1. PSY 323: Cognition Chapter 5: Short-Term & Working Memory

2.  Memory  Processes involved in retaining, retrieving, and using information about stimuli, images, events, ideas, and skills after the original information is no longer present

3.  Atkinson & Shiffrin (1968)  Three Stage Modal Model ▪ Sensory Memory ▪ Short-Term Memory (working memory) ▪ Long-term memory (permastore)

4.  Major function is to hold info long enough so that it can be processed  Sight (usually less than a second)  Sound (a little longer - maybe up to 2-3 seconds)

5.  Persistence of vision: retention of the perception of light  Sparkler’s trail of light  Frames in film

6.  Visual sensory memory  The iconic store  Auditory sensory memory  The echoic store

7.  How big is sensory memory?  Sperling (1960)  Array of letters flashed quickly on a screen  Participants asked to report as many as possible

8.  Sperling’s whole and partial report procedures present participants with a different 3 x 4 matrix of unrelated consonants (a total of 12) for 50 ms across numerous experimental trials  Here is an example: XMLT AFNB CDZP

9.  Get ready…

10. JMOR PZKY CTBU

12. ANLP RWEG DSCF

13.  In the whole-report procedure participants had to report the entire matrix  Participants said they sensed the entire matrix but that it had faded from memory before they could report all 12 letters

14.  In the partial-report procedure, the participants had to report only one row of the matrix, a row indicated by an auditory cue on each trial  When the auditory cue was given immediately after the brief presentation of the letter matrix, participants recalled the indicated row approximately 82% of the time  When there was a one second delay between presentation of the matrix and the auditory cue, participants’ recall of the cued row worsened (about 38%)

15.  Whole report: participants asked to report as many as could be seen ▪ Report average of 4.5 out of 12 letters Partial report: participants heard tone which told them which row of letters to report Report average of 3.3 out of 4 letters Sperling (1960)

16.  Is an exact copy of visual information  Less than a second in duration  Very large capacity Consider the example of a cartoon movie, which is nothing more than a series of still drawings flashed in rapid succession Iconic memory allows us to perceive motion in the drawings

17.  Several studies have shown analogous results in auditory memory…  Echoic store studies often use dichotic listening

18.  Short-Term Memory (STM)  A limited capacity memory system involved in the retention of information for brief periods; it is also used to hold information retrieved from long-term memory for temporary use

19.  Researchers differ saying that without maintenance rehearsal something stays in STM for between 6-30 seconds  After this its either lost forever or somehow makes its way into LTM Zhang & Luck (2009)  15-20 seconds or less

20. Brown-Peterson Distractor Task (Brown, 1958; Peterson & Peterson, 1959) Procedure  Read three letters, then a number  Begin counting backwards by 3’s  Counting backwards prevented the rehearsal of the letters  After a set time, recall three letters Results  Recall drops dramatically after just a few seconds See next slide 

21. 3 sec delay  recall rate 80% 18 sec delay  recall rate 12% Peterson & Peterson (1959) Results

22. 22 Keppel & Underwood (1962)  They saw that on the first trial, memory performance was nearly perfect  As subjects participated in more trials their performance declined  Their conclusion: previous trials interfered with later trials – proactive interference

23. Why the quick forgetting?  Memory trace vanished because of decay during the passage of time after hearing the letters  Closely spaced trials lead to poorer recall; susceptibility to interference Proactive Interference seems to be a problem  Cumulative memory seems to be occurring as memory form previous lists may be hampering recall  Information learned previously interferes with learning new information: seems to build up across trials

24.  Proactive Interference  The disruptive effect of prior learning on the recall of new information (old materials increasing the forgetting of new materials)  Retroactive Interference  The disruptive effect of new information on the recall of previous information (new materials increasing the forgetting of old materials) Time 1 Time 2 Test Interference Study French Study Spanish Recall Spanish Proactive Study French Study Spanish Recall French Retroactive

25. Digit Span Miller (1956)  7 +/- 2 meaningful groupings “The Magic Number” George Miller (1920-2012)

26. 26  It is accurate for relatively simple information groups digits, words, etc.  Not as accurate for more complex information  Example: with 3 or 4 word phrases the magic number becomes 3 to 5

27. 27 Luck & Vogel (1997) Procedure  Participant sees the first display and then indicates whether the second display is the same or different

28. 28 Luck & Vogel (1997) Results  Participants were almost perfect when the researchers presented 1-3 squares but then performance began decreasing when four or more squares were presented Interpretation  People are able to retain about four items in their STM

29.  Ericcson et al. (1989)  College student had an initial digit span of 7  After 230 one-hour training sessions for 2 years, he could remember up to 79 digits How did he do it? Combing the numbers with meaningful sets: 3 4 9 2  world record for mile (3 min 49.2 sec) 8 1 1 0  almost emergency (9 1 1) 8 9 3  very old man (89.3)

30. NBCADDCBSNYY (NBC) (ADD) (CBS) (NYY)

31.  Active processes (effortful) that are initiated by the person  Mental Rehearsal ▪ Maintenance Rehearsal ▪ Repeating things over and over ▪ Spacing effect ▪ Elaborate Rehearsal ▪ Involves thinking about how new material relates to information already stored in memory

32. Refers to the system for temporarily maintaining mental representations that are relevant to the performance of a cognitive task in an activated state  Reading span measures the capacity of working memory when attention must be paid to comprehension of sentences and to remembering a list of words

33. 1. Working memory consists of a number of parts 2. Working memory helps us manipulate information to carry out complex tasks, not just store information 33 Baddeley & Hitch (1974)

34.  Proposed a phonological loop and a visual-spatial sketch pad coordinated by a central executive  The loop stores and rehearses verbal representations whereas the sketch pad does the same for visual/spatial representations  Central executive focuses and switches attention, supervises and coordinates the storage components, and retrieves representations from long-term memory

35. Three components to WM 35 Baddeley & Hitch (1974)

36. The central executive coordinates verbal and visual information Divide attention between different tasks Help focus your attention Three Components to WM Baddeley & Hitch (1974)

37.  Holds verbal and auditory information  STM primarily uses auditory coding  Made of two parts  Storage - Passive, holds information ▪ Decays in about 2 seconds without rehearsal  Rehearsal - Active, repeats information in storage to prevent decay 37 See next slide 

38. Conrad (1964)  Letters or words of similar sounds get confused 38 See next slide 

39.  Memorize the following words: 39 mac can cap man map pen pay cow bar rig Now, write them down. Memorize the following words: Now, write them down. Conrad (1964)

40. 1. mac can cap man map 2. pen pay cow bar rig  People usually do better with List 2  Why? List 1 has words that sound really similar 40 Conrad (1964)

41. Baddeley et al. (1984)  Memory for lists of words is better for short words than for long words  It takes longer to rehearse long words and to produce them during recall

42.  Read the following words, look away, count up to 15, and recall.  Beast, bronze, wife, golf, inn, limp, dirt, star  Read the following words, look away, count up to 15, and recall.  Alcohol, property, amplifier, officer, gallery, mosquito, orchestra, bricklayer Baddeley et al. (1984)

43.  It takes longer to rehearse long words  That’s why it is difficult to memorize Baddeley et al. (1984 )

44.  Prevent one from rehearsing items to be remembered ▪ Reduces memory span ▪ Eliminates word-length effect ▪ Reduces phonological similarity effect for reading words

45.  Read the following words while repeating the word “the” out loud (the, the, the…), look away, count up to 15, and recall.  Beast, bronze, wife, golf, inn, limp, dirt, star  Read the following words while repeating the word “la” out loud (the, the, the…), look away, count up to 15, and recall.  Alcohol, property, amplifier, officer, gallery, mosquito, orchestra, bricklayer Baddeley et al. (1984)

46.  Articulatory suppression: Speaking interferes with the operation of the loop  “the, the, the…”  “la, la, la, la, la,…” 46

47. Baddeley et al. (1984)  Two word lists are spoken and must be remembered  automobile apartment syllogism basketball  story car towel coffee swing  Second list should be easier - it’s shorter  But Baddeley had subjects say the word “the” over and over again 47

48.  “the, the, the…” prevents rehearsal  Word-length effect is abolished 48 Baddeley et al. (1984)

49. Holds visual and spatial information; used in doing anything visual - puzzles, drawings, etc. Shepard and Metzler (1971)  Mental chronometry – general idea of measuring how long it takes to carry out various cognitive tasks  Task: participants saw two objects, had to indicate quickly whether the two objects were the same or different 49

50. Pulls information from LTM and coordinates tasks  Uses information from the phonological loop and visuospatial sketchpad  Focuses on specific parts of task  Switches attention from one part to another  Attention controller 50

51. Prefrontal Cortex Damage  Goldman & Rakic (1992)  Procedure: Delayed Response Task ▪ Monkey see food reward in one of two food wells; screen is lowered; delay ▪ Holding information and then required to make a response after time delay  Results  No problem remembering unless prefrontal cortex is removed (only at chance levels for these monkeys)  Interpretation  Strong evidence that prefrontal memory is integral to working memory 51

52.  Funahashi et al. (1989)

53.  Some of the slides in this presentation prepared with the assistance of the following web sites:  www.sagepub.com/upm-data/13840_Lecture_Chapter_5.ppt www.sagepub.com/upm-data/13840_Lecture_Chapter_5.ppt  http://ppt.linux5.net/g/griggs-chapter-5-memory-w155-ppt.ppt http://ppt.linux5.net/g/griggs-chapter-5-memory-w155-ppt.ppt  www.tamu.edu/.../Ch%205%20Short%20term%20memory.ppt www.tamu.edu/.../Ch%205%20Short%20term%20memory.ppt  http://www.scribd.com/doc/83755755/Ebooksclub-org-Cognitive- Psychology-Connecting-Mind-Research-and-Everyday-Experience-With- Coglab-Manual-3rd-Edition http://www.scribd.com/doc/83755755/Ebooksclub-org-Cognitive- Psychology-Connecting-Mind-Research-and-Everyday-Experience-With- Coglab-Manual-3rd-Edition