Texas PSYCHOLOGY 4320 – compare episodic and semantic memories

Review Questions for Memory Chapter 7 Semantic Memory

1. compare episodic and semantic memories.
2. What are the findings from amnesic patients on selective impairment on these two types of memories?
3. what does the hierarchical network model say about the organization of semantic memory?
4. what are findings against the assumptions of the hierarchical network model?
5. Conrad found that the hierarchical structural effect that Collins and Quillians found was actually the effect of a confounding variable that the original study did not control. What was that confounding variable?
6. what is the cognitive economy principle of semantic information storage according to the hierarchical network model of semantic memory?
7. what is a typicality effect, familiarity effect? Why is it a problem for the hierarchical network model of semantic memory?
8. what is a fuzzy category?
9. how to explain semantic (associative) priming by spreading activation?
10. Define repetition priming, associative priming, conceptual priming, perceptual priming.
11. what factors affect priming?
12. what is a benefit in priming?
13. the author of this chapter was wrong when he said that the brain activities of responding ‘Yes’ to a studied word (a hit) in a recognition test and to a word such as “sleep” that is not studied but responded to positively (a false alarm). How was he wrong?
14. what is the grandmother cell hypothesis? Was the hypothesis supported by findings?
15. what did the neuroscience find about how semantic info is stored in the brain?
16. researchers first thought that “living features” and “non-living features” are stored in different regions of the brain. How was it proven wrong?
17. why do amnesic patients have more difficulty recognizing living things than non-living things?
18. recognition of which one, living or non-living things, depends more on visual, perceptual features?
19. what is the sensory (perceptual)-functional theory of object recognition. Why does it contradict category deficit hypothesis (that the deficit is of two categories, living and non-living categories)?
20. what is the multiple feature approach? What are the additional features?
21. did research find that color, motion, and shape information are stored in different regions of the brain?
22. transfer of learning (applying what is learning from one situation to another, e.g., from studying or learning to testing) depends very much on the matching of the contexts. What are some of the contexts?
23. using consistent and varied examples can have different effects on transfer. Explain it.
24. what is a script in memory?
25. name three ways that a schema can affect our memory.
26. how can the visual scene or context affect the recognition of an object?
27. when people recount what they originally learned, what changes can occur in their reproduction of the original story?
28. what are some of the criticisms of the schema effects that Bartlett’s found?
29. how can retention intervals influence the effect of schema?
30. what did the Brewer and Tenyens’ (1981) study find about schema effect on memory?
31. name two positive things about the schema theory, and two negative things.
32. verbally describing the sequence of actions one needs to take to accomplish a goal and actually performing the actions are different. Which one can some amnesic patients still do? And what does it imply in terms of how amnesia affects different kinds of memory?
33. What does the passage on “Washing clothes” tell you about the schema?
34. In what ways is memory malleable? Describe several specific ways that you can change someone’s memory about something.
35. Is it possible to implant a memory into someone? Give some examples reported in the text.
36. What is a memory illusion? How do the memory researchers create it in the lab?