Visual Memory, Face Recognition, and Working Memory Lecture Review

A comprehensive set of vocabulary flashcards covering iconic memory, face recognition processing styles, the misinformation effect, and various models of working memory and their clinical applications.

Iconic Memory

A very brief sensory store that holds raw visual information immediately after a stimulus disappears, lasting approximately $500\,ms$.

Visual Short-term Memory (VSTM)

A limited-capacity, longer-lasting store used for active processing that holds approximately $4$ objects for several seconds.

Sperling (1960)

Researcher who provided key evidence for iconic memory by demonstrating that participants can recall more items in a partial report than in a full report.

Phillips (1974)

Study that Distinguished iconic memory from visual STM by showing perfect performance for intervals under $0.5\,s$ but declining performance over longer delays.

Misinformation Effect

A phenomenon where misleading information presented after an event alters the memory of the original event.

Loftus & Palmer (1974)

A foundational study where using strong verbs like "smashed" led participants to estimate higher speeds and falsely recall broken glass ($32\%$ in the smashed condition).

Alteration Hypothesis

The core idea that post-event misinformation overwrites or destructively updates the original memory trace, making it inaccessible.

Coexistence Hypothesis

The core idea that the original memory and misinformation exist as separate traces that compete at retrieval, leading to source misattribution.

"Lost in the Mall" (Loftus & Pickrell, 1995)

A study where $25\%$ of participants developed false memories of being lost in a mall, suggesting the coexistence of real and false memory traces.

Featural Processing

Face processing that focuses on individual facial parts such as the eyes, nose, and mouth; it is used more when configural processing is disrupted.

First-order Relations

A subtype of configural processing referring to the basic layout of facial features, such as eyes above the nose and mouth.

Second-order Relations

A subtype of configural processing referring to the specific spacing between features, which is critical for identifying individuals.

Holistic Processing

The automatic integration of facial features into a unified, whole-face representation rather than separate components.

Thatcher Illusion

A phenomenon where faces with distorted features appear grotesque upright but normal when inverted because configural processing is disrupted.

Composite Face Effect

A gold-standard measure of holistic processing where aligning two different face halves makes it difficult to attend to only one half.

Face Recognition Units (FRUs)

Stored structural representations of familiar faces within the Bruce & Young (1986) model.

Person Identity Nodes (PINs)

Modules in the Bruce & Young model that store semantic information about a person, such as their occupation or context.

IAC Model (Burton et al.)

An Interactive Activation and Competition model that uses parallel, interactive processing to address the rigid sequential limitations of the Bruce & Young model.

Baddeley & Hitch (1974) Model

A multicomponent model of working memory consisting of the central executive, phonological loop, visuospatial sketchpad, and later, the episodic buffer.

Cowan (1999) Model

The embedded-processes model defining working memory as activated long-term memory plus a focus of attention limited to approximately $4$ chunks.

Oberauer (2002) Model

A three-tier concentric model of working memory consisting of activated long-term memory, a region of direct access, and a single-item focus of attention.

Fluid Intelligence ($gF$)

The capacity for reasoning and novel problem-solving, which shares a strong correlation ($r \approx .50 \text{--} .70$) with working memory capacity.

Complex Span Tasks

Tasks such as operation span that require simultaneous storage and processing to measure working memory capacity and executive attention.

Prosopagnosia

A neurological condition showing impaired identity recognition but intact expression recognition, supporting modularity in face recognition models.

Phonological Loop

A component of working memory for verbal storage often impaired in dyslexia, causing difficulty in decoding words and nonword repetition.

Processing Efficiency (Case, 1982)

A developmental theory which proposes that as children become more efficient at basic tasks, more resources are available for working memory storage.