PSC 130 Final

Based on Ebbinghaus' studies of forgetting, you would expect to show the most forgetting (i.e., the biggest difference in memory performance) between:

A test given 20 minutes after study vs. a test given 1 hour after studying

Which of the following best describes the difference between the "long-term store" and "short-term store" in the Modal Model (e.g., Atkinson & Shiffrin, 1968)?

The long-term store is responsible for storing information permanently, while the short-term store is responsible for temporarily holding information for immediate use.

Which of the following is NOT a function of the Central Executive, as described by Baddeley?

Phonological storage

Name one brain area that is most critical for functions that are associated with "Central Executive" in Baddeley's working memory model.

prefrontal cortex

dlPFC

PFC

dorsolateral prefrontal cortex

dorsolateral PFC

Cortical Areas in the Dorsal Stream are more involved with _____ Working Memory, whereas the Areas in the Ventral Stream are more involved with ____ Working Memory

Spatial, object

Heyer & Barrett (1971) found that verbal distraction disrupts recall of letters (verbal recall), and visual distraction disrupts recall of position (visual recall).

There are separate working memory systems for verbal versus visual information

Older adults with extensive white matter hyperintensities (WMH) on MRI scans have:

Reduced prefrontal cortex activation and worse working memory

Craik and Lockhart's Levels of Processing Framework proposed that

Elaborative rehearsal should result in better learning than maintenance rehearsal

Alex is trying to memorize a list of words by sorting them into different categories. This is an example of:

Relational Encoding

Morris, Bransford, and Franks (1977) had subjects encode a list of words either by deciding whether each word had a certain sound in it, or by processing the meaning of the word. Next, subjects in one group were given an item recognition test on the words they studied, whereas subjects in another group were given a rhyme recognition test (i.e., "Did you see a word that rhymed with 'eagle'?"). Based on the Transfer Appropriate Processing Framework, one would predict that:

... subjects who did meaning-based encoding would show better performance on the item recognition test, but subjects who did sound-based encoding would show better performance on the rhyme recognition test

In a study by Goodwin et al. (1969), participants learned a list of items in two different states (either while sober or after drinking 10 oz of 80-proof vodka). They were then asked to recall the list either while sober or drunk. These results suggest that:

Of the participants who were drunk during studying, these participants did worse during the test when they were sober than when they were drunk during the test.

What causes interference (one word)?

similarity

competition

The book Why We Remember talks about how focusing too much on taking pictures or videos can make people focus less on the present moment, and thus actually remember less from the experience later on. Connecting to concepts from lecture, the book suggests that:

People who are focused on taking photos constantly are not doing deep encoding, and thus not encoding the experience as well. Instead, taking pictures of a few select, distinct moments could help, as it allows for better encoding and those select, distinct photos can act as better retrieval cues.

Alyssa studied for her Introductory French class, and then switched to studying for her Introductory Spanish class. Alyssa found that her learning of French words subsequently interfered with her ability to learn new Spanish words. This can be described as:

Proactive interference

Alyssa, who previously took Introductory French and switched to Introductory Spanish, then decides to drop Spanish and take Introductory German in the spring quarter. After completing her German class, she now finds it more difficult to remember the Spanish words she finally learned the quarter before. This can be described as:

Retroactive interference

Which of the following is an example of the Von Restorff effect:

Subjects show better memory performance for "couch" if the rest of the words on the study list are fruits, compared to if it were studied in a list with other furniture items.

A healthy subject studies a list of 30 words and then immediately takes a free recall memory test. You would expect the subject to have _________ memory for the first few items compared to the middle items, and ___________ memory for the last few items compared to the middle items.

Increased, Increased

The lag-recency effect provides evidence to support the idea that Episodic Memories are:

Temporally organized

Alan runs a memory experiment in which two groups of subjects are asked to learn and recall a list of words.

Group A studies the items 1 second apart and they are asked to recall the words 5 minutes after the study phase has ended.

Group B studies the items 5 seconds apart and they are asked to recall the words immediately after the study phase has ended.

Group B would show a larger recency effect than Group A

Research described in class suggests that the Primacy Effect happens because:

People spend more time rehearsing Primacy Items

According to Why We Remember, Endel Tulving said that a key characteristic of human consciousness is that we are "capable of mental time travel, roaming at will over what has happened as readily as over what might happen, independently of the physical laws that govern the universe." Tulving here is describing the experience of retrieving:

Episodic memories

On a recognition memory test, when a subject incorrectly says "old" for an unstudied item, we would call that a:

False Alarm

Research on word frequency effects suggests that:

an infrequent word like "armadillo" is less likely to be recalled, but more likely to be recognized on a memory test, relative to a more frequent word like "horse".

Participants are tasked with learning a list of words, half of which are displayed in red ink and the other half are in blue ink. Later, you are given a yes-no recognition test and are asked to identify which words were previously presented. Next, you are asked to state whether each studied word was presented in red or blue ink. According to dual-process theories, _______ can help you perform the first judgment; ______ can help you perform the second judgment.

Recollection & familiarity; recollection only

Yonelinas et al (2002) tested patients with focal hippocampal lesions (H) and patients with lesions to both the hippocampus and the parahippocampal gyrus (H+) including the perirhinal cortex. He found that:

H patients had impaired recollection but intact familiarity, H+ patients had impaired familiarity and recollection

In the Hintzman and Curran study discussed in class, subjects studied words like "apple", "chair", etc. At test, they were presented old items ("apple"), similar items ("chairs") and new items ("hammer"). If a subject made a false alarm to a similar item like "chairs", that means the item was:

Familiar but not recollected

The "mirror effect" in recognition memory refers to the fact that:

low frequency words are associated with more hits and fewer false alarms than are high frequency words

In an experiment described in class, subjects learned a list of words, half of which were studied in the auditory modality and half of which were studied visually. These subjects were given a recognition test in which all items were tested visually. What was the primary result of the experiment?

Familiarity was higher for words studied in the visual modality

In a study designed to test the standard theory of systems consolidation, two groups of young rats were given extensive training on the Morris Water Maze. Then the rats in one group were given hippocampal lesions. When the two groups of rats were later placed in the Morris Water Maze:

Rats with an intact hippocampus could still remember the location of the platform, but rats with hippocampal lesions could not remember the location of the platform.

Long-term potentiation is:

A lasting increase in the strength of a synapse when the input neuron is heavily stimulated

Rudoy & Paller (2009) did an experiment in which participants studied objects in locations paired with sounds, and then they cued retrieval of half of the objects during sleep by playing the associated sounds. They found that:

Playing the sounds during sleep improved memory specifically for the cued object-location associations

Why We Remember suggests that deja vu:

Could be a result of activity in the perirhinal cortex leading to an intense familiarity signal

Why We Remember suggests that companies will spend large amounts of money to advertise well-known products to

Capitalize on the mere exposure effect, which says that people are drawn to the familiar, so being exposed to a product will make people more likely to buy it

Why We Remember suggests that

Both people and computer programs are often biased, and can better recognize faces from races they are more familiar

Which of the following statements characterizes a true difference between 'standard' consolidation theory of Squire et al. (1984) vs. the 'transformation hypothesis' of Winocur et al. (2010)?

the standard view is that the hippocampus plays a time-limited role in episodic and semantic memory storage, whereas the transformation hypothesis suggests that the hippocampus is a permanent site of episodic memory storage, but that the neocortex can eventually store semantic knowledge

An event model is similar to _____ memory and an event schema is similar to _____memory.

working, semantic

Why do researchers think that you might have trouble remembering something after you walk through a doorway?

Because people often form new event models after a change in spatial context

Radvansky et al. (2017) conducted a study in which they examined the fan effect for different objects associated with the same place (e.g., "the banana is on the counter"; "the apple is on the counter"...) and for the same object associated with different places (e.g., "the phone in the car"; "the phone is on the desk"...). Which of the following best describes their results? Make sure to read all the answer choices and choose the best one:

If you form more associations with a given object, you will be slower at retrieving information about that object. But if you form many associations with a place, you might not show interference because these associations can fit within the same event model.

According to event segmentation theory, an event boundary is triggered by:

a prediction error

According to Event Segmentation Theory, event boundaries impact subsequent

memory retrieval. Which of the following statements is true:

People are impaired at retrieving information across event boundaries, and are better able to retrieve information from within an event.

In an experiment described in class, Teng and Squire (1999) showed that patient E.P. could

accurately remember the locations of places in his childhood home of Hayward. These results

are most consistent with:

Systems consolidation theory

In a study discussed in class, a London taxi driver had a hippocampal lesion. He then underwent a simulation of driving routes in London and the results showed:

He could navigate between two well-known places, but only using major streets

Back in 1973, Walter got Electroconvulsive Therapy (ECT). If we tested him for retrograde

amnesia, we would find that, relative to a healthy subject, Walter would show:

Significantly worse memory for events that occurred in 1971, but relatively normal memory for events that occurred in 1965

The Complementary Learning Systems Model (McClelland, McNaughton & O'Reilly, 1995) would suggest that the _____ is specialized for remembering specifically what you ate for breakfast yesterday, an that the _____ is specialized for knowing which foods are generally breakfast foods.

Hippocampus; Neocortex

Why We Remember mentions how chess players can look at a set of pieces on a board for only a few seconds and then reproduce the positions of every piece from memory. The book suggests that they are excellent at remembering these positions on the board because:

They can rely on their schemas for sequences of chess moves. But if the pieces were placed randomly, they wouldn't be able to remember the positions of all pieces.

Why We Remember discusses how studies found that when participants were focusing their attention on some arbitrary task, such as pushing a button, when they saw an X flash on the screen, brain activity in the Default Mode Network decreased. We now think that:

The Default Mode Network is involved in complex thought processes, such as retrieving episodic memories, spatial navigation, and making sense of stories

According to Event Segmentation Theory, event boundaries impact subsequent memory retrieval. Which of the following statements is true:

People have better memory for actions that occurred at an event boundary.

Hassabis and Maguire (2007) compared patients with hippocampal damage and healthy controls in their ability to imagine events. What did they find?

Patients imagined much fewer details than controls

In a "Boundary Extension" study discussed in class, amnesic patients and healthy controls were shown pictures of objects on top of a background, and then immediately asked to draw pictures of what they had seen. The results showed that:

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

Bonnie and Clyde are involved in a psychological experiment where they view a video depicting a car crash. After viewing the video, Bonnie is asked "How fast was the car going when they smashed into each other?" but Clyde is asked "How fast was the car going when they bumped into each other?" Based on the research of Loftus, it would be expected that:

Bonnie's speed estimate would be higher than Clyde's.

Which statement accurately describes the false memory data in healthy controls from Roediger & McDermott's (1995) study on lists of words highly associated with a single word (critical lure)?

The rates of "remember" responses for critical lures were similar to those of studied items.

Research on schemas and memory has shown that:

When provided with a schema, participants can recall more details from a story, but they are also more likely to recall schema-consistent information that was not presented in the story.

Eyewitness testimony:

is sometimes accurate, but it can be corrupted by misleading retrieval cues

Why We Remember suggests that during the retrieval of episodic memories:

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

Which of the following statements accurately describes the testing effect in memory?

Retrieval practice can enhance long-term memory retention more than restudying the material

Walter is learning about viruses in his biology textbook. He has very good understanding of how all the facts in his textbook relate to each other. When preparing for the midterm, he tests himself on only some of these facts, and he finds that this practice helped him remember all of the virus facts that were on the midterm. This is an example of:

Retrieval induced facilitation

Scarlett studies the following list of items: Utensil-Fork, Utensil-Knife, Utensil-Spoon ...etc.

and another list of items: Animal-Frog, Animal-Cat, Animal-Gorilla ...etc.

Immediately after the study phase, Scarlett repeatedly retrieves "Utensil-Knife" and nothing else. One week later, she is asked to recall all of the words on both lists. Based on studies presented in class, we can expect that, on the final recall test:

Scarlett will be more likely to recall Utensil-Knife, but less likely to recall Utensil-Spoon due to retrieval induced forgetting.

Which of the following statements accurately describes the spacing effect in memory?

Distributed practice leads to better retention compared to massed practice

Jordan and Walter are trying to learn 20 Italian words for different kinds of fruit and 20 words for different kinds of tools. Walter decides to practice by testing himself, repeatedly retrieving the words. Jordan practices by repeatedly studying the words. Based on studies of retrieval practice, we would expect that, one week later:

Walter will remember more because retrieval practice strengthened his memory for the Italian words

Why We Remember suggests that the best way to learn information is to:

Test ourselves on information, and make a best guess even if we're not sure of the answer. This is because making mistakes but then learning the correct answer helps us learn, a process known as error-driven learning

Which of the following is true about the pretesting effect:

Challenging yourself to take a guess on what you have not studied before helps you retain the correct answer

In the "Lost in the Mall" study, which of the following factors led the subject to generate a false memory:

Repeated retrieval attempts

Rudoy and Paller conducted an experiment in which participants learned the locations of various objects or animals (e.g. cat) that were associated with specific sounds (e.g. train whistle). Participants then took a nap, and their brain activity was monitored with scalp EEG. Please complete the following sentence: the experimenters played certain sounds at a low volume during ________, and after waking, participants exhibited less errors in remembering ____________ that were associated with those sounds.

slow wave sleep; object locations

The _______ is critical for forming a fear association between an unconditioned stimulus (e.g., shock) and a conditioned stimulus (e.g., tone). The _______ is also needed in order to learn an association between the learned fear response (e.g., freezing) and a specific context.

Amygdala; Hippocampus

Measurement of skin conductance responses suggests that patients with amygdala damage:

do not acquire associations between neutral stimuli and fear-inducing stimuli

Extinction refers to:

Learning to inhibit a conditioned response

Why We Remember suggests that

Neuromodulators such as norepinephrine, cortisol and dopamine can promote plasticity

Why We Remember suggests that stress might lead to chemical changes in parts of the brain related to memory. Which of the following is the most likely explanation for the relationship between stress and memory?

Increased neuromodulator release leads to increased sensitivity of the amygdala, and thus better memory for salient parts of a stressful event

Why We Remember suggests that our "spider-sense", which can help us sense when something's not right, like if something in our periphery suddenly changed,

Can involve the hippocampus, which can detect novelty and change in our environment

"Lost in the Mall"

"Remember when you got lost? ... We were in the mall... Remember? ... That old man found you andbrought you back."

● • Day 2: "That day, I was so scared that I would never see my family again. I knew I was in trouble"

● • Day 3: "My mother told me to never do that again"

● • Day 4: The elderly man has a flannel shirt

● • Day 14: The man was balding and had glasses

● • Debriefing: Asked to pick which memory was false, picked a true one.• "Really? I thought I remembered being lost ... and looking around for you guys. I do remember that.And then crying, and Mom coming up and saying 'Where were you? Don't you - don't you ever do thatagain'.

Unconditioned stimulus:

always leads to response (e.g., shocks make people stressed out and fearful)

People with amygdala damage

can't learn the new fear association

People with hippocampus damage

can't learn associations with a context

The amygdala is critical for

forming a fear association between an unconditioned stimulus (e.g.,shock) and a conditioned stimulus (e.g., tone).

The hippocampus is also needed

in order to learn anassociation between the learned fear response (e.g., freezing) and a specific context.

effects of amygdala and hippocampal lesions on cue and context fear

- hippocampal lesions reduce freezing in conditioned context

- amygdala lesions reduce freezing in response to tone and context

Unconditioned stimulus always

leads to fear, no memory needed

Extinction learning:

by repeatedly presenting CS+ with no shock,eventually fear response is gone

Spontaneous recovery:

If extinction is conducted in a separate context,and animal is returned to the shock context, the fear response returns

extinction learning and spontaneous recovery conclusion

Conclusion: memory was there the whole time, was just suppressed insafe environment

How might a "spidey-sense" be related to memory?

Our brains are constantly comparing what we are sensing in the present to what it 'remembers'from before If an aspect of what you are expecting in a scene (through your memories of the past) doesn'tmatch what is present (and new) you will notice that - prediction error! Central for survival

ERROR-DRIVEN LEARNING

emories are malleable, as such, the cell assembliesthat generate the memories are plastic.• "When you test yourself, your brain will try to generate the right answer, but the resultisn't quite perfect. Your brain will struggle a bit and come up with a blurryapproximation of what you learned. But this struggle provides a huge opportunity tolearn."• "Stress testing your memory like this exposes the weakness in the cell assemblies sothat the memory can be updated, strengthening the useful connections and pruningthe ones that are getting in the way. Rather than relearning the same thing over andover, it's much more efficient to tune up the right neural connections and fix just thoseparts that we are struggling with."

Retrieval-inducedforgetting

Have someone study the words "hammer" and "screwdriver" then repeatedly test themon "hammer". This will strengthen the memory for that word but also weaken thememory for "screwdriver," the word that was not tested.

retrieval-induced facilitation

Have someone study articles about Shaolin kung fu. Test them on facts they learned inthe article - the benefits of that test will spill over to related facts.

Word Frequency Effects

● Low frequency words are more easily recognized○ LF words ("armadillo", "aardvark") are distinctive, suffer less from interference, so they'll stand outwhen we study and get tested. But we know them less well so they're harder to remember for recall.● High frequency words are more easily recalled○ HF words ("cat", "horse") have higher familiarity than LF words because you have seen HF wordsmany more times. So they'll be very familiar and have more false alarms for recognition, but easier toremember in full for recall.

Q1: Did you see this word earlier?

Q2: Was the word presented in red or blue ink?

Can rely on familiarity signal, but could also recollect word fully to be super sure aboutanswer

Need to recollect word fully to remember details like the colorFamiliarity not sufficient

AI facial recognition

withFacial recognition softwareoften giving training of facesthat are disproportionately ofCaucasian facesFacial recognition technologydisproportionately misidentifiesor fails to identify the faces ofAsians and blacks

Proactive Interference:

Learning #1 can cause youlearn #2 more slowly.

Retroactive Interference:

Learning #2 can causeyou to forget #1.

Lag-Recency Effect

Once you recall an item, you tend torecall other things that happenedaround the same time period

It's like the telephone poles: Items thatwere recent will be very easy to find, butthe ones that were farther away in time willbe lumped together and it'll be harder tofind those items