Deck 11: Long-Term Memory Iii: Retrieval and Forgetting

Question 1

When Gianna returns to college after a summer touring France, she tells her roommate about her many experiences. She does not always remember them accurately, however, so she fills in the gaps in her memory with logical details about how things "must" have happened. Several weeks later, she is telling another friend about her trip. Gianna will probably:

A) Remember her experiences more accurately than she had previously
B) Feel very confused about what things actually did and did not happen in France
C) Have different gaps in her memory than she did when talking to her roommate, and so construct very different recollections of her experiences in France
D) Remember her experiences in France as occurring in essentially the way that she previously described them to her roommate

Answer 1

D

Question 2

Albert grew up in Germany but now lives in England. He recalls more about his childhood in Germany when he's speaking in German than when he's speaking in English. Which one of the following concepts best explains this fact?

A) flashbulb memory
B) encoding specificity
C) source monitoring
D) fan effect

Answer 2

B

Question 3

Given what we know about the effects of retrieval cues on retrieval, in which one of the following situations are students most likely to remember how the word people is spelled?

A) Have students use the word people in a meaningful sentence.
B) Give students four choices to pick from: peepal, peapul, pepull, and people.
C) Have students close their eyes and try recall what the word people looks like when they read.
D) Have students concentrate very hard on how the word sounds as it is pronounced.

Answer 3

B

Question 4

Occasionally people have false memories, "recalling" events that never actually happened. Three of the following false memories are consistent with research findings regarding when false memories are likely to form. Which one is inconsistent with research findings?

A) After seeing a photo of a girl who looks like her riding an elephant, 10-year-old Sally says, "Oh, yes, I remember that elephant ride."
B) Eighteen-year-old Mark recalls attending a Jewish Bar Mitzvah when he was 13, even though he isn't Jewish and doesn't have any friends who are Jewish.
C) Four-year-old Carmen is asked to imagine herself going to Disney World and meeting Snow White. Several months later she claims she actually did meet Snow White.
D) As a requirement for his psychology class, 20-year-old Damion participates in a research study in which he's asked to read a group of 10 interrelated words (e.g., bed, pillow, dream). Afterward he claims that one of the words was sleep, even though it wasn't included in the list.

Question 5

Richard is studying both French and Spanish. In the same week he learns that the French word for "mother" is mère and that the Spanish word for "mother" is madre. One day his French teacher asks Richard, "Who is married to your father?" and Richard erroneously answers, "Madre." Richard's memory error can best be explained in terms of:

A) decay
B) interference
C) source monitoring
D) failure to consolidate

Question 6

Ms. Kontos wants students in her geometry class to learn and remember how to calculate the area of a rectangle. To be sure her students will learn the procedure successfully, which one of the following should Ms. Kontos not do?

A) Explain how calculating the area of a rectangle is similar to something they have already learned: calculating the area of a square.
B) Have her students calculate the area of such rectangles as the classroom, their desk tops, and their books.
C) Give her students lots of paper-pencil practice in calculating the area of rectangles.
D) Make sure her students are quite anxious about an upcoming quiz on calculating the area of rectangles.

Question 7

Peter is quite proud of the poem he's just written. "Usually I spend a lot of time writing a poem," he says, "but this one just popped into my head from out of the blue." What Peter doesn't realize is that the poem is very similar to one he read in a collection of poems by Carl Sandberg a year or so ago-so similar, in fact, that Peter might be accused of plagiarizing Sandberg's work. Peter's error can best be explained as a problem of

A) source monitoring
B) encoding specificity
C) consolidation failure
D) proactive inhibition

Question 8

Four students are storing this fact: St. Augustine, Florida was settled in 1565. Based on the following information, which student is probably going to have the greatest difficulty retrieving the information from long-term memory a few days later?

A) Alexander immediately repeats the fact to himself five times.
B) Last year Blondie visited St. Augustine with her grandparents and toured the old fortress there.
C) Cookie realizes that 1565 was more than four hundred years ago.
D) Dagwood is surprised to learn that the Spanish settled Florida before the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth.

Question 9

Which one of the following is the best example of a flashbulb memory?

A) Remembering exactly what you were doing when you heard very upsetting news
B) Retrieving a detailed visual image of how a parent or sibling looks
C) Recalling a dream and erroneously thinking that it actually happened to you
D) Vividly remembering an event that never happened, not even in your dreams

Question 10

Randall is trying to remember how to spell the word separate. He retrieves the first three letters (S E P) and the last four (R A T E) and assumes that the fourth letter must be E because he usually pronounces the word like this: "SEP-ER-ATE." Randall's process of remembering how to spell the word (in this case, incorrectly) illustrates the use of:

A) a script
B) an identity retrieval cue
C) construction in retrieval
D) a frame

Question 11

Maria is listening to her teacher talk about how rainy weather develops. Maria thinks, "Rain … hmm, it's supposed to rain tomorrow … I wonder where I left my umbrella … I think I took it to the library yesterday … I'll bet that's where I left my notebook, too." Maria's thoughts illustrate:

A) construction in storage
B) construction in retrieval
C) the use of a frame
D) spreading activation

Question 12

If we consider research on flashbulb memories, then we realize that:

A) Parallel distributed processing is a more accurate model of long-term memory than is a propositional network model.
B) Working memory capacity often increases in stressful situations.
C) Auditory imagery is a more powerful form of encoding than visual imagery.
D) Even especially vivid memories are not always accurate.

Question 13

Which one of the following is an accurate statement regarding research on eyewitness testimony?

A) Males remember events more accurately than females.
B) Females remember events more accurately than males.
C) What is remembered is influenced by the question asked.
D) What is remembered is influenced by the capacity (amount of storage space) of one's long-term memory capacity.

Question 14

Successful retrieval of information from long-term memory depends on three of the following factors. On which one does retrieval not depend?

A) The part of long-term memory being searched
B) How the information was stored in the first place
C) The duration of working memory
D) Relevant retrieval cues

Question 15

From the perspective of cognitive psychology, recognition memory tasks are easier than recall memory tasks because recognition tasks:

A) Can be answered by using less working memory capacity
B) Don't need to be learned in a meaningful fashion
C) Provide more retrieval cues
D) Can usually be answered by using skills that have been learned to automaticity

Question 16

Lucy sees a boy who looks very familiar to her, but she can't remember who he is. Then the boy says something with a thick French accent, and Lucy suddenly realizes that he is the foreign exchange student from France. In this situation, the boy's French accent helps Lucy remember by:

A) Restricting the spread of activation
B) Providing a retrieval cue
C) Helping her elaborate on stored information
D) Facilitating a reorganization of her long-term memory

Question 17

Imagine that you have an upcoming exam on a very difficult topic you studied in one of your classes. With findings about contextual cues in mind, choose the setting in which you would perform best on the exam.

A) A small, quiet room at the library
B) The classroom in which you originally studied the material
C) A classroom in which you've studied a very different topic
D) A café at which you've spent many relaxing evenings

Question 18

Trisha can remember the five Great Lakes (Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie, Superior) by remembering "HOMES," because one of the Great Lakes begins with each of the five letters. What kind of retrieval cue is HOMES providing for Trisha?

A) associative cue
B) identity cue
C) schema
D) frame

Question 19

What device did Benjamin Franklin invent to help people read better? It may take you a long time to think of the answer-bifocal lenses-because Ben was responsible for so many other inventions as well. In this situation, your lengthy retrieval time can best be explained in terms of:

A) too many retrieval cues
B) construction error
C) the fan effect
D) repression

Question 20

William is shopping at a convenience store when a man rushes in, shoots the store clerk in the arm, hurriedly cleans out the cash register, and then speeds away in a pickup truck. Later, a detective asks William to describe the woman who was waiting for the thief in the truck. The fact is, William didn't see a woman in the truck, but after the detective urges him to "think hard and try to remember her," he begins to recall seeing a blonde woman sitting in the passenger side of the truck. This situation illustrates:

A) the misinformation effect
B) an associative retrieval cue
C) spreading activation
D) encoding specificity

Question 21

When teachers increase their wait time from one second to three seconds, other things are likely to change as well. Which one of the following is not a typical outcome of increasing wait time?

A) Teachers' expectations for student performance increase.
B) Teachers ask students more challenging questions.
C) Teachers pursue some topics in greater depth.
D) Teachers give more complex answers to their own questions.

Question 22

Explain the role that construction plays in retrieval. Give a concrete example of how construction can help retrieval. Also, give a concrete example of how it can lead to an inaccurate recollection.

Question 23

Ms. Iwata has a long-term goal for her science students-to consider what they have learned about science as they deal with issues and problems in their daily lives. Which one of the following teaching strategies will best help her students retrieve relevant scientific principles in situations where the principles might be applied?

A) Teach students how to take good notes about classroom subject matter.
B) Associate those principles with as many real-life situations as possible.
C) Maximize the use of concrete materials, and minimize the use of abstract ideas.
D) Maximize the use of abstract ideas, and minimize the use of concrete materials.

Question 24

Robert does not recognize the police officer who came to the door last month to tell him that his dog had been killed by a car. Robert's lapse of memory can probably best be explained in terms of:

A) the fan effect
B) interference
C) construction error
D) repression

Question 25

Psychologists have offered three of the following as possible explanations for the phenomenon of infantile amnesia. Which one have they not suggested?

A) Infants have virtually no working memory capacity.
B) Most of what infants learn takes the form of implicit rather than explicit knowledge.
C) Infants cannot yet talk about their experiences and so have trouble encoding them in forms that are easily retrieved.
D) Infants' brains are insufficiently mature to think about things in the ways that older children and adults do.

Question 26

In a science lesson on heat, Ms. Jones explains that heat is the result of molecules moving back and forth very quickly and that gases are heated more quickly than liquids. The following day, she asks her class the following four questions. Which one is a higher-level question?

A) "Who can remember yesterday's discussion about heat?"
B) "What is heat?"
C) "Which one is heated more quickly-a gas or a liquid?"
D) "Why is it cooler near the ocean on a hot summer day?"

Question 27

Which one of the following examples best illustrates a problem with prospective memory?

A) Meredith can't remember anything that happened in the few minutes before she was in an automobile accident.
B) Marcus forgets to keep the appointment he made with his teacher after school.
C) Juan can't recall something his teacher told him because he was thinking about something else while she was talking to him.
D) Chloe sees a person she knows she has met before, but she can't remember the person's name.

Question 28

To remind her 6-year-old son Steven to bring his umbrella home from school, a mother pins a piece of paper with a picture of an umbrella to Steven's jacket collar. Steven's mother is helping him remember the umbrella through the use of:

A) a script
B) the fan effect
C) an external retrieval cue
D) implicit knowledge

Question 29

Nora was thinking about something else the day her teacher explained the difference between the words between and among, so she has trouble using these two prepositions correctly. Nora's problem "remembering" the difference between the words can probably best be explained as:

A) failure to retrieve
B) construction error
C) failure to store
D) repression

Question 30

Jenny is taking a quiz which asks for the chemical symbols of 20 elements. She remembers 19 of them but cannot remember the symbol for mercury. As she walks home from school, she suddenly remembers that the symbol for mercury is Hg. Jenny's memory problem during the quiz can best be explained in terms of:

A) decay
B) repression
C) construction error
D) failure to retrieve

Question 31

When we increase the wait time after teacher questions from one second to three seconds, we can expect students' answers to those questions to:

A) Be longer and more complex
B) Reflect decreased motivation to answer questions in the future
C) Reflect more automatic processing (instead of controlled processing)
D) Be more dependent on retrieval cues present in the immediate situation

Question 32

Which one of the following statements describes wait time and its effect on learning?

A) When teachers give students about five minutes of "thinking time" at the beginning of class, students are more likely to learn class material meaningfully.
B) When teachers allow students more time to learn something, students learn it more thoroughly.
C) When teachers wait until students are ready to pay attention, students are more likely to learn effectively.
D) When teachers allow students more time to respond to a question, students are more likely to answer the question, and often with a more complex response.

Question 33

Which one of the following is a higher-level question?

A) "Can you remember the three categories of rocks that we studied yesterday?"
B) "Now that I have done one multiplication problem on the board, can you do the next two multiplication problems on your own?"
C) "Can you use what we learned about snakes and what we know about climate in North America to guess where this snake might live?"
D) "Here are the same rocks that we studied yesterday. Can you sort them into three piles-sedimentary, igneous, and metamorphic-the way we did yesterday?"

Question 34

Which one of the following statements is consistent with the textbook's recommendations for promoting retrieval?

A) Teach students how to create and use their own retrieval cues.
B) Prevent interference by presenting closely related pieces of information at different times.
C) Spend approximately two-thirds of each class day reviewing things that students already know.
D) At the secondary school level, always use essay tests rather than multiple-choice tests.

Question 35

A revision of Bloom's taxonomy published in 2001 (described in the textbook) can help teachers consider not only the various types of cognitive processes that should be encouraged but also the:

A) Environmental contexts in which each process is most suitable
B) Types of knowledge to which those processes might be applied
C) Specific instructional methods most effective in fostering each process
D) Forms that those processes might take in literacy, mathematics, science, and social studies

Question 36

Kevin and Ron are taking the same physics course but with different teachers. Kevin's teacher gives a short quiz over class material every Friday. Ron's teacher gives a lengthy test the first Monday of every month. Which boy is likely to learn physics more effectively, and why?

A) Kevin, because frequent testing fosters more visual imagery
B) Kevin, because he must review what he has learned more often
C) Ron, because students do better on tests given at the beginning of the week than at the end of the week
D) Ron, because it's virtually impossible to ask higher-level questions on a weekly basis

Question 37

After meeting a new neighbor, Shandra mistakenly calls him "David" on several occasions. Eventually the neighbor kindly corrects her, saying, "My name is actually Darren." After that, Shandra correctly calls the man "Darren," but initially she has to work hard not to call him "David" instead. Which one of the following concepts best characterizes the change in Shandra's memory?

A) retrieval-induced forgetting
B) encoding specificity
C) the misinformation effect
D) an identity cue

Question 38

A teacher who wants students to elaborate on the material they are studying would be well advised to:

A) Ask higher-level questions.
B) Give signals about what is important to learn.
C) Summarize the main ideas presented each day.
D) Provide an advance organizer before every lesson.

Question 39

It is ten years from now. A friend says to you, "Hey, you took a course on learning theory. Explain to me what the process of elaboration is." You think about this for a minute and then realize that you cannot remember the information your friend is asking for. Give four possible explanations, each based on a different theory of forgetting, as to why you are unable to remember this concept from your learning theory course.

Question 40

As a teacher, you want your students to use effective information processing strategies as they study classroom subject matter. You consider research about the effects of classroom assessment tasks on learning, and you conclude that you should:

A) Ask many short questions rather than a few lengthy ones.
B) Assess students' rote knowledge of the material first, then ask higher-level questions about the material in a subsequent assessment.
C) Give assessment tasks that require meaningful understanding of the material.
D) Not give paper-pencil tests at all.

Question 41

As a teacher, you want your classroom assessments to help students learn class subject matter more effectively. With the textbook's discussion of classroom assessment practices in mind, describe three strategies you can use to help your assessments become valuable learning tools for your students.