Unit 1: Background & History, Short Term Memory

Question 1

What is the definition of memory as everything stated by Radvansky in the textbook?

Answer 1

memory is perhaps the most central aspect of human thought

any question about human behavior, cognition, development, and nature requires an understanding of memory

our memory makes us who we are, and it is one of the most intimate parts of ourselves… many feel that the study of human memory is the closest on can get to a systematic study of the human soul

Question 2

What is the definition of memory as everything stated by Gray?

Answer 2

we owe to memory almost all that we have or are; …our ideas and conceptions are its work, and… our everyday perceptions, thoughts, and movement is derived from this source

memory collects the countless phenomena of our existence into a single whole

every waking moment is full of memories; every thought, every learned response, every act of recognition is based on memory; it can be reasonably be argued that memory is the mind

Question 3

What are the dictionary definitions of memory?

Answer 3

the mental faculty of retaining and recalling past experience (both true and false, memory is not a video recording)

the act or an instance of remembering; recollection: spent the afternoon lost in memory

all that a person can remember: it hasn’t happened in my memory

something remembered: pleasant childhood memories

the fact being remembered; remembrance: dedicated to their parent’s memory

the period of time covered by the remembrance or recollection of a person or group of persons: within the memory of human kind

biology: persistent modification of behavior resulting from an animal’s experience

Question 4

What were memory definitions by psychologists?

Answer 4

first, memory is the location, where information is kept… a memory store

second, memory can refer to the thing that holds the content of experience… a memory trace

third, memory is the mental process used to acquire (learn), store, and retrieve (remember) information of all sorts

Question 5

What are the most basic points of memory definitions?

Answer 5

memory as “container”
memory as “contents”
memory as “process”

encoding: create contents (i.e., memory traces) from experience
storage: rehearse, organize/modify contents
retrieval: accesses content

contents reflect prior experience: there has to be mapping between what we experience and what we believe we experienced

Question 6

Why is memory research important in psychology?

Answer 6

clinical psychologists
PTSD
changes: development, aging, neuropsychology
contents: clinical, social, cultural

Question 7

Why is memory research important in outside of psychology?

Answer 7

forensic psychology, eye-witness testimony
politicians, historians
educators
health care workers
law, marketing, history, performing arts, survey methodology, medicine

Question 8

Who was Hermann Ebbinghaus (1850-1909)?

Answer 8

father of memory research

memory stripped of meaning

inventor of the nonsense syllable (DAX, FOZ, KIR)

discoverer of: learning curve, forgetting function

Question 9

Who was Fredrick Bartlett (1886-1969)?

Answer 9

impact of prior knowledge and meaning on memory: can seperate past from how we use it in the future

dynamic, function and knowledge are important

reconstruction: memory trace is obstruction from experience, imperfect

schemata: have generic knowledge that will allow them to fill in gaps

use schematic knowledge to reconstruct memories which may change them

Question 10

What is verbal learning?

Answer 10

emerged from behaviorism

focus: relationship between external variables and human memory performance, forgetting and theories of forgetting

approach: rigorously conducted, list learning (often paired associate) experiments

Question 11

What is information processing?

Answer 11

core metaphor: human mind as serial computer

to understand/describe computer behavior, specify: hardware, software, available data

Question 12

What is the cognitive architecture in information processing?

Answer 12

identify components and their general function

characterize components in terms of: capacity, speed, accuracy

Question 13

What are the components of a simple computer architecture?

Answer 13

input devices/registers

active memory and processing

inactive (but accessible) memory

Question 14

What are examples of cognitive task analysis in information processing?

Answer 14

what are the mental operations required to perform a task?

how are the operations sequenced?

what information is involved in task?

how is the information accessed?

how is it represented?

how is it altered during the processing?

Question 15

What are the four components of the modal model of memory?

Answer 15

sensory registers

short-term memory

long-term memory

control processes

Question 16

What is the function of sensory stores in the modal model of memory?

Answer 16

buffers sensory input for selection and identification

Question 17

What is the function of short-term memory in the modal model of memory?

Answer 17

temporal storage during processing

Question 18

What is the function of long-term memory in the modal model of memory?

Answer 18

store declarative and procedural knowledge

declarative: knowing that
procedural: knowing how

Question 19

What is the function of attention sensory stores in the modal model of memory?

Answer 19

selection and transfer from sensory stores

maintenance of information in STM: if we don’t attend it vanishes

selection and scheduling of tasks: switching from one task to another when performing multiple tasks

Question 20

Why are there multiple (long-term) memory systems?

Answer 20

long-term memory involves several sub-components

different memory systems for different types of information

Question 21

What is the declarative memory system?

Answer 21

explicit memory

semantic memory: “permanent”, decontextualized knowledge

episodic memory: “forgettable” event memories

Question 22

What is the nondeclarative memory system?

Answer 22

implicit memory

procedural memory: knowledge of knowing how to do things

classical conditioning: behaviorism, stimulus and response

priming: idea that encountering info at one point facilities ability to process info at another point

Question 23

What is the evidence of a STM and LTM distinction?

Answer 23

dual stores: STM & LTM

assumption: mall amount of info held briefly in STM, rehearsal enables and is required for transfer from STM to LTM

support: serial-position-curve phenomena

Question 24

What is free recall and the serial position curve?

Answer 24

free recall: uncued recall of studied items, order of output unconstrained

manipulate a variety of: encoding factors (e.g., presentation rate), storage factors (e.g., delay)

dependent variable: % recalled as a function of serial position

Question 25

What are the effects shown on a serial position curve?

Answer 25

primacy: good recall for 1st few items recency: good recall for last few items on list

Question 26

What is the modal account of the serial position curve?

Answer 26

recency effect produced by read-out from STM primacy & "pre-recency" reflect information retrieved from LTM "transfer" from STM to LTM caused by rehearsal implications: primacy & prerecency: increased with rehearsal recency: unaffected by rehearsal (last few items are sitting in STM bucket)

Question 27

What was the Rundus (1971) experiment on rehearsal and the serial position curve?

Answer 27

materials: 20-word list, presentation rate was 5s/word tasks: during study --> overt rehearsal, during test --> free recall analysis: number of rehearsals for each word (position), percent recall for each word (position) results: for a given amount of rehearsal, items from the initial serial positions are no better recalled than items from the middle of the list

Question 28

What is the modal account of the serial position curve?

Answer 28

recency effect produced by read-out from STM primacy & "pre-recency" reflect information retrieved from LTM "transfer" from STM to LTM caused by rehearsal implications: primacy and prerecency increase with rehearsal, recency unaffected by rehearsal

Question 29

What was the relation between filled delay and recall found by Glanzer & Cunitz (1966)?

Answer 29

manipulate retention interval assume filled delay replaces contents of STM results: primacy and prerecency unaffected by delay, recency decreased as delay increased

Question 30

What was the relation between study-time (rehearsal) and recall found by Glanzer & Cunitz (1966)?

Answer 30

manipulate study-time assume: study-time and rehearsal are related results: primacy and prerecency increased with study time, recency unaffected by rehearsal

Question 31

What was the Baddeley & Warrington (1970) experiment on amnesia and serial position?

Answer 31

H.M. - removal temporal lobe and hippocampus clobbered explicit memory yet on immediate test, recency intact dissociation on immediate test: recency HM = control, pre-recency HM << control

Question 32

What is dissociation?

Answer 32

evidence for dual store dissociation: when "a single variable has different affects on two or more measures" evidence for separate stores, processes, or representation many variables have dissociative effect on the prerecency & recency portion of serial position curve

Question 33

What is a digit span task?

Answer 33

materials: random digits, words, etc. task: serial recall span defined: list length that produces accurate performance on 50% of trials span test included in Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale: but not predictive of IQ

Question 34

What is capacity defined in terms of the digit span task?

Answer 34

number of digits accurately recalled 50% of the time

Question 35

What is the standard span in the digit span task?

Answer 35

7 +/- 2 digits

Question 36

What is the modal model interpretation of capacity in the digit span task?

Answer 36

STM capacity: ~7 chunks there are 7 slots 1 chunk per slot

Question 37

What is chunking?

Answer 37

the process of combining information so that it takes up as little as possible of the limited space in STM chunking increases span why not a limitless STM?: chunk chunked chunks? required: chunking scheme, time to apply scheme

Question 38

What was the Chase & Ericsson (1981) study on the measurement of strategy?

Answer 38

extensive practice: 1 session per day, many weeks recalled strategy after each trial

Question 39

What was the initial retrieval structure in the Chase & Ericsson (1981) study on the measurement of strategy?

Answer 39

3 digits --> 3 digits --> rehearsal

Question 40

What was the chunking shown in the Chase & Ericsson (1981) study on the measurement of strategy?

Answer 40

spontaneously generated mnemonic system running times important first mnemonic: "9 0 7" --> "9:07" --> "two-mile time"

Question 41

What is the hierarchical retrieval structure in the Chase & Ericsson (1981) study on the measurement of strategy?

Answer 41

initial retrieval structure was list of chunks "supergroups" were chunks made up of other chunks eventually developed deep hierarchy for retrieval

Question 42

What is the complex retrieval structure the Chase & Ericsson (1981) study on the measurement of strategy?

Answer 42

method of loci consider a route you know well and make visual association between location and what you're trying to remember sequences comes along for free

Question 43

How did SF use chunking to increase digit span capacity?

Answer 43

chunk (and elaborated) groups of digits into running times (or historical dates) devised in used "retrieval structure" to guide: parsing of list in to units, retrieval of items at test

Question 44

Are running times necessary to get the same digit span task capacity as SF?

Answer 44

only about 1/2 of SF's mnemonics are running times others can also improve using either SF's strategy or their own critical ingredient in SF's dramatic success seems to be motivation can't measure number of items people retain in STM because people use different strategies in digit span tests

Question 45

What is the Brown-Peterson Task?

Answer 45

initial attempt to measure duration of STM procedure: hear sub-span target set 3 letters, count backwards for Xs, recall target manipulation: length of retention interval assumption: counting task knocks out rehearsal, measure of the rate of forgetting

Question 46

What was the main finding of the Brown-Petersen task?

Answer 46

in the absence of rehearsal, sub-span material is forgotten very rapidly from STM initial interpretation: information rapidly decays from STM note: with 0-delay, only 80% accuracy

Question 47

What is the evidence for prospective interference in the Brown-Petersen task?

Answer 47

Keppel & Underwood (1962) competing predictions: decay prediction: does delay affect recall? NO interference prediction: performance decline across trials? YES conclusion: interference causes forgetting in STM

Question 48

What is the Sternberg task?

Answer 48

task: target set: short list of items probe: a single item target present --> "old" target absent --> "new"

Question 49

What are the three possibilities of STM retrieval?

Answer 49

parallel: simultaneous access to all items serial self-terminating: consider 1 item at a time, stop when target is a match serial exhaustive: consider 1 items at a time, check each item on list

Question 50

What was the study using the Sternberg task in selecting between retrieval models?

Answer 50

materials: memory set: N letters probe: target letter question: is probe in memory set? manipulations: set size: 1 to 6 letters probe type: positive (in memory set), negative (not it set)

Question 51

What were the results of the study using the Sternberg task in selecting between retrieval models?

Answer 51

RT increased with set size: serial negative = positive: exhaustive

Question 52

What are the problems with the serial exhaustive process?

Answer 52

40 ms/comparison seems awfully fast repetition effect: repeated probe item would get faster performance serial position effects: if the probe item is at beginning of set it's faster

Question 53

What is an alternative approach to Sternberg findings?

Answer 53

assumptions: memory set, the most active portion of LTM memory "searched" in parallel decision process: "Yes": probe-memory similarity > threshold "No": deadline -- similarity < threshold set size effects: encoding: activation/item decreased as set size increased retrieval: speed of assessment decreased as set size increased

Question 54

What are the characteristics of STM?

Answer 54

modal model accounts for serial position curve but not long-term recency effects capacity of STM is limited but also affected by chunking & expertise n the absence of rehearsal, information is forgotten rapidly, but not on the first trial serial exhaustive process may be used to scan STM or a parallel process may be used to assess the active contents of LTM simple "slot model" can't account for performance of classic STM task