Modules 2.3-2.7 Reading/Vocab Quiz (AP Psych)

An architect is mentally rotating different versions of a house design during a client meeting. Without referring to her drawings, she describes how the house would look from different angles, visualizes moving walls to different locations, and imagines walking through the modified floor plan. While holding and manipulating these visual-spatial images in her mind, she is primarily relying on her:

• Episodic buffer

• Visuospatial sketchpad

• Phonological loop

• Long-term visual memory

During a language immersion lesson, students hear a new vocabulary word played through headphones. The instructor asks them to focus specifically on the last syllable of the word they just heard, even though they weren't told in advance to pay attention to that part. Most students can accurately identify the final syllable because the entire sound is briefly held in a temporary sensory store, allowing them to access any part of it for a few seconds after the word has ended. This ability to mentally access a sound that is no longer present demonstrates:

• Echoic memory

• Working memory

• Semantic memory

• The phonological loop

A 911 dispatcher receives an emergency call about a car accident. While listening to the caller describe the location, she simultaneously enters the street address into her computer, keeps track of the number of injured people mentioned, and calculates which ambulance units are closest based on their last reported positions. The dispatcher's ability to temporarily hold and manipulate multiple pieces of information while performing these coordinated tasks demonstrates the function of:

• Sensory memory

• Semantic memory

• Procedural memory

• Working memory

A cognitive psychology experiment flashes an array of 12 letters on a screen for just 50 milliseconds, then immediately follows it with a blank screen. When a tone sounds immediately after the display disappears, participants can typically report any 4-5 letters from the array that the researcher asks about, even though the visual stimulus is no longer present. This ability to briefly retain a detailed visual image for a fraction of a second after the stimulus has disappeared demonstrates:

• Iconic memory

• Visual working memory

• Episodic memory

• Eidetic imagery

A biology professor notices a striking difference between two groups of students studying cell structures. Group A creates flashcards with simple drawings and labels to memorize, while Group B creates detailed concept maps explaining how each structure's shape relates to its function, comparing structures to familiar objects, and connecting them to real-world examples of similar processes. On the final exam, Group B demonstrates significantly better recall and understanding. The superior performance of Group B most likely occurred because they engaged in:

• Deep encoding

• State-dependent memory

• Maintenance rehersal

• the serial-position effect

A customer service representative has to remember a caller's lengthy account number: 1492175318776. Rather than trying to remember 13 individual digits, she mentally groups them into meaningful units: 1492 (the year Columbus sailed), 1753 (a historic date she knows), and 18776 (thinking "the 1800s"). Later, she easily recalls the complete number by remembering just these three meaningful groups. The representative's strategy of organizing individual pieces of information into meaningful units demonstrates:

• The spacing effect

• Elaborative rehersal

• Chunking

• Method of loci

An experienced nurse checks vital signs on multiple patients during her rounds. While having an in-depth conversation with a patient about their family, she simultaneously takes their pulse, measures blood pressure, and records oxygen levels without having to consciously focus on these technical procedures. Her ability to perform these complex medical tasks accurately without directing attention to them demonstrates:

• Automatic processing

• Controlled processing

• Selective attention

• Task switching

A grandmother shares detailed stories with her grandchildren about her first day of high school: the butterflies in her stomach as she walked up the concrete steps, the smell of new textbooks, the bright yellow dress she wore, and the friend she met in homeroom who would later become her college roommate. Her ability to vividly recall and relate these personal experiences, complete with sensory details and emotional content from that specific time and place, best demonstrates:

• Episodic memory

• Procedural memory

• Semantic memory

• Short-term memory

After suffering a severe brain injury, a patient can no longer consciously remember learning to play the piano or taking any music lessons. However, when seated at a piano, she can still fluidly play complex pieces and even shows steady improvement with practice, despite having no recollection of ever practicing these pieces before. Her ability to demonstrate skilled piano playing without conscious awareness of having learned it illustrates the role of:

• Echoic memory

• Explicit memory

• Implicit memory

• Working memory

A marine biologist conducts most of her research in an underwater laboratory. While on land, she often has difficulty recalling specific details about her observations and data, but when she returns to the underwater lab, these memories become much clearer and more accessible. Her research assistants notice that she can even remember precise measurements and locations more easily when she's back in the underwater environment where she originally collected the data. This pattern of improved recall when the learning and retrieval environments match demonstrates:

• Context-dependent memory

• State-dependent memory

• The encoding specificity principle

• The serial position effect