Cognitive Psychology

1. Cognitive Psychology Lecture 3: Long Term Memory September 2007 John Toner

2. Schacter & Tulving (1994)

3. { Declarative: { Non-declarative:

4. Overview of Lecture • Semantic Memory • Episodic Memory • Perceptual Representations • Procedural Memory

5. Vowel Counting apple

6. Vowel Counting chair

7. Vowel Counting light

8. Vowel Counting syrup

9. Vowel Counting sword

10. Vowel Counting !

11. Digit Task Counting backwards from 70 in 8’s List the next 5 numbers in this sequence 70, 62, 54,__,__,__,__,__

12. Anagrams (5 seconds) bianr

13. Anagrams (5 seconds) ciarh

14. Anagrams (5 seconds) atlpn

15. Anagrams (5 seconds) gtilh

16. Anagrams (5 seconds) enots

17. Anagrams (5 seconds) purys

18. Anagrams (5 seconds) STOP

19. bianr brian ciarh chair atlpn plant gtilh light enots stone purys syrup

20. Design • First and last vowel counting words not used • Distraction task • Anagrams for both primed and unprimed words as similar as possible

21. Explicit & Implicit Memory • Explicit memory involves conscious recollection of previous experience. It is what most people generally refer to as ‘memory’ • Implicit Memory is an unintentional, non-conscious form of retention. It can be revealed when performance on a task is facilitated without conscious recollection

22. Explicit & Implicit Memory Examples of Implicit Memory: • Finding a key quickly and turning it efficiently in a lock • Deciding that ‘doctor’ is a word happens faster after presentation of ‘nurse’ rather than ‘north’

23. Explicit & Implicit Memory • Rule of Thumb: Explicit memory is often associated with increased brain activity, while implicit memory is associated with decreased activation • Can we prove that any experimental task does not use explicit memory?

24. Long Term Memory Systems Proposed by Schacter & Tulving (1994) • Memory systems handle information within a given class or domain (e.g. episodic memory deals with memory of events) • Properties of a system: Rules of operation, neural substrates and function of a system distinguish it • Convergent dissociations: A given memory system should be different from others systems in clear, well defined ways

25. Episodic Memory (Declarative) This refers to the storage and retrieval of specific events or episodes occurring in a particular place at a particular time

26. Semantic Memory (Declarative) This refers to information about our stock of knowledge about the world 2+2 = 4 “Moo”

27. Episodic v Semantic • Wheeler et al 1997: episodic memory involves the subjective awareness or reliving of experiences but semantic memory does not. • PET scan studies (see Wheeler et al 1997) have shown that there is more activity in the right prefrontal cortex when participants are trying to retrieve episodic memories than when they are trying to retrieve other kinds of memories such as semantic memories.

28. Episodic v Semantic “The major distinction between episodic and semantic memory is no longer best described in terms of the type of information they work with. The distinction is now made in terms of the nature of subjective experience that accompanies the operations of the system at encoding and retrieval” - Wheeler et al (1997, pp348-349)

29. Episodic v Semantic “The major distinction between episodic and semantic memory is no longer best described in terms of the type of information they work with.The distinction is now made in terms of the nature of subjective experience that accompanies the operations of the system at encoding and retrieval” - Wheeler et al (1997, pp348-349)

30. Episodic v Semantic But also: “The manner in which information is registered in the episodic and semantic systems is highly similar - there is no known method of readily encoding information into an adults semantic memory without putting corresponding information in episodic memory or vice versa” - Wheeler et al (1997, p. 333)

31. Episodic v Semantic But also: “Episodic memory is a recently evolved, late developing, and early-deteriorating past oriented memory system, more vulnerable than other memory systems to neuronal dysfunction” - Tulving (2002, p.5)

32. Episodic v Semantic The case of ‘KC” • Having suffered brain damage the patient had a total inability to remember any events, circumstances, or sitations from his life. • His episodic amnesia covered his whole life from birth to present. • Yet he could slowly acquire new semantic memories (phrase association), even if he could not remember the hours spent in the laboratory learning the associations

33. Semantic Memory (Declarative) Evidence for how information is organised. • Warrington & Shallice (1984) report a patient ‘JBR’ who had huge problems identifying pictures of living things, but few problems naming non-living things (success rate 6% vs 90%) • The opposite difficulties have also been reported, although it is a much rarer affliction (Martin & Caramazza, 2003)

34. Semantic Memory (Declarative) Evidence for how information is organised. • Damasio et al. (1996) Object naming task given to healthy subjects. • PET data showed different areas active if objects were famous faces (left temporal pole), animals (left inferotemporal region) or tools (posterolateral inferotemporal region) • Damasio et al. (1996) also found that people with damage in these specific areas had problems with naming the associated categories of items!

35. Semantic Memory (Declarative) Evidence for how information is organised. Theoretical • Farah & McClelland (1991) put forward a theory based on the following assumptions: 1: Living things are primarily categorised based largely upon visual properties. (What they look like) 2: Non-living things are primarily categorised based largely upon functional properties. (What they are used for) 3: Dictionary analysis showed that ratio of visual to functional descriptors was 7.7:1 for living objects, but only 1.4:1 for non-living.

36. Procedural Memory (Non-declarative) • Procedural memory is memory that allows us to acquire motor and cognitive skills. It is “knowing how” memory (Ryle 1949).

37. Procedural Memory (Non-declarative) Evidence that is is a separate system: • Corkin (1968) reported that patient ‘HM’ showed evidence of learning on a mirror drawing task, and on the pursuit rotor, despite having difficulties with the most basic episodic and semantic memories • Other studies on amnesiacs corroborate this

38. Procedural Memory (Non-declarative) Methods used: • Serial reaction time task: Visual target appears in one of four locations and an appropriate button has to be pressed. A specific sequence is repeated and if learning is happening, reaction times reduce. This skill is generally intact in amnesiacs (e.g. Nissen & Bullemer, 1987)

39. Procedural Memory (Non-declarative) Brain Areas? • Sensory motor skill learning linked with the basal ganglia (often damaged in sufferers of Parkinson’s and Huntington’s) • Poor performance on mirror tracing by people with lesions to cerebellum.

40. Procedural Memory (Non-declarative) Brain Areas. Difference? • Gabrieli (1998) proposes that actions such as the mirror tracing task, which involve continuous adjustment based on visual feedback, will rely on the cerebellum. While tasks involving planned movements and delayed feedback involve the basal ganglia • Illustrated in the difference between cycling in a straight line (continuous feedback) and hopping off the bicycle (planned movement of whole body)

41. Perceptual Representation Operatesusing information on perceptual information about the form and structure of objects (e.g. their appearance, their name, their sound etc.) Its main interest to us is its hypothesised role in the ability to “identify an object as a result of a specific prior encounter with it” (Schacter, 2000 p.636)

42. Perceptual Representation • Basically, processing occurs more quickly and efficiently from two exposures onwards. • It relates to a specific stimulus

43. Procedural v Perceptual • Mirror drawing task We improve at mirror drawing as an activity: Procedural We improve at drawing this specific picture: Perceptual

44. Procedural v Perceptual Much more detail about skill learning and repetition priming in Eysenck & Keane Chapter 7

45. Reading Eysenck & Keane Chapter 7 & 8 Topics also dealt with in Sternberg (2003) and Reisberg (2006)