11b memory compact pt 1

How does information move through Atkinson and Shiffrin's modal model of memory?

• Environmental input first enters sensory memory

• Attention selects some information for working memory

• Encoding transfers processed information into long-term memory

• Retrieval returns long-term information to working memory for conscious use • Slide 3.

Scenario: A student notices a definition, connects it to prior knowledge and later recalls it on an exam. Identify the memory stages and processes.

• The definition briefly enters sensory memory

• Attention selects it into working memory

• Meaningful processing supports encoding into long-term memory

• The exam question cues retrieval back into working memory • Slide 3.

Why is attention essential in the modal model?

• Sensory input greatly exceeds what can be consciously processed

• Attention acts like a mental spotlight, selecting relevant sensory information for working memory

• Unattended sensory traces usually fade, preventing overload • Slides 3-4.

Compare iconic and echoic sensory memory.

• Iconic memory briefly preserves visual input from the eyes and fades very rapidly

• Echoic memory briefly preserves auditory input and generally lasts longer, allowing recently heard words to be mentally recovered

• Both have large momentary input but very short duration unless attended

• The notes indicate echoic information may sometimes remain available for up to about 10 seconds • Slide 4.

Why did Baddeley's model replace passive short-term memory with working memory?

• Working memory actively maintains and manipulates information for current tasks rather than merely storing it

• Its limited capacity creates an information bottleneck

• Multitasking is difficult because competing tasks share limited attentional resources • Slide 5.

What are the four components of Baddeley's working-memory model?

• Central executive: directs attention and coordinates the system

• Visuospatial sketchpad: maintains and manipulates visual-spatial information

• Phonological loop: maintains verbal and auditory information through inner speech

• Episodic buffer: binds information into integrated episodes and links working memory with long-term memory • Slide 5.

Which working-memory component is most involved in mental rotation, silently repeating a phone number, coordinating both tasks and linking them to a past event?

• Mental rotation uses the visuospatial sketchpad

• Silent repetition uses the phonological loop

• Coordinating the tasks uses the central executive

• Integrating them with a remembered event uses the episodic buffer • Slide 5.

What can and cannot be accomplished through rote rehearsal?

• Repeating information can keep it active and sometimes improves later recall, as shown by Rundus

• It is useful for exact temporary material such as a phone number or script

• More rehearsal time does not always improve memory, as shown by Glenberg, Smith and Green

• Repetition alone may not support understanding or application • Slide 6.

How does chunking improve working-memory efficiency?

• Chunking groups several separate elements into one meaningful unit

• A familiar acronym can function as one chunk instead of several unrelated letters

• It increases the amount handled functionally without literally enlarging basic working-memory capacity • Slide 6.

What does the levels-of-processing principle predict about memory?

• Shallow processing focuses on surface features such as appearance or sound

• Deep processing focuses on meaning, connections, personal relevance and application

• Deeper processing produces stronger and longer-lasting memory than shallow processing • Slide 6.

Which study strategy best prepares a student to apply a concept on a difficult exam?

• Explaining the idea, connecting it to prior knowledge and applying it to new scenarios uses deep processing

• Chunking can reduce working-memory load

• Rote repetition can maintain exact wording but may create familiarity without flexible understanding • Slide 6.

What are the major properties of long-term memory, and what is retrieval?

• Long-term memory is a relatively enduring store spanning sensory and conceptual forms of knowledge

• Its estimated capacity is virtually limitless and memories can persist from childhood into old age

• Access must be supported through retrieval practice

• Retrieval activates stored information and places it into working memory for conscious use • Slides 7-8.

Distinguish state-dependent retrieval from transfer-appropriate processing.

• State-dependent retrieval improves when the internal state or relevant conditions at test resemble those present during learning

• Transfer-appropriate processing improves when the cognitive operations practised during study match those required by the test

• Practising application-based multiple choice for an application-based multiple-choice exam illustrates transfer-appropriate processing • Slide 8.

What does the tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon reveal about memory?

• The information may exist in long-term memory but be temporarily inaccessible

• Retrieval failure is not proof that the memory was erased or never stored

• Moving on and returning later can allow the retrieval block to resolve • Slide 8.

How do you interpret the serial-position curve?

• High recall for early items is the primacy effect

• High recall for the most recent items is the recency effect

• Middle items are usually recalled least well, producing a U-shaped curve

• Middle material may therefore require extra retrieval practice during studying • Slide 9.

Why do primacy and recency effects occur, and what would disrupt each one?

• Primacy occurs because early items receive more rehearsal and long-term encoding

• Recency occurs because late items remain fresh in working memory at immediate recall

• A delay or distracting task before recall especially reduces recency

• Preventing rehearsal especially reduces primacy • Slide 9.

What is the hierarchy of long-term memory?

• Declarative or explicit memory includes episodic and semantic memory

• Non-declarative or implicit memory includes procedural memory, priming and conditioning

• The categories differ in whether conscious recollection is required, not simply in how old the memory is

• Slide 11.

Distinguish explicit from implicit memory using a scenario.

• Explicit memory is consciously accessible and can usually be described, such as recalling graduation or stating a fact

• Implicit memory changes performance without requiring conscious recollection, such as typing automatically, responding faster after priming or reacting to a conditioned cue • Slide 11.

Compare episodic and semantic memory, and explain how one can become the other.

• Episodic memory represents personally experienced events tied to a time and place

• Semantic memory represents facts, meanings and general knowledge without requiring the learning episode

• Learning may begin episodically, but the original context can fade while the factual knowledge remains semantic • Slide 12.

Why are flashbulb memories an exam trap?

• They are vivid, emotionally intense episodic memories for consequential events

• People may feel as though they are reliving the event and report high confidence

• Research shows that their details can still be inaccurate or change

• Vividness and confidence do not guarantee accuracy • Slide 12.

Compare procedural memory, priming and conditioning as forms of implicit memory.

• Procedural memory is learning how to perform practised skills and is associated with the basal ganglia

• Priming is faster or easier processing after related or prior exposure

• Conditioning is a learned association that changes responding

• All can influence behaviour without conscious recollection of the original learning episode • Slide 13.

How can a word-stem completion task demonstrate priming?

• Prior exposure to a word makes a matching incomplete word more likely or faster to complete • For example, seeing CLIMATE can facilitate completing _L_M_TE as CLIMATE • The facilitation can occur without consciously remembering the original list, so it reflects implicit rather than explicit memory • Slide 13.

What surgery did patient H.M. receive, and what memory profile followed?

• Bilateral medial temporal-lobe tissue, including hippocampal regions, was removed to treat severe seizures

• He developed profound anterograde amnesia and partial temporally graded retrograde amnesia

• Working memory and general intelligence remained relatively intact • Slides 15-16.

Distinguish anterograde from retrograde amnesia using H.M.

• Anterograde amnesia is impaired formation of new long-term memories after injury; H.M. could converse briefly but later forget the encounter

• Retrograde amnesia is loss of memories formed before injury

• H.M.'s retrograde loss was temporally graded, with more recent pre-surgery memories more vulnerable than remote ones • Slide 16.

How did H.M.'s mirror-tracing and sequence learning reveal separate memory systems?

• His skill performance improved across sessions even though he did not consciously remember practising

• This shows preserved procedural or implicit learning despite severely impaired new declarative memory

• The hippocampal system is crucial for new declarative memories but is not required for every form of learning • Slide 17.

What did the case of Clive Wearing reveal about memory?

• Herpes simplex encephalitis produced profound anterograde and retrograde amnesia

• He lacked a continuous understanding of how one moment connected to the next and recalled little of his past

• Some recognition and emotional attachment, especially toward his wife, remained

• His uneven abilities further show that memory is not a single unitary system • Slide 18.

How are Hebb's principle, long-term potentiation, glutamate and NMDA receptors connected?

• Hebb's principle states that neurons repeatedly active together develop stronger connections

• Long-term potentiation is a lasting enhancement of synaptic processing after coordinated activation

• Glutamate activity at NMDA receptors contributes to synaptic changes supporting LTP

• Memory depends on strengthened network connections, not one neuron remaining permanently active • Slide 19.

What does cortical consolidation theory propose, and how can sleep contribute?

• The hippocampal-medial temporal system rapidly binds the components of a new memory

• Repeated reactivation strengthens connections among distributed cortical representations

• Sleep can support this reactivation and stabilization

• Over time, a consolidated memory can become less dependent on the faster-learning hippocampus and more strongly represented in cortex • Slide 20.

How does H.M.'s temporally graded retrograde amnesia support cortical consolidation theory?

• Recent memories were more vulnerable because they still depended strongly on the damaged medial temporal system

• Older memories had more time to develop distributed cortical support

• The time gradient therefore fits a gradual shift from hippocampal binding toward cortical representation • Slides 16 and 20.

Compare the gnostic or grandmother-cell hypothesis with ensemble coding.

• The gnostic hypothesis proposes a highly selective neuron for a specific complex person or object

• Ensemble coding proposes that recognition arises from a distributed pattern across many neurons representing combinations of features

• Losing one critical neuron would be catastrophic under a strict gnostic account, whereas a distributed ensemble should be more robust • Slide 21.