Deck 4: Sensory and Short-Term Memory

Question 1

Anorthoscopic perception involves the process of __________.

A) anthropomorphizing perception
B) attending to information in iconic memory
C) remembering human faces
D) integrating information in iconic memory

Answer 1

D

Question 2

Another name for the visual sensory register is __________.

A) sight memory
B) sensory processing
C) iconic memory
D) echoic memory

Answer 2

C

Question 3

The term "iconic memory" refers to what?

A) the visual sensory register
B) visual processing in general
C) symbolic memory in vision
D) stereotypical memory processes

Answer 3

A

Question 4

In Averbach's research on visual sensory memory, when people were briefly presented (150-600 ms) with arrays of dots, what was the apparent span of apprehension?

A) 1
B) 4-5
C) 7 + 2
D) very large

Question 5

Another name for auditory sensory memory is __________.

A) haptic sensory memory
B) iconic memory
C) echoic memory
D) the phonological loop

Question 6

One way to reduce the amount of forgetting of information in short-term memory is through a process known as __________.

A) savings
B) chunking
C) immediate rehearsal
D) metamemory

Question 7

What does trans-saccadic memory allow a person to do?

A) integrate information from different fixations
B) build up a complete picture of the world
C) track objects in the environment
D) all of the above

Question 8

In general, the sensory registers have a __________ capacity and a ____________ duration.

A) small; short
B) large; short
C) small; long
D) large; long

Question 9

People's ability to detect changes in the world suggests that visual memory is __________.

A) very sensitive to changes
B) mostly sensitive to object changes
C) mostly sensitive to spatial changes
D) not very sensitive to changes

Question 10

How can you increase short-term memory capacity?

A) rehearse over and over
B) elaborative processing
C) exercise your brain like a muscle
D) chunk information into meaningful bits of information

Question 11

Sperling's letter test revealed that the amount of information held in iconic memory was __________.

A) large, with almost no decay
B) small (4 or 5 items), with almost no decay
C) large, but decayed quickly
D) small (4 or 5 items), and decayed quickly

Question 12

Anorthoscopic perception implies that people __________.

A) need to move their eyes to create a complete mental representation
B) do not integrate information using retinal coordinates
C) do not notice changes in the environment
D) integrate information in iconic memory to perceive more than is present at one point in time

Question 13

Trans-saccadic memory is likely to be __________.

A) retinally based
B) object file oriented
C) spatially based
D) binocular

Question 14

Haptic sensory memory __________.

A) has a large capacity but a short duration
B) has a small capacity but a long duration
C) is very different from iconic and echoic memory
D) is only a hypothetical construct

Question 15

The duration of iconic memory is roughly __________.

A) 50 ms
B) 250 ms
C) 1 s
D) variable

Question 16

A characteristic of echoic memory, or auditory sensory memory, is that __________.

A) it has a duration of 250 ms
B) it codes information linguistically
C) it has a very large capacity
D) it shows resistance to forgetting

Question 17

What is the term used to describe the mental representation of information in visual sensory memory?

A) memory trace
B) engram
C) anorthoscopic trace
D) icon

Question 18

The memory trace in auditory sensory memory is sometimes called __________.

A) the echo
B) the icon
C) the memory trace
D) reverbatory

Question 19

Iconic memory lasts for _______, while echoic memory lasts for _________.

A) ¼ seconds; 4 seconds
B) 4 seconds; ¼ seconds
C) 2 seconds; 8 seconds
D) 8 seconds; 2 seconds

Question 20

The haptic sensory register is responsible for what kind of sensory information?

A) postural
B) auditory
C) touch
D) kinesthesis

Question 21

In serial position curves, the __________ effect is attributed to short-term memory and the _______ effect to long-term memory.

A) primacy; recency
B) secondary; primary
C) recency; primacy
D) primary; secondary

Question 22

What alternative to Sternberg's idea of a serial exhaustive search is also a possibility?

A) serial self-terminating
B) parallel with limited capacity
C) parallel with unlimited capacity
D) serial inclusive

Question 23

Better memory for information at the beginning of a list is called the _______ effect.

A) primacy
B) suffix
C) recency
D) serial

Question 24

Short-term memory forgetting is likely caused by __________.

A) decay processes
B) capacity limitations
C) interference
D) inappropriate chaining

Question 25

The serial position curve for accurately remembering information in short-term memory is __________.

A) a u-shaped function
B) an inverted u-shaped function
C) an s-shaped function
D) a step function

Question 26

How easy is it to distinguish between mental processes that occur in a serial order versus those that occur in parallel?

A) very easy
B) very difficult
C) It depends on the domain of memory.
D) never possible with any method available to humans

Question 27

What activity is most likely to disrupt short-term memory for a shopping list?
B) doing maze puzzles
C) riding a bicycle
D) listening to a symphony

Question 28

Which of the following statements is true regarding short-term memory?

A) All contemporary researchers agree that short-term memory is a separate memory system from long-term memory.
B) Previous items cannot affect forgetting of new items in short-term memory.
C) Short-term memory has a duration of about 10 minutes.
D) Short-term memory can hold about 7 pieces of information.

Question 29

The size of working memory capacity is __________ in people using ASL (American sign language)

A) smaller
B) the same
C) larger
D) it depends on the person

Question 30

What is the purpose of a distractor task in short-term memory studies?

A) to keep people from actively rehearsing information
B) to draw attention to the task at hand
C) to increase the amount of information people keep in short-term memory
D) to distract people from the purpose of the study and reduce expectancy effects

Question 31

Why is there a recency effect at the end of a serial position curve?

A) lots of quick rehearsal
B) Consolidation is fresh.
C) Information is still in short-term memory.
D) random chance

Question 32

In Ericsson, Chase, and Faloon's study, they were able to increase a person's short-term memory capacity for digits to __________.

A) 10
B) 12
C) 50
D) over 80

Question 33

A unit of information in short-term memory is often called a __________.

A) memory trace
B) chunk
C) icon
D) variable

Question 34

The primacy effect is typically attributed to information in __________.

A) short-term memory
B) long-term memory
C) transition
D) interference-free memory

Question 35

The greater forgetting of end-list items in short-term memory is a reflection of the ________ effect.

A) primacy
B) suffix
C) recency
D) serial

Question 36

According to Sternberg, the best description of short-term memory search is that it is __________.

A) parallel
B) serial self-terminating
C) serial exhaustive
D) serial incrementive

Question 37

Better memory for information at the end of a list is called the _______ effect.

A) primacy
B) suffix
C) recency
D) serial

Question 38

What is the typical duration of information in short-term memory, provided there is no active rehearsal?

A) 250 ms
B) 2 s
C) 30 s
D) 10 min

Question 39

The typical person's short-term memory span is __________.

A) 5-9 items of information
B) 3-5 items of information
C) 10-12 items of information
D) 2-4 items of information

Question 40

Although it is generally accepted that the capacity of short-term memory is 7 + 2 chunks of information, some people have suggested that the actual capacity is _____ chunks.

A) 2
B) 3-4
C) 10-12
D) a very large number of

Question 41

A primacy effect in short-term memory for actions is ________ than normal.

A) more extended
B) more compressed
C) larger
D) smaller

Question 42

For context-based models of short-term serial order memory, the correct order in which information is to be recalled is influenced by __________.

A) the preceding items in the sequence
C) the context of the rest of the set of items
D) the counter-processing done by nondeclarative memory systems

Question 43

According to Estes's perturbation model of serial-order memory, the reasons that mis-orderings sometimes occur during recall is that __________.
B) random neural noise perturbs the structure of information in short-term memory
C) there is a loss of information about which slot an item is stored in
D) there are gaps in a person's memory

Question 44

Inhibition models of serial order short-term memory suggest that __________.

A) irrelevant information in short-term memory is inhibited
C) semantic (meaning-based) information is inhibited in favor of order information
D) information that is currently not being recalled is inhibited, to aid in recall focus

Question 45

What is the perturbation theory of short-term memory?

A) Short-term memory has a series of ordered slots, and memories are dropped into them.
B) Short-term memory has associative links, and retrieval involves moving along them.
C) Information is organized in a hierarchy of chunks, and control units manage them.
D) Memories are recovered using inhibition, where retrieval is based on which items are the most active.

Question 46

The recency effect is typically attributed to information in __________.

A) short-term memory
B) long-term memory
C) transition
D) interference-free memory

Question 47

In slot-based models of serial order memory, how is serial position information represented?

A) by inter-item associations
B) by the temporal bin each item is located in
C) serially
D) interactively

Question 48

Which of the following is the least plausible theory of serial order memory in short-term memory?

A) slot-based models
B) context-based models
C) inhibition models
D) chaining models
Short Answers

Question 49

How did Sperling discover the properties of iconic memory?

Question 50

Which of the following is the best reason that the slot-based model is an implausible account of serial-order memory?

A) People find remembering serial orders almost impossible.
B) It is unclear how many slots there should be in short-term memory.
C) It only applies to recognition memory measures, not recall measures.
D) People may remember item information apart from order information.

Question 51

What does research on anorthoscopic perception tell us about iconic memory?

Question 52

What sort of primacy effect is observed in memory for actions performed?

A) none
B) reduced
C) the same as with words
D) augmented

Question 53

Which of the following is least likely to show a primacy effect in short-term memory?

A) memory for pictures
B) memory for odors
C) memory for words
D) a list followed by a suffix

Question 54

What is the duration of information in short-term memory?

Question 55

What is the purpose of the sensory registers? What would life be like without them?

Question 56

A distractor task at the end of a short-term memory list of items will likely reduce the _______ effect.

A) primacy
B) suffix
C) recency
D) serial

Question 57

What is the capacity of short-term memory?

Question 58

For chaining models, the probability of recalling an item is primarily a function of __________.

A) the weakest link in the chain
B) the strongest link in the chain
C) the length of the chain of items in the list
D) the recall of the previous item in the chain

Question 59

In the perturbation model, elements are arranged __________.

A) using control units
B) using phonological codes
C) in a passive order
D) in a sequence

Question 60

What process did Sternberg think that people went through when searching for information in short-term memory?

Question 61

How do ordinal models account for memory for serial order?

Question 62

Provide a description of the major components of the serial position curve in short-term memory.

Question 63

What is the cause of the suffix effect?

Question 64

Which do you think is the best theory of serial order memory, and why?