Cognitive Psychology and Memory Flashcards
7 cards from real Psychology Degree practice questions. Tap to flip, then mark Knew It or Still Learning — missed cards come back until you master them.
Read the first 7 Cognitive Psychology and Memory flashcards as text
A student studies chemistry using the same background music she plans to listen to during the exam. This strategy exploits which memory principle?
Answer: Encoding specificity principle
The encoding specificity principle holds that retrieval is best when the cues present at encoding match those present at retrieval.
Which experimental paradigm is most commonly used to study false memory formation, where participants 'remember' words never actually presented?
Answer: Deese-Roediger-McDermott (DRM) paradigm
The DRM paradigm presents lists of semantically related words, reliably inducing false memories for a non-presented 'critical lure' word.
In Atkinson and Shiffrin's multi-store model, information moves from sensory memory to short-term memory through:
Answer: Selective attention
Selective attention determines which information from the large-capacity but brief sensory store is transferred into the limited-capacity short-term store.
The mnemonic technique of the 'method of loci' primarily relies on which cognitive ability?
Answer: Visuospatial imagery and familiar locations
The method of loci requires mentally placing items to be remembered at specific locations along a familiar route, leveraging visuospatial memory.
Which finding provides the strongest evidence that long-term memory has virtually unlimited capacity?
Answer: People can recognize thousands of previously seen photographs with high accuracy
Standing's (1973) recognition memory study demonstrated that participants could accurately recognize tens of thousands of images, suggesting LTM capacity is practically limitless.
Retrograde amnesia following brain trauma typically disrupts memories from:
Answer: The recent past more than the distant past
Retrograde amnesia usually follows a temporal gradient: recent memories are more vulnerable than remote ones because older memories are more thoroughly consolidated.
Which research methodology would best test whether sleep enhances memory consolidation?
Answer: Between-subjects design comparing post-learning sleep vs. wakefulness recall groups
A controlled experiment with participants randomly assigned to sleep or wake conditions after learning allows causal inference about sleep's role in consolidation.