Deck 5: Working Memory

Question 1

Which of the following is NOT part of Baddeley's working memory model?

A) central executive
B) sensory memory
C) visuo-spatial sketchpad
D) episodic buffer

Answer 1

B

Question 2

What is the explanation for the phonological similarity effect, assuming a phonological loop like that described by Baddeley's model?

A) People can hold more pieces of information in working memory when they sound similar.
B) Similar items in the phonological store become confused.
C) Long-term memory can assist performance when there are rhymes.
D) There is no such effect.

Answer 2

B

Question 3

What are the 2 primary components of the phonological loop?

A) subvocal rehearsal and phonological store
B) subvocal store and phonological rehearsal
C) articulatory loop and central executive
D) articulatory loop and visuo-spatial sketchpad

Answer 3

A

Question 4

Which of the following is NOT an effect observed in the phonological loop of working memory?

A) word length effect
B) phonological rehearsal
C) phonological similarity
D) articulatory suppression

Question 5

What is the phonological similarity effect?

A) Memory span is smaller for longer words than for smaller words.
B) Memory span is smaller when a person is speaking and remembering at the same time.
C) Memory span is smaller when items are presented with irrelevant speech in the background.

Question 6

The word length effect is the finding that __________.

A) it is harder to remember longer words
B) it is harder to remember shorter words
C) fewer words will be remembered from a list of short words
D) fewer words will be remembered from a list of long words

Question 7

Which of the following is NOT an effect observed in the phonological loop of working memory?

A) word length effect
B) phonological rehearsal
C) phonological similarity
D) articulatory suppression

Question 8

While doing a phonological task, if a person is asked to do a visual-spatial task at the same time, what is the likely outcome?

A) Both tasks will suffer greatly.
B) They will be relatively independent of one another.
C) Performance on both tasks will be heightened.
D) It depends on the working memory span of the person.

Question 9

According to Baddeley's working memory model, there is a central executive that has control over what 3 slave systems?

A) visuo-spatial sketchpad, mental workbench, and phonological loop
B) mental workbench, active rehearsal system, and episodic buffer
C) visuo-spatial sketchpad, phonological loop, and episodic buffer
D) phonological loop, active rehearsal system, and visuo-spatial sketchpad

Question 10

What are the components of Baddeley's working memory model?

A) phonological loop, visuo-spatial sketchpad, and articulatory mechanism
B) slave system, executive control, and spatial monitor
C) executive controller, phonological loop, and visuo-spatial sketchpad
D) articulatory mechanism, slave system, and spatial monitor

Question 11

Which of the following effects of the phonological loop suggests that it would be better to listen to instrumental music while studying as compared to listening to music with vocals?

A) phonological similarity
B) articulatory suppression
C) lexicality
D) irrelevant speech

Question 12

What are the 2 primary components of the phonological loop?

A) subvocal rehearsal and phonological store
B) subvocal store and phonological rehearsal
C) articulatory loop and central executive
D) articulatory loop and visuo-spatial sketchpad

Question 13

What is the explanation for the articulatory suppression effect, assuming a phonological loop like that described by Baddeley's model?

A) People need to be able to understand the words they are trying to remember.
B) The phonological store loses its capacity to retain information.
C) People actively inhibit an assortment of thoughts in working memory when articulating.
D) Constantly talking during retention consumes the resources of the articulatory loop.

Question 14

According to the word length effect, what is the primary barrier to recall in the articulatory loop?

A) the number of syllables in a word
B) the number of letters in a word
C) the length of time it takes to say a word (articulation duration)
D) the intelligence of the person attempting to recall information

Question 15

The Baddeley working memory model assumes that working memory is made up of all the following components EXCEPT __________.

A) the phonological loop
B) the haptic loop
C) the visuo-spatial sketchpad
D) the central executive

Question 16

What is the explanation for the irrelevant speech effect, assuming a phonological loop like that described by Baddeley's model?

A) Constantly talking during retention consumes the resources of the articulatory loop.
B) People automatically activate word meaning when they process words in working memory, thereby affecting short-term retention.
C) Additional irrelevant information consumes phonological loop resources that then cannot be dedicated to remembering the appropriate information.
D) This mechanism proposes a problem for this theory, because the theory cannot account for the effect.

Question 17

The phonological similarity effect is the finding that __________.

A) it is hard to remember a set of words that sound similar
B) it is easier to remember a set of words that sound similar
C) it is easier to remember words that have been heard rather than read
D) it is harder to remember words that have been heard rather than read

Question 18

The lexicality effect is the finding that __________.

A) it is easier to remember a list of words than non-words
B) more interference (forgetting) occurs when people need to remember words
C) familiar words are easier to remember than unfamiliar words
D) memories for words are accessed in a lexical fashion

Question 19

What is the explanation for the word length effect, assuming a phonological loop like that described by Baddeley's model?

A) The articulatory loop cannot rehearse information quickly enough and it decays out of the phonological store.
B) The central executive is not strategic enough in its allocation of resources.
C) People experience interference from the external world.
D) People's thoughts generate too much random internal interference.

Question 20

The articulatory suppression effect is the finding that __________.

A) words that are hard to say will be remembered more poorly
B) speaking while trying to remember a set of words will result in more forgetting
C) forgetting occurs in short-term memory due to a suppression process
D) verbal information primarily uses resources from the phonological loop

Question 21

When participants report that a circle on an incline appears lower than it actually is, the influence on working memory is called __________.

A) representational gravity
B) representational decline
C) representational friction
D) representational deficiency

Question 22

The tendency for people to misremember the location or orientation of an object at the end of a movement is called __________.

A) dynamic memory
B) motion memory
C) representational momentum
D) dysexecutive syndrome

Question 23

The phenomenon of mental scanning suggests that __________.

A) people move their eyes according to how they are scanning a mental image
B) people use object files to track entities in the world
C) working memory processes information in a way that captures how we interact with the world
D) there is a visual component to the phonological loop

Question 24

The visuo-spatial sketchpad is a part of working memory that __________.

A) is the only part that handles perceptual information
B) can help a person keep track of the passage of time
C) is used to help a person navigate
D) is a slave system to the phonological loop

Question 25

The presence of dynamic memory effects such as representational momentum, representational gravity, and representational friction suggests that __________.

A) short-term memory is affected by conscious strategies
B) knowledge of the world unconsciously influences short-term memory processes
C) information that is held in the visuo-spatial sketchpad is highly accurate
D) cognitive research cannot tell us anything important about human memory

Question 26

The portion of working memory where information from different sources is bound together to create a more complete memory is the __________.

A) phonological loop
B) central executive
C) visuo-spatial sketchpad
D) episodic buffer

Question 27

Response time _________ as the angle of mental rotation needed increases.

A) increases
B) stays the same
C) decreases
D) decreases, then increases

Question 28

Representational momentum is when __________.

A) an object is mentally pulled down lower than it actually was
B) on object is remembered as further along its path of motion than it was
C) mental representations of objects move more slowly than they do in reality
D) a person does not properly understand the laws of physics

Question 29

The finding that representational momentum is smaller for objects moving along a surface is attributed to __________.

A) context effects
B) semantic memory intrusions
C) representational friction
D) reverse inferential decoding processes

Question 30

Which component of working memory is important for mental rotation?

A) central executive
B) sensory memory
C) visuo-spatial sketchpad
D) phonological loop

Question 31

Dynamic memory effects are NOT affected by knowledge in semantic memory.

A) false
B) true
C) true only for moving objects
D) true only for stationary objects

Question 32

Which of the following is an example of working memory processing that reflects an isomorphism with processing as it would exist in external reality?

A) lexicality effects
B) mental rotation
C) articulatory suppression
D) boundary extension

Question 33

Representational momentum does NOT appear to be affected by __________.

A) apparent speed
B) gravity
C) memory span
D) context

Question 34

According to Kosslyn's CRT model, __________.

A) visual complexity has no influence on the ability to retain an image
B) the mind is like a computer
C) phonological processing is independent of spatial processing in working memory
D) the more complex an image, the more difficult it is to refresh

Question 35

What is the phenomenon of the visuo-spatial sketchpad that causes a person to remember more of a scene than was actually observed?

A) visual scanning
B) boundary extension
C) mental rotation
D) schematic inferences

Question 36

The effects of representational gravity are increased __________.

A) for slower display speeds
B) when there is a longer time before a person is allowed to produce a response
C) in blind people
D) for larger objects

Question 37

According to Kosslyn's CRT model, information in the visuo-spatial sketchpad would __________.

A) need to be constantly refreshed
B) be oriented to the upright
C) be in only 2 dimensions
D) fill the entire visual field

Question 38

Which of the following is NOT a dynamic memory effect?

A) representational gravity
B) representational acceleration
C) representational friction
D) representational momentum

Question 39

In studies of boundary extension, participants are less likely to identify previously viewed items as "old" memories if photos are taken __________.

A) from the same distance
B) from farther away
C) from a different angle
D) from a different camera

Question 40

For a mental image held in working memory, when engaging in mental scanning, __________.

A) the further apart elements are, the longer it takes to scan
B) the time taken to respond is independent of distance
C) people do better if they can refresh their mental images
D) people do better if they learn a map first

Question 41

What are the four main components of Baddeley's model of working memory?

Question 42

In Baddeley's model of working memory, what are the two components that make up the phonological loop?

Question 43

What is the role of suppression in working memory?

A) to keep disturbing thoughts from entering the mind
B) to keep a person from becoming overly excited
C) to remove irrelevant information from working memory
D) stabilizing the activation levels of memory traces in working memory

Question 44

Complex span measures involve a ___________ component and a ___________ component.

A) storage; processing
B) concrete; abstract
C) phonological; spatial
D) explicit; implicit

Question 45

What are 2 characteristics of the dysexecutive condition that affect the central executive of working memory?

A) preservation and inattention
B) inattention and distraction
C) preservation and distraction
D) distraction and hyperthymia

Question 46

Larger working memory capacity can sometimes hurt performance when it comes to __________.

A) forming large chunks of information
B) experiencing mental set with simple problems
C) a need to form only small chunks of information
D) experiencing mental set with complex problems
Short Answers

Question 47

When a person acquires dysexecutive syndrome, what part of his or her brain has been damaged?

A) temporal lobes
B) hippocampus
C) occipital lobes
D) frontal lobes

Question 48

The component of working memory that determines the allocation of attentional resources is referred to as __________.

A) the suppressor
B) the alpha span
C) the central executive
D) the slave systems

Question 49

In the _______ test, participants must _______.

A) operation span; make sensibility judgments, and then recall the last word in each sentence
B) reading span; read a math problem aloud and memorize an increasing number of words
C) comprehension span; read sentences aloud and recall the last word in each sentence
D) spatial span; indicate if letters are rotated or reversed, then indicate the orientation of these letters

Question 50

In terms of working memory capacity's influence on long-term memory retrieval, generally __________.

A) people with less capacity experience less interference
B) people with greater capacity experience less interference
C) there is no clear relationship (they are independent types of memory)
D) they are inversely proportional

Question 51

In the spatial span task, people are asked to __________ as the processing task and ______________as the storage task.

A) verify words; remember locations
B) remember locations; remember words
C) verify letters as normal or mirror-reversed; remember orientations
D) verify letters as normal or mirror-reversed; remember words

Question 52

What are the word length and articulatory suppression effects, and how do they help us understand how working memory works?

Question 53

The part of the brain generally associated with processing of the central executive is the __________.

A) temporal lobes
B) hippocampus
C) occipital lobes
D) frontal lobes

Question 54

Which of the following is a role of the central executive?

A) the distribution of working memory resources
B) following the guidance of the slave systems
C) activating knowledge in the perceptual receptors
D) repairing damaged long-term memories

Question 55

The different components of working memory have been reported to __________.

A) interact only in complex environments
B) diverge when a person is placed under stress
C) influence different aspects of a more complex process, such as comprehension
D) dissolve in certain neurological conditions

Question 56

In the reading span task, people are asked to __________ as the processing task and ______________as the storage task.

A) read words; remember sentences
B) read sentences; remember words
C) read sentences; repeat them back later
D) read words; repeat them back later

Question 57

Research on the influence of working memory capacity on other types of mental processing has shown that __________.

A) memory span is related to long-term memory retrieval
B) memory span is independent of comprehension abilities
C) people with low working memory spans are fast perceptual processors
D) working memory is inversely related to the amount of attention a person has

Question 58

A distractor task that is thought to consume the resources of the central executive is __________.

A) repeated articulation
B) random number generation
C) picture tracing
D) directed forgetting

Question 59

In the operation span task, people are asked to __________ as the processing task and ______________as the storage task.

A) read words; remember math problems
B) read math problems; remember words
C) solve math problems; repeat them back later
D) solve math problems; remember words

Question 60

Which of the following would be an example of a simple span task?

A) digit span
B) sentence span
C) operation span
D) comprehension span

Question 61

Describe the basic idea behind Kosslyn's CRT model of mental imagery.

Question 62

What is the importance of having an episodic buffer as part of our understanding of how working memory works?

Question 63

What are two aspects of the physical world that appear to exert an influence on dynamic memory in the visuo-spatial sketchpad?

Question 64

Working memory span scores are often highly correlated with performance on intelligence tests. Why might this be the case?

Question 65

Other than dynamic memory finds, in what ways does the processing of information in the visuo-spatial sketchpad capture our interaction with the world?

Question 66

What parts of the brain are associated with the different components of working memory?

Question 67

What functions does the central executive have in the working memory system?

Question 68

What are the irrelevant speech and phonological similarity effects, and how do they help us understand how working memory works?