7.1 memory as a data storage facility

Question 1

time plays an important role in memory

Answer 1

remembering something from a few seconds ago is different then remembering something from a year ago

Question 2

memory has many tasks to do and consists of many different systems

Answer 2

each system serving some category of memory function

Question 3

The cognitive revolution

Answer 3

the study of internal mental processes became an acceptable target for research

Question 4

The atkinson-shiffrin (or multi-store) model of memory

Answer 4

atkinson and shiffrin said it was most sensible to think about memory as consisting of different stores that keep a record of info on our life events, according to how long ago the life events occurred.
stores are called:sensory memory, short-term memory, long-term memory
they also proposed ways by which we shift information between these memories stores and called those processes control processes

Question 5

sensory memory

Answer 5

• processes of memory start to kick in
• maintains a brief record of all of the sensory information that enters through our eyes, ears, noses, tongues and skin
• if info doesn’t proceed beyond this sensory memory store it is quickly forgotten
• attention helps select a portion of the sensory memory for further processing

Question 6

short term memory

Answer 6

once we have info in our short term memory we can think about it in more sophisticated ways and try to use the info to plan our responses to the world

• the contents of stm are the info that is in our short term memory is on our minds from one moment to the next
• that info will constist of our processing of stimuli out there in the world as well as thoughts that generate aspects of the world that are not physically present
• ex. selft generated thoughts
• some info is encoded into long-term memory
• stm also retrieves info

Question 7

memory does

Answer 7

many different things for us

Question 8

long-term memory

Answer 8

from short term memory some info is encoded into long-term memory, unlimited, but not always accessible, later some info can be retrieved back to short term memory

Question 9

the sensory memory store

Answer 9

iconic memory

echoic memory

Question 10

iconic memory

Answer 10

visual sensory store

duration is no more than 1 second

Question 11

echoic memory

Answer 11

auditory sensory store

duration is no more than 5 seconds

Question 12

experiment for sensory memory store

Answer 12

1. the grid of letters flashes on the screen
2. sand then the participant recites as many letters as they can
   whole report condition
   partial report condition

Question 13

whole report condition

Answer 13

participants were flashed 12 letters very briefly and had them report back as many as they could think of after the letters disappeared
participants were required to report back as many of the 12 letters as they could
-ppl can only report back about 3-4 letters out of 12, but it could be that sensory memory for the other letters disappears, during the time it takes to report the first few letters

Question 14

partial report condition

Answer 14

1.grid of 12 letters flashes on the screen
2.immediately after the letters disappear the participants heard either a high medium or low tone, the tone determined which line of letters they were required to to report
3. then the participant recites as many letters as she can recall
(this happens multiple times, each time with a different tone at random)
ppl can report back about 3-4 letters out of 4
sensory memory doesnt hold info for very long but it does hold a lot of info

Question 15

attention

Answer 15

is the control process we use to hold onto info in sensory memory before it vanishes from our minds forever

Question 16

change blindness

Answer 16

participants view two pictures that are identical except for one feature, the pics alternate for about 240 milliseconds each separated by a blank screen for 80 milliseconds
participants are given the task to identify what differs b/w the two pics
-it can be easier when the images are presented simultaneously, but still somewhat challenging
-it is difficult to find the difference if they are not staring and devoting their attention to the correct spot, the idea is that ppl will miss the feature that differs if they fail to attend to the correct part of the image and transfer that info into short term memory so that it is possible to compare it with their perception of the other pic when it appears w/o attention the representation for the first image vanishes from sensory memory and ppl lose the ability to notice that the feature differs b/w the two images

Question 17

info in short term memory will vanish in

Answer 17

one minute if the person stops actively thinking about it
the amount of info that can be stored is also very limited
limit of 7 + or - two, is constraining but it is possible to overcome the limitation

Question 18

short term memory store

Answer 18

chunking
7 + or - 2 items, lasts 30 seconds
some info is encoded into long term memory

Question 19

chunking

Answer 19

GIENRKLPWYTQACX
(not easy to chunk into larger groupings)
vs.
TLCUSACBSGMOFBI
TLC-USA-CBS-GMO-FBI

Question 20

short term memory and chess

Answer 20

-ppl who are not skilled at chess will have trouble taking all the info on a chess board, they will treat each piece as a single item and quickly exceed their short term capacity, that will make novice chess players very vulnerable to getting beaten by more skilled players
-expert players can recognize all the pieces on the board into a single chunk of info
players were shown an arrangement of pieces on a board and expert players remembered where the pieces were much better, this comes from experts being able to mental chunk the pieces on the board into a single unit. however if the pieces where arranged in a way that is not possible during a game then the experts were no better than the novice players

Question 21

longterm memory

Answer 21

holds for unlimited amount of time but not easily accessible

concepts in long term memory are thought to be organized according to their similarity in meaning

Question 22

the serial position effect

Answer 22

list of 15 words the write down as many words as you can remember , you will tend to remember the first and last few words , but less likely to remember the middle words
-serial means the words are presented one at a time
and this outcome is what normally happens
-remembering the first few items presented is- primacy effect
-remembering the last few times is - recency effect

Question 23

serial position is :

Answer 23

good example of atkinson shiffron model
primacy effect: since the first few words were shown, successful encoding into long term memory, since those were the first ones to appear ppl have more time to achieve encoding for those words
recency effect reflects the items that remain in the short term store

Question 24

proactive interference

Answer 24

after hearing the first four words on the list, proactive interference made it difficult to remember additional info

Question 25

retroactive interference

Answer 25

after hearing the last three words, retroactive interference made it difficult to remember the preceding words

Question 26

short term memory = working memory

Answer 26

keeping info in mind as long as we need it to accomplish our goals

Question 27

working memory and rehearsal

Answer 27

people hold info in mind by a process they call rehearsal
act of repeating info over and over again so that the info does not disappear from working memory before we are done with it

Question 28

working memory has different tasks/ stores

Answer 28

phonological loop
episodic buffer
visuospatial sketchpad
central executive

Question 29

phonological loop

Answer 29

keeping sound based info active with rehearsal

the word length effect

Question 30

the word length effect

Answer 30

cat, war,pay, ape, and zoo
vs.
restaurant, granary, plantation, waterfall, and January
(if a list takes longer than about 2 secs to repeat in your mind, you will quickly lose memory for one or more of the words

Question 31

visuospatial sketchpad

Answer 31

representing visual info and where objects are in space

feature binding

Question 32

feature binding

Answer 32

thanks to feature binding, the V-S sketchpad seems to represent whole objects rather than a collection of individual features
(eg. shape. texture and colour)
we can hold about 4 whole objects in our V-S sketchpads

Question 33

episodic buffer

Answer 33

is for representing combined auditory, visuospatial info and knowledge from long term memory store
-understanding context, blending info

Question 34

central executive

Answer 34

coordinating the functions of the three storage systems and directing attention to sensory inputs