Deck 5: Short-Term and Working Memory

Question 1

If a person has a digit span of two, this indicates that he has _____ memory.

A) poor sensory
B) poor short-term
C) normal sensory
D) normal short-term

Answer 1

poor short-term

Question 2

Using the partial report procedure in his "letter array" experiment, Sperling was able to infer that participants initially saw ____ of the 12 letters in the display.

A) 12
B) 10
C) 6
D) 3

Answer 2

10

Question 3

Peterson and Peterson studied how well participants can remember groups of three letters (like BRT, QSD)after various delays.They found that participants remembered an average of 80 percent of the groups after 3 seconds but only 10 percent after 18 seconds.They hypothesized that this decrease in performance was due to _____, but later research showed that it was actually due to _____.

A) interference; decay
B) priming; interference
C) decay; interference
D) decay; lack of rehearsal

Answer 3

decay; interference

Question 4

When light from a flashlight is moved quickly back and forth on a wall in a darkened room, it can appear to observers that there is a trail of light moving across the wall, even though physically the light is only in one place at any given time.This experience is an effect of memory that occurs because of

A) a visual delay effect.
B) echoic memory.
C) persistence of vision.
D) top-down processing.

Question 5

Imagine you are driving to a friend's new house.In your mind, you say the address repeatedly until you arrive.Once you arrive, you stop thinking about the address and start to think about buying a housewarming gift for your friend.To remember the address, you used a(n)_______ process in STM.

A) control
B) automatic
C) coding
D) iconic

Question 6

The three structural components of the modal model of memory are

A) receptors, occipital lobe, temporal lobe.
B) receptors, temporal lobe, frontal lobe.
C) sensory memory, short-term memory, long-term memory.
D) sensory memory, iconic memory, rehearsal.

Question 7

Information remains in sensory memory for

A) seconds or a fraction of a second.
B) 15-30 seconds.
C) 1-3 minutes.
D) as long as it is rehearsed.

Question 8

The effective duration of short-term memory, when rehearsal is prevented, is

A) a fraction of a second.
B) 15-20 seconds.
C) 1-3 minutes.
D) 5-7 minutes.

Question 9

Jill's friends tell her they think she has a really good memory.She finds this interesting so she decides to purposefully test her memory.Jill receives a list of to-do tasks each day at work. Usually, she checks off each item as the day progresses, but this week, she is determined to memorize the to-do lists.On Monday, Jill is proud to find that she remembers 95 percent of the tasks without referring to the list.On Tuesday, her memory drops to 80 percent, and by Thursday, she is dismayed to see her performance has declined to 20 percent.Jill does not realize that she is demonstrating a natural mechanism of memory known as

A) short-term memory.
B) episodic buffering.
C) chunking.
D) proactive interference.

Question 10

Compared to the whole-report technique, the partial-report procedure involves

A) a smaller stimulus set.
B) a smaller response set.
C) a smaller stimulus set and a smaller response set.
D) a shorter rehearsal period.

Question 11

The "magic number," according to Miller, is

A) 7 and 11.
B) 5 plus 2.
C) 7 plus or minus 2.
D) lucky 13.

Question 12

Sensory memory is believed by many cognitive psychologists to be responsible for all of the following EXCEPT

A) deciding which incoming sensory information will be the focus of attention.
B) filling in the blanks when the stimulation is intermittent.
C) holding incoming information briefly during initial processing.
D) collecting information to be processed.

Question 13

Clive Wearing, the ex-choral director, experienced what memory problem?

A) Poor short-term memory
B) Defective sensory memory
C) An inability to form new long-term memories
D) Both a and b are correct

Question 14

If basketball legend Shaquille O'Neal wanted to remember his 16-digit credit card number, which of the following memory techniques would you recommend?

A) He should think of the numbers as a sequence of basketball statistics.
B) He should picture each of the numbers in his head printed in a bright color.
C) He should first memorize a few other sequences of 16 digits to gain some practice.
D) He should visualize the front of his credit card showing a picture of him dribbling a basketball.

Question 15

When a sparkler is twirled rapidly, people perceive a circle of light.This occurs because

A) the trail you see is caused by sparks left behind from the sparkler.
B) due to its high intensity, we see the light from the sparkler for about a second after it goes out.
C) the length of iconic memory (the persistence of vision) is about one-third of a second.
D) Gestalt principles work to complete the circle in our minds.

Question 16

Sperling's delayed partial report procedure provided evidence that

A) STM and LTM are independent components of memory.
B) information in sensory memory fades within 1 or 2 seconds.
C) information in STM must be rehearsed to transfer into LTM.
D) STM has a limited capacity.

Question 17

Brief sensory memory for sound is known as

A) iconic memory.
B) primary auditory memory.
C) echoic memory.
D) pre-perceptual auditory memory.

Question 18

A property of control processes in the modal model of memory is that they

A) do not require attention.
B) may differ from one task to another.
C) are performed without conscious awareness.
D) are difficult to modify.

Question 19

According to your text, students often overlook functions of memory they take for granted such as

A) keeping daily appointments on their schedules.
B) learning material for exams.
C) remembering names and phone numbers.
D) labeling familiar objects.

Question 20

A person with a reduced digit span would most likely have a problem with

A) STM
B) LTM

Question 21

Suppose you have been studying your French vocabulary words for several hours and are making many mistakes.You switch to reviewing the new terms for your upcoming biology test, and your performance is noticeably better.You are experiencing

A) the self-reference effect.
B) retroactive inhibition.
C) release from proactive interference.
D) disinhibition.

Question 22

Which of the following represents the most effective chunking of the digit sequence 14929111776?

A) 14 929 111 776
B) 149 29111 776
C) 14 92 91 117 76
D) 1492 911 1776

Question 23

Wickens et al.'s "fruit, meat, and professions" experiment failed to show a release from proactive interference in the "fruit" group because

A) the stimulus category changed.
B) the stimulus category remained the same.
C) the response task changed.
D) the response task remained the same.

Question 24

Which of the following sets of results shows evidence of proactive interference with a three-trial recall task? (Note: Read the selections as percent correct for Trial 1: Trial 2: Trial 3)

A) 20% : 50 % : 70% correct
B) 80% : 40% : 30% correct
C) 30 % : 30% : 30% correct
D) 70% : 40% : 60% correct

Question 25

Conduct an experiment where participants see a number of target letters flashed briefly on a screen and are told to immediately write down the letters in the order they were presented. It is most likely that the target letter "P" will be misidentified as

A) L.
B) I.
C) R.
D) C.

Question 26

Consider an experiment in which participants were asked to remember Chinese symbols called radicals (which have no sound)and symbols called characters (which consist of a radical plus another symbol).The fact that the participants were able to remember some of the radicals provides evidence for the operation of _____ coding.

A) semantic
B) auditory
C) abstract
D) visual

Question 27

Coding refers to the way information is

A) processed.
B) activated.
C) presented.
D) represented.

Question 28

STM's capacity is best estimated as seven (plus or minus two)

A) meaningful units.
B) digits.
C) words.
D) sentences.

Question 29

Funahashi et al.'s work on monkeys doing a delayed response task is an example of the

A) physiological approach to coding.
B) mental approach to coding.
C) physiological and mental approach to coding.
D) study of articulatory suppression.

Question 30

Observations that participants could do two tasks at once, such as focusing on a digit-span task while comprehending a paragraph, challenged the conceptualization of

A) the phonological similarity effect.
B) short-term memory.
C) the persistence of vision.
D) the physiological approach to coding.

Question 31

The conclusion from the experiment in which a chess master and a chess novice were asked to remember the positions of chess pieces on a chess board was that

A) chess masters outperform novices in all conditions.
B) chess masters have developed better memory skills than novices.
C) novices do better because they are not distracted by irrelevant knowledge about previous chess games.
D) chess masters use chunking to help them remember actual game arrangements.

Question 32

The primary effect of chunking is to

A) maximize the recency effect.
B) increase memory for items by grouping them together based on sound.
C) develop a visual code to supplement a phonological code for the information.
D) stretch the capacity of STM.

Question 33

Chase and Simon's research compared memory of chess masters and beginners for the position of game pieces on sample chess boards.They found that the chess master remembered positions better when the arrangement of the pieces was consistent with a real game but not when the pieces were randomly placed.The significance of this finding was that

A) experts show larger primacy and recency effects than beginners.
B) knowledge in an area of expertise increases a person's digit span.
C) expertise with some material reduces susceptibility to proactive interference with that material.
D) chunking requires knowledge of familiar patterns or concepts.

Question 34

The code for short-term memory is most commonly based on the _____ of the stimulus.

A) sound
B) appearance
C) meaning
D) modality

Question 35

Lamar has just gotten a new job and is attending a company party where he will meet his colleagues for the first time.His boss escorts him around to small groups to introduce him.At the first group, Lamar meets four people and is told only their first names.The same thing happens with a second group and a third group.At the fourth group, Lamar is told their names and that one of the women in the group is the company accountant.A little while later, Lamar realizes that he only remembers the names of the people in the first group, though he also remembers the profession of the last woman he met (the accountant).Lamar's experience demonstrates

A) The phonological similarity effect
B) A build-up and release of proactive interference
C) The cocktail party phenomenon
D) A partial-report procedure

Question 36

Information is coded in STM exclusively through an auditory code.

Question 37

If you remember something in terms of its meaning, the type of encoding you are using is

A) semantic.
B) acoustic.
C) visual.
D) iconic.

Question 38

Recalling the sound of a song you heard on the radio yesterday would be an example of

A) auditory coding in STM.
B) semantic coding in STM.
C) auditory coding in LTM.
D) semantic coding in LTM.

Question 39

Suppose you (a student)are asked by a teacher to learn a poem you will recite in front of your class.Soon after, both you and a classmate, J.P., are asked by another teacher to learn the lyrics to an unfamiliar song.When you and J.P.are later asked to remember the song lyrics, you have a much more difficult time recalling them than J.P.does.This impairment of your performance is most likely attributable to

A) proactive interference.
B) your overloading the phonological loop.
C) a release from proactive interference.
D) a recency effect.

Question 40

Working memory differs from short-term memory in that

A) short-term memory consists of a number of components.
B) short-term memory has unlimited capacity.
C) working memory is concerned with the manipulation of information.
D) working memory has unlimited capacity.

Question 41

Funahashi and coworkers recorded neurons in the PF cortex of monkeys during a delayed response task.These neurons showed the most intense firing during

A) stimulus presentation.
B) delay.
C) response.
D) All of these.

Question 42

Research on monkeys has shown that the part of the brain most closely associated with working memory is the

A) hippocampus.
B) amygdala.
C) occipital cortex.
D) prefrontal cortex.

Question 43

Models designed to explain mental functioning are constantly refined and modified to explain new results.Which of the following exemplifies this concept based on the results presented in your text?

A) Replacing the STM component of the modal model with working memory
B) Replacing the sensory memory component of the modal model with the episodic buffer
C) Replacing the STM component of the modal model with iconic memory
D) Replacing the sensory memory component of the modal model with working memory

Question 44

Which task should be easier? Keeping an image of a block letter "F" in your mind AND

A) saying "yes" for each corner that is an inside corner and "no" for each corner that is an outside corner?
B) pointing to the letter "Y" for each inside corner and "N" for each outside corner?

Question 45

Have you ever tried to think of the words and hum the melody of one song while the radio is playing a different song? People have often noted that this is very difficult to do.This difficulty can be understood as

A) articulatory suppression.
B) an overload of sensory memory.
C) rehearsal interference.
D) an LTM recency effect.

Question 46

Articulatory suppression causes a decrease in the word-length effect because

A) saying "the, the, the" fills up the phonological loop.
B) saying "la, la, la" forces participants to use visual encoding.
C) talking makes the longer words seem even longer.
D) elaborative rehearsal helps transfer information into LTM.

Question 47

The word-length effect shows that it is more difficult to remember

A) a long list of words than a short list of words.
B) a list of long words than a list of short words.
C) a list of words that are all the same length than a list of words that are of different lengths.
D) a list of words that are of different lengths than a list of words that are all the same length.

Question 48

According to the model of working memory, which of the following mental tasks should LEAST adversely affect people's driving performance while operating a car along an unfamiliar, winding road?

A) Trying to imagine how many cabinets are in their kitchen
B) Trying to remember a map of the area
C) Trying to remember the definition of a word they just learned
D) Trying to imagine a portrait from a recent museum exhibit

Question 49

The episodic buffer directly connects to which two components in Baddley's model of memory?

A) The phonological loop and the visuospatial sketchpad
B) The central executive and long-term memory
C) The central executive and the phonological loop
D) The phonological loop and long-term memory

Question 50

The emphasis of the concept of working memory is on how information is

A) permanently stored.
B) manipulated.
C) forgotten.
D) perceived.

Question 51

Given what we know about the operation of the phonological loop, which of the following word lists would be most difficult for people to retain for 15 seconds?

A) BIP, TEK, LIN, MOD, REY
B) SAY, BET, PIN, COW, RUG
C) MAC, CAN, CAP, MAN, MAP
D) PIG, DOG, RAT, FOX, HEN

Question 52

Articulatory suppression does all of the following EXCEPT it

A) reduces memory span.
B) interferes with semantic coding.
C) reduces the phonological similarity effect for reading words.
D) eliminates the word-length effect.

Question 53

The word-length effect reveals that

A) STM digit span remains constant across native speakers of different languages.
B) longer words are typically more distinctive and easier to retrieve from LTM than shorter words.
C) working memory's central executive processes verbal information differently than visual/image information.
D) the phonological loop of the working memory model has a limited capacity.

Question 54

Physiological studies indicate that damage to the area of the brain known as the _____ can disrupt behaviors that depend on working memory.

A) prefrontal cortex
B) amygdala
C) hippocampus
D) occipital lobe

Question 55

A task with the instructions "Read the following words while repeating 'the, the, the' out loud, look away, and then write down the words you remember" would most likely be studying

A) the phonological loop.
B) the visuospatial sketch pad.
C) echoic memory.
D) the central executive.

Question 56

One function of ____ is controlling the suppression of irrelevant information.

A) sensory memory
B) the phonological loop
C) articulatory suppression
D) the central executive

Question 57

Which task should be easier: keeping a sentence like "John went to the store to buy some oranges" in your mind AND

A) saying "yes" for each word that is a noun and "no" for each word that is not a noun?
B) pointing to the word "yes" for each word that is a noun and "no" for each word that is not a noun?

Question 58

Shanta has frontal lobe damage.She is doing a problem solving task in which she has to choose the red object out of many choices.She can easily complete this repeatedly, but when the experimenter asks her to choose the blue object on a new trial of the task, she continues to choose the red one, even when the experimenter gives her feedback that she is incorrect.Shanta is displaying

A) sensory memory.
B) decay.
C) perseveration.
D) the central executive.

Question 59

Imagine yourself walking from your car, bus stop, or dorm to your first class.Your ability to form such a picture in your mind depends on

A) the STM recency effect.
B) delayed response coding.
C) the phonological loop.
D) the visuospatial sketch pad.

Question 60

It is easier to perform two tasks at the same time if

A) one is handled by the sketch pad and one is handled by the phonological loop.
B) both are handled by the sketch pad.
C) both are handled by the phonological loop.
D) both b and c are correct

Question 61

Explain proactive interference and the release from proactive interference.First, provide experimental evidence for these phenomena.Then, use these two concepts to describe successful strategies for studying in college.

Question 62

Explain Sperling's experiments about sensory memory.Compare and contrast the results of the whole- vs.partial-report methods, and use this example to explain how clever experimentation can reveal rapid cognitive processes that we are usually unaware of.

Question 63

Sam has an extensive vocabulary because she is actively learning new words all the time. When Sam reads a word she does not recognize, she repeats its spelling until she looks it up in a dictionary.When she sees the word again on subsequent pages, she remembers the meaning. Describe the structural features of the modal model and control processes involved in the above example.

Question 64

Joey is participating in an experiment on memory.He is asked to read a sentence and then hold the last word in his memory while he reads the next sentence.The experimenter measures the maximum number of sentences Joey can read while doing this memory task.Joey is doing the task.

A) reading span
B) digit span
C) delayed response
D) mental rotation

Question 65

Define working memory.Explain the functions of each of the three components of working memory and provide experimental evidence for the phonological loop, making sure you describe 1)the phonological similarity effect, 2)the word-length effect, and 3)articulatory suppression.

Question 66

Models designed to explain mental functioning are constantly refined and modified to explain new experimental results.Discuss this idea by describing an "old" theory, the "new or revised" theory, and the data that brought about the change from the old theory to the new theory based on the research described in the chapter on short-term and working memory.