Chapter: Chapter 05: Long-Term Memory
Multiple Choice
1. According to one popular categorization system, three subdivisions of long-term memory are:
a) iconic, episodic, and conceptual memory.
b) working, episodic, and abstract memory.
c) iconic, semantic, and conceptual memory.
d) episodic, semantic, and procedural memory.
Ans: d
Feedback: See page 127
2. The term episodic memory refers to:
a) memories for personally experienced events.
b) working memory for physical actions.
c) knowledge about words and other factual information.
d) implicit memory for word patterns.
Ans: a
Feedback: See page 127
3. What subtype of long-term memory is associated with remembering personal experiences?
a) episodic memory
b) implicit memory
c) prospective memory
d) semantic memory
Ans: a
Feedback: See page 127
4. What subtype of long-term memory is associated with remembering facts?
a) episodic memory
b) implicit memory
c) prospective memory
d) semantic memory
Ans: d
Feedback: See page 127
5. What subtype of long-term memory is associated with remembering skills?
a) episodic memory
b) implicit memory
c) prospective memory
d) semantic memory
Ans: b
Feedback: See page 127
6. In contrast to shallow (structural) processing, deep (semantic) processing of information produces:
a) more effects of interference on memory processes.
b) rapid forgetting as a result of the lack of distinctive processing.
c) better memory for the information.
d) semantic confusion similar to that experienced by amnesic patients.
Ans: c
Feedback: See page 129
7. Deeper processing of material to be remembered encourages recall because of
a) distinctness.
b) elaboration.
c) superficiality.
d) Both A and B.
Ans: d
Feedback: See page 129 – 130
8. Research on levels of processing reveals that deep processing levels enhance recall as a result of two
main factors:
a) distinctiveness and elaboration.
b) distinctiveness and bizarreness.
c) elaboration and interference.
d) bizarreness and interference.
Ans: a
Feedback: See page 129
9. Long-term memory for information is usually extremely good if a person had encoded the information
in terms of:
a) rhyming schemes.
b) negative emotions.
c) self-reference.
d) physical features.
Ans: c
Feedback: See page 131
10. When subjects use the self-reference technique for material they need to learn, they remember
__________ when they use a different technique.
a) significantly more than
b) about the same as
c) significantly less than
d) slightly less than
Ans: a
Feedback: See page 131
11. What can we conclude about the self-reference effect?
a) Relating information to yourself is a very effective way of remembering it.
b) It is more effective to process information in terms of its semantic category than in terms of yourself.
c) The effect is only evident if a person is also in a congruent context at the time of retrieval.
d) Some research supports the effect, but meta-analyses reveal that the effect is very small.
Ans: a
Feedback: See page 131
12. According to the encoding specificity principle:
a) recall usually depends on implicit memory concerning details such as spellings of words.
b) recall is better if the context during retrieval is similar to the context during encoding.
c) unpleasant material is better remembered than pleasant material because it is more emotional.
d) it is better to encode material during learning than to decode material during recall.
Ans: b
Feedback: See page 133
13. The proposal that successful recall is influenced by the match between the context in which
information is encoded and the context in which it is retrieved is called the:
a) retrograde amnesia effect.
b) encoding specificity principle.
c) organizational hypothesis.
d) interference theory of forgetting.
Ans: b
Feedback: See page 133
14. Research using bilingual participants who heard stories in one or another language (e.g., English or
Spanish) and answered questions about the stories in one or another language:
a) provide evidence against the levels-of-processing approach.
b) provide support for the levels-of-processing approach.
c) provide evidence against the encoding specificity principle.
d) provide support for the encoding specificity principle.
Ans: d
Feedback: See pages 133 - 134
15. Research on whether or not emotional stimuli affect memory reveals that:
a) people typically remember pleasant stimuli more accurately than other stimuli.
b) people typically remember unpleasant stimuli more accurately than other stimuli.
c) people typically remember neutral stimuli more accurately than pleasant or unpleasant stimuli.
d) people’s accuracy does not depend on whether stimuli are pleasant, neutral, or unpleasant.
Ans: a
Feedback: See page 137
16. Research on emotions and memory suggests that ___________ stimuli are better-remembered and
slower to fade than other types of stimuli.
a) unpleasant
b) pleasant
c) shocking
d) neutral
Ans: b
Feedback: See pages 138 - 139
17. A reliable finding concerning the effect of mood on long term memory is that:
a) people recall material better when the material is congruent with a person's current mood.
b) depressed people remember both positive and negative events better than do nondepressed people.
c) nondepressed people remember negative events better than they remember positive events.
d) unpleasant memories are forgotten much less quickly than are pleasant memories.
Ans: a
Feedback: See page 140
18. The distinction between explicit memory tasks and implicit memory tasks involves whether or not
people:
a) know about the finding that mnemonics provide an effective way to improve memory for facts.
b) have received training in an approved Metacognitive Awareness Course or Memory Training
Program.
c) have received some contextual cues that facilitate their memory retrieval.
d) are aware that memory is being tested and intentionally try to recall or recognize previously presented
information.
Ans: d
Feedback: See pages 143 - 144
19. People with an anxiety disorder are _____________ people without such a disorder to remember
threatening, anxiety-arousing words.
a) significantly less likely than
b) slightly less likely than
c) equally likely as
d) more likely than
Ans: d
Feedback: See page 145
20. Loss of memory for events that a person experienced prior to some traumatic injury to the brain is
called:
a) proactive interference.
b) retroactive interference.
c) retrograde amnesia.
d) anterograde amnesia.
Ans: c
Feedback: See page 146
21. A person (such as H.M.) who receives damage to the hippocampus and suffers from anterograde
amnesia will show considerable difficulty:
a) performing implicit memory tasks, such as word-guessing games and word-completion tasks.
b) encoding new events into long-term memory so that they can be explicitly recalled later.
c) retrieving information from long-term memory that was encoded prior to the hippocampal damage.
d) learning new motor skills, such as skiing, and automatic behaviors, such as classical conditioning.
Ans: b
Feedback: See page 146
22. Compared with novices, experts
a) possess well-organized knowledge.
b) have more vivid visual imagery.
c) rehearse information in a more strategic manner.
d) All of the above are correct.
Ans: d
Feedback: See pages 147 - 148
23. Research indicates that people who are experts in one area (e.g., chess or music):
a) do not show any better memory than do novices, even when they are tested in their area of expertise.
b) have a larger working-memory capacity than do novices, even when they are tested outside their area
of expertise.
c) display outstanding memory skills, even when they are tested outside their area of expertise.
d) have well-organized, carefully learned knowledge structures in their area of expertise.
Ans: d
Feedback: See pages 147 - 148
24. Findings relating to the own-ethnicity bias reveal that people:
a) are more accurate in recognizing faces of people from their own ethnic group.
b) think that the greatest expertise on various tasks is shown by people from their own ethnic group.
c) think that people from their own ethnic group display the most appropriate social skills.
d) All of the above are correct.
Ans: a
Feedback: See page 149
25. A major focus of experiments on autobiographical memory is on the:
a) correspondence between an actual event and an individual’s memory for that event.
b) number of items recalled or recognized in a laboratory study of long-term memory.
c) way in which people displaying amnesia fail to encode personally relevant information.
d) All of the above are correct.
Ans: a
Feedback: See page 152
26. An example of a failure of source monitoring was:
a) The decision of the Supreme Court to end the seemingly endless ballot recounting in the state of
Florida in November, 2004.
b) Government agencies discounting the possibility that commercial aircraft could be used in an attack
such as the one on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001.
c) President Bush stating in 2003 that Iraq was negotiating with an African country to buy uranium.
d) All of the above are correct.
Ans: c
Feedback: See page 154
27. Your friend claims that she always retains a very clear and accurate memoriy of surprising,
important, and emotional events (such when she heard about the terrorist attack on the World Trade
Center in September, 2001). How should you respond?
a) "Research strongly supports your claim in that people invariably show very clear and accurate
memories of such events."
b) "Actually, memories of such events are usually worse than memories of uneventful, unimportant, and
emotionless events."
c) "Such memories may seem to clear and accurate, but people may nevertheless report inaccurate
details."
d) "Although your claim is an interesting one, the topic is one that memory researchers have not yet
investigated."
Ans: c
Feedback: See page 156
28. Experiments on eyewitness testimony reveal that the accuracy of a person who is questioned about
details of a previously experienced event may be heavily influenced by:
a) whether or not a flashbulb memory was created at the time of encoding.
b) the specific wording of the questions asked.
c) prospective memory for the consequences of the event.
d) whether or not the person asking the questions is a psychologist.
Ans: b
Feedback: See pages 158 - 159
29. Which of the following can make eyewitness testimony less accurate?
a) Witnesses create memories that are consistent with their schemas.
b) Witnesses make source monitoring errors.
c) Witnesses’ memories of the event are disrupted by post-event misinformation
d) All of the above make such testimony less accurate.
Ans: d
Feedback: See page 159 - 162
30. Suppose that a robbery trial involves eyewitness testimony. One relevant finding is that
eyewitnesses:
a) recognize members of a different race better than members of their own race.
b) may be nearly as confident in misinformation-based memories as in genuinely correct memories.
c) have especially vivid recall of a robber's facial features if the robber used a weapon.
d) may be highly accurate in their testimony, but usually only if they were later hypnotized.
Ans: b
Feedback: See page 162
31. Sometimes an adult seems to remember something previously forgotten, such as incidents of
childhood sexual abuse. What is now known about so-called recovered memories?
a) Recovered memories are usually accurate because people remember traumatic events exceptionally
well.
b) Recovered memories are almost always erroneous, a phenomenon called the false-memory effect.
c) Some people may accurately recover memories of traumatic events, but others may falsely recover
memories of such events.
d) All recovered memories are false memories that are created under the influence of hypnosis, an
extremely suggestible state.
Ans: c
Feedback: See page 165