Long term memory part 2 Flashcards
Implicit Memory: Priming
Change in stimulus processing due to prior exposure to same or
related stimulus without conscious awareness
Perceptual
Priming: Warrington and Weiskrantz (1968)
Korsakoff’s syndrome patients
- Amnesia due to severe alcoholism
- Task:
- Show fragmented pictures (Gollin
figures) - Identify object in as few frames as
possible
Participants improved day to day, despite
not…
remembering the previous day’s
training
* Fewer frames needed to identify object
Semantic priming
A process where exposure to one word (prime) speeds up the response to a related word.
Lexical decision: word or non-word?
Determine whether a string of letters is a valid word or a non-word.
Example: Deciding if “apple” is a word or “plapple” is not.
Significance: Measures the speed and accuracy of word recognition, providing insight into lexical processing in the brain.
Semantic priming( Will Ps)
Will Ps be faster at identifying a
word if primed with a related word vs an unrelated word?…
YES!
* Prime words activate other related words in your mind
Neural basis of Priming
Perceptual priming:
* Sensory cortices (e.g. occipital lobe for vision)
- Conceptual/semantic priming:
- Unimodal & multimodal association cortices (e.g. anterior temporal, inferior parietal, prefrontal cortex)
Explicit Memory: Semantic Memory
Memory for facts, concepts, and general knowledge, independent of personal experience.
Sensory/Functional Theory:
Proposes that we store concepts based on their sensory properties (e.g., visual or auditory) or their functional use (e.g., how something is used)
Domain-Specific Theory:
Proposes that the brain has specialized systems for processing different types of knowledge, such as concepts related to living things, tools, or social information.
How Are Meanings Organized in the Brain?
Meaning is partly categorical (tools vs.
animals)
- Meaning also depends on shared sensory
and functional features (action-related vs.
perceptual)
How are new
semantic
memories
formed?
We often start with episodic memories and over
time (after many activations and retrievals), they
convert into semantic memories
Encoding of episodic memory.
Sensory input is processed with attention, deep processing, and emotional context, primarily by the hippocampus, and then consolidated into long-term memory.
Retrieval of episodic memory
Episodic memory is retrieved by reactivating the hippocampus and associated cortical areas, based on cues like context, emotions, and sensory details.
Parahippocampal cortex
encoding
spatial layout and visuospatial memory
Perirhinal cortex
object recognition/
familiarity
* Binds features of objects
Entorhinal cortex
integrative function
for input/ output to hippocampus.
Hippocampus
formation and
consolidation of memory + spatial navigation
Fornix
pathway from hippocampus to other cortical/ subcortical structures
Medial temporal lobes & H.M
Bilateral resection of
hippocampus, entorhinal
cortex and parahippocampal cortex
Amnesia
Severe anterograde amnesia
* Unable to form new LTMs after surgery
- Temporally-graded retrograde
amnesia - Unable to recall existing LTMs from
just before the surgery
Cognitive map theory
The medial temporal lobes, especially the hippocampus, help create mental maps of spatial environments.
Place Cells
Neurons in the hippocampus that become active when an individual is in a specific location in their environment.
Relational memory theory
The medial temporal lobes, particularly the hippocampus, are crucial for forming and retrieving memories that involve relationships between different pieces of information (e.g., people, places, events).
