Question 1

Human patients who have damage to the cerebellum cannot be classically conditioned to blink their eyes in response to a tone.

Accepted Answer

This statement is true. Damage to the cerebellum impairs the ability to form and maintain conditioned responses, such as blinking in response to a tone.

Question 2

When patients are unable to form new declarative memories, they cannot acquire new procedural memories either.

Accepted Answer

Procedural memories are a type of long-term memory that involve the learning and consolidation of skills and habits. They can be acquired and recalled even in individuals with deficits in declarative memory.

Question 3

The medulla is involved in the formation of declarative long-term memories.

Accepted Answer

The medulla is primarily involved in vital unconscious functions such as breathing and heart rate regulation, and does not play a significant role in declarative memory formation. Memory formation is largely associated with regions such as the hippocampus and prefrontal cortex.

Question 4

Knowing that flash floods occur quickly when water runs off hard, dry ground would be an episodic
memory.

Accepted Answer

Episodic memory involves the recollection of specific events, situations, and experiences from one's personal past, not general knowledge or facts about the world.

Question 5

Long-term potentiation is thought to be the biological mechanism of long-term memory.

Accepted Answer

Long-term potentiation (LTP) is a process of strengthening neural connections that is thought to underlie the formation of long-term memories in the brain. This process involves changes in the strength and efficacy of synapses, which can last for days, weeks, or even years. While the exact mechanism of LTP is still not fully understood, it is widely considered to be a key player in the process of long-term memory formation.

Question 6

Many researchers believe that long-term potentiation is the process underlying many, and perhaps all, forms of learning and memory.

Accepted Answer

Long-term potentiation involves an increase in synaptic strength and is thought to be a cellular mechanism underlying learning and memory.

Question 7

Elaborative rehearsal is defined as the rote repetition of material in order to maintain its availability in memory.

Accepted Answer

Elaborative rehearsal involves making associations with new or existing information in order to encode it more deeply and form stronger memory traces, rather than just repeating it over and over.

Question 8

Different aspects of a memory are probably processed separately and stored at different locations that are distributed across wide areas of the brain, with all the sites participating in the representation of the event or concept as a whole.

Accepted Answer

This statement is supported by current research on memory processes and brain activity. It is widely accepted that different aspects of a memory, such as sensory details and emotional valence, are processed and stored in different regions of the brain that are interconnected and work together to form a cohesive memory.

Question 9

The hippocampus is involved in the formation of declarative long-term memories.

Accepted Answer

The hippocampus is widely recognized as a key brain structure involved in the formation of declarative long-term memories, which are memories of facts and events that can be consciously recalled.

Question 10

Knowing how to ride a bicycle would be a procedural memory.

Accepted Answer

Procedural memory refers to the ability to perform certain skills or actions, such as riding a bicycle, without consciously thinking about the individual steps involved.

Question 11

The serial-position effect is the tendency for recall of the items in the middle of the list to surpass recall of the first and last items on a list.

Accepted Answer

The serial-position effect actually describes the tendency for recall to be better for items at the beginning (primacy effect) and end (recency effect) of a list than for those in the middle.

Question 12

Proactive interference occurs when recently learned material interferes with the ability to remember similar material that was stored previously.

Accepted Answer

Proactive interference occurs when older, previously learned material interferes with the ability to remember new, similar information.

Question 13

If you are shown a long list of items and then are asked to recall them, your retention of any particular item will likely depend on its place in the list.

Accepted Answer

This is known as the serial position effect, where people tend to remember items at the beginning (primacy effect) and end (recency effect) of a list better than those in the middle.

Question 14

Long-term memory formation involves lasting structural changes in the brain.

Accepted Answer

Long-term memory formation involves the creation and strengthening of neural connections in the brain, leading to lasting structural changes.

Question 15

A long-lasting increase in the strength of synaptic responsiveness is called long-term potentiation.

Accepted Answer

Long-term potentiation (LTP) refers to the strengthening of synapses between neurons that last for a prolonged period of time. It is a mechanism underlying learning and memory.

Question 16

The formation of short-term memories and long-term memories involve the same chemical and structural
changes at the level of the neurons.

Accepted Answer

While short-term and long-term memories both involve changes at the level of the neurons, they differ in the duration and complexity of these changes. Short-term memories involve temporary changes in the strength of neuronal connections, while long-term memories involve structural changes to these connections and the formation of new connections.

Question 17

Long-term memories undergo a gradual period of consolidation before they "solidify" and become stable.

Accepted Answer

Long-term memories undergo a process of consolidation, during which they become more stable and resistant to interference. This process can take hours, days, or even weeks, and involves the strengthening of neural connections and the integration of new information into existing knowledge networks in the brain.

Question 18

The brain circuits that take part in the formation of long-term memories are the same as those involved in long-term storage.

Accepted Answer

The formation of long-term memories primarily involves the hippocampus, which helps encode and consolidate memories, but the long-term storage of these memories is distributed across various regions of the cortex, not just in the hippocampus.

Question 19

The higher the anxiety level of a person, the more accurately he or she is able to describe an event.

Accepted Answer

This statement is false. High anxiety levels can actually impair a person's ability to accurately describe an event, as it can lead to memory distortions and difficulties in processing information.

Question 20

There is concrete evidence that early traumatic events cause memory dissociation.

Accepted Answer

While there is some evidence suggesting a link between early traumatic events and memory dissociation, it is not universally accepted as concrete due to the complexity of human memory and individual differences.

Quiz 10: Memory