Chapter 7

Question 1

Memory

Answer 1

Retention of information over time

Question 2

Encoding

Answer 2

Forming a memory code

Question 3

Storage

Answer 3

Maintaining the information in memory over time

Question 4

Retrieval

Answer 4

Recovering information from memory stores

Question 5

Attention

Answer 5

Focusing awareness on a narrowed range of stimuli or events

Need attention in order to form memory (that can be put in short term memory at least)

Question 6

Absentmindedness

Answer 6

A lapse in attention that results in memory failure

Question 7

Pseudoforgetting

Answer 7

Can’t recall information because it was never encoded well due to a lack of attention

Question 8

Failures in prospective memory

Answer 8

Failure in remembering to remember something/an intention in the future, such as an action or event

Question 9

Ways to enhance encoding

Answer 9

1. Levels of processing → Deeper level of processing = enhanced encoding/better recall (Structural/Visual < Phonetic/Phonological < Semantic)
2. Visual imagery
   - Words that can be visualized and are concrete (ie. juggler, house, ball, dress) are easier to memorize than low imagery words (ie. truth, necessary, quality).
3. Self-referent encoding
   - Deciding how or whether information is personally relevant
   - Promotes additional elaboration and additional organization of the information
   - If something relates to us or things we already know, we can remember it better

Question 10

Sensory memory

Answer 10

• preserves information in its original sensory form for a brief time, usually only a fraction of a second
• very temporary
• we retain each frame of a movie in our sensory memory for an extremely brief period of time after it disappears, but this allows us to see the frames blending together into a seamless whole and thus perceive motion
• includes iconic memory and echoic memory

Question 11

Iconic memory

Answer 11

• Visual sensory memory

- Eidetic imagery: Photographic memory; unusually good iconic memory

Question 12

Echoic memory

Answer 12

Auditory sensory memory; lasts as long as 5-10 seconds (longer than iconic memory)

Question 13

Working memory

Answer 13

• a limited capacity storage system that temporarily maintains and stores information by providing an interface between perception, memory, and action
• Closely related to short-term memory

Question 14

Short term memory

Answer 14

• a limited capacity store that can maintain unrehearsed information for up to approx. 20 seconds
• closely related to working memory
• can hold 5-9 items

Question 15

Long term memory

Answer 15

relatively enduring (from minutes to years) retention of information stored regarding our facts, experiences, and skills

Question 16

Sperling’s study

Answer 16

1. Method:
   - 12 letters are flashed on the screen for 50 milliseconds
   Screen goes blank
   - A tone is sounded within 250 milliseconds of the flash as a signal to recall letters from one of the rows
2. Findings:
   - Subject is able to recall 3 out of 4 letters from that row
3. Conclusions:
   - Participants had access to all 12 letters in their memories, but our iconic memories fade so quickly that we can’t access all the information before it disappears
   - We can only recite 3-4 letters before the information from our sensory memory is gone, which is why we can’t recite all 12 of the letters that flash onto the screen, but can accurate recite ~3 from a randomly selected row

Question 17

Magic number

Answer 17

• the span of short-term memory, according to George Miller: seven plus or minus two pieces of information

Question 18

Duration of short-term memory

Answer 18

• Lloyd and Margaret Peterson
• Participants were presented with lists of three letters each
• They made the participants wait 3-18 seconds before recalling the letters, counting backwards by 3’s while they waited (to present rehearsal)
• After about 10 to 15 seconds, most participants did no better than chance
• Conclusion: Short-term memory is brief; no longer than 20 seconds

Question 19

LTM vs STM

Answer 19

LTM has much larger capacity than STM
LTM has much longer retention than STM
LTM involves different kinds of mistakes than STM
Semantic errors for LTM (poodle vs terrier) and acoustic errors for STM (poodle vs noodle)

Question 20

Chunking

Answer 20

organizing information into meaningful groupings, allowing us to extend the span of short-term memory
This method is used by expert chess players to memorize chess positions
Professional chess players can recall LEGAL chess positions more easily than beginners
Professional chess players are no better than beginners at recalling ILLEGAL/UNREALISTIC chess positions
Suggests that the professionals use chunking to remember the chess positions

Question 21

Rehearsal

Answer 21

Repeating information to extend the duration of retention in short-term memory and promote the likelihood of transfer to long-term memory
Maintenance rehearsal: repeating stimuli in their original form to retain them in short-term memory
Elaborative rehearsal: linking stimuli to each other in a meaningful way to improve retention of information in short-term memory

Question 22

Capacity test for STM

Answer 22

Digit span
Read increasingly long rows of numbers, one number at a time, then close eyes and write out the numbers from memory
On average, people can remember 7 numbers (plus or minus two)

Question 23

Describe the different components of working memory

Answer 23

Episodic buffer: interface between working and long-term memory, temporary limited capacity storage space for the integration of information from other modules
Phonological loop: allows for recitation of information
Visuo-Spatial Sketch Pad: temporarily hold and manipulate visual images
Central executive: coordinates the actions of other modules; controls, focuses, divides attention

Question 24

Two types of long term memory

Answer 24

Explicit and implicit memory

Question 25

Explicit memory

Answer 25

Explicit Memory: Involves intentional recollection of factual information or previous experiences
Semantic memory: General knowledge not tied to the time when the information was learned
Episodic memory: Chronological, temporally dated, recollections of personal experiences
Consciously aware
Assessed directly
Assessed by recall/recognition
Affected by age, drugs, amnesia, retention interval

Question 26

Implicit memory

Answer 26

Implicit Memory: Involves memories we don’t deliberately or consciously remember
Procedural memory: Memories of how to execute specific actions, skills and/or operations
Priming: The ability to identity a stimulus more easily or quickly when we’ve previously encountered similar stimuli
Conditioning
Habituation
Not consciously aware
Assessed indirectly
Assessed by relearning measures
Not affected by age, drugs, amnesia, retention interval

Question 27

Describe the span and duration of long term memory.

Answer 27

Estimated to hold 500 encyclopedias (1500 pages each) of information
Duration can range from minutes to years to an entire lifetime

Question 28

List the important lessons learned from H.M.

Answer 28

1. Clear differences between short term & long term memory
2. Clear differences between implicit & explicit memory
3. Different types of memory may be encoded & stored in different areas of the brain

Question 29

H.M: STM vs LTM

Answer 29

H.M. performed normally on short-term memory tests (ie. digit span test), remembering 6 items (the average is 7 plus or minus 2)
H.M. performed far below average on long-term memory tests (ie. digit span + 1 test), still only being able to remember ~6 items, despite a normal person remembering much more than this (upwards of 20 items!)

Question 30

H.M: Explicit vs Implicit memory

Answer 30

The mirror drawing test - H.M. was tested daily and his performance improved despite H.M. not being consciously aware that he learnt it before → demonstrates implicit (more specifically procedural memory!)

Question 31

H.M: Location of memory storage

Answer 31

Even though he moved to a new apartment after his operation, and he was supposedly unable to form new memories after his operation, he was able to draw his new apartment when prompted to → the spatial memory of his apartment is being stored somewhere different in his brain compared to semantic memories?

Question 32

Karl Lashley’s experiment

Answer 32

Karl Lashley trained mice to run a maze and made lesions in their brain
He found that more lesions resulted in poorer performance
But no matter where he made the lesions/removed tissue from the brain, the mice always did better than the control mice who never learned the maze! (Some memory of the maze always persisted!)
Conclusion: There is no singular localized spot for memories

Question 33

2 types of amnesia

Answer 33

Retrograde amnesia: Inability to retrieve memories for some specific period of time prior to that time at which the brain damage occurred.
Anterograde amnesia: Inability to form memories of events occurring after the time at which the brain damage occurred.

Question 34

Myths about amnesia

Answer 34

Myth 1: Generalized amnesia (ie. losing all memories/life history) is common
Truth: Generalized amnesia is extremely rare
Myth 2: People suddenly have an epiphany and recover all their memories
Truth: If people do ever recover their memories, it’s a gradual process
Myth 3: Retrograde amnesia is more common
Truth: Anterograde amnesia is more common

Question 35

Long term potentiation

Answer 35

gradual strengthening of connections among neurons from repetitive stimulation

Question 36

Consolidation

Answer 36

a hypothetical process in which information is gradually converted into memory codes to be stored in LTM (occurs in hippocampus)

Question 37

Amygdala

Answer 37

related to emotion (fear) related memories

Question 38

Long term depression

Answer 38

long-lasting weakening of connections between two neurons after low patterns of activation

Question 39

Retention

Answer 39

The proportion of material retained/remembered

Question 40

Retention interval

Answer 40

The amount of time between presentation of the material the memory measure

Question 41

Recall

Answer 41

A measure of memory that requires subjects to reproduce information on their own without any retrieval cues (ie. Name as many kids from your grade 1 class as you can)

Question 42

Recognition

Answer 42

A measure of retention that requires subjects to select previously learned information from an array of options (ie. Match the names of the kids to their pictures, multiple choice questions)

Question 43

Relearning

Answer 43

A measure of retention that requires a subject to memorize information a second time to determine how much time or how many practice trials are saved by having learned it before (Often a test of implicit memory)

Question 44

Decay

Answer 44

Fading of information from memory over time

Accurate for short term memory, but not much evidence for it impacting long term memory

Question 45

Interference

Answer 45

Loss of information from memory because of competition from additional information
Retroactive interference: when new information impairs the retention of previously learned information
Proactive interference: when previously learned information interferes with the retention of new information

Question 46

Waugh & Norman’s study

Answer 46

Probe digit experiment
A series of numbers is recited
A tone sounds, indicating the probe digit (the last digit to be called before the tone is the probe digit)
The participant is asked to recall the number after the first presentation of the probe digit
The probe digit is always said twice in the sequence
They manipulated two variables, the amount of interference and the rate at which numbers were read
When there were more numbers in between the first and second occurrence of the probe digit (ie. more interference), participants performed poorer on recalling the number after the first occurrence of the probe digit
However, regardless if the numbers were read at 1 digit every second or 1 digit every 4 seconds, participants performed similarly
This indicates that interference plays a bigger role than decay

Question 47

Encoding specificity

Answer 47

Phenomenon of remembering something better when the conditions under which we retrieve information are similar to the conditions under which we encoded it
Context-dependent, state-dependent, mood-dependent learning

Question 48

Context dependent learning

Answer 48

Superior retrieval of memories when the external context of the original memories matches the retrieval context
ie. if people learned something underwater, it was easier for them to recall it when they were underwater

Question 49

State-dependent learning

Answer 49

Superior retrieval of memories when the organism is in the same physiological or psychological state as it was during encoding
ie. If people learned something while drunk, they were more likely to recall it when drunk compared to when they were sober

Question 50

Mood-dependent learning

Answer 50

A type of state-dependent learning in which there is superior retrieval of memories when the organism is in a certain mood.
ie. We’re more likely to remember unpleasant events when we’re upset, and more likely to remember pleasant events when we’re happy

Question 51

List the 7 sins of memory

Answer 51

Sins of commission

1. Suggestibility
2. Misattribution
3. Bias
4. Persistence

Sins of omission

5. Transience
6. Blocking
7. Absentmindedness

Question 52

Suggestibility

Answer 52

The tendency to incorporate misleading information from external sources into personal recollections (false memories)
Misinformation effect: Creating fictitious memories by providing misleading information about an event after it takes place
Ex 1. Participants are shown a picture of a car at a yield sign. Some participants were then prompted with the information that the car had been stopped at a stop sign. Those participants remembered seeing a stop sign, while the ones who were not prompted remembered seeing a yield sign.
Ex 2. Participants were shown a video of a car collision. Those who were asked how fast the cars were when they “hit” each other estimated around 34mph while those were asked how fast the cars were when they “smashed into” each other estimated around 41mph → the way that questions are worded can influence how people answer. Also, people who heard “smashed” were more likely to falsely remember broken glass in the video
Ex 3. There are leading and non-leading questions. In navy school after a mock interrogation, people were asked either a leading question (“Did your interrogator remove his glasses before interrogating you? Please describe the glasses worn by your interrogator.) or a non-leading question (“DId your interrogator wear glasses? If so, what type?)
Ex. 4. Implanted memories: the “walk in the mall” study where people would “suddenly remember” that they got lost walking in the mall and couldn’t distinguish between their true childhood memories vs this implanted one lol
Therapy can result in fake memories → dream interpretation, imagination, hypnosis, exposure to false information, etc.

Question 53

Misattribution

Answer 53

Source monitoring confusion: lack of clarity about the origin of a memory (when, where, and how information was acquired)
Internal source monitoring confusion → confusion if something was a dream/imagination or reality
External source monitoring confusion → confusion in discriminating between externally retrieved sources (Donald Thompson example below)
Ex 1. (External) Woman was watching Donald Thompson on TV when a guy broke into her apartment and raped her; she claimed that Donald Thompson raped her
Ex 2. (External) Confusing which friend made a rude remark to you
Ex 3. (Internal) You have a very vivid dream and you remember the event to have actually happened a few days later

Question 54

Bias

Answer 54

the distorting influences of present knowledge, beliefs and feelings on the recollections of previous experiences
Ex 1. When we win an award/get accepted into a university, we will be biased to think that we are smart and remember our successes/good grades in high school, while overlooking our failures and struggles

Question 55

Persistence

Answer 55

the intrusive recollection of events that we wish we could forget, but cannot

Question 56

Transience

Answer 56

forgetting that occurs with the passage of time

Question 57

Blocking

Answer 57

failure to retrieve information that is available in memory, even though you are trying to produce it (tip of the tongue, retrieval failure)

Question 58

Absentmindedness

Answer 58

a lapse in attention that results in memory failure
Pseudoforgetting
Failures in prospective memory
Prospective memory involves remembering to remember something (an intention) in the future, such as an action or event

Question 59

Mnemonics

Answer 59

Mnemonic: A learning aid, strategy or device that enhances recall

1. Rhyme
2. Acrostics
3. Acronyms
4. Method of Loci: The walking thing where you associate a thing in a certain part of your home
5. Narrative methods: Where you link a list of stuff in a story
6. Music?

Question 60

Distributed versus massed practice

Answer 60

studying information in small increments over time (distributed) versus in large increments over a brief amount of time (massed)

Question 61

Retrieval cues

Answer 61

hints that make it easier for us to recall information

Question 62

Schema

Answer 62

organized knowledge structure or mental model that we’ve stored in memory

Question 63

von Restorff effect

Answer 63

tendency to remember stimuli that are distinctive or that stick out like sore thumbs from other stimuli

Question 64

Permastore

Answer 64

type of long-term memory that appears to be permanent

Question 65

Primacy effect

Answer 65

tendency to remember words at the beginning of a list especially well

Question 66

Recency effect

Answer 66

tendency to remember words at the end of a list especially well

Question 67

Memory illusion

Answer 67

False but subjectively compelling memory

Question 68

Cryptomnesia

Answer 68

Failure to recognize that our ideas originated with someone else