Ch.7, LTM, Encoding/Retrieval

Question 1

Fluency Effect

Answer 1

misconception that rereading material is learning, because it makes us more “fluent” about what we are reading

Question 2

Familiarity Effect

Answer 2

rereading material causes you to become familiar with the material, but it doesn’t mean you will be able to remember it later

Question 3

State-dependent learning

Answer 3

learning associated with particular internal state/mood/awareness

Question 4

Synaptic consolidation

Answer 4

takes place over minutes or hours, involves structural changes at synapses
Systems consolidation is a slow dynamic process that can take anywhere from one to two decades to be fully formed in humans, unlike synaptic consolidation that only takes minutes to hours for new information to stabilize into memories.

Question 5

Systems consolidation

Answer 5

takes place over months or even years, gradual reorganization of neural circuits within the brain

Question 6

Long Term Potential

Answer 6

outcome of structural changes at the synapses is the strengthening of synaptic transmission: results in the enhanced firing of neurons after repeated stimulation

Question 7

Reactivation

Answer 7

helps from direct connections between the various cortical areas

Question 8

Retrograde vs graded amnesia

Answer 8

retrograde: loss of memory for events that occurred before injury
Graded: amnesia is most severe for events just before the injury and is less severe overall

Question 9

Temporal Context Model

Answer 9

focuses on the context within which learning and retrieval opccur and assumes that old contexts can beep,e associated with new memories, without changing the content of existing memories

Question 10

Explicit/Declarative Memory:

Answer 10

conscious memory about something, memory you can “declare”, TYPE OF MEMORY THAT WE USE WHEN BEING TESTED ON EXAMS

Question 11

Episodic/Autobiographical Memory:

Answer 11

personal experiences/events, recall of single episodes or personal experiences

Question 12

Semantic:

Answer 12

general facts, knowledge concepts (you know your address, phone number, you know Calgary is a city)

Question 13

How does semantic knowledge influence episodic memory?

Answer 13

tHEY CAN INFLUENCE ONE ANOTHER: semantic knowledge can influence episodic memory (an art enthusiast may remember the painting strokes that created a painting–using their semantic knowledge in their episodic memory of looking at the painting) SEMANTIC — INFLUENCING EPISODIC, impact what you pay attention to in a scene (different from a tourist who just takes a selfie with the painting—their semantic knowledge is NOT influencing their episodic memory here)
-^Knowledge of what is important, what is likely/unlikely makes certain events stand out, and facilitate the episodic memory for that event

Question 14

How can episodic memory enhance semantic memory?

Answer 14

Episodic memory can enhance semantic memory: we tend to remember things of personal significance better (similar to self-reference): easier to remember your mom’s birthday than your friend’s moms birthday

Question 15

What often happens to episodic memories over time?

Answer 15

they become semantic

Question 16

Implicit Memory:

Answer 16

memory not available to conscious awareness; cannot report content of these memories

Question 17

Priming

Answer 17

UNCONSCIOUS, changes in behavior caused by previous experience with same stimuli; presentation of one stimulus affects response to later (similar) stimulus (need to disguise the purpose of priming stimuli in experiments because it has to be unconscious)

Question 18

Repetition Priming:

Answer 18

Repetition priming refers to the change in responding to a word or an object as a result of a previous encounter with that same item, either in the same task or in a different task.

Question 19

Word Completion Task Experiment and Repetition and Conceptual Priming

Answer 19

Word Completion Task, Repetition Priming: given three letters, asked to fill in the remaining letters to make a word (if you’ve just seen the word parrot, but youre given the three letters PARR, youre more likely to fill in parrot)
Conceptual Priming: given the three letters BIR (likely to fill in bird, because you just looked at a list of birds previously)

Question 20

Priming Experiment, Graf et. Al, Korsakoff Syndrome, groups, IV isolation, and conclusions

Answer 20

Koraskoff’s Syndrome group: inability to form new memories, often linked to alcohol
Alcohol control group: patients with alcohol misuse but no memory problems
Medical inpatient control group: have no memory disorder
NEEDED TO RECRUIT THESE TWO GROUPS: TO ISOLATE IV by recruiting alcohol control group to see if memory would be equally as bad as the Karaoke group?
Encoding: participants have to rate how much they like each word
Testing: recall words you rated in general (Explicit memory, can declare it consciously)
Word Completion Task: assesses implicit memory (SAME AS WORD COMPLETION TASK IN PREVIOUS SECTION)
Koraskoff syndrome patients have significantly less words that they can recall compared to both other groups
All three groups perform equally well on implicit memory when doing the word completion task
Korsakoff syndrome can selectively impact explicit memory but NOT implicit memory

Question 21

Warrington and Weiskrantz, Testing Patients with Korsakoff’s Syndrome and Damage to Explicit but not Implicit Memories

Answer 21

Focuses on implicit memories
Task: participants shown incomplete pictures, asked to name object, they were shown increasingly completely versions until they can name it
Asked to complete task on three separate days: they have no memory of doing this task the day before (EXPLICIT MEMORY)
But by day 3, they made less and less errors despite not remembering the images form previous days:
CONCLUSION: MUST HAVE HAD IMPLICIT MEMORY OF THE IMAGE FROM DAYS BEFORE, EVEN THOUGH THEY HAD NO ABILITY TO DECLARE IT AND NO EXPLICIT MEMORY FROM THE PREVIOUS DAYS
CONCLUSION: EXPLICIT AND IMPLICIT MEMORIES ARE INDEPENDENT FROM EACH OTHER, MUST THEREFORE BE SEPERATE FUNCTION SYSTEMS

Question 22

Priming Experiment, Brain Signals, Holdgraf

Answer 22

How priming impacts brain signals
Focused on auditory signals
Holdgraf et al: studied how the brain processes normal vs garbled sentences
Participants first listened to garbled sentences, then normal sentences, and then the same garbled sentences
The third time they could understand the garbled sentences because now they knew what the garbled sentence was
When the first set is processed, the brain signal for the third sentence is much more similar to the second (the normal processing) even though the 1st and 3rd sentence are identical, the brain processes were not as similar here

Question 23

Priming/Propaganda Effect/ Spread of Misinformation and conditions when it works

Answer 23

People rate material they have seen before as being true, simply if they have been exposed to them before; just because you’ve seen something once, you’re likely to believe it’s true: THIS IS HOW MISINFORMATION CAN SPREAD
Occurs even when people are not aware that they have encountered statement before, hence it taps into implicit memory (PRIMING/UNCONSCIOUS)
Occurs even when the person thinks it is false when they first encounter the statement, they are likely to rate it as true later
Occurs even when people are TOLD that the statement is false when they first encounter, they may still rate it as true
To prevent: know where your source is and don’t rely on it for info, don’t have as much control on the kind of info you believe as true as you think

Question 24

Procedural Memory

Answer 24

Procedural: motor skills, memory for how to do something (piano)
AUTOMATIC PROCESSING: once you’ve gotten good at it, you don’t have to think about it consciously
Could even be as simple as brushing your teeth
Hard to explain in words

Question 25

Mirror Tracing Task, Procedural Memory

Answer 25

Mirror Tracing Task: can’t really control for level of procedural memory people have, instead have new task: trace between the two outlines of the star while looking only at the reflection in a mirror
Crossing a line constitutes an error
Over time you get better at it: procedural memory improves with time
Patients with impaired explicit memory but iNTACT IMPLICIT MEMORY WILL PERFORM AS WELL AS ANY NORMAL PERSON

Question 26

Anatomy of Memory, Lesion/Ablation Studies, Brain Areas in Memory

Answer 26

Lesion and ablation studies didn’t identify any specific areas in the brain that were more or less important, so memory is SPREAD THROUGHOUT THE BRAIN

Question 27

Sensory memory brain locations

Answer 27

involves same brain areas as sense, iconic store (visual cortex/occipital lobe), echoic store (auditory cortex/temporal lobe)

Question 28

Implicit/procedural memory locations

Answer 28

(cerebellum/well practiced activities) (basal ganglia: procedural learning, learning new skill sets)

Question 29

Role of Hippocampus, if damaged, consolidation

Answer 29

Hippocampus is involved in transfer from short term memory to long term memory NOT STORAGE
DAMAGE: Damage to hippocampus prevents consolidation and transferring information, do not perform well in testing
Memories are stored in cortical regions instead ^^
Consolidation: process of crystallizing memory into stable/longterm format

Question 30

Patient HM symptoms

Answer 30

PATIENT HM CASE: couldn’t form new explicit MEMORIES DUE TO HIPPOCAMPAL DAMAGE
COULD GET THE WORD STEM CORRECT BUT NOT THE RECALL TEST RIGHT
HAD INTACT WORKING MEMORY ON N-BACK TEST
RETROGRADE AND ANTEROGRADE RELY ON DIFFERENT SYSTEMS^^^
Had intact procedural memory: could still perform a task well over time with learning
CONCLUSION: IMPLICIT MEMORY AND EXPLICIT MEMORY RELY ON DIFFERENT
Showed better implicit than explicit memory

Question 31

Hippocampus, Multiple Trace Hypothesis

Answer 31

Hippocampus is involved in short term storage, BUT ALSO WHENEVER WE RECALL THE MEMORY
BOTH THEORIES HAVE VALIDITY: NO WINNER BETWEEN THE TWO

Question 32

Hippocampus, Standard Model of Consolidation

Answer 32

Hippocampus is only important for storing memories in the short term, then shifts responsibility to cortex
Hippocampus is not involved at all in retrieval