Participants in Many Experiments Show Clear Evidence of Implicit Memory

question 37

Multiple Choice

Participants in many experiments show clear evidence of implicit memory but fail on comparable tests of explicit memory. Yet the participants could, in principle, rely on their implicit memories to guide their guessing in the explicit test. If they did, they would perform well on the explicit tests. The text indicates that participants fail to do this because

• A) implicit memories are memories of a sort that cannot be applied to a procedure with direct memory testing.
• B) implicit memories are not detectable by the participant.
• C) participants seem to treat their implicit memories as though they were unreliable chance associations, so they do not trust them to be actual memories.
• D) participants seem to rely on implicit memories for perceptually based tasks but not for tasks that are more conceptual.

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Definitions:

Interference Theory

The view that we may forget stored material because other learning interferes with it.

Serial-position Effect

A cognitive phenomenon where people tend to remember the first and last items in a series best, and the middle items worst.

Retrospective Memory

Memory for past events, activities, and learning experiences, as shown by explicit (episodic and semantic) and implicit memories.

Repetition

The act of doing or saying something over and over again to retain or improve the skill or memory.