Unit 5: Cognitive Psychology

Primary Memory

short term, the degree of relationship of stored info to consciousness, very consciously aware or short term

Secondary Memory

not consciously aware of long term memories unless try to be, long term

Chunking

taking info that belongs together and grouping it so that is it easier to remember

Sensory Memory

short duration store for sensory info

Echoic: auditory, 3-4 seconds

Iconic: visual, 1/10 second

Haptic: smell, 2 seconds

Implicit Memory

unaware of it, ex: how to tie a shoe

Explicit Memory

aware of it

Semantic Memory

dates of events, details

Episodic Memory

pertaining to events in your own life

Short Term Memory

in hippocampus, info gets lost or stored in cortex, use rehearsal or memory strategies to move to long term memory

Long Term Memory

stored in cortex, if need to remember something then hippocampus retrieves info to bring to consciousness

Ebbinghaus (1885)

used himself as a subject, memorized nonsense syllables because if use real words it contaminates your memory, went back and relearned lists, looked for methods of saving.

Learning curve: takes time to get it at first, then each subsequent time gets better until a point when start forgetting

Retention Curve: over time you stop forgetting

George Miller (1950s)

pioneer of cognitive revolution, thought that human mind was interesting

Magical \#7: plus or minus two, number of terms a person can hold in short term memory

took people and gave them lists of varying lengths and most people could remember 7 at a time

Atkinson and Shiffrin (1968)

Standard model of memory:

Brown (1958) Peterson (1959)

wanted to find out how long info could staying their memory without rehearsal

subjects have to remember three letters and then count backwards by three

info in short term memory decays over time, duration of short term memory is 18 seconds, didn't take into account that counting is interference

Proactive Interference

Each additional time you do something, performance declines because info tried to remember on first trial is interfering with new info/ old info interferes with making of new memories (new vs old bf)

Retroactive Interference

New info interferes with memory of old info (new locker combo)

Wickens (1972)

performance with each trial declines

given fruits to remember for three trials, fourth trial given new list, when change category performance goes up

Decay Vs Interference Theory

Waugh and Norman (1965): think the reason for bad memory is interference not time

subjects given a list of digits to remember, have a probe and asked what digit came after the probe

digits were presented either slow or fast

Sternberg (1966, 2004)

Thinks that the way we scan our memory is different for short and long term: short term scans everything in memory without stopping even if found what looking for, unlike long

Parallel search: scan all items in short term memory at once

Serial Self-terminating search: if find answer, stop scanning

Serial Exhaustive Search: scan everything, one thing at a time, whether something is found or not

Baddeley Model (1974, 1986)

focuses on functionality of working memory

replaces atkinson and shiffrin concept

focuses on function: hold and manipulate info

working memory not just short term: also place where you manipulate info, has different parts

reading comprehension: use working memory to read what currently looking at and remember what you read before

Central Executive

attentional control: focus attention, select strategies, coordinate behavior, information long term memory, inhibits so tells you what to pay attention to and what not to pay attention to

drives the whole system

control and regulation of attention, inhibition

allocates to the subsystems

located in frontal lobe, executive functioning

Phonological Loop

process verbal info, component of working memory, deals with spoken and written material, language and sounds

subvocalization: say words in your head when read

Phonological Store: short term store of auditory info, storage area of phonological loop, inner ear

Articulatory Loop: rehearses and refreshes info, inner voice

Visuospatial Sketchpad

processes visual info, visualization: imagine something

inner eye

Visual Cache: responsible for visual part of subsystem, temporarily stores visual info about form and color (what)

Inner scribe: deals with spatial info, refreshes visual info in cache (visual moving things) (where)

Working Memory: Independent Capacities

Baddeley and Hitch (1974)

1. given simple true false task (BA), then added digits to memorize: took slightly longer to answer but didn't make errors, so separate working memory for visual and verbal info

2. spatial task of matching, same results

3. spatial F letter tracing, took longer to answer about corner when pointing than when speaking

4. asked to memorize checkerboard, spatial tracing a lady bug and repeating numbers, numbers didn't interfere

Phonological Similarity Effect

Items that are phonologically similar are more difficult to store in working memory

evidence of phonological loop

letters that rhyme, sound the same can cause confusion

Word Length Effect

performance on a recall task is worse when the items are long words versus short words

evidence of articulatory loop

longer words take longer to repeat so take more of working memory

Articulatory Suppression

When you're asked to repeat something out loud while trying to memorize something else, knocks out ability to rehearse

Episodic Buffer

integrates info from the other subsystems, communicates with long term memory and includes a sense of time

Source Misattribution

external source monitoring: confusing two different sources that are both external

Internal source monitoring: can't remember things inside your own head

reality monitoring: when we get confused between what's real and what's imagined

source monitoring error: confuse memory

Misinformation Effect

misinformation is given, can contaminate memory, imagining an event can contaminate as well

Critical Lure

false recall, a word that has to do with a list of words that is said, but the word is not actually on the list

Deese-Roediger-McDermott (DRM)

Deese gave students list, asked to recall, 44% recalled critical lure

R&M used Deese's methods but used recognition instead of recall, recognized the lure 84% of the time

Implanted Memory

Loftus and Pickell (1995): given 4 topics to write about, three real one fake, 25% falsely remembered details about event that never occurred

Wade & Gary (2002): shown a pic of themselves riding in a hot air balloon, asked repeatedly if remember, 50% report remembering, demonstrated overconfidence

Eyewitness Memory

stress uses up mental resources so don't have enough working memory to process, can't pay attention well

leading questions: forces someone to think a certain way

plausible misinformation: makes people question what happened

after long delays: memory decays over time

repeated questioning: implants memories

confidence is not correlated with accuracy

The Cognitive Interview

Geiselman etc: suggests three strategies for improving eyewitness memory

return to the scene: helps memory

report using free recall: say "tell me what happened", not specific questions

reverse time-sequence: have people tell them what happened from end to beginning so no filling in the blanks

Anterograde Amnesia

inability to make new memories, but sometimes only for episodic memory, damage to hippocampus

Retrograde Amnesia

loss of memory previously gained, anything learned or events that occurred

Patient HM

Henry Moliason, medial temporal lobe removed anterograde amnesia, some retrograde

Mirror Tracing Task

Milner: patient HM and other subjects had to trace a star in a mirror

identical implicit learning: muscle memory

no explicit learning: no conscious recollection of doing it, all got better with practice

Craik and Tulving (1975)

depth of processing model: three different levels of processing

Structural: word in capital letters?

Phonemic: word rhyme?

Sentence: would word fit the sentence?

Amygdala

memories are linked to emotional content, almond sized structure in front of hippocampus, responsible for memory, decision making, emotional reactions (more fear and anger), when scared remember things more

Flashbulb Memories

remarkably vivid and permanent memories, something permanently etched into brain, highly emotional content or personal relevance, highly rehearsed or elaborated

Talarico and Rubin (2003)

flashbulb memory research: subjects tested about 9/11, retested after various delays

similar pattern of retention and memory errors for flashbulb and ordinary memories, ratings of confidence declined for everyday event but not for flashbulb memory

Encoding Specificity

memory is associated with context, emotion, depth of processing, and prior knowledge