EXP 4504
SPRING 2006
HUMAN MEMORY
EXAM #2
NAME:_________________________
Answer ANY FOUR on each page:
1. We discussed the several characteristics on which STM and LTM were distinguished in the classic
two-store models of Waugh & Norman (1965), Atkinson & Shiffrin (1968), and others. Describe one of
those characteristics, and state one research finding relevant to that characteristic, noting why it
supports, or fails to support, that view.
2. What is the “irrelevant speech effect” in working memory? What does it suggest to do when you’re
studying?
3. What is one piece of evidence in support of the distinction between the phonological and spatial
components of Baddeley’s Working Memory model of STM?
4. What area(s) of the brain seem to become active when we are doing a task with high workingmemory demands?
5. In the text, Radvansky describes some of the more peculiar ways that visual-spatial working memory
leads to distortions in how things looked. They have names like “boundary extension,” “representational
gravity and friction,” etc. Describe one of those effects, and note what it tells us about working memory.
6. What is the “bottom line” concerning what sort of learning can take place during sleep?
7. What is the “power law of practice?” Briefly, how did Estes’ Stimulus Sampling Theory explain it?
8. Describe one explanation for the “spacing effects” often seen when massed and spaced practice are
compared.
9. What is one way we can reduce or eliminate the normal advantage for “deep” semantic encoding in
memory for a list of words?
10. Based on the study of mnemonics and mnemonists, would you say the balance of evidence favors
the “talent” view, or the “practice” view, of memory skill? Why?
11. Give an example of encoding/retrieval specificity effects (Tulving, 1973), and suggest one way that
the size of this effect might be altered.
12. In several studies, Michael Anderson has found that practicing some items of a category make others
harder to later remember (“retrieval-induced forgetting”). What do you think was the most convincing
evidence that this forgetting was due to a process of inhibition, as opposed to associative interference
and competition?
13. What is one powerful kind of distortion, in long-term memory, that leads to remembering something
that was not the case?
14. What is one argument that has been made against the claim that “memory is permanent?”
15. In the classic proactive interference (PI) experiment, with AC – AB learning and AB test, what
should happen to the relative amount of PI when we increase the retention interval between AB learning
and test? Why?