Forgetting and Other Memory Challenges Practice

Sample questions

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1. Sample 1difficulty 2/5

   In a classic study by Loftus and Palmer, participants watched a film of a car accident and then answered questions. Researchers varied a single verb in one critical question: "About how fast were the cars going when they ___ each other?" with the verb being "smashed," "collided," "bumped," "hit," or "contacted." Participants who heard "smashed" estimated significantly higher speeds, and one week later were more likely to falsely report having seen broken glass.

   Loftus's research most directly challenges which view of memory?

   • A

     The view that memory works like a video recorder, faithfully storing events

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   • B

     The view that emotional events can be remembered

   • C

     The view that the hippocampus is involved in memory consolidation

   • D

     The view that rehearsal can strengthen memory

   Why

   Loftus's reconstructive memory research shows that memory is rebuilt at retrieval and is vulnerable to distortion, contradicting the videotape metaphor of memory. It does not refute the role of the hippocampus or rehearsal.

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2. Sample 2difficulty 2/5

   In a series of studies, researchers tested patient H.M., who had his hippocampus and surrounding medial temporal lobe surgically removed to treat severe epilepsy. After surgery, H.M. could recall events from before the operation and could carry on a conversation, but he could not remember new acquaintances even after meeting them dozens of times. Surprisingly, he could learn new motor skills like mirror tracing, even though he had no memory of practicing them.

   H.M.'s inability to form memories after surgery, while retaining pre-surgery memories, is best classified as:

   • A

     Anterograde amnesia

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   • B

     Retrograde amnesia

   • C

     Infantile amnesia

   • D

     Source amnesia

   Why

   Anterograde amnesia is the inability to form new memories after a brain injury or surgery while older memories remain intact. Retrograde amnesia involves losing memories from before an event. Source and infantile amnesia describe different memory phenomena.

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3. Sample 3difficulty 2/5

   In a classic study by Loftus and Palmer, participants watched a film of a car accident and then answered questions. Researchers varied a single verb in one critical question: "About how fast were the cars going when they ___ each other?" with the verb being "smashed," "collided," "bumped," "hit," or "contacted." Participants who heard "smashed" estimated significantly higher speeds, and one week later were more likely to falsely report having seen broken glass.

   What is the most important real-world implication of this research?

   • A

     Memory is unaffected by the way questions are worded.

   • B

     Eyewitness testimony can be unreliable, especially when leading questions are used.

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   • C

     Children cannot give reliable testimony.

   • D

     Eyewitnesses are more accurate than physical evidence.

   Why

   These findings have major legal implications: leading questions or biased interviewing can distort eyewitness memory, so testimony alone may be unreliable, prompting reforms in police interviews and lineups.

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4. Sample 4difficulty 3/5

   In a study, researchers showed undergraduate participants a 15-word list including "bed," "rest," "tired," "awake," "dream," "blanket," and "pillow," presented one second per word. Later, on a surprise recognition test, many participants confidently reported having seen the word "sleep," which had never appeared on the list. Their false-recognition confidence was as high as for words actually presented earlier.

   This phenomenon is best explained by the

   • A

     DRM paradigm and spreading activation creating false memories of associatively related lures

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   • B

     Encoding specificity principle requiring matching context

   • C

     Serial position effect's primacy advantage

   • D

     Levels-of-processing framework requiring deep semantic encoding

   Why

   The Deese-Roediger-McDermott (DRM) paradigm demonstrates that semantically related lures activate associative networks, producing high-confidence false memories.

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5. Sample 5difficulty 3/5

   In a study, researchers showed undergraduate participants a 15-word list including "bed," "rest," "tired," "awake," "dream," "blanket," and "pillow," presented one second per word. Later, on a surprise recognition test, many participants confidently reported having seen the word "sleep," which had never appeared on the list. Their false-recognition confidence was as high as for words actually presented earlier.

   The high confidence accompanying false recognition of "sleep" implies that

   • A

     False memories are typically held with low confidence

   • B

     Confidence and accuracy are perfectly correlated

   • C

     The list lacked semantic structure

   • D

     Subjective confidence is not a reliable indicator of memory accuracy

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   Why

   The DRM finding undermines the assumption that high confidence guarantees accuracy, with important implications for eyewitness testimony.

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