Problem 1 (Learning to Remember)
A
George Miller’s Limitation of Memory
1. Magical number 7
o Only a limited number of items can be stored in short-term memory.
o 7 +/- 2 chunks
o Chunk: memory unit that consists of several components strongly associated
with one other.
o People have internal mental processes to convert stimuli into chunks.
How to assess short-term memory?
Brown/Peterson and Peterson technique: material held in memory for less than one
minute is frequently forgotten. There are some items that participants are instructed to
remember while they are performing a distracting task. The distracting task prevented
them from rehearsing the activity and increased interference & decreased the recall
rates.
Serial position effect: U shaped relationship between a word’s position and recall rate.
o Recency effect: the final words in the list is easier to recall. (assessment for
short-term memory) The item is still in the short-term memory.
o Primacy effect: enhanced recall for items at the beginning of the list. (those
words don't need to compete with any earlier items and people rehearse those
early items more frequently)
Semantic similarity of the items in short term memory
o Semantics: meaning of the words and sentences.
o Proactive interference: people have trouble learning new material because
previously learned material keeps interfering with their new learning. (Trying to
remember ABC but it’s hard because you mix it with previously learned AAA,
BBB, CCC shift the category to simple geometric shapes and memory will
improve)
o Retroactive: occurs when you forget a previously learnt task due to the learning
of a new task.
o Beginning: retroactive
o End: proactive
o Middle: both
o Release from proactive interference: shift to geometric shapes or semantic
category.
o Semantic category: categories such as flowers, meats, fruits, vegetables and
occupations. If the previously learned information is fruits and the required
recall is vegetables people perform poorly. (related with interference)
,B
Working memory (not short-term memory!)
We use short-term memory when we do complex tasks that require processing.
If two tasks use the same component they cannot be performed successfully together.
if two tasks use different components it should be possible to perform them as well
together as separately.
Components of working memory
1. Central executive
Has limited capacity and resembles attention.
Complex cognitive activities
Prefrontal cortex.
Executive processes: processes that involve organization and coordination of cognitive
systems.
Focusing attention, dividing attention between
to stimulus switching attention between tasks
interfacing with long term memory. Miyake
identified 3.
Unity goal directed, inhibiting.
Diversity updating, shifting…
1. Inhibition function: used to deliberately
override dominant response, resist
distraction. (preventing yourself from saying the wrong color in stroop task)
2. Shifting function: used to switch flexibly between tasks or mental sets. (you need to
switch from multiplying to division every example)
3. Updating function: use to monitor and engage in rapid addition or deletion of
working memory contents. (you only need to remember the last thing you saw)
2. Phonological loop: stores the incoming auditory information. (slave system)
Has 2 components;
1. A passive phonological
store directly concerned
with speech perception
2. An articulatory process link
to speech production
Phonological similarity effect:
immediate serial recall of verbal
material is reduced when the
items sound similar.
o Acoustic similarity: similar sounds (more effective)
o Articulatory similarity: Similar articulatory moments. (more effective when the
recall is spoken)
Word-length effect: Verbal memory span decreases when longer words are presented.
(Articulatory suppression prevents rehearsal in the phonological loop) This effect
depends on rehearsal.
, Orthographic neighborhood: consists of words of the same length differing from it only
one letter. (short words have more) short words are recalled better.
Action control: articulatory suppression.
o Rapid repetition of words reduces the usage of phonological loop.
3. Visuo-spatial sketchpad: specialized for spatial and visual processing. (slave system)
o Visual: what (higher activity in left hemisphere; occipital and temporal lobe)
o Spatial: where (higher activity in right hemisphere; parietal lobe)
Logi
o Visual cache: stores information about visual form and colors.
o Inner scribe: processes spatial and movement information. Transfers
information from the visual cache to central executive.
o Separate visual and spatial systems are present.
o The spatial interference task: 2 visual stimuli is presented. Participants were
supposed to decide whether the probe was in the same location or had the
same form.
Pearson
o Spatial interference task should disrupt performance more on the spatial main
task than the visual main task. (2 different systems for visual & spatial skills)
4. Episodic buffer: provides temporary storage for integrated information from visuo-spatial
sketchpad and phonological loop.
o Capacity: 4 chunks
o Immediate sentence recall, up to 16 items.
o Central executive is needed to store integrated information in episodic buffer.
o (-): how do visual and auditory information is combined?
Dysexecutive syndrome (damage to CE)
A condition in which damage to the frontal lobes causes impairment to the central
executive component of working memory.
Impaired response inhibition, rule deduction maintenance and shifting offsets.
Limited damage can have 3 executive processes. Brain damage different effects
1. Task setting: ability to set a stimulus response relationship
2. Monitoring: checking the adequacy of 1's task performance.
3. Energization: involves sustain attention or concentration.
(-)
Task impurity: most tasks require several different processes.
Number unnatural of executive processes remain unclear.
Oversimplified. Olfactory?
Interactions between four components?
C
Selective attention
, Cocktail-party phenomenon: process of checking one conversation and being distracted
from the other.
Shadowing: trying to listen 2 things at once.
Dichotic presentation: two different auditory stimuli are presented at the same time,
one in each ear. Participants were able to notice physical sensor changes such as the
change of message, or voice from male to female. Physical things are noticed. They did
not notice when the message shifted from English to German or was played backward.
Semantic changes can’t be detected.
Those who hear their name in the unattended message tend to have limited working-
memory capacity. As a result, they are easily distracted.
Factors helping selective attention
Distinctive sensory characteristic of target speech. (low pitch, pacing)
Sound intensity
Location of the sound source
When you focus on target speakers voice: you can avoid being distracted by the
semantic content of messages.
Theories of selective attention
1. Broadbent’s Model
o We filter information right after we notice it at the sensory level.
o Multiple channels of sensory inputs reach an attentional filter such as loudness
pitch or accents.
o The filter permits only one channel of sensory information to proceed and reach
the process of perception.
o Other stimuli will be filtered out at the sensory level and may never reach the
level of perception.
o Information requiring higher perceptual processes is not noticed if not attended
to.
o Bottleneck
2. Selective filter model
o Even when participants ignore high level aspects of unattended message, they
still recognize their names in an unattended ear.
o High importance to a person may break through the filter of selective attention
o The selective filter blocks out most information at the sensory level, but some
personally important messages are so powerful that they burst through the
filtering mechanism.
3. Attenuation model
o Treisman
o Some unattended messages passed through the filter. (Target properties)
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