Chapter 5 Short Term And Working Memory

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memory

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the processes involved in retaining, retrieving, and using information about stimuli, images, events, ideas, and skills after the original information is no longer present

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modal model of memoy

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Atkinson and Shiffran's memory model

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modal model has stages called the structural features which are:

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1. sensory memory:initial stage that holds all incoming info for seconds or fractions of a second
2. short-term memory: (STM) holds 5-7 items for about 15-30 seconds
3. long-term memory: (LTM) can hold a large amount of info for long periods of time

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control processes

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active processes that can be controlled by the person and may differ from one task to another
(e.g., rehearsal, strategies you might use to make stimulus more memorable such as relating to something you know well, strategies of attention that help focus on info that is particularly important or interesting)

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rehearsal

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repeating a stimulus over and over, as you might repeat a telephone number in order to hold it in your mind after looking it it up in a phone book

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encoding

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the process of storing a long term memory

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retrieval

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the process of remembering info stored in long term memory

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the components of memory do not act in isolation

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LTM essential for storing info, and before we can be aware of LTM it must move back into STM

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sensory memory

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the retention, for brief periods of time, of the effects of sensory stimulation (e.g., moving sparkler looked like sting of light, film shutters [we don't see black screen in between frames])

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persistence of vision

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the retention of perception of light in your mind (sparkler and film example again)

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whole report method

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participants asked to report as many letters as possible from the whole matrix

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partial report method

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flashed matrix for 50 milliseconds but immediately after sounded three tones that corresponded with a row and the participant had to recall the letters from that row

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delayed partial report method

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presentation of cue tones was delayed for a fraction of a second after the letters were extinguished

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iconic memory or visual icon

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short lived sensory memory for visual stimuli (registers all or most of the info that hits our visual receptors, but this info decays within less than a second)

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echoic memory

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persistence of sound in the mind (lasts for a few seconds after the presentation of the original stimulus

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the sensory store is important for:

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1. collecting info to be processed
2. holding the info briefly while the initial processing is going on
3. filling in the blanks when stimulation is intermittent

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short-term memory

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the system involved in storing small amounts of info for a brief period of time

window on the present

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recall test

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participants are presented with a stimuli and then after a delay are asked to remember as many of the stimuli as possible (performance can be measured as a percentage of the stimuli that are remembered) (different from recognition)

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what experiment demonstrates the duration of STM? (Peterson and Peterson)

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procedure: said some letters and then a number. then participants had to count backward from that number until experimenter said recall (varied times). then they had to say the letters that they heard before the number
results:able to remember 80% after 3 seconds but only 12% after 18 seconds.
conclusion: forgot because of decay however on first trial performance between 3 and 18 seconds similar

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decay

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memory trace decayed because of the passage of time after hearing the letters

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proactive inference

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)Keppel and Underwood's explanation to the results of Peterson and Peterson's experiment) interference that occurs when info that was learned previously interferes with learning new info

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duration of short term memory

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15-20 seconds

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digit span

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number of digits a person can remember--on average 5-8 digits (demonstrates the capacity of short term memory)

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experiment demonstrating digit span

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procedure: flash two arrays of colored squares separated by a brief delay. the task was to indicate whether the second array was the same or different from he first array. on trials where the 2nd was different the color of one square was changed
results: performance almost perfect when there was 1-3 squares in the arrays but performance began decreasing when there were 4 or more squares
conclusion: participants able to retain about 4 items in their STM

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chunking

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small units (like words) can be combined into larger meaningful units, like phrases, or even larger units, like sentences, paragraphs, and stories

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chunk

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a collection of elements that are strongly associated with one another but are weakly associated with elements in other chunks. e.g., ring-tail associated with monkey but not to child or city ( chunking in terms of meaning increases out ability to hold info in the STM

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experiment that shows the effects of chunking

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Procedure: participant S.F. was asked to repaet strings of random digit shat were read to him. although he had a normal memory span of 7 digits he was trained to repeat sequences of up to 79 digits without error by using chunking

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experiment that shows example of chunking based on the interaction between STM and LTM

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procedure: showed chess players arrangements of chess pieces taken from actual games for 5s. The chess players were then asked to reproduce the positions they had seen. Then the experimentors compared the performance of a chess master to the performance of a beginner.
results:master correctly placed 16/24 on 1st try and took only 4 trials to produce all positions exactly, while beginner did just 4/24 correctly and after 7 trails was still making mistakes
conclusions: master able to group chess pieces into meaningful chunks (testing of both master and beginner on random placement of pieces showed the masters simply did not have better STM)

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coding

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refers to the way memory is represented

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physiological approach to coding

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determining how a stimulus is represented by the firing of neurons

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mental approach to coding

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asking how stimulus or an experience is represented in the mind

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auditory coding

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involves representing items in STM based on their sound

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experiment that investigated coding in STM (auditory)

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procedure: participants saw a number of target letters flashed on a screen and were told to write down the letters in the order they were presented
results: Conrad found that when participants made errors they were most likely to misidentify a target letter as another letter that sounded like it but now by letters that looked like it
conclusion: the code for STM is auditory rather than visual

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visual coding

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involves representing items visually as in remembering the details of a map

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experiment that shows the use of visual codes

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procedure:presented participants with patterns ranging from small to large with half of the squares being shaded in each pattern. There task was to determining which squares on another square needed to be filled in to duplicate the pattern
results:participants were able to complete patterns consisting of an average of 9 shaded squares before making mistakes

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semantic coding

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representing items in terms of their meaning

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experiment that demonstrates semantic coding

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procedure: on each trial, participants were presented with words related to either (a) fruits or (b) professions. participants in each group listened to 3 words, counted backwards for 15 seconds, and then attempted to recall the words, they did 4 trials, each trial with different words ( wanted to create proactive inference by having each trial have words from the same category)
results: 1st trial for fruit group 86% recall but performance dropped on the other trials. Same happened for professions group except fruits were shown in last trial so performance increased--this is called release from proactive interference

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what does proactive inference tell us about coding in the STM?

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the release from the proactive inference depends on the words categories and because placing words into categories involves the meanings of the words the results of this experiment demonstrate the operation of semantic coding in STM

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problem with the modal model?

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STM was described as a short term storage mechanism however memories are transferred from LTM to STM thus its role extends beyond storage. People can multitask, understand language, and do math problems

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working memory

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a limited capacity system for temporary storage and manipulation of info for complex tasks such as comprehension, learning, and reasoning

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how do STM and working memory differ?

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STM: involved in storing info temporarily and consists of a single component
working: manipulation of info that occurs during complex cognition and consists of a number of components

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phonological loop (P.L.)

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holds verbal and auditory info
e.g., when you are trying to remember a phone number or a person's name you are using your P.L.

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phonological store

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component of P.L. which has limited capacity and only holds info for only a few seconds

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articulatory rehearsal process

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component of P.L. which is responsible for rehearsal that can keep items in the phonological store from decaying

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visuospatial sketch pad

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holds visual and spatial information
e.g., do a puzzle or find your way around campus

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central executive

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where the major work of working memory occurs. Pulls info from LTM and coordinates the activity of the P.L. and the visuospatial sketch pad by focusing on specific parts of a task and switching attention from one part to another. Decides how to divide attention between tasks.

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phonological similarity effect

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the confusion of letters or words that sound similar. Occurs when words are processed on the phonological store part of the phonological loop

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word length effect

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occurs when memory for lists of words is better for short words than for long words because it takes longer to rehearse long words

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articulatory suppression

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the repetition of an irrelevant sound which reduces memory because speaking interferes with repetition

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visual imagery

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visuospatial sketchpad involved int he processes of visual imagery: the creation of visual images in the mind in the absence of a physical visual stimulus

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experiment that demonstrates visual imagery

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procedure: had participants few 2 figures and decide whether they were the same or not and they measure their reaction times.
results: when the shapes were separated by a 40 degree orientation reaction time was 2 seconds but when separated by a 140 degree orientation it took 4 seconds.
conclusions: based on this finding that reaction times were longer for greater distances in orientation they inferred that participants were solving the problem by mentally rotating an image of one of the objects in their mind, a phenomenon called mental rotation (this is an example of the operation of the visuospatial sketchpad because it involves visual rotation through space)

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how is the central executive an attention controller?

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it determines how attention is focused on a specific task, how it is divided between two tasks, and how it is switched between two tasks
e.g. driving and talking on cell phone

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preservation

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repeatedly performing the same behavior even if it is not achieving the desired goal, typical on patients with damage to the frontal lobe

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Baddeley's three component model

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phonological loop, central executive, and visuospatial sketchpad

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what can't Baddeley's three component model explain?

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working memory can hold more than we expected based on just the phonological loop or the visuospatial sketchpad

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episodic buffer

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new component of Baddeley's model of working memory. It can store info (thereby providing extra capacity) and it is connected to LTM (thereby making interchange between working memory and LTM possible) model on pg 137

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the effect of damage to the prefrontal cortex, experiment

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monkey sees food as reward in one of two food wells, both wells are covered then a screen is lowered and there is a delay before the screen is raised again. when it is raised the monkey must remember which well the food was in in order to obtain the reward. monkeys can be trained to do this, but if the prefrontal cortex is removed their performance drops to chance level.
this suggests that the prefrontal cortex is important in remembering info for brief amounts of time

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delayed response task

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required a monkey to hold info in working memory during a delayed period

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experiment that supports that the prefrontal cortex is important for working memory

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they recorded from neurons in a monkey's PF cortex while the monkey carried out a delayed response task. For the task the monkey first looked steadily at a fixation point, X, while a square was flashed in the upper left corner (on the other trials, the square was flashed at different positions on the screen) this causes a small response in the neuron. After the square went off there was a delay f a few seconds. The neuron was firing during this delay. This is the neural record of the monkey's working memory for the position of the square., after the delay the fixation X went off, this was the signal for the monkey to move its eyes to where the square had flashed.
results:neurons that responded when the square was flashed in a particular location, continued responding during the delay

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the conclusion that many areas of the brain are involved in working memory has been confirmed by research using what?

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brain imaging techniques such as PET and fMRI to measure brain activity in humans

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how much of brain involved in workings of working memory

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Edward Vogel did an experiment on the allocation of attention by measuring a component of the event related potential (ERP) in humans, recorded during a work memory task. The response they measured was related to encoding items in the working memory, so a larger ERP response indicated more space was being used in working memory

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experiment that shows how much space used in working memory

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participants split into high memory capacity and low memory capacity groups. Both groups viewed stimuli. They first saw a cue indicating whether to direct their attention to the red rectangles on the left side or the red rectangles on the right side of the displays that followed. they then saw a memory display for one-tenth a second, follwed by a breif blac=nk screen and then a test display. on some trials red rectangles were presented on left and right side and in other trails red and blue rectangles were presented. the task was to indicate whether the orientations of red rectangles in the cued side of the test display was the same as or different from the orientations of the red rectangles on the cued side of the memory display.

the size of the ERP response was the same for both groups. The ERP response when just red rectangles were presented was similar for both groups. adding blue rectangles had little effect on high capacity but caused an increase in response of low capacity group.
conclusions: high capacity group participants good at ignoring distractors. Low capacity parictipants emans the blue rectangles were taking up too much space in workin memory. their central executor not working as efficiently. people with higher capacity are more likely to perform well on tests of reasoning ability, reading, and on tests designed to measure intelligence

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reading span

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a test designed to measure both the storage and processing functions of working memory. It accomplishes this by measuring the maximum number of sentences that a person can read while simultaneously holding the lat word in each sentence in memory