COG PSYCH FINAL PRACTICE Q EXAM 2 WORKING MEMORY

practice questions from exam 2

The calling to mind of previously stored information is known as:
a. retrieval.
b. encoding.
c. storage.
d. forgetting.
e. maintenance

A retrieval.

Memory ability can be defined as:
a. encoding of information in the past
b. maintenance of information from the past
c. remembering a past event
d. having information from the past

D having information from the past

The primacy and recency effects in memory:
a. are thought to be due to the action of short-term memory.
b. are thought to be due to the action of long-term memory.
c. are thought to be due to the action of sensory memory.
d. can be independently manipulated, indicating at least two types of memory at work.
e. have recently been discredited in cognitive psychology.

D can be independently manipulated, indicating at least two types of memory at work.

Information is stored in iconic memory for:
a. less than 1 second.
b. 5–10 seconds.
c. about 20 seconds.
d. up to 1 year.
e. a lifetime.

A less than 1 second.

In Sperling’s “partial report” tasks, subjects were shown a brief array of letters and numbers and were then given a tone cue that indicated which row they should
remember. About how many letters and numbers could subjects report from one row in an array containing 3 rows of 4 letters?
a) 1
b) 3
c) 8
d) 12

B 3

Imagine that you are brought into a dark room and the lights are turned on for 1
millisecond and then off again. It will seem like you can still see some of the objects
in the room for a few hundred milliseconds after the lights are turned off. This is an
example of:
a) Working memory
b) Long-term memory
c) Sensory memory
d) All of the above
e) None of the above

C Sensory memory

Peterson & Peterson (1959) attempted to provide evidence for rapid decay of
information in short-term memory. They presented subjects with 3 letters to remember and then gave them a 3-digit number and asked the subjects to count backwards from this number by 3’s. Why did they give the subject the 3-digit number and ask them to count backwards?
a) To prevent active rehearsal of the 3 letters
b) To prevent the use of mnemonic strategies such as visualization
c) To prevent verbal encoding of the 3 letters
d) To prevent the use of echoic memory

A To prevent active rehearsal of the 3 letters

Which of the following is not an attribute of short-term memory?
a) Directly accessible
b) Unlimited storage capacity
c) Used to store information for current tasks
d) Can be maintained by means of rehearsal

B Unlimited storage capacity

Which of the following is not a component of the working memory system?
a. Articulatory Loop
b. Visuospatial sketchpad
c. Episodic buffer
d. Procedural buffer

D Procedural buffer

Which of the following is direct evidence that information is stored in an acoustic
form in the articulatory loop?
a. Concurrent articulation impairs recall for a visually presented list of words
b. Short-term memory for a list of words is worse if the items sound similar
to each other (e.g., rat, bat, cat, mat)
c. Recall of items on a list is worse if the words are long
d. Subjects can store four multiple-feature objects just as easily as four
single-feature objects

B Short-term memory for a list of words is worse if the items sound similar

The central executive in working memory is hypothesized to have the function of:
a. directing the flow of information.
b. controlling an unlimited amount of resources and capacity.
c. carrying out subvocal rehearsal to maintain verbal material in memory.
d. maintaining visual material in memory through visualization.
e. storing the meaning of complex verbal material

A directing the flow of information.

Repeating a phone number to yourself to hold it in memory while you dial it
would use which component of working memory?
a. the visuospatial sketchpad
b. the phonological loop
c. the episodic buffer
d. both the visuospatial sketchpad and the phonological loop
e. both the visuospatial sketchpad and the episodic buffer

B the phonological loop

The _____ component of working memory is thought to be a temporary storage system that interacts with long-term memory and the other components of working memory to facilitate the transfer of information to long-term memory.
a. episodic buffer
b. visuospatial sketchpad
c. central executive
d. the episodic buffer
e. the semantic buffer

A episodic buffer