Sample questions for
Chapter 8 Autobiographic Memory
1. Compared with other methods, the diary method for studying autobiographic memory tends to
a. underestimate the autobiographic memory
b. more accurately estimate the autobiographic memory than other methods
c. overestimate the autobiographic memory
d. none of the above
2. The reminiscence bumps occur in ____ and _____ in autobiographic memory of one’s life history (when a person is at least in his/her middle ages).
a. elementary school age; middle age
b. young adulthood; middle age
c. young adulthood; old age
d. young adulthood; recent years
3. PTSD can be explained by _____ conditioning.
a. operant b. higher order condition c. classical d. reversed
4. Memories cued by ________ peak at an earlier age (6-10 years of age) than typical verbally-cued memories, arguably because they’re less easily rehearsed and, therefore, are not as integral to an individual’s developing self-account.
a. pictures of objects
b. a beeper
c. sounds
d. abstract paintings
e. odor
5. The _____ narrative, which is built up over the course of life, forms a coherent account of who we are and how we got here.
- allocentric
- focal
- experience
- life
- positive
6. According to Conway’s (2005) theory, when the _______ is no longer grounded in reality, confabulations and delusions are possible.
- working self
- needed hierarchy
- vestibular system
- social thread
7. Tulving’s term to describe the capacity to perform mental time-travel and reflect on one’s thoughts is:
- familiarity
- overall life story
- challenger study
- autonoetic consciousness
- new print function
8. While individuals commonly believe that their flashbulb memories are clearer than everyday memories, it turns out that they are often subject to just as much forgetting and are not necessarily clearer than other emotional memories. This challenges Brown and Kulik’s (1977) claim that flashbulb memories are:
- talked about (i.e., rehearsed) repeatedly
- highly distinctive
- important events in our self-image
- confusable with everyday memories
- produced by a separate memory system
9. Consider the case of an individual who is depressed and suicidal because of a recent divorce. One day, he turns up in faraway city with no memory of his autobiographical past. Hypnosis and drugs fail to reinstate his memory, which recovers spontaneously a few days later. This is most likely a case of:
- fugue
- kleptomania
- situation-specific amnesia
- delusions of grandeur
- catatonia
10. After a memory is evoked, which produces electrical activity recorded over the left prefrontal cortex, activity in the back of the brain is picked up using EEG. In line with neuropsychological data demonstrating the importance of this region for autobiographical memory, this area of the brain is involved in:
- auditory perception
- olfactory sensation
- emotion response
- visual imagery
- stress hormones
11. Theories about childhood or infantile amnesia include:
- underdeveloped brain (especially hippocampus)
- underdeveloped self identity
- underdeveloped linguistic coding system
- repressed memory
- all of the above
12. For a normal person, the autobiographic memory is
- very objective and accurate
- biased toward remembering more positive events
- biased toward remembering more negative events
- mostly fabricated stories
13. Research has found that dissociative amnesia
- is sometimes culture-dependent
- has ulterior motives in some cases
- is functional
- all of the above
14. Flashbulb memory is different from regular memories in that
a. People never make an error about their flashbulb memory whereas they often make errors about their regular memories.
b. Every detail of the flashbulb memory is kept intact over decades whereas in regular memory the details are gradually lost.
c. people have higher confidence about their flashbulb memory than their regular memory.
d. all of the above
15. When one’s autobiographic memory is no longer in sync with the reality, most likely the _____ area of the brain is out of order.
a. occipital lobe.
b. frontal lobe.
c. temporal lobe.
d. amygdala.
16. Organic amnesic persons typically
a. lose sense of personality.
b. lose sense of time, place, and orientation.
c. show no clear brain damage.
d. show symptoms of somatoform disorders.
