Chapter 8 - Memory

Question 1

It is easier to remember “what sobriety conceals, alcohol reveals” than to recall “what sobriety conceals, alcohol unmasks.” This best illustrates the value of:

Answer 1

acoustic encoding

Question 1

An understanding of the spacing effect provides insight into effective strategies for:

Answer 1

rehersal

Question 2

From another room, Amanda called out to Juan to ask where he had put the car keys. At first, Juan thought he hadn’t heard what Amanda had asked. A second later, the question registered in his mind and he answered, “On the bedroom dresser.” _____ memory can explain this phenomenon.

Answer 2

echoic

Question 2

When you encode a piece of target information, other bits of information become associated with it. The bits of information connected with the target information are known as:

Answer 2

retrieval cues.

Question 3

Dora found the serial number of the used car she wanted to purchase online. To remember the eleven-digit number, 19801776317, she thought of the number as the year she was born (1980), the date of the Declaration of Independence (1776), and the area code of her home phone (317). Dora was using the strategy of _____ to help her remember the car’s serial number.

Answer 3

chunking

Question 3

When asked to memorize the 15 letters C I A C B S A B C F B I I R S, Mary reorganized them into CIA, CBS, ABC, FBI, and IRS. Mary used the tactic called:

Answer 3

chunking

Question 3

Harry Bahrick and his family found that the longer the space between practice sessions was, the better their retention of the foreign language word translations up to ___ years later.

2
5
32
4

Answer 3

5

Question 4

What two new concepts update the classic Atkinson-Shiffrin three-stage information-processing model?

Answer 4

1. We form some memories (implicit memories) through automatic processing, without our awareness. The Atkinson-Shiffrin model focused only on conscious, explicit memories.
2. The newer concept of a working memory emphasizes the active processing that we now know takes place in Atkinson-Shiffrin’s short-term memory stage.

Question 4

James has suffered hippocampal damage from a near-fatal bus crash. He is not able to remember verbal information, but retains the ability to recall visual designs and locations. His damage is to the left _____.

Answer 4

hippocampus

Question 4

While taking the final exam in her American history class, Marie was surprised and frustrated by her momentary inability to remember the name of the first president of the United States. Her difficulty most clearly illustrates:

Answer 4

retreval failure

Question 4

When someone is unsuccessfully trying to remember something, there is activity in the:

Answer 4

left frontal lobe

Question 4

Ebbinghaus observed that it is much easier to learn meaningful material than to learn nonsense material. This best illustrates the advantage of:

1. deep processing.
2. implicit memory.
3. the “peg-word” system.
4. the spacing effect.

Answer 4

deep processing

Question 5

Our memory of facts and experiences that we consciously know and can easily recite is known as _____ memory.

Answer 5

explicit

Question 5

When people are given subtle misleading information about a past event, they often misremember the true details surrounding the event. This is known as:

1. source amnesia.
2. long-term potentiation.
3. retroactive interference.
4. the misinformation effect.

Answer 5

4

Question 5

Events that are forgotten are like books that cannot be found in a library. Which of the following scenarios can BEST be used to explain the encoding problem?

1. The book is on the wrong shelf.
2. The book was never purchased.
3. The card catalogue is wrong.
4. The book was willfully thrown away.

Answer 5

2

Question 6

What—given the commonality of source amnesia—might life be like if we remembered all our waking experiences and all our dreams?

Answer 6

Real experiences would be confused with those we dreamed. When meeting someone, we might therefore be unsure whether we were reacting to something they previously did or to something we dreamed they did.

Question 7

When you have to make a long-distance call, dialing an unfamiliar area code plus a seven-digit number, you are likely to have trouble retaining the just-looked-up number. This best illustrates the limited capacity of ________ memory.

Answer 7

short-term

Question 8

In one American survey, the average therapist estimated that ____ percent of the population have repressed memories of childhood sexual abuse.

9
11
7
6

Answer 8

9

Question 9

The happier Judie is, the more readily she recalls experiences with former teachers who were warm and generous. This best illustrates that emotional states can be:

Answer 9

retrieval cues

Question 11

Ray is trying to determine if his 8-year-old daughter is telling the truth about an incident that happened when she was 4 years old. She claims that someone stole her doll and then ran over it with a car. However, her descriptions of the event are rather vague. What is the likelihood that she is remembering a real event?

1. Children cannot remember things that happened before age 5, so it is likely a FALSE memory.
2. Because she is repeating the “gist” and not the details of the event, it is likely a FALSE memory.
3. Because she is repeating the “gist” and not the details of the event, it is likely a REAL memory.
4. Because her memory of the event has persisted, it is likely a REAL memory.

Answer 11

Because she is repeating the “gist” and not the details of the event, it is likely a FALSE memory.

Question 11

_______________ occurs when something you learn now interferes with your ability to recall something you learned earlier.

1. Proactive interference
2. A flashbulb memory
3. Relearning
4. Retroactive interference

Answer 11

• Proactive interference

Question 12

New memories are _____; they need to be _____ if one wants to remember them.

1. weak; exercised
2. strong; rehearsed
3. strong; applied
4. misunderstood; practiced

Answer 12

1

Question 13

Ricardo distributes his study time rather than cramming because he wants to retain the information for the long-term. He is using the:

Answer 13

spacing effect

Question 14

What is priming?

Answer 14

Priming is the activation (often without our awareness) of associations. Seeing a gun, for example, might temporarily predispose someone to interpret an ambiguous face as threatening or to recall a boss as nasty.

Question 15

Lonnie often has vivid dreams. In the morning, he can recall them in great detail. This sometimes gets him in trouble, because he can’t figure out if he is remembering a dream or something that he actually experienced. This problem is known as:

1. source amnesia.
2. blocking.
3. infantile amnesia.
4. mood-congruent memory.

Answer 15

1

Question 15

Even after we learn the material, _______________ increases retention.

1. overlearning
2. unlearning
3. sleeping
4. underlearning

Answer 15

1

Question 16

Strange as it may seem, you have run into the same co-worker four times today, in four different locations. You get a little nervous, wondering if she is following you. Your ability to unconsciously keep track of the number of times you’ve run into the co-worker is known as _____ processing.

Answer 16

automatic

Question 16

Nine-year-old Jade has just discovered something very interesting. She can look at a picture in a book and, when she closes her eyes, she can still see the picture very clearly for a few tenths of a second. Jade is experiencing _____ memory.

Answer 16

iconic

Question 16

Millie has been having difficulties remembering what people have just said. She is unable to follow along during her favorite television shows. Millie is having difficulty with her:

1. long-term memory.
2. short-term memory.
3. echoic memory.
4. flashbulb memory.

Answer 16

short term memory

Question 17

A measure of your memory in which you need to pick the correctly learned answer from a displayed list of options is known as a measure of:

Answer 17

recognition

Question 18

A multiple-choice test is a good example of testing _____.

Answer 18

recognition

Question 19

Martha is studying the chapter on personality for her psychology exam. In order to make it easier to remembering the Big Five traits (openness, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism) she uses the first letter of each trait to spell OCEAN. Martha is using:

Answer 19

a mnemonic device.

Question 20

Which of the following is NOT a measure of retention?

1. relearning
2. recognition
3. recall
4. retrieval

Answer 20

4

Question 20

Dr. Napleton prefers to give his students all essay and fill-in-the-blank questions to fully test their:

1. recall.
2. recognition.
3. reconstruction.
4. relearning.

Answer 20

1. recall.

Question 21

Hakeem has a very clear memory of his daughter’s birth. He remembers the weather, what he was wearing, the sounds in the hallway, and the joy he felt. Psychologists would say that:

1. he will completely forget all of these memories over time.
2. he is describing the spotlight effect.
3. he has a flashbulb memory for this event.
4. his ability to remember an emotionally significant event in so much detail is unusual.

Answer 21

3

Question 23

If you try to make the material you are learning personally meaningful, are you processing at a shallow or a deep level? Which level leads to greater retention?

Answer 23

Making material personally meaningful involves processing at a deep level, because you are processing semantically—based on the meaning of the words. Deep processing leads to greater retention.

Question 25

Because memories are _____, “hypnotically refreshed” memories may prove inaccurate, especially if the hypnotist asks leading questions.

Answer 25

constructed

Question 26

Imagine a study in which participants are shown 2,000 slides of houses and storefronts, each for only 10 seconds. Later, these same participants are shown 300 of the original slides paired with slides they have not seen before. According to research, these participants would be able to recognize _____ percent of the slides they had seen before.

Answer 26

90

Question 27

Certain patients with amnesia are incapable of recalling activities, yet they can be conditioned to blink their eyes in response to a specific sound. They have most likely suffered damage to the:

Answer 27

hippocampus

Question 28

According to _____, one reason that people forget is because they are repressing painful memories.

Answer 28

Freud

Question 30

When we are tested immediately after viewing a list of words, we tend to recall the first and last items best, which is known as the effect.

Answer 30

serial position

Question 31

Mrs. McBride can’t consciously recall how frequently she criticizes her children because it would be too anxiety-arousing to do so. Sigmund Freud would have suggested that her poor memory illustrates:

Answer 31

repression

Question 31

While you probably wish that your study time was automatic, successful studying, unfortunately, requires the attention and conscious work known as _____ processing.

Answer 31

effortful

Question 32

Tameka is reading a novel. When the phone rings, she looks up to see if her husband is going to answer it, which he does. She returns her attention to the book, going back to the exact spot on the page where she left off. Tameka is able to effortlessly return to her reading because:

Answer 32

of the automatic processing of space.

Question 33

Although Ron typically smokes two packs of cigarettes a day, he recalls smoking little more than a pack a day. This poor memory best illustrates:

Answer 33

motivated forgetting

Question 35

What are two basic functions of working memory?

Answer 35

1) Active processing of incoming visual and auditory information, and
(2) focusing our spotlight of attention.

Question 36

During her evening Spanish language exam, Janica so easily remembers the French vocabulary she studied that morning that she finds it difficult to recall the Spanish vocabulary she rehearsed that afternoon. Her difficulty best illustrates:

Answer 36

proactive interference

Question 37

Some of our memories for an emotionally significant moment or event are vividly clear. These are known as:

Answer 37

flashbulb memories

Question 38

What is the difference between automatic and effortful processing, and what are some examples of each?

Answer 38

Automatic processing occurs unconsciously (automatically) for such things as the sequence and frequency of a day’s events, and reading and comprehending words in our own language. Effortful processing requires attention and awareness and happens, for example, when we work hard to learn new material in class, or new lines for a play.

Question 40

Mr. Nydam suffers amnesia and is unable to remember playing golf on a particular course. But the longer he plays the course, the more his game improves. His experience illustrates the difference in:

1. short-term memory and long-term memory.
2. proactive interference and retroactive interference.
3. explicit memory and implicit memory.
4. recognition and recall.

Answer 40

3

Question 41

You are participating in a memory experiment in which a researcher asks to memorize a list of words. The list included the words: slumber, bed, rest, dreams, etc. When you then are asked to recall the list, the first word you state is sleep, which is not on the list. You believe that there must be a mistake because you are certain you heard the word sleep. The reason you had this false memory is because:

1. of source amnesia.
2. of faulty retrieval cues.
3. false memories created by suggested misinformation and misattributed sources may feel as real as true memories and may be very persistent.
4. you are in need of sleep so the word entered your memory.

Answer 41

false memories created by suggested misinformation and misattributed sources may feel as real as true memories and may be very persistent.

Question 43

A long time ago, Leslie was stuck in an elevator for more than three hours! Though generally not claustrophobic, after two hours she felt like the elevator walls were closing in on her. Now, 10 years later, she still vividly recalls the details of the emotionally traumatic experience. What is most likely causing her long-lasting robust memory of this event?

Answer 43

Stress hormones increase glucose activity, which then fuels brain activity.

Question 44

_____ occurs when we mistakenly attribute a memory.

1. Mood-congruent memory
2. Source amnesia
3. Blocking
4. Infantile amnesia

Answer 44

• Source amnesia

Question 46

John has been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. While he is quite forgetful, he is still able to recall events from his teenage and young adult years. His _____ is still intact.

1. short-term memory
2. long-term memory
3. echoic memory
4. flashbulb memory

Answer 46

2

Question 47

The extensive rehearsal necessary to encode nonsense syllables best illustrates:

Answer 47

effortful processing

Question 49

Employing the single word “HOMES” to remember the names of North America’s five Great Lakes best illustrates the use of:

Answer 49

mnemonic device

Question 50

This occurs partly because visualizing something and actually perceiving it activate similar brain areas.

1. source amnesia
2. long-term potentiation
3. imagination inflation
4. false memories

Answer 50

• imagination inflation

Question 51

Which of the following is believed to be the synaptic basis for learning and memory?

Answer 51

long-term potentiation

Question 53

Although Jordan could not recall the exact words of a poem he had recently heard, he clearly remembered the meaning of the poem. This best illustrates the importance of:

Answer 53

semantic encoding

Question 55

The three steps in memory information processing are:

1. input, processing, and output.
2. input, storage, and output.
3. input, storage, and retrieval.
4. encoding, storage, and retrieval.

Answer 55

4

Question 57

At a block party, Cyndi is introduced to eight new neighbors. Moments later, she can only remember the names of the first three and last two neighbors. Her experience illustrates:

Answer 57

the serial position effect

Question 59

We use retrieval cues to access target information. The best retrieval cues are the:

1. tastes, smells, or sights that were part of the original context when the memory was encoded.
2. result of associations formed when the memory was encoded.
3. experiences or words associated with the memory.
4. All of these things are effective retrieval cues for the memory.

Answer 59

4

Question 60

Many people can easily recall exactly what they were doing when they heard the news of the 9/11 terrorist tragedy. This best illustrates ________ memory

Answer 60

flashbulb

Question 62

At which of Atkinson-Shiffrin’s three memory stages would iconic and echoic memory occur?

Answer 62

sensory memory

Question 63

When learning occurs in the California sea slug, more of the neurotransmitter _____ is released at certain synapses.

Answer 63

serotonin

Question 64

When you hear familiar words in your native language, it is virtually impossible not to register the meanings of the words. This best illustrates the importance of:

Answer 64

automatic processing

Question 65

Several months after watching a science fiction movie about spaceship travel and alien abductions, Steve began to remember that he had been abducted by aliens and personally subjected to many of the horrors portrayed in the movie. His mistaken recall best illustrates:

Answer 65

source amniesia

Question 67

Having read a story once, certain amnesia victims will read it faster the second time even though they can’t recall having seen the story before. They have most likely suffered damage to the:

Answer 67

hippocampus

Question 68

Recalling something that you had once merely imagined happening as something you had directly experienced best illustrates:

Answer 68

source amnesia

Question 69

Ceci and Bruck’s study of children’s memories showed that ________ percent of the children who had not received genital examinations from a pediatrician still pointed to either genital or anal areas when asked.

1. 65
2. 45
3. 60
4. 55

Answer 69

55

Question 70

We _____ process information about space. For example, while reading a textbook, we encode the place on a page where certain material appears.

Answer 70

automatically

Question 71

Hermann Ebbinghaus found that the more times he practiced the nonsense syllables on Day 1, the fewer repetitions he needed to relearn the information on Day 2 because he had increased his:

Answer 71

rehearsal time.

Question 73

Which parts of the brain are elemental for implicit memory processing, and which parts play a key role in explicit memory processing?

Answer 73

The frontal lobes and hippocampus are important for explicit memory formation, and the cerebellum and basal ganglia are key to implicit memory processing.

Question 74

Your friend has experienced brain damage in an accident. He can remember how to tie his shoes but has a hard time remembering anything told him during a conversation. What’s going on here?

Answer 74

Our explicit (declarable) memories differ from our implicit memories of skills and procedures. Our implicit memories are processed by more ancient brain areas, which apparently escaped damage during the accident.

Question 75

Joe is happy to hear that the test will be all multiple-choice questions as he feels he has a better chance to pass by using _____.

Answer 75

recognition

Question 76

Students who review previously learned course material at various times throughout a semester to pass a comprehensive final are especially likely to demonstrate long-term retention of the course material. This best illustrates the value of:

Answer 76

the spacing effect

Question 77

Stephen Ceci and Maggie Bruck found that most preschoolers and many older children could be induced to report:

1. daily events sequentially.
2. mixed emotions.
3. positive affect
4. false memories.

Answer 77

false memories.

Question 78

After suffering a brain injury in a motorcycle accident, Adam cannot form new memories. He can, however, remember his life experiences before the accident. Adam’s memory difficulty most clearly illustrates:

Answer 78

encoding failure

Question 79

Professor Wallace studies memory in people who have had strokes. Professor Hansen studies people who claim to have clear memories of events that happened over three decades ago. Such research on the extremes of memory:

1. helps us to understand how memory works.
2. explains how consciousness works.
3. is not useful to psychologists who study normal memory.
4. makes us realize that it is impossible to study memory.

Answer 79

1

Question 80

The surprising ease with which people form false memories best illustrates that the processes of encoding and retrieval involve:

Answer 80

memory construction

Question 81

_____ revealed that the reports of flashbacks were extremely rare in those patients whose brains were electrically stimulated in different cortical regions. Moreover, the flashbacks appear to have been invented, not relived.

Answer 81

Elizabeth Loftus

Question 82

_____ occurs when something you learn now interferes with your ability to recall something you learned earlier.

Answer 82

Retroactive interference

Question 83

The happier Judie feels, the more readily she recalls experiences with former teachers who were warm and generous. This best illustrates that emotional states can be _____.

Answer 83

retreival cues

Question 84

Memories of emotional events are especially likely to be facilitated by activation of the:

Answer 84

amygdala

Question 85

After Teresa was verbally threatened by someone in a passing car, she was questioned as to whether she recognized the man who was driving the car. Several hours later, Teresa mistakenly recalled that the driver was a male rather than a female. Teresa’s experience best illustrates:

Answer 85

misinformation effect

Question 86

In an effort to recall his early life experiences, Aaron formed vivid mental images of the various rooms in his childhood home. Aaron was engaging in the process of:

Answer 86

priming

Question 87

_______________ occurs when something you learned before interferes with your recall of something you learn later.

1. Relearning
2. Retroactive interference
3. Proactive interference
4. A flashbulb memory

Answer 87

• Proactive interference

Question 88

After being verbally threatened by a person in a passing car, Teresa was asked if she recognized the MAN who was driving the car. Several hours later, Teresa mistakenly recalled that the driver was male rather than female. Teresa’s experience best illustrates the _____ effect.

Answer 88

misinformation

Question 89

Whenever Valerie experiences intense feelings of fear, she is overwhelmed with childhood memories of her abusive parents. Valerie’s experience best illustrates:

1. mood-congruent memory.
2. repression.
3. retroactive interference.
4. the misinformation effect.

Answer 89

1. mood-congruent memory.

Question 90

The combination of individual letters into familiar words enables you to remember more of the letters in this sentence. This best illustrates the value of:

Answer 90

chunking

Question 91

Lara is trying to remember events from her life at 18 months of age. However, as hard as she might try, she has no conscious memory for anything that occurred before her third birthday. This is likely caused by the fact that her _____, which is involved in storing explicit memories, was not fully developed at that age.

Answer 91

hippocampus

Question 92

Six-year-old Fiona has no memory of a trip she took to the hospital when she was two years old, yet the rest of her family recalls what happened in vivid detail. Her inability to remember this event is known as:

1. regression.
2. source amnesia.
3. infantile amnesia.
4. state-dependent memory.

Answer 92

3

Question 93

The method of loci relies heavily on the use of:

Answer 93

visual encoding