or scent; imagine your favorite food smell or imagine a smell or scent that reminds you of your favorite holiday.

Taste; imagine an orange, take a bite. can you taste it? How vivid is this imaginative orange?

Visual imagery; consist of an object and its spatial elements.

Aphantasia

is the absence of visual imagery. People with aphantasia know what objects, people and places look like, but they cannot voluntarily see the i their minds eye.

Aspects of memory aphantasia affects

It effects instances of episodic memory; recalling specific events with less detail. Spatial memory task; not accurately being able to recall spatial properties of an object. Autobiographical memory is reported to be less vivid. Memories can feel like facts. More reliant on semantic memories (Facts and knowledge)

What do aphantasics score low on but high on the other?

Aphantasics and congenitally blind patients score LOW on Object Imagery but very High on Spatial imagery. Researchers suggest that they are compensating for not being able to see.

Dual coding theory (Pavio)

Memory uses two systems→ Verbal code (words, language) and Imagery code (mental pictures)

Information learned both verbally and visually is remembered better. example; when teachers use images in slides.

Pavio stated that it was easier to remember what?

That it was easier to remember concrete nouns than abstract nouns. Because we can visualize them better than abstract nouns. An example of an abstract noun; “justice” or “truth”

Imagery and memory interact how?

Mental images improve memory performance, mental imagery plays an important role in learning and recall.

conceptual peg hypothesis

A hypothesis, associated with Paivio’s dual coding theory, that states that concrete nouns create images that other words can hang on to, which enhances memory for these words.

example of conceptual peg hypothesis

if presenting the pair boat–hat creates an image of a boat, then presenting the word boat later will bring back the boat image, which provides a number of places on which participants can place the hat in their mind

Mental Scanning experiment

Created by Stephen Kosslyn it is when you picture 2 animals in your mind, you imagine a fly (smaller) in comparison to an elephant (bigger), better imagination and attention to detail to the imagined fly than the elephant.

mental scanning

A process of mental imagery in which a person scans a mental image in his or her mind.

Kosslyn’s Mental Scanning Experiments

• Participants memorized a map containing several landmarks.They were asked to form a mental image of the map.Then they were told to focus on one landmark and mentally "scan" to another.The farther apart two landmarks were on the map, the longer participants took to mentally scan between them.Reaction time increased proportionally with distance. Greater distance in the image → longer scanning time.

Kosslyn found that

when people imagine being closer to an object, they can answer questions about small details more quickly and accurately. When they imagine being farther away, those details become harder to access.

example of mental walk task

A classic example from his research involved imagining a rabbit next to an elephant:

• The rabbit appears relatively small in the mental image, making details (like its whiskers) harder to "see."

• If participants imagine the rabbit by itself, it occupies more of the mental image and its details become easier to detect.

Mental rotation

Shows that it takes us time to mentally rotate an object similarly to how it takes us time to physically rotate one also.

how does imagery benefit memory?

Method of loci or Memory Palace

Method of loci or memory palace is..

One way to memorize a long list of words, you imagine a palace or house and place them throughout the “house” as you walk through it.

what are the idea behind Peg word or link word mnemonic?

Idea is to help learn a language you can pair a word you don’t know to one you do know. When you pair it to an image it helps.

A classic example from his research involved imagining a rabbit next to an elephant:

• The rabbit appears relatively small in the mental image, making details (like its whiskers) harder to "see."

• If participants imagine the rabbit by itself, it occupies more of the mental image, and its details become easier to detect.

Paper folding task

A test in which a piece of paper is folded and then pierced by a pencil to create a hole. The task is to determine, from a number of alternatives, where the holes will be on the unfolded piece of paper

Vividness of visual imagery questionnaire (VVIQ)

A test in which people are asked to rate the vividness of mental images they create. This test is designed to measure object imagery ability.

What are two common behavioral measures?

Mental rotation task and Paper folding task

Mental rotation task

A task in which a person judges whether two pictures of three-dimensional geometric objects are pictures of the same object rotated in space or are pictures of two mirror-image objects rotated in space.

Mental Scanning, Mental Rotation, Mental Walk/Image Size

are all visual imagery measures

Multivoxel pattern analysis

demonstrates a sizable overlap between imagery and perception in the brain.

what is the relationship between imagery and perception?

perception occurs automatically when we look at something, but imagery needs to be generated with some effort. Also, perception is stable—it continues as long as you are observing a stimulus—but imagery is fragile—it can vanish without continued effort.

Another example of a difference between imagery and perception is

is that it is harder to manipulate mental images than images that are created perceptually. This was demonstrated by Deborah Chalmers and Daniel Reisberg (1985), who asked their participants to create mental images of ambiguous figures such as the one in which can be seen as a rabbit or a duck. Perceptually, it is fairly easy to “flip” between these two perceptions. However, Chalmers and Reisberg found that participants who were holding a mental image of this figure were unable to flip from one perception to another.

what is the opposite of an aphantasia?

Visual agnosia

Visual agnosia is…

when someone can imagine objects in their minds eye but cannot see it when they look at it. People with visual agnosia can often describe an object's features (shape, color, size) but cannot say what the object is. they touch it or use another sense.

What is an example of visual agnosia

A person is shown a coffee mug and can say: "It's round." "It has a handle." "It's white."

But they cannot identify it as a coffee mug until they touch it or use another sense.

Visual agnosia shows what about perception and visual imagery?

shows that perception and object recognition are separate processes in the brain.

What does mental scanning show?

Images preserve spatial distance and layout

what does Mental Walk/Image Size show?

Images have size and scale properties

What does Mental Rotation show?

Images can be manipulated and rotated

Long Term Memory

A memory mechanism that can hold large amounts of information for long periods of time. Long-term memory is one of the stages in the modal model of memory.

How do LTM and STM interact with each other?

You need Working memory/ STM to get info to and from LTM→ YOU NEED WRKING MEMORY/ STM TO HOLD MEMORIES ONCE THEY ARE RETRIEVED. 

You need to have a good WM capacity to hold the information in the moment.

Serial position curve

Study a list of letters or #’s, flashing on a screen. Serial position curve looks at what #’s or letters are forgotten

Recency effect

In a memory experiment in which a list of words is presented, enhanced memory for words presented at the end of the list- this is compared to the middle of the list

Primacy effect

In a memory experiment in which a list of words is presented, enhanced memory for words presented at the beginning of the list- compared to words in middle of the list

What do these effects show? (primacy and recency effect)

This tells us that the existence of the primacy and recency shows a distinction in STM. The primacy effect exists because it makes it into the LTM. You remember beginning items better because you rehearse them more and they go into LTM

What are the 2 types of LTM

Implicit; Memory that occurs when an experience affects a person’s behavior, even though the person is not aware that he or she has had the experience.

Explicit; declarative, Memory that involves conscious recollections of events or facts that we have learned in the past.

Implicit memory aligns with what ?

Procedural memory

Procedural Memory

Memory for how to carry out highly practiced skills. Procedural memory is a type of implicit memory because although people can carry out a skilled behavior, they often cannot explain exactly how they are able to do so.

Explicit memory aligns with

Semantic and Episodic memory

what are episodic and semantic memories?

Episodic are actively recalling and remembering an experience, Semantic is you recall facts you know.

Tulving’s Mental Time travel

According to Tulving, the defining property of the experience of episodic memory, in which a person travels back in time in his or her mind to reexperience events that happened in the past.

Semanticization of remote memories

Loss of episodic details for memories of long-ago events. You remember memories in a factual way as if you are pulling it from a knowledge stand point.

Priming

When an initial presentation of a stimulus affects the person’s response to the same stimulus when it is presented later.

What are the different types of priming?

repetition priming, mere exposure effect, propaganda effect, familiarity effect, and illusory truth effect.

repetition priming

When an initial presentation of a stimulus affects the person’s response to the same stimulus when it is presented later.

Mere exposure effect

technically to like or prefer something more because we have seen it before.

propaganda effect

when repeated exposure to information makes people more likely to believe it is true, even if it is biased or misleading.

illusory truth effect

because of repeated exposure you are more likely to believe it is true.

What does repeated exposure and familiarity do?

it increases fluency, not just repeated but having fluency is important

what are the Similarities/differences between semantic and episodic memories?

Semantic memories can be enhanced if associated with episodic - tying a fact to a personal memory enhances its remembrance.

Some memories contain both autobiographical and personal semantic memories.

Tulving's time travel is a distinguishing difference between semantic and episodic memory.

Semantic and episodic have different meanings rates of what?

they have different rates of forgetting, Episodic memories fade quicker than semantic memories

Can you lose the ability to remember episodic or semantic memory but still remember the other?

True - you can lose the ability to remember episodic memories but remember semantic memories. Vice versa also.

are scripts and schemas more related to episodic or semantic memories?

They are more related to semantic.

What are the effects of repeated activation?

The number of activations a retrieval is the most important factor to see if you will remember something. Retrieving something once makes you more likely to remember it later. Every time a memory or single concept is “activated” the stronger the memory will be.

The following evidence supports the idea that episodic and semantic memory involve different mechanisms

1. double dissociation of episodic and semantic memory in patients with brain damage;

2. brain imaging, which indicates that overlapping but different areas are activated by episodic and semantic memories.

The remember/know procedure is based on the idea that….

recollection is associated with episodic memory, and familiarity is associated with semantic memory.

Classical conditioning occurs when a neutral stimulus is paired with a….

stimulus that elicits a response, so that the neutral stimulus then elicits the response. Classically conditioned emotions occur in everyday experience.

What are the 4 processes of LTM

encoding, consolidation, storage and retrieval

encoding is

the process of acquiring information and transferring it into memory.

consolidation

The process that transforms new memories into a state in which they are more resistant to disruption.

storage

retaining the memory over time

retrieval

The process of remembering information that has been stored in long-term memory.