Theme 6: Implicit memory and skill learning

Question 1

declarative memory

Answer 1

memory than can be described in words

Question 2

non-declarative memory

Answer 2

memory that is hard to describe in words

Question 3

what comes first cogn. skills or perceptual motor skills?

Answer 3

in general, the development of perceptual motor skills precede the development of cognitive skills

Question 4

power law or practice

Answer 4

learning is quick at first, then slow

Question 5

massed practice vs spaced practice

Answer 5

concentrated continuous practice vs practice spread out over long term

Question 6

constant vs variabel practice

Answer 6

practice with a limited set of materials or skills vs a more varied set of materials and skills

Question 7

serial reaction time tasks

Answer 7

pressing a key as soon as a visual cue indicates which one to press

Question 8

Fitts’ three stages to skill learning:

Answer 8

1) cognitive stage = active thinking to encode the skill
2) associative stage = use of stereotyped actions to perform the skill
3) autonomous stage = less dependent on memories and movements have become automatised

Question 9

rotary pursuit task

Answer 9

having to keep the end of a pointed stick above a target drawn on a rotating disk (usually used to measure perceptual motor learning)

Question 10

genetic influence on skills

Answer 10

the more practice people have, the more their performance differences are due to genetic differences

Question 11

transfer specificity

Answer 11

restricted applicability of some learned skills to specific situations

Question 12

identical elements theory (Thorndyke)

Answer 12

transfer of learned abilities to novel situations depends on the number of elements int he new situation that are identical to the learning situation

Question 13

learning set formation

Answer 13

acquiring the ability to learn novel tasks rapidly based on frequent experiences with similar task

Question 14

brain substrates for learning:

Answer 14

basal ganglia, cerebral cortex and cerebellum: cortical areas –> basal ganglia –> thalamus –> brain stem

Question 15

function basal ganglia

Answer 15

-important for perceptual motor skill

Question 16

explanation for rat and platform experiment:

Answer 16

rats with basal ganglia damage have difficulty learning to swim toward a platform and instead learn to swim to a particular location to escape the water (saving = that location, not the platform)

Question 17

mirror tracing task

Answer 17

using a mirror to trace figure –> cerebellum damage leads to decreased performance because no learning

Question 18

most effective treatment for parkinson

Answer 18

-deep brain stimulation to change disruptive patterns in activity

Question 19

savings method of measuring retention

Answer 19

the amount of time needed to learn material perfectly –> savings is measuring how this improves in fewer number of trials or less time taken

Question 20

roediger et al: tasks they added to complete the square

Answer 20

-graphemic cued recall task = visual similarity, no semantic relation thus episodic & data driven
- general knowledge = GK questions thus conceptual and implicit

Question 21

roediger et al: goal + results

Answer 21

GOAL: are dissociations found between systems account or modes of processing

RESULTS: dissociations found supported transfer appropriate processing

Question 22

Distinct memory systems account

Answer 22

distinction between declarative and procedural knowledge

Question 23

transfer appropriate processing approach

Answer 23

distinction between conceptually driven implicit test and data driven episodic memory

Question 24

generation effect

Answer 24

information is better recalled when it was generated by themselves rather than read

Question 25

Gabrieli et al: goal and experiment 1

Answer 25

-goal: examining perceptual implicit memory, conceptual implicit memory, and explicit memory in patient MS -hypothesis: MS would have impaired visual implicit memory for words and would show reduced priming on perceptual identification task -method: perceptual identification task and recognition task -MS showed impaired implicit memory for words as in reduced priming -double dissociation between explicit memory for words (impaired in amnesiacs) and implicit memory for words (impaired in MS)

Question 26

Gabrieli experiment 2:

Answer 26

-Hypothesis: MS would show reduced priming in word stem completion in visual words, but intact word stem completion on auditory words -results: reduced priming after visual words, intact priming on auditory words in MS

Question 27

Gabrieli experiment 3:

Answer 27

-hypothesis: MS intact conceptual implicit memory for words thus priming -method: category generation task with semantic and nonsemantic/visual judgments. -results: MS had normal results

Question 28

Gabrieli: general results

Answer 28

Pattern of performance in MS: intact explicit memory and contextual implicit memory, but impaired visual implicit memory