Before Reading week Flashcards
(119 cards)
what is an experiment
An experiment is a controlled situation in which a researcher manipulates variables of interest, measuring the effect of this manipulation while controlling for irrelevant variables
Why is memory studied
There are 3 main meanings to memory: WHERE info is stored, WHAT info is kept, & HOW info is acquired/stored/retrieved.
what are the primary components of an experiment?
The three primary components of an experiment include the independent and dependent variables, and control variables.
why is experimentation the preferred way of studying memory?
you can control all aspects and focus on desired variable which can be manipulated to cause an effect
what are other ways to study memory?
Case studies, correlation studies, quasi-experiments,
Advantages/disadvantages to case studies?
advantage: topics difficult for studying with large groups
disadvantage: provide minimal use in larger population, results can be influenced by researcher
advantages/disadvantages to correlational studies?
Advantage: assessing a dependent measure that exists without manipulation (looking at age as a dependent measure to memory
advantage/disadvantage to quasi-experiment
Advantage: looking at preexisting conditions tested in a controlled experiment (old vs young memory test)
How are theories and hypothesis different?
Theories are a principal explanation for how a process operates, can derive a hypothesis from a theory.
Hypotheses are educated guesses about how variations of an IV are related to an outcome of a DV
Ways to learn information so it will be better remembered later? Is this true for all types of info?
The more a piece of info is elaborated the more it becomes encoded into memory, so deeply thinking about information will be better remembered than if you rehearse it
flashbulb memory (hint 9/11)
Memory for circumstances which one learned of the event (situation), and often an emotional event shared with other people.
event memory
a memory for a fact about the flashbulb event (sitting in class and hearing about a plane hitting the WTC)
memory research aims to answer 2 questions:
- what is memory
- how does memory work
what kinds of information are easier/harder to remember?
Deeper encoded memory better remembered
poorly coded memory poorly remembered
difference between recall and recognition tests of memory?
Recall attempts to retrieve information from memory
Recognition is a process which the contents of the environment are compared with the contents of memory (primed by something to help recall)
types of recall
Cued recall
Free recall
Forced recall
Serial recall
Types of recognition
Yes/No recognition
Forced choice recognition
how can you correct for guessing on memory tests?
Discrimination
Signal Detection Theory
how to use Discrimination
subtract false alarms from the number of hits to account for guessing
Nature of the forgetting curve?
The Ebbinghaus forgetting curve suggests that we forget things rapidly but that we level out at a baseline.
When we go to re-learn something we start from that baseline and not ground zero.
Jost’s Law
suggests that older memories decay slower than newer ones
Chronometry
Mental chronometry is how fast your mind does something.
This is measured by recording response times like responding to a prompt on a screen as they give context whether chronometry of a given task is fast or slow
Cluster analyses for studying memroy
used to organize how info is organized in memory, to suggest how we can prime the recall of a memory
QALMRI
Question - scientific question
Alternative - Alt hypo
Logic - logic of experiment design
Methods - method for testing hypothesis
Results - results
Inference - what can we infer from results