Download Midterm Exam 2 ** Form B **

File = E:\p355\mid2b.a-key.p355.spr16.docm
John Miyamoto (email: [email protected])
Psych 355: Introduction to Cognitive Psychology
Course website: https://faculty.washington.edu/jmiyamot/p355/p355-set.htm
Midterm Exam 2 ** Form B
1
Spring 2016
∘⋅
**
Midterm 2 started late (about 10:36) because of a printing problem. The instructor (Miyamoto)
decided to omit three questions from the exam to reduce the time it would take to finish the
exam. The omitted questions are 3, 18 and 31.
1.
Suppose that as you enter the bank, you happen to meet a good friend who is leaving the bank. You
have a 5 minute conversation about some interesting gossip. When your conversation ends, you
enter the bank. While conducting your business in the bank, your attention is fully engaged by your
banking business - you do not think about your conversation with your friend at all. Nevertheless, as
you leave the bank, you remember the conversation with your friend and you start thinking about it.
In which memory system was the information about your conversation stored while you were
conducting your business in the bank?
a. Most likely, the conversation was rehearsed in the PL while you were doing your business in the
bank.
b. Most likely, the conversation was retained as a mental image in the VSP while you were doing
your business in the bank.
c.  Most likely, the conversation was retained as an episodic memory in LTM while you were
doing your business in the bank.
d. Most likely, the conversation was retained as a semantic memory in LTM while you were doing
your business in the bank.
#
2.
Which of the following best describes the relationship between the theoretical concepts, "short-term
memory" (STM) and "working memory" (WM)?
a) STM precedes WM in the flow of information from stimulus to central processing, i.e., information
is processed first by STM which is then passed along to WM.
b) STM describes the storage component of WM, i.e., information that is briefly stored in STM is
manipulated by components of WM.
c) STM is specialized for retaining stimulus information for brief periods of time; WM is specialized
for retrieving information from long-term memory that is associated with information in STM.
d)  WM is a more recent psychological construct that evolved out of earlier ideas about STM, i.e.,
the theories of WM and STM describe the same memory system except that they differ in the
structure and processes that are attributed to WM and STM, respectively.
#
3. [This question was omitted from the exam.]
Which of the following illustrates the role of sensory memory.
a.  Someone waves a small light in a very dark room. You see a line that traces the motion of the
light.
b. Someone reads to you a social security number, 846-27-2428. You are unable to remember all of
the digits accurately so you have to ask them to repeat it.
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c. As you drive to your family's house on Thanksgiving Day, you remember what a roasted turkey
smells like. Your memory of the good smell makes you hungry.
d. When you are asked what it is like to be in a hurricane, you remember the loud noise made by
violent gusts of wind.
#
4.
How long can information last in STM, assuming that the subject is prevented from rehearsing the
information?
a) Information in STM can last as long as 1 second, after which all information will be lost through
decay or interference.
b)  Information in STM can last as long as 20 seconds, after which all information will be lost
through decay or interference.
c) Information in STM can last as long as 2 - 3 minutes, after which all information will be lost
through decay or interference.
d) Information in STM can last as long as 2 - 3 days, after which all information will be lost through
decay or interference.
#
5.
It is known that memory span is smaller for lists of similar sounding words, e.g., CAT, THATCH,
PACK, TRACK, etc., than for lists of dissimilar sounding words, e.g., CAT, BOOK, SCENE, BASE,
WRIST, etc. This fact is taken as evidence for what aspect of human psychology?
a) It is evidence that short-term memory (STM) has limited capacity.
b) It is evidence that short-term memory (STM) and long-term memory (LTM) are different memory
systems.
c) It is evidence that deeper processing creates more effective retrieval cues.
d)  It is evidence that working memory (WM) has a component for manipulating representations of
verbal sounds (phonological loop or PL).
#
6.
Suppose that subjects are divided randomly into two
Table 1
groups. Each group is asked to study 3 lists of
Group 1
Group 2
words, and recall the words in a list immediately
after studying the list. Group 1 studies 3 lists of
List 1
animal names
plant names
animal names. Group 2 studies 2 lists of plant
List 2
animal names
plant names
names, and 1 list of animal names. Table 1 to the
right shows the order in which these lists were
List 3
animal names animal names
presented to the subjects. The question is, which
group will recall more words from List 3, and why will this happen?
a) Group 1 will recall more words from List 3 because Group 1 practices the memorization of animal
names while learning Lists 1 and 2.
b) Group 1 will recall more words from List 3 because exposure to animal names in Lists 1 and 2 will
prime the semantic network for animal names, thereby facilitating recall of the animal names in
List 3.
c)  Group 2 will recall more words from List 3 because the their recall of animal names will not be
impaired by proactive interference from the prior learning of animal names.
d) Group 2 will recall more words from List 3 because their recall performance will show a recency
effect.
#
7.
Many working memory experiments use articulatory suppression in order to ....
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a.
b.
c.
d.
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prevent semantic priming by semantically related words.
 prevent rehearsal in the phonological loop.
block the representation of information in the visuospatial sketchpad.
prevent retrieval of associated concepts from long-term memory.
#
8.
In the Brown/Peterson task, the subject is given three letters, e.g., FWR, and a number, e.g., 447.
The subject then must count backwards in 3's from the number, e.g., 447, 444, 441, 438, ...... After a
set period of time, the subject is asked to recall the three letters. The purpose of this task is to
measure ....
a)  how long information can be retained in short-term memory without rehearsal.
b) how long information can be retained in short-term memory in everyday situations.
c) the amount of information that can be stored in short-term memory.
d) the amount of information that can be stored in short-term memory when subjects are prevented
from rehearsing the information.
#
9.
Suppose that subjects are asked to remember the words that occur in very long sentences taken from
the newspaper. For example, subjects might hear a recording that speaks the words,
"When the teams in the championship game were first determined, the Bears were
widely regarded as the favorites to win, but the odds changed in favor of the
Pythons when it was announced that the Bears' star center had broken his ankle."
Suppose that the subjects' task is to recall as many words as possible in the order in which they were
spoken. What does the theory of short-term memory predict will be the average number of words
that subjects would remember?
a) 5  2 words
b) 7  2 words
c) 7  3.4 words
d)  The theory of short-term memory does not predict how many words will be remembered
because limits on the capacity of short-term memory are only known for the situation where the
items to be remembered cannot be organized into chunks.
#
The following are a series of true or false statements about the central executive. Which of the
following statements are true according to the standard working memory model?
10. The central executive controls the switching of attention between tasks.
a)  TRUE
b) FALSE
#
11. The central executive maintains an active representations of word sounds, e.g., a list of words that
the subject has been instructed to keep in memory.
a) TRUE
b)  FALSE
#
12. The central executive retains useful information over longer periods of time, e.g., several days or
even several years.
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a) TRUE
b)  FALSE
13. The central executive inhibits associated but inappropriate responses.
a)  TRUE
b) FALSE
#
#
--------- END OF TRUE/FALSE STATEMENTS -------#
14. "Neural mind reading" refers to the ability of psychologists to guess accurately what a person is
thinking about from a neural image, e.g., an fMRI image. Goldstein describes how psychologists
can guess which visual pattern a subject is retaining in visual working memory from an fMRI image
of the subject's visual cortex during the retention interval. The visual image is not physically present
during the retention interval; rather, the subject is retaining a memory of an image in order to decide
whether a new image is rotated clockwise or counterclockwise relative to the previous image. What
conclusion(s) can be drawn from the fact that psychologists are able to guess the image that a subject
was retaining in memory from an fMRI image of their visual cortex that was taken during the
retention interval?
a) VSP and PL are separate components of WM.
b) Memories are malleable at the time that they are retrieved from LTM.
c)  fMRI allows us to see the brain activity that is associated with the retention of a visual image
in spatial working memory.
d) Visual images are transformed into a verbal representation when subjects retain the image in WM.
#
80
60
40
20
Percent Recalled
100
Serial Position Curve
0
15. Figure 1 to the right shows a serial position
curve. What does the height of the curve
represent? Specifically, at serial position 5, the
percent recalled is 29 percent. This means:
a) On the average, 29 percent of the subjects
recall 5 words correctly.
b) On the average, 29 percent of the words in the
list are attributed to the 5th position in the list.
c) On the average, 5 serial positions are recalled
correctly 29 percent of the time.
d)  On the average, the 5th word in a list is
correctly recalled 29 percent of the time.
0
5
10
15
20
Serial Position
Figure 1
#
16. To control his epilepsy, the patient HM had brain surgery that removed his hippocampi
("hippocampi" is the plural of "hippocampus" - there is one hippocampus on each side of the brain).
Although HM suffered a number of different problems with his memory after this surgery, what
aspect of his memory problems was most surprising and scientifically intriguing?
a) HM could not remember his childhood, e.g., he had no memory of important events that happened
to him in his early teenage years.
b) HM lost his memory for places but not for persons, e.g., he could not remember the house where he
lived, but he could remember his family and friends.
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c)  HM lost his ability to form new episodic memories, e.g., even if you had a serious conversation
with him on Monday, then on Tuesday, he would not remember having met you.
d) HM had severe difficulty remembering the names of common objects like "chair" or "pencil."
#
17. What is the standard cognitive psychology explanation for primacy effects in serial position curves?
a) Words that are early in the list are attended to more than words that are later in the list.
b)  Words that are early in the list are more likely to be transferred to long-term memory because
subjects have more time to rehearse them.
c) Words that are early in the list prevent later words from entering short-term memory.
d) Words that are early in the list are more likely to enter the phonological loop.
#
18.
[This question was omitted from the exam.]
Graf et al. (1985) compared three groups of subjects:
AMN:
ALC:
A group of amnesic patients, the majority of whom were alcoholics with
Korsakoff's syndrome
A group of age-matched patients who were alcoholics who were not amnesic.
INPT:
A group of age-matched in-patients at a medical center; they were neither alcoholic
nor amnesic.
After viewing a series of words and rating how likeable each word was, the subjects were randomly
assigned to either a recall test for the words or an implicit memory test (word fragment completion).
What did this study find and why was the result important for cognitive psychology?
a) The amnesic patients (AMN) did just as well as the alcoholic patients (ALC) and the normal inpatients (INPT) on both types of tests, indicating that Korsakoff's syndrome is related to impaired
WM rather than impaired LTM.
b) The amnesic patients (AMN) did much worse than the alcoholic patients (ALC) and the normal inpatients (INPT) on both types of tests. This showed that episodic and implicit memory are severely
impaired in Korsakoff patients.
c)  The amnesic patients (AMN) did much worse than the alcoholic patients (ALC) and the normal
in-patients (INPT) on the recall test, but they did just as well as these two groups on the implicit
memory test. This showed that their episodic memory was severely impaired, but their implicit
memory was still functioning well.
d) The amnesic patients (AMN) did much worse than the alcoholic patients (ALC) and the normal inpatients (INPT) on the implicit memory test, but they did just as well as these two groups on the
recall test. This showed that the pattern completion functions of the hippocampus were impaired,
but not the retrieval functions.
#
19. Which of the following is an example of episodic memory.
a)  Suppose I am in a memory experiment and I am asked to study a list of words. Later I
remember correctly that I saw a particular word, "bottle", on the list of words that I studied.
b) Suppose that I went to many baseball games as a teenager. Today I remember that a pitcher is the
person who throws the ball to the catcher.
c) Suppose that I studied American history in high school. Today I can remember that Abraham
Lincoln was president during the American Civil War.
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d) Suppose I once got sick from eating too much popcorn. Now when I smell popcorn it makes me
feel slightly nauseated.
#
20. The lectures and textbook described the case of an Italian woman who suffered brain damage due to
encephalitis. After her brain injury, she displayed the following symptoms.
"[She] had difficulty recognizing familiar people; she had trouble shopping,
because she couldn't remember the meaning of words on the shopping list ...; and
she could no longer recognize famous people or recall facts such as ... the fact that
Italy was involved in World War II." Nevertheless "[she] could remember what
she had done during the day and things that had happened weeks or months
before."
Which memory systems appear to be most impaired and which are most nearly normal in the case of
this woman?
a) She has difficulty forming long-term memories like HM. She probably has damage to her
hippocampus.
b) Her implicit memory system is functioning normally but her explicit memory system is impaired.
c)  She has severe impairment to her semantic memory, but her episodic memory is functioning
fairly well.
d) She has severe impairment to her episodic memory, but her semantic memory is functioning
fairly well.
#
21. [The following question was not discussed directly in the lecture or textbook, i.e., memorization won't help you answer it,
but it is easy to figure out the answer if you think about what causes the serial position curve to have the shape that is
typically found in memory experiments.]
Suppose a patient has lost the ability to form new episodic memories (like HM or Clive Wearing
who were described in the Goldstein textbook), but assume that this patient continues to have a
functioning WM. What would you predict for this person's serial position curve?
a) the patient's serial position curve should show a primacy effect, but no recency effect.
b)  the patient's serial position curve should show a recency effect, but no primacy effect.
c) the patient's serial position curve should not show either a primacy effect or a recency effect.
d) the patient's serial position curve should be flat - all serial positions should be equally likely to be
recalled.
#
22. Which of the following is an example of procedural memory?
a) Remembering all of the details of a conversation that you had this morning.
b) Remembering the digits that were presented in a Brown/Peterson procedure.
c)  Remembering how to tie your shoelaces.
d) Remembering your current street address.
#
23. Suppose you are trying to study for an exam about flashbulb memories. You make notecards that
contain 6 key facts about flashbulb memories. Which of the following is the MOST EFFECTIVE
way to guarantee that you will remember the 6 key facts at the exam?
a) Spend one hour studying the 6 key facts. You repeat the facts to yourself over and over again until
you are able to recite the facts in exactly the same words on three successive occasions.
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b) Spend one hour studying the 6 key facts. You read the facts over and over while saying "the, the,
the, ...."
c) Spend one hour studying the 6 key facts. With each fact, you try to think of other things that you
know about human memory that are related to these facts.
d)  Spend 30 minutes studying the 6 key facts. With each fact, you try to think of other things that
you know about human memory that are related to these facts. After taking a one-hour break, you
spend another 30 minutes studying the 6 key facts, and generating related facts.
#
24. Which of the following statements best describes the role of the hippocampus in human memory?
Answer this question from the standpoint of the standard model of consolidation, and not from the
standpoint of the multiple trace model of consolidation.
a) The main role of the hippocampus is for transferring information from short-term memory to longterm memory. It does not play a role in the retrieval of long-term memories.
b)  The hippocampus plays a role in transferring information from short-term memory to long-term
memory, and, in addition, it is important for reactivating the brain activity associated with recently
acquired long-term memories ("recently acquired" means during the preceding days and, to a lesser
degree, the preceding months). It does not play a role in the retrieval of distant long term
memories ("distant" means one year or more years in the past).
c) The hippocampus plays a role in transferring information from short-term memory to long-term
memory, and, in addition, it is important for reactivating the brain activity associated with longterm memories, whether or not these long-term memories were recently acquired or more distant,
e.g., many years in the past.
d) None of the above is correct.
#
25. Mantyla studied the effects of different kinds of retrieval cues on memory. Some subjects had to
propose retrieval cues for a test item, e.g., when presented with the word "banana," a subject might
propose the retrieval cues, "yellow," "bunches," "edible." Other subjects were given cues that
someone else had produced. What kind of cues did Mantyla find were the most effective for
producing accurate memories in a subsequent cued recall task?
a) The most effective cues were cues that had previously been proposed by subjects who performed
well on the cued recall task.
b) The most effective cues were created by a memory expert who selected high semantic associates
of the test items.
c) The most effective cues were words that rhymed with the test word, e.g., "cabana" is a cue for
"banana."
d)  The most effective cues were generated by the person whose memory was later tested.
#
26. Suppose that you need to learn how to perform first aid under difficult circumstances, e.g., in a noisy
confusing environment when many people are screaming and crying around you. Which of the
following describes a learning strategy that is based on the encoding specificity principle?
a) Practice performing the first-aid procedures in an environment that is free from distractions.
b) Read stories that describe how others have performed first aid successfully under the difficult
circumstances described above.
c)  Practice performing the first aid procedures under the difficult circumstances described above.
d) Create a mental image of each step that must be performed in the first aid procedure.
#
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27. Which of the following explains why spaced practice produces better recall than massed practice?
* ("Spaced practice" is also called "distributed practice"; I assume that we have controlled for the total amount of
time in the spaced or massed practice of the material.)
a) With spaced practice, the studied material is forgotten more between study sessions than with
massed practice. Therefore with spaced practice, the subject is forced to learn to make a more
difficult retrieval from memory, and this is helpful later when the subject is tested.
b) With massed practice, all of the studied material tends to remain more fresh in the mind of the
subject during the period of study. Consequently, the subject has a harder time discriminating what
she has learned well from what she has not learned well. This causes her to fail to allocate more
study to the material that is not well learned.
c) With massed practice, the subject tends to repeat the same mental associations to the studied
material. This happens because the associations that are initially generated tend to remain active so
they are easily reactivated during the massed study session. With spaced practice, the initial
associations tend to fall to a lower level of activation between sessions. This increases the chance
that the subject will generate new associations to the studied material. In the long run, the greater
variety of associations increases the chance that the studied material will be recalled at time of test.
d)  All of the above are true.
#
28. It is often the case that people who suffer concussions cannot remember events that happened just
prior to their concussions, e.g., 15 minutes before the concussion. This is regarded as evidence that:
a)  the experiences that were lost from memory had not yet undergone memory consolidation.
b) the experiences that were lost from memory were still in working memory at the time of the
concussion, i.e., they had not yet been transferred to long-term memory.
c) the concussion causes extreme proactive interference with the lost memories.
d) the concussion prevents rehearsal of experiences in the phonological loop, thus preventing
information from entering working memory.
#
29. Most adults over the age of 55 exhibit a "reminiscence bump" in their memories of their personal life
events. The reminiscence bump refers to enhanced memory for events during what period of life?
a) childhood and adolescence, i.e., ages 3 - 18 years.
b)  adolescence and early adulthood, i.e., ages 10 - 30 years.
c) early adulthood and middle age, i.e., ages 25 - 45 years.
d) the most recent five years of life, i.e., ages 50 - 55 (assuming that the person is 55 years old).
#
30. Talarico and Rubin (2003) studied the accuracy of memories for the 9/11 terrorist attack and
confidence in the accuracy of these memories starting from the day after the attack. They continued
to measure accuracy and confidence in these memories until 224 days after the attack. Which of the
following best describes the changes in accuracy and confidence over time?
a. Over a period of 224 days, the accuracy of the memories and the confidence in the accuracy of
these memories remained remarkably high.
b. Over a period of 224 days, the accuracy of the memories and the confidence in the accuracy of
these memories steadily declined.
c.  Over a period of 224 days, the accuracy of the memories steadily declined, but the confidence in
the accuracy of these memories remained high.
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d. Over a period of 224 days, the confidence in the accuracy of these memories steadily declined, but
the accuracy of the memories remained high.
#
31.
[This question was omitted from the exam.]
Bartlett asked British people to read a Native American folk tale, "The War of the Ghosts." Later
they were asked to recall the folk tale. Bartlett found that people tended to distort the story in ways
that made it more consistent with their own (British) culture. This finding suggests that ....
a) The primary code for long-term memory is semantic.
b) The primary code for long-term memory is phonological.
c) Elaborative rehearsal produces greater recall than maintenance rehearsal.
d)  Memory is a constructive process.
#
32. In the Deese/Roediger/McDermott paradigm, subjects are presented with a list of words the majority
of which are semantically related, e.g., "DRIVE", "HEADLIGHTS", "GASOLINE", "TRAFFIC",
"TULIP", "STREET", "STOP", .... Later subjects are asked to recall the words in the list. Notice
that most of the words in this particular list have to do with driving a car, but "TULIP"is unusual
because it is unrelated to driving a car. What is the main implication for cognitive psychology of the
typical findings in this experiment?
a)  The pattern of errors suggest that people use memory schemas to encode and retrieve
memories.
b) Typically, the results show a primacy effect which indicates that the words at the beginning of
the list are often transferred to LTM.
c) Typically, the results show a recency effect which indicates that the words at the end of the list
are retained in STM once the word displays have ended.
d) Both (b) and (c) are true, which indicates that STM and LTM are different memory systems.
#
33. A standard line up is a police procedure by which a small group of similar-looking individuals is
presented to an eyewitness; the witness sees the entire group and is asked: "Do you see the person
who commited the crime in this group? If so, which one is this person?" A sequential line up (also
called, sequential show up) is a police procedure by which a series of similar-looking individuals is
presented to an eyewitness one at a time; the witness is asked of each person: "Is this the person that
you saw commit the crime?" Sometimes photographs are used in place of the actual people.
Research has found that the standard line up and the sequential line up are equally likely to produce a
correct identification, assuming that the criminal is actually present in the group, but they differ
when a witness is shown a group of individuals who are all innocent of commiting the crime in
question. Which procedure, the standard line up or the sequential line up, produces fewer mistaken
identifications when the criminal is not present in the group? And why is one procedure better than
the other?
a) The standard line up produces fewer false identifications when the actual criminal is not present in
the group. The standard line up places fewer demands on the WM of the witness because the
witness can see all of the suspects at once.
b) The standard line up produces fewer false identifications when the actual criminal is not present in
the group. In the sequential line up, the witness is more likely to make a schema consistent
intrusion error, which in this case, amounts to a misidentification of a person who was not present
at the crime.
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c) The sequential line up produces fewer false identifications when the actual criminal is not present
in the group. The sequential line up places fewer demands on the WM of the witness because the
witness only needs to process the face of one individual at a time.
d)  The sequential line up produces fewer false identifications when the actual criminal is not
present in the group. In the standard line up, the witness may try to pick the person who looks
most similar to the person who committed the crime, even if the witness does not recall this person
committing the crime. In the sequential line up, the witness is less likely to pick the most similar
person.
#
34. Suppose there is an ordinary looking guy who I sometimes walk past on the street. I never really
focus my attention on this person. Later when I am a witness to a minor property crime (someone
stole a bicycle and rode away with it), I mistakenly identify this guy as the thief. I make the mistake
because the guy looks very familiar and I don't remember that I had seen him on the street. This
kind of error is called ....
a. retroactive interference
b. proactive interference
(Answer B will be counted as correct, in addition to answer C, because answer B makes sense from a logical standpoint.
Psychologists would regard answer C as the better answer because the error is specifically a source monitoring error, but
it happens to be a source monitoring error that is also an example of proactive interference.)
c.  a source monitoring error
d. a completion error
#
35. The misinformation effect refers to the fact that:
a) Witnesses to a crime tend to make errors that are consistent with their preconceptions about what
crimes are like.
b)  Misleading information presented after a person witnesses an event can change a person's
memory for the event.
c) If a video contains a mixture of accurate and misleading information about a crime, memories of
the misleading information will usually last longer than memories for the accurate information.
d) If a video contains a mixture of accurate and misleading information about a crime, people tend
to form memories that combine both types of information into a single coherent narrative.
#
The following are some TRUE/FALSE questions about recovered memory.
36. It is possible for an adult man or woman to not remember that he or she was sexually abused as a
child.
a)  TRUE
b) FALSE
37. It is possible for an adult man or woman to have false memories of sexual abuse as a child.
a)  TRUE
b) FALSE
38. Most men and women who were sexually abused as children do not remember this abuse.
a) TRUE
b)  FALSE
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39. It is possible to construct convincing pseudomemories (false memories) for events that never
occurred.
a)  TRUE
b) FALSE
#
---- END OF TRUE/FALSE QUESTIONS ----
40. The process by which initial learning is strengthened and transformed into a strong memory that is
resistant to interference is known as
a) savings.
b)  memory consolidation.
c) aggregation.
d) transfer.
#
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