Cognitive psych: 10/5/26

Who developed the Modal Model of Memory?

Atkinson and Shiffrin (1968).

What are the three stages of the Modal Model?

Sensory memory, short-term memory, and long-term memory.

What is sensory memory?

Briefly holds information received through our senses.

How long does sensory memory last?

About 1 second in the model shown.

What is short-term memory (STM)?

Stores small amounts of information for a brief period.

How long does STM last?

About 15–20 seconds without rehearsal.

What is long-term memory (LTM)?

Stores information for long periods, potentially a lifetime.

What is rehearsal?

Repeating information to keep it in STM and help transfer it to LTM.

What is retrieval?

Bringing information from LTM back into STM for use.

What did Sperling (1960) study?

The capacity and duration of iconic memory.

What is the whole-report condition?

Participants briefly see 12 letters and try to recall as many as possible.

What were the results of the whole-report condition?

Participants recalled about 4.5 out of 12 letters.

What is the partial-report condition?

A tone tells participants which row of letters to recall.

What were the results of the immediate partial-report condition?

Participants recalled about 3.3 out of 4 letters.

What happened when the tone was delayed by 1 second?

Participants recalled only about 1 out of 4 letters.

What did Sperling's experiment demonstrate?

Visual information is briefly available in sensory memory but fades quickly.

What is iconic memory?

Visual sensory memory that briefly stores images.

What is persistence of vision?

A visual image briefly remains after the stimulus disappears.

What is an example of persistence of vision?

Moving a sparkler creates the appearance of a continuous trail of light.

What is echoic memory?

Auditory sensory memory that briefly stores sounds.

What is the "What did you say?" phenomenon?

Realizing what someone said after asking them to repeat it because the sound was still briefly stored.

What is haptic memory?

Sensory memory for touch.

What is gustatory memory?

Sensory memory for taste.

What is olfactory memory?

Sensory memory for smell.

What is the main characteristic of sensory memory?

It holds sensory information for an extremely short duration.

What is the capacity of STM according to Miller?

7 ± 2 items (about 5–9).

Who proposed the 7 ± 2 rule?

George Miller.

What is digit span?

The number of digits someone can remember in the correct order.

What did Ebbinghaus's learning curve demonstrate?

Remembering lists becomes much harder beyond approximately 7 unrelated items.

What does newer change-detection research suggest about STM capacity?

It is closer to 4 items in many tasks.

What happens to accuracy as the number of items increases?

Accuracy decreases as memory capacity is exceeded.

Why do estimates of STM capacity differ?

Capacity depends on how information is grouped and processed.

What is chunking?

Grouping related information into meaningful units to improve memory.

What is a chunk?

A collection of strongly associated items treated as one unit.

Why does chunking improve STM?

It allows us to remember more information by grouping items together.

What is an example of chunking?

Remembering DOGCATRATBEAR as DOG, CAT, RAT, BEAR.

What did Bower and Springston (1970) study?

How meaningful groupings of letters improve memory.

What happened in Condition A?

Participants remembered about 7 ± 2 individual letters.

What happened in Condition B?

Participants remembered about 21 ± 6 letters when grouped into familiar abbreviations.

What did Bower and Springston's experiment demonstrate?

Meaningful chunks increase the amount of information we can remember.

Why might STM be limited by processing rather than just capacity?

Familiar or meaningful information requires fewer mental resources.

What does the Brown-Peterson task measure?

How long information remains in STM without rehearsal.

What is a consonant trigram?

A group of three consonants, such as DBX or FCD.

What are the steps of the Brown-Peterson task?

Remember three letters, count backward by 3s, then recall the letters.

Why do participants count backward by 3s?

To prevent rehearsal.

What happens to STM without rehearsal?

Recall decreases rapidly over time.

What happens after an 18-second delay?

Recall drops to approximately 10–20% in the results shown.

What does the Brown-Peterson task demonstrate?

Information in STM is quickly lost when rehearsal is prevented.

What is working memory?

A system that temporarily stores and actively processes information.

How is working memory different from STM?

STM focuses on storage, while working memory also involves manipulating information.

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

Central executive, phonological loop, visuospatial sketchpad, and episodic buffer.

What is the central executive?

Controls attention and coordinates information in working memory.

What is the phonological loop?

Holds and rehearses verbal and auditory information.

What is the visuospatial sketchpad?

Holds and manipulates visual and spatial information.

What is the episodic buffer?

Combines information from different sources and connects working memory with LTM.

What is an example of working memory?

Solving a math problem in your head.

What does the central executive do with irrelevant information?

Filters distractions and directs attention to relevant information.

What are the two components of the phonological loop?

Phonological store and articulatory control process.

What is the phonological store?

Holds a limited amount of verbal and auditory information for a few seconds.

What is the articulatory control process?

Mentally rehearses information to prevent it from fading.

How long does information remain in the phonological store?

Approximately 2 seconds without rehearsal.

What is an example of the phonological loop?

Repeating a phone number in your head to remember it.

What is the word-length effect?

Short words are easier to remember than long words.

Why are short words easier to remember?

They take less time to rehearse.

How does speaking speed affect memory capacity?

Faster speakers can generally rehearse more information in a limited time.

What did Baddeley (1984) demonstrate?

Recall is generally better for short words than long words.

What does the word-length effect support?

The idea that verbal STM depends partly on rehearsal time.

What is the phonological similarity effect?

Words or letters that sound alike are more easily confused in memory.

What did Conrad (1964) study?

Whether people confuse letters based on their sounds or appearance.

What did Conrad find?

People made more errors with letters that sounded alike than letters that looked alike.

What does Conrad's experiment demonstrate?

Verbal information is often stored using sound-based coding.

What is an example of phonological similarity?

Confusing "pear" and "pair" because they sound alike.

What is articulatory suppression?

Repeating an irrelevant word or sound to prevent mental rehearsal.

What is an example of articulatory suppression?

Repeating "the, the, the" while trying to remember a list of words.

What part of working memory does articulatory suppression disrupt?

The articulatory control process of the phonological loop.

What happens to recall during articulatory suppression?

Recall becomes more difficult because rehearsal is disrupted.

What happens to the word-length effect during articulatory suppression?

It disappears or is greatly reduced.

What happens to the phonological similarity effect during articulatory suppression?

It can disappear or be reduced, particularly for visually presented information.

Why does articulatory suppression interfere with memory?

It prevents people from mentally repeating information to keep it active.

What is the visuospatial sketchpad?

The part of working memory that holds and processes visual and spatial information.

What are the two components of the visuospatial sketchpad?

Visual cache and inner scribe.

What is the visual cache?

Temporarily stores visual information, such as shapes and colors.

What is the inner scribe?

Processes spatial information and helps rehearse visual and spatial information.

What is visual imagery?

Creating or manipulating mental pictures without actually seeing them.

What is an example of using the visuospatial sketchpad?

Mentally picturing a route or rotating an object in your mind.

What is mental rotation?

Mentally turning an object to imagine how it would look from another angle.

What did Shepard and Metzler (1971) study?

How long people take to mentally rotate objects to determine whether they match.

What were participants asked to do?

Decide whether two 3D objects were the same shape but rotated.

What happened as the angular difference increased?

Reaction time increased.

What is the relationship between angular difference and reaction time?

A positive, approximately linear relationship.

What did Shepard and Metzler's experiment demonstrate?

People mentally rotate objects, and larger rotations take more time.

What part of working memory is involved in mental rotation?

The visuospatial sketchpad.

What is visual coding?

Storing information based on its visual appearance.

What did Della Sala (1999) study?

How people remember visual patterns that are difficult to describe verbally.

What were participants asked to do?

Remember and recreate patterns of black and white squares.

Why were the patterns difficult to verbalize?

They were unfamiliar visual arrangements that were hard to describe using words.

How many items could participants recreate?

Up to about 9 items, according to the lecture.

What did Della Sala's experiment demonstrate?

People can temporarily store visual information without relying on verbal coding.

Which working memory component supports visual coding?

The visuospatial sketchpad.

What is visual change detection?

Identifying differences between two visual displays.