MODULE 5
What is the key difference between voluntary/directed attention versus involuntary attention?
Voluntary/directed attention is finite and can be depleted, while involuntary attention is unconscious and less susceptible to depletion.
What are the three levels of processing discussed in class? How are they encoded? Which would be most effective for a classroom setting?
1. Shallow Processing: Encoded by physical/visual characteristics
2. Medium Processing: Encoded by sound/rhyme/phonological characteristics
3.Deep Processing: Encoded by meaning
Deep Processing is generally more effective for college exams, as it promotes better memory on tests that tap meaning/ concepts. However, there could be some exams that would benefit form "shallower" levels of processing. For instance an art exam may benefit more from perceptual processing and a music exam may benefit from sound-based processing.
How does memory reflect our ancestral environment as stated in the lecture?
1. Survival Processing: Any stimulus bathed in the spotlight of survival processing seems to receive some kind of mnemonic boost. Assuming that memory is subject to selection pressures, our memory systems should be more sensitive to thinking about whether an object is relevant for survival.
2. Garcia Effect: Deals with conditioned taste aversion. In Garcia et al.'s study, the rats easily learned that bright noisy water is connected to shock and slower to learn that bright noisy water is connected to nausea. Rats also easily learned that sweet water is connected to nausea and slower to learn that it is connected to shock.
**Some connections are easily learned**
3. Fear Conditioning: Phobias tend to cluster around things that would have been harmful to our ancestors and things that recently represented a danger. Seligman (1971): Evolution has prepared us to fear certain harmful things and ignore others.
What main memory technique did the memory athletes in the Netflix documentary utilize?
The memory athletes used to the concept of a memory palace to picture items in their mind's eye for easy retrieval.
In the article, "The Cognitive Benefits of Interacting with Nature," what were the two experiments trying to study?
Experiment 1 was designed to explore how interactions with nature and urban areas would affect cognitive performance. Experiment 2 was designed to explore how interactions with nature would affect executive functions. Experiment 2 also was completed lab based without including an actual nature walk (just nature images on a screen).
Which of the two testing conditions in Slamecka and Graf's (2017) study produced better memory and why?
The "generate condition" produced better memory. This is known as the Generation Effect as extra work at encoding leads to stronger memory for recall, cued recall, and recognition.
What are some reasons why the Levels of Processing was considered a hit, as discussed in the lecture?
1. There was a switch between where memory is stored to what people are doing at the time of encoding and retrieval
2. There were implications for other fields such as education and people with memory deficits
3. It was easy to replicate
4. Easy to show that the theory is not perfectly true.
What types of memory tests are used in World Memory Championships (name two)?
Five-minute numbers, speed cards, one-hour numbers, one hour cards, name and faces, random words, binary images, abstract images/random pictures, historic dates, and spoken numbers.
What measurements were used in Experiment 1 the article, "The Cognitive Benefits of Interacting with Nature"?
PANAS to assess participant's mood before and after they went on nature versus urban walk and a backwards digit-span task to assess changes in directed-attention performance.
What results were found in Bjork & Bjork's study on inverted versus normal text? What phenomenon is associated with these findings?
There was better memory recognition for inverted text (74%) versus normal text (63%) as the encoding phase. This was due to more work at the encoding phase for inverted text. This phenomenon is known as Desirable Difficulty, where introducing some difficulty at encoding can lead to better memory later.
What does the Transfer Appropriate Processing and Encoding Specificity Principle state about encoding and retrieval interactions?
Memory will be best if the cues at encoding and retrieval match.
How good a particular encoding strategy varies on what the test will be like.
EX: If a rhyme recognition test is utilized, then encoding with rhymes will provide better retrieval.
What did scientists find when they studied memory athlete, Simon's, brain when compared to control subjects?
They found that a tiny part of the right side of the hippocampus is enlarged in memory athletes compared to control subjects and that this area of the brain is responsible for stimulus-response learnings useful for constructing memory palaces.
What were the major findings in "Interactive with Nature Improves Cognition and Affect for Individuals with Depression,"?
A significant increase in memory span and mood after the nature walk relative to the urban walk.
There was no correlation found between mood effects and increase memory span in depressed patients, meaning that the effects were independent.
This study also revealed a 5 times greater difference in the cognitive effects of a nature walk in MDD participants than in previous studies.
What is the Spacing Effect? What are the two theories underlying the Spacing Effect? Why does this type of repetition improve memory?
The Spacing Effect is when long-term retention is promoted when learning events are spaced by even one intervening item rather than in immediate succession.
The two theories underlying the Spacing Effect are the Strength Theories (one memory trace for each event that is altered with repetition which increases the availability of the trace) and the Multiple Trace Theories (each repetition creates a new independent trace that increases the probability of finding at least one trace).
Multiple Trace Theories are more favored by evidence.
This type of repetition improves memory by increasing encoding variability that increases the probability of finding an effective retrieval cue.
Why are small effects found in recall but not cued recall or recognition, with the state-dependent effect?
The provided cues from recognition and cued-recall tests overshadow the weaker state cue.
In recognition memory, the item itself is used as a cue, overshadowing the state-dependent effect.
What are the main three techniques to improve memory as discussed in Chapter 17?
1. Methods of Loci/Memory Palaces: A memory technique in which to-be-remembered items are associated with various locations well known to the readers.
2. Pegword System: A memory technique in which to-be-remembered items are associated with pegwords, each of which rhymes with a different number between one and ten. EX: one-bun
3. Story Mnemoic: A memory technique that involves constructing a story linking unrelated words together in the correct order.
What does the Attention Restoration Theory state?
Interacting with environments rich with inherently fascinating stimuli invoke involuntary attention modestly, allowing directed-attention mechanisms a chance to replenish.
What was the purpose of the study found in the article, "The Critical Importance of Retrieval for Learning "and what did they find?
The purpose was to examine the contributions of repeated study and repeated testing to learning by comparing a standard learning condition to three dropout conditions. They found that when tested on translations a week later, there was better-cued recall for the testing condition and testing and studying condition (relatively equal), with a worse cued recall for the no studying or testing condition.
How does context effects and state-dependent effects play a role in retrieval?
Context Effects refers to location, other people, sights, sounds, etc. State-Dependent memory is a subset of context effects; the mental state experienced during the encoding and testing period. Both predicts memory performance in free recall.
According to your textbook, which would be a more effective memory palace if you want to remember things in a set order? Using your apartment as the palace, or using your route to work/ school as the palace?
Using your route to work because you probably drive / ride the same route each time, whereas you move through your apartment in many different directions.