Atkinson and Shiffrin's multi-store model (1968) proposes three memory stores. In what order does information flow through them?
A: Long-term memory → short-term memory → sensory memory
B: Sensory memory → short-term memory → long-term memory
C: Short-term memory → sensory memory → long-term memory
D: Sensory memory → long-term memory → short-term memory
Correct: Sensory memory → short-term memory → long-term memory
Sensory input enters the sensory register (fractions of a second; large capacity), then selected information enters short-term memory (around 20 seconds; ~7±2 items), and rehearsed information passes into long-term memory (potentially unlimited duration and capacity). The model was highly influential but is considered oversimplified today — it treats short-term memory as a single passive store, which Baddeley's working memory model later refuted.
Which brain structure is most critically associated with the formation of new episodic memories?
A: Amygdala
B: Hippocampus
C: Cerebellum
D: Basal ganglia
Correct: Hippocampus
The hippocampus is essential for consolidating new episodic and declarative memories. This was dramatically demonstrated by patient H.M. (Henry Molaison), whose bilateral hippocampal removal left him unable to form new long-term memories while retaining older ones and procedural learning.
Baddeley's working memory model replaced the concept of "short-term memory" with a more complex structure. Which component is the "central executive"?
A: A passive store for visuospatial information
B: An attentional controller that coordinates the slave systems and connects to long-term memory
C: A store for phonological (sound-based) information
D: The component that integrates information from multiple sensory modalities
Correct: An attentional controller that coordinates the slave systems and connects to long-term memory
The central executive is the attentional control system — it allocates resources, coordinates the phonological loop and visuospatial sketchpad, and connects working memory to long-term memory. The phonological loop handles verbal/auditory information; the visuospatial sketchpad handles visual and spatial information; the episodic buffer (added later) integrates information from multiple sources. The model explains dual-task performance and individual differences in cognitive ability.
Endel Tulving distinguished between two types of declarative long-term memory. What is the difference between episodic and semantic memory?
A: Episodic memory stores facts; semantic memory stores personal events
B: Episodic memory stores personally experienced events with their context; semantic memory stores general knowledge and facts independent of personal experience
C: Episodic memory is implicit; semantic memory is explicit
D: Episodic memory is stored in the amygdala; semantic memory is stored in the basal ganglia
Correct: Episodic memory stores personally experienced events with their context; semantic memory stores general knowledge and facts independent of personal experience
Episodic memory is autobiographical — the memory of specific events situated in time and place ("my first day at university"). Semantic memory is context-free factual knowledge ("Paris is the capital of France"). Both are explicit (consciously accessible), but they rely on partly different neural systems. Some amnesic patients (like K.C., studied by Tulving) can retain semantic knowledge while losing all episodic memory, demonstrating their separability.
Long-term potentiation (LTP) is primarily associated with which mechanism?
A: Decreased GABA release at inhibitory synapses
B: Strengthening of synaptic connections through repeated activation
C: Pruning of dendritic spines during sleep
D: Reduction in NMDA receptor density
Correct: Strengthening of synaptic connections through repeated activation
LTP is the sustained strengthening of synaptic transmission following high-frequency stimulation. It depends critically on NMDA receptors acting as coincidence detectors and the subsequent insertion of AMPA receptors into the post-synaptic membrane. "Neurons that fire together wire together" — this persistent increase in synaptic efficacy is the cellular correlate of learning and memory.
Proactive interference occurs when:
A: New learning disrupts the recall of old memories
B: Old memories interfere with the learning and recall of new information
C: Emotional arousal strengthens memory consolidation
D: Information stored in long-term memory decays through disuse
Correct: Old memories interfere with the learning and recall of new information
In proactive interference, previously learned material disrupts the acquisition or recall of new material. If you learned French before Spanish, your French vocabulary may interfere when trying to recall Spanish words. Retroactive interference is the reverse: new learning disrupts recall of old learning. Both forms explain why memory is often worse for items in the middle of a list (the serial position effect).
Craik and Lockhart's "levels of processing" framework (1972) proposed that memory strength depends on:
A: The amount of time information spends in short-term memory
B: The depth at which information is processed — semantic (meaning-based) processing producing the best retention
C: Whether information is rehearsed using the phonological loop
D: The age at which information is encoded
Correct: The depth at which information is processed — semantic (meaning-based) processing producing the best retention
Craik and Lockhart challenged the multi-store model's emphasis on rehearsal and transfer. They proposed a continuum from shallow (structural: "Is the word in capital letters?") through phonological ("Does it rhyme with train?") to deep semantic processing ("Does it fit this sentence?"). Deeper, meaning-based processing reliably produces more durable, accessible memories — not because of a separate "deep store" but because richer encoding creates more retrieval cues.
The amygdala plays a role in enhancing the consolidation of emotionally significant memories.
Answer: True
The amygdala modulates memory consolidation in the hippocampus and elsewhere during emotionally arousing experiences via noradrenergic and glucocorticoid signalling. This explains why emotional events (positive or negative) tend to be remembered more vividly — a phenomenon termed the "flashbulb memory" effect in extreme cases.
Sleep plays an important role in memory. What process, supported by research, occurs during sleep?
A: New information is encoded into long-term memory for the first time during sleep
B: Memories are consolidated — stabilised and integrated with existing knowledge — through hippocampal-cortical dialogue during slow-wave and REM sleep
C: Irrelevant memories are deleted to free up storage capacity
D: Working memory capacity is replenished through neural repair during sleep
Correct: Memories are consolidated — stabilised and integrated with existing knowledge — through hippocampal-cortical dialogue during slow-wave and REM sleep
During slow-wave sleep, the hippocampus replays newly encoded memories and transfers them to the neocortex for long-term storage (hippocampal-cortical consolidation). REM sleep is associated with the integration of new memories with existing knowledge and the processing of emotional memories. Studies show that sleeping after learning — even a 90-minute nap — significantly improves next-day recall compared to staying awake.
Place these landmark memory research milestones in the correct chronological order.
Memory Systems
Atkinson and Shiffrin's multi-store model (1968) proposes three memory stores. In what order does information flow through them?
About this quiz
Memory is not a single system but a collection of distinct processes that encode, store, and retrieve different types of information. Understanding how these systems work — and how they fail — has been central to cognitive neuroscience since the landmark case of patient H.M.
This quiz covers the major memory models, the neural structures that support them, the cellular basis of memory formation, and the factors that determine what we remember and what we forget.