ch. 5

Question 1

what is memory?

Answer 1

the process involved in retaining, retrieving, and using information about a stimulus after the original information is no longer present.

Question 2

what is the modal model of memory (atkinson and shiffrin, 1986)?

Answer 2

input –> sesnsory input, lasts only for seconds or fractions of seconds –> short term memory, rehearsal: a control process, output, 10 to 15 seconds <–> long term memory, encoding and retrieval, years or decades

Question 3

summarize the modal model of memory

Answer 3

memory consists of multiple stores: sensory memory; holds information very briefly, specific to each sensory modality. short term memory; holds five to nine items for about 15 to 20 seconds, limited capacity, rehearsal is required to avoid forgetting. long term memory; holds information for very long periods of time, information is stored permanently, essentially an unlimited capacity.

Question 4

what is sensory memory?

Answer 4

the retention, for brief periods of time, of the effects of sensory simulation

Question 5

what is the sensory memory capacity experiment (sperling, 1960)?

Answer 5

12 letters are flashed and participants memory is tested. later, a 12 letter display is showed, but a tone indicated which row to report. sperling concluded that people SAW 82% of all stimuli, but then it faded rapidly

Question 6

what is the whole report method?

Answer 6

to report as many letters as possible. on average 4-5 lettes are reported out of 12, some said they saw more initially but then faded

Question 7

what is the partial report method?

Answer 7

to report only a single row. on average 3.3 letters are reported out of 4

Question 8

what is the delayed partial report method?

Answer 8

report a single row after a one second delay, on average 1 letter is reported our of the 4

Question 9

what is visual sensory (iconic) memory?

Answer 9

the brief memory of visual information, it decays very rapidly (less than a second)

Question 10

what is auditory sensory (echoic) memory?

Answer 10

the brief memory of sound, lasts up to 20 seconds

Question 11

what is short term memory (STM)?

Answer 11

STM is the capacity for holding a small amount of information in mind in an active, readily available state for a short period of time

Question 12

how did peterson and peterson (1959) measure the duration of STM?

Answer 12

the experimenter reads three letters (ex. AXR) then three numbers (ex. 301), participants begin counting backwards by threes to prevent rehearsal (ex. 298, 295, 292, …), after intervals of 3-18 seconds participants were asked to recall the three LETTERS (remember, people can hold onto info in STM for up to 18 seconds)

Question 13

what is the chunking hypothesis?

Answer 13

first proposed by george miller (1956), “the magical number of seven plus or minus two, some limits on our capacity for processing information”. miller observed that STM capacity did not depend on the amount of information, but how this information can be grouped into chunks

Question 14

what is a chunk?

Answer 14

a group of familiar stimuli stored as a single unit, its based on previous knowledge, STM capacity is 5-9 chunks (7 plus or minus 2)

Question 15

what is an example of evidence supporting chunking (Murdock, 1961)?

Answer 15

one: consonant-vowel-consonant pseudo- word per trial XUW (3 letters, 3 chunks)
three: proper 3 letter words DOG, BAR, PAD (9 letters, 3 chunks)
the performance was comparable, so chunks determined performance not the number of letters

Question 16

what is working memory?

Answer 16

a limited capacity system for temporary short term storage and manipulation of information for complex tasks such as comprehension, learning, and reasoning

Question 17

what is the dual task paradigm?

Question 18

what is the phonological loop?

Answer 18

the “inner voice”, holds verbal and auditory information. it consists of 2 components, phonological store and articulatory rehearsal process

Question 19

what is the phonological store?

Answer 19

holds items in an acoustic format, information decays within 2 seconds if not rehearsed

Question 20

what is articulatory rehearsal process?

Answer 20

responsible for keeping items in phonological store from decaying through rehearsal

Question 21

what is the visuospatial sketch pad?

Answer 21

the “inner eye”, it temporarily holds and manipulates visual and spatial information. its divided into two subcomponents, visual cache and inner scribe

Question 22

what is the visual cache?

Answer 22

holds visuospatial information (what and where)

Question 23

what is the inner scribe?

Answer 23

carries out cognitive operations on this information (mental rotation)

Question 24

what is supporting evidence for the visuospatial sketch pad?

Answer 24

mental rotation task: rotating an image to see if it’s the same
visual patterns: completing patterns of shaded sqaures

Question 25

what is the central executive?

Answer 25

the "supervisory system" attention control focuses on specific parts of a task and decides how to divide or switch attention. it coordinates activity between phonological loop and visuospatial sketch pad.

Question 26

how does damage to the frontal lobe affect the central executive?

Answer 26

affects preservation: repeatedly performing the same action or thought even if its not the goal. central executive focuses attention on relevant information (ex. listening for where to turn and tuning out the radio) so if this is impaired, the relevant information may not be executed properly.

Question 27

what is the new component of the working memory model?

Answer 27

episodic buffer: it holds integrated episodes and scenes, multimodal store combining information from both visual and auditory modalities, integrates information from long term and short term stores

Question 28

what is the newly considered magic number in working memory and short term memory?

Answer 28

4... maybe?

Question 29

how much of the prefrontal cortex does it take up of the entire cortex?

Answer 29

roughly 30%, matures at 25 years old

Question 30

what is the delayed response task?

Answer 30

it required a monkey to hold information in working memory during a delay period. the neurons responded when stimulus was flashed in a particular location and during delay. information remains available via these neurons for as long as they continue firing

Question 31

what did vogel et al (2005) study?

Answer 31

they tested participants working memory capacity first (high capacity WM group, low capacity WM group), then measured ERP responses as they performed a change detection task. high capacity participants were more efficient at ignoring the distractors (better WM), low capacity participants were unable to ignore the distractors (central executive not operating as efficiently)

Question 32

whats the trail making test?

Answer 32

draw lines to connect the circles in an ascending pattern, but alternate the numbers and letters (ex. 1a2b3c)

Question 33

what is the n-back task?

Answer 33

for each stimulus, participants need to decide if the current stimulus is the same as the one presented N trails ago. N cam equal 1 trial, 2 trials, etc/