Second Unit Terms
From MerrimackWiki
These comments refer to the contents of the site between 1:00 and 4:00 on Monday afternoon. Any changes that happened during or after that time are not reflected in the comments.
Additional comments on this site were made between 4:00 and 5:15 on Monday, starting with the term "Articulatory Suppression", so changes made in that period or after are not reflected here.
capacity, duration, forgetting, content Excellent. The very first sentence of the definition could be characterized as a statement of the significance also.
icon Also excellent. The last sentence of the definition could serve as a statement of significance also. Wording could be tightened up a bit.
span of apprehension The definition is incorrect. The span is the amount taken into sensory memory; what can be measured is usually what the definition refers to as written. The significance section reads like a definition, except for the first sentence, which is close. The significance is more about how the mismatch between what got in and what people could report led to Sperling's research that elucidated the true nature of sensory memory and led to greater understanding of it.
whole report vs. partial report The term as currently defined explains what whole report (WR) is, and then what partial report (PR) is. But the term is WR vs. PR, and the definition therefore needs to be about the distinction between the two. You need to define each term briefly, but focus on the distinction. The significance then should be about why that distinction mattered: That Sperling was then able to determine the true span of apprehension and gain a better understanding of sensory memory using that distinction. The statement in the significance section about capacity and duration is excellent, providing a nice detail about what was learned about sensory memory using the distinction. Note also that this item plagiarizes the textbook pretty intensely, using the wording and organization of the textbook, especially the last sentence of the significance.
Brown-Peterson task The first sentence in the definition is more about significance; the section on significance is good, but "length" of short-term memory is not the way psychologists would talk about duration or capacity (whatever the author meant here by "length"). You should use the appropriate technical language. The last couple of sentences in the definition could be characterized as significance because they interpret the results of using the task, rather than being about the task itself.
rehearsal (in Short-Term Memory) The material here is all definitional, it's pretty much lacking a statement of significance. It's hard to identify a statement of significance for a term like this one, in all fairness, but stating that rehearsal in this context is a critical element of the Atkinson-Shiffrin model of short-term memory would serve. One could argue that stating the purpose of rehearsal is a kind of significance, but I would respond that the concept of rehearsal was created to explain how information was transferred to LTM in the context of that model. That is, it's model-specific. (BTW, I like the example of dance-step rehearsal.)
decay vs. interference I would say that this definition is too specific. The concept of "decay vs. interference" is about the debates among cognitive psychologists about how we forget generally, not about sensory memory specifically. That is, "decay vs. interference" is a label for the debates about two mechanisms of forgetting. For a definition part of the answer I would define each separate concept (decay is..., interference is...) and the significance would be about how the overall (D vs. I) refers to the two mechanisms of forgetting, and that cognitive psychologists explore these possible explanations for each type of memory system so that they can truly understand how this important function of forgetting happens. Although that's a bit wordy... Note also that the wiki entry for this item starts with sensory memory and then switches to talking about short-term memory, which are radically different things.
proactive interference This item is all about definition. I like the very brief definition in the Definition section, but some of the further elaboration in the Significance section is needed. There is no real description of significance, however. The closest is the sentence "Interference is a basic mechanism for forgetting." What's needed here is an example of how PI has been used to understand some aspect of memory (e.g., in the study of the nature of representation in short-term memory showing a semantic component), or an example of how PI has been shown to be the major type of interference causing forgetting in short-term memory studies, for example (or some other type of memory).
retroactive interference I would say pretty much the same thing for this one as the last one, except that the definition section is well elaborated. The significance section as written has some interesting material in it. The significance of this item should be done like my suggestions on proactive intereference above. After noting that this is an example of one of the two major mechanisms for forgetting, one could use the explanation of the serial position curve that relied on retroactive forgetting as an example of its significance.
Waugh & Norman probe task The term needs better defining; if you didn't know what it was before reading it, you would probably be no less clear after reading this. The significance section is good; I would punch it up by noting that the W&N probe task study was critical in demonstrating the dominance of interference in explaining forgetting in short-term memory. But the significance section is very well written!
memory span task Excellent. The memory span task doesn't exactly (by itself) clarify whether it's measuring duration or capacity, because both are kind of tangled together -- if I slow down the presentation and you still remember the same maximum number of items, does that mean the duration is longer? But this is very well written and covers the basics.
7 ± 2 chunks The material here is pretty much all definitional. It's generally good material; the stuff in the significance section tends toward being a bit wordy for transferring it to the exam. The significance of this concept has to do with the fact that when Miller came up with the concept of chunks, it clarified a lot of disparate and conflicting information about short-term remembering (e.g., 18 binary digits was equal to 6 chunks, just as 6 words was 6 chunks; so intead of "sometimes people can remember up to 18 things and sometimes only 3 or 4 things," it was all consistent).
serial position The definition here is "spot-on"! Couldn't say it much better at all. Well done. The significance however, is a bit off. The serial position curve (which shows the effect of serial position on remembering) results from free recall, and the way it's written, it looks like serial recall (recalling it in the order in which it was presented). The significance section should say something about how studies of serial position effects have clarified our understanding of some memory phenomenon, like the distinction between short-term and long-term memory, as in the negative recency study... for example.
primacy effect This is okay. The definition part presents one of several interpretations, so it's probably a bit more significance-y than definitional. The significance stated is a bit weak -- surely there's something more significant than that. In studying for the exam, I would craft one "significance" statement for a set of terms in a row -- from "serial position" through "negative recency" one could use the same statement along the lines of what I wrote above -- studies of serial position effects... because all these items are about that.
recency effect The significance statement here is good but my comments on the primacy effect still apply here. Also, the second sentence of the significance section here is really just definitional.
negative recency The definition is not complete (and really not correct, technically). The answer needs to indicate that performance on the recency items is below the performance on middle items in the delayed and surprise final free recall test. The task needs to be described a little bit more overall. The significance section addresses the real significance of this effect in the last sentence and the final clause of the penultimate sentence. Craik's (note the spelling) results created a dissociation that supported the idea of 2 memory systems (STM and LTM). That's the significance, and note how my comments on the previous items are all kind of like this! (-:
acoustic-articulatory code As with many items, this is all definitional -- excellently done, but definitional. The significance I would look for here is that this is one of several possible codes that cognitive psychologists look for in describing memory systems and in finding dissociations between them.
release from PI Nearly flawless! Brilliant! The only change I would make is in the statement of significance, which currently reads "This occurence provides evidence supporting semantic coding of Short Term Memory." I would write "Release from PI has been used to provide evidence supporting semantic coding in Short Term Memory." One could add some detail here, but it's good enough as is.
phonological loop Note that this and the next 2 items (and episodic buffer, below) are all related terms. The significance for all of them could be the same: "This is one of the components of Baddeley's Working Memory model." The wiki entry here basically covers that, as well as providing a good definition of the phonological loop. One could provide more or other information on the phonological loop, but this is good.
visuospatial sketch pad See what I wrote above. However, as written, this wiki entry has excellent information defining the visuospatial sketch pad in both sections, but needs the significance statement.
central executive See what I wrote for visuospatial sketch pad. Same thing. Excellent definitional material; needs the significance statement that this is a component of Baddeley's working memory model. This is important because there are other models of working memory, and not all cognitive psychologists agree with Baddeley. So that's the contextual information needed here for these items.
Comments below this line refer to the state of the wiki as of the period between 4:00 and 5:15 pm on Monday the 13th.
articulatory suppression This is well done. The significance should summarize the research in a more general way: "Researchers studying working memory have used articulatory suppression to study the characteristics of working memory, especially the phonological loop." The list of effects is too much to try to remember specifically for a term...
word-length effect This item needs a broader statement of significance than this very specific one. I would make a statement of significance like the one above for articulatory suppression -- Researchers have used the word length effect to study the characteristics of working memory, etc., etc. Maybe giving an example of something we've learned specifically would be good, too.
phonological similarity effect The wording on this one highlights a pet peeve of mine -- "during this effect, subjects are given"... An effect is an outcome of an experiment, so that statement could be rewritten as "during this outcome of an experiment, subjects are..." I don't know what that could mean... What the author meant here was that "In a study demonstrating this effect, subject are given..." The language we use has specific meanings, and part of what studying psychology is about is learning to use that language correctly and appropriately.
In general for this item, the first sentence of each section is good. I would clarify that the confusion only happens in short-term or working memory tasks (and not in long-term memory tasks, and for significance, that the effect supports auditory/articulatory/acoustic coding in both short-term and in working memory models. One could also make a more general statement of significance like the one for the word-length effect (including an example of something learned), and minimize study effort! LOL.
episodic buffer See what I wrote above for the other components of Baddeley's working memory model.
episodic memory This item and the next two could have the same significance statement: "One of the three memory systems in Tulving's theory of memory systems in long-term memory." The significance statement given for this item is a nice statement of personal significance, or subjective significance, but I'm looking for theoretical significance, and the simple statement that is part of a particular theory of how memory is organized (Tulving's) would win me over... The rest of what is here is excellent material to use in writing a definition.
semantic memory The statements I made above about the entry for episodic memory apply here perfectly.
procedural memory Same as above. All the material is more definitional, a statement that this is a component of Tulving's Memory Systems theory would nail the significance.
anoetic consciousness This and the next two items also could use the same statement of significance: This is one of the elements of Tulving's memory systems theory, that each memory system has a specific type or level of consciousness awareness associated with it. The key will be remembering what each one is. The entry here describing anoetic consciousness isn't fully correct -- the consciousness is something that happens while one is procedurally remembering -- we are unaware that we are engaged in remembering. Otherwise good.
noetic consciousness This is okay, for definitional purposes, but the significance statement linking this to Tulving's memory systems is important to include.
autonoetic consciousness This is good (not great), and needs that significance statement as above.
explicit memory This is all definition (and good stuff). The significance statement one should add to this could be about how the study of memory was limited to explicit memory until the 1980s, when researchers started studying implicit memory. Or something to the effect that studying only explicit memory would provide a limited understanding of memory... Or as the implicit memory wiki entry (below) notes, this is one of the divisions of long-term memory.
implicit memory This has great information in it; only the statement that implicit memory is one of the divisions of long-term memory is about significance; the rest is definition material (and is also good stuff).
word-stem completion This and the next item share a significance statement also: An important technique for studying differences between implicit and explicit remembering and for understanding elements of long-term remembering. The term as written about here is almost all definitional; the part of the defintion here that provides a theoretical explanation hints at another significance statement one could make about how it provides information about Tulving's procedural memory system. Specifically, that it illustrates that remembering without awareness can be an illustration of how memory is revealed in some change in behavior because of an earlier experience.
spelling bias Really not a correct explanation. The issue isn't one of distraction or bias for the sake of bias. The issue here is that this, like the preceding item, is a technique for studying implicit memory -- subjects engaged in a spelling bias experiment are fully aware of all that is happening, but are not aware of the link between the presentation of priming (or bias-creating) information and the spelling test. The point is that it illustrates characteristics of Tulving's procedural memory, remembering without awareness; that memory is revealed by a change in behavior attributable to some earlier experience.
priming Extraordinary! A stronger more general statement of significance would enhance this item, about how it shows that memory is revealed when there's a change in behavior attributable to the priming task or experience. Or the sorts of things in the preceding two items.
double dissociation Excellently worded! The significance statement given here is really definitional, however. I would want to see something about how a double dissociation is the gold standard for demonstrating that two different memory (or, sigh, brain) systems are involved in particular tasks or domains of functioning, like memory (e.g., explicit and implicit) or language (e.g., production and reception).
Good luck on the exam!
