Memory Systems
What are the three basic processes involved in memory?
What are encoding, storage, and retrieval?
Encoding gets information into memory, storage retains it, and retrieval brings it back into conscious awareness.
When a person remembers the first and last items in a list better than the middle items, what memory phenomenon is occurring?
What is the serial position effect?
The primacy effect refers to better memory for early items, while the recency effect refers to better memory for the most recent items.
A police officer conducting a lineup does not know which person is the suspect. Which eyewitness identification recommendation does this follow?
What is blind presentation?
Blind presentation helps reduce the possibility that the administrator will unintentionally influence the witness.
Someone sees a person arrive late and concludes that the person is irresponsible, without considering that a train delay may have occurred. What attribution error does this illustrate?
What is the fundamental attribution error?
This is the tendency to overemphasize dispositional explanations for other people's behavior while underestimating situational influences.
The ABC model of attitudes includes affect, behavior, and which third component?
What is cognition?
Affect refers to feelings, behavior refers to actions or behavioral tendencies, and cognition refers to thoughts or beliefs.
What model proposes that information passes through sensory memory, short-term memory, and long-term memory?
What is the Atkinson–Shiffrin model?
The model describes information moving through three memory systems, with rehearsal helping information enter long-term memory.
You learn a new phone number but keep remembering your old number. Conversely, learning new information makes it harder to remember information you learned previously. Name these two forms of interference.
What are proactive interference and retroactive interference?
Proactive interference occurs when older information disrupts learning or recalling newer information. Retroactive interference occurs when newer information disrupts recalling older information.
Before a lineup, an investigator tells a witness that the perpetrator may or may not be present. Which recommendation is being followed?
What are cautionary instructions?
These instructions help prevent witnesses from assuming that they must select someone.
A student explains a high exam score by saying they are intelligent but explains a low score by blaming an unfair test. What bias does this illustrate?
What is the self-serving bias?
People may attribute successes to themselves and failures to external circumstances to protect or enhance self-esteem.
A person feels uncomfortable because their actions conflict with their beliefs. What is this psychological state called?
What is cognitive dissonance?
Cognitive dissonance is the tension experienced when thoughts, feelings, or behaviors conflict. People may reduce it by changing behavior, changing attitudes or cognitions, or adding a new cognition.
Which memory system briefly registers sensory information, which holds a limited amount of information temporarily, and which stores information for long periods?
What are sensory memory, short-term memory, and long-term memory?
Sensory memory briefly holds incoming sensory information. Short-term memory maintains information temporarily, while long-term memory has a practically limitless capacity.
Hermann Ebbinghaus studied how memory changes over time. What is the name of the pattern showing that forgetting is initially rapid and then tends to slow down?
What is the forgetting curve?
Ebbinghaus demonstrated that retention declines over time, with a substantial amount of forgetting occurring relatively soon after learning.
An eyewitness views possible suspects one at a time instead of seeing everyone simultaneously. The investigator also asks the witness how confident they are in the identification. Which two recommendations are being used?
What are sequential presentation and confidence judgments?
Sequential presentation shows lineup members individually. Confidence judgments document the witness's confidence, but confidence alone does not guarantee accuracy.
A student behaves formally when meeting a professor, follows the expected behavior at a restaurant, and follows a familiar sequence when ordering food. Name the three social concepts involved.
What are social roles, social norms, and scripts?
Roles describe expected behavior associated with a position, norms describe socially appropriate behavior, and scripts describe the expected sequence of actions in a situation.
One advertisement persuades customers using detailed facts and evidence. Another uses a celebrity and attractive imagery. Which two routes to persuasion do these advertisements illustrate?
What are the central route and the peripheral route?
The central route relies on careful consideration of arguments and information. The peripheral route relies more on cues such as attractiveness, fame, or positive emotions.
Remembering how to ride a bicycle is an example of one type of long-term memory, while remembering facts and personal events involves another. Name these two broad types.
What are implicit and explicit memory?
Implicit memory involves memory expressed without conscious recollection, such as procedural skills. Explicit memory involves conscious recollection, including semantic and episodic memories.
A patient cannot form new long-term memories after a brain injury. Another patient loses memories from before the injury. What are these two types of amnesia?
What are anterograde amnesia and retrograde amnesia?
Anterograde amnesia involves difficulty forming new memories after the onset of the condition. Retrograde amnesia involves losing memories from before its onset.
Why can an eyewitness sincerely believe an identification is correct even when it is inaccurate?
What is the fallibility of memory?
Memory is reconstructive and can be influenced by circumstances surrounding an event, later information, and the identification process. Confidence and accuracy are not the same thing.
A student agrees with a group because they believe everyone else has better information. Another student agrees only because they want to be liked. Identify the two types of social influence.
What are informational social influence and normative social influence?
Informational influence involves looking to others for guidance about what is correct. Normative influence involves conforming to gain acceptance or avoid rejection.
In one situation, a person agrees to a small request before being asked for a much larger favor. In another, a person rejects a large request and then accepts a smaller one. Name these techniques and the broader concept of following an authority's orders.
What are the foot-in-the-door technique, the door-in-the-face technique, and obedience?
Foot-in-the-door begins with a small request. Door-in-the-face begins with a large request followed by a smaller one. Obedience involves following orders from an authority figure.
A student groups a long string of numbers into smaller, meaningful groups and repeatedly practices the information. Name the grouping technique and the two major types of rehearsal.
What are chunking, maintenance rehearsal, and elaborative rehearsal?
Chunking organizes information into meaningful units. Maintenance rehearsal repeats information, while elaborative rehearsal connects it to existing knowledge or meaning.
Identify the four memory measures: producing information without answer choices, identifying previously learned information, learning something again more quickly, and continuing to practice after reaching mastery.
What are recall, recognition, relearning, and overlearning?
Recall retrieves information, recognition identifies it, relearning measures how quickly it can be learned again, and overlearning involves practicing beyond initial mastery.
An investigator chooses lineup fillers who match the witness's description, gives cautionary instructions, uses a blind administrator, presents lineup members one at a time, and records the witness's confidence. What is the investigator applying?
What are the eyewitness identification recommendations associated with Wells and colleagues (1998)?
The recommendations aim to reduce bias and improve the reliability of eyewitness identification
A person attributes someone's behavior to personality without considering the situation. They then explain their own similar behavior by blaming circumstances. Which two attribution concepts help explain this pattern, and what cultural difference is associated with the first?
What are the fundamental attribution error and the self-serving bias?
The fundamental attribution error emphasizes personal characteristics over situational influences when explaining other people's behavior. The self-serving bias helps people maintain a favorable view of themselves.
One researcher studied how a message's source, content, and audience affect persuasion. Another investigated how far people would go in obeying an authority figure who instructed them to administer what they believed were increasingly severe electric shocks. Identify the approach and the researcher.
What is the Yale Attitude Change Approach, and who is Stanley Milgram?
The Yale approach examines factors affecting persuasion, including the communicator, message, and audience. Milgram's obedience experiments demonstrated that ordinary people could follow an authority figure's instructions even when those instructions conflicted with their personal values.