Deck 5: Short-Term Working Memory

Question 1

Short-term memory can be thought of as:

A) A completely controlled system
B) The first memory stage
C) A system that allows us to remember large amounts of information
D) A combination of conscious and unconscious processes

Answer 1

A combination of conscious and unconscious processes

Question 2

"Seven plus or minus two" is associated with:

A) The duration of short-term memory
B) Baddeley's model of working memory
C) The capacity of the sensory register
D) The capacity of short-term memory

Answer 2

The capacity of short-term memory

Question 3

Short-term memory's capacity is best estimated as 7 (plus or minus two):

A) Sentences
B) Meaningful units
C) Words
D) Digits

Answer 3

Meaningful units

Question 4

In remembering the letter sequence {BYGROUPINGITEMSQUICKLY}:

A) We use Process I to help learn the material
B) We use a rehearsal strategy
C) We should split up the sequence into units of equal length
D) We use larger-than-letter chunks

Question 5

Your friend Jose is a professional basketball player. He wants to memorize his 16-digit credit card number and asks if you have any tips. Based on your knowledge of cognition, which of the following would you recommend to Jose?

A) He should generate an image for each of the numbers
B) He should think of the numbers as a sequence of basketball statistics
C) He should practice repeating the sequence over and over
D) He should forget about it; 16 digits is far more than the limits of memory span

Question 6

An individual who can remember 82 digits in order is likely:

A) Demonstrating release from proactive interference
B) Using a mnemonic device
C) Demonstrating release from retroactive interference
D) Demonstrating their naturally high memory span

Question 7

Marcus is participating in a memory experiment. He has been instructed to count backwards between the last presentation of a stimulus and recall of the stimulus. This procedure was probably designed to:

A) Disorient subjects about the purpose of the experiment
B) Allow release from proactive interference
C) Increase depth of processing
D) Prevent subjects from rehearsing

Question 8

Imagine you are given a set of 3 letters to memorize (e.g., BXL) then asked to count backwards from some number (e.g., 274). You are likely to be performing which test?

A) Digit span
B) Probe-digit
C) Brown-Peterson
D) Sternberg search

Question 9

First, subjects are to attend to a to-be-remembered three-letter stimulus, then they are shown a number. They are to count backwards by threes from the number. At the end of the variable-length period of counting, the subjects were asked to report the original three-letter stimulus.

A) Paired-associate learning
B) Brown-Peterson task
C) Mental rotation
D) Sternberg search

Question 10

Newer information disrupts recall of older information because of:

A) Forgetting based on the new theory of decay
B) Release from PI
C) Retroactive interference
D) Proactive interference

Question 11

Gwen has been studying her Spanish vocabulary words for hours and is making more and more errors. She decides to study her anatomy terms instead and finds she does much better. Gwen is experiencing:

A) Release from proactive interference
B) Retroactive interference
C) The phonological similarity effect
D) Decay from short-term memory

Question 12

According to Altman & Gray's new decay theory:

A) Forgetting occurs passively with the passage of time
B) Forgetting is less likely to occur if a serial recall task is used
C) Decay is a forgetting process that helps the cognitive system cope with interference
D) It is extremely difficult for the cognitive system to adapt to different instructions

Question 13

Maria is meeting friends for dinner. After being given a series of directions to get to the restaurant, she can remember only the first couple of turns. This illustrates the ________ effect.

A) Availability
B) Recency
C) Primacy
D) Initial encoding

Question 14

Participants in an experiment are shown a list of words and then told to "recall the items in the order they were presented." This instruction best describes which type of recall?

A) Serial
B) Parallel
C) Implicit
D) Free

Question 15

Which of the following can best be considered a mental recycling system for holding information temporarily?

A) Sensory register
B) Rehearsal buffer
C) Central executive
D) Working memory

Question 16

Which of the following is most likely to produce a serial self-terminating search?

A) A memory search task, searching to see if particular letters appear in various instructors' names
B) Searching for a lost item such as your car keys
C) A memory search task, searching for a visually presented target letter in auditorially presented words
D) A visual search task, searching for a green O among tilted green X's

Question 17

In his short-term memory search task, Sternberg found that:

A) Reaction time always stayed the same regardless of set size
B) Search was serial self-terminating
C) Search was serial exhaustive
D) Probe "absent" trials were faster than probe "present" trials

Question 18

During each trial, all possible elements are scanned one by one before a decision is made. This describes which kind of search?

A) Serial self-terminating
B) Serial controlled
C) Serial position
D) Serial exhaustive

Question 19

Wicken's "Release from Proactive Interference" experiment in which he changed the category in the last trial illustrates:

A) Visual coding in STM
B) Verbal coding in STM
C) Semantic coding in STM
D) Verbal coding in LTM

Question 20

In Brook's influential working memory task, subjects were instructed to hold a visual image of a large "F" in mind. When asked to visually scan the image clockwise and report the location of the corners:

A) It was very difficult to verbally report the locations.
B) It was very difficult to locate the correct answer on a separate printed page.
C) Subjects found they were unable to visually scan the image, regardless of the secondary task.
D) Subjects could easily report the locations of the task regardless of what else they were doing.

Question 21

Observations of a patient with a digit span of only two items, but no general impairment in learning, memory, or comprehension, challenged the conceptualization of:

A) The physiological approach to coding
B) Short-term memory.
C) The phonological similarity effect
D) The span of apprehension

Question 22

In a dual-task procedure, Logie had participants do mental addition or an imaging task as one task and a letter span or visual span task as the other task. The results:

A) Proved Sternberg wrong
B) Were inconsistent with the notion of memory decay due to forgetting
C) Were inconsistent with the predictions of resource accounts
D) Were consistent with domain-specific resource accounts

Question 23

Which of the following statements is correct?

A) PET scans do not use Donder's subtractive method to narrow down which cognitive activities involve which neural mechanisms.
B) Articulatory rehearsal typically relies on left hemispheric processing.
C) Spatial working memory typically relies on extrastriate occipital processing of the prefrontal cortex.
D) The premotor region of the brain is not active when spatial information is required for responding.

Question 24

Which of the following best reflects differences between high and low working memory span subjects on the Stroop task?

A) An individual's memory span has no affect on the Stroop task
B) There is a large difference when the word colour and word spelling are 100% incongruent
C) There is a large difference when the word colour and word spelling are 20% incongruent
D) There is a large difference when the word colour and word spelling are 50% incongruent

Question 25

Which of the following statements is correct?

A) Subjects with high or low working memory span perform equally well on the antisaccade task.
B) High-span subjects have less difficulty then low-span subjects switching from the antisaccade task to the prosaccade task.
C) Low-span subjects are more efficient at suppressing intrusive thoughts and behaviours than high-span subjects.
D) Working memory span is not related to the suppression or inhibition of attention.

Question 26

Which of the following best describes Hasher & Zacks' inhibitory theory of working memory?

A) Three control functions operate to optimize working memory efficiency
B) WM = STM + controlled attention
C) The initial activation of representations is a controlled process
D) Inhibitory control is not related to selective attention

Question 27

Forgetting can be thought of as:

A) An adaptive and often useful process
B) A problem as it is always helpful to remember as much as possible
C) Unrelated to controlled attention
D) Unrelated to how much information enters working memory

Question 28

Brown & Peterson studied how well people can remember groups of three letters (e.g., BJK, YPX) after various delays. They found that even after 18 seconds subjects could still remember most of the material.

Question 29

It is now generally accepted that forgetting in STM occurs because of decay.

Question 30

Serial position curves reveal the operation of two kinds of memory performance.

Question 31

Knowledge in STM can be represented by multiple codes.

Question 32

A patient with severe STM deficits (e.g., a digit span of 2) will also exhibit general impairments in learning and comprehension.

Question 33

In Baddeley's working memory model, the Central Executive is responsible for planning future actions, initiating retrieval and decision processes, and integrating information.

Question 34

Hasher & Zacks' inhibitory control functions suggest forgetting is a "passive"
process.

Question 35

The bottleneck in STM can be overcome by ________.

Question 36

Forgetting in STM was first thought to be caused by ________, but later evidence suggests most forgetting is caused by ________.

Question 37

In a serial position curve, the primacy effect reflects recall from ________, and the recency effect is because of recall from ________.

Question 38

In some cognitive tasks, such as the Sternberg task, a ________ can be used to explain the several mental steps involved in performance.

Question 39

The verbal-based code used in short-term memory is called a(n) ________ code.

Question 40

The three major components of Baddeley's working memory model are the ________, the ________, and the ________.

Question 41

The inhibitory functions of Hasher & Zacks' theory of working memory are ________, ________, and ________.

Question 42

Describe the experiment conducted by Peterson & Peterson (and also by Brown) in which trigrams of letters were used to investigate the cause of forgetting in short-term memory. Clearly note the methods and results, and what conclusions were originally drawn from this experiment. Explain the alternate conclusion reached by other researchers and how they reached their conclusion.

Question 43

Explain how you would use your knowledge of the serial position effect to design a television
commercial so that viewers best remember the marketable aspects of the product (i.e., the key points that you want them to remember).

Question 44

Describe the procedure and results of Cooper & Shepard's mental rotation task. How do their findings provide evidence against the exclusive use of verbal codes as the representation used by the STM system?

Question 45

Describe the three functions of Hasher & Zacks' inhibitory theory. Provide an example to illustrate each of the functions.