After Being Held Captive for Over Nine Months by a Drifter

question 8

True/False

After being held captive for over nine months by a drifter and his female companion, 14-year-old Elizabeth Smart was finally rescued by the police. When details of her captivity were widely publicized, some observers publicly questioned why the girl never tried to escape or get the attention of the police. Such responses illustrate an attributional pattern called diffusion of responsibility.

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Definitions:

Mood-dependent Memory Effect

The phenomenon where an individual's current mood affects the recall of memories congruent with that mood.

State-Dependent Learning

The phenomenon that recall is easier when the pharmacological state of the person at recall matches his or her pharmacological state during encoding.

Retrieval Processes

The cognitive operations involved in bringing stored information back into consciousness or into active use.

Encoding Variability

The way the encoding of information varies as a function of context.