Deck 9: Semantic Memory

Question 1

As reflected by studies of priming, semantic memory appears to capture __________.

A) organic features
B) sensory qualities
C) only abstract relationships
D) redundant filtration

Answer 1

B

Question 2

Concepts that are primed are __________.

A) subsequently retrieved faster
B) the target of a retrieval process
C) always entered into consciousness
D) always kept out of consciousness

Answer 2

A

Question 3

The process of priming in semantic memory can be controlled.

A) true
B) true, but only immediately
C) false
D) true, but only after a delay

Answer 3

D

Question 4

In semantic priming, a concept in memory becomes more available after a related concept has been retrieved or activated. Priming effects are larger with __________.

A) less semantic distance
B) inverse memory search
C) greater semantic distance
D) shorter SOAs

Question 5

Semantic memory is memory for __________.

A) skills and procedures
B) individual events
C) classically conditioned responses
D) general world knowledge

Question 6

The amount of priming that occurs is likely to be the result of __________.

A) the amount of mental energy devoted
B) neural generators
D) semantic flexibility

Question 7

Which is NOT true about semantic memory?

A) Semantic memory reflects abstract concepts and ideas.
B) Semantic memory is influenced by emotional interactions.
C) Semantic memory captures general world knowledge.
D) Semantic memory is very simple and unstructured.

Question 8

The increased availability of knowledge related to what is currently being thought about, either by an automatic or controlled process, is called __________.

A) spreading activation
B) priming
C) a retrieval plan
D) associative linkage

Question 9

How is inhibition used in semantic memory?

A) to suppress episodic memories
B) to deactivate related but irrelevant portions of semantic memory
C) only for psychologically threatening material
D) outside the realms of ordinary, everyday thinking

Question 10

Which level of categorization captures a wide range of general information?

A) basic level
B) subordinate level
C) mesosystem level
D) superordinate level

Question 11

Priming is __________.

A) always an automatic process
B) always a controlled process
C) largely automatic, but can be controlled to some extent
D) largely controlled, but can be automatic to some extent

Question 12

How are concepts represented by nouns and verbs differentially represented?

A) Nouns tend to activate the parietal lobe, whereas verbs tend to activate the frontal lobe.
B) Nouns tend to activate the frontal lobe, whereas verbs tend to activate the parietal lobe.
C) Nouns tend to activate the hippocampus, whereas verbs tend to activate the cerebellum.
D) Nouns tend to activate the cerebellum, whereas verbs tend to activate the hippocampus.

Question 13

A __________ conveys the associations with an idea, whereas a ___________ conveys an idea to which a set of assertions apply.

A) category; concept
B) concept; category
C) category; proposition
D) proposition; concept

Question 14

In semantic priming, a concept in memory becomes more available after a related concept has been retrieved or activated. In an actual study of memory, the initial concept is called the _______ and the second concept is called the ________.

A) prime; target
B) trace; cue
C) target; prime
D) cue; trace

Question 15

What is the usefulness of categorization?

A) It helps us spend more time thinking.
B) It introduces complexity into the world.
C) It helps us predict our environment.
D) It shows memory to be a clear and orderly thing.

Question 16

If 2 entities are in the same category, this means that people_________ on at least some dimension.

A) treat them as equivalent
B) concentrate on their variability
C) treat them as distinct
D) concentrate on their heterogeneity

Question 17

Which of the following is NOT one of the levels of categorization?

A) superordinate
B) subordinate
C) medial
D) basic

Question 18

The level of categorization that has the greatest number of unique attributes associated with it is the __________.

A) subordinate level
B) superordinate level
C) basic level
D) This does not distinguish levels.

Question 19

According to the fan effect, increased numbers of connections with a concept can make retrieval from long-term episodic memory slower, whereas increased numbers of associations make retrieval from semantic memory faster. Why might this be the case?

A) Episodic memory is more fragile, and prone to forgetting.
B) Semantic memory allows for the possibility of indirect connections between concepts.
C) Episodic memory is a qualitatively different memory system.
D) Semantic memories are more spatially distributed in the brain.

Question 20

Mediated priming is __________.

A) when priming is consciously mediated
B) when unassociated concepts are primed through intermediate concepts
C) found only with concepts with almost complete overlap
D) something that only occurs in people with depression

Question 21

What does it mean for a category to have graded membership?

A) All members are leveled or graded.
B) Some members of a category are better members than others.
C) All members of a category are equal, but some are more equal than others.
D) There is a slope of category acquisition during critical developmental periods.

Question 22

According to the classical view of categorization, what defines a category?

A) necessary and sufficient features
B) a hypothesis about the world
C) a central tendency
D) graded membership

Question 23

An averaged mental representation of category members is called a __________.

A) composite
C) classical member
D) exemplar

Question 24

What is central tendency in categorization?

A) categorical regression to the mean
B) a tendency for category members to be neutral
C) an absence of extreme forms of categorization in humans
D) an averaged ideal for a category

Question 25

Probabilistic models of categorization __________.

A) avoid addressing issues of family resemblance
B) attempt to capture such category features as central tendency
C) do not take into account co-occurrences of features in the world
D) capture causal understanding of how a category is organized

Question 26

Which of the following would a prototype view of categories have difficulty accounting for?

A) central tendency
B) category size knowledge
C) family resemblance
D) graded category structure

Question 27

Psychological essentialism means that __________.

A) people treat categories as uniform descriptions of their members
B) categories are essential to effective human memory processing
C) people treat category members as if they had some shared underlying essence
D) any object encountered in the world will be categorized by a person

Question 28

Which of the following ordered relation effects reflects people being slower at judging the relationship of 2 memory traces the more similar their content is to one another?

A) semantic congruity effects
B) serial position effects
C) semantic distance effects
D) semantic satiation effects

Question 29

Which order relation effect is characterized by better memory for the comparison "Who is more conservative, Rush Limbaugh or Bill Clinton?" relative to the comparison "Who is more conservative, Rush Limbaugh or Dan Quayle?"

A) semantic congruity
B) serial position
C) semantic distance
D) recency effect

Question 30

What is the exemplar theory of categorization?

A) Categories are defined by a set of necessary and sufficient features.
B) Categories are defined by a mental representation that is an average of all category members.
C) Categories are defined by using all examples of category members.
D) People try to come up with explanations for why things tend to go together.

Question 31

What is a term that describes the overlap among category members?

A) graded membership
B) central tendency
C) basic level
D) family resemblance

Question 32

A prototype for a category is __________.

A) the first instance of the category
B) able to capture how much variability there is in a category
C) defined based on a predetermined set of rules
D) a single representation that serves as an average

Question 33

If people are exposed to a number of examples of an abstract category, which of the following will be true?

A) An unseen prototype will be identified as a good category member.
B) None of the explicit examples will be well remembered.
C) The category will be composed of only those examples.
D) Clear category boundaries will be established.

Question 34

Which of the following is a problem with probabilistic theories of categorization?

A) circularity problem
B) Standard categories differ from ad hoc categories.
C) Prototypes are pan-situational.
D) People's actual categories are not influenced by context.

Question 35

A problem with the classical view is that it has trouble with __________.

A) graded category membership
B) defining logical rules of category membership
C) biological classifications
D) feature-based categorization

Question 36

A category prototype captures its __________.

A) central tendency
B) size
C) variability
D) extent

Question 37

What is the level of categorization that most people prefer to use?

A) subordinate level
B) basic level
C) superordinate level
D) primary level

Question 38

For exemplar models of categorization, a category __________.

A) is defined by a single representation
B) is a static mental representation
C) is based on all current category members
D) cannot exist without conscious thought

Question 39

Which is a component of categorization that is unique to theory-based categorization?

A) graded category structures
B) family resemblance
C) psychological essentialism
D) necessary features

Question 40

For theory-based categorization, people derive categories primarily based on __________.

A) structural similarity
B) the co-occurrence of properties
C) an explanation
D) property independence

Question 41

Which process for using schemas is important for retrieval instead of encoding?

A) interpretation
B) integration
C) selection
D) reconstruction

Question 42

What is a source of evidence that people use scripts to help them remember?

A) People will only remember information that corresponds to a script.
B) People will misremember information that conforms to a script.
C) Serial position effects are observed in memory retrieval.
D) none of the above

Question 43

What is the SNARC effect?

A) the finding that small numbers are responded to faster using the left hand
B) the finding that small numbers are responded to faster using the right hand
C) an absence of interpretable data
D) a semantic memory effect involving erroneous knowledge (i.e., naïve physics)

Question 44

Faster responses for items that are more distinct along a continuum are called what?

A) semantic congruity effect
B) semantic distance effect
C) serial position effect
D) schematic encoding effect

Question 45

The fact that semantic illusions occur (e.g., the Moses Illusion) tells us what about memory?

A) People often just make a partial assessment of memory.
B) Memory retrieval can be misguided so that the wrong thing is remembered.
C) People know less than they think they know.
D) Semantic memory involves overlapping pieces of information.

Question 46

Which of the following schema processes involves inserting inferred information into a memory trace?

A) abstraction
B) interpretation
C) selection
D) integration

Question 47

Long-term memory is __________.

A) very reliable
B) nearly photographic in character
C) prone to some distortion
D) an accurate reflection of reality
Short Answers

Question 48

Which schema process changes the surface form of information into its underlying meaning?

A) selection
B) interpretation
D) integration

Question 49

What is mediated priming?

Question 50

What is one of the hallmarks of script-based processing?

A) novelty
B) hierarchical organization
C) rigid structure
D) script distance effects

Question 51

What is priming?

Question 52

Which of the following is NOT an influence schemas have on the encoding of information?

A) segmentation
B) selection
C) abstraction
D) integration

Question 53

Which of the following ordered relation effects reflects people being faster at judging the relationship of 2 memory traces that are at more extreme ends of a semantic dimension?

A) semantic congruity effects
C) semantic distance effects
D) semantic satiation effects

Question 54

The results of studies in naïve physics suggests that __________.

A) implicit memory allows for the development of remarkably precise physical knowledge
B) people are over-influenced by television
C) there are errors in semantic memory concerning the operation of the physical world
D) there are clear differences between males and females

Question 55

Which of the following schema processes involves a person attending to some pieces of information during encoding but not others?

A) abstraction
B) interpretation
C) selection
D) integration

Question 56

Which of these schema processes involves generating forgotten information during retrieval?

A) abstraction
B) interpretation
D) integration

Question 57

When would someone use a script?

A) when listing items commonly found in an office
B) when categorizing a group of animals into mammals or reptiles
C) when deciding which kind of ice cream to buy from Baskin-Robins
D) when telling someone how to order coffee at Starbucks

Question 58

Which of the following statements is TRUE of scripts and schemas?

A) Memories will always be increasingly distorted toward a schema over time.
B) Memory can be improved in some way if the interpretation of information is altered.
C) Memories will always be increasingly improved by a schema over time.
D) Scripts and schemas require conscious application by a person.

Question 59

People are usually mislead by the question "How many animals of each kind did Moses take on the Ark?" not realizing that it was not Moses who built the Ark. What is this an example of?

A) semantic allusion
B) semantic illusion
C) source monitoring
D) semantic congruity

Question 60

Which of the following ordered relation effects reflects people being faster at judging the relationship of 2 memory traces when the comparison term matches the end of the dimension that they are on?

A) semantic congruity effects
B) serial position effects
C) semantic distance effects
D) semantic satiation effects

Question 61

In what ways can semantic memory distort our understanding of the world?

Question 62

What principles define categories, according to the classical view of categorization?

Question 63

What are some basic characteristics of most human categories?

Question 64

How are categories formed, according to prototype and exemplar theories?

Question 65

What are three effects that reflect the ordering of concepts within semantic memory?

Question 66

What are the influences of schemas that are observed during encoding?

Question 67

What are the five influences schemas have on memory?

Question 68

What is theory-based categorization?

Question 69

In what ways does semantic memory capture aspects of embodied cognition?