Chapter 7 - Memory

Question 1

What are the three stages and pathways of the Atkinson Shiffrin model of memory storage?

Answer 1

1. Information comes in as sensory input, and is stored in sensory memory, which is extremely detailed, short lasting memory. This allows us to see after images of input for a while after they have occurred.
2. Short-term memory: This is where memory is stored for a bit longer, and if rehearsed it can stay in short term memory for a while.
3. Long-term memory is where memories are stored to once repeated enough. Once stored in long term memory they can never be lost, but they might just not be able to be found. Long term memories can also be retrieved by short term memory.

Question 2

What is sensory memory? How long does it last? What phenomenon does it explain?

Answer 2

Sensory memory is the storage of visual information for a short time after it is initially collected, so it stays long enough that you can actually process and see it. This memory lasts a bit more then half a second, and explains why we see lightning bolts as all one. In reality, they are actually extremely fast and occur in quick succession, but we see it as all one. This is because they stay in sensory memory as an after image, which lasts about half a second — when the actual bolt lasts about 0.2 seconds.

Question 3

What is another example an after image, and when applied for 0.05 seconds how long does it last in sensory memory?

Answer 3

When a display of letter is given for 0.05 seconds, and then disappears, one can see those letters for around 0.2 to 0.3 seconds after. So it lasts about 4 times longer then the input.

Question 4

What is the purpose of sensory memory? What is its capacity and what is its duration?

Why does the after image appear?

Answer 4

Sensory memory is used to hold information long enough that we can process its basic characteristics and actually understand what we saw. This is why sometimes when you hear something you ask someone to repeat themselves, but a short time later you realize what they said before they can repeat themselves.
Sensory memory has a very large capacity so that it can hold a lot of details. This is the tradeoff for duration, as it can only last for about 0.3 seconds for visual information and 2 seconds for auditory information.

Nerve impulses take some time to completely stop after last sensroy input is entered due to propagation, which is why an after image appears.

Question 5

What is short term memory? How does duration compare to sensory memory? What is the capacity of short term?

Answer 5

Short term memory is based on the details of the image that one stores based on what they pay attention to. The duration is much longer then sensory memory (around 20-30 seconds) but it comes with a tradeoff- the capacity is much smaller. The capacity for short term memory is around 7 +- 2 items (or chunks) of information.

Question 6

What is an experiment to test the capacity for short term memory?

Answer 6

The test to do this is called a serial recall test. You have to remember them in order and this forced them to not be grouped and stored in long term memory, but instead just recited in short term and that is where it is drawn from.

Question 7

What are the patterns for free recall tests in the way that people remember things? Why is this and what are these effects called?

Answer 7

People will generally remember things near the end (in the last 7 seconds due to short term memory) and at the beginning of the list (due to long term memory) Because they will try to rehearse what they heard at the beginning and hence it will stay in their mind, and then they will neaturally remember the things recently heard in the last 20 seconds due to short term memory. The effect of remembering what was just heard is called the recency effect, and remembering what was heard at the beginning is called the primacy effect. This test is clearly used for both long-term and short-term memory testing as it is looking at how the two interplay.

Question 8

What is maintenance rehearsal and what can it do?

Answer 8

Maintenance rehearsal is repetitive exposure of information to the brain to allow it to be stored in short term memory for longer then 30 seconds. On its own it will not be enough to cement it in long term memory, unless repeated long enough. More detailed and deeper thinking is required to do so.

Question 9

What is long term memory? What is its capacity and duration? Is anything truly lost in memory — what are the two viewpoints on this?

Answer 9

Long term memory is when information is recited and memorized in a stronger way then just maintenance rehearsal, so that it is stored in a place that it can be retrieved at any time. This type of memory has an infinite capacity, meaning that it can store as much information as one needs, and it will never disappear.

There are two viewpoints on whether information is ever truly lost from memory:
1. The retrieval failure viewpoint: Information may be lost in memory, but never lost FROM memory, as there is no way to prove that it is no longer present. Just because you fail to find something doesn’t mean that it has vanished, because you can’t prove that something is gone.
2. Decay viewpoint: Long term memory can decay if not regularly used or if stored a long time ago. This says that information is lost FROM memory over time, and although this is more likely it can never truly be proven.

Question 10

What evidence do we have that information is never lost from memory?

Answer 10

We can use a free recall test and a recognition test.

Question 11

How can free recall and recognition tests be used to support the belief that nothing is ever lost from memory? Why does this work?

Answer 11

Free recall tests are used for reproducing information without any cues, meaning that people have to search in their memory to try to find previously learned information. This often fails, which appears to support the decay viewpoint. However, one cannot know if that information was lost from memory or lost in it — if lost in memory then maybe it can be recalled in another way even if it can’t be searched for and retrieved.
And this is proven by the recognition test, where previously learned information is embedded in new information and people have to indicate if information is old or new. They may not remember how or when they learned something, but they can recognize that they had learned that information before, highlighting that it was lost IN memory not from it.

This works because:
Information is often easier to recognize than recall due to the nature of the task. Recognition relies on a feeling of familiarity, requiring less active retrieval and relying more on the environment or context in which the information was encountered. Recall, on the other hand, necessitates actively retrieving specific information from memory without any external cues, making it a more demanding process.

Then, if you were to test for implicit memory, it ewoukd be even more accurate then recognition test, further highlighting that information is not lost in memory.

Question 12

What is the difference between free recall and serial recall tests? What is the difference between their results? Which types of memory does each primarily test for?

Answer 12

Free recall tests allow subjects to recall a list of items in any order, and hence they test more for long term memory (as well as short term). But because it is in any order, it is simply based on how the participants encoded the information in the first place, and hence this can be based on rehearsed information that was stored in long term memory, or rehearsed information that simply just stayed in short term for a longer period, or it could be information that was just heard and hence it is based on short term memory.

Serial recalls tests are where subjects have to recall the list of items in their original order of presentation, making it much more focused on short term memory because you can’t take the time to commit information to memory, you have to keep listening to the new words coming in. This causes interference, because our short term memory can only hold so much and so new information is going to interrupt old information. In addition, this tests for rehearsal abilities, because we will try to repeat the information we were taking in so that it stays in short term memory for longer. Some of this information will then be stored in long term memory, but new information coming in will be ignored because rehearsal is very hard to do while trying to take in new info.

For free recall, the serial position effect occurs, where individuals have a strong memory for the beginning and end of the list, just not he middle. This is because information in the beginning will be rehearsed into long term memory, and hence if remembered it must be due to long term memory retrieval. This is called the primacy effect., then for information at the end of the list, it will be remembered because short term memory captured it, whilst you were trying to commit other information to long term memory.

Question 13

What is some more evidence that suggests that information is never lost FROM memory?

Answer 13

The difference between first and second time learning — relearning of forgotten information is faster then first time learning. If you are learning a topic that you could not explicitly state any information about, then it may appear that it is lost from memory. But then when relearning you might feel familiar or remember things you have learned before, and that clearly proves that you just were unable to retrieve the information.

When the tasks is relearned, retention is measured (based on what you knew before). This retention is measured as a saving score, meaning what percentage of time did you save, or what percent of the information did you retain (based on the amount of time saved).

Example: The first time you learn a list of words it takes 20 minutes, and the next time only 5 minutes. You saved 15 minutes, which is 15/20 =0.75 or 75% of time saved. This also means that you have retained 75% of the information.

Question 14

What are two of the main ways to effectively encode and store information in long term memory?

Answer 14

1. Elaboration — how welll do you understand the information? Explain it deeply and connect it with other topics.
2. Chunking — how do you group information together so it can be more easily remembered and also connected.

Question 15

Why do some people have better memory? Why are some people better problem solvers?

Answer 15

The answers to these questions are the same:
Ones ability to do deep processing, their use of visual imagery to understand, and organization (chunking) are all the things that can effect storage.

This is why simple rehearsal will not be enough to store information to long term memory, you have to do deeper processing to have it stored more strongly.

Question 16

What are the three types of encoding, and rank them based on their depth/strength?

Answer 16

1. Structural encoding: This emphasizes the structure or physical appearance of the stimulus, this is the shallowest level of processing and will be the least likely to be stored and remembered in long term memory.
   Ex: is the word written in capital letters?
   PROCESSING WORDS
2. Intermediate processing: Phonemic encoding, meaning what does the word sound like? You have to do a bit more deeper processing and relating it to other words you’ve heard before, and hence this will be a bit stronger level of processing.
   Ex: does the word rhyme with weight?
   PROCESSING SOUNDS
3. Semantic encoding: This is where you actually understand the meaning and hence can relate it to information you’ve heard before, and so this is the deepest level of processing and is the most likely to be stored and remembered in long term memory.
   Ex: Would the word fit in the sentence: “He met a ________ on the street?”
   PROCESSING MEANING

Question 17

Depth of processing theory says that _______ ________ of processing result in __________ _______ memory codes.

Answer 17

Depth of processing theory says that deeper levels of processing result in longer lasting memory codes.

This is why processing meaning and connecting it to previously learned information will make it much more strongly stored in long term memory.

Question 18

What does the graph for results look like for type of encoding vs the proportion of words recalled? What study is this from?

Answer 18

When asked to process the case (upper or lower) of the word, this has the smallest proportion of words recalled. Then for processing rhyming, this had an intermediate proportion of words recalled, and lastly for semantic or understand the meaning in a sentence, this will have the highest proportion of words recalled. This once again proves that structural will be the weakest type of encoding, phonemic in the middle, and semantic the strongest type.

This is the Craik and Tulving study from 1975.

Question 19

What is chunking? What is an experiment that represents it and what is a confounding variable for that experiment?

Answer 19

Chunking is trying to break down large amounts of information into smaller more manageable chunks, grouping that information together based on similarities. For example, remembering a phone number as three groups, rather then one long stream.

Another example, for experienced chess players they use chunking to group pieces on the board based on their positioning, and this makes it easier to remember that information because it is stored as one chunk of information. Masters can do this more effectively because they understand the board and possible positions, and so when studying a chess board they can group things based on their long term memory storage for how they have chunked information int he last. But novices only encodes the information in short term memory, and hence reproduces a lot less of the game positions.

When not allowed to chunk, the master and beginner had the same amount of reproduction of the game board because it was simply based on short term memory, and as long as they have the same short term memory capacity nothing should differ between them.

A confounding variable for this experiment would be that one person has a larger short term memory.

So when the to be remembered chess pieces were from actaul games, the master chess player was much more accurate and needed less trials to completely reproduce the board, based on previous experience for where pieces should go in relation to each other based on their chunking abilities.

This is because the chess master had stored many meaningful patterns from real games in long term memory, and so drawing from that chunked information he could be much more effiecient and accurate in reproducing those positions.

Question 20

So to remember random patterns, you want to make up ________ for them, because _________ helps to strengthen memory and storage in long term memory.

Answer 20

So to remember random patterns, you want to make up meanings and relationships for them, because organization and chunking helps to strengthen memory and storage in long term memory.

Question 21

Long term memory requires….

Answer 21

CONSOLIDATION

Question 22

What is memory consolidation? When a new memory is formed, how is the brain changed?

Answer 22

This is the neural process by which encoded information is stored in memory. In other words, synaptic connection is strengthened and new connections are formed, but never new neurons! Just new synapses! This is the strengthening of brain plasticity.
When a new memory is formed, the brain is changed by the strengthening of synapses. This means that the postsynaptic neurons are more easily activated by presynaptic neurons, or in other words, it has a lower activation threshold.

Question 23

What was the traditional view for memory consolidation — in terms of how the information was changed or not changed, and how accurate it was?

Answer 23

Traditionally, it was believed that information when encoded will be accurate and unchanged from the input, and this will be stored in long term memory just as is.

Question 24

What is the new view for memory consolidation?

Answer 24

Now it is believed that when stored, information can be changed. Then when retrieved it will be reprocessed and hence this changes its value based on what you are retrieving it for and the context of the situation. You record what YOU remember, and what your brain filled in based on what was lost upon encoding. This changes each time information is stored.

Each memory is a memory of the previous retrieval, not of the original experience.

Question 25

What is an experiment which highlights the process of reconsolidation? What were the results like?

Answer 25

Bartlett’s “war of the ghosts” experiment was where a subject was given a prose passage to read/study, and after 15 minutes they were asked to reproduce what they read. And then after increasing length interval as, the subject gave further reproductions, and each time the information became more and more distorted. It was seen that the reproduced story is considerably shortened mainly by omissions of information that doesn’t appear to be important. Terminology becomes more modern based on the subject’s vocabulary. Subsequent reproductions become more and more coherent because that is how the subject remembered and chucked the information. In addition, specific terminology was replaced by more general expressions, and proper names dissapeared. The idea was to remember the story, not the specific parts of it. And direct speech was dropped, only paraphrasing was left. Smaller details were forgotten, more important excuses were remembered, less salient expressions were transformative to similar representations, and anything that seemed not normal was reconstructed based on past experience. In addition, they also tended to use the same expression that they originally used to encode the information, and as information from the original story was emitted each time, more new information was also added. These extra parts are more elaborate on for each subsequent reproduction, which is why memory becomes more and more distorted.

Question 26

What is hypermnesia?

Answer 26

Hypermnesia is when readers keep a good memory of what they actively create, rather then what they read in the original story. Therefore, there is a closer resemblance between two short-distant reproductions than between th first reproduction and the original story. Because when recreating the memory, they chunk and modify it so it makes sense based on real life experience, and this is what they more strongly remember. Whatever was originally forgotten continues to be forgotten, because they try to rationalize mystical occurrences and hence change to story so it makes sense to them.

Question 27

Each retelling is a ______________. In terms of neural activity, each retelling is a _______________.

Answer 27

Every time someone recalls something, they are pulling it out and then re-encoding it and then re-storing it. This is reconsolidation — forming or consolidating new neural synapses.

Question 28

What is the testing effect? Which strategy will produce the best learning outcome? A) highlighting B) rereading C) self-testing

Answer 28

The testing effect ensures that information is more strongly encoding and accessed from the brain, because it ensures that you are more strongly consolidating it so you can understand it differently from other information and can differentiate in that way. C) Self testing will produce the best learning outcome because each time you are tested you are retrieving information from your memory, and then storing it back in, and this is reconsolidating. So neural synapses are strengthened and new ones are formed based on the identification of misconceptions. So any information that was consolidated wrongly will be reconsoldaited in a way that is correct and hence will alwlow one to perform better.

Question 29

What are the three main subcategories of human memory?

Answer 29

Sensory memory, short term / working memory, and long term memory.

Question 30

What are the two main subcategories of long term memory?

Answer 30

Explicit memory (or conscious memory) and implicit (unconscious) memory.

Question 31

What are the subcategories branching off explicit and implicit memory?

Answer 31

Branching of explicit is declarative memory (for facts and events). Branching off implicit memory is procedural memory, such as how to ride a bike, priming, classical conditioning, non-dissociative learning.

Question 32

What two categories branch off of declarative memory?

Answer 32

Declarative memory is made up of episodic and semantic memory. Episodic memory = events and experiences, and semantic memory = facts and knowledge.

Question 33

What is the difference between semantic and episodic memory? What branch of memory are they subcategories for?

Answer 33

Semantic memory — not personal, knowledge learned in a textbook or from every day life, such as meaning behind things you have interacted with frequently. Episodic memory — memory based on specific events you have experiences, and hence is more personal. These types of memory are subcategories for declarative memory, which branches off of explicit, which branches off of long term memory.

Question 34

What is a semantic network? What phenomenons does this explain?

Answer 34

A semantic network occurs when similar information is stored together (like how chunking works). The closer in context the information, the more closely they are stored together and hence activating one synapse will increase the likelihood that closely associated nodes will also be activated. This explains conceptual priming, because if you were exposed to a stimulus with similar meaning, then you will have a response to new stimuli which are close in nature to that one. This also explains that when asked to do a free recall test, a lot of people said a word that was not presented, simply because it was related to the other words produces and hence it made sense that it would possible have been stated.

Question 35

What is a schema and how does it relate to semantic networks?

Answer 35

Schemas are organized clusters of knowledge about a particular object or event, abstracted from previous experience with the object or the event. So based on past experience, what is information that was likely encoded alongside this one piece of information, based on their closeness semantically? This is related to semantic networks as these things are similar maybe not in meaning but in the way they are presented in the real world (often alongside each other). Hence, they are recorded together and stored together in the brain, leading to retrieval together.

Question 36

How did the surprise test experiment highlight the effect of schema?

Answer 36

The surprise test was where individuals were placed in a waiting room, and then were asked to recall what was in the waiting room. They were less likely to record small details and more likely to record larger things and things they were in contact with, such as chairs and tables. In addition, they recorded things that maybe they didn’t see but that they related in their mind with the office schema, since the activation of one stimulus that they saw triggered the belief that further similar stimuli were present. Anything that normally does not belong in the office and that wasn’t too large, bright or salient was not recorded, because it is not something associated with that schema from previous experience. Therefore, there were a lot of false alarms for books, since that would be expected in the office schema. There were also a, lot of misses for things that do not normally occur in the office schema. Therefore, it was seen that people were more likely to remember things that are constant with their schemas rather then things that are not. So they recalled things that were related based on past experience and chunking storage in the brain (they kind of come as a group).

Question 37

What is another explanation for the things that were remembered and missed, which is NOT based on schema?

Answer 37

Another explanation would be that people can remember the most large general items, which in some cases are consistent with the schema and in some cases are not. So the most large and general items will be encoded and the rest will be forgotten, because it was not encoded in the first place. If the more salient items that are not normally associated with that schema were placed in the centre of the room, then they would likely be remembered and that would not support the schema effect. So in this case it only appears to be consistent with the schema effect because the more salient items are hidden in the background. But if they were right in the middle then perhaps the things associated tot hat schema may not be remembered. Because the things at eye level will raw exogenous attention and will be eoncdoded. So other explanations for this effect are attention and physical location for what was encoded.

Question 38

Can a person have only semantic memories but not episodic? Meaning can they understand and learn new facts but cannot make new memories from personal experience? If this is the case, what does it mean?

Answer 38

Normally, a person cannot have only semantic and no episodic memories. However, if their brain is damaged then this is possible. This proves that these types of memories (although usually working together) are processed and stored in two different areas of the brain.

Question 39

What is retrograde amnesia? What is a general example of this to help us remember how it works?

Answer 39

Retrograde amnesia is the backwards loss of memory, meaning that things in the past are lost, but new memories can be formed. So new events that occur after a brain injury are remembered, but things before the injury are not remembered due to damage to the brain. However, this type of memory loss is a gradient, meaning that memories from the distant past are less effected by the brain injury and hence remain in tact. A general example to remember is old age, where the decaying brain is acting as the “brain injury”. So old people generally cannot remember events that just recently happened, however they can remember in great detail their childhood which was much longer ago. Hence the gradient allows old memories to be remembered, because the synapses have been strengthened for so much longer and hence are preserved in memory even as those synapses start to decrease in number.

Question 40

What is anterograde amnesia?

Answer 40

Anterograde amnesia is the loss memory for events occurring after the injury, meaning that people cannot make new memories. This disrupts certain types of learning and hence appears to have a much larger effect then retrograde amnesia. Therefore there is no gradient, it is simply just a loss of learning capability.

Question 41

How does anterograde amnesia eventually become retrograde?

Answer 41

Anterograde amnesia leads to a loss of memory for events occurring after an injury, and so after a long time period has passed from the injury, it will appear as thought one has retrograde amnesia. You can’t recall things in the more recent past, but you can remember things that happened before the injury a long time ago. Yes, you still can’t remember things after the injury, but overall without looking at the time of the injury, it appears to be retrograde.

Question 42

What happened to patient KC? What loss of memory occurred and what were the consequences?

Answer 42

Patient KC had a brain injury to the frontal regions of his brain in a motorcycle accident. This led to a loss of episodic memory, and so cannot remember anything of their past, or any new episodic memories that are formed. Therefore, they have retrograde and anterograde amnesia for EPISODIC memory. However, they have intact semantic memory, such as facts about those episodic memories based on things they have learned. They can remember that their brothers funeral was sad, just because he knew that funerals were sad events based on their associated semantic meaning. However they had no memory of the funeral or brother itself. Clearly, episodic and semantic memory exist in different parts of the brain because his semantic memory was intact even thought episodic was completely gone.

Question 43

What happened to patient HM? What was the outcome of his injuries?

Answer 43

Patient HM had severe epileptic seizures so he had part of his temporal lobes and hippocampus in both hemispheres removed surgically. This led to anterograde amnesia, where nothing new could be learned, and hence he could be used as a test subject again and again because he never got bored. Because of this amnesia he completely lives in the present, where every moment is isolated and forgotten once you move on to the next. So can hold a regular conversation but might repeat themselves. He had no retrograde amnesia, showing that they are affected by different parts of the brain. His semantic memory is intact, and episodic memory from the past is also in tact. So he essentially lives in the remote past and present, but not in the recent past. Because semantic memory is in tact, his IQ was not affected he just can’t build up new semantic memory and hence he cannot increase his IQ any further. Any task requiring him to retain information across a delay shows severe impairment, especially if the Daly is filled with an interfering task so that he cannot focus on what he was supposed to remember (separates those moments he lives by and hence he cannot recall what just occurred).

Question 44

When HM was asked to trace a star pattern by looking in the mirror, and then he took a break and was asked to do it each day subsequently, what occurred?

Answer 44

So this task requires some learning and training, because you have to move in the opposite direction to where you think you should go. The first day was a learning curve, but with each subsequent attempt (even though they were isolated), HM was able to decrease the number of errors. The second day the number of errors was drastically decreased, and by the third day he was practically a master. Clearly he was able to learn something new, however he did not remember learning to do this before. So this proves that his implicit memory was in tact, as he was able to learn new muscle movements and remember them, even thought he could not explicitly remember learning them before.

Question 45

What is implicit memory, and how does it express itself? What does the results of this star drawing test suggest about motor learning?

Answer 45

Implicit memory is unconscious memory, meaning that things are stored without one’s awareness. Because people do not realize that they are remembering things, the only way that implicit memory is expressed is through ones overt behaviour — their behaviour is what indicates that they have it memorized even if they don’t know it. In HM’s case, his motor memory was clearly normal and he could learn new tasks in that way even if he does not remember doing so. Therefore, this proves that motor learning is a part of implicit memory that bypasses consciousness, it is not something that we actively memorize, it is something that our body memorized for us without our awareness. So once you do something over and over again ,it is stored in your memory forever and expresses itself in your overt behaviour.

Question 46

So overall, which parts of HM’s memory were damaged by temporal lobe and hippocampus removal, and which parts remained in tact? What about for KC?

Answer 46

For HM, his explicit memory (conscious memory) was impaired via anterograde amnesia, so that new memories could not be made. This affected semantic and episodic memory, so even though he could remember the past he couldn’t learn anything new. HOWEVER, he could remember previous motor movements and learn new motor movements, without realizing that he had learned them before. This proved that his implicit memory remained in tact. For KC, damage to the frontal regions of his brain led to a completely lost of episodic memory, however his semantic memory was still in tact, so he could remember facts and associated meanings with words, just not personal experiences. He can also not make new episodic memories, so he has retrograde and anterograde amnesia for that type of memory. But semantic memory and implicit memory still remained in tact!

Question 47

Have there been any patients where implicit memory is damaged?

Answer 47

No, because it is likely that if that is damaged the injuries are so severe that the person cannot survive to provide you with evidence for what happens when that occurs. Because the part of the brain controlling implicit memory also controls other essential functions of the body and therefore if damaged the person will likely not be able to live.

Question 48

What are the four subcategories off of implicit memory? What subcategories come off of those?

Answer 48

1. Procedural: This is the memory of certain skills and habits like riding a bike, brushing teeth, etc. 2. Priming: Perceptual and conceptual, this can lead someone to have a phobic reaction to something and they don’t know why because it was stored in their implicit memory and so they do not know that they remember it. 3. Classical conditioning (associative learning): This is an unconscious response when certain stimuli that naturally trigger a response are paired with other stimuli, and they are stored together in implicit memory without one realizing, and so when the conditioned stimulus is shown, a response will occur due to this memory. 4. Non-associative learning: habituation and sensitization. Habituation is when ones response to a repeated stimulus that is not important to the situation gradually decreases because the brain only wants to spend storage on what is important. But when it stops occurring, you will notice its absence. Sensitization is a process where an organisms responsiveness to a stimulus increases over time if it is a strong and important stimulus that would be dangerous to ignore.

Question 49

What are the two types of priming?

Answer 49

Perceptual (repetition) and conceptual (semantic) priming.

Question 50

What is perceptual priming and how does it work? What are three examples of it?

Answer 50

Exposure to a stimulus will facilitate a future response more quickly and accurately to the same stimulus due to repetition. So a previous encounter with information facilitates later performance on the same information, even unconsciously. This is why it is called repetition priming, the more that information is presented to you, the more it may be stored in long term implicit memory, and hence the more accurate the performance will be when you see that thing again. Ex: The elephant at the beginning of the slideshow was implicitly remembered in long term memory, and presenting fragments of it later on will allow us to state that it is an elephant, even though it is barely discernible. If it was an ambiguous shape and we had been presented a hippo instead, maybe we would have said those fragments were a hippo based on what was previously presented to us. If it wasn’t as ambiguous or fragmented and was similar to an elephant, then it would be conceptual priming — you are able to identify it because it matches something conceptually that you have seen before and that is stored in semantic memory. Ex: The word-fragment completion test. When you are exposed to a word previously and then given some letters and asked to fill in the word, you are more likely to use the word that you previously saw because you were exposed to it before. There also has to be a base group in this experiment to show the baseline measure of the likelihood that people will first think of the target word without previous exposure to that word. Because some words might be more normal and reproducible then others, which could skew the results. Ex: Perceptual priming can be demonstrated by the presentation of an ambiguous image, after being presented by two different images previously. Those who saw the horse will be more likely to view the image as a horse, those who saw the seal will view it as a seal.

Question 51

What is the difference between explicit and implicit memory? How is this demonstrated by the free recall and recognition tests? If someone performs well on the word fragment test, does that mean that they have no memory loss?

Answer 51

Explicit memory is memory that someone knows they have and that they can draw from. This includes semantic and episodic memory. Implicit memory is memory that people do not remember having or recording, and this includes motor memory. Amnesic patients (memory loss) did poorly on both the free recall and recognition tests, because these both test long term, however free recall is more for short term or memories that were just made recently, and so inability to perform would be more due to anterograde amnesia. If someone performs well on the word fragment test, that means that perceptual priming is working and this does NOT indicate that their explicit memory is still in tact. It only indicates that implicit memory is in tact, as they may not remember seeing a word previously but they are more likely to fill in the blank with that word because they were exposed to it before. You have to do a free recall test to prove that they aren’t amnesic.

Question 52

What are the results for correct completion for the free recall test and fragment completion test for both amnesic and normal individuals? How does this demonstrate that the memories are not lost from but lost IN memory?

Answer 52

For the fragment completion test, both the control and amnesic individuals performed the same, indicating that implicit memory was unaffected by this amnesia. However for free recall the amnesic individuals did much worse due to a loss of memory for what had been presented to them and also an inability to relate that presented info to info from the past so it can be more strongly stored. This proves that nothing is lost from memory, just IN memory, as they were still able to complete the fragment completion test with accuracy.

Question 53

What is conceptual priming? What are some examples? (2)

Answer 53

Conceptual or semantic priming is when a previous encounter with information facilitates later performance on semantically related information, meaning if you are presented with something before, and then presented with a word that has two meanings but one meaning is related to that thing after, you will likely view that word as the version which is related to whatever you were semantically primed with. Ex: You are shown a picture of a bunny, and then you hear the sound “hair/hare”. In your mind you will picture a bunny, because the semantic network that was recently activated in your brain will be activated again. Ex: you understand what “negative reinforcement” means, but you chose the word decreases instead of increases for: “Negative reinforcement _________ the rate of responding.” This is because negative has been semantically primed and connected with decreases in your brain, and so it activates that synaptic network and hence causes you to fill in the incorrect response. So the actual meaning goes against the automatic semantic meaning in your brain, and you have to work to counteract that.

Question 54

What is the lexical decision task? What type of priming does it demonstrate?

Answer 54

The lexical decision task is when you are presented with a string of words separated by blank slides, and you have to determine if the word is actually a word. It is then measured how fast one indicates this. If presented with a category at the beginning that is related to all the other cards presented, then one will be much quicker to indicate that they are words, because that part of their semantic network is currently active and so they were semantically primed with info and can more easily understand what they are reading. If the category presented is not related to those words, then you will be slower to identify this because you have to search your semantic memory to ensure this is something present. The slowest card to identify will be some foreign words, or words that are not words at all. WITHOUT PRIMING YOU WOULD HAVE AN EQUAL RESPONSE RATE TO ALL WORDS AS YOU RETRIEVE THEM FROM MEMORY.

Question 55

How do we know that implicit memory exists? How is blindsight similar to this?

Answer 55

It is based on your overt behaviour. You are faster to respond to a relevant cue and better then chance to make a correct guess when presented with a relevant cue (word fragment completion test — you remember words that you were previously primed with and hence will be much quicker to fill in the blank). For blindsight, you don’t know that you are actually able to perceive things because you think you are blind. However you are much better at chance at identifying the information, and hence because it is effected your overt behaviours it indicates that there is some unconscious perception occurring.

Question 56

What is one of the main reasons that we forget things?

Answer 56

Interference! You forget information that you learned due to competition from other material that becomes more easily accessible in the mind. SO the more you have stored in long term memory, the harder it is to recall things that either weren’t recently added, or are not connected to the current context you are in. Competition gets stronger when the to be remembered target bears a close resemblance to the interfering term.

Question 57

What is proactive interference? What are two examples of this?

Answer 57

Proactive inference is when information from the past GOES FORWARDS to interfere with information you are currently trying to remember. So you attempt to recall information encoded during time 2 but instead you recall info during time one because they are related and hence activate the same semantic network. So previously learned information interferes with the retention of new information. Draw the two times and draw what is interfering with what. If the arrow is forwards, then it is proactive interference, otherwise it is retroactive. Ex: You have an old password and a new one, and everything time you try to remember the new password, you actually remember the old password instead. So what was learned previously goes forwards to interact with what was recently learned. Ex: you studied psychology and then you studied anthropology, because they are similar in content, when you take the anthropology test and try to retrieve information, you will actually be recalling info from the psychology studying you did, so psych is going FORWARDS to interact with anth, and this is PROACTIVE interference.

Question 58

What is retroactive interference? What are two examples of this?

Answer 58

This is when more recent information GOES BACKWARDS to interfere with information from the past so that it cannot be remembered. Meaning that when you attempt to recall information in time 1, you actually recall information from time two. Draw out the two times and what you are actually recalling, and draw an arrow from that to the other one. If arrow is right to left it is retroactive. Ex: You have two combo locks, and you buy a new lock and remember its combo. Then you find your old lock but you can’t remember the old combo because what you recently learned is going backwards to interfere with the past. Ex: You study psychology first and then anthropology, but then you take a psych test and try to recall psych information. The anth stuff goes backwards to interfere with what was previously stored, and so you can only recall the more recent studying. This is retroactive!

Question 59

How do these two types of interference explain the serial position effect? Does the recency effect or primacy effect have more strength?

Answer 59

The words presented at the beginning and end are more strongly remembered due to the interaction between the two types of interference. For the primacy effect, there is no previously presented words to proactively interfere with that information, and so there is less overall interference and it is easier to overcome that and remember. For the recency effect, there is no information learned after to replace the things in short term memory, and hence there is no retroactive interference coming back to prevent that information from being remembered. Then in the middle, there will be both proactive and retroactive interference, leading to very limited recall since this is much harder to overcome. The recency effect will be stronger because it is just the retention of recently learned information due to short term memory. Therefore, it is not as largely effected by proactive interference since it is not utilizing long term memory. But the primacy effect can fade over time as more and more information is added, because those items may be displaced by interference in long term memory.

Question 60

What are some ways that we remember things? (3)

Answer 60

1. Using cues to aid retrieval — might bring up a memory that had not been thought of in a very long time. 2. Context dependent memory or encoding specificity — we depend on a specific environment or context to remember things, based on where those things were encoded (related in the brain). 3. Reinstating the context of an event — reinstating this brings up a bunch of memories you have not thought of before.

Question 61

What are two examples of using cues to aid retrieval of information in memory?

Answer 61

1. The recognition test: You are provided with certain items and asked which ones you have seen before. Although you could not have thought of these or found them in your memory on your own, these act as cues to aid memory retrieval, and hence people are able to quickly state which they have seen before, which they would not have been able to do for a free recall test. 2. DJ was having dinner with a neighbour, and seeing their face and their house stimulated their memory and reminded them that this person had molested them between the ages 5-7 (clearly shows that info was just lost in memory, and when stimulated the right way can be brought back including the veery specific details).

Question 62

What is an example of how memory is dependent on context?

Answer 62

Divers learned a list of words under water or on land and later recalled the words either under water or on land. If the encoding and retrieval locations were matched, they were much more likely to recall words in larger quantities and more accurately. Performance on CONGRUENT CONDITIONS WERE BETTER THEN PERFORMANCES IN THE INCONGRUENT SITUATIONS. So if you study and are tested in the same area, this area acts as a retrieval cue as it increases ones ability to recall things stored in memory. In addition , if you studied in a very salient new place, it may also help to retrieve information because you just have to think of that place and it will stimulate what you were doing when you were there.

Question 63

What are two examples of how reinstating the context of an event can stimulate memory?

Answer 63

1. You visit a place that you grew up in, and recall events you haven’t thought of in years (that physical environment acts as the retrieval cue). However if you stay there for a long time then new information taken in will go backwards and do backwards masking (retroactive interference) and hence those memories will disappear into memory again. 2. JR was watching a movie involving sexual abuse and suddenly remembered incidents of being molested in childhood — and all the details of it. This would more be conceptual priming, as not the physical environment but the conceptual environment is what stimulates these memories. So the context of the even stimulated the recall.

Question 64

When a memory is retrieved using a retrieval cue, how accurate is the information that is brought back?

Answer 64

Well each time information is retrieved from long term memory, it is reconsolidated and hence re-encoded. Therefore, only information related to what was just learned may be brought back, or only information that made sense in the situation might be brought back, the brain filling in gaps but inaccurately.

Question 65

What is an example of how inaccurate reconstructed memories are?

Answer 65

George Franklin for trial for a murder that it occurred 20 years earlier. The victim was supposedly murdered by him after she was stolen walking over to a friend‘s house. The only reason that he was put on trial was because his daughter remembered something from the past when her own daughter looked up at her. It reminded her of the look of betrayal in the girls eyes Just before the murder and slowly details of it came back. Her report was believed by many people, but eventually, the guy was set free because it was proven that reconstructed memory is not accurate and is not strong enough to send someone to jail or give them the death penalty. Consequences are too large to have a false alarm.

Question 66

What is the misinformation effect and and how did it stop the trial of this man?

Answer 66

This effect talks about people’s recall being altered by misleading post-event information. So when those memories are retrieved, and when they are reencoded you might change the information so it fits what you believe and makes more sense. So current context can manipulate what you are remembering. In addition, if a trusted person is asking something, you may reconstruct your memory and convince yourself that something happened to fit what they are asking.

Question 67

What is an example of the misinformation effect?

Answer 67

The same video of two cars crashing was shown to three groups of 50 subjects. 50 were asked “about how fast were the cars going when they HIT each other?” 50 were asked “ about how fast were the cars going when they SMASHED into each other?” 50 were not asked anything about the speed of the cars. Those who heard smashed estimated they were driving at 10.46mph, those who heard hit estimated 8mph. Clearly the question asked influenced how accurately they encoded the information. When asked one week later about if there was any broken glass, those who had heard smashed said yes, and those who heard hit said no. This proves that information presented in a question by a trusted person after the event, influenced how they recalled and encoded that information. Clearly, smashed had a large impact on retrieval and led to a lot of false alarm.

Question 68

In summary, all memories are ____________ of the past. ________ or __________ encoding leads to _________ recall.

Answer 68

In summary, all memories are reconstructions of the past, and each time a memory is retrieved it is once again reconstructed and re-encoded based on the context in which it was retrieved. Biased or incomplete encoding leads to biased recall, because misleading cues in the retrieval process can affect how it is taken from memory. Distortion of memories can also occur during encoding based on your preconceived biases, and hence the info can originally be inaccurate, all accurate details lost when first encoded.