2011 VN'ers Psychology U3 Questions Thread

[Slumdawg]

is research methods going to be in the exam?

Yes of course. VCAA love their research methods. You need to know all of chapter 1 very well. All of it can and will be examined in June + November

[peachesxo]

Hey guys!
Can you please explain the Baddeley and Hitch's model of working memory in depth?
Thanks sooo much ( its driving me nuts!:))

[Glockmeister]

You can sort of think of Baddeley's model as being a subset of the Working Memory. Within the working memory, there are three aspects, the Central Executive, the Phonological Loop and the Visuosptaial sketch pad. In sum you can consider that the visuospatial sketch pad is used to remember visual material through the use of visualualation, whereas the phonological loop attempts to hold sounds by vocalising it in your head (in the working memory). The Central executive controls and mediates this process, controlling how the info will be used.

[Zafaraaaa]

Outline the role of the Reticular Activating system in:
- Selective Attention
- Wakefulness

thanks in advance

[iNerd]

Outline the role of the Reticular Activating system in:
- Selective Attention
- Wakefulness

thanks in advance

Late reply I know but I was unavailable for quite some time

Anyways the RAS controls levels of attention is a much better of way of thinking about it. Selective can be mistaken for the thalamus as the thalamus pays attention to sensory information in the environment yeah? For eg if you're dozing off and then you hear a girl scream the RAS bombards your cerebral cortex with neurons to stimulate you and you become more attentive. Similarly the RAS controls the transition between deep sleep and wakefulness by the amount of stimulation is it giving off. This is how an anaesthetic works...

Clear? If not, have a read of the Oxford Book. Much better on this content than Grivas.

[iNerd]

You can sort of think of Baddeley's model as being a subset of the Working Memory. Within the working memory, there are three aspects, the Central Executive, the Phonological Loop and the Visuosptaial sketch pad. In sum you can consider that the visuospatial sketch pad is used to remember visual material through the use of visualualation, whereas the phonological loop attempts to hold sounds by vocalising it in your head (in the working memory). The Central executive controls and mediates this process, controlling how the info will be used.

This is perfectly correct but...

...do not forget Episodic Buffer. New part of the course - highly likely it'll be examined.

[Russ]

the RAS bombards your cerebral cortex with neurons to stimulate you and you become more attentive.

Say signals or neural impulses rather than neurons though.

FYI, I opened this thread to vent about my Neurodegeneration block of lectures and how hard Psych is

[iNerd]

Ebbinghaus found that he forgot most rapidly in the first hour of learning. Follow-up studies that shown that this is true for:

a) semantic but not episodic
b) episodic but not semantic
c) procedural but not declarative
d) all forms of memory

[Camo]

I'd say a but not sure, anyone want to back me up.

[iNerd]

In a Psychology class, students were asked to memorise a list of 15 words that were read to them at 1 second intervals. At the conclusion of the list being read, the students were required to wait 40 seconds prior to writing down the list of words remembered. The sequence that best typifies this experiment is
A. recency effect, primacy effect, middle.
B. primacy effect, middle, recency effect.
C. primacy effect, recency effect, middle.
D. middle, primacy effect, recency effect.

[Russ]

I would say primacy, recency, middle, 40 seconds is starting to push the limits of short term memory

[Zafaraaaa]

maybe C?

[iNerd]

Err I'm either misinterpreting or overanalysing.

After a 40second delay (as Russ said) you lose the info from STM and you'll see no recency effect.

Wouldn't that make it Primacy, Middle, Recency as you have transferred some from the middle to LTM.

[Russ]

If they were asked to memorize the list I presume they'd be mentally repeating them and trying to hold them all in working memory.

[iNerd]

True.

Okay what if they had to say the alphabet backwards for 40 seconds?

Would it be Primacy, Middle, Recency then?