Midterm 1

Question 1

semantic memory

Answer 1

memory that contains conceptual and factual knowledge

Question 2

procedural memory

Answer 2

memory that allows us to learn skills and acquire habits

Question 3

episodic memory

Answer 3

• is thought by some to allow not only the ability to think of our personal pasts, but
also to mentally conjecture about our future, and to think of counterfactuals (or
things as if they were different than they actually are).
• It is focally related to the self as a person—these a memories of the person, not
just mere knowledge, or mere reflexes.
• They are autobiographical.
• Thought by Nelson and Tulving to come online late around the ages 3-4
• might be unique to humans.

Question 4

field memory

Answer 4

memory in which you view the event from your own perspective (as a participant)

Question 5

observer memory

Answer 5

memory that takes place from a birds eye view

Question 6

overconfidence

Answer 6

the tendency to be more confident than correct- to overestimate the accuracy of our beliefs and judgements

Question 7

generation effect (method of study)

Answer 7

states that the method of study that requires self generation of answers (free recall test) helps better with long term retention; better form of study than passive reading

Question 8

repeated testing/ studying (method of study)

Answer 8

repeated study is effective for cramming but ineffective for long term retention

Question 9

corrective feedback (method of study)

Answer 9

studies show that for children, corrective feedback should be delayed, it is best to force a child to find mistakes on their own; even when people are correct, feedback helps increase confidence; those who make errors then get correct answers do better the second time versus people who do well in the beginning

Question 10

mass studying (method of study)

Answer 10

mass studying, also known as cramming, tends to satisfy instant gratification because knowledge is still within working memory, it yields less work, faster work, and makes the subject feel better; is not effective for long term retetion

Question 11

spaced practices (method of study)

Answer 11

spacing out materials over extended periods of time; significantly better for long term retention

Question 12

region of proximal learning

Answer 12

1) People first try to eliminate those items that they know they know.
2) Among those items that they do not know, they attempt to study in the order easiest to most difficult.
3) They stop when their jROL, that is, their perceived rate of learning approaches zero.

Question 13

what is metacognition?

Answer 13

Knowing the self:
• Knowledge of your own thoughts
little evidence that any creature, other than humans older than about age
3-4, have this capability.

Question 14

the relation between metacognitive judgments and study choice

Answer 14

people tend their study methods on what they think they know or don’t know

Question 15

the honor choice paradigm

Answer 15

• experiments with college students in which they make metacognitive judgments and then
make choices of what they want to study.
• Their choices were then either honored or dishonored
• For the kids, if they want to mass practice and the experimenters dishonored their choice
by making them space, they perform better than those for whom the experimenters
honored their choice to mass practice.
• But for Columbia students, they want to mass practice and the experimenters dishonored
their choice by making them space, they perform worse than those for whom the
experimenters honored their choice to mass practice. Same for space practice.
• Main effect: Spacing is best in general…Interaction: spacing is even better if it is honored, and worse when it is not honored

Question 16

implementation deficit

Answer 16

even if they know what they know and don’t know, people sometimes don’t know what to do with it.
• Grade 3 and 5 know they don’t know certain things, they choose to study what they
know!

Question 17

differences between children and adults in their choice of massed and spaced practice

Answer 17

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Question 18

distinction between semantic and episodic memory

Answer 18

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Question 19

amnesia

Answer 19

a deficit in memory caused by brain damage or psychological trauma

Question 20

be able to describe the case of KC and also the inferences that were made about this case.

Answer 20

• evidence for retrograde amnesia - couldn’t remember events before accident- that he used to like cars, he knew how to change a tire, but not how he knew
• evidence for anterograde amnesia- couldn’t describe his life, can’t recall words he was just asked to remember and define
• evidence for semantic memory- knew his birthdate, his address, where he was, saw a picture and knew it was his house
• evidence for state of consciousness- he could not really describe his own state of consciousness, he could not compare it to the past, state of consciousness was limited to the present
• not a lot of evidence for his theory of mind

Question 21

Be able to argue for and against the idea that KC has no episodic memory at all

Answer 21

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Question 22

priming in KC

Answer 22

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Question 23

lexical decision

Answer 23

must determine if it is a word or not after being presented with a list of words- dependent variable is reaction time in answering this question
The reaction time is shorter for words already presented- this is called the priming effect

Question 24

what happened to KC’s personality? theory of mind

Answer 24

no strong argument for his theory of mind

Question 25

retrograde amnesia

Answer 25

partial or total loss of memory prior to trauma

Question 26

stimulus bound

Answer 26

Being trapped in the present
• Thought to describe those who don’t possess episodic memory, which
involves transmitting oneself back in time and into a different space or
context, and experiencing what happened before.
• Schwartz tried to find out if any animals can do this, or whether animals
are trapped in the present, and bound to their immediate surroundings.
He looked to see if animals could recall what they had eaten, several
hours ago and who had given it to them

Question 27

forgetting curve

Answer 27

hypothesis that memory deteriorates with time when no attempt is made to retrieve it

Question 28

memory savings paradigm

Answer 28

This refers to the amount of information retained in the subconscious even after this information cannot be consciously accessed. Ebbinghaus would memorize a list of items until perfect recall and then would not access the list until he could no longer recall any of its items. He then would relearn the list, and compare the new learning curve to the learning curve of his previous memorization of the list. The second list was generally memorized faster, and this difference between the two learning curves is what Ebbinghaus called “savings”.

Question 29

nonsense syllables and why you might want to use them

Answer 29

Ebbinghaus tried to purge his experiments of the confound of meaning. He used nonsense syllables and looked at relearning rates, using himself as a subject.
But his critics argue that this is not possible. That meaning is fundamental to learning/ memory.

Question 30

primary memory

Answer 30

short term memory/ working memory for immediate retrieval of information

Question 31

working memory

Answer 31

short term memory/ primary memory for immediate retrieval of information

Question 32

short term memory

Answer 32

working memory/ primary memory for immediate retrieval of information

Question 33

free recall

Answer 33

recall items, but order doesn’t matter

Question 34

cued recall

Answer 34

given a cue and asked to recall

Question 35

recognition

Answer 35

simple yes or now answer to “do you recognize this”

Question 36

serial recall

Answer 36

asked to recall items in order- can be reverse order

Question 37

serial position curve and what it was taken to mean. parts and systems they refer to dissociations…what are they in free recall and what are the implications?

Answer 37

serial position curve demonstrates how well we recall words in a series
words are best recalled in the beginning and the end
patterns are very much like the person’s stream of consciousness in the real world, with the most recent things coming to mind most often then less recent material, and then finally, with a low probability of events from the distant past
The similarity in patterns seen in lab situations have some bearing in the real world, and actually tell us something about what’s happening in our day to day memory
Separation of normally related mental processes resulting in one group functioning independently from another

Question 38

intrusions

Answer 38

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Question 39

effect of presentation rate, modality, stimulus meaningfulness, interference, delay, phonemic similarity

Answer 39

presentation rate: effects primacy
modality: effects recency
stimulus meaningfulness: effects primacy
interference: effects recency
delay: effects recency
phonemic similarity: effects recency

Question 40

patient and fMRI studies distinguishing working memory and long-term memory

Answer 40

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Question 41

reasons for primacy effect

Answer 41

in a free recall test, people tend to remember the items at the beginning of the list as a result of the novelty effect

Question 42

reasons for recency effects

Answer 42

in a free recall test, people tend of remember the items at the end of list as a result of those items still being within working memory

Question 43

Atkinson and Shiffrin stm/ltm model and how it works

Answer 43

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Question 44

criticisms of stm/ltm model

Answer 44

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Question 45

default system

Answer 45

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Question 46

chunking

Answer 46

chunking allows us to pack more information into fewer items

examples include phone numbers, acronyms

Question 47

study with chess masters vs. controls

Answer 47

adult chess masters are better at remembering chess
positions than adult novices
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Question 48

Study with children who were chess masters vs adults

Answer 48

adults in general are better at remembering chess

positions than children

Question 49

levels of processing

Answer 49

• during encoding, we can process items at any one of
many points along a continuum of shallow to deep
deep level of processing leads to better recall

Question 50

neural correlates of deep processing as opposed to shallow processing (see reading)

Answer 50

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Question 51

main effect

Answer 51

a main effect is the effect of an independent variable on a dependent variable averaging across the levels of any other independent variables

Question 52

interaction (be able to generate a few examples)

Answer 52

If we were examining the effect of two variables, gender and premature birth, on health outcomes, we would describe any difference in health outcome scores between genders as a main effect. Similarly any difference in scores of full term/premature birth would be described as a main effect. The presence of an interaction effect implies that the effect of gender on health outcome varies as a function of premature birth status.

Question 53

Encoding specificity principle, and its application to levels of processing.

Answer 53

ESP-memory performance is based on what you use as a cue
levels of processing- the more deeply you process something, the better you can recall it
deeper processing leads to better recall
The LoP depends on the retrieval cue at the time of recall

Question 54

encoding specificity and its relation to state dependent memory

Answer 54

ESP- memory performance is based on what you use as a cue

Question 55

prototype

Answer 55

a model or image in which a concept is based that provides the framework for other models to be included

Question 56

Galton’s early studies

Answer 56

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Question 57

central tendency

Answer 57

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Question 58

Carol Harris story,–memory effects

Answer 58

present the story of Hellen Keller but with the person named Carol Harris
The more time delay experienced by subjects at recall, the more likely they state that they read a story about Hellen Keller

Question 59

Posner & Keele’s random dot prototype experiment, and what the effects were. Be able to explain this in detail

Answer 59

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Question 60

false memory experiments and how they are similar or different from Posner and Keele random dot experiments.

Answer 60

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Question 61

Be able to discuss the details of Roediger and McDermott’s false memory DREAM paradigm and what makes memory for the critical item more likely or less likely.

Answer 61

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Question 62

split brain studies–how split brain works; why the operation was done; what the left and right hemisphere idfferences are in cognitive processing and in memory

Answer 62

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Question 63

the Phelps and Gazzaniga schema experiment with JW.

Answer 63

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Question 64

state dependence–be able to describe experiments

Answer 64

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Question 65

variables that affect the false memory effect.

Answer 65

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Question 66

mood congruence versus mood dependence

Answer 66

mood dependence- if on is emotional during the period of study, then should be emotional at the time of recall for better recall
mood congruence- if one is sad, they have better recall of words like “dark” or “moody” at time of recall regardless of the mood a time of encoding (congruence-content)

Question 67

room dependence–does it matter

Answer 67

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Question 68

demand characteristics

Answer 68

participants in an experiment will alter their behavior to fit what they see as the desires of the research study assistant

Question 69

top down processing of meaning, and context effects, biases attention an memory

Answer 69

top down: goal directed, active, conscious, focuses on the big picture

Question 70

top down versus bottom up

Answer 70

top down: goal directed, active, conscious, focuses on the big picture
bottom up: sensory, automatic, focus on the detail

Question 71

Stroop effect

Answer 71

When the name of a color (e.g., “blue,” “green,” or “red”) is printed in a color not denoted by the name (e.g., the word “red” printed in blue ink instead of red ink), naming the color of the word takes longer and is more prone to errors than when the color of the ink matches the name of the color

Question 72

differences between repeated reading and repeated retrieval of to-be-learned items.

Answer 72

repeated studying is better for short term retention than repeated testing but over time, repeated testing is better for long term retention

Question 73

reasons for learning benefits of cumulative final exams

Answer 73

repeated testing is better for long term retention

Question 74

deep processing tasks; shallow processing tasks

Answer 74

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Question 75

Effect on cued recall of identical similar and different encoding/retrieval similarity for rhyme and associative context.

Answer 75

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Question 76

Be able to discuss the benefits and deficits associated with hypnosis
relation of state dependence to multiple personality…is there such a thing?

Answer 76

hypnosis: top down processing can override your bottom up sensory output
hyponotized people can do better on stroop effect tasks because their top down system has been convinced that they can’t actually read the words (a usually bottom up process.)

Question 77

voltunary vs. involuntary retrieval

Answer 77

Ebbinghaus also described the difference between involuntary and voluntary memory, the former occurring “with apparent spontaneity and without any act of the will” and the latter being brought “into consciousness by an exertion of the will”.