PSC 130 Final Review

Hyperthymesia (HSAM) is characterized by:

Exceptional autobiographical memory for almost every day of one's life

Flashbulb memories are:

Highly vivid and confident, but no necessarily more accurate than normal memories.

"Semanticization" refers to:

Episodic memories lose their detail over time and become semantic knowledge.

In the "Think/No-Think" paradigm, the "No-Think" instruction leads to:

Lower recall of those items compared to baseline items

What happens to a memory when it is "liable?"

It is in a state where it can be changed or disrupted (occurs during reconsolidation).

Multiple Trace Theory (MTT) suggests the Hippocampus is:

Always needed to retrieve episodic memories, no matter how old they are.

Standard Consolidation Theory suggests the Hippocampus is:

Only needed for a limited time until the memory is stored in the cortex.

Which of the following is true regarding "Consolidation"?

It refers to the process by which a memory trace becomes increasingly resistant to interference.

Which of the following is the most likely explanation for the relationship between emotional arousal and memory?

Transient release of norepinephrine increases the engagement of the amygdala, improving memory for salient parts of a stressful event.

Why We Remember suggests that when we experience an emotional or stressful event:

Cortisol can promote plasticity, helping us remember what happened right before or right after the event.

Reconsolidation can be disrupted if a protein synthesis inhibitor is administered:

Immediately after a reminder of the CS (Conditioned Stimulus).

Animals with damage to the hippocampus:

Do not show spontaneous recovery of fear in new contexts after extinction learning.

Patients with amygdala damage:

Show normal memory for neutral components, but reduced recall of emotionally arousing components.

Long-term potentiation (LTP) is:

A lasting increase in the strength of a synapse when the input neuron is heavily stimulated.

Rudoy & Paller (2009) found that playing associated sounds during sleep:

Improved memory specifically for the cued object-location associations.

Anderson et al. (2004) found that suppressing a memory involves:

Increased activity in the prefrontal cortex and decreased activity in the hippocampus.

Scarlett practices "Knife" (from a utensils list) and "Frog" (from an animal list). At the final test, she is:

More likely to recall KNIFE, but less likely to recall SPOON.

"Why We Remember" suggests the best way to learn is to:

Test ourselves and make a best guess (error-driven learning).

One week after learning, which group will remember more: Mateo (Retrieval Practice) or Clara (Repeated Study)?

Mateo (Retrieval Practice).

You find that testing yourself on some facts helps you remember all facts in that set. This is:

Retrieval induced facilitation.

Distributed practice leads to better retention compared to massed practice. This describes the:

Spacing effect.

A patient with damage specifically to the Prefrontal Cortex (PFC) will:

Be more likely to make false alarms and confabulate due to impaired ability to determine the source of memories.

According to the source monitoring framework, accurate memory attributions depend on:

The availability of specific information, such as sensory details, about a past event.

Hassabis and Maguire (2007) found that patients with hippocampal damage:

Imagined much fewer details than controls.

According to Loftus (1975), asking "How fast was the car going when they smashed into each other?" results in:

A higher speed estimate than if the word "bumped" was used.

In a "Boundary Extension" study, the results showed that:

Amnesic patients and healthy controls both showed equal levels of boundary extension.

In the DRM paradigm (Schacter et al., 1996), which of the following was true?

Amnesic patients made fewer false alarms to the related critical lure than did healthy controls.

An event model is similar to _____ memory and an event schema is similar to _____ memory.

Episodic; Semantic.

According to event segmentation theory, an event boundary is triggered by:

A prediction error.

Why do researchers think you might have trouble remembering something after you walk through a doorway?

Because people often form new event models after a change in spatial context.

The Default Mode Network (DMN) is now thought to be:

Involved in complex thought processes, such as retrieving episodic memories, spatial navigation, and making sense of stories.

The False Fame effect, Illusory Truth effect, and Mere Exposure effect are examples of:

How familiarity can inadvertently influence decisions, opinions, and preferences.

In Wang, Yonelinas, & Ranganath (2014), activity in the perirhinal cortex:

Was reduced during processing of primed items, but increased with recognition confidence for familiar items.

The "Own Race Bias" in face recognition can be partially explained by:

Differences in past experience at recognizing faces of people from one's own race vs. different categories.

The "False Fame Effect" (Jacoby et al., 1989) demonstrated that:

The name is not recollected from the study phase but seems familiar.

Research on word frequency effects suggests:

An infrequent word like "armadillo" is less likely to be recalled, but more likely to be recognized relative to a common word like "horse."

The "mirror effect" in recognition memory refers to the fact that:

Low frequency words are associated with more hits and fewer false alarms than are high frequency words.

A subject studies a list of words including "apple." At test, they make a "Know" response to "apricot." This means the item was:

Familiar but not recollected.

n Tulving's Remember/Know procedure, "Know" responses are thought to be based on:

Familiarity.

Generate-Recognize models of memory suggest:

Recall involves two processing stages (generate then recognize), but recognition only requires one.

On a recognition memory test, when a subject incorrectly says "old" for an unstudied item, we would call that a:

False Alarm.

The lag-recency effect provides evidence to support the idea that Episodic Memories are:

Temporally Organized.

Based on the ratio rule, which group would show a larger recency effect? Group A (1s apart, 5 min delay) or Group B (5s apart, immediate recall)?

Group B

A healthy subject studies a list of 30 words and then immediately takes a free recall memory test. You would expect:

Increased memory for the first few items compared to the middle, and Increased memory for the last few items compared to the middle.

Based on the Von Restorff effect, we can expect that:

"Apple" would be better remembered if it was in a study list of furniture items than if it was in a study list of fruit.

Nora masters a list of Spanish words... She then uses the same strategies to learn the same words in Mandarin. What is the most likely outcome?

Due to proactive interference, the Mandarin words will be harder to learn than the Spanish words.

According to "Why We Remember," why might focusing too much on taking photos make people remember less?

People are not doing deep encoding when they take a photo.

The study by Goodwin et al. (1969) regarding sober/drunk learning and recall is an example of:

State-dependent memory.

If you want to recall a specific piece of information, which type of memory test would benefit most from remembering the context in which the information was learned?

Free Recall.

Tulving is describing the experience of retrieving:

Episodic memories.

According to Tulving's Encoding Specificity Principle, successful memory performance depends on:

The interaction between a retrieval cue and the type of trace that was formed at encoding.

Morris, Bransford, and Franks (1977) had subjects study words by making either a rhyme or a semantic judgment. Based on the Transfer Appropriate Processing Framework, one would predict that:

Subjects who did sound-based encoding would show better performance on the rhyme recognition test, but subjects who did meaning-based encoding would show better performance on the item recognition test.

Alex is trying to memorize a list of words by sorting them into different categories. This is an example of:

Relational Encoding.

In order to test the Levels of Processing Framework it was necessary to:

Use incidental encoding tasks, so that experimenters could manipulate how information was processed.

Craik and Lockhart's Levels of Processing Framework proposed that:

Elaborative rehearsal should result in better learning than maintenance rehearsal.

Older adults with extensive white matter hyperintensities (WMH) on MRI scans have:

Reduced prefrontal cortex activation and worse working memory.

Heyer & Barrett (1971) found that verbal distraction disrupts recall of letters (verbal recall), and visual distraction disrupts recall of position (visual recall). This suggests that:

There are separate working memory systems for verbal versus visual information.

Cortical Areas in the Dorsal Stream are more involved with __________, whereas the Areas in the Ventral Stream are more involved with __________.

Spatial, Object.

Which of the following is NOT a function of the Central Executive, as described by Baddeley?

Phonological storage (or Rehearsing syllables).

Which of the following best describes the difference between the "long-term store" and "short-term store" in the Modal Model (e.g., Atkinson & Shiffrin, 1968)?

The long-term store is responsible for storing information permanently, while the short-term store is responsible for temporarily holding information for immediate use.

Based on Ebbinghaus' studies of forgetting, you would expect to show the most forgetting (i.e., the biggest difference in memory performance) between:

A test given 20 minutes after study vs. a test given 1 hour after studying.

Ranganath describes a "top-down" process where the Prefrontal Cortex (PFC) acts as a filter. What happens to the "irrelevant" information that the PFC filters out during a busy experience?

It is never encoded into a stable memory trace, meaning it isn't "forgotten" later—it was never truly there to begin with.

In the context of "Multitasking," what does the book suggest happens to the quality of episodic memory when we switch between tasks?

Each switch incurs a "switching cost" that disrupts the hippocampus's ability to create a continuous, detailed record of the event.

Ranganath uses the term "Binding." What is the specific role of the hippocampus in this process?

It acts as an index that "binds" together disparate patterns of activity from across the cortex (sights, sounds, smells) into a single, unified episode.

According to Chapter 2, why is episodic memory considered "expensive" for the brain to maintain compared to semantic memory?

Because it requires maintaining a massive amount of specific, unique detail that often becomes less useful for general survival over time.

Ranganath discusses "Chunking" not just as a memory trick, but as a fundamental way we perceive the world. How does a "Schema" facilitate chunking?

It allows us to group individual pieces of information into a single "unit" based on pre-existing knowledge (e.g., knowing what happens at a "Restaurant" allows you to ignore standard details and only record what was unique).

What is the "Expertise Effect" mentioned in this chapter?

The more you know about a subject (like chess or birds), the more "hooks" (schemas) you have to hang new information on, making it easier to remember new facts in that domain.

Ranganath argues that "stability is the enemy of memory." Why does a predictable environment lead to poor memory retention?

When life is predictable, there are no "Prediction Errors" to trigger the release of neuromodulators (like dopamine) that tell the brain "this is worth recording."

What is the "Curiosity Gap," and how does it affect the hippocampus?

It is the state of realizing what you don't know; this state puts the hippocampus in an "active" mode that makes it much more likely to retain the answer once it is finally revealed.

Ranganath distinguishes between "Recollection" and "Familiarity." Which one is more prone to leading us into "The Illusion of Truth"?

Familiarity. When we hear a false statement repeatedly, it begins to feel familiar, and our brain often mistakes that "fluency" or ease of processing for truth.

What is "Fluency," and how can it trick students into thinking they have studied enough?

Fluency is the ease with which information comes to mind. Students often mistake the ease of reading their notes for the ability to recall the information from scratch.

Chapter 6 discusses "Adaptive Forgetting." According to Ranganath, what is the primary benefit of forgetting the specific color of the shirt you wore three Tuesdays ago?

It reduces "proactive interference," clearing out the clutter so you can more easily retrieve information that is actually relevant to your current goals.

What is "Systems Consolidation," and how does it change the location of a memory over years?

It is the process where a memory becomes less dependent on the hippocampus and more integrated into the neocortex as general knowledge.

Ranganath describes "Tunnel Memory" in stressful situations. What does this mean for the details outside of the central threat?

Memory for the central "salient" detail (the gun, the fire) is enhanced, but memory for the peripheral details (what the person was wearing, the background) is often significantly worse than a neutral memory.

How does chronic, long-term stress differ from short-term "acute" stress in its effect on the hippocampus?

Acute stress can temporarily "high-light" a memory, but chronic stress can lead to the atrophy (shrinking) of hippocampal neurons, making it harder to form any new memories.

What is "Collaborative Inhibition," and why does it happen when people try to remember things in a group?

People actually recall less when working together than the sum of what they would recall individually, because other people's retrieval strategies disrupt your own unique "organizational path."

How does Ranganath define "Mnemonic Convergence" in social groups?

Over time, people who interact frequently begin to remember events in the same way, effectively "syncing" their memories and losing the individual, diverging details.