topic 6 (memory) lecture 1&2 (working memory)

Question 1

outline the two stores of memory proposed by William James

Answer 1

PRIMARY MEMORY (now thought of as working memory)

• information available to consciousness
• retrieval effortless

SECONDARY MEMORY

• long term memory, not cognitively available unless consciously activated
• retrieval effortful

Question 2

what did george miller say about working mirror?

Answer 2

• only around 7 (+/-2) items or numbers can be stored in primary memory/short term storage
• the term item is not nessercarily fixed as individual items can be chunked to make single big items e.g k210 918 12

Question 3

how do memory studies illustrate the primacy and regency effect

Answer 3

• participants are presented with long lists of words
• they are better able to remember words at the beggining (primacy effect) and end (regency effect) of lists
• the regency effect is stronger than the primary effect

Question 4

Outline the modal model of memory

Answer 4

Question 5

how does shallice and warringtons study support the modal model of memory?

Answer 5

patient with brain damage/memory loss

showed greatly reduced short term memory

showed intact long term memory

supports theory that short term memory and long term memory are different stores

Question 6

what was baddely and hitch’s study on memory?

Answer 6

People were asked to memorise a string of numbers/digits

they then were presented with a simple spatial reasoning task regarding the position of numbers

e. g 2,3, 2 is after 3, correct?
- they could perform the task accuratly regardless of how many digits, but the task took longer as more digits were increased
- this indicates that different stores of the brain are used when there is more items (if this wasnt the case, errors would increase but not process length)

Question 8

what does baddelys ORIGINAL model of working memory look like?

Answer 8

Question 9

what does the central executive do in baddelys model of working memory?

Answer 9

Governs use of stores, the manipulation of working memory, and the retrieval of information from long term memory

Question 10

what are two assumptions of the model of working memory?

Answer 10

if two tasks use same parts of the model they cannot be carried out well at the same time

if two tasks use different parts then they should be succesfully completed accuratly

Question 11

what are two parts of the phonological loop?

Answer 11

phological store

articulatory process

Question 12

what is robbins et al study on working memory model?

Answer 12

participants were chess players judged on the quality of their moves under different conditions:

CONTROL GROUP- asked to tap on table

CENTRAL EXECUTIVE LOAD - asked to generate random numbers

VISUO-SPATIAL LOAD - asked to tap in clockwise manner

PHONOLOGICAL LOOP LOAD - asked to repeat ‘seesaw’

RESULTS:

• the control group and the phonological suppression group scored equally well
• scores were significantly lower for the central executive load group and the visual spatial load group
• in terms of the central executive load group, the load of the task made it hard for it to direct the elements of the chess task to the appropriate memory stores
• in terms of the visal spatial task, both that and chess rely on the operations of the visual spatial group so it was difficult

Question 13

Outline the case study of patient PV

Answer 13

• dissociation between phonological and visual information after brain damage
• verbal working memory very bad - when presented verbally with digits she could repeat two items
• when the same stimuli was presented visually she had a normal span

this suggests phonological and visual information have different stores

Question 14

what is the phonological similarity effect?

Answer 14

• you ‘hear’ or ‘rehearse’ in an internal voice
• recall of characters is more difficult if the series has greater phonological similarity
• e.g pvcg compared xrfy
• this indicates that our internal voice plays a role in the operations of working memory

Question 15

outline Paulesu’s study on working memory using PET scans

Answer 15

• ppts asked to hold 6 items in memory
• depending on the trial items were either english letters or korean characters
• there was an activation of language specific areas such as Broca’s or Wernicke’s area for English letters but not in korean letters

FURTHER STUDY

• to distinguish which area was responsible for the reshearsal of items (articulatory loop) vs. what was responsible for the storage
• they added another task where participants had to decide whether a letter rhymed with another
• the area in the front of the brain was significantly more activated in the rhyming task, and therefore specialised in functions of the articulatory loop

Question 16

outline poste et al’s study on the visual spatial sketchpad

Answer 16

• ppts presented with a screen with a cross, and told to focus on the cross

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