Attention, Perception, Learning and Memory Questions and Answers

Answer: B

The correct code is (P)-(3), (Q)-(4), (R)-(2), (S)-(1).

• Encoding failure: the information was never attended to, so it never entered memory (3).
• Decay or disuse: memories fade when they are not accessed from storage over time (4).
• Proactive interference: older information already in memory interferes with learning newer information (2).
• Retroactive interference: newer information interferes with retrieving older information (1).

The common trap is to swap the two kinds of interference, as in options C and D; 'pro' means the old works forward on the new, and 'retro' means the new works backward on the old.

Answer: C

Information enters short-term memory through selective attention.

In the Atkinson-Shiffrin model, sensory memory briefly holds a great deal of information, but only what we attend to is transferred to short-term memory. Selective attention is the process that picks out this information; the rest decays from the sensory register within a second or so.

The recency and primacy effects describe better recall of the last and first items in a list, not the transfer into short-term memory. Repetition (rehearsal) keeps information in short-term memory and helps move it to long-term memory, but it does not bring it into short-term memory in the first place.

Answer: B

The official key is after one hour.

Ebbinghaus relearned lists of nonsense syllables after different delays and measured how much effort the earlier learning saved. The saving fell steeply at first: roughly 58 percent after 20 minutes, about 44 percent after one hour, and about 36 percent after nine hours, then only slowly over the following days. By the end of the first hour, then, the bulk of the eventual loss had already happened, which is why textbooks say most forgetting occurs within the first hour.

Five hours and nine hours come after the steep part of the curve, where the loss between readings is small. 'Immediately after learning' also describes the steepest part of the curve in a loose sense, but the question asks for a time span, and the span usually quoted for the bulk of forgetting is the first hour. The figures above are the ones widely reported for the 1885 study; they are savings scores for a single subject, not percentages recalled, so treat them as the shape of the curve rather than exact constants.

Answer: A

The blanks are Non-declarative; Declarative.

Non-declarative (implicit or procedural) memory is shown in what people can do: skills such as riding a bicycle or typing, habits and conditioned responses. It is expressed in performance rather than reported.

Declarative (explicit) memory is what people know and can state or report: facts (semantic memory) and personal events (episodic memory).

Option B reverses the two. Option C names two kinds in the wrong order, since semantic memory is declarative and procedural memory non-declarative, and option D names two types that are both declarative.

Answer: B

The correct code is (P)-(2), (Q)-(3), (R)-(4), (S)-(1).

• Fixed ratio: reinforcement after a set number of responses produces a fast rate of responding (2).
• Variable ratio: reinforcement after an unpredictable number of responses produces a high, steady rate, the pattern of gambling (3).
• Fixed interval: responding drops after each reinforcement and speeds up as the end of the interval approaches, the 'scallop' (4).
• Variable interval: reinforcement at unpredictable times produces a slow but steady rate (1).

The other codes mismatch the scalloped pattern, which belongs only to the fixed interval schedule.

Answer: A

It is latent learning.

Latent learning is learning that takes place without obvious reinforcement and is not immediately shown in behaviour. In Tolman and Honzik's 1930 experiment, rats that explored a maze without food made many errors, but as soon as food was introduced they performed as well as rats rewarded from the start, showing that they had learnt the maze all along.

Instrumental learning depends on reinforcement of responses. Observational learning is learning by watching others, and 'continuous learning' is not a technical term for learning without reinforcement.

Answer: B

The phenomenon is the Poggendorff illusion (printed Poggendrof).

In the Poggendorff illusion, a diagonal line passes behind a solid rectangle. The two visible segments are in fact collinear, but the segment on the far side appears displaced, so the line does not seem to continue straight where it reappears.

The Muller-Lyer illusion involves two equal lines that look different in length because of the arrowheads or fins at their ends. 'Schiffman illusion' and 'bend illusion' are not the name of this effect.

Answer: A

The definition describes working memory.

Alan Baddeley defines working memory as a limited-capacity temporary storage system that underpins complex human thought. In the Baddeley and Hitch model it has several components, the central executive, the phonological loop, the visuospatial sketchpad and the episodic buffer, which hold and manipulate information during reasoning, comprehension and learning.

Short-term memory is also limited and temporary, but it is described as passive storage rather than as a system that supports complex thought. Long-term memory is not temporary or limited in capacity, and iconic memory is the very brief visual sensory store.

Answer: B

The theorist is a radical constructivist.

Radical constructivism, associated with Ernst von Glasersfeld and building on Piaget, holds that knowledge is actively constructed by the individual learner and exists in the individual's mind. It does not claim to represent an objective reality; it only has to fit the learner's experience.

Situated constructivists and socioculturalists, following Vygotsky, locate knowledge in social interaction and in the communities and activities in which it is used, not inside an individual mind. Behaviourists focus on observable behaviour rather than on knowledge in the mind at all.

Answer: B

SAS stands for Supervisory Attentional System.

In Norman and Shallice's model of the control of action, routine behaviour is run automatically by schemas, and conflicts among them are resolved by contention scheduling. The Supervisory Attentional System is a higher-level system that takes over in novel, difficult or dangerous situations, or when habits must be overridden, and it is linked to the frontal lobes.

The other expansions are not the model's terms. Contention scheduling and schemas are parts of the model, but neither is what SAS stands for.