L5: Learning and Long-Term Memory

Question 1

What is Explicit Learning?

Answer 1

Conscious, intentional learning of new information

Question 2

What is Implicit Learning?

Answer 2

When you learn something without trying to learn or being aware that learning has taken place

Question 3

Characteristics of Implicit Learning

Answer 3

Robustness, Age and IQ Independence, Low Variability (in terms of individual differences), common to most species

Question 4

Which parts of the brain are in charge of EL and IL?

Answer 4

EL -> Hippocampus
IL -> Striatum
Damage in either shows double dissociation

Question 5

What are the levels of processing?

Answer 5

Structural Processing (Appearance) -> Phonemic Processing (Sound) -> Semantic Processing (Meaning)

Question 6

What is the Survival Processing Effect?

Answer 6

Finding that the items processed for their survival relevance are remembered better than other encoding strategies

Question 7

What is Transfer-Appropriate Processing

Answer 7

How well you remember depends on the match between the way the information is encoded and the way the information is tested

Question 8

How does the retention compare after one week for 1. Repeated Study 2. Single Test 3. Repeated Test

Answer 8

Repeated Test > Single Test > Repeated Study

Question 9

Is Short Answer or MCQ better fostering long-term retention?

Answer 9

Short Answer

Question 10

What kind of memory does declarative memory hold?

Answer 10

Semantic, Episodic and Autobiographical memory

Question 11

What kind of memory does non-declarative memory hold?

Answer 11

Procedural and other implicit memory

Question 12

Declarative vs Non-Declarative Memory

Answer 12

Declarative memory is conscious while non-declarative memory is unconscious

Question 13

What is Episodic Memory

Answer 13

Storage and retrieval of specific events at a particular place and a particular time

Question 14

Is Episodic Memory constructive?

Answer 14

Yes

Question 15

Recollection vs Familiarity

Answer 15

Specific details vs no specific details

Question 16

What is Semantic Memory

Answer 16

Stores the general knowledge about the world and is context-free (cannot associate memory with specific event)

Question 17

What is Procedural Memory

Answer 17

Motor skills (amnesia patients unaffected)

Question 18

What is Perceptual Representation System?

Answer 18

Helps perceive and mentally represent sensory information from the environment

Question 19

What is amnesia?

Answer 19

Long-term memory problems esp. episodic & autobiographical

Question 20

Retrograde vs. Anterograde amnesia

Answer 20

Retrograde: Inability to recall memories of events that occured before the onset of amnesia

Anterograde: Inability to form new memories or retain information after the onset of amnesia

Question 21

Is non-declarative memory impaired by amnesia?

Answer 21

No, performance on implicit learning tasks remain good and amnesics can drive

Question 22

What is forgetting?

Answer 22

Cases where the material is available in memory (encoded and stored) but for some reason cannot be retrieved

Question 23

What is the shape of the forgetting curve

Answer 23

Logarithmic -> very steep at the start, plateaus

Question 24

Retrieval Problems mechanisms

Answer 24

• Decrease in activation
• Suitable cues not used
• Interference from stronger memory traces

Question 25

Encoding Specificity Principle

Answer 25

The probability of successfully retrieving a memory is a function of the overlap between the information present at retrieval and the information stored in memory

Question 26

State Dependent Memory

Answer 26

Memory is better when there is a match between state at encoding and state at retrieval

Question 27

Interference

Answer 27

Our ability to remember is disrupted by what we learned earlier (proactive interference) and what we learn after (retroactive interference)

Question 28

Consolidation

Answer 28

Process that fixes long-term memory over time

Question 29

Reconsolidation

Answer 29

Initial Experience: A fearful experience while public speaking gets consolidated over time.
Memory Reactivation: Have to give another presentation and thinking about it reactivates the fear memory
Destabilisation: The reactivation makes the memory temporarily susceptible to change
Intervention: Manages to present very calmly
Reconsolidation: The modified memory with reduced fear gets re-stabilised in long term storage
Outcome: Fear of public speaking is reduced

Question 30

Hindsight Bias

Answer 30

Tendency to exaggerate how accurately they would have predicted some event in advance after they know what actually happened