Course Demos

This is a collection of demos that may be helpful for understanding the memory experiments and findings that we cover in class.

Note

Please keep in mind that these demos are meant to give you a feel for how we measure real world phenomena in a lab. Although some will give you your results, remember that healthy people vary a lot on how they do on any given task – any results are not diagnostic!

Amazon Mechanical Turk (AMT)

We will be running several demos through Amazon Mechanical Turk. The reason for this is so that we can actually collect data from the class and share it during class time!

A few things to note:

  • You will need an Amazon Worker account. You will be prompted for this the first time that you try to do one of these demos.
  • Sometimes after creating the account you will get a message saying ‘Invalid URL’. Just renavigate to the link and it should work.
  • To start the demo you need to click ‘accept HIT’.
  • You can only start a demo one time in the AMT environment. So, please be sure not to start until you are sure that you can finish. We will post a separate URL that you can use if you’d like to view the demo again, but please be sure to complete the demo in the AMT environment your first time so that we can collect your data!
  • It is strongly recommended that you run these demos using Chrome.
  • Please let us know if you run into any trouble with the demos and we can try to fix it!

Working Memory

Sensory Memory: Sperling Partial Report Procedure

A demonstration of the Sperling Partial Report Procedure can be found here.

There are a few things in this version that differ from the original procedure and make it a little hard to interpret the results, but it will give you a feel for the task.

Memory Span

Several memory span tasks can be found by nagivating to this page and then clicking on the “Item Span” tab.

In class we’ll focus on Forward Digit Span (you can try the visual or auditory version). We’ll also briefly talk about the Corsi Block Task.

A few things to note:

  • After you get two right in a row, you will have the option to increase the length of the sequence that you need to remember. You need to do this manually by clicking the up arrow next to ‘total length’ once it becomes available.
  • Try to notice if some sequences are easier than others. What do you think makes those sequences easier?
  • What types of strategies are you using to remember the sequences?

N-back

A classic n-back task can be found by navigating to this page and then clicking on the “Memory” tab and selecting Working memory test (n-back). Start with a 2-back, and you can make it harder by increasing to 3-back, 4-back, etc.

If anyone is feeling really brave, you can try a version of the Jaeggi working memory training task that we’ll discuss in class by choosing Jaeggi-Buschkuehl dual n-back task.

Serial Position Effects

Before starting, please read the notes about Amazon Mechanical Turk above.

A serial position task can be found here – or you can enter the Amazon Mechanical Turk Worker Sandbox and search for “Psych 45 Serial Position Demo”.

If you have already run the task on Amazon Mechanical Turk but would like to see it again, you can find it here.

Cognitive Control

Stroop Task

A very quick demo of the Stroop task can be found here.

Memory Retrieval

Signal Detection Theory

A web app to get a better intuition about signal detection theory in the context of recognition memory. Check out how d-prime changes as you move the “OlD” mean further from the “NEW” mean! Then, look at how your hit and false alarm rates change when you move the criterion around.

The app can be found here