Cog Psych Exam 2

Chapter 6

• What are the different types of non-declarative memory? What defines each subtype?

  • Non-declarative (implicit) = memories that cannot be verbally expressed ­

  • Procedural: memory for skills and habits; demonstrated by doing ex: riding a bike ­

  • Classical conditioning: associations between stimuli that co-occur frequently

  • Priming: implicit memory for recent and frequent stimuli

  • Nonassociative Learning: instances in which an animal's behavior toward a stimulus changes in the absence of any apparent associated stimulus or event (such as a reward or punishment).

    • ex: If you live close to an airport you may habituate to the sounds of planes coming and going, where guests visiting would notice. (Sensitization)

• What are the different types of declarative memory? What defines each subtype?

• Be able to think about how hypothetical scenarios relate to declarative/nondeclarative memory

  • Declarative (explicit) = memories that can be verbally expressed

  • Episodic: memory for specific life events, with spatial and temporal context (autobiographical)

    • ex: what you ate/did at dinner with friends.

  • Semantic: memory for facts and general knowledge (contextual)

    • ex: remembering the capital of Florida (Tallahassee)

  • Be able to think about how hypothetical scenarios relate to declarative/nondeclarative memory

• How does the depth of processing and intention to learn affect overall learning?

  • Little difference between intentional and incidental learning.

  • What matters for long-term retention is the DEPTH of processing, not whether you were intending to learn or not.

• The serial position curve: what is it, what are its characteristics, and what factors influence it?

  • Primacy effect: the tendency to recall the first items on the list

    • Items are stored in LTM

  • Recency effect: the tendency to recall the last items on the list

    • Items are available in WM

• What is chunking? What are some debates surrounding chunking?

  • grouping a series of apparently random items into a smaller number of meaningful segments to enhance recall

• What are the characteristics of Baddeley’s working memory model?

  • phonological loop:

    • ­maintains linguistic information in a speech-based form

      • ­Example: repeating a phone number in your head until you dial it.

  • visuospatial sketchpad

    • maintains visual and/or spatial information

      • Example: glancing at a map and holding the route in mind when you look up at the road

  • episodic buffer

    • temporarily holds & integrates information from PL, VS, & LTM

    • creates a coherent, multidimensional representation of what’s in your conscious awareness

  • central executive

    • ­sets goals, sequences thoughts, and actions, actively manipulate information stored in PL, VS, and EB

    • functionally the same thing as executive control (task-general attention)

• What are the different memory methods we discussed? (method of loci, etc.).

  • Mnemonics

  • Acronyms (ROY G BIV)

  • Method of loci: the imagination of a route (mind palace)

  • Peg-word system: image word that corresponds to what you're trying to remember

  • Interactive imagery: make a ridiculous scene in your head and incorporate the words you wanna remember.

• What are some differences between short-term memory and long-term memory?

  • Short Term Memory

    • used to keep track of what is currently relevant

    • limited capacity

    • short duration

  • Long Term Memory

    • events in your life

    • facts about the world

    • motor skills

• The cognitive neuroscience of working memory: what do we know about where working memory is stored in the brain? (check out Figure 6.6 in the textbook!)

  • working memory is associated with a wide range of brain sites

  • with no specific location

• What are the different types of rehearsal you can engage in for memory?

  • Rehearsal = “Thinking about”

  • Maintenance rehearsal: Repeating information to refresh it in short-term store without adding any additional info or connections

  • Elaborative rehearsal: Developing connections between what you’re rehearsing and what you know already

    • The more connections, the easier it will be to retrieve later

  • Analogy: Tossing books on a table vs. organizing them with a catalog

    • ­Everything “gets in” but not all of it can be found again

• What are direct and indirect tests of memory?

  • Direct:

    • Recall: ask participants to report what they remember

    • Recognition: ask participants whether the item is “old” or “new”, or to indicate which of several options they remember seeing

  • Indirect

    • Relearning: measuring how long it takes participants to relearn a skill

    • Priming: measuring response time to a previous stimulus

• The Sperling task: what does it show?

  • 1960, George Sperling performed experiments designed to demonstrate the existence of visual sensory memory.

    • interested in exploring the capacity and duration of this type of memory.

  • he showed a series of letters on a mirror tachistoscope to participants.

  • concluded that the brief display was stored in an iconic memory,

    • a pre-attentive, large-capacity repository of detailed visual information, which required attention (post-cue) to transfer a subset of the information into a more durable form for inspection in working memory.

• Be able to describe the modal model of memory, and the process by which (according to this model, anyway) information gets transferred into long-term memory.

• Be able to describe the long-term memory taxonomy tree, including labeling/listing subtypes of implicit memory, and then either describing an example or the part of the brain responsible for each subtype you list.

Chapter 7

• What is transfer-appropriate processing?

  • retrieval cues can also be related to the type of processing needed during encoding vs. retrieval

• Implicit memory: what is it, how does it work, and how do we test it?

  • retention of learned skills or classically conditioned associations independent of conscious recollection.

  • test: with the implicit memory test which includes word stem completion and word fragment completion

• What general ways can you try to apply the principles of learning to improve long-term retention?

  • Learn in Multiple Ways. Focus on learning in more than one way.

  • Teach What You've Learned to Another Person.

  • Utilize Previous Learning to Promote New Learning.

  • Gain Practical Experience.

  • Look Up Answers Rather Than Struggle to Remember.

  • Understand How You Learn Best.

  • Use Testing to Boost Learning.

  • Stop Multitasking.

• Godden & Baddeley’s study of context-dependent memory: what did it show?

  • people did best when their contexts aligned. aka studied and tested on both dry land lead to the highest recall.

• Goodwin’s study of context effects & memory: what did it show?

  • studied state-dependent recall (drunk at learning = drunk at recall best)

• Patient HM: what happened? What are the characteristics of HM’s memories? (check out pp.254-257 of the textbook)

  • Anterograde amnesia: able to recall many events that had taken place before his surgery that removed the anterior hippocampus

  • Nothing new could get into his long-term memory storage

  • HM could hold a conversation, but if it was disrupted then he would forget it all completely.

    • Similar to Korsakoff’s syndrome

• Massed & spaced practice: what are they? When are they advantageous when it comes to tests?

  • Massed: many repetitions of the material in a short amount of time the context at encoding is similar for all repetitions

  • Spaced: repetitions of material spread out over time (with gaps in between)

    • The context will differ for each repetition

    • Some of this context is likely to match what is encountered at retrieval time (ie. more potential “retrieval paths”)

  • Advantageous: In general, spaced practice leads to better long-term retention than massed practice

• Roediger & Karpicke’s study: What was the general pattern of results?

  • 5 min delay: Those who studied more, remembered more

  • 1-week delay: Those that were tested retained the information they learned; those that simply read and reread did not

  • Being tested for information serves to boost memory

    • Retrieval is a form of learning!

    • Learning effective mental routes to recover the information

    • Strengthening the memory trace

    • Weaving new contextual details into the memory

    • Testing effects

    • Deep processing needed to take a test helps create long-lasting memories of the material

    • Testing yourself on the material is likely to involve the type of processing you’ll need when you take your exam

• What were the 6 items on the list of study tips that we compiled in this lecture? Be able to briefly describe what these are and how you might employ them moving forward in your own life.

  1. Intention to learn has little/no effect. Focus on understanding material/connecting to existing ideas

  2. Mnemonics can be effective ways to memorize things, but it comes at a cost: time and attention are diverted away from the material, so you often end up understanding the material less well.

  3. Context of encoding and retrieval: The more similar the context during encoding and retrieval, the more easily information will be retrieved.

  4. Spacing effects: Repetition during encoding is better if the repetitions are spaced rather than massed. Cramming for exams is bad! (For long-term retention . . . )

  5. Levels of processing: The more meaningful the encoding, the more likely the information gets into memory. BUT, recall can depend on if the test matches learning. (Transfer Appropriate Processing!)

  6. Test yourself! Retrieval is a form of learning and can weave new contextual details into memory.

• Memory as a network: be able to explain basic principles and concepts related to this, drawing from either lecture material or the textbook.

  • Encoding processes can build both nodes and links. Links indicate that the connected nodes have previously been activated together

    • When one node is activated, the activation spreads to nearby nodes, decreasing in strength as it gets farther from the original node

    • Retrieval cues are bits of information that help us locate a stored memory

    • Work through spreading activation to create retrieval pathways

  • 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

    • Most people believe that memory records the events of our lives much like a video camera.

    • Video memory: “Human memory works like a video camera, accurately recording the events we see and hear so that we can review and inspect them later” (false)

  • Memory is NOT like a video camera: we often remember only the “gist” of what we experience rather than the veridical details

    • We use that gist to reactivate the nodes and connections from the original memory (using spreading activation from a retrieval cue), but the reconstructions are not guaranteed to be accurate

• What is the “testing effect?”

  • Testing effect: deep processing needed to take a test helps create longer-lasting memories of the material. Testing yourself on the material is likely to involve the type of processing you’ll need when you take your exam

Chapter 8

• What is an intrusion error?

  • Intrusion errors occur when participants remember something that was not present when encoding

• Flashbulb memories: what are they? What do research studies about them show?

  • a clear memory of an emotionally significant moment or event

  • Research —

    • Brown & Kulik (1977): Initial study based on the assassination of JFK

      • memories had vivid perceptual detail and were emotionally powerful

      • contain strong episodic content: where you were, what you were doing, who you talked to…

    • Neisser & Harsch (1992): 106 students (Jan. 1986) wrote where they were when they heard about the Challenger explosion, the day after the event

      • asked for the account again 3 years later (44 people)

      • many discrepancies were found (including where they were when they heard the news) even for people who felt their memories were very vivid

      • confidence in a memory ≠ veracity

    • Talarico & Rubin (2003): Duke students recorded 9/11 and “everyday” memories on 9/12

      • Tested after 1, 6, and 32 weeks

      • Results: no difference between forgetting for “flashbulb” and everyday memories, but people more confident about flashbulb memories

• What have we learned from our examples about pennies, the Apple logo, etc.?

  • Human memory is not precise. Even things we see every day can be remembered incorrectly even though we believe it's right. Aka not being apple to spot the correct penny or accurately draw the apple logo.

• What is the DRM procedure? What does data from DRM tests show?

  • A classic memory test in which participants recall lists of related words and tend to “remember” a thematically appropriate word that was NOT presented.

  • What does data from DRM tests show? shows that we can have false memories especially when they make sense in the context.

• What are some of the issues surrounding eyewitness testimony?

  • Own-race bias: the tendency to be poorer at identifying individuals of another race

    • Pauker & Ambady (2009): participants were instructed to try to memorize each face and its accompanying demographic information. Most people were able to memorize the face of their own race/ mixed

  • Own age bias: the tendency to be poorer at identifying individuals of other ages

    • Older adults and children are also less accurate eyewitnesses

  • Reconstructive nature of memory: reporting on your memory can change your memory. Confidence is not always a good indicator of memory accuracy, partly because confidence about a memory can be altered without changing the memory itself

• The “Cognitive Interview” in police investigations: what is it and how does it work?

• Individuals with highly superior autobiographical memory . . . what characteristics do they show across different memory tests? Are they always “superior?”

  • exceptional memory retrieval, rapid memory retrieval, and increased ability to associate events. However, they are regular during normal memory tests and may have a specific period that they remember better than the others.

• Memory errors: know terms & examples

  • intrusion errors are when you remember something that wasn't originally there and can happen when memories are densely connected or you're relying on prior knowledge.

    • ex: if a person presented with the list car, apple, page reports car, apple, and lamp, the last word represents an intrusion.

  • schematic knowledge: each situation creates a schema that helps us remember but it can also produce errors. When we fill in the gaps we tend to be wrong.

    • When your friend is a bio major so you say they want to be a biologist even though they already told you they want to be a doctor.

  • misinformation effect: memory contaminated with false ideas ex: leading questions in police interviews

• What are ways we can try to improve the criminal justice system’s use of eyewitness testimony and eyewitness lineups?

• Elizabeth Loftus’s work: what does it show?

  • Loftus et al. (1979): showed a video of a car at a stop sign, then hitting a pedestrian. Asked a week later “how fast was the car going when it went past the yield sign?”

  • Then asked participants to pick which slide they saw: a car at a yield sign, or a car at a stop sign ⇒ Majority picked yield, which is incorrect.

    • Therefore since the yield sign was suggested they said they saw it even though it was a stop sign. Misleading and misinformation work.

• Which factors strongly influence which of your memories will remain accurate?

  • Mostly flashbulb memories which tend to be emotional and personally significant

• What are the 3 hypotheses about how we forget information? Be able to correctly label them and provide a brief description of what each hypothesis entails

  • Memory decay hypothesis: items that are not recalled/studied for a period of time lose their strength as a result of automatic decay

  • Interference theory: forgetting occurs because the recall of certain items interferes with the recall of others

  • Retrieval failure: forgetting is the result of temporarily being unable to locate the stored memory (due to insufficient activation of the nodes)

• What is the misinformation effect? What factors contribute to this phenomenon?

  • Misinformation effect: memory errors occur because the memory is “contaminated,” false ideas are introduced by external sources and incorporated into the memory.

    • Can do as little as subtly influence the details of your memory or can do as much as completely plant a fake memory.

  • Misleading questions, False suggestions, Using fake “evidence,” Asking participants to make up answers, Etc.

    • Simply changing the way a question was phrased significantly influenced participants’ estimates of the speed of the car

Chapter 9

• Classical Theory

  • A category is defined in terms of necessary and sufficient features

  • ­Necessary: has to be there

  • ­Sufficient: all that you need

  • The boundaries of the category are defined by these features

  • This representation is abstract and does not store any information about specific exemplars

• Prototype theory

  • categories are represented by the average of all members of the category

  • Category membership judgments are made by comparing a new instance to the prototype

    • The prototype does not need to exist in the real world

  • The category representation is abstract and does not store information about specific exemplars

  • Typicality & graded category membership explained by similarity to the prototype

    • items can be better or worse examples of a category

    • the more similar an item is to the prototype the better a category member it is

• Exemplar Theory

  • concepts are represented by all of the exemplars that have been experienced; when we categorize something, we compare it to all of the exemplars in memory, and decide the category based on the most similar exemplars

    • Do not exist in the real world

  • The category representation is concrete

    • There is not necessarily a summary of the category

  • Typicality & graded membership explained by frequency

    • Exemplars can be better or worse members of a category based on their frequency

    • Exemplars that you encounter more frequently are better members than exemplars that are rare

• Theory Theory

  • We know much more about categories than a list of their features or their values in dimensional space

  • Categories provide explanations for how things work in the world, the same way that theories provide explanations for scientific phenomena

    • ­they center on causal relations between entities in the world

  • ­theories guide perception by leading us to believe that particular features are interesting or relevant and others are not

    • ex: the concept of drunk involves a theory of impaired judgment, which explains the man’s behavior, so you induce he must be drunk

  • knowledge-based causal theory

• Know what each of these theories are, what data they account for, and what their shortcomings are. Be prepared to apply knowledge from each to a specific scenario I will ask you on the free-response part.

• What’s a concept?

  • mental representations

  • usually somewhat stable

  • typically described in a single word

  • a way of understanding the world

  • method of ID

• Don’t neglect previous Zoom polls and quiz questions for this week.

• What is typicality? How is it measured?

  • Some members of a category are more “typical” than others

    • they are verified quickly

  • Interestingly, these differences can be related to non-necessary features, which are not included in the classical theory

  • Assessed using:

    • ­Rating tasks

    • ­Production tasks

    • ­Sentence verification tasks

• Typicality effects & Family resemblance.

  • Family Resemblance: no defining features that one must have but there are common/typical features

Chapter 10

• Phonemes: Know how the different ways they can be classified, based on how sounds are produced

  • The smallest unit of speech that can be used to distinguish an utterance from another

    • ­voicing: whether vocal folds vibrate ([z], [d], [b], [v] and not [s], [t], [p], or [f])

    • ­manner of production: whether air is fully stopped ([b], [p], [d], [t]) or merely restricted ([z], [s], [v], [f])

    • ­place of articulation: where in the mouth the air is restricted

    • ­closing of lips: [b] and [p]

    • ­top teeth against bottom lip: [v], [f]

    • tongue behind upper teeth: [d], [t], [z], [s]

• Morphemes: Know the definition, know how to count the number of morphemes in a word

  • morpheme: smallest unit of meaning within a language

  • morphemes be split into two kinds: root words and affixes (i.e., prefix, suffix)

    • ­“dog” is a single morpheme

    • ­“dogs” 2 morphemes (dog & -s [number])

    • ­“studied” 2 morphemes (study & -ed [tense])

    • ­“restudied” 3 morphemes

    • “relate” only 1 morpheme

• Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis

  • the idea that different languages create different ways of thinking

• Know the hierarchy of the different levels of language representation

  • Phoneme —> Morpheme —> Word —> Syntax —> Discourse

• Garden Path Sentences

  • A garden path sentence initially suggests one interpretation, which turns out to be wrong:

    • the horse raced past the barn fell

    • fat people eat accumulates

    • the man whistling tunes pianos

    • The cotton clothing is made of grows in Mississippi.

  • contrast with: the car driven past the barn crashed

  • extralinguistic context (factors outside of language itself) can affect sentence parsing:

    • the sentence “put the apple on the towel in the box” is a garden path sentence

    • unless the sentence is uttered with the appropriate visual context.

• Know Chomsky’s definition of language

  • language is a natural object, a component of the human mind, physically represented in the brain and part of the biological endowment of the species “A set (finite or infinite) of sentences, each finite in length and constructed out of a finite set of elements”

• What does the McGurk Effect demonstrate?

  • Even when two sounds are identical our perception of phonemes can be influenced by visual information from faces.