psychology chapter 7

confounding variable

A factor other than the factor(s) being studied that might produce an effect in research.

How do external events, internal moods, and order of appearance affect memory retrieval?

Retrieval cues, such as context and mood, are information bits linked with the original encoded memory. These cues activate associations that help us retrieve memories; this process may occur without our awareness, as it does in priming. Returning to the same physical context or emotional state (mood congruency) in which we formed a memory can help us retrieve it. The serial position effect accounts for our tendency to recall best the last items (which may still be in working memory) and the first items (which we've spent more time rehearsing) in a list.

What is our short-term memory capacity?

Short-term memory capacity is about seven items, plus or minus two, but this information disappears from memory quickly without rehearsal. Our working memory capacity for active processing varies, depending on age, intelligence level, and other factors.

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 that emotionally traumatic experience. What is MOST likely causing her long-lasting robust memory of this event?

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

What is the three-stage information-processing model, and how has later research updated this model?

The three processing stages in the Atkinson and Shiffrin classic three-stage model of memory are sensory memory, short-term memory, and long-term memory. More recent research has updated this model to include two additional concepts: (1) working memory, to stress the active processing occurring in the second memory stage, and (2) automatic processing, to address the processing of information outside of conscious awareness.

Some patients with anterograde amnesia have learned how to spot hard-to-find figures in the Where's Waldo? series without any conscious awareness that they can do so. This BEST illustrates their retention of _____ memory.

implicit

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

misinformation

Episodic memory is exemplified by one's memory for:

one's first kiss

chunking

organizing items into familiar, manageable units; often occurs automatically.

The hippocampus seems to function as a

temporary processing site for explicit memories.

déjà vu

that eerie sense that "I've experienced this before." Cues from the current situation may unconsciously trigger retrieval of an earlier experience.

When tested immediately after viewing a list of words, people tend to recall the first and last items more readily than those in the middle. When retested after a delay, they are most likely to recall

the first items on the list.

Ebbinghaus is associated with:

the forgetting curve

long-term memory

the relatively permanent and limitless storehouse of the memory system. Includes knowledge, skills, and experiences.

spacing effect

the tendency for distributed study or practice to yield better long-term retention than is achieved through massed study or practice.

automatic processing

unconscious encoding of everyday information, such as space, time, and frequency, and of well-learned information, such as word meanings.

When a situation triggers the feeling that "I've been here before," you are experiencing _______ _______.

déjà vu

How reliable are young children's eyewitness descriptions?

Children's eyewitness descriptions are subject to the same memory influences that distort adult reports. If questioned soon after an event in neutral words they understand, children can accurately recall events and people involved in them.

What roles do the cerebellum and basal ganglia play in memory processing?

The cerebellum and basal ganglia are parts of the brain network dedicated to implicit memory formation. The cerebellum is important for storing classically conditioned memories. The basal ganglia are involved in motor movement and help form procedural memories for skills.

Children can be accurate eyewitnesses if

a neutral person asks nonleading questions soon after the event.

working memory

a newer understanding of short-term memory that adds conscious, active processing of incoming auditory and visual-spatial information, and of information retrieved from long-term memory.

short-term memory

activated memory that holds a few items briefly (such as the seven digits of a phone number while calling) before the information is stored or forgotten.

We remember exciting or shocking events for a long time due to activation of the limbic system's _____.

amygdala

Long-term potentiation (LTP) refers to

an increase in a cell's firing potential.

The concept of working memory...

clarifies the idea of short-term memory by focusing on the active processing that occurs in this stage.

The psychological terms for taking in information, retaining it, and later getting it back out are _______, _______, and _______.

encoding; storage; retrieval

Jennifer remembers that, when she was 6 years old, her grandparents gave her a Barbie doll for her birthday. This is an example of _____ memory.

episodic

With respect to memory, hippocampus is to cerebellum as _____ is to _____.

explicit; implicit

Some patients suffering from amnesia are incapable of recalling events. Yet they can be conditioned to blink their eyes in response to a specific sound. They have MOST likely suffered damage to the:

hippocampus

Sensory memory may be visual (_______ memory) or auditory (_______ memory).

iconic; echoic

Hippocampus damage typically leaves people unable to learn new facts or recall recent events. However, they may be able to learn new skills, such as riding a bicycle, which is an _______ (explicit/implicit) memory.

implicit

Ebbinghaus' "forgetting curve" shows that after an initial decline, memory for novel information tends to

level out.

mnemonics

memory aids, especially techniques that use vivid imagery and organizational devices.

Memory aids that use visual imagery or other organizational devices are called _________.

mnemonics

_____ memory refers to our tendency to recall experiences that are consistent with our current mood.

mood-congruent

Those suffering from depression are more likely to have their memories affected by priming negative associations. This is known as:

mood-congruent memory

Although Ron typically smokes two packs of cigarettes each day, he recalls smoking little more than one pack per day. This poor memory BEST illustrates:

motivated forgetting

Freud proposed that painful or unacceptable memories are blocked from consciousness through a mechanism called _______.

repression

explicit memory

retention of facts and personal events you can consciously retrieve. (Also called declarative memory.)

implicit memory

retention of learned skills, or classically conditioned associations, without conscious awareness. (Also called nondeclarative memory.)

Specific odors, visual images, emotions, or other associations that help us access a memory are examples of _______ _______.

retrieval cues

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

retrieval cues

The hour before sleep is a good time to memorize information, because going to sleep after learning new material minimizes _______ interference.

retroactive

Our short-term memory for new information is limited to about _______ items.

seven

When forgetting is due to encoding failure, information has not been transferred from

short-term memory into long-term memory.

Recalling something that you had once merely imagined happening as something you had directly experienced BEST illustrates _____ amnesia.

source

It is common to recognize a person but to have no idea where we met him. Or, people may HEAR something but later recall instead that they SAW it. This type of misattribution is known as:

source amnesia

We may recognize a face at a social gathering but be unable to remember how we know that person. This is an example of _______ _______.

source amnesia.

Which method is an effective way to minimize proactive and retroactive interference?

study before sleeping

The sites where nerve cells communicate with one another by means of chemical messengers are called _____.

synapses

sensory memory

the immediate, very brief recording of sensory information in the memory system.

One reason false memories form is our tendency to fill in memory gaps with our reasonable guesses and assumptions, sometimes based on misleading information. This tendency is an example of

the misinformation effect.

memory

the persistence of learning over time through the encoding, storage, and retrieval of information.

encoding

the process of getting information into the memory system

retrieval

the process of getting information out of memory storage.

storage

the process of retaining encoded information over time.

parallel processing

the processing of many aspects of a problem at the same time; the brain's natural mode of information processing for many functions.

What are some effortful processing strategies that can help us remember new information?

Effective effortful processing strategies include chunking and mnemonics. Such strategies help us remember new information because we then focus our attention and make a conscious effort to remember.

Why have reports of repressed and recovered memories been so hotly debated?

Incest and abuse happen more than was once supposed. But unless the victim was a child too young to remember, such traumas are usually remembered vividly, not repressed. Psychologists agree that (1) sexual abuse happens; (2) injustice happens; (3) forgetting happens; (4) recovered memories are common; (5) memories of events that happened before age 4 are unreliable; (6) memories "recovered" under hypnosis are especially unreliable; and (7) memories, whether real or false, can be emotionally upsetting.

How do changes at the synapse level affect our memory processing?

Long-term potentiation (LTP) appears to be the neural process for learning and memory. It involves an increase in a synapse's firing potential as neurons become more efficient and more connections between neurons develop.

Why is cramming ineffective, and what is the testing effect? Why is it important to make new information meaningful?

Massed practice, or cramming, results in poorer long-term recall than encoding that is spread over time. Psychologists call this result of distributed practice the spacing effect. The testing effect is the finding that consciously retrieving, rather than simply rereading, information enhances memory. If new information is not meaningful, it will be difficult to process. We can avoid some encoding errors by thinking about what we have learned and translating it into personally meaningful terms.

How does sensory memory work?

Sensory memory feeds some information into working memory for active processing there. An iconic memory is a very brief (a few tenths of a second) sensory memory of visual stimuli; an echoic memory is a three- or four-second sensory memory of auditory stimuli.

Which statement about sensory memory is FALSE?

Visual sensory memory holds information longer than auditory sensory memory.

What is the capacity of long-term memory? Are our long-term memories processed and stored in specific locations?

We have an unlimited capacity for storing information permanently in long-term memory. Memories are not stored intact in the brain in single specific spots. Many parts of the brain interact as we encode, store, and retrieve memories.

Psychologists involved in the study of memories of abuse tend to disagree with each other about which of the following statements?

We tend to repress extremely upsetting memories.

By using an experimental design, you could determine whether seeing some words, but not others, caused some participants to have:

a false memory

Kent's girlfriend is talking to Mimi, and Mimi asks her to repeat what she just said. Before she does so, Mimi responds with a "Yes," after recalling what was just spoken. This response is likely caused by _____ memory.

echoic

While you probably wish that your study time was automatic, unfortunately, successful studying for introductory psychology requires attention and conscious effort known as:

effortful processing.

Carlos can't remember Juan Alvarez's name because he wasn't paying attention when Juan was formally introduced. Carlos' poor memory is BEST explained in terms of _____ failure.

encoding

effortful processing

encoding that requires attention and conscious effort.

When Bill studies for an exam, he reads the textbook, stops to think about the material, and then takes a practice exam. According to the computer information-processing model, Bill is actively:

encoding, storing, and retrieving.

Dr. Napleton prefers to give his students all essay and fill-in-the-blank questions (without a word bank!) to fully test their:

recall

Which measure of retention is the LEAST sensitive in triggering retrieval?

recall retention

A psychologist who asks you to write down as many objects as you can remember having seen a few minutes earlier is testing your _______.

recall.

Eliza's family loves to tell the story of how she "stole the show" as a 2-year-old, dancing at her aunt's wedding reception. Even though she was so young, Eliza says she can recall the event clearly. How is this possible?

Eliza's immature hippocampus and lack of verbal skills would have prevented her from encoding an explicit memory of the wedding reception at the age of two. It's more likely that Eliza learned information (from hearing the story repeatedly) that she eventually constructed into a memory that feels very real.

How do implicit and explicit memories differ?

Implicit (nondeclarative) memories are our unconscious memories of skills and classically conditioned associations. They happen without our awareness, through automatic processing. Explicit (declarative) memories are our conscious memories of general knowledge, facts, and experiences. They form through effortful processing.

What information do we process automatically?

In addition to skills and classically conditioned associations, we automatically process incidental information about space, time, and frequency. Our two-track mind works efficiently with the parallel processing of different subtasks.

When you feel sad, why might it help to look at pictures that reawaken some of your best memories?

Memories are stored within a web of many associations, one of which is mood. When you recall happy moments from your past, you deliberately activate these positive links. You may then experience mood-congruent memory and recall other happy moments, which could improve your mood and brighten your interpretation of current events.

How do misinformation, imagination, and source amnesia influence our memory construction? How do we decide whether a memory is real or false?

Memories can be continually revised when retrieved, a process memory researchers call reconsolidation. Misinformation (exposure to misleading information) and imagination effects corrupt our stored memories of what actually happened. Source amnesia leads to faulty memories of how, when, or where we learned something, and may help explain déjà vu. False memories feel like real memories and can be persistent but are usually limited to the gist (the general idea) of the event.

What is memory, and how do information-processing models help us study memory?

Memory is the persistence of learning over time, through the encoding, storage, and retrieval of information. Psychologists use memory models to think about how our brain forms and retrieves memories. Information-processing models involve three processes: encoding, storage, and retrieval.

How can you use memory research findings to do better in this course and in others?

Memory research findings suggest the following strategies for improving memory: Study repeatedly, make the material meaningful, activate retrieval cues, use mnemonic devices, minimize proactive and retroactive interference, sleep more, and test yourself to be sure you can retrieve, as well as recognize, material.