Who conducted the classic experiment demonstrating the 'Magic Number 7' in short-term memory capacity?
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Explore pivotal studies, their methods, results, and implications to grasp how cognitive processes are scientifically investigated.
Mastering this deck will deepen your understanding of foundational experiments that shaped cognitive psychology, enhancing your ability to analyze research methods and interpret findings. This knowledge facilitates critical thinking about cognitive processes and supports application in research, clinical, or educational settings.
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| # | Front | Back | Hint |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Who conducted the classic experiment demonstrating the 'Magic Number 7' in short-term memory capacity? | George Miller conducted the experiment, proposing that the capacity of short-term memory is about 7±2 items. | Think of 'seven' as a key number in memory limits. |
| 2 | What was the main finding of Bartlett's 1932 'War of the Ghosts' experiment? | Participants reconstructed a story from unfamiliar folklore, often altering details to fit their cultural schemas, illustrating how memory is reconstructive and influenced by prior knowledge. | Memory isn't a perfect recorder but a reconstructive process. |
| 3 | In the Stroop task, what effect is observed when naming the ink color of incongruent color words? | Participants experience increased reaction times and errors, demonstrating cognitive interference between automatic word reading and color naming. | Think of the 'Stroop effect' as a clash between automatic and controlled processes. |
| 4 | What experimental paradigm did Ebbinghaus pioneer to study memory? | He used the self-experiment method involving memorization and recall of nonsense syllables, leading to the development of the forgetting curve. | Nonsense syllables help isolate pure memory processes. |
| 5 | Describe the basic setup of the Cherry Dichotic Listening task. | Participants wear headphones and are presented different auditory messages in each ear; they are asked to focus on one message to study selective attention and cocktail party effects. | Focus on one ear, ignore the other, to test attention filtering. |
| 6 | What was the significance of the Peterson and Peterson (1959) study on short-term memory? | They demonstrated rapid decay of unrehearsed information in short-term memory, showing that without rehearsal, information is quickly lost—leading to the concept of decay in memory models. | Rehearsal helps keep memories alive. |
| 7 | Which classic experiment demonstrated the limitations of cognitive capacity through digit span tasks? | George Miller's digit span experiments showed that most people can hold about 7±2 items in short-term memory. | Remember Miller's number as a 'memory limit'. |
| 8 | What was the main conclusion of the Broadbent Filter Model of attention? | It proposed that selective attention involves a bottleneck that filters incoming sensory information based on physical characteristics before further processing. | Think of attention as a filter or gatekeeper. |
| 9 | How did the classic experiment by Sperling (1960) demonstrate the existence of visual sensory memory? | Participants could recall more letters from a briefly presented grid when cued to a specific row shortly after presentation, indicating the presence of a high-capacity, short-lived iconic memory store. | Iconic memory is a fleeting visual snapshot. |
| 10 | What did the Wason selection task reveal about human reasoning? | It showed that people are prone to confirmatory bias and struggle with logical reasoning when dealing with conditional rules, especially in real-world contexts. | Think of the 'Wason task' as testing reasoning biases. |
| 11 | Describe the key finding of the Neisser (1967) 'Inattentional Blindness' experiment. | Participants often failed to notice unexpected objects or events when their attention was focused elsewhere, illustrating that attention is selective and can cause us to miss obvious stimuli. | You can miss the gorilla if you're focused on basketball passes. |
| 12 | What is the significance of the Atkinson and Shiffrin (1968) model of memory? | It introduced a multi-store model comprising sensory memory, short-term memory, and long-term memory, foundational for understanding memory processes. | Think of memory as a series of storage boxes. |
| 13 | Which experiment used a dual-task paradigm to demonstrate limited cognitive resources? | Kahneman's divided attention experiments showed that performing two demanding tasks simultaneously leads to decreased performance, illustrating limited attentional capacity. | Multitasking is constrained by cognitive load. |
| 14 | What was the main insight from the Brown-Peterson task regarding duration of short-term memory? | Without rehearsal, information in short-term memory decays rapidly, typically within about 20 seconds. | Rehearsal extends memory duration. |
| 15 | How did the classic 'Memory Span' experiments influence our understanding of working memory? | They demonstrated the limited capacity of short-term storage, leading to models of working memory that include a central executive and subsidiary systems. | Memory span tests reveal the capacity limit. |
| 16 | What is the main idea behind the 'Levels of Processing' theory introduced by Craik and Lockhart (1972)? | Deeper, semantic processing of information leads to better encoding and recall than shallow, surface-level processing. | Deeper thinking = better memory. |
| 17 | In the classic experiment by Loftus and Palmer (1974), what factor influenced participants' memory of a car accident? | The wording of questions (e.g., 'smashed' vs. 'hit') affected estimations of speed and memory of the event, illustrating how memory can be reconstructed and influenced by suggestive language. | Language shapes memory. |
| 18 | What did the 'Prisoner’s Dilemma' experiment demonstrate about decision-making and cognition? | It revealed how social and cognitive factors influence strategic choices, often leading to non-cooperative outcomes despite mutual benefit in theory. | Game theory shows decision pitfalls. |
| 19 | Which experiment demonstrated that people often fail to notice large changes in their visual environment? | Simons and Levin's 'door study' showed that observers often do not notice even major changes when their attention is engaged elsewhere. | Change blindness is common. |
| 20 | What was the key contribution of the 'Serial Position Effect' experiment? | It showed that recall accuracy varies depending on an item's position in a list, with better recall for items at the beginning (primacy) and end (recency). | Position affects memory retention. |
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