Memory - Encoding, Storage and Retrieval

MEMORY

Define memory

Information processing system.

Encoding, Storage and Retrieval.

What is involved in each process?

Automatic vs Effortful encoding.

Atkinson – Shiffrin model.

What are structural features of this memory model?

What are controlled processes?

Sensory Memory.

How does it process sensory information? What happens if the information is not attended to?

Iconic and Echoic Memory.

What sensory information do they process and how long does each store the information for? Why?  Sperling and his findings.

Short Term Memory.

Characteristics of STM in terms of the capacity, duration (how each is researched) and the way the information is stored.

How is information lost from STM? Decay and Displacement.

STM as working memory.

Why is it also called working memory? 

Effects of rehearsal and STM

Maintenance Rehearsal. Vocal, sub vocal, verbal. Rote repetition. Characteristics of. Limitations.

Elaborative rehearsal.

What is it and how is it done? What is focused on in this type of rehearsal? Characteristics and examples. Self Referencing Effect. Why is it more effective than Maintenance rehearsal?

Serial Position Effect. Primacy and Recency effect. U shaped curve.

What effect is present when subjects are remembering the first five and last five words in a list of fifteen words? How does STM and LTM apply to this effect? What are some real life examples of the serial position effect on memory?

What happens when recall of the list is delayed by 30 seconds or more?

Chunking.

Explanation and examples.

Baddeley and Hitch’s model of working memory

Verbal working memory (phonological loop), Visual working memory (visuospatial sketchpad), Episodic buffer), Central executive. Know how each works and how they work together. Give a good example.

Craik and Lockhart’s Level of Processing framework.

What effect will the level of processing have on memory of information?

Describe and give examples of shallow, intermediate and deep processing.

Long Term Memory

Differences between LTM and STM.

Characteristics of LTM. Capacity, Duration, how information is stored.

Types of LTM.

Procedural

Declarative

Episodic

Semantic.

What content does each store? When is more than one type of LTM apparent? Study example in text book.

How is the information in LTM organised?

What has research found?

Semantic Network theory. 

What does it propose in terms of how information is organised in LTM? How is information located and retrieved according to this theory?

Role of the neuron in memory formation.

Know all the components of a neuron and what each component does.

What are the two functional changes occurring to neurons when memories are being formed?

What is the structural change occurring to neurons when memories are being formed? – this allows for Synaptic growth.

Define Long-term potentiation (LTP)

Be aware of the particular neurotransmitters that are involved with memory formation over others: Glutamate, Dopamine, Acetylcholine, Noradrenaline (Norepinephrine)

-- Role of the temporal lobe…

What structures are in the medial temporal lobe?

What happened to Henry Molaison’s memory when the medial temporal lobe (amygdala, hippocampus and other cortical tissue) was removed?

What does this suggest about the role of these structures?

Why is it that long term memories stored before the surgery have been unaffected?