Cog Sample Questions

John is participating in an experiment in which he watches a video of a car crash. In the video a car runs a stop sign and hits another car in the intersection. After he finishes watching the video, the experimenter asks John a series of questions about the video, including whether he saw the car run the yield sign. Later on, John now erroneously remembers having seen a yield sign in the video when it was actually a stop sign. This is an example of a. Misinformation effect b. Personal experience c. Flashbulb memory d. Schema

a. Misinformation effect

For most adults over age 40, the reminiscence bump describes enhanced memory for a. adolescence and early adulthood b. early adulthood and middle age c. childhood and middle age d. childhood and adolescence

a. adolescence and early adulthood

Which of the following processes is NOT influenced by working memory span a. reading ability b. reading comprehension c. inhibiting no-longer-relevant information d. blocking out distracting information

a. reading ability

Transfer-appropriate processing is likely to occur if a. the type of encoding and type of retrieval match b. the rememberer generates his own retrieval cues c. imagery is used to create connections among items to be transferred into LTM d. there is deep processing during acquisition of the new material

a. the type of encoding and type of retrieval match

The defining characteristic of implicit memory is that a. we are not conscious we are using it b. it is enhanced by the self-reference effect c. it always leads to episodic memory for events d. people use it strategically to enhance memories for events

a. we are not conscious we are using it

The process in which people try not to think about certain things, refers to the concept of a. Repression b. Suppression c. Inhibition d. Extinction

b. Suppression

____ is an average representation of a category. a. An exemplar b. A unit c. A prototype d. A component

c. A prototype

Which of the following statements is NOT true? a. We are more likely to remember things that we intend to commit to memory relative to things we do not intend to commit to memory b. Expertise influences levels-of-processing c. Distinctive information is more difficult to remember than organized information d. Generating an item leads to superior memory relative to merely reading an item

c. Distinctive information is more difficult to remember than organized information

What are the two processes proposed by the Ironic Process Theory explaining why thoughts we try to suppress/avoid keep coming back? a. System one processing and System two processing b. Heuristic processing and Systematic processing c. Operating process and Monitoring process d. Rule based system and Associative System

c. Operating process and Monitoring process

Which of the following is NOT one of the suggested causes of interference according to McGeoch's interference theory of forgetting a. response competition b. set c. decay d. altered context

c. decay

If you were participating in an experiment in which you given a series of pictures of people to memorize, and midway through the experiment you were shown a picture of a nude individual (which you were not expecting), how would memory be affected a. memory for the nude would be decreased relative to all other pictures b. memory would be the same for the nude as it is for all other pictures c. memory would be enhanced for the nude relative to all other pictures, and memory for the items immediately preceding/following the nude would be poor relative to all other pictures d. memory would be enhanced for the nude relative to all other pictures, but memory for the other pictures would be otherwise equivalent

c. memory would be enhanced for the nude relative to all other pictures, and memory for the items immediately preceding/following the nude would be poor relative to all other pictures

Perseveration is... a. a type of neuron b. a form of interference c. the consolidation of information to long-term memory d. none of the above

c. the consolidation of information to long-term memory

A task with the instructions "Read the following words while repeating 'the, the, the' out loud, look away, and then write down the words you remember" would most likely be studying a. echoic memory b. the central executive c. the phonological loop d. the visuospatial sketch pad

c. the phonological loop

Which of the following is a reason that distributed practice improves memory relative to massed practice? a. Encoding variability: studying things in multiple new contexts leads to multiple retrieval paths b. Information is more likely to be consolidated between multiple study sessions c. Individuals are better able to attend to things in short bursts d. All of the above

d. All of the above

When people are asked not to think of a white bear while they are verbalizing their thoughts, what behavior often occurred? a. They kept saying "white bear" b. They successfully did what the experimenter asked c. The word "white bear" kept coming into their minds d. Both A and C are correct

d. Both A and C are correct

In spreading activation models of memory, concepts are represented as a. Neurons b. Targets c. Associations d. Nodes

d. Nodes

The word length effect shows that it is more difficult to remember a. a list of words that are all the same length than a list of words that are of different lengths b. a list of words that are of different lengths than a list of words that are all the same length c. a long list of words than a short list of words d. a list of long words than a list of short words

d. a list of long words than a list of short words

Which of the following is evidence in favor of the consolidation theory of forgetting a. the finding that memory is better if we sleep (while being allowed to dream) between study and test relative to staying awake between study and test b. the finding that memory is better if we sleep (while not being allowed to dream) during study and test relative to staying awake between study and test c. the finding that individuals who recover from retrograde amnesia never remember anything that happened to them in the moments before their accident d. all of the above

d. all of the above

Bransford and Johnson's study had participants hear a passage which turned out to be about a man on the street serenading his girlfriend in a tall building. The wording of the passage made it difficult to understand, but looking at a picture made it easier to understand. The results of this study illustrated the importance of ____ in forming reliable long-term memories. a. imagery b.deep processing during retrieval c implicit memory during learning. d. an organizational context during learning

d. an organizational context during learning

Which of the following is a concern in determining whether implicit learning has occurred a. the learning criterion b. the sensitivity criterion c. the information criterion d. both b and c

d. both b and c

A lesson to be learned from the research on flashbulb memories is that a. people's confidence in a memory predicts its accuracy (high confidence = high accuracy) b. flashbulb memories are permanent and resist forgetting c. rehearsal cannot account for flashbulb memories d. extreme vividness of a memory does not mean it is accurate

d. extreme vividness of a memory does not mean it is accurate