1. Imagine that you have volunteered to participate in some psychology research. You report to the laboratory, and you are instructed to look at several words briefly, and then count backwards for about half a minute before recalling those words. Are these researchers measuring short-term or long-term memory and why? In light of the working-memory approach, which factors make it difficult to be very specific about the duration of short-term memory?
2. Suppose that you have spent some time thinking about how you are going to discuss a certain issue with a friend. Eventually, you have trouble deciding whether you have actually discussed the issue, or whether you simply imagined doing so. Discuss how reality monitoring applies to this phenomenon. How might flashbulb memory aid in your decision? Finally, what circumstances could promote the creation of a false memory?
Each question answer is 2 pages.