PSY 305 Exam II Review
STM & LTM
1. STM
A. Capacity: about 7 (Miller, 1957)
B. Is it firm? → “No”: chunk (meaningful unit)
i.
Example: (512)(2001)(2000)(1999) → 15 digits but 4 chunks
C. What does proactive interference mean?
i.
Influence of the content of LTM on STM
ii.
The connection of STM and LTM
iii.
And it raises some careful thought about the “role” & “structure” of STM
D. Working memory
i.
ii.
Two components
1.
Phonological loop: auditory info
2.
Visuospatial sketchpad: visual info
What’s the evidence of the dissociation of the two components?
1.
For example, visual tasks interfere only with other visual tasks.
2. LTM
A. Capacity: Unlike STM, LTM has a virtually unlimited capacity
B. Serial position effects in recall (from LTM)
i.
Primary effect
ii.
Recency effect
C. Factors influencing encoding (i.e., variables operating when storing info into LTM)
i.
Level of processing: sentence level > rhyme level > case level
ii.
Encoding specificity: presentation of the context helps recall
iii.
Spacing effect: spaced practice better than massed practice
D. Encoding and retrieval (e.g., recall or recognition) interact
i.
People tend to remember the gist
E. The relationship between LTM and comprehension process: elaboration → an answer
to why we remember gist.
3. Forgetting (Decay & interference)
A. Decay?: may be not → Interference!
B. Types of interference
i.
Retroactive interference
ii.
Proactive interference
iii.
How can interference occur?: disruption of context
Memory systems (types of memory)
1. There are many types of memory
2. Semantic vs. Episodic memory
A. Semantic memory: memory for facts
i.
Structure: network
B. Episodic memory: memory for things
i.
Structure: organized chronologically by, e.g., belief
C. Dissociation of the two types of memory
i.
Influence of manipulation
ii.
More perceptual info in semantic memory
3. Procedural vs. declarative memory
A. Procedural memory: memory for skills
B. Declarative memory: memory for meaning
4. Explicit vs. implicit memory: presence of awareness or not
5. Retrograde vs. anterograde amnesias
A. Retrograde amnesia (e.g., Korsakoff’s syndrome)
i.
loss of information from before trauma
ii.
Mainly episodic memory deficits
B. Anterograde amnesia (e.g., HM)
i.
loss of ability to acquire new information
ii.
deficits both in semantic and episodic information
6. Important issues
A. Issue 1: Are the types of memory separate systems? – “Yes and no”
i.
“Yes”: distinction / dissociations as discussed
1.
ii.
procedural vs. declarative
“No”: interaction of systems / influence of one type on other type
1.
False memory: influence of semantic memory on episodic memory: e.g.,
“window” in class example
2.
iii.
the relationship between semantic and episodic memory
Then how is the implicit vs. explicit?
1.
they differ in relevant process (e.g., perceptual vs. conceptual tasks)
B. Issue 2: schema & script
i.
Schema: knowledge structure for things
ii.
Script: a specific type of schema
iii.
Then…so what?
1.
Through experience, we form schemas for understanding world.
2.
To aid comprehension, schema makes us fill/add/discard information
when retrieving information from memory
Overview of types of memory
Declarative
Declarativememory
memory
Episodic
memory
Semantic
memory
Explicit memory
Procedural
Proceduralmemory
memory
Implicit memory
 But there can be a declarative memory that is implicit
• Evidences: stem completion / becoming famous (see lecture notes)
Uses of memory
1. Eyewitness memory
A. Misinformation effect: stop sign example in the lecture note
i.
Influence of intervening events on episodic memory
B. Fallacy in source memory
2. Metacognition
A. Evidence of metacognition: TOT
B. Source memory is one kind of metacognition
C. 2 pieces of info used in source memory
i.
Visual image
ii.
Episodic memory
3. Flashbulb memory: extremely vivid perceptual details in memory of traumatic events
4. So what? Our memory is often quite fallible despite vividness and confidence
5. Spatial knowledge / representation / mental imagery: “Here, we are talking about how real
world is represented in our brain and it’s cognitive operation, e.g., memory.”
A. Represented world & representing world
i.
Represented world is brain states
ii.
representing world is theoretical structures: examples of theoretical structures
include mental images, mental models, rules, analogies, concepts, schemas
iii.
Relationship between the two
iv.
Types of representations?
v.
1.
Space (visual) -
2.
Sentence-like representation: Proposition
Type of representation determines what is easy and hard to do
B. Cognitive maps: manage knowledge of, and behavior in, space
i.
Small-scale space: representation of (mentally) navigable space
ii.
Large-scale space: hierarchical representation of locations
1.
Route maps
2.
Survey maps
C. Mental imagery
i.
Some info in memory is purely verbal whereas other memories involve
mental images
ii.
Evidences of existence of mental image
1.
Mental Rotation Experiment: people take longer to make their judgments
as the angular disparity between the two figures increased.
2.
Visual scanning (Kosslyn et al.): people take longer to mentally trip from
one point to another with distance between the two and imagined size of
the map.
D. So…what? / How are images represented? – analog vs. proposition debate
i.
Analog supporting evidences: mental rotation / visual scanning
ii.
Proposition supporting evidences:
iii.
Compromise: analog + proposition
6. Relevant issue: Are image processed with the same (brain) mechanisms as real image?: may
be “yes”
A. Behavioral evidence: people are more likely to identify a briefly (20 ms [it’s very
short time!]) presented letter when the letter was previously imaged than when it
was not.
B. Brain evidence
i.
Patients with lesions of visual cortex that lead to perceptual problems also
have problems with mental imagery.
ii.
Likewise, visual imagery leads to activation of visual cortex.