PSY 1001H Study Guide - Midterm Guide: Binocular Rivalry, Short-Term Memory, Iconic Memory
CONSCIOUSNESS
Lectures
1. What are the hard and easy questions that the science of Consciousness needs to
answer? Why? how?
How can these be studied? First person data, third person data
2. What is the capacity of the unconscious brain?
(Dr He didn’t mention this in his Monday lecture, the basic idea is that we don’t know. It
is an area of active research.)
3. What is blindsight? ability to respond to visual information without consciously seeing it
Which area of the brain seems to be able to operate without conscious awareness?
What is the evidence for this claim?
What is binocular rivalry?
How can the researcher use binocular rivalry to study consciousness?
4. What is the split-brain effect?
Where in the brain are Broca’s area and Wernicke’s area located? (You may want to
review pages 110 - 112 on “which side of the brain do we use for what?)
A object seen in the left visual field will be processed in which side of the brain?
How about something seen in the right visual field?
5. What is involved in self-recognition?
What is the mirror test?
6. What are the stages of sleep?
What neural activity distinguishes each stage?
How many stages are there?
What is REM sleep?
7. How can researchers measure the consciousness of an individual in a coma?
8. What does research on consciousness tell us about free will?
Textbook:
1. What is the circadian rhythm? Cyclical changes that occur on a roughly 24-hour basis
in many biological processes
How much sleep do humans need? For most, 7-10 hours
2. What is the different drug types (depressants, stimulants, opiates, psychedelics) and
what physical effect does each have?
Depressant – decreased CNS activity – initial high followed by sleepiness, slower
thinking, and impaired concentration
Stimulant – increased CNS activity – alertness, well-being, energy
Opiates – sense of euphoria – decreased pain
Psychedelics – dramatically altered perception, mood, thoughts
3. What is involved in a diagnosis of substance use disorder? Tolerance, withdrawal,
physical dependence, psychological dependence
What factors may contribute to substance abuse? Sociocultural influences, “addictive”
personality, genetic influences, learning & expectencies
MEMORY (Lectures, Chapter 7)
Models of Memory
Working processes of memory
find more resources at oneclass.com
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1. What is the Modal Model of Memory? Sensory store then paying attention to it, then it
goes to short term memory, and to keep it in stm you must rehearse it, and then it is
encoded in long term memory and can be retrieved from ltm
2. What are attention paying attention to a sensory stimuli
rehearsal, repeating info to extend duration of retention in short term memory
encoding process of getting information into memory bank
retrieval. Reactivation or reconstruction of experiences from our memory stores
Sensory Memory
3. What is Sensory memory? Brief story of perceptual info before it is passed to short term
memory
What is its capacity, duration and function? Large capacity, short duration,
4. How did the Sperling study measure the duration and capacity of sensory memory?
Flashed 12 letters at a time for 1/20th of second, participants could only remember letters
when focused on individual row
5. What are echoic and iconic memory?
Echoic – auditory sensory memory, lasts 5-10 seconds
Iconic – visual sensory memory, lasts about 1 second
6. What is the duration of each of these?
Short term memory
7. What is Short-term memory? Retains info for brief periods of time while we’re thinking
about, attending, or actively processing
What is its capacity, duration and function? Cap: 7 plus/minus 2 minutes; duration: 15
seconds
8. What is chunking? Grouping info into recognizable “chunks” or portions
What is the magic number? 7 plus/minus 2
9. How did Peterson and Peterson study the duration of short-term memory?
Participants memorize 3 letter strings for 3-18 seconds
Long term Memory
10. What is Long-term memory? Relatively enduring (minutes to years) retention of
information stored regarding our facts, experiences, and skills
What are its capacity, duration and function? Cap: huge
11. What are the different kinds of long-term memory?
Semantic – knowledge or facts about the world
Episodic – recollection of events in our lives (first kiss)
Explicit – recalled intentionally and of which we have conscious awareness (semantic
and episodic) also called declarative
Implicit – memories we don’t deliberately remember or reflect unconsciously (unlocking
our front door)
Procedural – memory for motor skills and habits (riding a bike)
What kinds of memory are typical of each different kind?
12. Who is Clive Wearing? Former music producer who’s hippocampi and other brain
structures destroyed by herpes, has amnesia.
What kinds of things could he remember and what kinds of things could he not
remember as a result of his brain injury? Past and implicit could remember, but couldn’t
consciously form new memories
What do these deficits and retentions indicate about memory? Hippocampi impairs
explicit memory but leaves implicit memory intact
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
First person data, third person data: what is the capacity of the unconscious brain? (dr he didn"t mention this in his monday lecture, the basic idea is that we don"t know. It is an area of active research. : what is blindsight? ability to respond to visual information without consciously seeing it. Where in the brain are broca"s area and wernicke"s area located? (you may want to review pages 110 - 112 on which side of the brain do we use for what?) Cyclical changes that occur on a roughly 24-hour basis in many biological processes. Depressant decreased cns activity initial high followed by sleepiness, slower thinking, and impaired concentration. Stimulant increased cns activity alertness, well-being, energy. Opiates sense of euphoria decreased pain. Sociocultural influences, addictive personality, genetic influences, learning & expectencies. Reactivation or reconstruction of experiences from our memory stores. Brief story of perceptual info before it is passed to short term memory. Echoic auditory sensory memory, lasts 5-10 seconds.
