BLOK 2.1 - actively coordinate ongoing mental activities
- lets you keep information alive & accessible, so that you can use it in a wide
COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY
variety of cognitive tasks
LECTURE #1 Long-Term Memory
ROOTS OF COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY => large capacity & contains memory for experiences & information
Plato – Rationalism that have accumulated over a lifetime
=> people use rational thoughts to create knowledge - some research supports that working & long-term memory are the same
-> thinking & logical analysis -> but they may not share same theoretical explanations
Aristotle – Empiricism - performance on everyday tasks different to performance in psychological labs
=> people acquire their knowledge through their
observations of the world around them
-> experience & observation CLASSIC RESEARCH ON WM
Cognitive Revolution
-> intellectual movement 1950-1960s “MAGICAL 7” by George Miller
-> started studying relevant functions in artificial intelligence =-> proposed that we can hold only a limited number of items in
-> observing outward behaviour & its relation to brain activity -> building WM
computational models of the mind - about 7 items (give or take 2) -> 5-9 items
-> mind = complex system composed of many interacting parts Chunks
Cognition by Neisser => memory unit that consists of several components that are strongly associated
“ those processes by which the sensory input is w/ one another
transformed, reduced, elaborated, stored, recovered, -> e.g.: imagine that someone hears a list like “H, O, P, T, R, A, S, L, U,” and so on. If
& used” the person thinks of these as individual letters, then she will remember seven of
them, more or less. But if the same person reorganizes the list and, in particular,
#1 LEARNING TO REMEMBER thinks of the letters as forming syllables (“HOP, TRA, SLU, . . .”), she’ll remember
five or six of these syllables—and therefore 15 to 18 letters.
DIFFERENCE BETWEEN SHORT-TERM MEMORY & WM -> describes the basic unit in WM
->short-term memory is very short (2 min) not lasting passive storage of -> was unusual because he wrote the article when behaviourism was popular –
information article proposed that people engage in internal mental processes in order to
-> working memory is storage plus manipulation convert stimuli into a manageable number of chunks
-> emphasized that our cognitive processes are active
WORKING MEMORY
THE BROWN/PETERSON & PETERSON TECHNIQUE
=> the brief, immediate memory for material that you are currently
=> demonstrated that material held in memory for less than a
processing
minute is frequently forgotten
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,Exp.: people studied 3 letters, then they said a 3-digit number & counted - modelled after a computer (input, storage, processing)
backwards by threes from this number for a short period (prevented them from -> information progresses through the system in series of stages (one @ a time,
rehearsing the letters), then they had to recall the letters -> first few trials recalled forgetting occurs @ all stages)
most of them; after several trials = poor recall; after 5-sec delay = forgot half of it - Control Processes (intentional strategies e.g.: rehearsal)
=> provided important information about the fragility of memory -> to improve memory
for material stored for just a few seconds Sensory Memory
=> a storage that records information from each of the senses w/ reasonable
THE RECENCY EFFECT
accuracy
-> Serial Position Effect
-> information is stored for 2 sec or less -> then most of it is forgotten
=> refers to the U-shaped relationship between a word’s position
Short-Term Memory
in a list & its probability of recall
=> contains only the small amount of information that we’re actively using
-> very common
- memories = fragile (but not as much as in sensory memory)
-> shows both – strong recency & strong primacy effect
- draws from LTM: retrieval
=> better recall for items @ the end of the list – many have argued that this is
- memory can be lost within about 30 sec unless they’re somehow repeated
because these items were still in short-term memory
Long-Term Memory
@ the end of recall (shows size of WM -> count number of items @ the end of the
=> has an enormous capacity; contains memories that are decades old
list) -> size estimated to be 2-7 items
- memories are relatively permanent & not likely to be lost
ATKINSON & SHIFFRIN’S MODEL - forgetting (gets worse w/ increasing age – 60+; depends on manner of encoding,
=> proposed that memory can be understood as a sequence of retrieval & strategy)
discrete steps, in which information is transferred from one stage
Attention
area to another
=> representation of the world is an active registration of our physical surrounding
=> acts as a filter that determines which stimuli will be processed further & which
won’t
-> to notice a change in a scene (spotlight)
Research on Forgetting
by Ebbinghaus
- 1st to study human memory
- used nonsense syllable strings (CUV, ZIR etc) as study materials (free of meaning)
-> he was his own participant
=> results: steep forgetting @ first, levels off after a day, after 31 days some
- WM & long-term memory are separate memory is retained -> rate of forgetting isn’t constant & diminishes over time
- memories in WM are fragile & could be lost within about 30 sec unless they’re
repeated
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,THE WORKING-MEMORY APPROACH / MULTICOMPONENT APPROACH Phonological Loop
by Baddeley & Hitch => processes a limited number of sounds for a short period of time
-> pronunciation time can be explained by the limited storage
Short-Term Memory
-> short words => shorter pronunciation => rehearsing a large number of them
-> its major function is to hold several interrelated bits of information – so that this
quickly
information can be worked with & used appropriately
-> long words => longer pronounciation => some words will get lost
-> necessary for a wide of cognitive tasks (e.g.: language comprehension, mental
-> relationship between pronunciation time & recall accuracy holds true whether
arithmetic, reasoning, problem solving)
pronouncing aloud our using subvocalization (silently)
=> immediate memory is a multipart system that temporarily holds & manipulates
- Acoustic Confusion: people are likely to confuse similar-sounding stimuli
information as we perform cognitive tasks
-> emphasizes that WM isn’t simply a passive storage -> emphasis is on the Visuospatial Sketchpad
manipulation of information => processes both visual & spatial information
=> WM is more like a workbench where material is constantly being -> allows you to look @ a complex scene & gather visual information about objects
handled, combined, transformed & landmarks
-> navigates from one location to another
-> allows you to store a coherent picture of both the visual appearance of the
objects & their relative positions in a scene + visual information that you encode
from verbal stimuli
-> limited capacity
-> difficulty performing two visuospatial tasks simultaneously
Central Executive
=> integrates information from the phonological loop, the visuospatial
sketchpad, the episodic buffer & the LTM
=> plays major role in focusing attention, planning strategies, transforming
information, & coordinating behaviour => extremely important & complex
-> has a link with the LONG-TERM MEMORY
-> responsible for suppressing irrelevant information (helps you decide what to do
-> study contradicted the view that WM has only about 7 slots & suggested that & what not)
people can perform two tasks simultaneously (verbal & visual tasks can interfere -> plans & coordinates but doesn’t store information
w/ each other) -> critical role in the overall functions of WM
-> WM seems to have several components which can operate independently of -> limited ability to perform simultaneous tasks -> can’t make numerous decisions
each other @ the same time & can’t work effectively on two simultaneous projects ->
daydreaming requires the active participation of your central executive – can
occupy large portions of the resources
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, Episodic Buffer Decay Theory
=> serves as a temporary storehouse where we can gather & combine => theory about forgetting
information from the loop, sketchpad & LTM -> memory fades due to the passing of time
=> the component of WM where auditory, visual, & spatial information -> mostly affects WM
can be combined w/ information from the LTM
Interference Theory
-> opinions about people etc…
=> memory overwritten
-> serves for more interaction between all components
++ more accepted
-> actively manipulates information so that you can interpret an earlier experience,
- Retroactive (= forgetting that occurs because of interference from
solve new problems & plan future activities
material encountered AFTER learning)
-> limited capacity
- Proactive (= forgetting occurs because of interference from material
-> allows to create a richer, more complex representation of an event
encountered BEFORE learning)
// doesn’t include other sensory inputs
// hasn’t been researched much
// some say memory is a continuum MEMORY STRATEGIES
FACTORS AFFECTING WM’S CAPACITY -> you perform mental activities that can help you improve your encoding &
- Chunking Strategy retrieval
-> increasing number of items by using chunks -> most strategies focus on the past
- Pronunciation Time
-> strongly influences the number of items we can store in WM Divided Attention
-> better recall of words from a list of countries w/ short names than w/ -> memory performance is substantially reduced if people had used divided
long names (greater number of syllables – lower memory span) attention during the encoding phase
=> pronunciation rate + number of chunks need to be considered when -> music = introverts are more distracted by background music than extroverts –
discussing capacity of WM can’t focus their attention on the memory task
- Semantic Similarity Levels of Processing
=> importance of the acoustic properties of stimuli (sound) -> more accurate recall of information if it’s processed @ a deep level rather than
-> Semantics = meaning of words & sentences a shallow level
-> meaning of words can also have an important effect on the number of -> because of elaboration & distinctiveness
items you can store - rich & elaborate encoding (relating to prior knowledge etc.) better than simple
-> words that we have previously stores can interfere w/ the recall of new rehearsal -> “why questions” – use deep processing to think about meaning etc. &
words that are similar in meaning -> the degree of semantic similarity is interconnect new material to answer them
related to the amount of interference -> elaborating on the material & analysing it in a complex, meaningful fashion
=> BEST
- Self-Reference Effect
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