2.1 Cognitive content

Question 1

Who proposed the multi-store model of memory?

Answer 1

Atkinson and Shiffrin (1968)

Question 2

Draw the multi-store memory model.

Describe what is happening here.

Answer 2

(see page 89 in the thick blue text book)

Question 3

What are control processes? (memory)

Answer 3

Conscious decisions about what to attend to from the sensory information in our environment.

Question 4

What is attended information? (memory)

Answer 4

Information that is given attention.

Question 5

What is rehearsal? (memory)

Answer 5

Consciously rehearsing and repeating items.

Question 6

What is a whole or partial report technique?

Answer 6

Pps are asked to recall the whole array or part of the array, such as a line.

Question 7

What is a visual array?

Answer 7

An arrangement of digits or letters.

Question 8

What is a tachistoscope?

Answer 8

A device used to present visual information in a controlled way, typically to test sensory information.

Question 9

Describe the sensory register/memory as depicted in the multi-store memory model.

Answer 9

ENCODING - 5 senses:
- sight
- sound
- touch
- taste
- smell
DURATION - 50 milliseconds - a few seconds
CAPACITY - 3-4 items
FORGETTING - decay
RETRIEVAL - scanning

(see page 89 in the thick blue text book for how the duration was tested)

Question 10

Describe the short-term memory model as depicted in the multi-store memory model.

Answer 10

DURATION - 15-30 seconds
CAPACITY - 5-8 items (7+-2)
ENCODING - acoustic
FORGETTING - decay through displacement
RETRIEVEL - sequential search

(see page 90 and 91 in the thick blue text book)

Question 11

What is an interference task?

Answer 11

A task that prevents rehearsal, such as counting backwards.

Question 12

What is a trigram?

Answer 12

A set of 3 digits or letters.

Question 13

What is the phonological similarity effect?

Answer 13

Similar sounding words and letters are acoustically confused in short-term memory, making them more difficult to recall.

Question 14

What is a digit span?

Answer 14

How many digits can be retained and recalled in a sequential order without mistakes.

Question 15

Describe the long-term memory model as depicted in the multi-store memory model.

Answer 15

ENCODING - semantic + temporal
DURATION - potentially lifetime
CAPACITY - potentially limitless
FORGETTING - decay + interference
RETRIEVAL - semantic or temporal search

(see page 91 and 92 in the thick blue text book)

Question 16

What is encephalitis?

Answer 16

Inflammation of the brain causing damage to the structures of the brain.

Question 17

Evaluate the multi-store memory model.

Answer 17

SUPPORTING:
- Henry Molaison (HM)
- Clive Wearing
(however, subjects are unique with unique brain damage)
- Baddeley, shows short term is acoustic

CONFLICTING:
- Kent Cochrane (KC), which led to Tulving et al.

(see page 92-94)

Question 18

Who proposed the working memory model?

Answer 18

Baddeley + Hitch (1974)

Question 19

Describe the working memory model (draw it)

Answer 19

(see page 95 in the thick blue text book)

Question 20

In the working memory model, what does the central executive do?

Answer 20

Attentional controller with the capacity to focus, divide and switch attention.

Question 21

In the working memory model, what does the phonological loop do?

Answer 21

Slave system

Temporary storage of verbal information.

Two components:

• articulatory rehearsal system
• phonological store

Phonological store holds information for a few seconds, but could be extended if information was subvocalised or refreshed using the articulatory rehearsal system.

Can explain Baddeley’s research, (phonological similarity)

(see page 96 in the thick blue text book for some extra info)

Question 22

In the working memory model, what does the Visuospatial sketchpad (VSSP) do?

Answer 22

Slave system

Temporarily hold and manipulate verbal and spatial (position/location) information.

To maintain and integrate visual and spatial information from these different channels using a visual code.

Question 23

Evaluate the working memory model.

Answer 23

SUPPORTING

• Williams syndrome.
• KF case study
• HM case study
• PET scans
• Baddeley + Hitch

LIMITATION
- Episodic buffer, introduced in 2000

(see page 98+99 in the thick blue text book for way more info)

Question 24

Describe briefly the case study of HM.

Answer 24

HM suffered amnesia following brain surgery for epilepsy, resulting in severe impairment to his long-term memory but his short-term memory was largely intact. This case study demonstrates that the short-term and long-term memory stores were differentially affected by the brain damage caused, perhaps because they are located in different regions of the brain.

Question 25

Describe briefly the case study of Clive Wearing.

Answer 25

Clive Wearing suffered long-term memory impairment following encephalitis, but his short-term store remained unaffected. The patient was unable to transfer information from the short-term store to the long-term store. Demonstrates the separation between short-term and long-term memory and supports the distinction proposed by the multi-store memory model.

Question 26

Describe briefly the case study of KC (Kent Cochrane)

Answer 26

Following a motorcycle accident that caused memory loss, KC could recall facts but showed severe memory impairment in remembering personal events in his life before the accident. These cases suggest that long-term memory is not one single unitary store, but that perhaps we have different long-term stores for factual information and autobiographical events.

Question 27

What is the supramarginal gyrus in the brain?

Answer 27

An area of the parietal lobe of the brain associated with the perception of language.

Question 28

What is the Broca's area in the brain?

Answer 28

An area of the left (typically) frontal lobe associated with the production of language.

Question 29

What is Alzheimer's disease?

Answer 29

A neurological degenerative disease that impairs cognitive functioning causing memory loss and impairments in thinking and language.

Question 30

What is the episodic buffer in the working memory model? (briefly)

Answer 30

A subcomponent of the working memory associated with interfacing with long-term memory and integrating information form other subcomponents.

Question 31

Who proposed the episodic and semantic memory?

Answer 31

Tulving (1972)

Question 32

How did Tulving describe episodic memory?

Answer 32

- MEMORY FOR EVENTS - Mental diary. Receives and stores information about experiences or events that occur at a time in our life. Memories are linked to time and context. Dependent on time-referencing: memories about events that happened to your are linked to the time in which they occurred. For example, recalling your first day at school is linked to the date this event occurred. Input into episodic memory is continuous, we experience a while episode in some temporal frame of reference, such as experiencing a birthday party. Recall is dependent on the context in which the event was initially learnt or experienced. It is this context that aids the retrieval of episodic memories. Susceptible to transformation. (see page 100 in the thick blue text book and page 101 for a summary table of all this)

Question 33

How did Tulving describe semantic memory?

Answer 33

- MEMORY FOR FACTS - A mental encyclopaedia, storing words, facts, rules, meanings and concepts as an organised body of knowledge. These memories are associated with other facts that link the concepts together (e.g. 'school and learning' or 'bird and nest') without autobiographical association. For example, the statements 'I know that June follows May in the calendar' or 'South Africa is a hot country' are memories that have been learned at some earlier time. Detached from any temporal link, as factual information could be recalled without reference tow hen it was learned. For example, you can recall that Paris is the capital city of France without remembering when and where you learned that fact. Input can be fragmentary. We can piece factual information together that has been learned at different points in time. Does not seem independent on the context in which it is learned, so it assumed that retrieval is similarly not dependent on context to aid recall. Retrieval from semantic memory can be based on inferences, generalisation and rational, logical thought. Retrieval leaves relatively unchanged from its original form, so we can recall a fact without interfering with that knowledge. (see page 100 in the thick blue text book and page 101 for a summary table of all this)

Question 34

Are the semantic and episodic memories interrelated?

Answer 34

Semantic memory can operate independently of episodic memory. For example, we do not need to remember a classroom lesson about equations to be able to use the equations we learned. However, episodic memory is unlikely to operate without semantic memory as we need to be able to draw on previous knowledge of objects, people and events that occur in order to understand them. Tulving argued that, despite this and although the two systems may overlap, they can be treated as separate independent stores.

Question 35

What does temporal mean?

Answer 35

Relates to when something occurred.

Question 36

What does spatial mean?

Answer 36

Relates to where something occurred.

Question 37

Evaluate Tulving's proposal of the episodic and semantic long-term memory stores.

Answer 37

SUPPORTING: - Ostergaard (1987), case of 10 year old boy with brain damage following anoxic episode; intelligence was intact, suffered from impairment to both episodic + semantic memory, however did make educational progress, able to store info in semantic memory. (evidence for 2 memory stores) - Case study of KC CONFLICTING: - Case study of HM - Case study of Clive Wearing (damage to episodic, however, both able to still play piano etc.) - So Tulving (1985) added procedural memory, for skills and abilities learnt. - They cannot be studied in absolute isolation from one another because they overlap, so looking at them as two separate stores causes some issues. (see page 102 in the thick blue text book for full evaluation)

Question 38

What is an anoxic episode?

Answer 38

Lack of oxygen to the brain causing injury.

Question 39

Describe briefly the case study of KF.

Answer 39

(Shallice + Warrington 1974) suffered short-term memory impairment following motorbike accident that damaged the parietal lobe of his brain. KF had a digit span of 1, suggesting a gross impairment in his phonological store, but his visual memory was intact.

Question 40

Who proposed reconstructive memory?

Answer 40

Bartlett (1932)

Question 41

Bartlett was interested in human perception, what 2 experiments did he use to investigate this?

Answer 41

- Imaging | - 'War of ghosts' folk tale

Question 42

Describe how Bartlett used imaging to investigate human perception and remembering.

Answer 42

Using ink blots, he asked Pps to describe what they imaged in the pattern they saw. He notices that Pps often 'rummaged about' their own stored images to find one that would best fit the ink blot pattern they saw. Often describing the blot as a plant or animal, Bartlett suggested that the descriptions given were largely determined by the individuals own interests and experiences, and even the mood that they were in at the time. He coined the term 'effort after meaning' to describe how Pps spent considerable effort in trying to connect a stimulus that they are given with some knowledge or experience they possess. Once the stimulus gains meaning for the individual , it can be more readily assimilated and stored. It is clear that perception is not simple the Passaic process of receiving an image, but an active construction of what we think we see using prior knowledge to guide the judgement.

Question 43

Describe how Bartlett used the 'war of ghosts' folk tale to investigate human perception and remembering.

Answer 43

Bartlett chose this folk tale for 4 reasons: - It was culturally unfamiliar to Pps, so he could examine the transformations that the story may make when reproduced by Pps. - It lacked any rational story order. - The dramatic nature of the story would encourage visual imaging. - The conclusion was somewhat supernatural and Bartlett wanted to see how Pps would perceive and image this. Each Pp read the story twice and repeated reproduction was used to test the effect of time lapse on recall. 20 Pps recalled the story after several minutes, weeks, months and years; the longest time lapse was 6.5 years. Bartlett found that the story became considerable shortened because of omissions made, the phrases used reflected modern concepts and the story became more coherent in form. A number of transformations to the story were reported, particularly objects within the story were made more familiar: Canoe -> boat Hunting seals -> fishing Bartlett concluded that memory is reconstructed each time it is recalled. It is rarely accurate and is prone to distortion, rationalisation, transformation and simplification. Even recall after several minutes elicited errors in recall, and these errors tended to be consolidated in subsequent reproductions. The process if remembering is constructive in nature and influenced by inference made by an individual.

Question 44

Describe how Bartlett described the theory of memory (remembering).

Answer 44

Based on numerous experiments he conducted, Bartlett proposed a theory of reconstructive memory. RECONTRUCTIVE MEMORY: The idea that we alter information we have stored when we recall it, based on prior expectations/knowledge. Rather than viewing memory as a Passaic and faithful record of what was experienced, he views memory as constructive in nature. He proposed that previous knowledge was used to interpret information to be stored and to actively construct memories to be recalled. Bartlett drew in the concept of schema to explain this.

Question 45

Describe the schema theory proposed by Bartlett.

Answer 45

Schemas are parcels of stored knowledge or mental representation of information about a specific even or object. Every schema has fixed information and variable information. For example, A schema for going to a restaurant would contain knowledge of fixed events: such as being waited on, choosing from a menu, eating and paying for the meal variable events: such as, what was on the menu and how much the meal cost. (see page 105 in the thick blue text book)

Question 46

Evaluate Bartlett's theory of reconstructive memory.

Answer 46

CONFLICTING: - Criticism - 'the war of ghost story' doesn't represent everyday memory, being a deliberate attempt for evidence for his theory. (however, he then used 8 different short stories on different Pps and found similar effects) (see page 106 in the thick blue test book)

Question 47

Evaluate Bartlett's theory of reconstructive memory.

Answer 47

CONFLICTING: - Criticism - 'the war of ghost story' doesn't represent everyday memory, being a deliberate attempt for evidence for his theory. (however, he then used 8 different short stories on different Pps and found similar effects) (see page 106 in the thick blue test book)

Question 48

Describe some individual differences in memory that should be considered when researching memory.

Answer 48

(see page 106 in the thick blue test book)

Question 49

What is an autobiographical memory?

Answer 49

Like episodic memory, to os a memory for personal events.

Question 50

What is comorbidity?

Answer 50

The presence of more than one disorder in the same person at the same time.

Question 51

Describe Alzheimer's disease.

Answer 51

(see page 108 in the thick blue test book)