Memory Types and Processes: Sensory, Short-term, Long-term, and Rehearsal Techniques

Iconic memory

a momentary sensory memory of visual stimuli

Echoic memory

a momentary sensory memory of auditory stimuli

Sensory buffer

Allow us to retain impressions of sensory information after the

original stimulus has ceased.

Maintenance rehearsal

Repeating items

Elaborative Rehearsal

Thinking about how items relate to each other and other things

you already know.

Modal Model

sensory memory, short-term memory (maintained with rehearsal, goes to long-term, or lost), long-term memory (retrieval goes back briefly to short term)

Short-term memory

Temporary, limited capacity, relatively easy to access

Long-term memory

Long-lasting, large capacity, relatively hard to access

A WM-LTM Double Dissociation

Behavioral, in patients, and brain imaging

Primacy effect

tendency to remember words at the beginning of a list especially well. Recalled from long-term memory

Recency effect

tendency to remember words at the end of a list especially well. Recalled from working memory

Slower presentation of words affects

primacy effect positively but not recency

A filled delay affects

recency effect but not primacy

Storage capacity

What WM can hold. digit span task, 7+- 2 chunks.

Operation capacity

How many operations one can perform at once

chunking

organizing items into familiar, manageable units

Baddley's model of working memory

phonological loop, visuospatial sketchpad, central executive

Phonological Loop

holds and rehearses verbal and auditory information. (phonological store and articulatory rehearsal)

visuospatial sketchpad

holds visual and spatial information

What is the role of the central executive in information processing?

Controls the flow of information between the subsystems.

What does the central executive do with information from long-term memory?

Pulls information from long-term memory.

What does the central executive decide?

Which subsystem is the current focus of attention.

articulatory rehearsal

keeps things in mind by verbally rehearsing them to prevent them from decaying

phonological store

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

Intentional learning

Intention to learn doesn't add much if we work with material in the right way

Hyde and Jenkins (1969)

Number of words recalled were similar between groups that were told to study them (intentional) and groups that were asked how pleasant the words were (incidental)

Craik and Tulving (1975)

Depth of processing is greater for semantic task than phonological task which is greater than typeface task

Depth of encoding

Depth of processing is what is crucial. Connects new with old materials. These connections can serve as retrieval paths

Clive Wearing

Lives only in the present. 30 second memory. Only recognizes wife. Cannot convert STM to LTM.

What helps with retrieval?

connections (associative links), organization (mnemonics), understanding, context

Encoding specificity principle

We encode (i.e., place in memory) the stimulus together with its context. Context can thus help with retrieval.

Context-dependent learning

an increase in retrieval when the external situation in which information is learned matches the situation in which it is remembered

state-dependent learning

superior retrieval of memories when the organism is in the same physiological or psychological state as it was during encoding

mood-dependent learning

people remember better if their mood at retrieval matches their mood during encoding

context reinstatement

a way of improving retrieval by re-creating the state of mind that accompanied the initial learning

Recall

A measure of memory in which the person must retrieve information learned earlier, as on a fill-in-the-blank test.

Recognition

Requires that you realize that you have encountered the stimulus before, multiple choice

Associative Links (Connections)

nurse is connected to doctor, which is connected to hospital, which is connected to bed, etc.

Source memory

recall of when, where, and how information was acquired

Familiarity

A general sense that a certain stimulus has been encountered before.

Familiarity without Source memory

Someone looks familiar but

we don't remember where we know them from.

Source memory without familiarity

Capgras syndrome

Brain area of source memory

Hippocampus

Brain area of familiarity

perirhinal cortex (anterior parahippocampus)

processing pathway

The sequence of nodes and connections between nodes through which activation flows when recognizing or thinking about a stimulus or idea.

summation of subthreshold activation

insufficient activation received from one source can add to insufficient activation received from another source

Semantic priming

A process in which activation of an idea in memory causes activation to spread to other ideas related to the first in meaning.

Meyer and Schvaneveldt (1971)

People were faster to respond to answer if both prime and target were words if both words were related rather than unrelated.

Episodic memory

memory for one's personal past experiences

Semantic memory

memory for knowledge about the world

Implicit memory

procedural, priming, perceptual, classical conditioning

Procedural memory

knowing how to do certain skills and tasks

Priming

Changes in perception and belief caused by previous experiences

Perceptual learning

Occurs when aspects of our perception changes as a function of experience.

Classical conditioning

Learning through association of stimuli.

Word stem task

part of a word is shown, and you have to complete the word. Happens automatically.

Source confusion

a memory distortion that occurs when the true source of the memory is forgotten. A sense of familiarity without explicit memory

Illusion of truth study

Judge how interesting statement is. Female voice: False. Male voice true. Then Judge truth. More likely to rate repeated than new statements as true - independent of the speaker!

What does amnesia tell us about memory

Episodic and semantic memory are independent systems. Acquisition and retrieval of memories are independent processes. Explicit and implicit memory are independent systems.

retrograde amnesia

loss of memory from the point of some injury or trauma backwards, or loss of memory for the past

Anterograde amnesia

an inability to form new memories. Dory

Explicit memory and implicit memory are independent systems

Anterograde amnesiacs have implicit memory but not explicit memory. Patients with damage to amygdala have explicit memory but not implicit memory

Processing fluency

the ease with which information is processed. Can be high because we are practiced in perceiving a stimulus.

Familiarity seems to be

related to processing fluency because we attribute fluency to prior experience

Illusion of familiarity

manipulation of stimulus presentation designed to make perceiving easier

Constructive memory

Memory is What actually happens + person's knowledge, experiences, and expectations

El al Cargo study

66% of 200 Dutch participants said yes.

They remembered seeing footage of the

accident and recalled details despite no footage actually existing

War of the Ghosts

British participants Remembered gist of story, but

altered details

- Changed the story to be more

consistent with their own

culture

Repeated reproduction technique

technique in which participants try to recall a story a number of different times at longer and longer intervals after they first read it

Source Monitoring

The process of making attributions about the origins of memories.

Intrusion error

Memories (and our thoughts and knowledge and new information) become interwoven. A memory error in which one recalls elements that were not part of the original episode.

Brewer and Treyens (1981)

Participants recalled things in line with their

"office schema".

But also falsely recalled things typically in an

office (e.g., books).

Participants failed to recall things not usually

found in an office (e.g., wine, picnic basket).

Schematic knowledge

a person's knowledge about

what is typical/frequent in a particular situation

Nancy study

People who had read the prologue remembered more propositions than those who did not. They also inferred more propositions than those who did not get the prologue.

Understanding

helps us learn more of the actual propositions but also makes us infer more.

DRM procedure

Participants are just as likely to recall a theme word as they are to recall

words from the actual list, even when they know about the procedure.

Car study

Estimate of how fast cars were going when they crashed was influenced by the verb used to describe what happened. More violent verbs also made people more likely to think there was broken glass when there wasn't

Misinformation effect

incorporating misleading information into one's memory of an event

Implanting false memories

Get person's trust, Plant the seed, use people/places that are familiar, coax person into imagining scene (guided imagination)

Why can eyewitness be wrong?

perception/attention elsewhere, misidentification due to familiarity, post-event information, suggestive questions

Weapon focus effect

the tendency for the presence of a weapon to draw attention and impair a witness's ability to identify the culprit

(Ross et al 1994)

When the actual robber was not in the photo spread, people were much more likely to identify the male teacher they had seen in an earlier video than if they had seen a female teacher or if the actual robber was in the spread. Shows that familiarity can cause issues for crime identification.

Post-identification feedback effect

increase in confidence due to confirming feedback after making an identification. Confidence from the victim can affect confidence of the jurors that the person charged actually did the crime.

Accurate vs. inaccurate memories

We cannot distinguish between them. No difference in detail, emotion, response speed, or confidence.

Confidence

Confidence is shifted by factors that do not influence the accuracy of the memory. Little relationship between confidence of testimony and accuracy.

Ebbinghaus forgetting curve

the course of forgetting is initially rapid, then levels off with time. Exponential

Why do we forget?

Decay, interference, retrieval error

Retrieval failure

the inability to recall long-term memories because of inadequate or missing retrieval cues. Perspectives and context change from original encoding.

tip of the tongue phenomenon

the temporary inability to remember something you know, accompanied by a feeling that it's just out of reach

Self-reference effect

Better memory for information relevant to oneself

Self-schema

Knowledge and beliefs about oneself

Emotions in memory

help with memory consolidation but also narrow down focus during encoding

Flashbulb memory

a clear memory of an emotionally significant moment or event. Can still be inaccurate

childhood amnesia

The inability to remember events and experiences that occurred during the first two or three years of life.

reminiscence bump

enhanced memory for events that happen in early adulthood 18-25

Is autobiographical memory different than other memory

yes and no. Yes: self-reference effect No: Concepts and names are equally well recognized

interference

As number of intervening games went up, players could remember less team names generally. New information "interferes" with ability to remember old info.

Memory wars

controversy between some clinicians and memory scientists about the reliability of repressed memories

Suggestive questions

Questions asked in a way that provides cues regarding possible answers.

Lost in the Mall Study

25% believed it had actually happened when in reality it did not. Details of the experience never mentioned.