STM and Working Memory Flashcards
(10 cards)
What is STM?
A temporary store in which we integrate current sensory experience with long-term memory to achieve current goals. Limited capacity and duration of 15-30 seconds.
Discuss the digit-span task
A demonstrator would read out a series of numbers and participant would say them back. Then read out a new series that was one number longer. Would fail when could not recall.
Determined that the capacity of STM was 7 +/- 2 items.
Discuss the Brown-Peterson duration of STM task.
Asked to recall 3 consonants 3 seconds after being given them. Had to read out a sequence of numbers during the 3 seconds to avoid rehearsal. After 3 seconds- only 50% retention.
Did this happen due to decay or interference from previous trials??
What are the serial position effects?
Primacy effect- items at the start of a list are remembered due to extra rehearsal.
Recency effect- items at the end of a list are remembered as they are still in STM and do not need to be retrieved.
Discuss Craik & Tulving’s (1975) Levels of Processing Study
Looked at levels of processing
Read out a list of words and they were asked to identify a capital letter or not (shallow), come up with a word that rhymes (moderate), or use the word in a sentence (deep). Then given a list of 180 words and had to identify the ones that were in the first list.
Better at identifying the ones that were encoded deeper.
Who came up with the Working Memory Model?
Alan Badelley
What does the phonological loop do?
It is a mental workspace for manipulating auditory info. Important for language development and verbal reasoning
What does the visuo-spatial sketchpad do?
Temporary store for visual and spatial info like faces, written words, and cognitive maps. Enables mental manipulation of visually and spatially represented information.
What is the episodic buffer?
A temporary holding place for info that has not yet made it to the LTM.
What is the Central Executive?
Integrates both visual and verbal info. In charge of our attention. Needed for switching between tasks, updating memory, problem solving, and control of social behaviour.
