AP Psychology - Cognition

According to the serial position effect, you will remember more: 

• items at the beginning and end of a list, than in the middle.
• nitems in the middle of a list, than at the beginning and end.
• vocabulary words if you process them visually.
• nvocabulary words if you process them acoustically.

Which of the following processes is likely to result in the best memory for words?

• visual encoding
• acoustic encoding
• rote memorization
• semantic encoding

Memories of emotional events are especially likely to be facilitated by activation of the: 

• amygdala.
• hypothalamus.
• sensory cortex.
• motor cortex.

Priming refers to:

• the sense that one has been in a particular situation before.

• better recall for experiences that are consistent with one’s current mood.

• attributing a memory to an erroneous source.

• the activation of associations in memory.

We have all had the experience of the tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon.  We are asked to remember someone’s name.  We are certain that we know the name and feel as if we are just about to remember it, yet it remains elusive.  What type of forgetting might be at work here?

• encoding failure
• retroactive interference
• retrieval failure
• motivated forgetting

As a child, Theo often looked at a picture album that included photos of a family reunion.  Although Theo had not attended the reunion because he had been ill, he remembers being there.  Theo’s mistake best illustrates the “sin” of:

• suggestibility.
• persistence.
• misattribution.
• transience.

The reason most North Americans cannot accurately describe the head of a penny is due to:

• storage decay.
• retrieval failure.
• encoding failure.
• motivated forgetting.

Richard Atkinson and Richard Shiffrin’s classic three-stage model of memory includes all of the following, EXCEPT:

• short-term memory
• long-term memory
• flashbulb memory
• sensory memory

During her evening Spanish language exam, Janica so easily remembers the French vocabulary she studied that morning that she finds it difficult to recall the Spanish vocabulary she rehearsed that afternoon. Her difficulty best illustrates:

• the spacing effect.
• proactive interference.
• retroactive interference.
• state-dependent memory.

A defense attorney emphasizes to a jury that her client works full-time, supports his family, and enjoys leisure-time hobbies. Although none of this information is relevant to the trial, it is designed to make the defendant appear to be a typical member of the local community. The lawyer is most clearly attempting to take advantage 

• confirmation bias.
• functional fixedness.
• belief perseverance.
• the representativeness heuristic.