Deck 7: Attention and Memory

Question 1

You witness an accident and see one of the cars driving away from the scene. Even though you have just seen the licence plate, you cannot remember the number. The licence plate was probably not:

A) encoded
B) ignored
C) rehearsed
D) processed

Answer 1

A

Question 2

Change blindness seems ____________ because it ____________ information.

A) adaptive; focuses on important
B) adaptive; limits confusing
C) maladaptive; reduces the amount of
D) maladaptive; misses critical

Answer 2

A

Question 3

Even though Manuel has watched his psychology professor lecture three times a week for 10 weeks, he does not know what colour her eyes are. This most likely represents a failure of:

A) storage
B) encoding
C) retrieval
D) rehearsal

Answer 3

B

Question 4

Michael is participating in a psychology experiment in which he is shadowing a physics passage in his right ear, while hearing a novel in his left ear. Michael wants to get done so he can go home and watch the big game. If a sentence giving the score in the game is inserted into the passage from the novel, Michael is most likely to:

A) shadow the right ear and attend the left ear material
B) shadow the right ear and ignore the left ear material
C) shadow the left ear material and ignore the right ear material
D) shadow the left ear and attend the right ear material

Question 5

In Treisman's model of visual attention, primitive features can be analyzed in parallel because:

A) a single system can handle all features simultaneously
B) separate systems analyze different features simultaneously
C) separate systems do rapid serial processing that mimics parallel processing
D) a single system focuses on a small subset of features simultaneously

Question 6

You can attend to a single conversation with a friend in the middle of a room filled with people talking, yet if someone else mentions your name it grabs your attention. This is an example of:

A) the failure of selective attention
B) shadowing
C) change blindness
D) the cocktail phenomenon

Question 7

Which memory system has both a large capacity and a short duration?

A) short-term memory
B) sensory memory
C) working memory
D) long-term memory

Question 8

Yesterday you taught your dog to crawl across the floor while barking. If the dog is to perform this fabulous trick tomorrow then he will need to ____________ the trick, then ____________ the trick, then ____________ the trick.

A) encode; store; retrieve
B) store; encode; retrieve
C) rehearse; store; retrieve
D) store; rehearse; retrieve

Question 9

Compared to only studying, studying while listening to music, checking email, and texting friends would most likely:

A) reduce what you learn by reducing your attention to what you are studying
B) improve what you learn by releasing proactive interference
C) reduce what you learn by impairing procedural memory
D) have little effect because music, email, and texting use different parts of the brain

Question 10

Children with attention deficit disorder are distracted by everything in the environment rather than being able to choose what they want to focus on. These children are lacking in:

A) divided attention
B) automatic processing
C) selective attention
D) controlled processing

Question 11

Broadbent's filter theory of attention assumed that selective attention was necessary because people have limited ____________ capacity and thus must focus on the most ____________ information.

A) short-term memory; important
B) sensory memory; important
C) short-term memory; transient
D) sensory memory; transient

Question 12

In Sperling's study of sensory memory, participants looked at three rows of letters flashed for one-twentieth of a second. In this study, the dependent variable was:

A) sensory memory
B) the row of letters
C) the number of letters remembered
D) the tones indicating which row to recall

Question 13

The phase of information processing that is most similar to a Google search is:

A) encoding
B) storage
C) retrieval
D) rehearsal

Question 14

After spending a day with your spouse, you excuse yourself for 20 minutes and change your clothes and hairstyle. However, you are disappointed because when you return because your spouse does not even notice. Your spouse's behaviour may not result from a lack of caring, but rather because of:

A) a failure of short-term memory
B) a failure of sensory memory
C) shadowing
D) change blindness

Question 15

Faces, especially when threatening, are given a strong attentional response because:

A) of the cocktail phenomenon
B) faces provide important social information
C) faces are typically at eye level
D) of the face paradox

Question 16

In order for us to experience the world as a continuous stream of information, one experience is kept briefly in the brain while we move to the next experience. This is accomplished by using our:

A) short-term memory
B) long-term memory
C) working memory
D) sensory memory

Question 17

H.M. was a patient who, following surgery, had profound memory difficulties. You could best describe his memory problems as:

A) failure of episodic memory but retaining of some procedural memory
B) failure of episodic and procedural memory
C) failure of declarative memory but retaining of some episodic memory
D) failure of all memory

Question 18

Yelizaveta is talking to one of the caterers setting up for her sister's wedding. While she is answering her cellphone a different member of the catering staff takes over. When Yelizaveta turns back to the conversation she completely fails to notice that she is now talking to a different person. Yelizaveta is experiencing:

A) divided attention
B) change blindness
C) selective attention
D) serial processing

Question 19

H.M. was a patient who, following surgery, had profound memory difficulties. The surgery involved the removal of parts of his temporal lobes, including his hippocampus. The reasons H.M. received the surgery was because of:

A) a serious car accident
B) severe epilepsy
C) a brain tumor
D) brain cancer

Question 20

The storage phase of information processing lasts:

A) a fraction of a second
B) several seconds
C) several minutes
D) variable amounts of time

Question 21

Kumar is trying to answer a question on his government exam. It asks him to name the first three prime ministers of Canada. The search and analysis of information to answer this question is being carried out in ____________ by the ____________.

A) long-term memory; central executive
B) long-term memory; retrieval process
C) short-term memory; retrieval process
D) short-term memory; central executive

Question 22

Akila's brother asks her if she knows the names of the capitals of New Brunswick and Manitoba. She instantly knows that the capital of New Brunswick is Fredericton and she does not know the capital of Manitoba. Akila is using her ____________ memory to retrieve ____________ memories.

A) explicit; declarative
B) implicit; tacit
C) episodic; autobiographical
D) procedural; semantic

Question 23

If someone asks you who ran for student council president, you will answer from your ____________ memory. If someone asks who you voted for, you will answer from your ____________ memory.

A) episodic; semantic
B) semantic; episodic
C) procedural; explicit
D) explicit; procedural

Question 24

People have better memories for events that involve negative emotions. According to evolutionary theory, this suggests that negative emotions:

A) make information easier to rehearse
B) emphasize information important to survival
C) increase consolidation of information
D) act as mnemonics for information

Question 25

Even though he has already memorized his notes, Hao reviews them every night for the two weeks before the exam. This strategy is likely to ____________ his performance due to ____________.

A) hurt; massed practice
B) hurt; distributed practice
C) help; massed practice
D) help; distributed practice

Question 26

The best argument that long-term memory and short-term memory are separate entities is that:

A) brain damage can leave one but not the other memory intact
B) recent events are remembered better than most past events
C) recalling past events, but not recent events, requires retrieval cues
D) the recency effect, but not the primacy effect, can be disrupted

Question 27

Which of the following memories are most permanent?

A) sensory memory
B) short-term memory
C) working memory
D) long-term memory

Question 28

One of the best ways to remember factual information is to relate it to something personal. In this way, you are taking advantage of your ____________ memory to aid retrieval from your ____________ memory.

A) implicit; explicit
B) semantic; episodic
C) episodic; semantic
D) explicit; implicit

Question 29

Colt is an excellent quarterback. One skill that contributes to his ability is that he sees the players not just as individuals, but as units that can be called on to make different plays. This skill enables him to process the game more efficiently and to hold more information about the game in his short-term memory. Colt is using the memory strategy of:

A) visualization
B) imaging
C) chunking
D) linking

Question 30

If you can remember exactly what you did yesterday but have trouble remembering the names of the 13 provinces, then you have excellent ____________ memory but somewhat poor ____________ memory.

A) episodic; semantic
B) semantic; episodic
C) procedural; explicit
D) explicit; procedural

Question 31

According to evolutionary theory, the brain is selective about the information that gets stored in long-term memory because:

A) only a limited amount of space is available in long-term memory
B) information that aids in reproduction and survival is emphasized
C) increased selectivity is associated with greater intelligence
D) selectivity improves the organization of information in long-term memory

Question 32

In a serial position curve, words that are not part of either the primacy or recency effect may be:

A) forgotten
B) only partially learned
C) stored but not consolidated
D) unprocessed

Question 33

A friend gives you her new address over the phone, and you realize that you do not have a pen to write it down. Approximately how much time do you have to find a pen before her address will vanish from your short-term memory?

A) several seconds
B) several minutes
C) less than .5 second
D) less than 1 second

Question 34

Shamithia is participating in a short-term memory experiment. She has been given a list of words and is asked to recall them after several minutes. One of the words on the list is CAT. Shamithia is most likely to incorrectly recall this word as:

A) RAT
B) CAN
C) KITTY
D) CUT

Question 35

The best way to learn another language is to live in the country where it is spoken for at least a year. From the perspective of human memory, one reason for this might be that the language is:

A) learned through massed practice
B) learned through spaced practice
C) used enough to become overlearned
D) used enough to become automatic

Question 36

Professor Smith is doing research on fish. He refuses to learn his students' names because he believes that the names take up space in his long-term memory that could be better used for fish information. He is incorrect because:

A) different types of information, such as facts about fish and names of people, are stored in different parts of memory
B) the students' names would have been stored in short-term memory
C) long-term memory can hold essentially unlimited amounts of information
D) the students' names that are preserved in long-term memory could be replaced later with different information

Question 37

If you are imagining how you might rearrange your room to have more space, you are using:

A) the visuospatial sketchpad
B) episodic memory
C) iconic memory
D) procedural memory

Question 38

An older view of human memory argued that all memories were essentially of the same type. Newer views disagree, arguing that memories involve different:

A) strengths
B) types of neurons
C) interacting systems
D) independent processes

Question 39

While you are at the movies, the person sitting next to you coughs so loudly that you cannot hear part of an actor's line. However, your perception is that you have heard the entire sentence, including the part masked by the cough. This is possible because of:

A) auditory encoding
B) the phonological loop
C) echoic memory
D) auditory rehearsal

Question 40

Students frequently learn the Big Five personality model by using the word OCEAN, where each letter of the word corresponds to the first letter of one of the factors (openness, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness, neuroticism). These students are using:

A) hierarchies
B) linkage
C) chunking
D) primitive features

Question 41

People find it very easy to put on a button-down shirt, but much harder to list the steps involved in putting on that shirt. This suggests that ____________ memory is more useful in getting dressed than ____________ memory.

A) declarative; procedural
B) procedural; declarative
C) episodic; semantic
D) semantic; episodic

Question 42

How does prospective memory limit the cognitive resources available for other tasks?

A) It reduces the available capacity of working memory.
B) It interferes with retrieval from long-term memory.
C) It causes confusion in encoding items in short-term memory.
D) It disrupts information in sensory memory.

Question 43

If a retrieval cue is present in the environment, then a(n) ____________ process is used to recall a prospective memory. If a retrieval cue is not present then a(n) ____________ process is used to recall the prospective memory.

A) automatic; automatic
B) controlled; controlled
C) controlled; automatic
D) automatic; controlled

Question 44

Attitude formation falls under which memory category?

A) implicit
B) explicit
C) semantic
D) episodic

Question 45

Geoff is trying to remember his shopping list by repeating the items over and over again to himself. He is using:

A) maintenance rehearsal
B) acoustic rehearsal
C) elaborative rehearsal
D) linkage rehearsal

Question 46

According to levels of processing theory, more-deeply encoded information is remembered better than less-deeply encoded information because:

A) it has greater rehearsal
B) it is stored longer in short-term memory
C) it is more meaningful
D) it is entered into long-term memory more logically

Question 47

In a memory experiment, participants in Group A are asked to just listen to a list of words. Group B is asked to count the number of words that begin with the lettere. Group C is asked to repeat each word as they hear it. Group D is asked to use each word in a sentence. According to Craik and Watson's levels of processing theory, which group would later remember more of the words on the list?

A) Group A
B) Group B
C) Group C
D) Group D

Question 48

Amanda is shown the word doctor at the beginning of her psychology class. When she is asked to fill in the blank "nur____________" after class, she chooses the word nurse. This result is best explained by:

A) encoding failure
B) repetition priming
C) overlearning
D) retrieval failure

Question 49

Consider the many ways in which you could organize the books in your library. You could sort them into groups with the same colour cover. You could alphabetize them by the authors' last names or by the titles of the books. You could also sort them into groups with common themes. Which of these ways of organizing your library would be most like the way in which memories are organized in long-term memory?

A) alphabetize by title
B) group by common theme
C) alphabetize by authors' names
D) group by common colour

Question 50

On the bus last week, Kyohei heard two women talking about someone named Enisa for the entire 30 minutes of the trip. Today, the woman sitting next to Kyohei in class told her friend that Enisa was coming. Kyohei assumed that Enisa was someone famous and wondered why she did not know her. Kyohei is experiencing:

A) the misinformation effect
B) the repetition priming effect
C) the false fame effect
D) the source attribution effect

Question 51

Yu-sheng, Jocelyn, and Juan are in three different introductory anthropology classes. Yu-sheng's class takes a multiple-choice midterm. Jocelyn's class takes a short-answer midterm. Juan's class takes an essay midterm. Which student(s) takes the midterm that requires the greatest depth of processing?

A) Yu-sheng
B) Jocelyn
C) Juan
D) Jocelyn and Juan

Question 52

According to the repetition priming effect, if you are shown the word apple at the beginning of your psychology class and then asked to fill in the blank "app____________" at the end of class, you will be most likely to choose the word:

A) appall
B) apply
C) append
D) apple

Question 53

When Rhuju walks past the chemistry building she remembers that she has a lab report due the next day. The chemistry building served as a ____________ that ____________ triggered her prospective memory.

A) priming stimulus; automatically
B) priming stimulus; consciously
C) retrieval cue; automatically
D) retrieval cue; consciously

Question 54

Many movies involve product placement; for example, the main actor may only drink cans of Dr. Pepper. Companies pay for product placement because they assume that it increases the likelihood that audience members will later buy the product. If this actually happens, it is likely due to existence of the item in:

A) explicit memory
B) semantic memory
C) implicit memory
D) procedural memory

Question 55

At the neurological level, deep encoding differs from shallow encoding because deep encoding involves:

A) higher brain centres
B) greater use of the frontal lobes
C) greater use of the temporal lobe
D) activation of more brain regions

Question 56

Which of the following is an example of prospective memory?

A) learning history dates for your test tomorrow
B) daydreaming about your date next Friday night
C) planning to stop for a library book on your way home
D) deciding which of several things you will do this weekend

Question 57

Shushant makes up a rhyme to remember what she needs to buy at the grocery store. Shushant is trying to remember her list by using:

A) maintenance rehearsal
B) acoustic rehearsal
C) elaborative rehearsal
D) linkage rehearsal

Question 58

Sophia is participating in an fMRI study where she is asked to listen to a series of words. The fMRI will show the greatest brain activity when she hears words that are:

A) more personally relevant
B) more acoustically different
C) more abstract and complex
D) more easily visualized

Question 59

Understanding how to serve a ball in tennis involves ____________ memory, but actually serving the ball involves ____________ memory.

A) declarative; procedural
B) episodic; procedural
C) procedural; declarative
D) procedural; episodic

Question 60

Ivaylo goes skiing after many years away from the sport. What kind of memory makes it possible for him to get back on the slopes without taking new skiing lessons?

A) declarative memory
B) episodic memory
C) explicit memory
D) procedural memory

Question 61

Sergio tells Monica that his roommate goes to a lot of parties. After this conversation, Monica tells Genevra that Sergio's roommate drinks a great deal. Monica believes this about Sergio's roommate because:

A) she used her schema of a party person
B) she did not remember what Sergio had told her
C) she is biased against people who like to party
D) her elaboration made the story more interesting

Question 62

The memory enhancement that occurs when the situations during encoding and recall match is called ____________ memory; the memory enhancement that occurs when the internal states during encoding and recall match is called ____________ memory.

A) context dependent; state dependent
B) semantic; episodic
C) episodic; semantic
D) state dependent; context dependent

Question 63

After Itohan was in a serious car accident, she could remember everything that had happened to her before the accident but could not form any new memories. Itohan most likely has damage to her ____________, causing her to have ____________ amnesia.

A) hippocampus; anterograde
B) hippocampus; retrograde
C) amygdala; anterograde
D) amygdala; retrograde

Question 64

Research has shown that memories can be distorted because of beliefs that people already hold when the memory is formed. These earlier beliefs are part of cognitive:

A) nodes
B) schemas
C) biases
D) frames

Question 65

Karl can remember very little about his grandmother who died when he was three. Karl has no conscious memories of this, but his grandmother used to cook wonderful food from her native Poland. One day, Karl walks by a Polish restaurant and is flooded with memories of his grandmother. The food served as a ____________ for Karl's memories of his grandmother.

A) mnemonic
B) mental image
C) frame
D) retrieval cue

Question 66

Students taking an introductory class in a subject that is completely new to them often find that the material seems very disorganized and confusing at the beginning. As the class progresses the information seems to become better structured and the students find it easier to integrate and interpret new material. One important reason for this happy change is that the students are developing ____________ that allow them to make sense of, organize, and utilize information in memory.

A) prototypes
B) schemas
C) frames
D) feature lists

Question 67

Your friend James asks you to entertain his younger sister when she comes to visit him at school. He tells you that his sister is great fun but quite shy. As a result, you decide to take his sister to a concert rather than to a big party. In making this decision you used:

A) your episodic memory of things you had enjoyed in high school
B) your semantic memory of things to do on campus
C) your schemas in memory of people who are shy
D) your autobiographical memories of visiting your older brother

Question 68

If a baseball hit you right between the eyes and damaged the brain area behind that part of the skull, you would have damaged the area important for:

A) declarative memories
B) implicit memories
C) procedural memories
D) working memories

Question 69

The false assumption that memory is distributed equally throughout the brain is called:

A) concurrent storage
B) equity of distribution
C) connectivity
D) equipotentiality

Question 70

Lashley's idea that memory is distributed equally throughout the brain is contradicted by the idea of:

A) equipotentiality
B) consolidation
C) fire together wire together
D) concurrent storage

Question 71

Consider a psychology experiment where someone is asked to say, as rapidly as possible, whether a sentence appearing on a computer screen is true or false. Research has shown that people will be faster to say that it is true that a sandal is a shoe than to say that it is true that a sandal is a piece of clothing. Which model of human memory could easily account for this finding?

A) levels of processing model
B) modal memory model
C) prototype model
D) spreading activation model

Question 72

According to the network of association theory, what words would come to mind when you hear the trigger word red?

A) rose; fire engine
B) flower; vehicle
C) cherry; police car
D) pansy; toy wagon

Question 73

The amygdala and hippocampus are located in which part of the brain?

A) the posterior parietal lobes
B) the medial temporal lobes
C) the left frontal lobe
D) the right temporal lobe

Question 74

If you study in the same room in which you take an exam you will probably do better on the exam than if you had studied somewhere else. This outcome occurs because of ____________ memory, which is a form of ____________.

A) context dependent; hierarchical storage
B) state dependent; hierarchical storage
C) context dependent; encoding specificity
D) state dependent; encoding specificity

Question 75

A psychologist who agreed with associative network theories would suggest that the best way to set up a computer hard drive to mimic human memory would be to organize the information into:

A) alphabetically tagged files
B) nested files
C) temporally flagged files
D) hierarchical files

Question 76

Jed walks by a billboard advertising hamburgers on his way to get an afternoon snack. He had intended to get an ice cream cone, but instead orders French fries. According to the spreading activation model, the hamburger made Jed want French fries because:

A) hamburgers and French fries are part of the prospective memory
B) hamburgers activated the nodes for French fries
C) hamburgers were encoded with French fries
D) hamburgers and French fries are part of the same procedural memory

Question 77

The encoding specificity principle states that:

A) only similar kinds of information can be encoded together
B) anything encoded with information can be a retrieval cue for that information
C) similar kinds of information are encoded into common schemas
D) associative networks are formed of similarly encoded pieces of information

Question 78

Samantha has just broken up with her boyfriend and is feeling very sad. She resolves to change her mood by thinking about happy things but finds that she just keeps remembering other sad things. Samantha's experience can best be explained in terms of:

A) context dependent memory
B) cognitive schemas
C) depth of processing
D) state dependent memory

Question 79

It is much easier to recognize someone's face than it is to recall that person's name because retrieval cues:

A) make recognition easier than recall
B) make recall easier than recognition
C) work for recognition but not recall
D) work for recall but not recognition

Question 80

According to associative network theories, a concept in memory is localized in a:

A) node for the memory
B) set of linked nodes
C) list of critical features
D) list of hierarchical features