Cognition Exam 2 CAI + Articles

What is a flashbulb memory?

A vivid, confident memory of how you learned about an important or shocking event.

Are flashbulb memories more accurate than ordinary memories?

Not necessarily. They often feel more accurate, but they can contain similar errors.

What did Weaver (1995) compare in his flashbulb memory study?

Students' memories of an ordinary roommate interaction and hearing about Operation Desert Storm.

What did Weaver find about accuracy versus confidence?

Both memories became less consistent, but confidence remained much higher for the important public event.

What was Weaver's main conclusion?

Flashbulb memories do not require a special photographic memory mechanism; normal memory processes can explain them.

What is repression in traditional memory theory?

The proposed unconscious blocking of a stored traumatic memory from conscious awareness.

What was Weaver's argument about recovered repressed memories?

He argued that there is insufficient evidence for a special mechanism preserving completely inaccessible memories in perfectly accurate form.

What is the testing effect?

Actively retrieving information improves long-term retention compared with simply rereading it.

What did Roediger and Karpicke (2006) compare?

Repeated studying versus practice testing to determine which produces better long-term memory.

What were the three final-test delays in Experiment 1?

Five minutes, two days, and one week.

Which method worked better after five minutes?

Repeated studying.

Which method worked better after two days and one week?

Practice testing.

What do SSSS, SSST, and STTT mean?

SSSS = study four times; SSST = study three times and test once; STTT = study once and test three times.

Which condition produced the best long-term retention in Experiment 2?

STTT, the condition with the most retrieval practice.

Did practice tests improve long-term memory even without feedback?

Yes. Testing improved delayed recall even though participants received no corrective feedback.

Why can rereading create a misleading feeling of learning?

Familiarity makes material seem well learned even when it may be difficult to retrieve later.

What is the main practical conclusion of Roediger and Karpicke (2006)?

Use active recall and practice testing instead of relying mainly on rereading.

What is explicit memory?

Conscious remembering, such as recalling information or recognizing something previously learned.

What is implicit memory?

Prior experience influencing performance without requiring conscious recollection.

What is priming?

Previous exposure makes related information easier or faster to process later.

What did Warrington and Weiskrantz find in patients with amnesia?

Patients had impaired explicit memory but could still show learning on certain implicit memory tasks.

What is a dissociation in memory research?

When a variable affects two types of memory tasks differently.

What is the picture-superiority effect?

Pictures are usually remembered better than words on explicit memory tests.

Why can previously studied words produce more priming than pictures in word-fragment tasks?

The visual processing used to read words matches the processing needed to complete word fragments.

What is transfer-appropriate processing?

Memory improves when the mental processes used during learning match those used during testing.

What are the two main explanations for explicit–implicit memory dissociations?

Different memory systems and differences in the processing required by each task.

What was Roediger's (1990) main argument?

Some explicit–implicit memory differences can be explained by processing differences rather than completely separate memory systems.

What are the four sins of memory Schacter (2022) focuses on?

Transience, absent-mindedness, misattribution, and suggestibility.

What is transience?

Forgetting information as time passes.

What is absent-mindedness?

Forgetting because attention was not properly focused or a needed reminder was missed.

What is misattribution?

Remembering information but attributing it to the wrong source.

What is suggestibility?

Memory being changed by misleading information or suggestions.

What is cognitive offloading?

Using outside tools, such as phones or computers, to store information or reduce mental demands.

How can GPS negatively affect memory?

Relying on GPS can reduce memory for routes because less attention is devoted to learning them.

How can photography both improve and impair memory?

It can reduce attention during an experience, but careful photography and reviewing photos can strengthen recall.

Why does media multitasking often hurt memory?

Switching attention reduces how deeply information is processed and encoded.

What is the difference between task-specific and domain-general memory effects?

Task-specific affects one activity; domain-general affects memory across many activities.

What did Schacter conclude about technology and memory overall?

Technology has both benefits and costs, with stronger evidence for specific effects than general memory damage.

What is the misinformation effect?

Misleading information presented after an event changes what someone later reports remembering.

What did Loftus and Palmer's car accident experiment demonstrate?

Leading questions changed speed estimates and increased false reports of broken glass.

How did the words smashed and hit affect participants differently?

Smashed produced higher estimated speeds and more false reports of broken glass than hit.

What was the lost-in-a-mall experiment?

Researchers suggested a false childhood event and found that some participants developed a belief or memory of it.

What did the Bugs Bunny at Disneyland experiment demonstrate?

Suggestive advertisements can produce false autobiographical reports, even about an impossible encounter.

What is the difference between false belief and false memory?

False belief means thinking something happened; false memory involves subjectively recollecting it.

Can someone experience a false memory without intentionally lying?

Yes. A person may sincerely believe an inaccurate memory.

What was Loftus's overall conclusion about memory?

Memory is reconstructive and can be distorted by misleading information and suggestion.

What two types of memory did Hirst and colleagues study after 9/11?

Flashbulb memories of learning the news and factual memories about the attacks.

What is the difference between flashbulb memory and event memory?

Flashbulb memory concerns how someone learned the news; event memory concerns facts about the event.

How long did Hirst and colleagues follow participants' memories?

Approximately ten years.

When did most forgetting occur in the 9/11 study?

During the first year, followed by relatively stable performance.

What happened to confidence in flashbulb memories over ten years?

Confidence remained high even though recollections contained inconsistencies.

Why were factual event memories more likely to be corrected than flashbulb memories?

People could encounter accurate event information through media and discussions.

What was the main conclusion of Hirst et al. (2015)?

Strong confidence and emotional significance do not guarantee accurate long-term memory.

What is the Google effect?

Expecting future access to information can reduce memory for its content while increasing reliance on knowing where to find it.

What is transactive memory?

A system in which people use others or external resources to help store and retrieve information.

What did Sparrow, Liu, and Wegner (2011) find when participants expected information to be erased?

Participants remembered more of the information than those who expected it to be saved.

What did Sparrow's folder-location experiment demonstrate?

People often remembered where information was stored better than the information itself.

Does the Google effect mean the Internet damages memory?

No. It shows that expecting external access can change what information people prioritize remembering.

What is cognitive modeling using AI?

Using AI systems to test theories and predict patterns of human cognition.

What is a stimulus-computable model?

A model that can process realistic inputs such as words, images, or sounds.

Does AI producing human-like answers prove it thinks like a human?

No. Similar answers can result from different underlying processes.

Why is data contamination a problem in AI research?

Models may have encountered experimental questions during training, making performance difficult to interpret.

Why do Frank and Goodman emphasize human-scale training data?

Models trained on experiences closer to human learning may provide more informative comparisons with human cognition.

What is the central conclusion of the Nature article on technology and memory?

Technology can change how people remember and learn, but specific effects do not prove that technology generally destroys memory.