Introduction to Memory + Memory (neuroscience) + Structure of Long-Term Memory Flashcards
(138 cards)
1
Q
Define memory.
A
Memory is the process involved in retaining, retrieving, and using information about stimuli, images, events, ideas, and skills after the original information is no longer present.
2
Q
Models are definitively limiting, but in what way do they help us understand processes like memory?
A
One of the advantages of models is that they help organise what we know about an area. They can also help suggest questions to ask.
3
Q
Mention a memory model you need to know about.
A
The modal model of memory (momome).
4
Q
Why is the modal model of memory (momome) named such?
A
It is called the modal model of memory (momome) because it included many of the features of memory models that were being proposed in the 1960s.
5
Q
The modal model of memory proposes a division in memory. Which?
A
- Sensory memory
- Short-term memory
- Long-term memory
6
Q
What is sensory memory?
A
Sensory memory is a structural feature of the modal model of memory. It is the initial stage that holds all incoming information for seconds or fractions of a second.
7
Q
What is short-term memory?
A
Short-term memory is a structural feature of the modal model of memory. STM holds 5-7 items for about 15-30 seconds.
8
Q
What is long-term memory?
A
Long-term memory is a structural feature of the modal model of memory. LTM can hold a large amount of information for years or even decades.
9
Q
What are control processes? Give an example of a control process.
A
The modal model of memory also describes the memory system as including control processes, which are active processes that can be controlled by the person and may differ from one task to another. An example of a control process is rehearsal.
10
Q
The modal model of memory also describes the memory system as including control processes, which are active processes that can be controlled by the person and may differ from one task to another. An example of a control process is rehearsal. Give more examples of control processes.
A
- Strategies you might use to help make a stimulus more memorable, such as relating the numbers in a phone number to a familiar date in history.
- Strategies of attention that help you focus on information that is particularly important or interesting.
11
Q
The process of storing information in long-term memory is called …
A
Encoding.
12
Q
The process of remembering information that is stored in long-term memory is called …
A
Retrieval.
13
Q
What is the difference between sensory memory and short-term memory?
A
Sensory memory gives us the ability to see a film as a moving sequence. This could possibly simply be a feature of our sensory apparatus’, and not necessarily something to do with memory..?
14
Q
We’ve all heard about our ability to remember 5-7 things for a short while, but what does the evidence tell us? Mention an experiment.
A
George Sperling (1960) flashed an array of letters on a screen for 50 milliseconds, and asked his participants to report as many of the letters as possible. They were able to report an average of 4.5 out of the 12 letters.
15
Q
George Sperling (1960) flashed an array of letters on a screen for 50 milliseconds, and asked his participants to report as many of the letters as possible. They were able to report an average of 4.5 out of the 12 letters. Explain this finding.
A
- Maybe the exposure was so brief that participants only SAW 4.5 out of the 12 letters. From what we know about the eyes, this is not very likely.
- Perhaps participants saw most of the letters immediately after they were presented, but their perception faded rapidly as they were reporting them. More likely!
16
Q
George Sperling (1960) flashed an array of letters on a screen for 50 milliseconds, and asked his participants to report as many of the letters as possible. They were able to report an average of 4.5 out of the 12 letters. He was however unsure if this was due to perception or memory, and wanted to test that. How did he do it?
A
He deviced the partial report method to determine which of these two possibilities was correct. In the technique, he flashed the matrix for 50 ms, as before, but immediately after it flashed, he sounded one of the following cue tones, to indicate which row of letters the participants were to report. When the cue tones directed participants to focus their attention on one of the rows, they correctly reported an average of about 3,3 of the letters. (82%).
17
Q
According to George Sperlings (1960) famous memory study, we have the ability to perceive and briefly hold a lot of information for a very short time, but our memory fades rapidly. How rapidly?
A
He varied the time delay between the presentation of the matrix and the cue tones. The result of the delayed partial report experiments was that when the cue tones were delayed for 1 second after the flash, participants were able to report only slightly more than 1 letter in a row, the equivalent of about 4 letters for all three rows - the same number of letters they reported using the whole report method.
18
Q
Can you recite Luis Bunuel’s words on the importance of (long-term) memory? (From his memoirs)
A
You have to begin to lose your memory, if only in bits and pieces, to realise that memory is what makes our lives. Life without memory is no life at all … Our memory is our coherence, our reason, our feeling, even our action. Without it, we are nothing … (I can only wait for the final amnesia, the one that can erase an entire life, as it did my mother’s … )
19
Q
The early research on our Short-term memory focused on answering two questions. Which?
A
- What is the duration of SMT?
2. How much information can STM hold?
20
Q
A great many memory experiments use a recall test. What is a recall test?
A
A recall test is a test in which participants are presented with stimuli and then, after a delay, are asked to remember as many of the stimuli as possible. Memory performance can be measured as a percentage of the stimuli that are remembered.
21
Q
Speculate: Would a person’s recall ability be the biggest contributing factor for his or hers performance in a multiple choice exam?
A
It would very likely be a factor, but some argue that the multiple choice exam is a recognition test and not a recall test. Recognition tests measure how skilled people are at picking out an item they have previously seen or heard from a number of other items that they have not seen or heard.
22
Q
Roughly outline the results of Lloyd Peterson and Margaret Peterson (1959)s experiments on STM duration.
A
Using a recall test, Peterson and Peterson found that participants were able to remember about 80 percent of the letters after counting for 3 seconds but could remember an average of only 12 percent of the three-letter groups after counting for 18 seconds.
23
Q
What was wrong about Peterson and Peterson’s results?
A
Nothing, but their analysis was slightly off. When looking more closely at their data, G. Keppel and Benton Underwood (1962) found that there was little difference between the 3 and 18 seconds groups on the first trial, but that there was a considerable drop-off in performance after the first few trials. They suggested, then, that the drop-off in memory was due not to decay of the memory trace, but to proactive interference.
24
Q
What is proactive interference?
A
Proactive interference is when information that was learned previously interferes with learning new information.
25
What is a common way to measure the capacity of the STM?
One measure of the capacity of STM is provided by the digit span - the number of digits a person can remember.
26
Critique the digit span measurement.
One might say that measuring the STM by digit span has low ecological validity. This was tested in a 2003 study by Groth-Marmat G and Baker S. The results indicated that it was a weak association between the results of a digit span test and the Test of Everyday Attention.
27
What do we know about the capacity of the STM as measured by experiments?
It is somewhere between 4 items (flashing arrays of coloured squares) or 5 to 9 items (digit span).
28
What is chunking?
Chunking is combining units together into one unit. I.e. words into sentences and smaller numbers into larger ones.
29
What is meant by coding information?
Coding refers to the way information is represented.
30
Determining how a stimulus is represented by the firing of neurons is a physiological approach to coding. What other approaches are there?
The cognitive psychologist might take the mental approach to coding, by asking how a stimulus or an experience is represented in the mind.
31
What different types of mental coding is there?
1. Auditory coding
2. Visual coding
3. Semantic coding
32
What is auditory coding?
Auditory coding involves representing items in STM based on their sound.
33
What is visual coding?
Visual coding involves representing items visually, as would occur when remembering the details of a floor plan or the layout of streets on a map.
34
What is semantic coding?
Semantic coding is representing items in terms of their meaning.
35
Give an example of an experiment that hints at the existence of auditory coding.
R. Conrad (1964) had participants observe a number of target letters flashed briefly on a screen. They were told to write down the letters in the order they were represented. Conrad found that when participants made errors, they were most likely to misidentify the target letter as another letter that sounded like the target. From these results Conrad concluded that the code for STM is auditory, rather than visual.
36
Give an example of an experiment that hints at the existence of visual coding.
Sergio Della Sala and coworkers (1999) conducted an experiment in which participants were presented with a task of remembering matrixes with shaded squares (you can create a range of difficulties). These are intuitively difficult to code verbally, so he assumed they were dependant on visual memory. He found that participants were able to complete patterns consisting of an average of 9 shaded squares before making mistakes.
37
Give an example of an experiment that hints at the existence of semantic coding.
Delos Wickens and coworkers (1976) had participants listen to three words and did a recall test. As with any recall test, there were proactive interference. However, in this experiment, they first trials were done with words from a similar category (fruits). When, on the fourth trial, the three words were from a "professions" category, there was a release from proactive interference, and performance increased.
38
"As research on STM progressed, it became apparent that the concept of STM as presented in the modal model was too narrow. " Why?
The problem was that STM was described mainly as a short-term storage mechanism. But the role of STM extends beyond storage. It is also involved in the transfer of information to and from the LTM.
39
"As research on STM progressed, it became apparent that the concept of STM as presented in the modal model was too narrow. " The problem was that STM was described mainly as a short-term storage mechanism. But the role of STM extends beyond storage. It is also involved in the transfer of information to and from the LTM. What happened to models of STM after this?
( Baddeley & Hitch, 1974 ) proposed a model that tried to explain new findings. In this model, the short-term component of memory is called working memory. Working memory is defined as a limited-capacity system for temporary storage and manipulation of information for complex tasks such as comprehension, learning, and reasoning.
40
( Baddeley & Hitch, 1974 ) proposed a model that tried to explain new findings. In this model, the short-term component of memory is called working memory. Working memory is defined as a limited-capacity system for temporary storage and manipulation of information for complex tasks such as comprehension, learning, and reasoning. How does the definition of working memory differ from short-term memory?
1. Short-term memory is concerned mainly with storing information for a brief period of time, whereas working memory is concerned with the manipulation of information that occurs during complex cognition.
2. Short-term memory consists of a single component, whereas working memory consists of a number of components.
41
Short-term memory consists of a single component, whereas working memory consists of a number of components. Which components?
1. The phonological loop
2. The visuospatial sketch pad
3. Central executive.
42
What is the phonological loop?
A part of Baddeley and Hitch's working memory model. It holds verbal and auditory information.
43
What are the different components of the phonological loop, and what do they do?
The phonological loop holds verbal and auditory information. It consists of two components: the phonological store, which has a limited capacity and holds information for only a few seconds; and the articulatory rehearsal process, which is responsible for rehearsal that an keep items in the phonological store from decaying.
44
What is the visuospatial sketch pad?
A part of Baddeley and Hitch's working memory model. It holds visual and spatial information.
45
What is the central executive?
A part of Baddeley and Hitch's working memory model. It is where the major work of working memory occurs. The central executive pulls information from the long term memory and coordinates the activity of the phonological loop and visuospatial sketch pad by focusing on specific parts of a task and switching attention from one part to another. One of the main jobs of the central executive is to decide how to divide attention between different tasks.
46
Mention three phenomena that support the idea of a system specialised for language - the phonological loop.
1. Phonological similarity effect
2. Word length effect
3. Articulatory Suppression.
47
A phenomena that supports the idea of a system specialised for language - the phonological loop, is the phonological similarity effect. What is it?
The phonological similarity effect is the confusion of letters or words that sound similar. R. Conrad (1964) had participants observe a number of target letters flashed briefly on a screen. They were told to write down the letters in the order they were represented. Conrad found that when participants made errors, they were most likely to misidentify the target letter as another letter that sounded like the target
48
A phenomena that supports the idea of a system specialised for language - the phonological loop, is the word length effect. What is it?
The word length effect occurs when memory for lists of words is better for short words than for long words. Baddeley has theorised that it could be because it takes longer to rehearse the long words and to produce them during recall.
49
A phenomena that supports the idea of a system specialised for language - the phonological loop, is the articulatory suppression. What is it?
Articulatory suppression is a phenomena where memory is reduced because speaking interferes with rehearsal. (the the the the .. )
50
Mention an experiment on the visuospatial sketch pad.
1. Shepard and Metzler (1971) looked at the reaction time for deciding whether two geometrical 3d figures were the same, varying only the degree of orientational difference. There was a correlation between the degree of orientational difference and the time it took to produce a correct answer. Maybe because the participants have to mentally rotate the objects?
51
Baddeley eventually added a component to his working memory model in order to account for more evidence. Why and which?
Chunking greatly increases our ability to remember items, and Baddeley decided it was necessary to propose an additional component of working memory to address these abilities. The new component he called the episodic buffer. It can store information and is connected to the LTM. It's a work in progress, but represents a way of increasing storage capacity and communicate with the LTM.
52
Humans have at least two qualitatively different systems of information storage. These are generally referred to as ..
1. declarative memory2. nondeclarative memory
53
Humans have at least two qualitatively different systems of information storage. These are generally referred to as declarative memory and nondeclarative memory. What is declarative memory?
Declarative memory is the storage and retrieval of material that is available to consciousness and can in principle be expressed by language (i.e. "declared").
54
Humans have at least two qualitatively different systems of information storage. These are generally referred to as declarative memory and non declarative memory. What is nondeclarative memory?
Nondeclarative memory (also referred to as procedural memory) is not available to consciousness, at least not in any detail. Such memories involve skills and associations that are, but large, acquired and retrieved at an unconscious level.
55
The ability to remember a phone number is an example of .... memory
Declarative
56
Knowing how to use your phone to dial a number is an example of ...... memory
Nondeclarative
57
In addition to the types of memory defined by the nature of what is remembered, memory can also be categorised ...
Memory can also be categorised according to the time over which it is effective.
58
Three temporal classes of memory are generally accepted. Which?
1. Immediate memory2. Working memory3. Long-term memory
59
What is meant by immediate memory, a temporal class of memory?
Immediate memory is the routine ability to hold ongoing experiences in mind for fractions of a second.
60
How is the capacity of immediate memory?
The capacity of immediate memory is very large, and each sensory modality appears to have its own semi-independent "memory register".
61
What is meant by working memory, a temporal class of memory?
Working memory is the ability to hold and manipulate information in mind for seconds to minutes while it is used to achieve a particular goal.
62
What is meant by long-term memory, a temporal class of memory?
Long-term memory entails retaining information in a more permanent form of storage for days, weeks, or even a lifetime.
63
What is an engram?
Engram is the physical embodiment of any memory in the neuronal machinery. (I think it's a cognitive psychology term)
64
The way in which immediate and short-term memories are gradually encoded as long-term memories is called..
memory consolidation.
65
Mention two experiments on priming that is relevant for memory consolidation.
1. In a commonly used test, the subject is presented at time 1 with a list of words to study and is later tested using a word-stem completion task. The stems could also be completed from list B, which comprises words the subject did not see during the initial session. Subjects typically complete the stems with about 25% more studied that unstudied words; this percentage represents the effect of priming.2. The information stored in priming is not particularly reliable. A list of nouns of sweet objects is read aloud to a subject, and they are later asked to write down as many as they can remember from this list. Typically, about half the students report that the word "sweet" was included in the list, even though it was not.
66
Give examples on how meaning influences memory.
1. The person who holds the world record for remembering the most digits of pi (67, 000), did so by associating the digits with musical notes and singing the number strings.2. A college student who was paid to remember randomly presented numbers increased his skill by associating the numbers with dates or times at track meets (he was a runner).
67
What is conditioned learning?
The generation of a novel response that is gradually elicited by repeatedly pairing a novel stimulus with a stimulus that normally elicits the response being studied.
68
Which forms of conditioned learning do we know of?
1. Classical conditioning2. Operant conditioning
69
What is classical conditioning?
Classical conditioning occurs when an innate reflex is modified by associating its normal triggering stimulus with an unrelated stimulus; by virtue of the repeated association, the unrelated stimulus eventually triggers the original response.
70
Classical conditioning was famously demonstrated by whom?
The Russian psychologist Ivan Pavlov.
71
What is operant conditioning?
Operant conditioning refers to the altered probability of a behavioural response produced by associating the response with a reward.
72
What is the most famous study on operant conditoning?
Frederick Skinner's experiments at Harvard, where pigeons or rats learned to associate pressing a lever with receiving a food pellet.
73
If the conditioned animal performs the desired response but the reward is no longer provided, the conditioning gradually disappears, a phenomenon called...
extinction.
74
The ability to forget unimportant information may be critical for normal life. Although forgetting is a normal and essential mental process, it can also be pathological, a condition called ..
amnesia
75
Two different types of amnesia. Which?
1. Anterograde amnesia2. Retrograde amnesia
76
What is anterograde amnesia?
Anterograde amnesia is an inability to establish new memories.
77
What is retrograde amnesia?
Retrograde amnesia is a difficulty retrieving memories.
78
Which structures are associated with declarative memory disorders?
1. Thalamus2. Hippocampus3. Fornix4. Amygdala5. Mammillary body
79
The hippocampus is located ...
In the medial temporal lobe.
80
There is an idea that long-term memory traces are distributed over the entire cortex. This was studied by Karl Lashley in the 1920s. What were his findings?
Lashley worked with rats and maze-learning whilst removing cortex. He summarised his findings in terms of what he called the mass action principle, which states that any degradation in learning and memory depends on the amount of cortex destroyed; and that the more complex the learning task, the more disruptive the lesion.
81
"fun" fact: how was electroconvulsive therapy invented?
This remarkably useful treatment was discovered because depression in epileptics often remitted after a spontaneous seizure.
82
What are common negative consequences of electroconvulsive therapy?
ECT often causes both anterograde and retrograde amnesia. Patients typically do not remember the treatment itself or the events of the preceding days, and their recall of events over the previous 1-3 years can be affected.
83
How does our knowledge of electroconvulsive therapy aid us in our quest for knowledge of the localisation of memory?
The nature of amnesia following ECT supports the conclusion that long-term declarative memories are widely stored in the cerebral cortex, since the sis the part of the brain predominantly affected by this therapy.
84
The retrieval of memories appears to involve which parts of the cortex?
The association cortexes, particularly the frontal cortex.
85
Patients such as H.M., N.A., and R.B. had no difficulties establishing or recalling nondeclarative memories, indicating that such information is laid down using a different anatomical substrate from that used in declarative memory formation. Nondeclarative memory apparently involves ...
.. the basal ganglia, prefrontal cortex, amygdala, sensory association cortexes, and cerebellum - but not the medial temporal lobe or midline diencephalon.
86
Simple sensory-motor conditioning such as learning to blink following a tone that predicts a puff of air directed at the eye is severely reduced if ..
If the patient has suffered damage to the cerebellum.
87
Learning new motor skills is incredibly difficult if you have suffered damage to ...
the basal ganglia and prefrontal cortex.
88
Memory and Aging. What is the most obvious way, post-mortem, you can see the brain deterioration from aging?
The average weight of the normal human brain steadily decreases from early adulthood onward.
89
What is dementia?
Dementia is a syndrome characterised by failure of recent memory and other intellectual functions. It is usually insidious(stealthy) in onset but tends to progress steadily.
90
What is the most common dementia?
Alzheimer's disease is the most common dementia, accounting for 60-80% of cases in the elderly.
91
Alzheimer's disease afflicts a percentage of the U.S. population. X%
5-10%
92
How many percent of the population over 85 years suffer from alzheimer's disease?
45%.
93
What are the earliest signs of Alzheimer's disease?
Impairment of recent memory function and attention, followed by failure of language skills, visual-spatial orientation, abstract thinking and judgement.
94
A tentative diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease is based on characteristic clinical features, but can only be confirmed by the distinctive cellular pathology evident in the post mortem brain. What are these histopathological changes?
1. Collections of intraneuronal cytoskeletal filaments called neurofibrillary tangles.2. Extracellular deposits of an abnormal proteins (called amyloid) in so-called senile plaques. 3. A diffuse loss of neurons.
95
The histopathological changes present in the Alzheimer brain are most prominent in which structures?
1. Neocortex2. Limbic structures3. Brainstem nuclei
96
Which structures are limbic structures?
1. Hippocampus2. Amygdala3. The cortices associated with those two.
97
What seems to cause the early-onset AD?
Mutations of the APP (amyloid precursor protein) gene on chromosome 21.
98
Why did researchers look at chromosome 21 for the cause of the early-onset AD?
Investigators long suspected that a mutant gene responsible for familial AD might reside on chromosome 21, primarily because clinical and neuropathology features similar to AD often occur in individuals with Down syndrome (which is caused by an extra copy of chromosome 21), but with a much earlier onset.
99
What is apolipoprotein E (ApoE)?
Apolipoprotein E is a protein that normally chaperones cholesterol through the bloodstream. Warren Strittmatter and Guy Salvesen discovered this protein when they took the CSF of Alzheimer's patients and mixed it with amyloid beta. Apolipoprotein E was found to bind to amyloid with great affinity.
100
What is a protein isoform?
A protein isoform is any of several different forms of the same protein. Different forms of a protein may be produced from very closely related gene duplicates.
101
Apolipoprotein E was found to bind to amyloid beta. Margaret Periack-Vance, Allen Roses and their colleagues had an interesting finding as well. What was it?
They found that affected members of some families with the late-onset form of Ad exhibited an association with genetic markers on chromosome 19. This finding was of particular interest because a gene encoding an isoform of ApoE is located in the same region of chromosome 19 implicated by the association studies.
102
ApoE has how many alleles?
It has three major alleles: e2, e3, and e4.
103
How do late-onset AD patients differ in their alleles for ApoE?
The frequency of allele e4 in the general population is 0.14, but in late-onset AD patients it's 0.52.
104
How many percent of individuals that have no alleles of e4 develop AD by age 75?
20%
105
How many percent of individuals that have two copies of allele e4 develop Alzheimer by age 75?
90%
106
Inheriting the e4 form of ApoE means you will get AD?
No. It increases the risk, and especially if you have both copies of it. But it's not definitive.
107
Short: What is the Fornix?
The fornix (Latin: arch) is a C-shaped bundle of nerve fibers in the brain that carries signals from the hippocampus to the mammillary bodies and then to the anterior nuclei of thalamus.
108
Short: What is the mammilary body?
The mammillary bodies are a pair of small round bodies, located on the undersurface of the brain that, as part of the diencephalon, form part of the limbic system. They are located at the ends of the anterior arches of the fornix. Neuroanatomists have often categorized the mammillary bodies as part of the hypothalamus.
109
R. Conrad (1964) had participants observe a number of target letters flashed briefly on a screen. They were told to write down the letters in the order they were represented. Conrad found that when participants made errors, they were most likely to misidentify the target letter as another letter that sounded like the target. From these results Conrad concluded that the code for STM is auditory, rather than visual. Critique this conclusion.
My hypothesis is that maybe this has something to do with whether the participants are reading it out loud or not. I think that his method encourages this, and that if all the letters were flashed on the screen at the same time the results might have been different.
110
What is Korsakoff's syndrome?
Korsakoff's syndrome is a condition caused by a prolonged deficiency of vitamin B1, usually as a result of chronic alcoholism. The deficiency leads to the destruction of areas in the frontal and temporal lobes, which causes severe and permanent impairments in memory.
111
The distinction between STM and LTM was studied in a classic experiment by B. B. Murdoch, Jr. (1962). Describe the study method and results.
He had participants read a list of words, then did a recall test. He discovered a recency effect and a primacy effect. Recent words were easily remembered, and the first words on the list were easily remembered.
112
The distinction between STM and LTM was studied in a classic experiment by B. B. Murdoch, Jr. (1962). He had participants read a list of words, then did a recall test. He discovered a recency effect and a primacy effect. Recent words were easily remembered, and the first words on the list were easily remembered. His experiments, and the later follow-up experiments conducted by other researchers go by the name of a data presentation. Which?
The serial position curve. It indicates the percentage recall of each words against the word's position on the list.
113
What can explain the primacy effect in the serial position curve experiments?
One hypothesis is that the primacy effect occurs because participants have more time to rehearse earlier words on the list.
114
One hypothesis to the cause of the primacy effect is that it occurs because participants have more time to rehearse earlier words on the list. Has this been tested?
Yes. Dewey Rundus (1971) derived a serial position curve by presenting a lost of 10 words at a rate of 1 word every 5 seconds and then asking participant sot write down all the words. This produced about the same results as the original experiment. He added a twist to his experiment by asking his participants to study the list as it was being presented by repeating the words out loud during the 5-second interval between words. His results indicated that the words presented early in the list were rehearsed more, and they were more likely to be remembered later. This result supports the idea that the primacy effect is related to the longer rehearsal time available for the earlier words on the list.
115
We know that the STM has different "codes". Is this also true for the LTM?
Yes. All three (semantic, auditory, visual) codes seem to be occurring in LTM. However, the most important code, seems to be semantic.
116
Has there been performed research on LTM coding?
Jacqueline Sachs (1967) has participants listen to a tape recording of a passage and then measured the recognition memory to determine whether they remembered the exact wording of the sentences in the passage, or the general meaning of the passage. The latter was true. The finding that specific wording is forgotten by the general meaning can be remembered for a long time has been confirmed in many experiments.
117
What are dissociations?
One of the basic principles of neuropsychology is that we can understand the effects of brain damage by studying dissociations - situations in which one function is absent while another function is present.
118
What is a double dissociation, and why are they valuable to neuropsychology?
Alice can't name objects, but she can reach to where it is located on the table when asked to. We can illustrate a double dissociation by finding another person who has one function present and another absent, but in a way opposite to Alice.Establishing a double dissociation enables us to conclude that two functions are served by different mechanisms and that these mechanism operate independently of one another.
119
Use double dissociations to amount evidence for the hypothesis that STM and LTM are caused by different mechanisms.
1. Patients such as H.M. had functioning STM, but was unable to create new LTMs.
2. Patients such as K.F. had a normally functioning LTM, but had very poor STM as measured by digit span.
These essentially have the opposite problems, and function as a double dissociation for STM and LTM.
120
What has been done to locate short- and long-term memory in the brain?
Both studies using dissociation and brain imaging.
121
What brain imaging studies has been done on locating short-term and long-term memory in the brain?
Deborah Talmi and coworkers (2005) measured the fMRI response to tasks involving STM and LTM. They gave participants a list of words, and instead of a recall test they used a "probe word" - a word from an early or late position in the list that either occurred or did not occur. Probe words from the beginning of the list activated areas of the brain associated with both LTM and SMT, and probe words from the end of the list only activated areas of the brain associated with STM.
Important: The results of there brain imaging experiments have not been as clear-cut.
122
Another word for declarative memory is ...
Explicit memory.
123
Another word for nondeclarative memory is ...
Implicit memory.
124
How do we distinguish between episodic and semantic memory?
These are both a type of explicit, declarative memory. Semantic memory is for facts, and episodic is for events. This is a distinction between the types of information that is being remembered. It is also possible to distinguish between them by the experience associated with each: episodic requires a kind of mental time travel.
125
Semantic and episodic memory are both declarative memory types. They are often distinguished from each other. It is possible to distinguish between them by the experience associated with each: episodic requires a kind of mental time travel. If they are different in the way they behave, are they also different in the way they are? I.e. are they served by different mechanisms?
There has been found a double dissociation of episodic and semantic memory.
Case: K.C. lost his episodic memory as a result of severe damage to his hippocampus and surrounding structures. He is aware of the fact that his brother is dead, but cannot recall any experiences related to the death.
Case: Italian woman who suffered an attack of encephalitis at age 44. Later she suffered memory deficiencies such as failure to remember facts, or recognise famous people. She however had no trouble remembering events in her life.
126
A double dissociation was found between semantic and episodic memory. Mention why this might not necessarily indicate that they are served by different mechanisms?
Although the double dissociation sports the idea of separate mechanisms for semantic and episodic memory, interpretation of the results of studies of brain-damaged patients is often tricky because the extent of brain damage often differs from patient to patient. In addition, the method of testing patients may differ in different studies. I also think it is problematic to generalise from brain damaged patients to the general population because of the extent of neuroplasticity.
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A double dissociation was found between semantic and episodic memory, but this is not sufficient evidence for the conclusion that they are served by different mechanisms. Are there other studies on this?
Evidence for separate mechanisms has also been provided by the results of brain imaging experiments. One study by Brian Levine and coworkers (2004) had participants keep diaries on audiotape describing everyday personal events, and facts drawn from their semantic knowledge. They later listened to these while in an fMRI scanner. The results indicated that while there is overlap between activation caused by episodic and semantic memories, there are major differences. This has been confirmed by other studies.
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There are a lot of connections in function between episodic and semantic memory. No research is cited in the book, but please mention anecdotal evidence for this connection.
1. Episodic memories can be lost, leaving only semantic memories.
2. Semantic memory can be enhanced if associated with episodic memory.
3. Semantic memory can influence our experience by influencing attention.
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Define priming.
Priming occurs when the presentation of one stimulus changes the response to a subsequent test stimulus, either positively or negatively.
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Priming occurs when the presentation of one stimulus changes the response to a subsequent test stimulus, either positively or negatively. Positively, how?
Positive priming which causes an increase in speed or accuracy of the response to the test stimulus.
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Priming occurs when the presentation of one stimulus changes the response to a subsequent test stimulus, either positively or negatively. Negatively how?
Negative priming, which causes a decrease in the speed or accuracy of response to the test stimulus.
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Repetition priming is what?
It occurs when the test stimulus is the same as or resembles the priming stimulus.
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Conceptual priming is what?
It occurs when the enhancement caused by the priming stimulus is based on the meaning of the stimulus. (e.g. the nail needle-task)
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Priming usually involves which category of memory?
Implicit memory.
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What studies have been performed on implicit memory?
Peter Graf and coworkers (1985) tested the memory function of amnesiacs with a method that both tested implicit memory through priming, and explicit memory through recall. They presented a list of words to the participants and asked them to rate them on a scale based on how much they liked the word. Then they were later asked either to recall the words presented or to complete three-letter fragments. The results were astounding: as expected the amnesia patients had poor recall, but they performed just as well as the controls in the implicit memory task.
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Peter Graf and his coworkers study of memory function of amnesiacs was a controlled laboratory experiment. Are there ecological studies on implicit memory and priming as well?
Lots! One is by T.J. Prefect and C. Askew (1994) who had participants scan articles in a magazine. Each page of print was faced by an advertisement. They were later told to rate a number of advertisements on various dimensions, such as how appealing, eye-catching, distinctive, and memorable they were. They gave higher ratings to the ones they had been exposed to than to other advertisements that they had never seen. When asked about which advertisements they recognised as having seen before, they only recognised on average 2.8 of the original advertisements.
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T.J.Prefect and C. Askew (1994) did a study that showed an effect that is very similar to a known effect of psychology. Which?
The propaganda effect: an effect in which participants are more likely to rate statements they have read or heard before as being true, simply because they have been exposed to them before. (if this is done on psychology students, that's honestly a valid strategy seeing as most recently read statements are on the curriculum and could be relevant for an exam. Has this been tested on non-students?) This effect is true even when the person is told that the statements are false when they first read or hear them. (Begg et al., 1992).
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Procedural memory, or skill memory, has been shown to function in patients that are otherwise memory impaired. Mention one case.
1. H.M., whose amnesia was caused by having his hippocampus removed. He practiced a task called mirror drawing, and became better each time although he consistently believed that he was doing it for the very first time.
