Memory quiz

More questions about Memory

These visible examples show the question style. LearnClash turns the full topic into ranked duels and spaced repetition.

1. 1 Easy

   What is the capacity of long-term memory believed to be?

   Answer: virtually limitless

   Why: Northwestern psychologist Paul Reber estimated the brain's storage at about 2.5 petabytes, enough to hold roughly 300 years of nonstop TV.

2. 2 Medium

   What is the magical number of items humans can hold in working memory?

   Answer: seven plus or minus two

   Why: George Miller's 1956 paper opens 'My problem is that I have been persecuted by an integer'; Nelson Cowan later put the real limit nearer four.

3. 3 Hard

   According to the Forgetting Curve, how much information is lost within one hour?

   Answer: approximately 50 percent

   Why: Ebbinghaus was his own only subject, memorizing nonsense syllables like ZOF; a 2015 replication of his curve took one subject 70 hours.

4. 4 Easy

   Which process moves information from short-term to long-term storage?

   Answer: consolidation

   Why: Georg Elias Mueller and Alfons Pilzecker introduced the term in a 1900 monograph after finding that fresh memories need time to become fixed.

5. 5 Medium

   Which memory type holds sounds for several seconds after hearing them?

   Answer: echoic memory

   Why: Ulric Neisser coined the term in 1967; a 1972 partial-report study by Darwin, Turvey and Crowder found the echo gone within about four seconds.

6. 6 Hard

   Which effect makes unfinished tasks easier to remember than finished ones?

   Answer: Zeigarnik effect

   Why: Bluma Zeigarnik published it in Berlin in 1927 after Kurt Lewin noticed a waiter recalled unpaid orders but forgot them once the bill was settled.