Test Questions: (Chapter 8 Psych)

Our ability to recognize material can make us feel _____, which might lead to poorer performance on certain tests.

overconfident

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

retroactive interference

At a loud party, Maggie met so many new people that when she ran into one of her new acquaintances on campus the next day, she was unable to remember her name. The most likely explanation for her forgetting the name of her new acquaintance is called _____.

interference

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

long-term

The prolonged strengthening of potential neural firing believed to be the basis for learning and memory is called _____.

long-term potentiation

Yancy was sitting in the park one day and witnessed a robbery. When asked by the police to describe the young criminal, Yancy recalled erroneously that the criminal was a teenager rather than a young adult. Yancy's experience best illustrates the _____ effect.

misinformation

Whenever Valerie experiences intense feelings of fear, she is overwhelmed with childhood memories of her abusive parents. Valerie's experience best illustrates: (retroactive interference, the misinformation effect, repression, or mood-congruent-memory)

mood-congruent memory

Our ability to believe our own lies is due to _____.

motivated forgetting

Mrs. McBride cannot consciously recall how frequently she criticizes her children because it would cause her too much anxiety. Sigmund Freud would have suggested that her poor memory illustrates:

repression

Darlene is trying to remember the name of a woman sitting next to her on the bus. She knows she met her at a party, and she is trying to remember which one. Darlene is able to imagine where the woman was seated at the party, as well as what she was eating. Darlene is using _____ to remember the woman's name.

retrieval cues

Our strongest retrieval cues are often associated ______ information.

sensory

Theo suffers from depression and is currently in treatment. His physician is using electroconvulsive therapy, which will affect his _____ memory.

short-term

Events that are forgotten are like books that cannot be found in a library. Which of the following scenarios can BEST be used to explain the encoding problem? The card catalog is wrong. The book was thrown away. The book was never purchased. The book is on the wrong shelf.

the book was never purchased

When you go for a job interview and are introduced to many people, whose name are you most likely to remember?

the first person you met

If the functioning of your cerebellum is impaired, you would have trouble learning which of the following? (reciting a poem, your state capital, learning a new language, or tying a knot)

tying a knot

One reason our memories fail is because of problems with information:

encoding

On a business trip last year, Susan and Pam flew from Los Angeles to Boston. Susan really hates to fly. In the middle of the flight, Susan and Pam experienced 20 minutes of very severe turbulence. Susan remembers this incident as if it were yesterday, but Pam cannot recall it. Why?

Susan experienced emotion-triggered hormonal changes

Laurie, Jim's wife, complains that he never notices when she has made changes in her hairstyle. At her latest hair appointment, she had several inches cut from her hair. When Jim came home from work he greeted her and did not notice or make a comment about her new hair style until Laurie pointed out his failure to notice. Jim likely did not notice the difference because of a(n)_____ failure.

encoding

Many US citizens can easily recall exactly what they were doing when they heard news of the attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001. This BEST illustrates _____ memory.

flashbulb

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

hippocampus