Chapter 7 Memory

Question 1

Encoding involves

Answer 1

forming a memory code

analogous to using a keyboard to enter info

requires attention

Question 2

storage involves

Answer 2

maintaining encoded information in memory over time

analogous to saving data

Question 3

retrieval involves

Answer 3

recovering information from memory stores

analogous to finding and opening a file

Question 4

is memory a behaviour

Answer 4

yes

Question 5

attention involves

Answer 5

focussing awareness on a narrowed range of stimuli events. selective attention is critical to everyday functioning

Question 6

cocktail party effect is

Answer 6

when you are talking to someone and you hear you name in another combo and your attention perks up to that convo

Question 7

Describe the early- stage interpretations of selective attention

Answer 7

early refers to giving something your attention before recognition of meaning

Question 8

Describe the late-stage interpretations of selective attention

Answer 8

late refers to giving something your attention after recognition of meaning

Question 9

when your attention is under a heavy load do you process early or late?

Answer 9

early because you have no room to think about the meaning

Question 10

when your attention is under a light load do you process early or late?

Answer 10

late because the room in your brain means you can process the meaning

Question 11

effects of divided attention?

Answer 11

makes you less proficient at the task at hand

Question 12

levels of processing theory proposes that

Answer 12

deeper levels of processing result in longer lasting memory codes

Question 13

what are the three levels of processing in this theory?

Answer 13

structural, phonetic and semantic (semantic being the most durable)

Question 14

Identify and describe three ways to enrich encoding

Answer 14

elaboration is linking a stimulus to other information at the time of encoding

Image formation is when you pair an image to the word
obviously this is better for objects and not abstract concepts
it forms a secondary code and 2 codes are better for retention

making material personally meaningful - people remember things that are personally relevant

Question 15

Describe Paivio’s dual-coding theory

Answer 15

holds that memory is enhanced by forming visual and semantic codes

when words had a higher association with imagery, they were easier to remember than words that were abstract

Question 16

link method is

Answer 16

visualizing a bunch of things together - in the example in the video the words to remember are: magazine, shaving cream, film, pens: so the guy on the magazine cover has a camera around his neck, shaving cream on his face and pens sticking out of his ears

Question 17

method of LOCI involves

Answer 17

taking an imaginary walk along a familiar path where images of items to be remembered are associated with certain locations

Question 18

Describe the sensory stage of memory

Answer 18

preserves the information in its original sensory form for a brief time, usually only a fraction of a second

allows the sensation to linger for a brief moment after the sensory stimulation is over

Question 19

Define short-term memory and rehearsal

Answer 19

short- term memory (STM) is a limited capacity store that can maintain unrehearsed information for up to 20 seconds (peterson and peterson) but likely around 15 seconds

rehearsal is the process of repetitively verbalizing or thinking about the information

Question 20

What did George Miller mean by “The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two”?

Answer 20

in STM people could only remember 7 + or - 2 items in tasks that required them to remember unfamiliar material was the study but
when STM is filled to capacity the insertion of new

information often displaces information already in short term memory

these days they are saying even less is true around 4

Question 21

a chunk is

Answer 21

a group of familiar stimuli stored as a single unit (see example on page 310 ) (it’s like when you do CB CCI AFB INBC or CBC CIA FBI NBC the latter is chinking)

Question 22

Define working memory

Answer 22

working memory (Alan Baddeley) is a limited capacity storage system that temporarily maintains and stores information by providing an interface between perception memory and action

Question 23

List and describe the four components of working memory

Answer 23

phonological rehearsal loop which is all the stuff previously theorized about how a STM works (visual, repetition, semantic)

visuospatial sketchpad which permits people to temporarily hold visual images (think re-arranging furniture in a room)

central executive control system controls the
deployment of attention and focus switching - weighing the pros and cons when deciding to buy a certain kind of car

episodic buffer serves as an interface between working memory and long term memory

Question 24

Define working memory capacity

Answer 24

Working memory capacity refers to one’s ability to hold and manipulate information in the conscious attention

appears to be influences by heredity

pressure to perform or excessive worry can hinder it

correlates positively with cognitive, reading abilities, and intelligence and musical ability as sight reading while playing taxes the memory

Question 25

Define long-term memory

Answer 25

Long term memory (LTM) is an unlimited capacity store that can hold information over lengthy periods of time Penfield showed that long lost memories would replay when parts of the temporal lobe were stimulated but a lot of these had distortions

Question 26

Define flashbulb memories

Answer 26

unusually vivid and detailed recollections of momentous events eg: where were you when 911 hit?

Question 27

Define clustering

Answer 27

is the tendency to remember similar or related items in groups we tend to do this naturally to remember more effectively

Question 28

Define conceptual hierarchy

Answer 28

is a multi level categorization system based on common properties among items if i'm memorizing the nervous system, it'll go top down through the categories

Question 29

Define schema

Answer 29

(Brewers and Treyens) is an organized cluster of knowledge about a particular object or event abstracted from previous experience with the object or event in this example students are asked to recall what the picture of the professors office looked like and gave answers that were in line with their experience of professor offices detailing things that weren't there or other things that were there that they wouldn't expect, like a picnic basket, they could not remember people are more likely to remember things that are consistent with their schema

Question 30

What are relational schemas?

Answer 30

is the same but for relationships between people if you enter a room expecting that you will be rejected then you may interpret ambiguous cues in a way that reflects badly on you and then act in a way that serves to elicit negative reactions from others

Question 31

Define semantic network

Answer 31

consists of nodes representing concepts joined together by pathways that link related concepts (see figure 7.10) easier to remember the word bread if you say butter when people think about a word their thoughts naturally go to related words

Question 32

Describe connectionist models of memory that make use of the notion of parallel distributed processing

Answer 32

assumes that cognitive processes depend on patterns of activation in highly interconnected computational networks that resemble neural networks specific memories correspond to particular patterns of activation in these networks

Question 33

Describe Tulving’s distinction between availability and accessibility

Answer 33

you may not be able to answer a question because it is either unavailable to you as in no longer present in the memory or because it is not accessible because the cues you are using are not effective

Question 34

Describe the tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon

Answer 34

TOTTP the temporary inability to remember something you know accompanied by a feeling that is just out of reach failure in retrieval the memory can be prompted through retrieval cues

Question 35

Define encoding specificity principle

Answer 35

(Tulving) the memory is better when conditions during encoding and retrieval are similar go to an old city where you grew up and you'll be flooded by memories you need to visualize yourself at the store to remember if you left your credit card there can be considered a form of the principle of stimulus generalization

Question 36

Describe Bartlett’s work in memory that showed that remembering is a reconstructive process

Answer 36

he made people read a story then write it down 15 minutes later to prove that recall is a sketched together process of remembering that maybe distorted and include details that weren't there

Question 37

Describe Loftus’s work in demonstrating the misinformation effect

Answer 37

occurs when participants recall of an event they witnessed is altered by introducing misleading post-event information Two groups see a car accident one group is asked how fast were they going when they hit each other the other is asked how fast were they going when they SMASHED into each other a week later they were asked to detail the accident and the ones that heard smashed reported broken glass even thought there was none this is the effect at work and another example of schema

Question 38

Define reality monitoring

Answer 38

refers to the process of deciding whether memories are based on external sources (one's perceptions of actual events) or internal sources (one's thoughts and imaginations) people reflect on monitoring to gauge if it happened or if they just imagined it eg did I lock the door or only think about it? when memories can be retrieved with little effort or are coded with a lot of sensory info, they are more easily asserted

Question 39

source monitoring involves

Answer 39

making attributions about the origins of memories | involves pin pointing the source of a memory - did I read that in the gazette or the national post?

Question 40

source monitoring error involves

Answer 40

when a memory derived from one source is attributed to another source someone said something but I think I read it in a book or saw it on TV

Question 41

What is destination memory?

Answer 41

involves recalling to whom one has told what because you're more involved in yourself and telling the story you might not remember who you told it to

Question 42

Describe the methods Ebbinghaus used to study remembering

Answer 42

herman ebbinghaus (1880s) first guy to study forgetting used nonsense syllables gave himself nonsense syllables combinations of letters to work with so they would not be contaminated with what he already knew he tested himself 14000 times and measured it on a forgetting curve

Question 43

Define forgetting curve

Answer 43

graphs retention and forgetting over time concluded that most forgetting occurs very soon after learning something but this had to do with meaningless info, the curve is different for stuff that is important to you

Question 44

What three major methods are used to measure forgetting?

Answer 44

recall measure of attention requires subjects to reproduce information on their own without any cues eg: short answer or essay exam recognition measure of attention requires subjects to select previously learned information from an array of options multiple choice exam relearning measure of attention requires a subject to memorize information a second time to determine how much time or how many practice trials are saved by having learned it before might be 20 minutes to remember something the first time but maybe measure 5 minutes the second time

Question 45

retention refers to

Answer 45

the proportion of material retained

Question 46

retention interval is the

Answer 46

length of time between the presentation of materials to be remembered and the measurement of forgetting

Question 47

What is pseudoforgetting

Answer 47

is when you think you've learned something but you actually haven't (example of the penny - you never really encoded it) due to lack of attention

Question 48

Define decay theory

Answer 48

proposes that forgetting occurs because memory traces fade with time implicit is that decay occurs in the physiological mechanism responsible for memory assumption is that mere passage of time make you forget

Question 49

is decay theory accurate?

Answer 49

but studies have shown that time passage is not as important as what happens in the interval in terms of kinds of things that a person has to remember: amount, complexity and type (interference)

Question 50

describe 1924 Jenkins and Dallenbach study with ref to interference

Answer 50

if you learn something b4 you go to sleep and wake up and recall it will be better than if you learn something then have to do a bunch of busy work then try to recall it

Question 51

Define interference theory

Answer 51

proposes that people forget information because of competition from other material interference is assumed to be greatest when the intervening material is most similar to the test material

Question 52

retroactive interference occurs when

Answer 52

new information impairs the retention of perviously learned information you're given something to remember then introduce 2 new things

Question 53

proactive interference occurs when

Answer 53

previously learned information interferes with the retention of new information I'm studying for my psych exam but the studying I did for my economics exam prior is getting in the way of me remembering the psych stuff

Question 54

encoding specificity principle states that

Answer 54

the value of a retrieval cue depends on how well it corresponds to the memory code formed during the encoding. this principle provides one explanation for the inconsistent success of retrieval efforts

Question 55

transfer appropriate processing occurs when

Answer 55

the initial processing of information is similar to the type of processing required by the subsequent measure of retention if you use phonetic to encode and phonetic to retrieve you have a better retention

Question 56

How is the Freudian concept of repression related to motivated forgetting?

Answer 56

repression refers to keeping distressing thoughts and feelings buried in the unconscious also known as motivated forgetting

Question 57

Describe how Roediger and McDermott (1995) demonstrated false memories of individual words in the laboratory

Answer 57

they are given a list of 15 words to remember: bed, rest, dream, blanket etc... then they are asked if sleep was on it and most people say yes

Question 58

Identify and describe the seven sins of memory

Answer 58

transience : weakening of memory over time absent-mindedness : forgot where I put my keys because I was thinking of something else blocking : failure to remember someone's name when we meet them misattribution : assign memory to the wrong source suggestibility : misleading questions lead us to false memory bias : if you're having trouble with your partner now you may have a bias as to how you remember the past persistence : unwanted memories that you cannot forget - PTSD

Question 59

Explain Thompson’s view that specific memories are due to localized neural circuits

Answer 59

Long term potential LTP is a long lasting increase in neural excitability at synapses along a specific neural pathway

Question 60

How would neurogenesis affect memory?

Answer 60

may contribute to the sculpting of neural circuits that underlie memory in rats new dendrites were found on ones who had done a lot of maze work, so the theory is that they are building new pathways for memory

Question 61

Explain Thompson’s view that specific memories are due to localized neural circuits

Answer 61

Thompson studied rabbits and showed that there were certain areas related to a conditioned eye blink

Question 62

Define retrograde amnesia

Answer 62

is after an injury and you forget everything up until that moment : stuff that happened before the injury

Question 63

Define anterograde amnesia

Answer 63

you start having memory problems after the accident for remembering new information

Question 64

what part of the brain is associated most with long term memory

Answer 64

hippocampus // medial temporal lobe memory system // Alzheimer's patients have problems and deterioration in this hippocampal region

Question 65

Define consolidation

Answer 65

people believe that memories are consolidated in the region of the hippocampus and not necessarily where memories are stored consolidation is a hypothetical process involving the gradual conversion of information into durable memory codes stored in long term memory but memory is distributed through the cortex much of the process of consolidation happens when people sleep

Question 66

What role does the amygdala play in remembering?

Answer 66

amygdala is critical in the memory of learned fears

Question 67

What role does the prefrontal cortex play?

Answer 67

prefrontal cortex is said to be responsible for the central executive component

Question 68

Define implicit memory

Answer 68

is apparent when retention is exhibited on a task that does not require intentional remembering unconscious in the case of amnesiacs, they were shown a list of words then asked to fill in the blanks ala wheel of fortune style they were able to do it based on having seen the previous words but they couldn't remember having seen the prior list

Question 69

Define explicit memory

Answer 69

involves intentional recollection of previous experiences conscious affected by age, amnesia, drugs

Question 70

Define declarative memory

Answer 70

declarative handles factual info: names, dates, faces, events medial temporal lobe

Question 71

Define procedural memory

Answer 71

skills, operations, conditioned responses cerebellum and amygdala amnesiacs can develop this type but are bad at the declarative

Question 72

declarative memory is broken into two other categories what are they

Answer 72

episodic memory and semantic memory

Question 73

Define episodic memory

Answer 73

is made up of chronological or temporally dated recollections or personal experiences I went to see the Who at the CNE in August of 1989

Question 74

Define semantic memory

Answer 74

contains general knowledge that is not tied to the time when the info was learned christmas is on dec 25, saskatoon is the capital of saskatchewan

Question 75

Define prospective memory

Answer 75

involves remembering to perform actions in the future | walk the dog, water the plants,

Question 76

Define retrospective memory

Answer 76

involves from past or previously learned experiences

Question 77

What is the testing effect

Answer 77

taking a test on material increases performance on subsequent tests more so than if you'd spent the time studying it forces students to engage in effortful retrieval of information, which promotes future retention even unsuccessful attempts can help

Question 78

What is over-learning?

Answer 78

refers to continues rehearsal long after the material has been mastered shows better results on tests but not definitive for super long retention

Question 79

What is the serial-position effect?

Answer 79

is when people remember things at the beginning and end of list more so than the middle so if a task is like this spend more time in the middle to retain it better

Question 80

Describe three ways to enrich encoding through visual imagery

Answer 80

link method: form a mental image of items to be remembered in a way that links them together make a picture using all the stuff in key places method of Loci: take an imaginary walk along a familiar path where images of items to be remembered are associated with certain locations ensures items are remembered in correct order because order is determined by the sequence of locations Keywords method: associate a concrete word with an abstract word and generate an image if his name is gordon you can use garden

Question 81

Describe three memory phenomena that would seem to undermine eyewitness accuracy

Answer 81

schemas source monitoring errors forgetting where they saw the face misinformation effects info introduced by the police after the fact

Question 82

What is the hindsight bias?

Answer 82

is the tendency to mould our interpretation of the past to fit how events actually turned out when you know the outcome of an event this slants the recall of how the event unfolded and what your thinking was at the time they tell you you chose the right witness and you say I knew it all along

Question 83

What common error in thinking fuels the overconfidence problem in recall?

Answer 83

people tend to be overconfident in their eye witness accounts and when a juror sees this confidence they tend to believe it more but there is only a moderate correlation between confidence and accuracy so the eye witness thing is flawed

Question 84

describe an approach to overcome overconfidence problem

Answer 84

look for reasons why you might be wrong to reinforce your confidence in this situation the confidence level correlates to a higher confidence/accuracy ratio