Test 2 (My Study Guide) Flashcards
Short Term Memory Capacity
- Slide includes:
- Short term memory span
- George Miller
- Chunking
Short Term Memory Span
-The number of items that can be recalled in order after a brief delay; span delay task
George Miller
- 1956: Magic number 7 +- 2
- (actually 7 +- 2 chunks of material, not items)
Chunking (recoding)
- Grouping small units into a larger more meaningful unit that can be a single item
- EX: OMGDIYFAQLOL → 4 items, not 12
Chunking and Expertise
- Chase and Simon, 1973:
- Compare chess experts and novices
- Experts >- 10,000 hours
- Novices < 10,000 hours
- Show pictures of chess pieces on a board for 5 seconds
- Random positions (IV)
- Game positions (IV)
- Ask subject to recall positions
- Chess experts did way outperform beginners
What’s the duration of STM?
- 18 seconds
- Not necessarily 18 seconds and not due to decay
How do we forget STM info?
-Two theories: Decay vs. Interference
- Decay Hypothesis:
- Lack of use and increases with time
- Forgetting is permanent
- Proactive Interference Hypothesis:
- Competition with other memories
- Increases with more information and similarity
- Forgetting can be temporary
- Proactive interference is the primary cause of forgetting in STM
- BUT decay hypothesis could work with an appropriate neural mechanism
Brown-Peterson Paradigm
- Studied STM duration
- About 15-30 seconds
- Set of 3 letters to remember, then random 3-digit number and have to count down by 3s, then asked to recall what 3 letters were
- Looking at time it takes to forget info
- How much info retained at 3 seconds and all the way up to 18 seconds?
- Short-term memory looks like it lasts 18 seconds (due to decay)?
- But these data are averaged over many trials
- Not necessarily 18 seconds and definitely not decay – it’s because they’re getting confused on other letters
Two Theories of Forgetting
-Decay and Interference
Decay Hypothesis
- Lack of use and increases with time
- Forgetting is permanent
- Bad hypothesis because time doesn’t cause anything, it just exists
- But could work with an appropriate neural mechanism
Proactive Interference Hypothesis
- Competition with other memories
- Increases with more information and similarity
- Forgetting can be temporary
- Ex: of forgetting why you went into a room. You can remember if you go back to where you were
- Performance decreases with more trials because proactive interference
Proactive and Retroactive Interference
- Proactive:
- Old learning interferes with new learning
- Ex: old parking → new parking; going back to where you parked yesterday
- ”Active over present”
- Retroactive:
- New learning interferes with old learning
- Ex: 1st face ← 2nd face; remembering first guy’s name is hard because you met new guy
- ”active over rectro”
STM Characteristics
- What’s the duration of STM?
- Brown Peterson Paradigm → About 15-30 seconds
- Always old and new info
- Degree of PI depends on similarity (more similar, more interference)
- What’s the capacity of STM?
- Miller’s “magic number” → 7 +- 2
- What’s the mechanism of forgetting in STM?
- Decay vs. interference → proactive interference
Problems with STM concept
- Assumption that info goes through STM to get to LTM (Modal Model)
- Some patients with STM but not LTM deficits; not all long-term memory has to go through STM
- Little correlation of span to higher order cognitive processes
- Ex: counting cards; for reading
-The STM concept needs to be revised
Working Memory
-Baddeley’s Working Memory Model (new theory):
-Central Executive: attentional control; executive functions
-Visuospatial Sketchpad
-Visual Semantics ←>
-Episodic Buffer
- Episodic LTM
-Phonological Loop
- Language
→ STM
Central Executive
- Executive Functions:
- Inhibition: ability to inhibit dominant automatic response (ex: stroop task)
- better/higher executive functioning → good at stroop
- Task switching: ability to switch between tasks, operations, or mental sets
- Updating, monitoring information: monitoring, coping with changing circumstances
- Ex: bartenders; cooking
- Inhibition: ability to inhibit dominant automatic response (ex: stroop task)
Phonological Loop
- Phonological store
- Articulatory loop: ability to rehearse info to yourself; inner voice
- These are the two components
- Articulatory loop: ability to rehearse info to yourself; inner voice
- Realtime speech matters:
- Word length effect
- Cardiologist, situational vs. pen, sit
- Can remember better shorter words (like pen and sit)
- Phonological loop (“pen, sit, fat, cat” easier than “cardiologist, situational, etc.”)
- Need the AL to keep info active
- Articulatory suppression effect
- the, the, the, the, the…
- Difficult to say one thing out loud while trying to listen and remember other info
- Articulatory loop
- It’s just phonological
- Phonological similarity effect
- tdvg vs. tknw
Visuospatial Sketchpad
- Imagine your place growing up, mentally walk through it, and count the windows
- Generating image (LTM retrieval coordinated by CE)
- Hold the info in mind and manipulate it (CE and VS)
- Count and manipulate (CE and VS)
- Used for generating visual imagery and maintaining it
- Ex: of looking at picture of trash cans and redrawing it
- Tied to real-world attributes of objects
- Influenced by knowledge and expectations (top-down processing)
- *RTs are related to the degree of rotation
Two Ways to Measure WM
- Dual task method
- Working memory span
Dual Task
- Do 2 tasks at the same time, 1 is primary (main task) and 1 is secondary additional task)
- Interference between tasks?
- If they can be done at the same time without interfering with each other, they use different mental resources
- If they interfere with each other, they share mental resources
- Reasoning Task (Primary):
- Active: A precedes B
- Passive: B is preceded by A
- Negative Active: B does not precede A
- Negative Passive: A is not preceded by B
- Secondary Task:
- Control Condition: silent
- Articulatory Suppression: the the the the
- Repeated Numbers: 123456, 123456…
- Random Numbers: 41739329046…
Executive Function and the Individual Differences Approach
- Working memory capacity (WMC) is related to higher order cognitive functions (e.g., SAT)
- Need to measure WMC differences between people
- High WMC
- Low WMC
Simple Span Task
-Measures short term stores – visuospatial, phonological
Complex Span Tasks
- Measures whole system – short term stores + processing
- Measures WMC
WM Capacity
-Complex learning
- Reasoning
- SAT scores
- Note taking
- Vocabulary learning
- Following directions
- Reading comprehension
- Bridge playing
- Dichotic listening
- Selective attention
- Pilot performance
- Stroop interference