Coming Up: Read: The Lost Mariner by Oliver Sachs Repressed Memories by Elizabeth Loftus

Overview of Memory Atkinson-Shiffrin Model Sensory Signals Sensory Memory Short-Term Memory Long-Term Memory ATTENTION REHEARSAL RETRIEVAL

Recap: Short-Term memory Span of “seven plus or minus two” must be qualified by rate of speech Primacy and recency effects influence which items are best recalled Interference depends in part on semantic meaning

Coding in STM How is information coded in STM? What is the “file format”?

Coding in STM Clues about coding in STM: – # of items stored in STM depends on rate of speech

Coding in STM Clues about coding in STM: – # of items stored in STM depends on rate of speech – phonological similarity effect: similar sounding words are harder to store/recall than different sounding words

Coding in STM Clues about coding in STM: – # of items stored in STM depends on rate of speech – phonological similarity effect: similar sounding words are harder to store/recall than different sounding words – “counting backwards” prevents mental rehearsal

Coding in STM Clues about coding in STM: – # of items stored in STM depends on rate of speech – phonological similarity effect: similar sounding words are harder to store/recall than different sounding words – “counting backwards” prevents mental rehearsal What does this suggest about the “format” of STM?

Coding in STM It seems that information can be stored in a linguistic or phonological form

Coding in STM It seems that information can be stored in a linguistic or phonological form Must it be stored this way?

Delayed Match-To-Sample Remember the locations of the letters

Delayed Match-To-Sample A Q P

Was there a letter at the location of the star?

Coding in STM It is also possible to “keep in mind” non- verbal information, such as a map Are there two different STM systems?

A Modular Approach to STM Articulatory Loop Central Executive Visuospatial Sketchpad Introduces the notion of “Working Memory” because emphasis is on performing mental operations on the information encoded

A Modular Approach to STM Articulatory Loop Central Executive Visuospatial Sketchpad Experiment 1 in the article by Lee Brooks demonstrates a double dissociation between Articulatory Loop and Visuospatial Sketchpad

Working Memory “Modules” Lee Brooks: interference between different representations in STM (Experiment 1) – Memory Representation verbal task: categorize words in a sentence spatial task: categorize corners in a block letter – Response Modality verbal response: say “yes” or “no” spatial response: point to “yes” or “no”

Working Memory “Modules” Verbal Task: indicate if each word is or is not a noun – “I went to the store to buy a loaf of bread.” – N N N N Y N N N Y N Y

Working Memory “Modules” Spatial Task: indicate if each corner points outside F Y Y Y N

Working Memory “Modules” In both tasks the information needed must be maintained (represented) in working memory

Working Memory “Modules” Response Modalities: Say: “yes” “no” “no”Point to: Y or N VerbalSpatial Y N

Working Memory “Modules” Both response modalities also engage working memory

Working Memory “Modules” Prediction: – There should be interference when response modality and task representation engage the same module – if there is only one kind of module, then there should be interference between every pairing of representation to response

Working Memory “Modules” result: a cross-over interaction (double dissociation) Performance Response Modality Verbal Spatial Spatial Representation (categorize corners) Verbal Representation (categorize words)

Working Memory “Modules” Interpretation: – supports notion of modularity in Working Memory (visuospatial sketchpad / articulatory loop work independent of each other)