Unit 7 study guide

echoic memory

a momentary sensory memory of auditory stimuli; if attention is elsewhere, sounds and words can still be recalled within 3 or 4 seconds

Advertisers know that a thirty-three percent discount sounds like a better deal than a discount of one third. This best illustrates: A. framing. B. belief bias. C. representativeness heuristics. D. confirmation bias.

a. framing

intuition

an effortless, immediate, automatic feeling or thought, as contrasted with explicit, conscious reasoning

When instances come readily to mind, we often presume such events are common. What of the following is the term for this phenomenon?

availability heuristic

The sense that "I've been in this exact situation before" is referred to as a. reconstructive memory. b. déjà vu. c. source amnesia. d. proactive interference. e. mood-congruent memory.

b. déjà vu.

When Tim and Ali were dating, he learned that she liked to receive flowers after they had a fight. Years later, Tim dates another woman and after having a fight, he stops by the florist to order a bouquet of flowers. Tim is likely affected by which cognitive occurrence? a. confirmation bias b. mental set c. representativeness heuristic d. insight e. availability heuristic

b. mental set

two-word stage

beginning about age 2, the stage in speech development during which a child speaks mostly two-word statements

The concept of linguistic determinism is most closely associated with a. Steven Pinker. b. Carl Wernicke. c. Benjamin Whorf. d. Paul Broca. e. Noam Chomsky.

c. Benjamin Whorf.

shallow processing

encoding on a basic level based on the structure or appearance of words

What is another word for the way an issue is presented to you?

framing

aphasia

impairment of language, usually caused by left hemisphere damage either to Broca's area (impairing speaking) or to Wernicke's area (impairing understanding).

grammar

in a language, a system of rules that enables us to communicate with and understand others

morpheme

in a language, the smallest unit that carries meaning; may be a word or a part of a word (such as a prefix)

representative heuristic

judging the likelihood of things in terms of how well they seem to represent, or match, particular prototypes

Evidence of words' subtle influence on thinking best supports the notion of

linguistic determination

example of primacy effect

remembering the names of the first two co-workers you met on the first day of your new job

implicit memory

retention independent of conscious recollection

Working memory is most active during which portion of the information-processing model? a. short-term memory b. sensory memory c. retrieval d. encoding e. long-term memory

short-term memory

creativity

the ability to produce novel and valuable ideas

storage

the process of retaining encoded information over time

Encoding

the processing of information into the memory system—for example, by extracting meaning.

recall

A measure of memory in which the person must retrieve information learned earlier, as on a fill-in-the-blank test.

Algorithm

A methodical, logical rule or procedure that guarantees solving a particular problem.

Hippocampus

A neural center located in the limbic system that helps process explicit memories for storage.

Memories of emotional events are especially likely to be facilitated by activation of the: A. amygdala. B. hypothalamus. C. sensory cortex. D. motor cortex.

A. amygdala

Define cognition, and describe the functions of concepts.

Cognition refers to all the mental activities associated with thinking, knowing, remembering, and communicating. We use concepts, mental groupings of similar objects, events, ideas, or people, to simplify and order the world around us. We form most concepts around prototypes, or best examples of a category..

Each of the following "sins of memory" involves distortion, except: A. suggestibility. B. bias. C. misattribution. D. absent-mindedness.

D. absent-mindedness.

retroactive interference

the disruptive effect of new learning on the recall of old information

Explain how memory is measured

Three measures of retention are recalling information, recognizing it, or relearning it more easily on a later attempt.

Maintaining one's conceptions even after the basis on which they were formed has been discredited is known as: A. the representativeness heuristic. B. belief perseverance. C. confirmation bias. D. functional fixedness.

B. belief perseverance.

Describe the capacity of our short-term and working memory.

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

prototype

a mental image or best example of a category

Heuristic

a simple thinking strategy that often allows us to make judgments and solve problems efficiently; usually speedier but also more error-prone than algorithms

short-term memory

activated memory that holds a few items briefly, such as the seven digits of a phone number while dialing, before the information is stored or forgotten

What does Hermann Ebbinghaus' forgetting curve show about the nature of storage decay?

the rate of forgetting decreases as time goes on

flashbulb memory

a clear memory of an emotionally significant moment or event

Which language theorist would have been most likely to emphasize that children master the rule for forming the past tense of regular verbs like "push" before they learn common past tense constructions of irregular verbs like "go"? A. B. F. Skinner B. Benjamin Lee Whorf C. Noam Chomsky D. Beatrix Gardner

C. Noam Chomsky

Which of the following is true? A. People underestimate the accuracy of their judgments. B. People pay closest attention to information that disconfirms what they believe. C. It is difficult for most people to explain away their failures. D. People are overconfident about how they will perform on various tasks.

D. People are overconfident about how they will perform on various tasks.

Implicit procedural memories for motor movement or skills like riding a bike seem to be a function of the a. amygdala. b. hippocampus. c. hypothalamus. d. frontal lobes. e. basal ganglia.

E. basal ganglia

source amnesia

attributing to the wrong source an event we have experienced, heard about, read about, or imagined

the tendency to search for supportive information of preconceptions while ignoring contradictory evidence?

confirmation bias

Wernicke's area

controls language reception - a brain area involved in language comprehension and expression; usually in the left temporal lobe

Producing valuable and novel ideas best defines which of the following?

creativity

Which of the following is NOT a measure of retention? a. recall b. recognition c. relearning d. retrieval e. long-term potentiation

e. long-term potentiation

Pablo vainly searches for a screwdriver while failing to recognize that a readily available coin in his pocket would turn the screw. His oversight best illustrates: A. functional fixedness. B. the availability heuristic. C. belief perseverance. D. the representativeness heuristic.

A. functional fixedness.

Describe the cognitive strategies that assist our problem solving, and identify the obstacles that hinder it

An algorithm is a methodical, logical rule or procedure (such as a step-by-step description for evacuating a building during a fire) that guarantees a solution to a problem. A heuristic is a simpler strategy (such as running for an exit if you smell smoke) that is usually speedier than an algorithm but is also more error-prone. Insight is not a strategy-based solution, but rather a sudden flash of inspiration that solves a problem. Obstacles to problem solving include confirmation bias, which predisposes us to verify rather than challenge our hypotheses, and fixation, such as mental set, which may prevent us from taking the fresh perspective that would lead to a solution.

Jorge is preparing for a psychology test and tells you he really hopes the test is in essay format so he'll get a better grade. Based on your understanding of measures of retention, how would you respond to Jorge?

An essay test is a measure of recall, and studies have shown that recall is less successful in retrieving memories than recognition. You might advise Jorge that a multiple-choice test would be a better bet for retrieving material for an exam.

example of flashbulb memory

Anna remembers when her father returned from an overseas military deployment because the day was very emotional for her

The reason most North Americans cannot accurately describe the head of a penny is due to: A. storage decay. B. encoding failure. C. motivated forgetting. D. retrieval failure.

B. encoding failure.

Using different words for two very similar objects enables people to recognize conceptual distinctions between the objects. This illustrates: A. telegraphic speech. B. linguistic determinism. C. functional fixedness. D. the representativeness heuristic.

B. linguistic determinism.

Why we forget

Normal forgetting happens because we have never encoded information; because the physical trace has decayed; or because we cannot retrieve what we have encoded and stored. Retrieval problems may result from proactive interference, as prior learning interferes with recall of new information, or from retroactive interference, as new learning disrupts recall of old information. Some believe that motivated forgetting occurs, but researchers have found little evidence of repression.

describe the capacity and location of our LTMs

Our long-term memory capacity is essentially unlimited. Memories are not stored intact in the brain in single spots. Many parts of the brain interact as we form and retrieve memories.

insight

a sudden realization of a problem's solution

retrograde amnesia

an inability to retrieve information from one's past

Misinformaiton effect

incorporating misleading information into one's memory of an event

mnemonics

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

explicit memory

memory of facts and experiences that one can consciously know and "declare"

the prefix "pre" in "preview" or the suffix "ed" in "Adapted" are examples of

morphemes

convergent thinking

narrows the available problem solutions to determine the single best solution

serial position effect

our tendency to recall best the last and first items in a list

name and define the three building blocks of spoken language

phoneme : the smallest distinctive sound unit morpheme: the smallest unit carrying meaning in language grammar: the system of rules that enable communication

What do we call the smallest distinctive sound units in language?

phonemes

Juan returns to his grandparent's house after a 10-year absence. The flood of memories about his childhood visits is best explained by which of the following?

priming

Caitlin, a fifth grader, is asked to remember her second-grade teacher's name. What measure of retention will Caitlin use to answer this question? a. recall b. storage c. recognition d. relearning e. encoding

recall

In English, it is appropriate to refer to "a pretty bird," but not to "a bird pretty." This best illustrates the importance of: A. syntax. B. semantics. C. morphemes. D. phonemes.

A. syntax.

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: A. chunking. B. flashbulb memory. C. automatic processing. D. iconic memory

C. automatic processing.

Identify the factors associated with creativity, and describe ways of promoting creativity

Creativity, the ability to produce novel and valuable ideas, correlates somewhat with intelligence, but beyond an intelligence score of 120, that correlation dwindles. Sternberg has proposed that creativity has five components: expertise, imaginative thinking skills; a venturesome personality; intrinsic motivation; and a creative environment that sparks, supports, and refines creative ideas.

Identify the information we process automatically

In addition to skills and classically conditioned associations, we automatically process incidental information about space, time, and frequency.

Describe the roles of the cerebellum and basal ganglia in our 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. Many reactions and skills learned during our first three years continue into our adult lives, but we cannot consciously remember learning these associations and skills, a phenomenon psychologists call "infantile amnesia."

linguistic determinism

Whorf's hypothesis that language determines the way we think

iconic memory

a momentary sensory memory of visual stimuli; a photographic or picture-image memory lasting no more than a few tenths of a second

What is another term for a methodical, logical rule that guarantees solving a particular problem?

algorithm

The brain structure shown to be essential in laying down new explicit memories of names, images and events is the a. amygdala. b. hippocampus. c. cerebellum. d. basal ganglia. e. hypothalamus.

b. hippocampus

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: A. the spacing effect. B. proactive interference. C. retroactive interference. D. state-dependent memory.

B. proactive interference.

You are used to driving a car with a standard shift. Today you are driving a friend's car that has an automatic transmission. As you drive, you keep trying to shift gears, but there is no shift. This tendency is most likely due to: A. retroactive interference. B. proactive interference. C. motivated forgetting. D. encoding failure.

B. proactive interference.

Broca's area

Controls language expression - an area of the frontal lobe, usually in the left hemisphere, that directs the muscle movements involved in speech.

Which of the following processes is likely to result in the best memory for words? A. visual encoding B. acoustic encoding C. rote memorization D. semantic encoding

D. semantic encoding

describe the structural components of a language

Phonemes are a language's basic units of sound. Morphemes are the elementary units of meaning. Grammar—the system of rules that enables us to communicate—includes semantics (rules for deriving meaning) and syntax (rules for ordering words into sentences).

Describe the roles of the frontal lobes and hippocampus in memory processing

The frontal lobes and hippocampus are parts of the brain network dedicated to explicit memory formation. Many brain regions send information to the frontal lobes for processing. The hippocampus, with the help of surrounding areas of cortex, registers and temporarily holds elements of explicit memories before moving them to other brain regions for long-term storage.

concept

a mental grouping of similar objects, events, ideas, or people

cognition

all the mental activities associated with thinking, knowing, remembering, and communicating

name and define two problems-solving strategies. Next, explain an advantage each has over the other

an algorithm is a step-by-step procedure that guarantees a solution. a heuristic is a simple thinking strategy that often allows us to make quick judgements algorithm advantage: more likely to produce a correct solution heuristic advantage: often faster than using an algorithm

telegraphic speech

early speech stage in which a child speaks like a telegram—"go car"—using mostly nouns and verbs.

deep processing

encoding semantically, based on the meaning of the words; tends to yield the best retention

divergent thinking

expands the number of possible problem solutions (creative thinking that diverges in different directions)

Tasnia feels like she encodes material well, but still forgets the material on test day. Explain how her forgetting might be related to problems with each of the following: storage and retrieval

forgetting may be related to the decay of stored material. forgetting may be related to interference during retrieval (or motivated forgetting)

best identifies the early speech stage in which a child speaks using posting nouns and verbs?

telegraphic speech

proactive interference

the disruptive effect of prior learning on the recall of new info

to remember somethings, we must get information into our brain, retain the information, and later get the information back out. Making sure you use the terms for these 3 steps of the process, explain how this system would apply if you needed to learn the name of a new student who just enrolled in your school today.

1. encoding is the process of getting the new student's name into your brain 2. storage is keeping the name in your memory 3. retrieval is the process of using that name when greeting the new student leader1

According to the serial position effect, you will remember more: A. items at the beginning and end of a list, than in the middle. B. items in the middle of a list, than at the beginning and end. C. vocabulary words if you process them visually. D. vocabulary words if you process them acoustically.

A. items at the beginning and end of a list, than in the middle.

You are asked to recall the names of the Seven Dwarfs in the Snow White fairy tale. You are familiar with the story, and may have even seen a movie of the story, yet you cannot remember all seven names accurately. What type of memory problem might account for this? A. retrieval failure B. encoding failure C. proactive interference D. storage failure

A. retrieval failure

describe the relationship between language and thinking, and discuss the value of thinking in images

Although Benjamin Lee Whorf's linguistic determinism hypothesis suggested that language determines thought, it is more accurate to say that language influences thought. Different languages embody different ways of thinking, and immersion in bilingual education can enhance thinking. We often think in images when we use nondeclarative (procedural) memory—our automatic memory system for motor and cognitive skills and classically conditioned associations. Thinking in images can increase our skills when we mentally practice upcoming events.

Noam Chomsky's theory of language acquisition holds that people have an inborn universal grammar that makes learning of language easy for children. Which of the following statements is used as support for this theory? A. Children repeat words that they hear frequently. B. Regardless of the language learned, children tend to make similar errors of grammar when they first begin to learn language. C. Chimpanzees and other apes can easily learn language. D. Some children's vocabularies are extensive, despite the fact that they may live in poor environments.

B. Regardless of the language learned, children tend to make similar errors of grammar when they first begin to learn language.

To find Tabasco sauce in a large grocery store, you could systematically search every shelf in every store aisle. This best illustrates problem solving by means of: A. the availability heuristic. B. functional fixedness. C. an algorithm. D. the representativeness heuristic.

C. an algorithm.

Richard Atkinson and Richard Shiffrin's classic three-stage model of memory includes all of the following, except: A. short-term memory. B. long-term memory. C. flashbulb memory. D. sensory memory

C. flashbulb memory

As a child, Theo often looked at a picture album that included photos of a family reunion. Although Theo had not attended the reunion because he had been ill, he remembers being there. Theo's mistake best illustrates: A. suggestibility. B. persistence. C. misattribution. D. transience.

C. misattribution.

We have all had the experience of the tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon. We are asked to remember someone's name. We are certain that we know the name and feel as if we are just about to remember it, yet it remains elusive. What type of forgetting might be at work here? A. encoding failure B. retroactive interference C. retrieval failure D. motivated forgetting

C. retrieval failure

Which of the following is NOT included as part of today's general definition of intelligence? A. the ability to solve problems B. the ability to use knowledge to adapt to new situations C. the ability to understand people and emotions D. the ability to learn from experience

C. the ability to understand people and emotions

Which of the following would be predicted by Ebbinghaus' famous forgetting curve? Several years after learning the dates of important historical events for a college class, students: A. will remember most of the dates, and will remember them for years to come. B. will remember most of the dates, and will slowly start to forget them. C. will have forgotten most of the dates, but what they do remember, they'll remember for years to come. D. will have forgotten most of the dates, but during the years to come, they will again remember what they initially forgot.

C. will have forgotten most of the dates, but what they do remember, they'll remember for years to come.

Describe the reliability of young children's eyewitness descriptions, and discuss the controversy related to claims of repressed and recovered memories

Children are susceptible to the misinformation effect, but if questioned in neutral words they understand, they can accurately recall events and people involved in them. The debate (between memory researchers and some well-meaning therapists) focuses on whether most memories of early childhood abuse are repressed and can be recovered during therapy using "memory work" techniques using leading questions or hypnosis. Psychologists now agree that (1) sexual abuse happens; (2) injustice happens; (3) forgetting happens; (4) recovered memories are commonplace; (5) memories of things that happened before age 3 are unreliable; (6) memories "recovered" under hypnosis or the influence of drugs are especially unreliable; and (7) memories, whether real or false, can be emotionally upsetting.

Problem solving is one type of cognitive activity in which we all engage. Which of the following cognitive tendencies is seen to be an obstacle to problem solving? A. availability heuristic B. insight C. prototype confusion D. confirmation bias

D. confirmation bias

When Phoebe strongly disagrees with her sister's opinion, she effectively controls her own anger and responds with empathy to her sister's frustration regarding their dispute. Her behavior best illustrates: A. factor analysis. B. analytic intelligence. C. predictive validity. D. emotional intelligence.

D. emotional intelligence.

A typical one-year-old child: A. uses telegraphic speech. B. imitates two-word phases. C. is in the cooing stage. D. has lost the ability to discriminate phoneme sounds outside her native language.

D. has lost the ability to discriminate phoneme sounds outside her native language.

The surprising ease with which people form false memories best illustrates that the processes of encoding and retrieval involve: A. implicit memory. B. automatic processing. C. long-term potentiation. D. memory construction.

D. memory construction.

Although diagnosed with autism and hardly able to speak coherently, 18-year-old Andrew can produce intricate and detailed drawings of scenes he has viewed only once. Andrew illustrates a condition known as: A. g factor. B. Down syndrome. C. emotional intelligence. D. savant syndrome.

D. savant syndrome.

Priming refers to: A. the sense that one has been in a particular situation before. B. better recall for experiences that are consistent with one's current mood. C. attributing a memory to an erroneous source. D. the activation of associations in memory.

D. the activation of associations in memory.

A defense attorney emphasizes to a jury that her client works full-time, supports his family, and enjoys leisure-time hobbies. Although none of this information is relevant to the trial, it is designed to make the defendant appear to be a typical member of the local community. The lawyer is most clearly attempting to take advantage of: A. confirmation bias. B. functional fixedness. C. belief perseverance. D. the representativeness heuristic.

D. the representativeness heuristic.

Danielle has just broken up with her long-time boyfriend and is feeling quite down. Her friends are trying to cheer her up, but are having a hard time. According to the research on memory, in her current emotional state, what memories is Danielle most likely to recall? Why?

Danielle will most likely recall other sad and depressing times in her life as memories tend to be mood-congruent.

describe the level of processing and their effect on encoding

Depth of processing affects long-term retention. In shallow processing, we encode words based on their structure or appearance. Retention is best when we use deep processing, encoding words based on their meaning. We also more easily remember material that is personally meaningful—the self-reference effect.

Katrina is a talkative student in your class. The teacher is halfway through a detailed explanation of the causes of the Civil War when Katrina leans over to tell you about a joke she saw online. The teacher stops in the middle of her explanation and accuses Katrina of not listening. Katrina defensively retorts, "I was listen-ing and I can prove it. You just said the most significant cause of the Civil War was the inequity in wealth between the slave-holding states and the non-slave-holding states." The teacher apologized because that was indeed what she had just said. Katrina smirked in victory, but as a psychology student, you understand that something else occurred. Explain why Katrina was able to repeat word-for-word what the teacher had been saying.

Echoic memory. Katrina is actually still hearing the echoes of the teacher's words. Auditory echoes tend to linger for 3 or 4 seconds.

describe the effortful processing strategies that help us remember new information

Effective effortful processing strategies include chunking, mnemonics, hierarchies, and distributed practice sessions. The testing effect is enhanced memory after consciously retrieving, rather than simply rereading, information.

Most accurately reflect the relationship between emotions and memories?

Emotion enhances memory because it is important for our survival to remember events that make us emotional.

Discuss how emotions affect our memory processing.

Emotional arousal causes an outpouring of stress hormones, which lead to activity in the brain's memory-forming areas. Significantly stressful events can trigger very clear flash-bulb memories.

Describe how external cues, internal emotions, and order of appearance influence memory retrieval

External 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.

Explain how misinformation, imagination, and source amnesia influence our memory construction, and describe how we decide whether a memory is real or false

In experiments demonstrating the misinformation effect, people have formed false memories, incorporating misleading details, after receiving wrong information after an event, or after repeatedly imagining and rehearsing something that never happened. When we reassemble a memory during retrieval, we may attribute it to the wrong source (source amnesia). Source amnesia may help explain déjà vu. False memories feel like real memories and can be persistent but are usually limited to the gist of the event.

Explain what is meant by intuition, and describe how the representativeness and availability heuristics, overconfidence, belief perseverance, and framing influence our decisions and judgements

Intuition is the effortless, immediate, automatic feeling or thoughts we often use instead of systematic reasoning. Heuristics enable snap judgments. Using the availability heuristic, we judge the likelihood of things based on how readily they come to mind, which often leads us to fear the wrong things. Overconfidence can lead us to overestimate the accuracy of our beliefs. When a belief we have formed and explained has been discredited, belief perseverance may cause us to cling to that belief. A remedy for belief perseverance is to consider how we might have explained an opposite result. Framing is the way a question or statement is worded. Subtle wording differences can dramatically alter our responses.

Consider the word unbuttoned. Which of the following is true of this word? a. It has 4 morphemes and 8 phonemes. b. It has 3 morphemes and 9 phonemes. c. It has one morpheme and 10 phonemes. d. It has 4 morphemes and 5 phonemes. e. It has 3 morphemes and 4 phonemes.

It has 3 morphemes and 9 phonemes.

John robbed three banks, stashed the money in a secret place in the woods, then jumped into the getaway car and raced off. Due to his erratic state, he got into a car accident and has suffered trauma to his brain. After leaving the hospital, John still remembered how to drive a car and find his way home. He did not have memory of the bank robbery or the hiding spot of the loot. Discuss which brain structures may have been damaged and which remained undamaged in John's accident and the reasons for your answer.

John likely has an undamaged cerebellum as evidenced by his retention of implicit skill memory for driving. John likely has a damaged hippocampus as evidenced by his inability to recall the explicit semantic and episodic information of the bank robbery and loot location.John does recall where he lives, which would be information stored in other places of thebrain as the hippocampus does not seem to store memories permanently.

identify the milestones in language development

Language development's timing varies, but all children follow the same sequence. Receptive language (the ability to understand what is said to or about you) develops before productive language (the ability to produce words). At about 4 months of age, infants babble, making sounds found in languages from all over the world. By about 10 months, their babbling contains only the sounds found in their household language. Around 12 months of age, children begin to speak in single words. This one-word stage evolves into two-word (telegraphic) utterances before their second birthday, after which they begin speaking in full sentences.

describe how we acquire language

Linguist Noam Chomsky has proposed that all human languages share a universal grammar—the basic building blocks of language—and that humans are born with a predisposition to learn language. We acquire specific language through learning as our biology and experience interact. Childhood is a critical period for learning to speak and/or sign fluently. This is an important consideration for parents of deaf children, who might master oral communication if given a cochlear implant during this critical period. Deaf culture advocates oppose such implants on the grounds that deafness is a difference, not a disability.

Explain how changes at the synapse level affect our memory processing

Long-term potentiation (LTP) appears to be the neural basis of learning. In LTP, neurons become more efficient at releasing and sensing the presence of neurotransmitters, and more connections develop between neurons.

example of anterograde amnesia

Louis can remember his past, but has not been able to form new long-term memories since experiencing a brain infection 4 years ago.

Explain how psychologist describe the human memory system

Psychologists use memory models to think and communicate about memory. Information-processing models involve three processes: encoding, storage, and retrieval. Our agile brain processes many things simultaneously (some of them unconsciously) by means of parallel processing. The connectionism information-processing model focuses on this multitrack processing, viewing memories as products of interconnected neural networks. The three processing stages in the Atkinson-Shiffrin model are sensory memory, short-term memory, and long-term memory. This model has since been updated to include two important 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

Explain how sensory memory works

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.

Carly is a social studies teacher at a new school and will be welcoming students into the classroom next week. She has just received her student roster for the course and finds the following students listed: Short-Term Memory Maria Hippocampus Damage Holly Retroactive Interference Inez Divergent Thinking Daniel Mental Set Monty Linguistic Determinism Diego

Short-Term Memory Maria may have an inability to remember more than 7+/-2 names of key generals in a battle or be unable to hold the dates of wars in her memory for longer than 20 seconds. Retroactive Interference Inez may find that each new history chapter she learns makes it harder to recall the information from earlier in the course. She will likely do poorly on cumulative tests or final course tests, or may require an inordinate amount of review time, as she will not remember the material from the beginning of the year.

The text discusses therapist-guided "recovered" memories. Which of the following statements represents an appropriate conclusion about this issue?

Since the brain is not sufficiently mature to store accurate memories of events before the age of 3, memories from the first 3 years of life are unreliable

describe how smart thinkers use intuition

Smart thinkers welcome their intuitions (which are usually adaptive), but when making complex decisions they gather as much information as possible and then take time to let their two-track mind process all available information. As people gain expertise, they grow adept at making quick, shrewd judgments.

Janice, a classmate in your psychology class, wants to improve her memory for the material in the course. She has been staying up late, pulling all-night study sessions the night before tests, and getting up early to reread the chapter before quizzes. Use the concepts of the spacing effect, the testing effect, and deep processing to advise Janice of a better way to study.

Spacing effect: She should study smaller portions of the material each day. Spacing out her studying instead of cramming gives more time for encoding and produces better long-term recall. Testing effect: She should repeatedly test herself. Practicing retrieving material rather than just rereading it results in higher recall. Deep processing: She should study the material based on the meaning of the words—or semantically.

distinguish between explicit and implicit memories

The human brain processes information on dual tracks, consciously and unconsciously. Explicit (declarative) memories—our conscious memories of facts and experiences—form through effortful processing, which requires conscious effort and attention. Implicit (nondeclarative) memories—of skills and classically conditioned associations—happen without our awareness, through automatic processing

identify the brain areas involved in language processing and speech

Two important language-and speech-processing areas are Broca's area, a region of the frontal lobe that controls language expression, and Wernicke's area, a region in the left temporal lobe that controls language reception. Language processing is spread across other brain areas as well, where different neural networks handle specific linguistic subtasks.

Compare the notions of concept and prototype

a concept is a mental grouping of similar objects, events, ideas, and people a prototype is a mental image or best example of a category

recognition

a measure of memory in which the person need only identify items previously learned, as on a multiple-choice test

relearning

a measure of memory that assesses the amount of time saved when learning material for a second time

working memory

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

mental set

a tendency to approach a problem in one particular way, often a way that has been successful in the past

confirmation bias

a tendency to search for information that supports our preconceptions and to ignore or distort contradictory evidence

Bruck and Ceci's work on children's eyewitness descriptions and accuracy of recollection showed a. children's recollections can be easily skewed by suggestive interviewing techniques. b. older children tend to recall events more vividly than younger children. c. preschoolers are the least likely to produce false stories when asked. d. psychologist specializing in interviewing children have tools that help detect real from false memories. e. children were especially accurate when they talked about the incident with adults prior to the interview.

a. children's recollections can be easily skewed by suggestive interviewing techniques.

Two-year-old Claudia is finishing dinner in her high chair. She says, "Me, down" to her mother. Her mother understands that Claudia is finished and wants to be taken out of her chair and set down to play. Claudia is displaying a. telegraphic speech. b. receptive language. c. babbling. d. a morpheme. e. a phoneme.

a. telegraphic speech.

Keisha is told that her new geometry instructor will be flexible, nurturing, and soft-spoken. When she arrives to class on the first day, Keisha is somewhat surprised to discover her instructor is a man. Most likely Keisha applied in her vision of her new instructor. a. the representativeness heuristic b. belief perseverance c. confirmation bias d. mental set e. the framing effect

a. the representativeness heuristic

anterograde amnesia

an inability to form new memories

long-term potentiation (LTP)

an increase in a cell's firing potential after brief, rapid stimulation. Believed to be a neural basis for learning and memory

Rashad has recently been in a car accident and suffered damage to his brain, which has him hos-pitalized and involved in rehabilitative therapy. He can recall his childhood and other memories from his past, but is having difficulty learning the names of his nurses, doctors and aides and cannot recall from one day to the next what he did the day before. Most likely Rashad is suffering from a. the forgetting curve. b. anterograde amnesia. c. retrograde amnesia. d. storage decay. e. proactive interference.

b. anterograde amnesia.

The tendency to minimize the arguments that contradict our opinions and accept information that supports them is known as a. framing. b. confirmation bias. c. mental set. d. representativeness heuristic. e. insight.

b. confirmation bias.

Carlos was born into a Spanish-speaking household and as an infant he made many babbling sounds that could be identified as Chinese or Swahili, in addition to those that sounded Span-ish. Now, as an adult, Carlos cannot distinguish the sounds in any language but Spanish. The explanation for this occurrence is likely that a. he cannot retrieve the sounds due to retroactive interference. b. he wasn't exposed to any other languages but Spanish and lost his innate ability to hear and produce sounds and tones outside his native language. c. Carlos was exposed to too many other languages in school. d. he is missing a portion of his hippocampus, which is essential for memory of words. e. Chinese and Swahili words have too many morphemes and are hard to pronounce.

b. he wasn't exposed to any other languages but Spanish and lost his innate ability to hear and produce sounds and tones outside his native language.

Jim has just memorized the following list of words for his 3rd grade spelling test: host, most, coast, boast, ghost. When asked by a classmate, "What do you put in a toaster?" Jim replies "Toast!" "No, silly!" said his friend. "You put bread in a toaster!" What psychological process caused Jim to reply incorrectly? a. long-term potentiation b. priming c. serial position effect d. implicit memory e. recall

b. priming

Lindsey has a vivid memory of swimming with dolphins when she was a young girl, but her mother denies that this ever occurred. Her mother explained that Lindsey watched many movies about dolphins and visited them frequently at the aquarium as a toddler, but did not actually swim with them herself. The best explanation for Lindsey's constructed memory is a. retroactive interference. b. source amnesia. c. déja vu. d. proactive interference. e. retrieval failure.

b. source amnesia.

babbling stage

beginning at about 4 months, the stage of speech development in which the infant spontaneously utters various sounds at first unrelated to the household language

Which of the following is most likely to be stored as an implicit memory? A. a mental image of one's best friend B. the date of one's own birth C. a conditioned fear of guns D. one's own name

c. a conditioned fear of guns

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: A. repression. B. retroactive interference. C. encoding failure. D. source amnesia.

c. encoding failure

Which of the following is a typical example of a flashbulb memory? a.the scrambled eggs you had for breakfast this morning b.the daily homework assignment from your psychology teacher c.your first kiss d. the shirt you wore to school yesterday e. the chores your parent asked you to complete after school.

c. your first kiss

which of the following is the most accurate description of the capacity of short-term and working memory? a. last for about 2 days in most circumstances b. last for less than half a minute unless you rehearse the information c. is thought to be unlimited- there is always room for more information d. can handle about a half dozen items for each of the tasks you are working on at any time e. can handle about a half dozen items total

can handle about a half dozen items total

belief preservation

clinging to one's initial conceptions after the basis on which they were formed has been discredited

the best term for mental activities associated with remembering, thinking, and knowing?

cognition

the best phrase for the narrowing of available problem solutions with the goal of determining the best solution?

convergent thinking

Caitlin is learning French in college after spending her high school years studying Spanish. Ini-tially, she has difficulty learning the new French words as the Spanish words keep getting in the way. However, over the course of the semester Caitlin becomes much more fluent in French and can no longer even recall the Spanish word for the same item. Which is the best explanation for Caitlin's experience in world languages? a. Initially, her recall of the Spanish terms was blocked through proactive interference and recall of the French words is blocked through retroactive interference. b. In the beginning, Caitlin was not encoding the terms effortfully and later in the semester she began encoding the terms automatically. c. Caitlin was impacted by the misinformation effect in the beginning of the semester but as that passed, she was able to learn the French words. d. Initially, Caitlin's recall of the French was blocked through proactive interference, and eventually, recall of the Spanish vocabulary is blocked through retroactive interference. e. Initially, Caitlin's recall of the French vocabulary was blocked by retroactive interference, but toward the end of the semester, the Spanish vocabulary was blocked by retroactive interference.

d. Initially, Caitlin's recall of the French was blocked through proactive interference, and eventually, recall of the Spanish vocabulary is blocked through retroactive interference.

Stephanie sustained left temporal lobe damage in an athletic injury and has just returned home from a long stay in the hospital. Her mother asks her to check on the dinner cooking in the oven and Stephanie responds, "The boy didn't jump as fast and the turtle should have known it". Stephanie's misunderstanding of her mother's request and her subsequent meaningless response is most likely caused by a. linguistic determinism. b. Broca's aphasia. c. a critical period for language. d. Wernicke's aphasia. e. universal grammar constraints.

d. Wernicke's aphasia.

The brain structure shown to be necessary in the development of implicit memories for skills, particularly classically conditioned reflexes, is the a. basal ganglia. b. hippocampus. c. amygdala. d. cerebellum. e. hypothalamus.

d. cerebellum

In Ebbinghaus' studies involving recall of nonsense syllables he found that a. memories stored in childhood are more easily retrieved. b. memory for new information fades fast and is completely lost. c. subjects still attempted to chunk the syllables into meaningful units. d. memory for new information fades fast then levels off over time. e. relearning was improved by working memory.

d. memory for new information fades fast then levels off over time.

Studies by Loftus and Palmer on the misinformation effect, in which people were quizzed about a film of an accident, indicate that a.when quizzed immediately, people can recall very little, due to the stress of witnessing an accident. b. when questioned as little as one day later, their memory was very inaccurate. c. most people had very accurate memories as long as 6 months later. d. people's recall may easily be affected by misleading information. e. people could recall the first and last events of the film, but not the middle.

d. people's recall may easily be affected by misleading information.

Troy just moved to a new school in the middle of his junior year. He is given a locker combi-nation but keeps entering the combination from his old locker before he remembers his new combination. This occurrence is referred to as a. retroactive interference. b. encoding failure. c. anterograde amnesia. d. proactive interference. e. retrograde amnesia.

d. proactive interference.

Leila is studying an alphabetical list of thirty African countries. She has a test tomorrow in her 4th grade history class and hopes to remember all thirty. According to the serial position effect, it is most likely that Leila will a. remember the countries at the beginning of the list, but not the end. b. recall the countries at the end of the list only. c.remember all thirty correctly. d. recall the countries at the beginning and end of the list, but not as many from the middle e. remember the countries from the middle of the list, but not as many from the beginning or the end.

d. recall the countries at the beginning and end of the list, but not as many from the middle.

Samantha cannot recall her childhood, her name, or most of the events that occurred prior to the trauma that caused her brain damage. She does, however, seem to be making good progress in her therapy and has learned the names of her doctors and nurses. Samantha's condition is likely a. retroactive interference. b. anterograde amnesia. c. misinformation effect. d. retrograde amnesia. e. motivated forgetting.

d. retrograde amnesia.

Simran is running for class officer and has to present a compelling speech in front of the student body. She is adamant about the illiteracy problem in her 2000-student school and wants to drive home the statistics that demonstrate the pervasiveness of the problem. Having studied psychology last year, Simran adds thefollowing points to her speech:"22% of our classmates failed the end-of-year reading exam last spring.""Schools like ours that have implemented literacy support programs have shown a 17% increase in student's reading ability"It is apparent from these inclusions, that Simran understands the power of a. confirmation bias. b. overconfidence. c. intuition. d. algorithms. e. framing.

e. framing.

When he was a young boy, Montel lied to people he respected. This caused him a great deal of distress but he felt he had no choice. Years later, when asked if he lied as a child, Montel re-ported being a pretty honest kid. A psychoanalytic psychologist would likely explain Montel's self-censoring of this painful and anxiety-provoking memory as a. source amnesia. b. proactive interference. c. anterograde amnesia. d. recall failure. e. repression.

e. repression.

Barrett's parents are divorced and several of his friends' parents are divorced as well. In a class discussion about marriage and compatibility, Barrett shares his opinion that the divorce rate is on the rise and that most marriages will not remain intact over time. It is likely Barrett's opinion is influenced by a. overconfidence. b. a mental set. c. the representativeness heuristic. d. belief perseverance. e. the availability heuristic.

e. the availability heuristic.

Muhammad has been in his school cafeteria hundreds of times. It is a large room, and there are nine free-standing pillars that support the roof. One day, to illustrate the nature of forgetting, Muhammad's teacher asks him how many pillars there are in the cafeteria. Muhammad has difficulty answering the question, but finally replies that he thinks there are six pillars. What memory concept does this example illustrate?

encoding failure

effortful processing

encoding that requires attention and conscious effort

testing effect

enhanced memory after retrieving, rather than simply rereading, information

availability heuristic

estimating the likelihood of events based on their availability in memory; if instances come readily to mind (perhaps because of their vividness), we presume such events are common

phoneme

in language, the smallest distinctive sound unit

repression

in psychoanalytic theory, the basic defense mechanism that banishes from consciousness anxiety-arousing thoughts, feelings, and memories

consider an explicit memory, such as a member of what happened in you science class yesterday. Explain the process that allows memory to occur at the synaptic level. Explain the role of the two parts of the brain in your memory of the class.

long-term potentiation (LTP) increases the cells' firing potential at the synapse. the hippocampus gives the command to "save" a memory the frontal lobe allows you to process the memory information

Chunking

organizing items into familiar, manageable units; often occurs automatically

language

our spoken, written, or signed words and the ways we combine them to communicate meaning

deja vu

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

Priming

the activation, often unconsciously, of certain associations, thus predisposing one's perception, memory, or response

What two parts of the brain are most involved in explicit memory?

the frontal lobes and hippocampus

sensory memory

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

Define memory

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

memory

the persistence of learning over time through the storage and retrieval of information

Retrieval

the process of getting information out of memory storage

parallel processing

the processing of many aspects of a problem simultaneously; the brain's natural mode of information processing for many functions, including vision. Contrasts with the step-by-step (serial) processing of most computers and of conscious problem solving.

long-term memory

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

one-word stage

the stage in speech development, from about age 1 to 2, during which a child speaks mostly in single words

spacing effect

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

Overconfidence

the tendency to be more confident than correct—to overestimate the accuracy of our beliefs and judgments.

mood-congruent memory

the tendency to recall experiences that are consistent with one's current good or bad mood

Framing

the way an issue is posed; how an issue is framed can significantly affect decisions and judgments.

which of the following is most likely to lead to semantic encoding of a list of words? a. thinking about how the words likely to lead to semantic encoding of a list of words b. practicing the words for a single extended period of time c. breaking up the practice into several relatively short sessions d. noticing where in a sentence the words appears e. focusing on the number of vowels and consonants in the words

thinking about how the words likely to lead to semantic encoding of a list of words

automatic processing

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

Your memory of which of the following is an example of implicit memory? a. what you had for breakfast yesterday b. the need to spend some time reviewing tomorrow for an upcoming psych quiz c. which way to turn the car key to start the engine d. the George Washington was the first president e. how exciting it was to get the best birthday present ever

which way to turn the car key to start the engine

example of proactive interference

you can't recall your new cell phone number because your old number interferes