PSYC 305L Study Guide - Final Guide: Eyewitness Testimony, Short-Term Memory, Implicit Memory
Cognitive Lab Final
Explain/describe False Memory
Phenomenon where a person recalls something that did not happen. A lot of studies suggest that
our memories are highly complex, malleable, and extremely fallible. A false memory is a
fabricated or distorted recollection of an event.
Eyewitness testimony: memories in court. The discovery of false memories has had wide-
reaching implications, particularly in court cases, where accurate eyewitness testimonies are
essential. Factors such as the presence of a weapon when a crime is being committed can affect
our ability to recall events clearly.
- Accurate, Related, Unrelated
Explain/describe the relationship between working/short-term memory and long-term memory
Short term memory: 7 + - 2, limited capacity, limited duration between 15-30 seconds
Long term memory: stored memory, skills, learned, kinetic effects, capacity could be unlimited,
duration- might be a few minutes or a lifetime, anything more than a few moments ago
Working memory: currently in your memory is short term memory but is broken down into 3
different systems for different types of information
− Central executive: mental arithmetic problem solving
− Visuospatial sketchpad: images
− Phonological loop: auditory
Explain/describe aspects of explicit and implicit memory
Direct memory or explicit memory involves facts or events, easy recall and recognize, such as
birthdays, capitals of states. Indirect memory or implicit memory referred to as unconscious
memory or automatic memory, such as riding a bike or muscle memory.
What is:
- Coding
- Rehearsal
- Imaging
In order to encode into Long Term Memory:
Rehearsal – verbal rehearsal, a type of learning repetition rather than understanding
Coding- placing new information in meaningful context, semantic
Imaging- creating visual images of new info placing memory into image context
Explain/describe recall and recognition
Recall is the retrieval of information from memory without a cue. There is a question, and you
must search your memory for the answer.
Recognition is a response to a sensory cue. When you see something, you compare it to
information stored in your memory, and if you find a match, you "recognize" it.
Why different Because it is cued, recognition is easier than recall. A simple illustration of this is
recognizing a familiar face almost instantly, but struggling to come up with the person's name.
What structure in the nervous system seems to be instrumental in all memory conditions?
Hippocampus
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Are memories stored in just one part of the brain, or are they stored in many ... spent decades
working on the synapse, the basic structure of the brain, and its role in ... The prefrontal cortex
appears to be involved in remembering semantic tasks. .... of different types of memories:
cerebellum, hippocampus, and amygdala.
Are memories stored in just one part of the brain, or are they stored in many ... spent decades
working on the synapse, the basic structure of the brain, and its role in ... The prefrontal cortex
appears to be involved in remembering semantic tasks. .... of different types of memories:
cerebellum, hippocampus, and amygdala.
What is State Dependent Learning?
Studying under a certain situation such as caffeine, chewing gum, certain seats, or noisy or silent
situations will help you learn and recall information more freely and accurate.
- The phenomenon through which memory retrieval is more efficient when an individual is
in the same state as they were when the memory was encoded
- Most related to substance us
- If an individual always studied for a test while caffeinated it will most likely be easiest to
recall what they studies if they had the similar level of caffeine at the time of the test
Explain/describe Event Memory
Constructed memory of similar events usually past
-thanksgiving dinner
All the memories can kind of meld into one event
Explain/describe Boundary Extension
Boundary Extension
- People are asked to recreate a picture they include extra space around the item
- Damage to hippocampus can seem to improve this kind of memory task
- Its thought that normal functioning hippocampus will include spatial information that was
not there, damage reduces this
Explain/describe Lexical Decision Task
Lexical decision task
Processing speed how fast does our brain process information, decision between congruent and
incongruent stroop, von restorff, false memory
Related to semantics and memory
Semantic = meaning
Lexical = words available (vocabulary)
Phonological = sounds related to words
The original Lexical Decision task was investigated by Meyer and Schvaneveldt their study
provided early evidence supporting network models by illuminating the effects of priming
(1971). In their experiment, the researchers measured response times as people made lexical
decisions, they had to determine whether two letter strings, presented simultaneously, were both
words. In conditions in which both stimuli were words, some of the pairs were related such as
bread and butter while others were unrelated chair and flower. The key finding was that
“response time was faster for related words than for unrelated words, consistent with the concept
of spreading activation” (Meyer, 1971).
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Document Summary
Phenomenon where a person recalls something that did not happen. A lot of studies suggest that our memories are highly complex, malleable, and extremely fallible. A false memory is a fabricated or distorted recollection of an event. The discovery of false memories has had wide- reaching implications, particularly in court cases, where accurate eyewitness testimonies are essential. Factors such as the presence of a weapon when a crime is being committed can affect our ability to recall events clearly. Explain/describe the relationship between working/short-term memory and long-term memory. Short term memory: 7 + - 2, limited capacity, limited duration between 15-30 seconds. Long term memory: stored memory, skills, learned, kinetic effects, capacity could be unlimited, duration- might be a few minutes or a lifetime, anything more than a few moments ago. Working memory: currently in your memory is short term memory but is broken down into 3 different systems for different types of information.
