Chapter 6-Long Term Memory: Structure

Question 1

Long term memory

Answer 1

• archive of information about past events and knowledge learned
• works closely with working memory
• storage stretches from a few moments ago to as far back as one can remember
• more recent memories are more detailed

Question 2

Serial Position

Answer 2

Murdoch-studied the distinction between STM and LTM using a serial position curve

Participants had to read a stimulus list and write down all words remembered

Question 3

Difference between serial position and memory span

Answer 3

Number of items for serial process is bigger than memory span (20 items or more)

When you report items you can report them in your own sequence (Free recall)

Question 4

Serial process results

Answer 4

Last few items were recalled the best (recency effect) and first few items second best (primacy effect) and middle items worst

Question 5

Primacy effect in serial position

Answer 5

Memory better for stimuli presented at beginning

More time to rehearse, more likely to enter LTM

The slower the pace in presenting the list, the bigger the primacy effect

Question 6

Recency effect

Answer 6

Memory better for stimuli presented at end of list

Stimuli in STM

So if some delay between the test and the study, the recency effect will be eliminated

Question 7

Flanker and Cunitz experiment

Answer 7

Slowed down time in presentation of list

Allows for more rehearsal so greater primacy effect observed

No effect on recency effect

Question 8

Rundus’s experiment

Answer 8

Asked participants to repeat aloud during the interval between two items (1 word every 5 seconds)

Resulted in more rehearsing and therefore greater primacy effect

Question 9

30 second delay after presenting a list of items in a serial position

Answer 9

Eliminates the recency effect but primacy effect still there

Question 10

Wickens et al. Proactive interference experiment

Answer 10

Semantic encoding in short and long term memory

• Had four trials of fruit groups that had three fruits in each trial
• after each trial subjects counted backwards for 15 seconds and then recalled the names of the fruits
• Had a professional group where last trial was fruit
• they also counted back 15 seconds then recalled names

Question 11

Results of Wickens Proactive Interference Experiment

Answer 11

The fruit groups showed reduced performance on trials 2,3, and 4 caused by proactive interference

The professions group showed reduced performance on trials 2 and 3 but increase in performance on trial 4 which represents a release from proactive interference because the names of fruit were presented

Question 12

Semantic encoding in long term memory

Answer 12

Based on meaning

Recognition memory: identification of a previously encountered stimulus

Sachs: participants chose the sentences that were similar in meaning but not exactly the same

Question 13

HM and Clive Wearing

Answer 13

Surgery removed hippocampus / damage to hippocampus

Retained STM (can do memory span) but unable to transfer info to LTM

Unable to form new LTM

Question 14

KF

Answer 14

Accident damaged parietal lobe

Impaired STM (reduced digit span ~2) but functional LTM

Able to form and hold new memories

Question 15

Hippocampus also holds __________

Answer 15

New information

E.g. experiment that measured hippocampus fMRI responses. Found that responses increases during delay for novel faces but only increases slightly for faces people had seen before

Question 16

Implicit/non-declarative LTM

Answer 16

Unconscious memory

Procedural (skill), priming, conditioning

Priming: previous experience changes response without conscious awareness

Question 17

Explicit/declarative LTM

Answer 17

Conscious memory of events experienced and facts learned

Episodic: memory for personal events

Semantic: facts, knowledge

Question 18

Episodic memory

Answer 18

• explicit LTM
• involves mental time travel
• tied to personal experience; remembering is reliving
• “self-knowing”

Question 19

Semantic memory

Answer 19

• explicit LTM
• knowledge, facts
• “knowing”

Question 20

Separation of Episodic and Semantic Memories

Answer 20

K.C. Damaged his hippocampus

• no episodic memory (can not relive any past events)
• semantic memory intact (can remember general info about past)

Italian woman

• impaired semantic memory
• episodic memory for past events preserved
• couldn’t remember meanings of words or recognize familiar people but could remember what happened months before

Question 21

Levine et al

Answer 21

Participants either listened to their own diaries or general knowledge

Evidence from fMRI showed that retrieving episodic and semantic memories activate different areas of the brain

Question 22

Episodic can be lost, leaving only ______

Answer 22

Semantic

Acquiring knowledge may start as episodic but then fade to semantic

Question 23

Semantic can be enhanced if ______

Answer 23

Associated with episodic

Autobiographical memory: memory of specific experiences from own life, includes semantic (facts related to these events) and episodic (relived specific events)

Personal semantic memory: semantic memories that have personal significance

Question 24

Semantic knowledge can influence formation of ________

Answer 24

Episodic memory

Can influence what we experience (episodic) by determining what we attend to (football game)

Question 25

The Effect of Time

Answer 25

Forgetting increases with longer intervals from the original encoding

• Remember/Know procedure
• Semanticization of remote memories (loss of episodic details for memories of long ago events)

Question 26

Constructive episodic simulation hypothesis

Answer 26

Addis

• episodic memories are extracted and recombined to create simulations of future events
• helps us to anticipate future needs and guide future behaviours
• adaptive function similar to mind wandering

Question 27

Procedural memory

Answer 27

Implicit LTM

• Memory for actions
• no memory of where or when learned
• perform procedures without being consciously aware of how to do them
• people who cannot form new LTMs can still learn new skills (e.g. H.M.)

Question 28

Coglab: implicit learning

Answer 28

On each trial a dot appeared in one of four locations and you are asked to press one of four keys on the keyboard to indicate the dots location

Random condition: dots never followed a pattern
Pattern condition: dots followed a pattern on all blocks except for block 10

Question 29

Coglab: implicit learning results

Answer 29

Mean RT decreases with each block for both conditions but the decrease is greater for the pattern condition except for on block 10-there should be a sudden increase because that block uses a different pattern

Destrebecqz and Cleeremans

• did similar experiment but with no RSI and an RSI (delay)
• no RSI is implicit knowledge (no time to think-slower time)
• RSI is explicit knowledge (time to think-faster response)

Review bar chart slide

Question 30

Repetition priming

Answer 30

Presentation of one stimulus affects performance on that stimulus when it is presented again
-Graf and coworkers
-tested explicit memory (recall) and implicit memory (word completion)
Three groups:
1. Amnesia patients with Korsakoff’s syndrom
2. Patients without amnesia being treated for alcoholism
3. Patients without amnesia who had no history of alcoholism

Question 31

Repetition priming results

Answer 31

For recall (explicit): INPT>ALC>AMN

For implicit: AMN>ALC>INPT

Question 32

Propaganda effect

Answer 32

Perfect and Askew

• more likely to rate statements read or heard before as being true
• implications for advertisements