Deck 7: The Reconstructive Nature of Memory

Question 1

Joe witnesses a hit-and-run accident.He tells the police that the hit-and-run driver was in a red car.It was later determined that the car was actually blue.Joe remembered it as being red because he thinks that people who drive red cars tend to be reckless.This is an example of the memory sin of

A)persistence.
B)bias.
C)misattribution.
D)suggestibility.

Answer 1

bias.

Question 2

When Timothy McVeigh was arrested for the Oklahoma City bombing,his steps were traced to a Ryder truck rental outlet.A worker at Ryder trucks also reported another man who had been with McVeigh.Police sought this man out as well,considering him a possible co-conspirator,and referring to him as "John Doe #2." Later,it came out that "John Doe #2" was actually an innocent man who had come into the Ryder rental place an hour or so after McVeigh.The Ryder worker's initial memory about John Doe #2 is an example of

A)the misinformation effect.
B)unconscious transference.
C)photo bias.
D)the effects of emotional stress on eyewitness memory.

Answer 2

unconscious transference.

Question 3

Research on race and facial identification

A)reveals that people are better at distinguishing among faces of their own race than they are at distinguishing among faces of another race.
B)reveals that people are better at distinguishing among faces of another race than they are at distinguishing among faces of their own race.
C)reveals that certain races are better at facial identification than are others.
D)race has little or no influence on the ability to recognize faces.

Answer 3

reveals that people are better at distinguishing among faces of their own race than they are at distinguishing among faces of another race.

Question 4

The least desirable outcome from a lineup choice is

A)an incorrect identification.
B)no choice.
C)an identification failure.
D)a correct rejection.

Question 5

The fact that misleading information presented between the encoding of an event and its subsequent recall can influence the memory of an eyewitness is called

A)the misinformation effect.
B)photo bias.
C)unconscious transference.
D)the activation mode.

Question 6

Ellroy remembers that Eleanor told him that she was admitted to law school.He later finds out that it was Claire,not Eleanor,who told him that she was admitted to law school.This is an example of the memory sin of

A)persistence.
B)bias.
C)misattribution.
D)suggestibility.

Question 7

In a classic study by Loftus,Miller,and Burns (1978),subjects viewed slides depicting a car accident at a stop sign.Then half of the subjects were asked about a yield sign,and half were asked about a stop sign.The results indicated that

A)all of the subjects did poorly in recognizing the original slide of the accident.
B)subjects who received consistent information (i.e. ,the stop sign question)did poorly in recognizing the original slide of the accident.
C)subjects who were misled by the stop sign question did poorly in recognizing the original slide of the accident.
D)subjects who were misled by the yield sign question did poorly recognizing the original slide of the accident.

Question 8

Anne and Sally go out to eat every Friday.One Friday,Sally refers to a server who spilled water on the table a few weeks ago.Anne has no memory of this happening and quickly dismisses Sally's claim.But later,when Anne asked about the restaurant,she says,"The food is good,but some of the servers are kind of clumsy." This is an example of

A)the misinformation effect.
B)unconscious transference.
C)a memory sin of omission.
D)the effect of emotional stress on memory for an event.

Question 9

The effect of stress and emotion on memory seems to depend on the attentional mode of control that is present when an emotional event,such as a crime,occurs.If,when witnessing the crime,the person is extremely worried and anxious,and his or her heart rate and breathing are very high,

A)he or she will be in arousal mode and remember only the peripheral details.
B)he or she will be in arousal mode and remember only the central details.
C)he or she will be in activation mode and not remember much at all.
D)he or she will be in activation mode and remember both the central and peripheral details.

Question 10

When a witness fails to distinguish between a target person and another person encountered at a different time whose face is also familiar,this is called

A)the misinformation effect.
B)unconscious transference.
C)the sin of absentmindedness.
D)the arousal mode of encoding.

Question 11

Megreya and Burton (2008)investigated people's ability to distinguish and remember faces.They had participants watch as target individuals walked to the front of a room and stood there for 30 seconds.After each target was presented,a 10-photo array was presented,from which participants were asked to choose who they had just seen.Subjects' performance in this task was

A)near perfect,over 95% accuracy.
B)excellent,between 80 and 90% recognition.
C)mediocre,participants were only right about two-thirds of the time.
D)abysmal,participants performed at chance levels.

Question 12

Davis,Loftus,Vanous,and Cucciare (2008)investigated whether illusions of continuity might underlie unconscious transference and related unconscious transference to which perceptual phenomenon?

A)Subliminal perception
B)Face inversion
C)Change blindness
D)Synesthesia

Question 13

According to the Innocence Project,eyewitness misidentification plays a key role in ___ of the cases of wrongful conviction in which DNA evidence later led to exoneration.

A)about 25%
B)about 50%
C)about 75%
D)all

Question 14

The effect of stress and emotion on memory seems to depend on the attentional mode of control that is present when an emotional event,such as a crime,occurs.In the _______ mode,novel,surprising,and interesting events will be remembered best.

A)activation
B)arousal
C)encoding
D)misinformation

Question 15

Sins of omission are to sins of commission as ________ is to

A)transience;misattribution.
B)absent-mindedness;blocking.
C)suggestibility;persistence.
D)bias;transience.

Question 16

If an eyewitness to a crime experiences a weapon focus,he or she will be

A)more likely to remember information about the gun,but less likely to remember what the person is wearing.
B)more likely to remember what the person is wearing,but less likely to remember information about the gun.
C)more likely to remember peripheral details,but less likely to remember central details.
D)equally likely to remember peripheral and central details.

Question 17

In a classic study by Carmichael,Hogan,and Walters (1932),participants were given ambiguous drawings with one of two different labels.Later,they were asked to draw the figures they had encoded.During this retrieval phase,they ________,demonstrating the memory sin of

A)were unable to draw much of anything;transience.
B)were unable to draw much of anything;bias.
C)misdrew the items consistent with the label they had seen;transience.
D)misdrew the items consistent with the label they had seen;bias.

Question 18

Which of these "sins of memory" is a sin of omission (as opposed to commission)?

A)Misattribution
B)Suggestibility
C)Bias
D)Absentmindedness

Question 19

All of the following statements about the misinformation effect are true except

A)it is an example of the memory sin of suggestibility.
B)it is an example of the memory sin of misattribution.
C)it is an example of retroactive interference.
D)it is an example of the memory sin of bias.

Question 20

Marcia was a witness to a crime.At the police station,she looked through many books of mugshots,hoping to identify the criminal.Two weeks later,the police asked her to come in and look at a lineup of criminals.Although the actual criminal was not in the lineup,Marcia identified one of the people in the lineup as the man she saw commit the crime.Marcia was probably influenced by

A)misleading information that was encoded between the event and when she viewed the lineup.
B)the emotional stress she experienced at the time of witnessing the crime.
C)the previous mugshots she saw.
D)the number of people who were actually in the lineup.

Question 21

A study by Principe,Kanaya,Ceci and Singh (2006)examined the effect of rumors on false memories in preschoolers.After hearing a rumor about how a rabbit had escaped from a magician,

A)only children who had actually seen the rabbit eating carrots had false memories.
B)only children who overheard the rumor directly from adults had false memories.
C)children who had a suggestive interview had very high rates of false memories.
D)children who had a neutral interview had no false memories.

Question 22

Sandra is a witness to a bank robbery.When asked to identify the culprit in a lineup,she brings her friend Tom with her.After Sandra identified the culprit,Tom says the guy she identified really stood out;he looked meaner and tougher than the rest of the people in the lineup.It seems,perhaps,that Sandra's identification could have been tainted by

A)photo bias.
B)the misinformation effect.
C)the inadequate functional size of the lineup.
D)the fact that a show-up procedure was used.

Question 23

Nash,Wade,and Brewer (2009)investigated what they termed the doctored evidence effect and propose all but one of these as a possible source of the effect.Which one did they not propose?

A)Imagination
B)Familiarity
C)Credibility
D)Elaboration

Question 24

Which of the following is the correct order of steps in the constructive memory framework?

A)Feature binding,pattern separation,focusing,criterion setting,pattern completion
B)Pattern separation,focusing,feature binding,pattern completion,criterion setting
C)Feature binding,pattern separation,focusing,pattern completion,criterion setting
D)Criterion setting,feature binding,pattern separation,focusing,pattern completion

Question 25

Roediger and McDermott's (1995)investigation of illusory memories

A)revealed high levels of false recognition,but almost no false recall.
B)revealed that false memories were more likely to be "known" than "remembered."
C)revealed that false memories were more likely to be "remembered" than "known."
D)revealed that participants rarely misremembered words not presented on lists.

Question 26

According to fuzzy trace theory,the DRM memory illusion occurs because presenting the related words

A)strengthens a verbatim trace.
B)weakens a fuzzy trace.
C)strengthens a gist trace.
D)weakens a know trace.

Question 27

A good deal of eyewitness identification research suggests that ________ lineups are preferable because they encourage participants to engage in a ________ strategy when making their identification.

A)sequential;absolute judgment strategy
B)sequential;relative judgment strategy
C)simultaneous;absolute judgment strategy
D)simultaneous;relative judgment strategy

Question 28

The phenomenon of imagination inflation

A)is an instance in which the less a memory is imagined,the more real it seems.
B)is an instance in which the more a memory is imagined,the more real it seems.
C)is present only in young children.
D)only works in a laboratory setting.

Question 29

In constructing a lineup,if non-witnesses consistently identify one person as the criminal,even though they never witnessed the crime,there is a problem with

A)the use of a relative judgment strategy.
B)the use of an absolute judgment strategy.
C)the functional size of the lineup.
D)identification failure.

Question 30

Memory distortion research has been applied to achieve which positive end?

A)Quitting smoking
B)Healthier eating
C)Remembering to take medications
D)Improving relationships.

Question 31

Hypnosis has sometimes been used as a retrieval technique for an eyewitness memory.What conclusions can be drawn about using hypnosis in this way?

A)Hypnosis can be used,but only in extreme cases.
B)Hypnosis leads to an increase in report of fabricated details and so should be avoided.
C)Hypnosis should be used because it leads to an increase in the amount of information reported.
D)Hypnosis should be avoided because it doesn't lead to any increase in the amount of information reported.

Question 32

All of these characterize the cognitive interview except for

A)hypnosis.
B)open-ended questions.
C)elaborate retrieval cues that invoke the encoding specificity principle.
D)techniques designed to make a witness comfortable.

Question 33

Jury members tend to believe confident eyewitnesses.However,they really should only believe a very confident eyewitness when

A)the eyewitness identified the criminal in about 10 seconds.
B)the eyewitness has been hypnotized.
C)the eyewitness took more than 30 seconds to identify the criminal in a lineup.
D)they should never believe a confident eyewitness because confidence is a poor predictor of memory.

Question 34

The results of laboratory studies of illusory memory indicate that

A)participants often consciously recollect the theme words around which each list is constructed,even though these words were never presented.
B)participants don't generally recollect that the theme word had been presented;they just know it was presented.
C)participants often recognized that the theme words as having been in the lists but rarely recalled those theme words.
D)false memories cannot be created in a list-learning paradigm.

Question 35

Philisha is very confident the suspect committed the crime.She observed the crime from a location in which the culprit was unable to see her,and she saw the culprit for five minutes.The crime took place in a well-lit area.The police used the cognitive interview to question her about the crime,and she identified the suspect in a sequential lineup.Given this information,the jury

A)should not take her confidence into consideration because confidence is not a good indicator of memory accuracy.
B)should take her confidence into consideration during their deliberation,based on the idea behind the optimal conditions.
C)should take her confidence into consideration because confidence is generally a good indicator of memory accuracy.
D)should not take her confidence into consideration during their deliberation,based on the idea behind the optimality hypothesis.

Question 36

In their "lost in a shopping mall" study,Loftus and Pickrell (1995)

A)found that 75% of participants falsely remembered being lost in a mall.
B)found that when false memories were created,they were quite vague and not very long lasting.
C)found that participants were just as confident about their false memories as they were about real ones.
D)enlisted family members of the participants as confederates.

Question 37

Garry and Wade (2005)compared the effects of photos and narratives in producing false memories and found that

A)both were about equally likely to lead to false remembering.
B)neither one led to much false remembering.
C)narratives led to more false remembering than did photos.
D)photos led to more false remembering than did narratives.

Question 38

One criticism of sequential lineups that has been raised is that they

A)reduce correct rejections.
B)increase incorrect identifications.
C)increase false identifications.
D)reduce correct identifications.

Question 39

According to fuzzy trace theory,remembering is based on a combination of ____ and _____ information.

A)gist;verbatim
B)remember;know
C)imagined;real
D)forgotten;remembered

Question 40

Gloria went to a family reunion,and at this reunion,she listened to stories told by her relatives and looked at the pictures on display.What influence will these stories and photos have on her potential to generate an illusory memory?

A)The photos are more likely to generate an illusory memory than the stories.
B)The stories are more likely to generate an illusory memory than the photos.
C)The photos will have a larger effect at the beginning of the four-day reunion than at the end of the reunion.
D)The photos and stories will have an equal effect on her.

Question 41

What is true about autobiographical memory?

A)It can be likened to a wiki.
B)It can be likened to a video recorder.
C)It can be likened to a novel.
D)It can be likened to a news report.

Question 42

Despite having watched The Simpsons for decades,Miguel cannot recall the name of the character who runs the convenience store.This situation is an example of which sin?

A)Absentmindedness
B)Transcience
C)Blocking
D)Bias

Question 43

Jill is trying to remember whether she turned off the coffeepot this morning before she left for class.She is having trouble determining whether the memory she has of turning off the coffeepot is from this morning or from yesterday morning.She is engaging in the process of

A)feature-binding.
B)pattern separation.
C)source monitoring.
D)pattern completion.

Question 44

Williams (1994)attempted to corroborate individual cases of lost traumatic memories by finding individuals who had been admitted 17 years earlier to sexual abuse clinics and interviewing them about their current knowledge of the experience.The findings are interpreted as evidence ____ the reality of repressed than recovered memories because

A)for;over 1/3 failed to remember the event for which they had been admitted.
B)for;all of them failed to remember the event for which they had been admitted.
C)against;all of them vividly remembered the event for which they had been admitted.
D)against;none of them failed to remember the event for which they had been admitted.

Question 45

Prior to retrieval,_________ is all that exists for a memory.

A)potential
B)bias
C)encoding
D)reproduction

Question 46

All of these are stages of the constructive memory process proposed by Schacter and colleagues except

A)feature binding.
B)criterion setting.
C)imagination inflation.
D)focusing.

Question 47

High levels of stress enhance the function of the brain's _____ but tend to disrupt the functioning of the _____.This pattern may lead to some of the characteristics associated with repressed then recovered memories.

A)amygdala;hippocampus
B)hippocampus;amygdala
C)frontal lobe;cerebellum
D)cerebellum;frontal lobe

Question 48

Corroborated cases of repressed then recovered memories have a number of commonalities.These commonalities include all of the following except

A)cues in the recovery situation represent aspects of the original experience.
B)gradually recovery,over a period of days or weeks.
C)the memory had been previously reported,then forgotten.
D)extreme shock and emotion once the memory is recovered.

Question 49

Which of the following cannot be explained as a failure in the source monitoring process?

A)Imagination inflation
B)Misinformation effect
C)Unconscious transference
D)Weapon focus

Question 50

Analysis of case studies of corroborated recovered memories reveals that they obey which memory principle?

A)The outshining hypothesis
B)The von Restorff effect
C)Levels of processing
D)The encoding specificity principle