7a. Studying Memory; Building Memories: Encoding; Memory Storage; Retrieval

Memories before age _____ are often unreliable.

4

Dana is suffering from _____ when she fails to remember events preceding traumatic brain injury.

amnesia

Professional psychologists who specialize in interviewing children read detailed fictitious stories about children's experiences. Interestingly, they:

could not tell the real memories from the fake ones, nor could the children.

Encoding is to _____ as storage is to _____.

data input into a computer; data saved on the hard drive

If you ask your classmates to draw either side of a U.S. penny from memory, the majority will not be very accurate. This MOST likely reflects a failure in the memory process of _____.

encoding

Luke experiences some damage to his cerebellum. Based on information provided in the textbook, Luke's _____ memory may be impaired.

implicit

Walking past a classroom's open door, Michael overhears an instructor say, "In the next unit, we will explore how information is collected, stored, and retrieved for later use." Michael realizes that the next unit must be about:

memory

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

overconfident

When Loftus and Palmer asked observers of a filmed car accident about how fast the vehicles were going when they "smashed" into each other, the observers developed memories of the accident that:

portrayed the event as more serious than it had actually been.

In _____ interference, information learned earlier disrupts the recall of information learned more recently; in _____ interference, recently learned information disrupts the recall of information learned earlier.

proactive; retroactive

In the _____ effect, the last items in a list are better-remembered than the middle items in a list.

recency

Some therapists suggest that clients have pushed memories of childhood victimization into the unconscious mind. In other words, therapists attribute clients' inability to a mechanism called:

repression

When you encode a piece of target information, other bits of information become associated with it. The bits of information connected with the target information are known as _____ cues.

retrieval

After studying biology all afternoon, Marcus is having difficulty remembering details of the organic chemistry material he memorized that morning. Marcus' difficulty BEST illustrates _____ interference.

retroactive

In _____ interference, information learned recently disrupts the recall of information learned earlier.

retroactive

Sebastian took three years of Latin in high school. In college, he takes three courses in Spanish. By the end of college, he finds it hard to remember much Latin. Sebastian is experiencing _____ interference.

retroactive

Iconic memory and echoic memory are types of _____ memory.

sensory

How many bits of information did George Miller propose that humans can store in their short-term memory at a given time?

seven, plus or minus two

To make a long-distance call, you have to dial an unfamiliar phone number. You are likely to have trouble retaining the number you just looked up. This BEST illustrates the limited capacity of _____ memory.

short-term

Ricardo distributes his study time rather than cramming because he wants to retain the information for the long-term. He is using the _____ effect.

spacing

The amygdala boosts activity in the brain's memory-forming areas when stimulated by:

stress hormones.

New memories are _____; they need to be _____ if one wants to remember them.

weak; exercised

7b

Forgetting; Memory Construction Errors; Improving Memory

When people are given subtle misleading information about a past event, they often misremember the true details surrounding the event. This is known as:

Misinformation Effect

_____ interference is the disruptive effect of prior learning on the recall of new information.

Proactive

A long time ago, Leslie was stuck in an elevator for over 3 hours. Though generally not claustrophobic, after 2 hours she felt like the elevator walls were closing in on her. Now, 10 years later, she still vividly recalls the details of the 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.

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.

Godden and Baddeley conducted a study using two groups of scuba divers. One group listened to a list of words while sitting on a beach. The other group listened to the same list of words while 10 feet underwater. What did the researchers discover about context and learning?

The greatest recall for the words happened when learning and testing were in the same context (e.g., learn underwater, get tested underwater).

Mabel has Alzheimer's disease and her _____ memories for people and events are lost, but she is able to display an ability to form new _____ memories by being repeatedly shown words.

explicit; implicit

Some of our memories of an emotionally significant moment or event are vividly clear. These are known as _____ memories.

flashbulb

Rashad is studying for tomorrow's biology exam. He has been reading and taking notes for hours, and he feels like he cannot study any longer. To avoid retroactive interference, the BEST thing for Rashad to do at this point is:

go directly to sleep.

Professor Wallace studies memory in people who have had strokes. Professor Hansen studies people who claim to have clear memories of events that happened over three decades ago. Such research on the extremes of memory:

helps us to understand how memory works.

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

hippocampus