lecture 13 - memory and the senses Flashcards
(19 cards)
the ‘modal’ model of memory - atinkson and shiffrin 1968
modal = what everyone was thinking at the time
environmental input –> sensory registers –> STS (short term store) –> long term store (LTS)
STM does more work than simple model acknowledged
modal model proposes visual and auditory sensory registers
others propose visual-spatial and phonological short-term stores
- baddley and hitch 1974
visa-spatial sketchpad = visual spatial info
central executive - controller
phonological loop - verbal and auditory info
different parts of STM
Are there specialized sound-based and vision- based memory systems?
Is there no direct communication between sensory memory and long-term knowledge?
info in sensory register doesnt get activated in LTM it has to go through STM - not everything that is activated in the sensory memory register will ping into that we have in LTM thats related to it - is this a reasonable assumption to have
immediate serial recall
Serial because you aimed to recall the
words in order
As opposed to free recall, in which order does
not count
Immediate because there was no time
between the presentation of the last
word and the opportunity to recall
As opposed to delayed recall, where there is a
gap between presentation and recall - also may have them do other things to keep their mind off the info they’re trying to remember in order to see what activities interfere with their memory etc
Immediate
serial recall is a
rich task
LOT OF MEMORY THEORY IS BASED ON
THE OUTCOMES OF TASKS LIKE THIS
CAN MANIPULATE WORD CHOICE,
PRESENTATION SPEED, DELAY INTERVAL,
ETC. TO TEST VARIOUS HYPOTHESES
What sort of hypotheses?
- What format is information maintained in?
- Could be abstract: unconnected to how it was perceived - may not remember what the words look like but what they sound like if you pronounced them or what they mean
- Could be sensory: preserves the characteristics of the perceived
information, as it was encountered from the environment - What could be manipulated to test that?
- Do the to-be-remembered words sound alike?
- Do they look alike? - do the letters have similar properties or have meanings that look alike
- Do they take a long time to pronounce?
- Many more possibilities!
The serial position curve
- Primacy effect
- The first item(s) in the list
are likely to be recalled - items in middle of list recalled worst
- Recency effect
- The last item(s) in the list
are likely to be recalled - Believed to reflect different
systems/processes - But cannot reflect short, versus
long-term memory because
recency can also be observed
across long durations (serial
memory for rugby matches;
Baddeley & Hitch, 1977) - asked rugby players to recall who they played and where in matches and even after some time passed could recall details from last match better than matches from mid season
look at graph in notes
Phonological similarity impairs short-term recall
Phonological similarity effect: Immediate
serial recall of verbal material is reduced
when the words share similar sounds - happens if you see the words visually or presented to you orally
* No similar cost for recalling words that
have similar meanings (e.g., big, great,
etc.)
* Interpretation: words are stored in
a format that preserves this
phonological content
Recently-heard sounds retain auditory qualities - can drive the recency effect
PS2020 Language and Memory
Crowder, 1972
Suffix
* An irrelevant sound that is not
part of the memory set
presented after the list ends - contents of suffix affects the strength of the recency effect you will observe
* E.g., another word, a beep
* An example of similarity-based
interference
* Demonstrates that memories briefly
retain sensory characteristics
buzzer or word in-between list of 9 words and having to recall the words
speech suffix has effect as has acoustic simialrities to words being recalled so is interfering with memory
Echoic memory
- Auditory sensory memory
- Brief representation for aurally-
perceived sounds - Preserves auditory characteristics (e.g.,
pitch, timbre) - Persists for several seconds
- May be “pre-categorical” meaning that
it holds information in an auditory-
perceptual form, not an abstract,
conceptual one
is echoic memory disconnected from long-term knowledge?
What people think the sounds are also matters
PS2020 Language and Memory
Neath et al., 1993 - gave people a list of 9 things to remember
- The ninth item was an irrelevant
animal sound after a list of letters - some ptps are told the sound is made by a human and some are told the sound is made by an animal - When participants believe the “Baa”
sound is made by a human, hearing
“Baa” at the end of the list kills the
recency effect!
challenges the idea that its purely the physical characteristics of the sound of the suffix interfering with the last speech sound your trying to remember
suggest that how people are interpreting that sound or more conceptual elements of that are coming into play pretty early
Echoic memory
- Auditory sensory memory
- Brief representation for aurally-
perceived sounds - Preserves auditory characteristics (e.g.,
pitch, timbre) - Persists for several seconds
- Was believed to be “pre-categorical”,
but actually it seems that context
influences how a sound is perceived
echoic memory is influenced by activated contexts
could be its going really fast the activation of auditory info in sensory register to STM and LTM so those concepts are activated or
there is actually a more direct connection between the sensory register and LTM to account for how quickly your able to perceive things differently if the context changes - there is at least some influence from STS keeping track of contextual info
is echoic memory the only possibility for storing auditory characteristics?
Verbal
information is
maintained
with some
sound-like
qualities
- When you hear something, you briefly
retain an “echo” of it - Even when you read verbal information,
there is something like an echo internally - why even when you are visually presented words to remember we see a phonological similarity effect - The verbal information is represented
with some sound-like quality
Relations between auditory perception and
short-term memory
Irrelevant sound effect - bell et al 2019
- A tendency for verbal short-term memory to
be disrupted by concurrent fluctuating
sounds, both in speech and music - Particularly strong for fluctuating sounds
(Jones and Macken, 1993) - Steady-state = Irrelevant sound is consistent
(e.g., same tone or word repeated) - Auditory deviant = One different sound
embedded within a consistent set - Changing-state = Fluctuating sound pattern (e.g.,
sequence of multiple words/tones)
study investigated how irrelevant sound influence memory for visually presented info
conditions
steady state - same non-speech sound for whole list
auditory deviant - most of the word read in silence and very now and then a beep would happen - has a small impact
changing state - always hear a sound but its different after each number - may change in pitch or loudness
graph
What we
know about
how sounds
are preserved
- Rich detail of sound quality is
briefly retained in sensory form. - Estimates for how long this is
available? Probably ~10 seconds - Even sensory memories are
influenced by long-term knowledge
and by your current context/goals - Maybe there are multiple? - maybe theres a sensory and verbal STM store also presenting or reconstructing the phonological details
Contrast Echoic
memory / Phonological short-term store
Echoic memory
* Access: Automatic for heard sounds
* Duration: Estimates range from 1 second to 10 seconds
* Capacity: 2+ seconds-worth of aural information (including pitch, timbre)
* Relations: Proposed to pass some contents on to short- term memory; other contents decay
Phonological short-term store
* Access: Automatic for heard
words, but read content also
* Duration: Brief (some seconds)
unless rehearsed via articulation
(overt or inner)
* Capacity: 2-3 seconds worth of
phonological content
* How do we know? Word
length effect
* Relations: Proposed to work in
conjunction with rehearsal
processes to prevent decay
* Can preserve information
indefinitely with rehearsal
