Cognition Exam 2 Lecture Only

What did Sperling's partial-report procedure demonstrate?

More visual information is briefly available in iconic memory than can be reported after a delay.

What happens when the partial-report cue is delayed in Sperling's task?

The partial-report advantage declines as the visual sensory trace fades.

What did Darwin, Turvey, and Crowder investigate?

Brief auditory sensory persistence using partial-report methods for echoic memory.

What is the cocktail-party effect?

Noticing personally important unattended information, such as one's name, while attending to another message.

How can perceptual load and age affect unattended-name detection?

When primary-task demands consume attention, less capacity remains to notice unattended information; age-related capacity differences can alter the result.

What does the serial-position curve show?

Early list items and late list items often have recall advantages over middle items.

What is the primacy effect?

Better memory for early items, often aided by rehearsal and long-term encoding.

What is the recency effect?

Better immediate recall for the most recent items, often attributed to short-term availability.

What does a filled delay before free recall do to recency?

It often reduces or eliminates the immediate recency advantage.

What did Brown–Peterson tasks measure?

Short-term retention across brief delays while rehearsal is blocked by a distractor task.

What question did Waugh and Norman investigate?

Whether short-term forgetting is better explained by passage of time or interference from additional items.

What is Sternberg's memory-scanning task?

Decide whether a probe belongs to a memorized short list while measuring reaction time as list length changes.

What is a key interpretation of Sternberg's linear reaction-time findings?

Participants appear to scan the short memory set in a systematic way; the classic account proposes exhaustive scanning.

What is state-based working memory?

An account in which currently accessible items are activated representations rather than contents of a fully separate memory store.

What is activity-silent working memory?

Temporary retention that may persist through changed neural states without continuous elevated firing.

What is anterograde amnesia?

Difficulty forming new lasting memories after onset of damage or illness.

What is retrograde amnesia?

Loss of memories for events preceding onset of damage or illness.

What does the H.M. case illustrate?

Severe difficulty forming new declarative memories can coexist with some skill learning.

What is a memory-system dissociation?

One type of memory is impaired while another remains relatively preserved.

What is consolidation?

Processes that stabilize newly formed memories over time.

What is reconsolidation?

A retrieved memory may undergo restabilization and sometimes updating.

How is sleep discussed in memory consolidation?

Sleep can support strengthening and reorganizing recently encoded memories.

What does the fMRI BOLD signal index?

Blood-oxygenation changes used as an indirect measure of neural activity.

What does PET brain imaging measure in the lecture context?

Physiological tracer-related signals such as metabolism or blood flow.

What does Ebbinghaus's forgetting curve illustrate?

Retention typically falls rapidly at first and more slowly afterward; review can improve retention.

What does Bartlett's reconstructive-memory work emphasize?

Recall is shaped by prior knowledge, cultural expectations, and reconstruction.

How can social remembering alter a person's recall?

Conversation and other people's versions can influence what is later recalled.

What is the difference between simultaneous and sequential lineups?

Simultaneous presents members together; sequential presents them one at a time.

What is relative judgment in eyewitness lineups?

Choosing whoever most resembles the culprit compared with other lineup members.

What is absolute judgment in eyewitness lineups?

Comparing each person against one's memory of the culprit rather than against lineup alternatives.

What does a target-absent lineup test?

Whether a witness can correctly reject a lineup containing no culprit.

What is a double-blind lineup?

Neither the administrator nor the witness knows which lineup member is the suspect during the procedure.

What is HSAM or hyperthymesia?

Rare unusually extensive access to autobiographical information, often cued by dates.

What is severely deficient autobiographical memory (SDAM)?

A pronounced lifelong difficulty vividly re-experiencing personal past events without necessarily having acquired brain injury.

What are field and observer perspectives?

Remembering through one's own original viewpoint versus seeing oneself from an external viewpoint.

What did Cabeza and colleagues compare in the autobiographical-photo study?

Brain responses to participants' own meaningful photographs versus other people's laboratory photographs.

What is mental time travel?

Subjectively projecting oneself into remembered past events or imagined future experiences.

What is nostalgia in autobiographical memory?

Emotionally meaningful reflection on the personal past, often involving mixed feelings.

What is the relationship between autobiographical memory and future simulation?

Recombining elements of past experience can help imagine possible future events.