Ericsson Cognitive Psychology Test #2 Exam
2025 Questions and Answers
How long do visual and auditory sensory memory last? - ANS Visual sensory memory (iconic
memory) lasts for about 250 milliseconds.
Auditory (echoic) memory lasts longer, for about 2 seconds.
How many items can be stored in visual memory? - ANS About 10 to 12 items.
How many items can be stored in auditory memory? - ANS Around 4 to 5 items!
How long does short-term memory last? - ANS Short term memory lasts for fifteen to thirty
seconds.
How many chunks can be stored in short-term memory? - ANS About seven (7) chunks.
How can we assess short-term memory? - ANS With *memory span*: a participant is read a
sequence of random numbers aloud, and then is asked to recall the numbers, *in order.*
What's an experimental method to eliminate short-term memory? - ANS By forcing people
to direct their attention to another task: for example, with the Brown-Peterson task!
Pg. 1 Copyright © 2025 Jasonmcconell. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
, What does the Brown-Peterson task assess and how does it work? - ANS The Brown-
Peterson task *tests the limits of short-term memory by presenting the participant with a letter
trigram*, and then making them do a series of numerical subtractions. This keeps them from
rehearsing the original item.
The longer the duration of this interpolated activity, the more trigram recall deteriorates. This
illustrates how fragile our short-term memory is without active rehearsal.
In tasks that test short-term memory, what happens as the number of trials performed
progresses? - ANS The more trials the participant does, the more their recall performance
declines because it's easier to get the presented items confused.
In STM storage tasks, what happens if you change the item category? - ANS Performance will
rebound because the participant is no longer getting the items mixed up, but if you continue to
do more trials with the same type of stimuli, the decline will occur all over again!
According to Baddeley, what is the word-length effect? - ANS The longer the words in a given
list, the worse a person's memory of the list becomes.
The shorter the words are, the better they do.
What are the implications of phonemic similarity? (Baddeley) - ANS People's memory
performance will be worse with words that rhyme or sound similar (lap, sap, map, etc...)
What did Baddeley find regarding short-term memory and individual differences in speed? -
ANS The speed at which a person can read aloud has a strong positive correlation with their
memory span, as measured by recall performance.
Pg. 2 Copyright © 2025 Jasonmcconell. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
2025 Questions and Answers
How long do visual and auditory sensory memory last? - ANS Visual sensory memory (iconic
memory) lasts for about 250 milliseconds.
Auditory (echoic) memory lasts longer, for about 2 seconds.
How many items can be stored in visual memory? - ANS About 10 to 12 items.
How many items can be stored in auditory memory? - ANS Around 4 to 5 items!
How long does short-term memory last? - ANS Short term memory lasts for fifteen to thirty
seconds.
How many chunks can be stored in short-term memory? - ANS About seven (7) chunks.
How can we assess short-term memory? - ANS With *memory span*: a participant is read a
sequence of random numbers aloud, and then is asked to recall the numbers, *in order.*
What's an experimental method to eliminate short-term memory? - ANS By forcing people
to direct their attention to another task: for example, with the Brown-Peterson task!
Pg. 1 Copyright © 2025 Jasonmcconell. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
, What does the Brown-Peterson task assess and how does it work? - ANS The Brown-
Peterson task *tests the limits of short-term memory by presenting the participant with a letter
trigram*, and then making them do a series of numerical subtractions. This keeps them from
rehearsing the original item.
The longer the duration of this interpolated activity, the more trigram recall deteriorates. This
illustrates how fragile our short-term memory is without active rehearsal.
In tasks that test short-term memory, what happens as the number of trials performed
progresses? - ANS The more trials the participant does, the more their recall performance
declines because it's easier to get the presented items confused.
In STM storage tasks, what happens if you change the item category? - ANS Performance will
rebound because the participant is no longer getting the items mixed up, but if you continue to
do more trials with the same type of stimuli, the decline will occur all over again!
According to Baddeley, what is the word-length effect? - ANS The longer the words in a given
list, the worse a person's memory of the list becomes.
The shorter the words are, the better they do.
What are the implications of phonemic similarity? (Baddeley) - ANS People's memory
performance will be worse with words that rhyme or sound similar (lap, sap, map, etc...)
What did Baddeley find regarding short-term memory and individual differences in speed? -
ANS The speed at which a person can read aloud has a strong positive correlation with their
memory span, as measured by recall performance.
Pg. 2 Copyright © 2025 Jasonmcconell. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
