Cognitive Psychology: Memory Midterm

Psychology Midterm - Cognitive Psychology

• Course taught by Ms. Carmina M. Golino, RPm, MA Psy.
• The midterm will cover topics related to cognitive psychology.

Learning Outcomes

• The midterm will check your ability to differentiate different types of memory and provide examples.
• It will check your ability to explain the role memory plays in daily life experiences.
• It will check your knowledge of ways to measure short-term memory capacity and examples.
• It will test you on your ability to describe three phenomena that support the idea of a system specialized for language.
• The midterm aims to check your ability to replicate experiments used to study memory in the early 20th century.

Memory Test example questions include

• What is your earliest childhood memory?
• What is the phone number of your father or mother?
• Can you repeat back the following list of words: book, coffee, flower, car, music?

What is Memory?

• Memory is the capacity that connects experiences, facilitates learning, and allows to make sense of lives.
• Is the faculty of the mind by which information is encoded, stored, and retrieved.
• Memory is vital to experiences and related to limbic systems.
• Memory is the retention of information over time for influencing future actions.
• Without memory, learning, language development, relationships, and personal identity would be impossible.
• Memory is the brain's ability to recall past experiences or information.
• It is the system by which information is encoded, stored, and retrieved.
• Memory enables utilization of past experiences in the present.
• As a process, memory involves the dynamic mechanisms of storing, retaining, and retrieving information about past experiences.

Stages of Memory

• Memory has three stages: encoding, storage, and retrieval.

Encoding (or Registration)

• This is the initial process of receiving, processing, and combining information.
• Encoding allows external sensory stimuli to reach the senses in chemical and physical forms.
• The information is altered or transformed so that the memory can be encoded.
• In encoding, sensory data is transformed into a form of mental representation.

Storage

• This is the creation of a permanent record of the encoded information.
• Storage maintains information over a period of time.
• In storage, encoded information is retained in memory.

Retrieval (or Recall, or Recognition)

• This is the calling back of stored information in response to some cue for use in a process or activity.
• The third process is the retrieval of stored information from consciousness.
• Retrieval can sometimes be effortless, based on the information type.
• In retrieval, stored information is extracted from memory or you use stored information.

Different Types of Memory

Sensory Memory

• This is the shortest form of memory - very fleeting or like a flash.
• Sensory memory acts as a buffer for stimuli received through the five senses.
• Images in sensory memory are accurately retained, but only for a brief moment, typically less than half a second.
• Sensory memory uses senses and stores flashes of information through images, smells, or sounds.

Iconic Memory

• This pertains to immediate visual memories.
• Iconic memory is very fleeting - how the brain remembers an image just seen such as something flashed on a computer screen for less than a second.
• Brains briefly "remember" what they saw, even after the image disappears.
• After 0.5 seconds, anything still "remembered" is transferred to short-term memory.

Echoic Memory

• This is auditory sensory memory and pertains to audio memories.
• Overall, echoic memories are stored slightly longer than iconic memories - about four seconds.
• If hearing melody notes, it may be possible to hum it back immediately after finishing.
• If asked for the melody again a few minutes later, it may be forgotten unless it was transferred to short-term memory.

Haptic Memory

• This refers to memories involving the sense of touch.
• Like iconic and echoic memory, haptic memory is fleeting.
• When hands run over a rough surface, one remembers the exact sensation for a few seconds - the memory needs to be encoded into short-term memory for later recall.

Olfactory Sensory Memory

• A sensory memory storage system for smell.

Gustatory Sensory Memory

• A sensory memory storage system involved in storage of information related to taste.

Short-Term Memory

• Short-term memory known as primary or active memory.
• Short-term memory is information currently aware of or thinking about.
• Information in short-term memory results from paying attention to sensory memories.
• It is a memory mechanism retaining information over a short period.
• Short-term memory temporarily retains processed information and either fades quickly or becomes long-term memory.
• It has two main properties: limited capacity and finite duration.

Ability of Short-Term Memory

• On being asked to remember a sequence of 10 digits, one will likely be able to recall between 5 and 9 numbers.
• Short-term memory can retain about 7 elements, with a variation of 2, either more or less.
• Short-term memory is slightly variable, so some people can remember more or less elements.

Duration of Short Term Memory

• The amount of time one can remember a sequence of digits is finite.
• Short-term memory can retain information for up to 20 - 30 seconds.
• This time is increased by repeating the sequence or giving the elements meaning.
• It would be very difficult, or even impossible, to understand long sentences and follow conversations if short-term memory is damaged.

Recall vs. Recognition Tasks

• In recall, one produces a fact, a word, or other item from memory.
• Fill-in-the-blank and most essay tests require recall items from memory.
• In recognition, one selects or identifies an item as one learned previously.
• Multiple-choice and true-false tests typically involve recognition.

Main Types of Recall Tasks

• Serial recall involves recalling items in the exact order in which they were presented.
• Free recall involves recalling items in any order you choose.
• Cued recall involves being shown items in pairs and then being cued with one member of each pair to recall the other, known as "paired-associates recall".

Measuring memory

• Psychologists can also measure the number of trials "relearning" takes to learn items that were learned some time in the past.
• Relearning is also referred to as savings and can be observed in adults, children, and animals.

Types of Tasks Used for Measuring Memory

• Explicit-memory tasks require conscious recall of particular information such as asking "Who wrote Hamlet?".
• Declarative-knowledge tasks require recalling facts such as asking "What is your first name?".
• Recall tasks require producing a fact, a word, or another item from memory as is required in fill-in-the-blank tests.
• Serial-recall tasks require repeating items in a list in the exact order in which one heard or read them.
• Free-recall tasks require repeating items in a list in any order you can recall them.
• Implicit-memory tasks supply the missing three letters to fill in blanks and form a word.
• Tasks involving procedural knowledge require remembering learned skills and automatic behaviors rather than facts, such as ones about riding a bicycle or ice skating.

Implicit vs. Explicit Memory Tasks

• Explicit memory tasks need conscious recollection.
• Implicit memory involves using information without being consciously aware.

Memory Relation

• Sensory memory retains sensory stimuli over a short time to process and send to short-term memory and includes senses.
• Short-term memory retains a limited amount of information over a short time.
• Working memory or operative memory is an active process that manipulates information in short-term memory.
• Long-term memory has virtually indefinite capacity.
• Long-term memory consists of information from short-term memory and does need brain input.
• The brain decides if information is relevant or irrelevant, passing important information to long-term memory.
• Systems depending on damaged short-term memory are altered, such as working memory and long-term memory.
• Operative (working) memory will not properly manipulate this information if it isn't retained.
• New memories and information passed from short- to long-term memory are affected.
• However, memories previously stored in long-term memory recover.

Acquiring Long Term Memory

• Chunking is a memorization technique.
• It facilitates the transfer of information into long-term memory and this approach involves breaking up information into smaller segments.
• Rehearsal is when one reviews information until the critical information is committed to memory.
• Exercise also helps and some research has shown that exercise may also help increase short-term memory.
• Digit Span is the average capacity of STM which is about 5-9 items about the length of a phone number.
• Central Executive decides to what working memory pays attention to.

Long-Term Memory

• Long-term memories include anything from an event that occurred for five minutes ago to something that happened from 20 years ago.
• It stores information for a long time and is the final stage in the processing of memory.
• Long-term memory decays very little with time, and is easier to recall.
• There are factors that influence the extent to which information endures.
• Encoded memories that you can often recall are the ones that stick around.

Duration and Capacity of Long-Term Memory

• The capacity of long-term memory is unlimited.
• Different types of long-term memories are stored in different parts of the brain.
• Short-term memories can be changed into long-term memories through consolidation - a process involving rehearsal and association of information.
• Short-term memory relies on visual and acoustic encoding, while long-term memories are encoded semantically.
• Long-term memories are conscious, requiring mental effort to recall.

Non-Associative Memory: Habituation vs. Sensitization

• Non-associative memory refers to learning new behaviors mainly through repeated exposure to a single type of stimuli.
• Habituation is the decrease in response to repeated stimuli.
• Sensitization is an increased response to repeated stimuli.
• Habituation occurs when repeated exposure to a stimulus decreases the organism’s responsiveness to it and common example of this phenomenon is noise habituation.
• Sensitization is the opposite because when a stimulus is repeated and its response increases as it goes on and on.

Priming

• Priming is influence of exposure to stimuli on the response to later stimuli.
• Priming effects can occur with perceptually, linguistically, or conceptually related stimuli.
• Priming can have real-world applications as a learning and study aid.
• With priming, a faster response is evoked to associated words.

Types of Priming

• Positive and negative priming influences processing speed.
• Positive priming makes processing faster and speeds up memory retrieval.
• Negative priming slows processing.
• Semantic priming involves words that are associated logically or linguistically.
• Associative priming involves using stimuli that are related to one another.
• Repetition priming occurs when a stimulus and response paired are repeatedly
• Perceptual priming involves stimuli that have similar forms.
• Conceptual priming involves a stimulus and response that are conceptually related.
• Masked priming stimulus being obscured in some way and even though the entire stimulus is not visible, it still evokes a response.