Chapter 6 Cog Exam 3
As you read this question, you may be asking yourself whether you understand it. If so, you are engaging in a. meta-analysis. b. metamemory. c. metacomprehension. d. source monitoring.
Answer: c
Which of the following is not an example of a mnemonic technique that emphasizes organization? a. Keyword method b. Hierarchy c. First-letter technique d. Narrative technique
Answer: a
Which of the following students provides the best summary of why a person's confidence is important to the topic of memory strategies and metacognition? a. Asli: "In general, people are overconfident that they will remember material accurately." b. Megan: "Ironically, people are overconfident about eyewitness testimony and underconfident about material they learn in an academic setting." c. George: "People are especially likely to be overconfident if they have studied material by using the self-reference technique." d. Xavier: "People are generally overconfident when they use memory strategies and underconfident when they use metacognition."
Answer: a
Absentminded behavior is especially likely to occur a. when you must remember to do something that is not part of your customary routine. b. when you are in an unfamiliar setting. c. when you are trying to performing a task especially carefully. d. when you are performing a retrospective-memory task.
Answer: a
According to the discussion of prospective and retrospective memory, a. distinctive encoding improves performance on both kinds of memory tasks. b. the research on retrospective memory is typically higher in ecological validity than is the research on prospective memory. c. a delay period has a stronger effect on retrospective memory than on prospective memory. d. retrospective-memory tasks typically activate the frontal lobe of the brain, but prospective-memory tasks do not.
Answer: a
Mandi is studying for her biopsychology exam by creating a diagram for the parts of the human nervous system. Her diagram shows two basic divisions, the peripheral nervous system and the central nervous system; each of these systems is further divided and then subdivided. Mandi is using a. the method of loci. b. the spacing effect. c. the keyword method. d. the hierarchy technique.
Answer: d
Research on divided attention suggests that a. your memory for details learned while reading a textbook will not be affected if you listen to popular vocal music (with lyrics) while reading. b. students who use Internet access in lecture rooms to "take breaks" to check email or text messages perform better than students who focus all of their mental efforts on the lecture only. c. some students perform better while multitasking than they do while focusing all of their attention on one task. d. distractions such as email and Facebook prevent students from remembering a lecture as effectively as they might remember without distraction.
Answer: d
Suppose that you are studying for a biopsychology examination, and you decide to try asking yourself questions about why various structures in the central nervous system operate the way they do. According to the discussion of memory strategies, your technique would a. enhance encoding specificity. b. promote simple rehearsal. c. lead to divided attention. d. encourage a deep level of processing.
Answer: d
The concept called "feeling of knowing" a. describes how confident you are that you provided the right answer on a test. b. is an estimate of the likelihood that you will recognize the correct answer to a question. c. is more closely related to retrospective memory than to metamemory. d. is not significantly correlated with the amount of partial information we can retrieve.
Answer: b
The hierarchy technique is an example of a mnemonic device that primarily emphasizes a. mental imagery. b. organization. c. the self-reference effect. d. prospective memory.
Answer: b
The term "tip-of-the-finger effect" refers to a subjective experience of knowing a target word but not being able to recall it right now, as experienced by a. blind people who read Braille. b. deaf people. c. people whose culture is known for using gestures frequently. d. multilingual people.
Answer: b
Which of the following students provides the most accurate advice about metacomprehension? a. Arianna: "Students typically have better metacognition if they read a passage, wait briefly, and then summarize the passage." b. Krisanthi: "Surprisingly, students who use shallow processing have more accurate metacomprehension than students who use deep processing." c. David: "Good readers and poor readers are equally likely to know that they should try to make connections among the concepts they are reading about." d. Derek: "Good readers and poor readers are equally likely to be aware of helpful reading strategies."
Answer: a
Suppose that you have just learned that you will have a quiz in about 30 minutes on a set of fairly difficult short essays that you haven't even glanced at. If you are like the students described in the discussion of regulating study strategies, you would a. select the most difficult essays to read first. b. select the easiest essays to read first. c. select easier essays to read first if you are an expert, but select more difficult essays to read first if you are a novice. d. show no systematic pattern in reading the essays.
Answer: b
Heather complains that her professor's Powerpoint slides are crowded with details and that she can't copy what is on the slides while listening to the lecture and taking notes on what is being said. Heather's complaint has to do with the limits of her a. working memory. b. divided attention. c. levels of processing. d. encoding specificity.
Answer: a
Which of the following definitions for the term "foresight bias" is most accurate? a. A foresight bias occurs when the researchers try to anticipate—in advance—the problems with a study. b. Foresight bias occurs when researchers examine the dependent variables to see whether they will be high in external validity. c. Foresight bias occurs when people judge their mastery of some material that they have been studying, although they have been using an inappropriate mnemonic device. d. Foresight bias occurs when people are too confident that they will do well in a future exam, based on the estimates they make while studying the material.
Answer: d
Your textbook discussed a metamemory study that asked students to estimate their total score on a test that they had just taken. The comparison between the students' actual score and their estimated score showed that a. the students consistently overestimated how well they had performed. b. the students consistently underestimated how well they had performed. c. the students with the lowest actual scores provided the most accurate estimated scores. d. the students with the highest actual scores provided the most accurate estimated scores.
Answer: d
According to the principle of memory called the total-time hypothesis, a. your score on a memory task is related to the amount of time you spend in learning the material. b. the total time you spend in learning the material is such an important factor that it overshadows the combined impact of all the other memory strategies. c. your score on a memory task is positively correlated with the total time you spend in strengthening your brain by using general memory-building exercises. d. the total time spent studying will typically decrease in a linear fashion, for each repetition of the list
Answer: a
Chapter 7 discussed a study by Hartwig and Dunlosky, who assessed whether college students' study techniques were correlated with their college grades. This research showed that a. there was a strong correlation between the measures of "study techniques" and grades in college. b. the study was flawed, because of the research was acknowledged to have a serious problem with the issue that "correlation is not necessarily causation." c. surprisingly, there was no correlation between any of the variables. d. there was actually a negative correlation between study techniques and grades in college, probably because the students with the lowest grades actually exaggerated the amount of time spent studying.
Answer: a
Colin has high reading comprehension abilities, as measured by his scores on the verbal SAT. Stefan has only average reading comprehension. Both Connor and Stefan read a series of unfamiliar text passages, and then answer reading comprehension questions about the passages. For the items for which Connor and Stefan both express an average certainty rating of 75%, you would expect that a. Connor would get about 75% of those items correct. b. Stefan would get about 75% of those items correct. c. Both Connor and Stefan would be overconfident about their scores. d. Both Connor and Stefan would be underconfident about their scores.
Answer: a
Part of the section on metamemory examined how students regulate their study strategies. If you are typical of the college students discussed in that section—and the task is relatively easy—you would be likely to a. spend somewhat more time on the more difficult material, but not as much time as it deserves. b. fail to review the material you already know. c. show no relationship between study time and the difficulty of the material. d. spend roughly three times as long on difficult topics as on the topics you already know.
Answer: a
Prospective memory errors are especially likely to occur when you are simultaneously a. performing a task automatically in a familiar setting. b. performing a task effortfully in a familiar setting. c. performing a task automatically in an unfamiliar setting. d. performing a task effortfully in an unfamiliar setting.
Answer: a
Researchers have conducted many studies about how students allocate their time, when studying for an exam. In general, these studies show that a. without time pressure, students spend more time studying difficult material. b. without time pressure, students spend more time studying easy material. c. with time pressure, students spend more time studying difficult material. d. with time pressure, students tend to study randomly, without using strategies about which items to focus on.
Answer: a
Suppose that a friend is having difficulty in introductory psychology, so you decide to give her some memory tips. If you decide to emphasize metamemory, you would be likely to a. make her think more about the factors that influence her memory. b. emphasize that, in the ideal situation, memory is schematic. c. inform her that the tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon is more a myth than a reality. d. emphasize shallow processing for working memory and deep processing for long-term memory.
Answer: a
Suppose that a friend tells you a phone number that you need to dial, as soon as you are done talking. You don't have a pencil, so you remember it by grouping it into two sections, one with three digits, and one with four digits. The method you have used is called a. the chunking method. b. the method of loci. c. the keyword method. d. the narrative technique.
Answer: a
Suppose that you are a counselor at a summer camp, and you want to learn the children's names. You decide to rehearse the names during each mealtime for 3 days. This would be an example of a technique called a. the distributed-practice effect. b. external memory aids. c. source monitoring. d. elaboration.
Answer: a
Suppose that you meet a student named Jane Frostig, and you try to recall her last name by imagining that she has chocolate frosting spread across her forehead. Which mnemonic method would this represent? a. Keyword method b. Method of loci c. Chunking method d. Source monitoring
Answer: a
Which of the following students provides the most accurate summary of the research on metacomprehension accuracy among college students? a. Cheryl: "Students' metacomprehension accuracy and their reading comprehension scores are significantly correlated." b. Jacques: "Students tend to underestimate their scores on a reading comprehension test." c. Ed: "Students are much more confident about the comprehension questions they answered correctly, compared with those they answered incorrectly." d. Hannelore: "Unfortunately, students' metacomprehension accuracy does not improve when they get feedback about their ability to assess their reading comprehension."
Answer: a
You are studying for an exam in your Forensic Psychology class. You know that 30% of the items will be fill-in-the-blank questions that require you to recall the term or name that best fits the description. Which of the following study techniques would make use of the encoding specificity principle? a. Quizzing yourself with flash cards (one side has a term or name and the other has the definition/description) b. Having a study partner quiz you with multiple choice questions c. Writing practice essays about the main concepts in the textbook d. Drawing pictures of the main ideas from your lecture notes
Answer: a
According to research on memory benefits from deep processing of material, students learned more in a psychology course on personality theories if they a. read each chapter through without stopping. b. kept a journal in which they applied the theories to acquaintances and famous people. c. listened to emotional music while reading the material. d. took their exams in a different classroom from where they had listened to lectures.
Answer: b
According to the discussion of improving prospective memory, a. external memory aids tend to decrease the accuracy of prospective memory. b. it's helpful to figure out a specific reminder that you can place in a relevant location. c. the same identical factors influence the accuracy of both retrospective memory and prospective memory. d. prospective memory errors are especially likely when people are using focused attention rather than divided attention.
Answer: b
According to the discussion of metacomprehension, a. college students do not need special training in this area, because their metacomprehension is reasonably accurate. b. metacomprehension can be improved when students receive feedback about their understanding before they take a test. c. good readers and poor readers do not differ in their awareness of reading strategies. d. metacomprehension is basically the same as meta-analysis.
Answer: b
According to the discussion of the narrative technique, a. this technique is effective if you need to learn a single list of items; its effectiveness is reduced when learning multiple lists. b. the research suggests that this technique works well as long as you can create the story easily and also recall it easily. c. this technique is effective with college students, but not for people with memory impairments. d. this method is so effective that it works even if you use a weak story to link together the items.
Answer: b
According to the research on students' distribution of their study time, they tend to a. systematically study the difficult items more than the easy ones. b. study the difficult items somewhat more than the easy ones. c. devote the same amount of time to both the difficult items and the easy ones. d. study the easy ones somewhat more than the difficult ones.
Answer: b
According to the research on the keyword method, this technique a. is no longer considered to be a useful mnemonic. b. is often helpful for learning people's names. c. is actually less effective when people use distributed practice, rather than learning the material all at once. d. works only for abstract nouns, rather than concrete nouns.
Answer: b
According to your textbook, retrospective memory a. means that some new information interferes with some old information. b. refers to some information that you learned in the past. c. means that you use some mnemonic devices to improve your memory. d. refers to your ability to predict how well you will do on a memory test.
Answer: b
Lori types her notes on her laptop during her professor's lectures, but she also checks her email and monitors Facebook at the same time. Although Lori insists that she's a good multitasker, Steve informs her that she would remember the material better if she closed her email and browser during class. Steve's good advice is based on knowledge of a. working memory. b. divided attention. c. levels of processing. d. encoding specificity.
Answer: b
Part of Chapter 6 examined students' study strategies for easy and difficult material. Which of the following students provides the most accurate perspective on that research? a. Carlo: "When the memory task is relatively easy, students spend about the same amount of time studying the easiest items and the most difficult items." b. Sondra: "When the memory task is relatively easy, students spend the most time on the difficult items; when the memory task is relatively difficult, students spend the most time on the easy items." c. Phil: "Students study the difficult items more than the easy items when the material is related to their own interests; otherwise, they show no consistent pattern in their study strategies." d. Indira: "Students' study strategies depend on their motivational level; the most motivated students divide their time equally among the topics, but the less motivated students spend more time on the difficult tasks."
Answer: b
Studies of test anxiety indicate that a. people with test anxiety learn material effectively but are unable to perform well in a testing situation. b. people with test anxiety tend to report poorer study skills. c. test anxiety is myth that is used to excuse poor performance. d. high levels of worry are not related to reading comprehension.
Answer: b
Suppose that people are working on an ongoing task. They are most likely to forget to complete a prospective-memory task if a. they create a mental image of that prospective-memory task. b. they are performing the ongoing task automatically. c. the ongoing task is relatively easy. d. they create some concrete, external reminder of the prospective-memory task.
Answer: b
Suppose that you are studying for a vocabulary test, and you want to accurately predict your score in that test. Your prediction accuracy would be highest if you a. tested yourself immediately after learning the words. b. tested yourself several minutes after learning the words. c. estimate how many words you already knew before beginning to study. d. figure out—in advance—whether you typically have trouble on vocabulary tests.
Answer: b
Suppose that you study for your next examination in this course by reviewing each topic and asking how the information might be relevant to the career you want to pursue. Your study technique makes use of a. the encoding-specificity principle. b. the self-reference principle. c. the Pollyanna Principle. d. the shallow-rehearsal technique.
Answer: b
Which of the following students provides the best comparison between the term "metacognition" and the term "self-knowledge"? a. Sue: "Metacognition refers to people's beliefs about other people; in contrast, self-knowledge is a broad term that refers to people's beliefs about themselves." b. Audrey: "Metacognition refers to your knowledge about your cognitive skills; self-knowledge is a general term that includes a wide variety of beliefs about yourself." c. Timoteo: "Metacognition refers to your study strategies; in contrast, self-knowledge refers to your knowledge about whether you will be able to apply those study strategies." d. Sergei: "Metacognition refers to your prediction about your past performance; self-knowledge refers to your predictions about your future performance."
Answer: b
Why should you pay attention to metamemory if you want to improve your memory? a. The guidelines of metamemory suggest that rote rehearsal is the most effective mnemonic device. b. Metamemory can help you decide which strategies work best for you. c. Metamemory allows you to process information in a parallel fashion, rather than a serial fashion. d. Metamemory is the study of memory for people's names, and people report particular difficulty with memory for names.
Answer: b
According to Baddeley's approach to working memory, the central executive plays a role when students are studying for an exam a. because it is important in source-monitoring tasks. b. because it helps individuals who have ADHD, so that they can actually suppress competing answers. c. because it helps people plan how they will divide their time during studying. d. because it strengthens and expands the limits of the phonological loop.
Answer: c
An instructor makes online practice quizzes available to her students in order to help them study for the midterm exam. She allows the students to take each practice quiz more than once, but requires them to wait at least one day between attempts. She is trying to help students by making use of the principle of a. encoding specificity. b. levels of processing. c. desirable difficulties. d. massed learning.
Answer: c
Chapter 6 discussed college students' metamemory about factors affecting memory accuracy. According to this discussion, a. students with ADHD consistently overestimate their memory accuracy, compared with students without ADHD. b. students are usually accurate in predicting how many hours they should study in order to get a good score in an exam. c. students usually believe that simple rehearsal is an effective way to study for an exam. d. students are aware that the research shows that you remember words better if they are printed in a large font size, rather than a small font size.
Answer: c
Chapter 6 discusses the accuracy of people's metamemory for pairs of words on an item-by-item basis. This research suggests that a. people are not very accurate in guessing which pairs of words they are likely to recall at a later time. b. people clearly underestimate their ability to recall pairs of words at a later time. c. people are more accurate when predicting on an "item-by-item" basis as compared to an overall score basis. d. people have fairly accurate metamemory when the stimuli are pairs of words.
Answer: c
Deep processing increases distinctiveness, which can be especially important in learning a. formulas. b. complex theories. c. names. d. the order of discoveries.
Answer: c
Elaine memorized the lakes of the Great Lakes by using the word HOMES (Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie, Superior). Elaine has used the a. keyword method. b. narrative technique. c. first-letter technique. d. hierarchy method.
Answer: c
Harrison knows that he will typically perform better in an exam if he reads the textbook chapters in the early afternoon and if he reviews the material by trying to explain it in his own words. Harrison is demonstrating a. levels of processing. b. mnemonics. c. metacognition. d. the keyword method.
Answer: c
Roediger and Karpicke's 2006 study of the testing effect indicated that taking memory tests improves retention as compared to extra studying a. at short retention intervals but not long ones. b. only at retention intervals of 1 week or longer. c. even when students receive no feedback on the accuracy of their test results. d. only when the format of the first test matches the format of the final test.
Answer: c
Sean is studying for his philosophy final exam. He knows that the test will be all essays, and he knows that the professor often asks students to compare two philosophical approaches. As part of his studying, he writes several practice essays in which he compares some philosophical approaches. Sean's study method makes use of the cognitive principle called a. implicit memory. b. the hierarchy technique. c. encoding specificity. d.method of loci.
Answer: c
Suppose that you need to remember to pick up a book at the library after your examination today. This kind of memory task is an example of a. retrospective memory. b. implicit memory. c. prospective memory d. organizational mnemonics.
Answer: c
The narrative technique a. is effective only for improving working memory. b. is effective only for items presented at the beginning of a list. c. can produce recall that is approximately six times the recall produced in a control group. d. requires you to combine the first letter of each word in a list that you need to remember.
Answer: c
What can we conclude about college students' accuracy on measures of metacomprehension? a. Students' metacomprehension is generally as accurate as their metamemory for learning pairs of English words. b. Metacomprehension is about as accurate for reading comprehension as for other items on the verbal portion of the SAT. c. Students are only slightly more confident about the items they answered correctly than the items they answered incorrectly. d. There is no relationship between students' confidence about whether they answered an item correctly and their actual accuracy.
Answer: c
What can we conclude about the use of imagery to improve memory? a. Imagery seems to be involved only in retrieval, rather than in encoding. b. In general, people recall only 10% more if the instructions emphasize imagery, instead of simple repetition. c. Compared to repetition instructions, imagery instructions produce much better recall. d. Imagery is helpful on recognition tasks, but not on recall tasks.
Answer: c
Which of the following students has the best understanding about how to apply the distributed-practice effect? a. Shannon: "Your memory is better if you associate each item in a list with a specific geographic location, but your mental image must leave sufficient space between these locations." b. Akiko: "It's best to repeat one item over and over for at least a minute, then rest, and then continue this pattern with subsequent items." c. Derrick: "It's best to take breaks between your study sessions, so that your learning trials are spread across time." d. Joaquim: "When you want to learn a list of word pairs, put a blank space next to each item, and then fill in the blank with another member of each word pair."
Answer: c
Which of the following students provides the best definition of the term "ecological validity"? a. Emily: "Ecological validity means that you are testing hypotheses that assess people's concern about the environment." b. Patrick: "Ecological validity refers to research in which you assess two different dependent variables." c. Tessa: "Ecological validity means that there is a high similarity between the situation where the study is being conducted, and the situation in "real life" where the results will be applied." d. Theodora: "Ecological validity means that you take two dependent variables, determine whether they are correlated with each other, and then see whether they are correlated with the independent variable."
Answer: c
Which of the following students provides the best definition of the term mnemonics? a. Alfredo: "Mnemonics is the use of imagery to assist our memory." b. Julia: "Mnemonics is the use of external memory aids to improve our memory." c. Cynthia: "Mnemonics refers to using a strategy to improve our memory." d. Jaime: "Mnemonics is any memory trick that actually improves our prospective memory."
Answer: c
You have enrolled in Professor Lawrence's Sociology class this semester, and a friend (who took the same professor last year) warns you that Professor Lawrence tends to speak rapidly and present a great deal of information in a short time. You decide to be sure that you have read the assigned textbook chapter before each class meeting to familiarize yourself with the concepts before the lecture begins. Your strategy is based on the idea of a. dividing your attention for better processing. b. maximizing encoding specificity effects. c. minimizing the cognitive load on your working memory. d. processing the information at shallow levels for better long-term memory.
Answer: c
Your instructor for your History of Psychology class has told you that using the chapter outline in the textbook is a good way to study for the exam. This suggestion is based on research supporting the use of ________ as study aids. a. keywords b. first-letters c. hierarchies d. visual images
Answer: c
. According to research on desirable difficulties, you should wait at least _____ between study sessions in order to maximize long-term retention. a. 5 minutes b. half an hour c. 2 hours d. 1 day
Answer: d
Absentminded behavior is most likely to occur a. when you are performing a very important behavior. b. when you are performing a source-monitoring task. c. when you are performing a routine activity, but you are thinking about the separate steps involved in the action. d. when a prospective-memory task requires you to interrupt a routine activity.
Answer: d
According to research on the testing effect, a. although testing can improve recall, it is not as helpful as spending the same amount of time studying. b. testing consistently improves recall, no matter whether the retention interval is short or long. c. this effect operates only when students receive feedback on their test scores. d. one explanation is that test-taking creates desirable difficulties.
Answer: d
If you had one important message about memory improvement that you could convey to a friend, what should it be? a. The total amount of time you spend practicing the items is more important than the study techniques that you use. b. Interactive images are more effective than non-interactive images. c. Use the first-letter mnemonic whenever possible. d. Try to think about your memory strategies, plan how to study, and monitor whether you understand material.
Answer: d
In which of the following conditions is your metamemory accuracy likely to be the highest? a. When material is difficult, rather than easy b. When the material is concerned with nonsense words, rather than English phrases c. When learning has been incidental, rather than intentional d. When you wait several minutes before judging whether you'll remember the material
Answer: d
Research on the testing effect suggests that the beneficial effects of testing a. are limited by encoding specificity to testing formats that are the same as those originally used. b. involve helping you to identify the material on which you need to spend more time studying, but do not actually increase your memory for the material on which you have been tested. c. work only when accurate feedback is promptly given. d. stretch beyond increased memory for the same information in the same testing format.
Answer: d
Suppose that you hear a lecture about memory improvement, and the speaker says, "We must remember the value of desirable difficulties." The speaker is likely to emphasize that a. academic tests must be difficult enough to differentiate between the students who deserve A's and the students who deserve lower grades. b. professors who want to assess their academic programs must be sure that the courses are sufficiently difficult. c. students' motivation will be higher if they are allowed to select the appropriate level of difficulty for the material in a course they are taking. d. if students test themselves several minutes after learning some material, they will make more errors, which will encourage them to spend more time studying.
Answer: d
The research on practice and memory improvement demonstrates that a. for most people, one exposure to the material is sufficient unless that material is extremely difficult. b. several reviews of the same material—without taking breaks in between—is especially effective. c. in general, we have little evidence for the total time hypothesis. d. learning is more effective if learning trials are spread out over time, rather than if you study without a break.
Answer: d
The term metacognition refers to a. an especially deep level of processing—even deeper than the self-reference effect. b. the perspective that memory improvement must be comprehensive, instead of targeting just one memory strategy. c. remembering to do something in the future. d. our knowledge and control of our cognitive processes.
Answer: d