PSC100Y topic 4

George Miller wrote a famous paper in which he proposed that the capacity of short-term memory:

D. Is 7±2 items

Which of the following would be an example of a recall task?

D. subjects are asked to write a list of the names of people they knew in elementary school

The Modal Model of memory proposed that information must pass through short-term memory before it can be stored in long-term memory, and this is inconsistent with the fact that some lesion patients have impaired short-term memory but no impairment in long-term memory. The existence of such patients is not a problem for the Working Memory model of Baddeley and Hitch because:

C. These patients have an impairment in the articulatory loop, and storage in the articulatory loop is not necessary prior to storage in long-term memory

Imagine a partial report experiment in which there are 3, 4, or 5 rows, each with 5 letters. One of the rows is cued immediately when the letters disappear. If all the letters are present in iconic memory when the letters disappear, then the number of letters that the subject can report from the cued row should:

C. be the same no matter whether there were 3, 4, or 5 rows of letters

Which of the following is an example of episodic memory?

A. 10 years from now, you can't remember exactly what the "wordstem completion" task is even though you remember that you learned about it in Introduction to Cognitive Psychology

Imagine a partial report experiment in which subjects are shown 5 rows of letters, each of which contains 5 letters (i.e., 25 total letters). In an "immediate cue" condition, the cue is presented immediately after the letters disappear. In a "delayed cue" condition, the cue is presented 500 ms after the letters disappear. The number of letters that the subject will be able to report will:

A. Be substantially larger in the immediate cue condition than in the delayed cue condition

When subjects perform color change-detection tasks, we know that they are not using the articulatory loop to store the information because:

A. Change-detection performance is not substantially impaired if subjects must rehearse digits verbally while performing the change-detection task

Loftus et al. (1978) had subjects watch a video of a traffic accident in which a yield sign was present. Subjects were then asked a variety of questions about the accident. Much later, they were asked if a stop sign was present in the scene. One group of subjects had an increased tendency to report that a stop sign was present. Why?

A. During the initial questioning, this group was asked a question that subtly implied that a stop sign was present

According to the Modal Model of memory:

A. It is possible to have a deficit in long-term memory without a deficit in short-term memory B. Information must first be stored in short-term memory before it can be stored in long-term memory C. When information is retrieved from long-term memory, it is stored in short-term memory D. Information in sensory memory must be transferred into short-term memory in order to be reported

Baddeley and Hitch proposed that long-term memory stores information conceptually rather than in an acoustic/phonemic format. One piece of evidence for this is:

A. Long-term memory performance is impaired when the stimuli are semantically similar B. During free recall, people tend to recall items in semantically related groups C. People tend to remember the "gist" of a story better than they remember the specific words that were used in the story

Morris et al. (1977) found evidence of "encoding specificity." Specifically, they found that:

A. Memory for word identity was better when subjects had previously performed a semantic task with the words, whereas memory based on rhyme cues was better when subjects had previously performed a rhyming task with the words

One piece of evidence that is inconsistent with the Modal Model of memory is:

A. Some patients with brain damage have deficits in short-term memory without a deficit in long-term memory

Which of the following would be an example of an explicit memory task?

A. Subjects are shown a list of names and a set of faces corresponding to people from their elementary school, and they are asked to draw lines linking each name with the correct face

In the operation span task:

A. Subjects solve a math problem, store a word in memory, solve another math problem, store another word in memory, and so on

Standing (1973) found that subjects could choose which of two pictures they had seen before quite accurately even if they had seen 10,000 different pictures. Brady et al. (2008) followed up on this by varying the similarity of the two pictures that subjects chose between at the time of test. Brady et al. found that:

A. Subjects were very accurate at choosing the picture they had seen before if the two choice pictures showed objects from different categories B. Subjects were still quite accurate even when the choice pictures showed two different objects from the same category C. Subjects were still quite accurate even when the choice pictures showed the same kind of object in two different states

Imagine that a patient with damage to the prefrontal cortex has just gone grocery shopping. Why of the following is likely to be true about this patient's memory for the event?

A. The patient would be relatively normal at remembering what items were purchased but would be impaired at remembering the order in which the items were found in the store

Which of the following statements are typically true about patients with amnesia resulting from medial temporal lobe lesions? Click all that are true.

A. They exhibit little or no impairment in digit span B. They exhibit little or no impairment in change detection (as long as the delay is short) C. They exhibit little or no impairment in tests of implicit memory, such as wordstem completion D. They exhibit little or no impairment in tests of motor learning, such as mirror drawing

Stimuli that are presented subliminally are later judged to be more aesthetically appealing than stimuli that have never been seen before. This is an example of:

A. implicit memory

Baddeley and Hitch proposed that long-term memory stores information conceptually rather than in an acoustic/phonemic format. One piece of evidence for this is:

A. long-term memory performance is impaired when the stimuli are semantically similar

In three-state models of memory, the three states are:

A. passive (inactive) long-term memory, activated long-term memory, and true short-term memory

Baddeley and Hitch proposed that the articulatory loop stores information in an acoustic/phonemic format. One piece of evidence for this is:

A. short-term memory performance is impaired when the stimuli are acoustically similar

Why can patients with medial temporal lobe amnesia learn the weather forecasting task whereas they can't remember details of the testing session?

A. the weather forecasting task requires gradual learning on the basis of feedback, which relies on the basal ganglia, whereas remembering details of the testing session relies on the medial temporal lobes

If a subject is shown the sequence of words CAR-TRUCK, the subject will be able to say the word "truck" faster than if it appeared in the sequence BIRD-TRUCK. This is because:

B. Activation of the concept "car" will spread to the concept "truck", and the concept "truck" will therefore already be partially activated when the word TRUCK is presented

Which of the following statements are true about patient H.M.? Click all that are true.

B. He was unable to create any new episodic memories after his surgery D. He was unable to remember much information from the few years prior to his surgery, but his memory of his childhood was intact

Which of the following is the clearest example of research that examines the architecture of the human mind?

B. Research that attempts to determine whether there are separate short-term and long-term memory systems

Although there are many demonstrations that eyewitness testimony is easily distorted in the laboratory, it is natural to wonder if this happens in the real world. According to the lecture videos:

B. There are many examples of real-world crimes where eyewitnesses were very confident but turned out to be completely wrong

Which of the following statements are typically true about patients with prefrontal cortex lesions? Click all that are true.

B. They are impaired at remembering the order in which they learned a set of facts C. They are impaired at remembering when and where they learned a given fact

Following surgical removal of the medial temporal lobes, patient H.M. suffered from:

B. a permanent deficit storing new long-term memories and a deficit in long-term memory for information learned in the few years before the surgery

Research on state dependent memory suggests that which of the following is likely to be true?

B. if you study for an exam while wearing strongly scented strawberry lip balm, you may have better recall on the exam if you use the same lip balm during the exam

In many long-term memory experiments, there is a "filled retention interval" between the initial study phase and the test phase. The purpose of this filled retention interval is to:

B. prevent subjects from actively rehearsing the material from the study phase

In a typical "whole report" task with 12 letters and digits, subjects are typically able to report only about 5 of the 12 items. This is because:

B. subjects are able to store only about 5 items in short-term memory in this task

Peterson & Peterson (1959) presented subjects with 3 letters, then had them count backward by threes during a delay period, and finally asked the subjects to report the 3 letters. Why did they require the subjects to count backward during the delay period?

B. to prevent subjects from rehearsing the letters

Imagine a partial report experiment in which there are 5 rows, each with 5 letters. One of the 5 rows is cued 50 milliseconds after the offset of the letters. On average, subjects are able to report 4 letters from the cued row (80% of the letters). How many letters must have been present in iconic memory at the time of the cue?

C. 20 (because .80 x 25 = 20)

Imagine a whole report experiment in which subjects are shown 5 rows of letters, each of which contains 5 letters (i.e., 25 total letters). In an "immediate report" condition, the subject is allowed to report the letters immediately after the letters disappear. In a "delayed report" condition, the subject is forced to wait 3 seconds before reporting the letters. The number of letters that the subject will be able to report will:

C. Be approximately the same in the immediate report condition as in the delayed report condition

Baddeley and Hitch proposed that storage capacity in the articulatory loop is based on the amount of time required to pronounce the information rather than the number of pieces of information. One piece of evidence for this is:

C. Digit span performance is reduced in languages in which the digits are pronounced slowly

Imagine that you are taking both a French class and a Spanish class. You take French at 10:00 and Spanish at 11:00. You find that you are having difficulty learning two languages so close together in time, and you are especially having difficulty with the Spanish class. This would be an example of:

C. Proactive interference

Which of the following is the clearest example of research that examines the nature of mental representations?

C. Research showing that the articulatory loop stores information in an acoustic/phonemic format whereas long-term memory stores information in a conceptual format

Which of the following is an example of neuropsychological evidence for separate short-term and long-term memory systems?

C. Some patients with brain damage have a deficit in short-term memory but no deficit in long-term memory

The Von Restorff effect is the finding that:

C. Things that are distinctive are likely to be remembered

If a subject has a storage capacity of 6 items, then this subject's accuracy in a typical change-detection task with a set size of 5 items should

C. close to 100% correct (because 6 is greater than 5)

When tested on memories from the distant past rather than more recent memories:

C. healthy individuals show reduced fMRI activity in the medial temporal lobes

Selective damage to the medial temporal lobes is often caused by _________, resulting in the same kind of memory impairment suffered by H.M. (although not as severe).

C. loss of oxygen to the brain

The apparent short-term memory decay observed by Peterson & Peterson (1959) is actually a result of proactive interference in long-term memory. One piece of evidence supporting this claim is:

C. no decay is observed on the first trial of the task

In January of 2014, a graduate student at the Center for Mind & Brain saw two people load the Center's grill in a pickup truck and drive away. She called the police, who later showed her mug shots of people who were suspects in the crime. According to research on eyewitness testimony, if she had then observed a police lineup that contained one of the people from the mug shots:

C. she would have been biased to report that someone in the lineup was the perpetrator of the crime if that person was one of the people in the mug shots, even if that person was innocent

A subject spends 2 hours in a lab learning to juggle a set of colored balls on day 1 of an experiment. The subject comes back to the lab on day 2 for a test of implicit memory for information learned on day 1. Which of the following would be an example of an implicit memory in this experiment?

C. the subject learns to play pool on day 2, and the researcher finds that the subject is more accurate for pool balls that match the color of the balls used for juggling on day 1

According to the Working Memory model of Baddeley and Hitch, information must pass through ___________ before it can be stored in long-term memory.

D. the central executive

In the digit span task, digit span is defined as:

D. the length of the longest list of digits that the subject can repeat back correctly

Research on state-dependent memory has examined what happens when people are sober or intoxicated during the initial study phase and when people are sober or intoxicated during the test phase. This research has found that:

D. It's better to be in the same state in the two phases than to be in different states in the two phase, but overall it's better to be sober in both phases

Severe anterograde amnesia can be caused by damage to _________ in addition to being caused by damage to the medial temporal lobes.

D. Medial diencephalic areas (midline thalamic areas)

Which of the following is an example of semantic memory rather than episodic memory?

D. Remembering that Arnold Schwarzenegger starred in the Terminator movies even though you don't recall when you learned this

Which of the following is a key difference between short-term memory (STM) and long-term memory (LTM)?

D. STM stores currently active information whereas LTM stores information that is available but not active

In line with Hyde & Jenkins (1969) and Craik & Lockhart (1972), which of the following would be an example of a deep encoding task?

D. a semantic task, requiring identifying whether words have a positive meaning (e.g., puppy) or a negative meaning (e.g., vomit)

Which of the following can be said of the Illusion of Truth?

D. politicians can persuade people that something is true simply by repeating it many times

What two factors contribute to your judgment (decision) about whether you've encountered something before in a recognition memory test?

D. recollection (knowing the details of when are where you learned something) and familiarity (the variable-strength feeling that you've encountered something before)

Standing (1973) showed different subjects different numbers of pictures, ranging from 20 to 10,000 pictures. When he measured memory 2 days later, he found that:

D. subjects remembered a high proportion of the pictures whether they had seen 20 or 10,000.