Deck 7: Autobiographical Memory

Question 1

Childhood amnesia refers to:

A)the poor memory of children for episodic details.
B)the poor memory of children for semantic knowledge.
C)the poor memory of adults for children.
D)the poor memory of adults for events from early childhood and infancy.

Answer 1

D

Question 2

Kensinger and Schacter (2006) examined memories of baseball fans in New York and Boston for the surprise Game 7 victory of the Boston Red Sox over the New York Yankees in the American League Championship in 2004.They found that:

A)because it was a negative event for New York fans, they showed extreme overconfidence in their memory.
B)despite the difference in emotional valence, there were no differences between Boston fans and New York fans.
C)because it was a positive event for Boston fans, they showed greater accuracy in their memories.
D)because it was a positive event for Boston fans, they showed greater more overconfidence in their memories.

Answer 2

D

Question 3

The special mechanism of flashbulb memory formation suggests that:

A)unlike ordinary memories, flashbulb memories are processed only in the frontal lobes.
B)unlike ordinary memories, flashbulb memories can never be considered veridical.
C)there are no differences between flashbulb and ordinary memories; they are all "special."
D)there is a unique and special mechanism responsible for flashbulb memories.

Answer 3

D

Question 4

In Conway's theory of autobiographical memory, general events refer to:

A)the combined, averaged, and cumulative memory of highly similar events.
B)details of specific events.
C)the sources of our autobiographical memories.
D)the markers that divide major life periods.

Question 5

Simcock and Hayne (2002) presented two-, three-, and four-year-old children with a demonstration of their "incredible shrinking machine." When the children were brought back one year later, they found that:

A)children only recalled items if the words for those items were in the vocabulary at the time of presentation.
B)only the oldest children could remember any of the objects seen.
C)because of the onset of childhood amnesia, only the four-year-olds showed deficits in memory.
D)recall was predicted by the level of trauma in each child's life.

Question 6

Asking people to recall the earliest memory they can shows that:

A)self-report is completely unreliable.
B)people will report memories of events that they could not possibly remember.
C)adults will report events from around the age of three.
D)adults can remember events prior to those that they actually report when prompted with cues provided by parents or older siblings.

Question 7

In Conway's theory of autobiographical memory, specific events refer to:

A)the specific plans we make for our future selves.
B)the broad patterns of ups and downs in our lives.
C)episodic memories.
D)well-learned scripts of personal events.

Question 8

By which age is childhood amnesia usually no longer seen?

A)1 years of age.
B)2 years of age.
C)4 years of age.
D)6 months of age.

Question 9

The working self:

A)allows us to generalize life event to specific details.
B)includes the goals and self-images that make up our view of ourselves.
C)is similar to working memory in its time course.
D)integrates our autobiographical memory with our working memory.

Question 10

Simcock and Hayne (2002) found that children only remembered those objects for which they possessed the vocabulary for when they witnessed the event.Which view of childhood amnesia does this support?

A)The influence of language development on childhood amnesia
B)The psychodynamic view because children repress what they do not know
C)The view that neural development is not complete
D)The influence of the development of a working self

Question 11

Cross-cultural studies show that:

A)people most affected by a public tragedy tend to repress that event.
B)people most affected by a public tragedy are most likely to have flashbulb memories for that event.
C)people least affected by a public tragedy often have low confidence in their flashbulb memories.
D)only some cultures show flashbulb memories at all; it appears to be unique to western civilization.

Question 12

The term autobiographical memory refers to:

A)personal specific memories and self-knowledge.
B)the memories of famous people for important events.
C)flashbulb memories only.
D)our semantic memory for our life's narrative.

Question 13

When adults do remember events from before the age of four, those memories tend to be:

A)always reconstructed and patently false.
B)of routine events such as bedtime rituals.
C)of big events, usually later rehearsed, such as the birth of a sibling.
D)highly traumatic events.

Question 14

The psychodynamic view of childhood amnesia attempts to explain the phenomenon by:

A)postulating that language is not yet developed.
B)that cultural differences outweigh the amnesia effect.
C)proposing that the brain is still too immature to form episodic memories.
D)that people must repress or suppress childhood memories that cannot understand.

Question 15

Weaver (1993) conducted a study comparing an ordinary memory and a flashbulb memory.Weaver's students wrote down as many details as they could remember from the ordinary interaction with their roommate and their memory of hearing the news of the start of the Gulf War (1991).He found that:

A)At the end of the semester, each student could remember both events flawlessly.
B)By the end of the semester, confidence was higher for the flashbulb memory, but the accuracy was equivalent for both memories.
C)Five years later, none of the students could be contacted, so the study was discontinued.
D)The vivid memories of the start of the war were lost once the second Iraq war began 11 years later.

Question 16

Which is an example of an "extended" event in Conway's theory?

A)a combined memory of many trips to the grocery store
B)the memory of the specific instant when the check-out person at the grocery store dropped a large bag of rice on your toes
C)the memory of your life when you worked at a ranch in Utah
D)the memory of the horse-back riding trip you took in the hills of Utah

Question 17

Roxanne cannot recall any details from the first few years of life.This pattern is called:

A)olfactory memory.
B)childhood amnesia.
C)infantile suppression.
D)encoding binaurality.

Question 18

Zora remembers the details of where and what she was doing when she heard the news that Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans.This kind of memory is often referred to as:

A)storm memory.
B)flashbulb memory.
C)retrograde memory.
D)traumatic memory.

Question 19

Joseph, an American from Chicago, was 10 years old when he heard the news of 9/11 in his fourth-grade class.The data suggest that when asked about this memory now, Joseph will:

A)report a highly confident memory of where he was when he heard the news.
B)be unable to report a memory because of his young age at the time of the event.
C)report a completely accurate memory, but his confidence will be quite low.
D)will show flashbulb-like symptoms of childhood amnesia.

Question 20

An example of a lifetime period is:

A)the memory of your 11th birthday.
B)remembering when your cat was lost for a day.
C)thinking about "when you worked at the grocery store."
D)remembering the long drive you took from Montreal in Canada to Dallas, in the United States.

Question 21

Field memories are:

A)memories that are resistant to auditory illusions.
B)memories of early childhood events.
C)autobiographical and visual memories in which we see the memory as if we were looking at the event through our own eyes.
D)memories in which we take the vantage point of an outside observer and see ourselves as actors in our visual memory.

Question 22

Thomsen and Berntsen (2008) found that, among Danish elders, the bump was particularly noticeable for the memory of events that were consistent with:

A)general events recalled in field format.
B)the offset of childhood amnesia.
C)less socially-marked memories, such as travel, memorable meals, or political memories.
D)cultural life scripts, such as first jobs, dating, and leaving home.

Question 23

Which evidence is consistent with the view that childhood amnesia ends with the onset of a sense of self?

A)Infants begin talking at about their first birthday.
B)The development of a sense of self varies greatly across culture.
C)The hippocampus does not fully mature until about the age of three.
D)A developing sense of self allows the individual to code his or her memories into this developing sense of self.

Question 24

McIsaac and Eich (2004) found that when patients suffering from PTSD retrieved memories as field memories, their emotional response was more negative and more intense.When they asked participants to recall them as observer memories,

A)they were more likely to have sudden flashbacks.
B)the observer memories were less likely to feel like flashbulb memories.
C)they experienced less negative emotions.
D)they experienced more PTSD symptoms.

Question 25

Willander and Larsson (2007) conducted a study on the role odors play in autobiographical memory.They found that:

A)odors elicit more autobiographical memories than did the odor names.
B)odors elicited fewer autobiographical memories than did cue words.
C)odors are not good triggers of autobiographical memories.
D)odors only elicited memories of events that involved odors.

Question 26

Adam, a valet, describes what he usually does when he parks a car at work.Adam is retrieving:

A)an event-specific memory.
B)a general event.
C)a life-time period.
D)from the working self.

Question 27

Daselaar et al. (2008) examined the neural correlates of retrieval from autobiographical memory.They found that:

A)those memories that were given high judgments of emotionality were correlated with greater activity in the occipital cortex.
B)those memories that were given high judgments of emotionality were correlated with greater activity in the hippocampus and the amygdala in the limbic system.
C)autobiographical memory was associated with increased blood flow to the pons and brainstem.
D)autobiographical memory was associated with increased blood flow to Broca's area in the left frontal lobe.

Question 28

Herz (2004) showed that autobiographical memories produced by odor cues:

A)were more visual-oriented than memories induced by verbal cues.
B)were more emotional than memories induced by verbal cues.
C)were less emotional than memories induced by auditory cues.
D)were more likely to induce field memories than memories induced by verbal cues.

Question 29

In a landmark diary study, a Willem Wagenaar, a Dutch psychologist, recorded over 2,400 events over the course of six years (Wagenaar, 1986).Wagenaar found that:

A)he could recall remarkably few of the events even with many cues.
B)cues did not improve his ability to recall autobiographical events.
C)using "when" as a cue led to fewer memories than using "who," "where," or "what" as a cue.
D)he could remember many details from trips that he made abroad, but very little of his daily routines.

Question 30

In the cue-word technique, an ordinary word is provided to participants and they are asked to provide the first memory-from any point in their life-which the word elicits.In general, when older adults are tested,

A)older adults remember few events from the very recent past.
B)older adults show a reminiscence bump; that is, they recall events from late childhood early adulthood better than events from before or after.
C)older adults show a reminiscence bump; that is, they show better memory for earliest childhood than do younger adults.
D)older adults do not show reminiscence effects.

Question 31

One explanation of the reminiscence bump is that:

A)anterograde amnesia may occur even in healthy older adults.
B)language is most fluent during the time period of age 16-25.
C)cultural differences make an explanation impossible for the reminiscence bump.
D)the time period of age 16-25 is a time period with many "first experiences."

Question 32

Observer memories are:

A)memories of others' flashbulb memories.
B)memories in which we see images as they actually occurred from the distant past.
C)memories in which we take the vantage point of an outside observer and see ourselves as actors in our visual memory.
D)memories that are not susceptible to cultural differences.

Question 33

Borrowed Disputed memories are most common:

A)in people who share a field memory PTSD experience.
B)in people who share cultural identities.
C)in people who seldom experience similar events.
D)in identical twins.

Question 34

Berntsen and Rubin (2008) asked participants to record involuntary memories in a memory diary.In particular, participants were asked to record involuntary memories that referred to a serious (or traumatic) event in their lives.

A)They found that involuntary memories could not be retrieved under spontaneous conditions.
B)They found that involuntary memories were usually made with high confidence.
C)They found that involuntary memories were more common among siblings.
D)They found that involuntary memories are frequent, but decline somewhat with age.

Question 35

One advantage of doing single-subject memory diary studies is that:

A)because the subject is also the researcher, long retention (i.e., several years) intervals can be employed.
B)because the subject is also usually a professor, the diaries are usually quite legible.
C)single-subject studies are highly generalizable to the general public.
D)because the subject is focusing on memory, his or her memory may be optimal.

Question 36

Talarico and Rubin (2007), for example, compared memories of their personal whereabouts when they heard the news of 9/11 and an ordinary event around the same time.They found that:

A)memories of 9/11differed systematically from other flashbulb memories.
B)confidence and accuracy remained high over retention intervals for both memories.
C)confidence remained high for the news of 9/11 but dropped for the ordinary event.
D)people were unwilling to report their memories.

Question 37

Daselaar et al. (2008) used a standard cue-word technique, that is, participants heard a word and were asked to think of the first autobiographical memory that came to mind.During retrieval, an fMRI machine monitored the participants' brains.The fMRI technique allows the researchers to obtain a detailed map of where activity in the brain is taking place.It showed that:

A)there was activity in the medial temporal lobe, the hippocampus, and right prefrontal cortex.
B)most of the neural activity was in the cerebellum.
C)there was no activity in the pre-frontal lobe.
D)fMRI could not detect differences based on autobiographical memory.

Question 38

Akiko, a 55-year-old, is given a cue word and asked to come up with the first memory she can come up with.Akiko is likely to:

A)come up with a memory from early childhood.
B)demonstrate anterograde amnesia.
C)either recall a recent event or one from early childhood.
D)either recall a recent event or one from her late teens.

Question 39

Conway's model of autobiographical memory concerns how we:

A)represent or store autobiographical memory.
B)encode information into autobiographical memory.
C)how we consolidate information into autobiographical memory.
D)how autobiographical memory interacts with visual imagery.

Question 40

The socio-cultural explanation of the reminiscence bump states that:

A)neurological changes in the brain account for different cultural perspectives on the bump.
B)most cultures place great emphasis on the events that take place during the time period of age 16-25.
C)language is most fluent during the time period of age 16-25.
D)there should be no reminiscence bumps in non-literate cultures.

Question 41

Childhood amnesia refers to the poor memory of children for semantic knowledge.

Question 42

Jack et al. (2012) tracked down the children who had participated in the "magic shrinking machine" experiment six years later when the children varied from age 8 to age 10.They found that:

A)The children had all entered the childhood amnesia phase and could not recall the event.
B)Some, but not all, of the children could recall the event and some of the items that had been "shrunk."
C)At the older age, children could only remember items that were not in their vocabulary as younger children.
D)none of the above are true.

Question 43

Kensinger and Schacter (2006) examined memories of baseball fans in New York and Boston for the surprise Game 7 victory of the Boston Red Sox over the New York Yankees in the American League Championship in 2004.They found that despite the difference in emotional valence, there were no differences between Boston fans and New York fans.

Question 44

Diaries studies on college students show that:

A)memories that were scored as relevant to the persons' "life story" were recalled better than those that were not.
B)memory researchers typically have better autobiographical memory than college students.
C)event-specific memories are recalled better than general events.
D)voluntary memories are more likely to be disputed memories than involuntary memories.

Question 45

Berntsen, Staugaard, and Sorensen (in press) asked participants to engage in sound-location task which involved determining if two sounds were being played to the same ear or one to each ear.They found that:

A)novel sounds were less likely to induce disputed memories.
B)novel sounds were less likely to induce involuntary memories.
C)novel sounds required more attention, creating less cognitive control, which resulted in more involuntary memories.
D)the novel sounds were annoying and all the participants dropped out of the study

Question 46

Dickson, Pillemer, and Bruehl (2011) found a reminiscence bump for events:

A)that were surprising and therefore not part of the person's lifetime period or cultural scripts as well as positive and script-relevant events.
B)only for recent events.
C)only for young adults.
D)all of the above.

Question 47

An example of an "extended" event in Conway's theory would be the memory of the long car trip you took in the hills of West Virginia.

Question 48

Ahmet is 82 years old, has normal memory for someone of his age, and has lived all his life in Egypt.Based on data on the reminiscence bump, you would expect that:

A)Ahmet would have less of a recency effect than an American senior.
B)Ahmet would show an earlier reminiscence bump than an American senior.
C)Ahmet would show a later reminiscence bump than an American senior.
D)Ahmet would not differ with respect to the reminiscence bump relative to an American senior.

Question 49

In a study on flashbulb memory it was found that:

A)positive events lead to more encoding failures than negative events.
B)Catholics have more flashbulb memories of the death of Pope John Paul II than do non-Catholics.
C)positive events lead to greater accuracy of flashbulb memories than do negative events.
D)Because of the trauma involved, people outside of Turkey had more flashbulb memories for an earthquake in Turkey than did Turkish people.

Question 50

The term autobiographical memory refers to our semantic memory for our life's narrative.

Question 51

Roxanne cannot recall any details from the first few years of life.This pattern is called encoding binaurality.

Question 52

Which of the following is a methodological difficulty in studying involuntary memories?

A)Involuntary memories seldom occur under natural circumstances.
B)Involuntary memories are often false memories.
C)Involuntary memories are often observer memories.
D)Studying involuntary memory is a bit more difficult because the researchers cannot give direct cues-as that would lead to a voluntary memory.

Question 53

Which of the following statements about neuroimaging studies of autobiographical memory are true?

A)General cues are more likely to recruit areas in the lateral temporal lobe.
B)Specific cues resulted in stronger responses in the left hippocampus and the medial prefrontal region than did the general cues.
C)The right prefrontal cortex is associated with going into "retrieval mode," that is, initiating the memory search.
D)All of the above are true.

Question 54

Cross-cultural studies show that people most affected by a public tragedy tend to repress that event.

Question 55

The working self allows us to generalize life event to specific details.

Question 56

Weaver (1993) conducted a study comparing an ordinary memory and a flashbulb memory.Weaver's students wrote down as many details as they could remember from the ordinary interaction with their roommate and their memory of hearing the news of the start of the Gulf War (1991).He found that by the end of the semester, confidence was higher for the flashbulb memory, but the accuracy was equivalent for both memories.

Question 57

When adults do remember events from before the age of four, those memories tend to be of big events, usually later rehearsed, such as the birth of a sibling.

Question 58

Neuroimaging studies on autobiographical memory show that:

A)areas of the brainstem have a critical role in putting a person into "retrieval mode."
B)retrieval of autobiographical memory is not measurable in fMRI
C)only general cues elicit elevated activity in the hippocampus.
D)both specific and general cues elicit activity in the medial temporal lobe and hippocampus.

Question 59

In Conway's theory of autobiographical memory, specific events refer to episodic memories.

Question 60

According to your textbook, which is considered the best explanation of childhood amnesia?

A)The psychodynamic view because children repress what they do not know
B)The view that neural development is not complete
C)The influence of language development on childhood amnesia
D)The influence of the development of a working self

Question 61

Explain correspondence in memory of events.

Question 62

Explain the "reminiscence bump."

Question 63

Daselaar et al. (2008) used a standard ______ technique, that is, participants heard a word and were asked to think of the first autobiographical memory that came to mind.During retrieval, an fMRI machine monitored the participants' brains.The fMRI technique allows the researchers to obtain a detailed map of where activity in the brain is taking place.It showed that there was activity in the medial temporal lobe, the hippocampus, and right prefrontal cortex.

Question 64

McIsaac and Eich (2004) found that when patients suffering from PTSD retrieved memories as field memories, their emotional response was more negative and more intense.When they asked participants to recall them as observer memories they experienced more PTSD symptoms.

Question 65

Explain the process of coherence.

Question 66

An example of an "______" event in Conway's theory was the memory of the horse-back riding trip you took in the hills of Pennsylvania.

Question 67

Neuroimaging studies on ______ memory show that both specific and general cues elicit activity in the medial temporal lobe and hippocampus.

Question 68

Conway's model of autobiographical memory concerns how we represent or store autobiographical memory.

Question 69

Berntsen, Staugaard, and Sorensen (in press) asked participants to engage in sound-location task which involved determining if two sounds were being played to the same ear or one to each ear.They found that novel sounds were less likely to induce involuntary memories.

Question 70

Daselaar et al. (2008) examined the neural correlates of retrieval from ______ memory.They found that those memories that were given high judgments of emotionality were correlated with greater activity in the hippocampus and the amygdala in the limbic system.

Question 71

John, a 55-year-old, is given a cue word and asked to come up with the first memory she can come up with.John is likely to demonstrate anterograde amnesia.

Question 72

Thomsen and Berntsen (2008) found that, among Danish elders, the bump was particularly noticeable for the memory of events that were consistent with cultural life scripts, such as first jobs, dating, and leaving home.

Question 73

Field memories are ______ and visual memories in which we see the memory as if we were looking at the event through our own eyes.

Question 74

Explain "flashbulb" memories.

Question 75

Explain the psychodynamic view of childhood amnesia.

Question 76

Dickson, Pillemer, and Bruehl (2011) found a ______ bump for events that were surprising and therefore not part of the person's lifetime period

Question 77

In Conway's theory of autobiographical memory, specific events refers to ______ memory.

Question 78

Studying involuntary memory is a bit more difficult because the researchers cannot give direct cues-as that would lead to a ______ memory.

Question 79

Talarico and Rubin (2007) compared memories of their personal whereabouts when they heard the news of 9/11 and an ordinary event around the same time.They found that ______ remained high for the news of 9/11 but dropped for the ordinary event.

Question 80

One advantage of doing ______ memory diary studies is that because the subject is also the researcher, long retention (i.e., several years) intervals can be employed.