Memory Retrieval; Semantic Memory and Language Comprehension

Question 1

What is a levels of processing theory? What are the 4 assumptions it makes?

Answer 1

Theory that the level the info was processed at will determine later memory for that info.
1. Memory = series of analyses, each deeper than the previous one
2. Deeper level = more durable memory
3. Rehearsal in only important to the extent it deepens the level of processing — Elaborative rehearsal (Type 2)
4. Control over processing in research — Incidental learning procedure (intent to learn is unimportant)

Question 2

What are the problems with levels of processing theory?

Answer 2

Circularity and focus only on encoding, not retrieval (omission)

Question 3

What is transfer appropriate processing?

Answer 3

Theory that emphasises the appropriateness of study for the test, not the level of depth -> focus on retrieval

Question 4

What is the relationship between distinctiveness and organisation in encoded items?

Answer 4

Distinctiveness is for item-specific processing, it makes the item different from the competing items
Organisation is for relational processing
Both are important because they represent different types of processing

Question 5

What does encoding specificity principle say? What theory of processing does it relate to?

Answer 5

It says that recollection is an interaction btw the properties of encoded event and retrieval info. Such interaction is called ecphory. Relates to transfer appropriate precessing, since retrieval info must be appropriate to the encoded info.

Question 6

What are context effects? Which principle does it relate to?

Answer 6

Performance gets worse when the context changes from study to test. Relates to encoding specificity principle.

Question 7

What is a way to avoid/eliminate context effects?

Answer 7

Mentally reinstate the context at study

Question 9

When are the context effects the strongest?

Answer 9

During recall and for conceptually-driven data

Question 10

What are state-dependent memory effects?

Answer 10

Similar to context effects. When a state of a person (mood, intoxication) changes from study to test, memory performance suffers

Question 11

What is “recognition failure of recallable words paradigm?

Answer 11

1. Study a list of weak associations (ball — spoon)
2. Generate as much associations to one word as possible (bench)
3. Asked if spoon was in the study list
4. Asked to recall the association for ball —
   Most ppl fail to recognise that spoon was in the study list (3.), but can easily recall it with a weak cue -> word is not always the best cue for itself

Question 12

What is “Brown-Peterson paradigm”?

Answer 12

1. 3 random letters
2. Count backwards
3. Asked to recall the letters
   As trials go on, ppl find it hard to recall the letters

Question 13

What are the 2 explanations of the effect found in Brown-Peterson paradigm?

Answer 13

1. Decay in STM -> not supported
2. Proactive interference -> retrieval effect

Question 14

How did they show that release from PI happens at retrieval not encoding?

Answer 14

There was a stimulus category change on trial 4 in Brown-Peterson paradigm. One group was informed about the change before the trial, while other group wasn’t. Both groups experienced release from PI -> even the group that wasn’t informed about the category change -> can’t be due to encoding

Question 15

What is part-set cuing effect?

Answer 15

Giving a few items at free-recall task, worsens the recall -> disrupts the natural retrieval strategy

Question 16

What id word-frequency effect?

Answer 16

Low frequency words are better recognised (opposite of recall)

Question 17

What is the dual-processes theory of recognition?

Answer 17

It states that retrieval is based on 2 independent processes:
1. Familiarity-based recognition — fast, automatic, perception of memory strength, “know”, perirhinal cortex
2. Recollection — slower, attention-demanding, contextual info about memory, “remember”, hippocampus

Question 18

What is the SAM model?

Answer 18

Search of associative memory — cue-dependent probabilistic search theory of retrieval -> operated within retrieval structure based on associative network

Question 19

What happens if short-term store in SAM?

Answer 19

Incoming info is assembled in buffer rehearsal system — words join until the buffer size is reached, each new word replaces the old one with probability 1/r
Probe cues that probe LTM are also assembled there
The info about recovered images in evaluated

Question 20

What type of info is stored in long-term store (SAM)?

Answer 20

Word-Context info — association, time a word spends in rehearsal buffer
Word-Word info —association, time both words spend in a buffer together

Question 21

What is the order of long-term retrieval in SAM?

Answer 21

1. Probe cues (probe set) are assembled in STS
2. LTS is probed
3. Image is sampled with sampling probability
4. Image is recovered with recovery probability
5. Info is evaluated and used

Question 22

What is a retrieval structure in SAM?

Answer 22

Matrix of strengths (context to word image; word to word image)

Question 23

What is the formula for sampling rule in SAM?

Answer 23

Ps (Wis|Ct) = [S(Ct; Wis)]/[sum S(Ct; Wis)]

Question 24

What is the formula for recovery rule in SAM?

Answer 24

Pr (Wi|Ct) = 1 - e^-S(Ct; Wis)

Question 25

What is incrementing in SAM?

Answer 25

Increase in strengths after successful recovery (adds parameter to strength)

Question 26

What is stopping rule in SAM?

Answer 26

When total attempts to recover fail (after reaching Kmax vaule)

Question 27

What is a stopping rule for word cues in SAM?

Answer 27

When a certain probe set fails to recover required image after reaching Lmax -> dropped from STS and context alone is used

Question 28

When does rechecking happen in SAM?

Answer 28

When Kmax is reached, subject uses each recalled word + context until Lmax to perform thorough search if smth was missed

Question 29

What is forgetting according to SAM?

Answer 29

Retrieval failure

Question 31

What causes forgetting in the Brown-Peterson paradigm? Is the locus of forgetting in encoding or retrieval?

Answer 31

Proactive interference due to retrieval effects

Question 32

Does deep processing always result in better memory performance than shallow processing?

Answer 32

Not always, processing needs to be appropriate for the test

Question 33

Explain the retrieval-induced forgetting paradigm.

Answer 33

1. Subjects study word lists -> cue-target associations 2. One association is practiced (strengthened by retrieval) 3. Other words associated with the same cue get inhibited (also with independent probes) It is cue-independent Finding similarities btw all expemplars increases RIF Finding similarities btw competitors and integrating category members decreases RIF Inteval btw retrieval and practice eliminates RIF

Question 34

Explain the think/no-think paradigm.

Answer 34

1. Subjects study list of words -> cue-target associations 2. Asked to recall some associations, while for others asked not to recall (not even enter awareness) 3. Final test -> “think” words remembered better than baseline; “no-think” words remebered worse than baseline (also with independent probes) Cue-independent

Question 35

According to the logic of Anderson and colleagues, the results obtained with independent probes cannot be accounted for by non-inhibitory theories. Explain.

Answer 35

If it wasn’t bc of inhibition, targets wouldn’t be recalled less with independent probes (no cross-category inhibitions), which is not the case! Item is weakened by retrieval of another item and stays inhibited for some time

Question 38

What other explanations of RIF exist (apart from inhibition)?

Answer 38

Interference (target item is trengthened -> overpowers other items) Links to competing items is damaged

Question 39

What is the total-control effect in “Think/No-Think” paradogm? What are the subcomponents?

Answer 39

Intention to control retrieval influences later memory Positive control — facilitation of “think” Negative control — inhibition of “no-think”

Question 40

What brain areas are more active during suppression in “Think/No-Think” paradogm?

Answer 40

Lateral PFC, ACC, preSMA, PMDr, IPS

Question 41

What brain areas are less active during suppression in “Think/No-Think” paradigm?

Answer 41

Hippocampus, forntal polar cortex, amygdala, posterior insula, left parietal cortex, cuneus

Question 42

What is the pattern of neural activations during encoding of forgotten and remembered items in “Think/No-Think” paradigm?

Answer 42

In “think” condition remembered items lead to more brain activation than forgotten items In no-think” condition forgotten items lead to more brain activation than remembered items

Question 43

What is a mental lexicon?

Answer 43

It contains orthographyc, semanic and phinological info about all known words -> mental dictionary

Question 44

What does it mean when a letter maps onto an abstract letter identity?

Answer 44

It means that the letter can be recognised independently from how it looks (surface representations) Letter analysis

Question 46

What is an interactive-activation model of visual word recognition? Structure, word representations and frequency, coding, lexical decision, priming?

Answer 46

This model posits that each word locally represents one unit in an interconnected network — **Orthographic Lexicon** It has 3 layers: features -> letters -> orthographic/word, and info can flow both ways (bottom-up and top-down). In each level, units **compete** and activated units inhibit weaker units. More frequent words have a higher resting activation -> recognised quicker. Letter order is coded through **slot-based coding** — every letter in every slot This model can explain the **word superiority effect** (and weakly pseudoword superiority effect) — letters are recognised faster within a word -> top-down influences And can explain the performance in lexical decision task — if a stimulus is present in the orthographic lexicon, it is a word IAM also explains the Neighbourhood size effect: High-N words are recognised faster than low-N words -> all get activated due to competition. High-N non-words are rejected slower than low-N non-words -> all Ns get activates and interfere with recognition In masked form priming, word-primes would inhibit the target -> meaning will interfere and prime the wrong thing. Non-word primes will facilitate the target -> look similar to the target (+ don’t have a meaning that could interfere)

Question 47

What is a distributed-connectionist model of visual word recognition?

Answer 47

This model postis that words are represented globally in the brain -> a unit for every feature. These units are interconnected in a network. There is no orthographic lexicon. Order of letters is coded through wickelcoding — triplets of letters This model can’t explain the performance in the lexical decision task But can explain word and pseudoword superiority effect.

Question 48

What is a search model of visual word recognition? Masked form priming?

Answer 48

It postits that to recognise a word, one searches through their mental lexicon in serial with more frequent words being accessed first. In masked-form priming, a prime that is visually or morphologically similar to the target would facilitate target recognition. While longer addition neighbours (not morphological) would inhibit it

Question 49

What is the dual-route cascaded (DRC) model of visual word recognition? What is the structure?

Answer 49

This model posits that semantics and phonology also affect word recognition (orthography). The structure of this model is similar to the interactive-activation model, but it has 2 additional pathways (3 in total): 1. Lexical pathway: print -> features -> letters -> words -> phonology -> phoneme -> speech 2. Second lexical pathway (for familiar words): print -> features -> letters -> words -> semantics -> phonology -> phonemes -> speech 3. Non-lexical pathway (for unknown words): print -> features -> letters -> rule-based translation -> phonemes -> speech Info flows through all 3 pathways, but semantic and phonological info is not necessary for visual word recognition

Question 50

Rastle (2007) discusses some of the most important empirical findings of the word recognition literature. What are these findings?

Answer 50

Abstract letter representations, word superiority effect, pseudoword superiority effect, masked form priming, neighbourhood effects, morpho-orthographic segmentation, phonological priming

Question 51

What is a property-verification task?

Answer 51

1. Pairs of words for property verification (from different modalities) 2. RTs measured Longer RTs when modality switches for the next word pair

Question 52

What did Pecher et al. (2003) do in their Experiment 1 and what did they find?

Answer 52

Property verification task with different SOAs (0 and 260ms) Found slower RTs for modality-switch trials, no effect of SOA SOA 260 ms faster in general

Question 53

What did Pecher et al. (2003) do in their Experiment 2 and what did they find?

Answer 53

Here they wanted to rule out the associative priming hypothesis (properties within the same modality are highly associated and, therfore, the first property primes the second, leading to faster RTs). To do so they made a comparison btw highly associated word pairs and not associated word pairs (modality-independent). If the associative priming hypothesis was true, highly associated (modality-independent) words whold lead to faster RTs. THIS WASN’T THE CASE! They still replicated the experiment 1 tho -> slower RTs are only due to modality switch, not weak associations

Question 54

What is a picture-sentence verification task?

Answer 54

1. Read a sentence with implied object orientation 2. See an object with a certain orientation (orientation match/mismatch to the sentence) 3. Decide if the object was mentioned in the sentence Faster RTs when orientation in the picture mathces the orientation in the sentence -> ppl mentally simulate written material

Question 55

What is special about van Zuijlen et al. (2024) study about color match effect that is different from all the previous studies in the topic?

Answer 55

They controlled for the correlation btw the presence of a color-match and the required response. In previous studies, if a participant realised that the color of an object in the picture matches the implied colour of an object in the sentence, that would mean that the object was mentioned in the sentence -> this could be a potential strategy participants develop, not automatic mental simulation. In this study, they added filler trials where the object in the picture WAS NOT mentioned in the sentence but the implied colour in the sentence and the colour of the object in the picture matched. Particitants were still correct in identifying that the object was NOT mentioned in the sentence -> rules out the possibility that subjects develop a strategy. Subjects were faster and made less errors on colour match trials (when the objects was actually mentioned in the sentence) meaning that colour simulations are automatic during language comprehension

Question 56

Van Zuijlen et al. (2024) studied sentence comprehension in non-native speakers. Do their results suggest that language understanding of native and non-native speakers are based on qualitatively different types of knowledge? Explain.

Answer 56

No, they said that lexical representations of native and non-native languages are connected to shared conceptual knowledge system. They demonstrated it by testing non-native english speakers on picture-sentence verification task and showing that the effect size for the colour match was as strong as in a native sample -> automatic color simulations are present in both groups

Question 57

What are the 3 types of information used to represent conceptual knowledge (Fernandino et al., 2022)?

Answer 57

Taxonomic — hierarchical interconnected categories: superordinate -> basic -> subordinate (amodal) Experiential — encodes experiences that lead to the formation of a certain concept (grounded cognition theories) Distributional — statistical patterns of co-occurrence btw concepts (semantics + context)

Question 58

What was the design of Fernandino et al. (2022) study?

Answer 58

1. Paricipants judged familiarity of words under fMRI 2. Whole-brain activations were mapped for each concept 3. Representational Dissimilarity Matrix (RDM) was made for each concept (fMRI data and model predictions) 4. Those neural activations (matrices) were compared to the activations (matrices) predicted by each model -> Representational Similarity Analysis (RSA) The more similar the model predictions to actual fMRI data, the better is the model at describing concept representations

Question 59

Which representational code is used by the brain according to Fernandino et al. (2022)? What was the conclusion?

Answer 59

Experienctial Information Exp48 mathed fMRI data the best (then SM8, then Categorical) Experiential info is very important for the formation of concepts in humans