Question 1

At a loud party, Kimberly met many new people. When she ran into one of her new acquaintances on campus the next day she was unable to remember his name. The MOST likely explanation for her forgetting the name of her new acquaintance is:

Accepted Answer

Interference is the most likely explanation for Kimberly's forgetting the name of her new acquaintance. This phenomenon occurs when information either similar in nature (proactive interference) or newly learned (retroactive interference) disrupts the recall of other information. In a loud party setting, meeting many new people can lead to difficulty in recalling specific details like names because of the overwhelming amount of similar new information (names of other new acquaintances) being processed.

Question 2

The "misinformation effect" refers to a:

Accepted Answer

The misinformation effect refers to a memory phenomenon in which existing memories are distorted by exposing people to misleading information. This can lead to people believing they remember events that did not actually happen or remembering events differently from how they actually occurred.

Question 3

Researchers have found that _____ can trigger déjà vu experiences.

Accepted Answer

Studies have shown that disruptions in the temporal lobe, which is responsible for memory storage and retrieval, can lead to déjà vu experiences. This includes conditions such as epilepsy or head injuries that affect the temporal lobe function.

Question 4

Which of the following statements is TRUE?

Accepted Answer

This statement is true. While people usually remember the basic elements of an experience, specific details of the memory may be added, subtracted, exaggerated, or downplayed over time. This is known as memory distortion and can result from various factors such as suggestion, misinformation, and personal biases.

Question 5

According to research on déjà vu, which of the following individuals is MOST likely to have this experience?

Accepted Answer

Research suggests that déjà vu is more likely to be experienced by well-educated individuals who have traveled extensively, as they have more cognitive processes associated with memory retrieval and may encounter more situations that trigger feelings of familiarity. Young children like Abel are still developing their memory abilities and may not have the same level of cognitive processing, while individuals like Lola who dropped out of high school may not have the same exposure to diverse experiences. Gia's terminal illness may also not be directly related to the likelihood of experiencing déjà vu.

Question 6

Motivated forgetting of a painful or embarrassing memory because we don't want to consciously remember the information is called:

Accepted Answer

Suppression is the conscious effort to forget or not think about a painful or embarrassing memory.

Question 7

In a study by Elizabeth Loftus, subjects watched a film of an automobile accident, then answered a series of questions, including one asking them to estimate the speed of the cars. What factor affected the subjects' estimate of how fast the cars in the film were traveling?

Accepted Answer

Loftus found that the way the question was worded affected the subjects' estimates of the speed of the cars. Using more intense verbs like "smashed" led to higher estimates than using less intense verbs like "hit." This phenomenon is known as the "misinformation effect."

Question 8

Research by psychologist Elizabeth Loftus has shown that:

Accepted Answer

Elizabeth Loftus's research on memory distortion has consistently shown that eyewitness testimony is often unreliable and easily influenced. People's memories can be altered by a variety of factors such as leading questions, post-event information, and even the wording of a question. Confidence in a memory does not necessarily indicate its accuracy, and subjective feelings and emotions are not always reliable indicators of the truth.

Question 9

Ned's parents got divorced when he was 7 years old. Ned's older sister vividly remembers the frequent, loud screaming matches between her mother and father in the weeks prior to the divorce, but Ned claims that he has no memories of his parents ever fighting. If Ned has unconsciously blocked awareness of those painful memories, it would be an example of:

Accepted Answer

Repression involves the unconscious blocking of painful memories or impulses to protect oneself from psychological harm. Ned's lack of memory of his parents' fights could be an example of repression. Suppression, proactive interference, and memory decay do not involve unconscious mental processes.

Question 10

Identify the psychologist who is at the forefront of research on memory distortions and one of the MOST widely recognized authorities on eyewitness memory.

Accepted Answer

Elizabeth Loftus is at the forefront of research on memory distortions and is considered one of the most widely recognized authorities on eyewitness memory. She has conducted extensive research on the fallibility of memory and the ways in which memories can be influenced or distorted by suggestion or misinformation.

Question 11

According to Freud, _____ memories remain unconscious yet are still capable of influencing behavior and personality.

Accepted Answer

Freud believed that repressed memories are those that are unconsciously pushed away from awareness due to their emotionally overwhelming nature, yet they still have an impact on behavior and personality. Suppressed memories, on the other hand, are consciously pushed away from awareness and have less of an impact. Prospective and retrospective memories refer to future and past events, respectively, and are not related to Freud's theory of repressed memories.

Question 12

_____ is due to conscious deliberate forgetting as _____ is due to unconscious forgetting.

Accepted Answer

Suppression involves a conscious decision to forget something, whereas repression is an unconscious process where memories are pushed out of conscious awareness.

Question 13

The idea of repression is key in Sigmund Freud's theory of personality and psychotherapy, which is called psychoanalysis. According to Freud, what gets repressed?

Accepted Answer

According to Freud, repression involves unconsciously pushing psychologically threatening feelings, emotions, and memories, especially those from early childhood, out of conscious awareness and into the unconscious mind.

Question 14

Eric couldn't remember anything from his childhood until he went for psychotherapy to treat his anxiety disorder. After just a few sessions, Eric started remembering painful incidents in his childhood during which he was beaten and made to feel ashamed. Eric's difficulty in remembering his childhood was probably because of:

Accepted Answer

Eric's difficulty in remembering his childhood was likely due to motivated forgetting, which is the unconscious process of forgetting memories that are too painful or traumatic to remember. This is supported by the fact that Eric's memories resurfaced when he began psychotherapy to treat his anxiety disorder, suggesting that he had been actively repressing these memories. Retroactive interference and proactive interference involve interference with the retrieval of established memories, whereas encoding failure would involve the failure to encode memories in the first place.

Question 15

Whenever Yvonne tried to recall her new cell phone number, she kept getting it mixed up with an old phone number. Yvonne's failure to remember her new phone number is probably due to:

Accepted Answer

Yvonne's difficulty in remembering her new cell phone number is most likely due to proactive interference, which occurs when previously learned information interferes with the ability to remember new information. In this case, Yvonne's old phone number is getting in the way of her ability to remember the new number. Encoding failure relates more to the initial process of transferring information from sensory memory to long-term memory, while the misinformation effect and retroactive interference are not relevant to the scenario described.

Question 16

The more _____ information is in two memories, the more likely it is that _____ will occur.

Accepted Answer

Interference is more likely to occur when the information in two memories is similar, as this similarity can cause confusion between the two sets of information, leading to difficulties in recalling them accurately.

Question 17

Numerous studies have been conducted looking at the factors involved in criminal convictions in which the convicted person ultimately turned out to be innocent of the crime. Those studies have consistently shown that the leading cause of wrongful convictions is:

Accepted Answer

Studies have repeatedly found that eyewitness misidentification is the leading cause of wrongful convictions. Eyewitnesses can be influenced by various factors, such as stress, weapon focus, cross-racial identification, and suggestions from law enforcement, which can lead to mistaken identifications. Other factors such as false confessions, police misconduct, and faulty forensic science are also contributing factors but not as consistent as eyewitness misidentification.

Question 18

Suppression is to _____ as repression is to _____.

Accepted Answer

Suppression involves a conscious effort to forget or ignore something, whereas repression is an unconscious process where distressing thoughts are pushed out of conscious awareness.

Question 19

Because it was too painful to think about how his marriage had fallen apart due to his wife's infidelity, Russell decided that he was not going to remember anything about his marriage. Russell is trying to use _____, a form of motivated forgetting, to help ease his pain.

Accepted Answer

The answer of Because it was too painful to think...

Question 20

Of the following factors, which is the MOST likely to cause the greatest interference?

Accepted Answer

Similarity of information is the most likely factor to cause interference because it leads to confusion and difficulty in distinguishing between the memories, making it harder to retrieve specific information. This is known as retroactive interference. The other factors may also cause interference, but to a lesser extent.

Quiz 6: Section 2: Memory