Psychology Degree Cognitive Processes and Memory 4 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: Which concept refers to the cognitive shortcut of relying on the ease with which examples come to mind when making judgments?
- Representativeness heuristic
- Anchoring and adjustment
- Availability heuristic (Correct answer)
- Framing effect
Correct answer: Availability heuristic
The availability heuristic leads people to judge likelihood or frequency based on how easily relevant instances are recalled.
Question 2: In Atkinson and Shiffrin's multi-store model, information moves from short-term to long-term memory primarily through:
- Automatic encoding
- Maintenance rehearsal (Correct answer)
- Sensory gating
- Decay prevention
Correct answer: Maintenance rehearsal
Maintenance rehearsal — repeating information in the phonological loop — transfers it from STM to LTM in the Atkinson-Shiffrin model.
Question 3: Elizabeth Loftus's research on eyewitness testimony showed that post-event information can alter memory. This phenomenon is called the:
- Misinformation effect (Correct answer)
- Source monitoring error
- Cryptomnesia
- False recognition effect
Correct answer: Misinformation effect
The misinformation effect occurs when misleading post-event information is incorporated into the original memory, distorting its accuracy.
Question 4: The distinction between 'knowing' and 'remembering' in recognition tests is used to separate contributions of:
- Implicit vs. explicit memory
- Familiarity vs. recollection (Correct answer)
- Short-term vs. long-term memory
- Semantic vs. episodic memory
Correct answer: Familiarity vs. recollection
Familiarity is a sense of recognition without contextual detail, while recollection involves consciously retrieving the specific episode of encoding.
Question 5: Spreading activation theory explains how:
- Emotional memories are prioritized over neutral ones
- Activating one concept in semantic memory increases activation of related concepts (Correct answer)
- Working memory allocates resources to multiple tasks
- Sleep consolidates declarative memory traces
Correct answer: Activating one concept in semantic memory increases activation of related concepts
In semantic network models, activating one node spreads activation along associative links to related nodes, facilitating retrieval of related concepts.
Question 6: A person who sustains damage to the cerebellum is most likely to experience difficulty with:
- Recalling childhood autobiographical memories
- Recognizing familiar faces
- Acquiring new motor skills and conditioned responses (Correct answer)
- Forming new semantic knowledge
Correct answer: Acquiring new motor skills and conditioned responses
The cerebellum is critical for procedural learning, including motor skill acquisition and classical conditioning of motor responses.
Question 7: Which phenomenon occurs when memories formed in one emotional or physiological state are best recalled in the same state?
- Transfer-appropriate processing
- State-dependent memory (Correct answer)
- Context-dependent memory
- Mood-congruent processing
Correct answer: State-dependent memory
State-dependent memory refers to enhanced recall when the internal physiological or emotional state at retrieval matches the state at encoding.
Psychology Degree Cognitive Processes and Memory 4
Which concept refers to the cognitive shortcut of relying on the ease with which examples come to mind when making judgments?