Cognition Lecture 2

Cognition Lecture 2

1. Tulving's two types of memory

   • Episodic
     • Memory for specific events located at a specific point in time
     • Time machine
   • Semantic
     • Memory for facts
     • Knowledge
   • Differences
     • Functional
     • Neuropsychological
       • Spiers, Maguire and Burgess (2001) - danage to hippocampus affects episodic memory
       • Damage to anterior frontal/temporal lobe affects semantic memory

2. Schemas and Meaning Making

   • Schemas
     • Structured representations of knowledge about the world, events, people or actions
     • Scripts
       • Schemas for events and sequences of actions
         • Bower, Black and Turner (1973)
           • 73% of respondents - sit down, look at menu, order, eat, etc. at restaurant
           • 48% of respondents - enter, order drinks, discuss menu, etc. - also at restaurant
     • Frames
       • Fixed structural information
   • Bartlett - recall of Native American folk tales
     • Recall included errors, distortions, more coherence and consistency with semantic knowledge, more Westernised
     • Effect of schematic knowledge
     • Critique
       • Participants given vague instructions
   • Bransford and Johnson (1972)
     • No title - 2.8 ideas recalled
     • "Washing Machine" - 5.8 ideas recalled
   • Role of Schemas
     • Sulin and Dooling (1974) - pps read about either known (Hitler) or unknown (Martin) dictator
       • Short delay - no difference
       • Long delay - known condition recall more false positives (e.g. "He hated the Jews")
   • Role of Meaning
     • Carmichael et al. (1932) - word list studied by participant affected recall and reproduction of figures
     • Bower et al. (1975) - improved recall with labelled figures.
   • Jenkins and Russell (1952)
     • Participants recalled words in the list as clumped together in categories even if displayed randomly
   • Dual-Coding Hypothesis
     • More imageable words are more memorable
     • Multiple encoding routes improves chance of successful recall

3. Levels of Processing

   • Craik and Lockhart (1972)
     • Visual (worst)
     • Phonological
     • Semantic (best)
   • Evidence
     • Craik and Tulving (1975)
       • Deeper processing (semantic) led to better recognition
       • Replicated numerous times for recognition and recall
   • Criticism
     • Difficult to define and measure
     • LoP are processed simultaneously
     • Deeper isn't always more memorable

4. Transfer-Appropriate Proocesing

   • Cues available at testing are similar to encoding cues.
   • Kohler et al. (2000) - memory was better if the test format (pictures) is the same at encoding (pictures)
   • Morris, Bransford and Franks (1977)
     • Standard recognition test favoured semantic judgements
     • Rhyming recognition test favoured phonological judgements
   • Deeper processing still better?
     • Elaborative rehearsal enhances memory
   • Hierarchical Organisation
     • Bower et al. (1969) - recall is better when words are organised
     • Tulving (1962) - chunking helps memory - linked to common associate

5. Organisation

   • Hierarchical Network Model
     • Collins and Quallian (1969)
     • Semantic memory organised into series of networks
       • Major concepts represented by nodes
       • Properties associated with each
     • Support - sentence verification task
     • Problems
       • Familiarity reduces hierarchical distance effect
       • Verification faster for typical members
   • Spreading Activation Model
     • Collins and Loftus (1975)
     • Semantic memory organised by semantic relatedness - length of links indicates semantic relatedness - activity at one node causes spread
     • Support
       • McNamara (1992) - semantic relatedness makes processing more efficient
       • DRM paradigm - activation spreads to related words, leading to false positive
     • Evaluation
       • More flexible
         • Accounts for more findings
         • Reduces specificity + difficult to test
       • Oversimplified
       • Context changes representations
       • No consensus on how to measure semantic distance

6. Situated Simulation Theory

   • Concepts are processed in different settings - processing influenced by this
   • Barsalou (2009) - perceptual properties and action-related properties
   • Evaluation
     • How variable are concepts?
     • Properties secondary after meaning?

7. Concepts and the Brain

   • Grandmother Cell Hypothesis
     • Semantic memories are represented in the brain as whole objects
   • Feature-Based Approach
     • Different kinds of information about a given object are stored in separate brain regions
   • Hub-and-Spoke Model
     • Hub - conceptual representations
       • Modality- independent
     • Spokes (brain areas)
       • Modality-specific
     • Ishibashi et al. (2018)
       • Apply tDCS to IPL - tool manipulation task enhanced
       • Apply tDCS to ATL - increased performance for both questions
     • Neuropsychological evidence

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