COGNITIVE PSYCH FINAL EXAM Flashcards

When Sam listens to his girlfriend Susan in the restaurant and ignores other people's conversations, he is engaged in the process of _______ attention

a. low load

b. divided

c. cocktail party

d. selective

The cocktail party effect is

a. the ability to pay attention to one message and ignore others, yet hear distinctive features of the unattended messages.

b. the inability to pay attention to one message in the presence of competing messages.

c. the diminished awareness of information in a crowd.

d. the equal division of attention between competing messages.

Broadbent's "filter model" proposes that the filter identifies the attended message based on

a. meaning.

b. modality.

c. physical characteristics.

d. higher order characteristics.

In Broadbent's filter model, the stages of information processing occur in which order?

a. Detector, filter, sensory store, memory

b. Sensory store, filter, detector, memory

c. Filter, detector, sensory store, memory

d. Detector, sensory store, filter, memory

Broadbent's model is called an early selection model because

a. the filtering step occurs before the meaning of the incoming information is analyzed.

b. the filtering step occurs before the information enters the sensory store.

c. only a select set of environmental information enters the system.

d. incoming information is selected by the detector.

The main difference between early and late selection models of attention is that in late selection models, selection of stimuli for final processing doesn't occur until the information is analyzed for

a. modality.

b. meaning.

c. physical characteristics.

d. location.

Suppose you are in your kitchen writing a grocery list, while your roommate is watching TV in the next room. A commercial for spaghetti sauce comes on TV. Although you are not paying attention to the TV, you "suddenly" remember that you need to pick up spaghetti sauce and add it to the list. Your behavior is best predicted by which of the following models of attention?

a. Object-based

b. Early selection

c. Spotlight

d. Late selection

In support of late selection models, Donald MacKay showed that the presentation of a biasing word on the unattended ear influenced participants' processing of ______ when they were _______ of that word

a. letter pairs; aware

b. letter pairs; unaware

c. ambiguous sentences; aware

d. ambiguous sentences; unaware

Which of the following is most closely associated with Treisman's attenuation theory of selective attention?

a. Late selection

b. Stroop experiments

c. Precueing

d. Dictionary unit

According to Treisman's "attenuation model," which of the following would you expect to have the highest threshold for most people?

a. The word "house"

b. Their spouse's first name

c. The word "fire"

d. The word "platypus"

A high threshold in Treisman's model of attention implies that

a. weak signals can cause activation.

b. it takes a strong signal to cause activation.

c. all signals cause activation.

d. no signals cause activation.

Experiments that support the idea of early selection involve

a. simple tasks.

b. high-load tasks.

c. low-load tasks.

d. extended practice.

Which of the following everyday scenarios is most likely to support what the early selection approach would say about how attention will affect the performance of the two tasks involved?

a. Driving home while thinking about a problem at work

b. Reading a novel while walking on a treadmill

c. Humming a familiar song while washing dishes

d. Conversing on the phone while doing a crossword puzzle

The ability to pay attention to, or carry out, two or more different tasks simultaneously is known as

a. divided attention.

b. dual attention.

c. divergent tasking.

d. selective attention.

The Stroop effect demonstrates

a. how automatic processing can interfere with intended processing.

b. a failure of divided attention.

c. the ease of performing a low-load task.

d. support for object-based attention.

With the Stroop effect, you would expect to find longest response times when

a. the color and the name matched.

b. the color and the name differed.

c. the shape and the name matched.

d. the shape and the name differed.

The Stroop effect occurs when participants

a. are told to divide their attention between colors and shapes.

b. try to name colors and ignore words.

c. try to select some incoming information based on meaning.

d. are told to shadow two messages simultaneously.

Research on the use of cell phones while driving indicates that

a. the negative effect can be decreased by using "hands-free" units.

b. the problem with cell phones is that attention is distracted from the task of driving by
the need to hold the phone and drive with one hand.

c. the main effect of cell phone use on driving safety can be attributed to the fact that attention is used up by the cognitive task of talking on the phone.

d. both a and b are correct

In Simons and Chabris's "change blindness" experiment, participants watch a film of people playing basketball. Many participants failed to report that that a woman carrying an umbrella walked through because the

a. woman with the umbrella was in motion, just like the players.

b. the umbrella was the same color as the floor.

c. participants were counting the number of ball passes.

d. participants were not asked if they saw anything unusual.

Lan has no idea what she just read in her text because she was thinking about how hungry she is and what she is going to have for dinner. This is a real-world example of

a. the late-selection model of attention.

b. an object-based attentional failure.

c. inattentional blindness.

d. the cocktail party phenomenon

The inability to assimilate or retain new knowledge is known as

a. anterograde amnesia.
b. retrograde amnesia.
c. the primacy effect.
d. the serial effect.

Loss of memory for things that have happened in the past is known as

a. anterograde amnesia.
b. retrograde amnesia.
c. the primacy effect.
d. the serial effect.

The dramatic case of patient H.M. clearly illustrates that ____ is crucial for the formation of LTMs.

a. the hippocampus
b. synaptic consolidation
c. vitamin B1
d. deep processing

Your book discusses the memory functioning of patient H.M. who underwent brain surgery to relieve severe epileptic seizures. H.M.'s case has been extremely informative to psychologists by demonstrating that

a. LTM can operate normally while STM is impaired.
b. impairment of one memory system (LTM or STM) necessarily leads to deficits in the functioning of the other.
c. a double dissociation exists for STM and LTM.
d. STM can operate normally while LTM is impaired.

Which of the following is NOT a conclusion from the case of H.M., who had an operation to help alleviate his epileptic seizures?

a. The hippocampus is necessary for forming new LTMs.
b. Working memory does not rely on the hippocampus.
c. LTMs can still be present after the hippocampus is removed.
d. LTMs are stored in the hippocampus.

Which of the following is NOT an example of an implicit memory?

a. Classical conditioning
b. Priming
c. Procedural memory
d. Semantic memory

One of the defining properties of the experience of episodic memory is that

a. it involves mental time travel.
b. it always corresponds to events from our past that actually happened.
c. it accesses knowledge about the world that does not have to be tied to any specific personal experience.
d. it involves all of these.

The defining characteristic of implicit memory is that

a. it always leads to episodic memory for events.
b. it is enhanced by the self-reference effect.
c. we are not conscious we are using it.
d. people use it strategically to enhance memory for events.

Which task below would most likely be used to test for implicit memory?

a. Recognizing words that had been presented in an earlier list
b. Recalling the names of popular fairy tales
c. Matching Spanish vocabulary words with their English translations
d. Completing a word for which the first and last letter have been supplied

The propaganda effect demonstrates that we evaluate familiar statements as being true

a. only when we are aware we've seen them before.
b. simply because we have been exposed to them before.
c. only when we agree with them.
d. unless we are told explicitly that the statements are false.

Why is classical conditioning considered a form of implicit memory?

a. Because you have to make an effort to learn the association between the neutral and conditioned stimulus.
b. Because it is based on motor skills like procedural memory is.
c. Because it is involves learning an association without being aware of the reasons behind it.
d. Because it usually involves memory for the episode in which it occurred.

Acquiring information and transforming it into memory is

a. state-dependent learning.
b. encoding.
c. memory consolidation.
d. transfer-appropriate processing.

Elaborative rehearsal of a word will LEAST likely be accomplished by

a. repeating it over and over.
b. linking the new word to a previously learned concept.
c. using it in a sentence.
d. thinking of its synonyms and antonyms.

How would you describe the relationship between elaborative rehearsal and maintenance rehearsal in terms of establishing long-term memories?

a. Elaborative is more effective than maintenance.
b. Maintenance is more effective than elaborative.
c. Both are equally effective in all learning circumstances.
d. Each one is sometimes more effective, depending on the learning circumstances.

Elementary school students in the U.S. are often taught to use the very familiar word "HOMES" as a cue for remembering the names of the Great Lakes (each letter in "HOMES" provides a first-letter cue for one of the lakes: Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie, Superior). This memory procedure usually works better than repeating the names over and over, which provides an example of

a. a self-reference effect.
b. repetition priming.
c. implicit memory.
d. elaborative rehearsal.

According to the levels of processing theory, memory durability depends on how information is

a. encoded.
b. stored.
c. retrieved.
d. all of the above

According to the levels of processing theory, which of the following tasks will produce the best long-term memory for a set of words?

a. Making a connection between each word and something you've previously learned
b. Deciding how many vowels each word has
c. Generating a rhyming word for each word to be remembered
d. Repeating the words over and over in your mind

Which statement below is most closely associated with levels of processing theory?

a. Information enters memory by passing through a number of levels, beginning with sensory memory, then short-term memory, then long-term memory.
b. Events that are repeated enough can influence our behavior, even after we have forgotten the original events.
c. Deep processing takes longer than shallow processing and results in better processing.
d. People who were sad when they studied did better when they were sad during testing.

Shallow processing of a word is encouraged when attention is focused on

a. the number of vowels in a word.
b. the meaning of a word.
c. the pleasantness of a word.
d. the category of a word.

Which of the following learning techniques is LEAST likely to lead to deep processing of the information?

a. Trevor is trying to understand how to use statistics by drawing associations between a set of data describing how adolescents respond to peer pressure and the theories he learned last semes-ter in developmental psychology.
b. Maggie is trying to learn new vocabulary words because she is taking the SAT next month. Each day, she selects one word. Throughout the day, she repeats the definition over and over to herself and generates sentences using it in her conversations that day.
c. Bree has just bought a new car and is trying to learn her new license plate sequence. Every morning, for three weeks, she repeats the sequence out loud when she wakes up.
d. For his history course, Bruce is trying to learn the order of the U.S. presidents by creating a silly sentence where each consecutive word starts with the same letter of the next president to be remembered.

According to your text, imagery enhances memory because

a. research shows people like pictures better than words, so there is an enhanced emotional response.
b. the brain processes images more easily than the meanings of words.
c. imagery can be used to create connections between items to be remembered.
d. pictures fit better with our basic instincts because children learn pictures before reading words.

Jeannie loves to dance, having taken ballet for many years. She is now learning salsa dancing. Although the movements are very different from the dances she is familiar with, she has found a successful memory strategy of linking the new dance information to her previous experiences as a dancer and to her own affection for dance. This strategy suggests reliance on

a. the self-reference effect.
b. a mass practice effect.
c. the integrative experience effect.
d. semantic memory.

People often report an annoying memory failure when they walk from one end of the house to the other for something and then forgetting what they went to retrieve when they reach their destination. As soon as they return to the first room, they are reminded of what they wanted in the first place. This common experience best illustrates the principle of

a. the self-reference effect.
b. maintenance rehearsal.
c. levels of processing theory.
d. encoding specificity

The principle that we learn information together with its context is known as

a. memory consolidation.
b. repetition priming.
c. encoding specificity.
d. a self-reference effect.

Which example below best demonstrates state-dependent learning?

a. Last night, at the grocery store, Cole ran into a psychology professor he took a class with three semesters ago. He recognized her right away.
b. Even though Walt hasn't been to the beach cottage his parents owned since he was a child, he still has many fond memories of time spent there as a family.
c. Although Emily doesn't very often think about her first love, Steve, she can't help getting caught up in happy memories when "their song" (the first song they danced to) plays on the radio.
d. Alexis always suffers test anxiety in her classes. To combat this, she tries to relax when she studies. She thinks it's best to study while lying in bed, reading by candlelight with soft music playing.

According to levels of processing theory, deep processing results in better memory. However, studies have shown that shallow processing can result in better memory when the individual encodes _____ and is tested _____.

a. semantically; auditorially
b. auditorially; auditorially
c. auditorially; semantically
d. semantically; visually

Your book explains that brief episodes of retrograde amnesia (e.g., the traumatic disruption of newly formed memories when a football player takes a hit to the head and can't recall the last play before the hit) reflect

a. a failure of memory consolidation.
b. disrupted long-term potentiation.
c. temporary post-traumatic stress disorder.
d. Korsakoff's syndrome.

Graded amnesia occurs because

a. remote memories are more fragile than recent memories.
b. recent memories are more fragile than remote memories.
c. emotional memories are more fragile than nonemotional memories.
d. nonemotional memories are more fragile than emotional memories.

____ transforms new memories from a fragile state, in which they can be disrupted, to a more permanent state, in which they are resistant to disruption.

a. Amnesia
b. Encoding specificity
c. Cued-recall
d. Consolidation

____ consolidation involves the gradual reorganization of circuits within brain regions and takes place on a fairly long time scale, lasting weeks, months, or even years.

a. Remote
b. Standard
c. Systems
d. Synaptic

The standard model of consolidation proposes that the hippocampus is

a. strongly active for both new memories as they are being consolidated and memories for events that occurred long ago and are already consolidated.
b. strongly active for long-ago memories that are already consolidated but becomes less active when memories are first formed and being consolidated.
c. strongly active when memories are first formed and being consolidated but becomes less active when retrieving older memories that are already consolidated.
d. uninvolved in memory consolidation.

Lourdes and Kim have been studying for two hours for their chemistry exam. Both girls are tired of studying. Lourdes decides to watch a two-hour movie on DVD, while Kim decides to go to bed. What would you predict about their performance on the chemistry exam?

a. Lourdes performs better because of reactivation.
b. Kim performs better because of reactivation.
c. Lourdes performs better because of encoding specificity.
d. Kim performs better because of encoding specificity.

Treatment of PTSD has benefitted from recent research on

a. levels of processing.
b. depth of processing.
c. transfer-appropriate processing.
d. reconsolidation.

Autobiographical memory research shows that a person's brain is more extensively activated when viewing photos

a. the person has seen before.
b. of familiar places.
c. they took themselves.
d. the person has never seen before.

For most adults over age 40, the reminiscence bump describes enhanced memory for

a. childhood and adolescence.
b. adolescence and early adulthood.
c. early adulthood and middle age.
d. childhood and middle age.

Flashbulb memory is best represented by which of the following statements?

a. It is vivid memory for emotional events.
b. It is vivid, highly accurate memory for the circumstances surrounding how a person heard about an emotional event.
c. It is memory for the circumstances surrounding how a person heard about an emotional event that remains especially vivid but not necessarily accurate over time.
d. It is vivid, highly accurate memory for emotional events.

A lesson to be learned from the research on flashbulb memories is that

a. rehearsal cannot account for them.
b. people's confidence in a memory predicts its accuracy (high confidence = high accuracy).
c. extreme vividness of a memory does not mean it is accurate.
d. they are permanent and resist forgetting.

Experiments that argue against a special flashbulb memory mechanism find that as time increases since the occurrence of the flashbulb event, participants

a. remember more details about the event.
b. make more errors in their recollections.
c. report less confidence about their recollections.
d. report less vivid recollections of the event.

Your text describes two experiments that measured people's memory for what they were doing when they heard about the terrorist attack on 9/11. Results of these experiments show that participants

a. believed that their memories for the attack remained accurate over a 52-week period.
b. displayed memory for this flashbulb event that declined with time.
c. reported less vivid memories of 9/11 as time passed.
d. both believed their memories for the attack were accurate over a 52-week period and displayed memory for the flashbulb event that declined with time.

According to the _____ approach to memory, what people report as memories is based on what actually happened plus additional factors such as other knowledge, experiences, and expectations.

a. event-specific
b. source
c. constructive
d. misinformation

Wei has allergy symptoms. He has gone to his regular doctor and an allergy specialist, but he wasn't given a prescription by either doctor. Instead, he was advised to buy any over-the-counter medicine. While he was in the specialist's waiting area, he read a magazine where he saw three ads for an allergy medicine called SneezeLess. A week later, in a drug store, Wei says to his brother, "My doctor says SneezeLess works great. I'll buy that one." Wei and his doctor never discussed SneezeLess. Wei has fallen victim to which of the following errors?

a. MPI
b. Recovered memory
c. Schema confusion
d. Source monitoring

____ occurs when reading a sentence leads a person to expect something that is not explicitly stated or necessarily implied by the sentence.

a. Observer perspective
b. Pragmatic inference
c. Prospective memory
d. Automatic narrative

Your friend has been sick for several days, so you go over to her home to make her some chicken soup. Searching for a spoon, you first reach in a top drawer beside the dishwasher. Then, you turn to the big cupboard beside the stove to search for a pan. In your search, you have relied on a kitchen

a. source memory.
b. episodic memory.
c. schema.
d. scan technique.

In the experiment in which participants sat in an office and then were asked to remember what they saw in the office, participants "remembered" some things, like books, that weren't actually there. This experiment illustrates the effect of _____ on memory.

a. schemas
b. scripts
c. confabulation
d. bias

A script is a type of schema that also includes knowledge of

a. a sequence of actions.
b. what is involved in a particular experience.
c. information stored in both semantic and episodic memory.
d. items appropriate to a particular setting.

Jackie went to the grocery store to pick up yogurt, bread, and apples. First, she picked up a hand basket for carrying her groceries, and then she searched the store. After finding what she needed, she stood in a check-out line. Then, the cashier put her items in a plastic bag, and soon after, Jackie left the store. As readers of this event, we understand that Jackie paid for the groceries, even though it wasn't mentioned, because we are relying on a grocery store _____ that is stored in _______ long-term memory.

a. narrative; semantic
b. script; semantic
c. narrative; episodic
d. script; episodic

Your text's discussion of false memories leads to the conclusion that false memories

a. are a natural consequence of a largely adaptive memory system.
b. occur for details but not for entire events.
c. occur in laboratory settings but do not occur in real-world circumstances.
d. do not occur for all people but rather are experienced by suggestible or inattentive people.

The misinformation effect occurs when a person's memory for an event is modified by misleading information presented

a. before the event.
b. during the event.
c. after the event.
d. all of the above

The misinformation effect can be explained by

a. the memory-trace replacement hypothesis.
b. retroactive interference.
c. source monitoring.
d. all of these

___ occurs when more recent learning impairs memory for something that happened further back in the past.

a. Reminiscent memory
b. Pragmatic inference
c. Feature integration
d. Retroactive interference

Kieran found that studying for his Spanish exam made it more difficult to remember some of the vocabulary words he had just studied for his French exam earlier in the day. This is an example of

a. retroactive interference.
b. a life-narrative confusion.
c. memory-trace replacement.
d. a simultaneous presentation effect.

Research on eyewitness testimony has shown that the more confident the person giving the testimony is of their memories,

a. the more accurate the memories are.
b. the more convincing the testimony is to a jury.
c. the more likely they are to be influenced by a weapons focus.
d. the more accurate the memories are and the more convincing the testimony is to a jury.

Which statement below is NOT true, based on the results of memory research?

a. Suggestion can create false memories for events that occurred when a person was a young child.
b. Suggestion can create false memories for an event that a person has experienced just recently.
c. Although eyewitness testimony is often faulty, people who have just viewed a videotape of a crime are quite accurate at picking the "perpetrator" from a lineup.
d. Many miscarriages of justice have occurred based on faulty eyewitness testimony.

Research on eyewitness testimony reveals that

a. highly confident eyewitnesses are usually accurate.
b. it is unnecessary to warn an eyewitness that a suspect may or may not be in a lineup.
c. when viewing a lineup, an eyewitness's confidence in her choice of the suspect can be increased by an authority's confirmation of her choice, even when the choice is wrong.
d. all of the above

Which of the following statements is true of police lineups?

a. A sequential lineup increases the chance that the witness compares people in the lineup to each other.
b. A simultaneous lineup decreases the chance of falsely identifying an innocent person as the perpetrator.
c. A sequential lineup increases the chance that the witness will make a relative judgment about all the suspects they saw.
d. A sequential lineup increases the chance that the witness compares each person in the lineup to his or her memory of the event.

A(n) ____ is a mental representation used for a variety of cognitive functions, including memory, reasoning, and using and understanding language.

a. exemplar
b. concept
c. unit
d. prototype

Not all of the members of everyday categories have the same features. Most fish have gills, fins, and scales. Sharks lack the feature of scales, yet they are still categorized as fish. This poses a problem for the _______ approach to categorization.

a. prototype
b. exemplar
c. definitional
d. family resemblance

The definitional approach to categorization

a. is not well suited for geometrical objects but works for familiar everyday objects.
b. sets definite criteria called family resemblances that all category members must have.
c. doesn't work well for most natural objects like birds, trees, and plants.
d. was proposed to replace the prototype approach.

The principle illustrated when most people are able to recognize a variety of examples of chairs even though no one category member may have all of the characteristic properties of "chairs" (e.g., most chairs have four legs but not all do) is

a. family resemblance.
b. prototypicality.
c. graded membership.
d. instance theory.

_____ is an average representation of a category.

a. A prototype
b. An exemplar
c. A unit
d. A component