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CHAPTER 1: An Introduction to Cognitive Psychology
1-1.
Which term or phrase is closest in meaning to the term “cognition”? a. Emotion b. Mental activity c. Behavior d. Social activity Answer: b Section Ref: What Is Cognitive Psychology? Difficulty: Easy
1-2.
Suppose that a psychologist writes an article on children’s acquisition of gender stereotypes. Which of the following article titles would be most consistent with the cognitive approach? a. b.
“How parents’ reinforcement of behaviors shapes stereotypes” “The effects of classical conditioning on children’s emotional reactions to gender stereotypes” c. “How early emotional reactions to parents influence later gender stereotypes” d. “Children’s memory for gender-consistent information” Answer: d Section Ref: What Is Cognitive Psychology? Difficulty: Medium
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Suppose that you are writing a paper about cognitive processes in people who are depressed. Which of the following topics would be most relevant for your paper? a. b. c. d.
Observations of social interactions between people with depression. The effects of vitamin supplements on the activity level of people with depression. The ability of depressed individuals to recall people’s names. The relationship between childhood experiences and current adjustment in people with depression. Answer: c Section Ref: What Is Cognitive Psychology? Difficulty: Medium
1-4.
John is reading his Cognitive Psychology textbook. He notices that his stomach is grumbling, but he thinks, “I will finish this section of the chapter and then go to lunch.” John’s thought illustrates the cognitive process of _______.
a. pattern recognition b. memory c. imagery d. decision making Answer: d Section Ref: What Is Cognitive Psychology? Difficulty: Easy
1-5.
Suppose that several psychologists want to explore interpersonal interactions during adulthood. Which of the following topics would be most consistent with the cognitive approach? a.
“How do early childhood experiences contribute to the development of love relationships during adulthood?” b. “Can interpersonal attraction be influenced by classical conditioning?” c. “When meeting someone for the first time, what attribute does a person perceive most quickly, gender or ethnicity?” d. “Do people spend less time with depressed individuals, as opposed to nondepressed individuals?” Answer: c Section Ref: What Is Cognitive Psychology? Difficulty: Medium
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What does the introductory chapter conclude about the influence of cognitive approaches on other areas of psychology? a.
Cognitive psychology has had very little influence on areas outside traditional experimental psychology. b. Cognitive psychology has influenced experiments in some research-oriented areas of psychology, but it has not yet had an impact on applied areas. c. Cognitive psychology has influenced disciplines that are concerned with the behavior of humans as individuals, but it has not yet influenced the areas of psychology concerned with social interactions. d. Cognitive psychology has had an important impact on a variety of areas throughout psychology. Answer: d Section Ref: What Is Cognitive Psychology? Difficulty: Medium
1-7.
Chapter 1 of your Cognition textbook discusses the status of cognitive psychology. According to this discussion, the cognitive approach a. b. c.
primarily emphasizes our unconscious thoughts. can explain a major part of your daily experiences. is prominent within social psychology, but it has not yet been applied to biological areas of psychology. d. has had surprisingly little connection with clinical psychology. Answer: b Section Ref: What Is Cognitive Psychology? Difficulty: Easy
1-8.
According to the introductory chapter in your textbook, the influence of cognitive psychology
a. has been relatively weak, both within psychology and in other disciplines. b. has been limited primarily to areas related to education. c. has not yet reached applied areas of psychology. d. has extended to other disciplines, such as neurology. Answer: d Section Ref: What Is Cognitive Psychology? Difficulty: Easy
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Imagine that you are attending a lecture by a guest speaker who describes a theory and then says, “Let’s now look at the empirical evidence.” Which of the following would most likely be the speaker’s next sentence? a.
“Other psychologists have objected to my approach on the following theoretical grounds.” b. “We conducted an experiment to test this hypothesis.” c. “The theorists who belonged to the empirical school rejected the behaviorist tradition, for the following reasons.” d. “By combining both the cognitive approach and the psychodynamic approach, we can devise a new theoretical approach to the problem.” Answer: b Section Ref: Historical Perspective on the Field Difficulty: Hard
1-10. Suppose that your professor tells you that you must locate a journal article about cognitive psychology that presents empirical evidence. You should look for an article that a. studies humans, rather than other animals. b. emphasizes evidence collected in experiments. c. provides a theoretical explanation for previous research. d. uses at least two different statistical analyses. Answer: b Section Ref: Historical Perspective on the Field Difficulty: Medium
1-11. The philosopher ____ can be called the first cognitive psychologist, because he examined topics such as memory and perception and emphasized the importance of empirical evidence. a. Plato b. Sophocles c. Aristotle d. Descartes Answer: c Section Ref: Historical Perspective on the Field Difficulty: Easy
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1-12. In the introspection technique, a. people describe what they are thinking as they perform a task. b. people report their daily experiences in an informal, unstructured fashion. c. the experimenter observes how people respond to learning tasks. d. emotional responses are emphasized, rather than a variety of thought processes. Answer: a Section Ref Historical Perspective on the Field Difficulty: Easy
1-13. When researchers use the introspection technique, a. people report their sensations as accurately as possible. b. people report their experiences in a spontaneous, unsystematic fashion. c. the researchers observe how people respond to learning tasks. d. the researchers encourage people to interpret their reactions to selected stimuli. Answer: a Section Ref: Historical Perspective on the Field Difficulty: Medium
1-14. Your textbook discusses the early history of cognitive psychology. According to this discussion, a.
Hermann Ebbinghaus opposed cognitive psychology because it did not pay enough attention to emotions. b. Mary Whiton Calkins studied people’s introspections about nonsense words. c. William James suggested that our everyday cognitive processes are passive, rather than active. d. Wilhelm Wundt emphasized that introspection could provide useful information, if participants were well trained. Answer: d Section Ref: Historical Perspective on the Field Difficulty: Easy
1-15. The primary contribution of Hermann Ebbinghaus to current cognitive psychology was a. b.
the emphasis on ecological validity. the emphasis on research employing hundreds of subjects in each study.
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c. research about factors that might influence human memory. d. the notion of top-down processing. Answer: c Section Ref: Historical Perspective on the Field Difficulty: Medium
1-16. Which of the following women was an early researcher in memory who reported the recency effect and also became the first female president of the American Psychological Association? a. Dorothea Dix b. Leta Stetter Hollingworth c. Mary Whiton Calkins d. Margaret Floy Washburn Answer: c Section Ref: Historical Perspective on the Field Difficulty: Easy
1-17. Chris just telephoned Roberta and listed eight items that they need for the afternoon picnic. Roberta didn’t have a pencil, so she couldn’t write them down. However, she remembers the last three items very well because of a. object permanence. b. long-term memory. c. an event-related potential. d. the recency effect. Answer: d Section Ref: Historical Perspective on the Field Difficulty: Medium
1-18. Based on the information in Chapter 1, how would you describe the approach of William James? a. b. c.
He emphasized rigorous experimentation and carefully controlled research. He asked research participants to report their sensations and perceptions as objectively as possible. He emphasized the kinds of psychological experiences that people encounter in their everyday lives.
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d.
He emphasized that we must look for the unconscious forces that underlie cognitive activities. Answer: c Section Ref: Historical Perspective on the Field Difficulty: Hard
1-19. William James made his most important contributions to cognitive psychology in his work on a. problem-solving strategies. b. memory in everyday life. c. complex decision making. d. cognitive development in children. Answer: b Section Ref: Historical Perspective on the Field Difficulty: Medium 1-20. In contrast to Hermann Ebbinghaus, William James was more likely to focus on a. well-controlled experiments. b. a behavioral approach to memory and language. c. people’s everyday experiences. d. clear operational definitions. Answer: c Section Ref: Historical Perspective on the Field Difficulty: Medium
1-21. Which statement about the history of cognition is correct? a. Behaviorists favored the introspection technique. b. William James emphasized that the human mind is active, rather than passive. c. Research in cognition thrived during the period when behaviorism was strongest. d. Behaviorists were influential in conducting research on problem solving. Answer: b Section Ref: Historical Perspective on the Field Difficulty: Easy
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1-22. Chapter 1 presents some information about the history of cognition. According to this discussion a.
the issue of how humans acquire knowledge was not considered until about 80 years ago. b. the birthday of scientific psychology is usually traced to the first studies of John B. Watson. c. behaviorism is an approach that relies on objective, observable reactions. d. behaviorists have been primarily interested in studying images and thought processes. Answer: c Section Ref: Historical Perspective on the Field Difficulty: Easy
1-23. Which of the following movements emphasized the human tendency to actively organize what we see? a. Behaviorism b. Gestalt psychology c. Empiricism d. Clinical psychology Answer: b Section Ref: Historical Perspective on the Field Difficulty: Easy
1-24. Which of the following early approaches to psychology developed the idea of insight when people solve problems? a. Introspectionism b. The Gestalt approach c. Behaviorism d. Ebbinghaus and his followers Answer: b Section Ref: Historical Perspective on the Field Difficulty: Easy
1-25. According to the discussion in Chapter 1, behaviorism places the most emphasis on a.
interpersonal relationships.
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b. observable activities. c. unconscious emotions. d. mental processes. Answer: b Section Ref: Historical Perspective on the Field Difficulty: Medium
1-26. With practice and reinforcement, a rat learns to navigate a maze. A behaviorist would operationalize the rat’s “learning” as a. the decrease in the rate of errors, over time. b. the rat’s memory for the correct sequence of right and left turns. c. the rat’s internal “map” of the maze. d. the rat’s decreasing reliance on cheese as a reinforcer. Answer: a Section Ref: Historical Perspective on the Field Difficulty: Medium
1-27. Which of the following research topics would be most likely to interest a behaviorist? a. b. c. d.
The effect of parents’ marital satisfaction on children’s nightmares. The effect of praise on children’s running speed. Individual differences in verbal ability. The relationship between the true size of an object and its size as represented in a mental image. Answer: b Section Ref: Historical Perspective on the Field Difficulty: Medium
1-28. Which of the following students provides the most accurate summary of the behaviorists’ contributions to cognitive psychology? a. b. c.
Anton: “The behaviorists refined the introspection technique through the use of careful interview techniques.” Elena: “The most important contributions of the behaviorists were related to research methodology.” Sarah: “Behaviorists clarified the cognitive abilities of infants and children, especially in their research on object permanence.”
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d.
Jason: “Behaviorists’ contributions to cognitive psychology focused on theoretical models, rather than on empirical results.” Answer: b Section Ref: What Is Cognitive Psychology? Difficulty: Hard
1-29. An operational definition is most likely to a. describe precisely how the researchers will measure a particular concept. b. examine the correlation between two well-established variables. c. point out alternative explanations for the results of a study. d. adopt an information-processing approach, rather than a behaviorist approach. Answer: a Section Ref: Historical Perspective on the Field Difficulty: Medium
1-30. Which of the following perspectives was most likely to emphasize the importance of a precise operational definition? a. William James’s work on the tip-of-the-tongue effect b. Wilhelm Wundt’s introspection approach c. The behaviorists’ research with animals d. The gestalt approach to perception Answer: c Section Ref: Historical Perspective on the Field Difficulty: Medium
1-31. Behaviorists and cognitive psychologists are most likely to agree on which of the following points? a.
Researchers need to have detailed definitions about how a concept will be measured. b. Researchers must emphasize the external stimuli in the environment. c. Theorists must try to explain higher mental processes in terms of mental events. d. Most thought processes can be explained in terms of people’s observable responses to stimuli. Answer: a Section Ref: Historical Perspective on the Field
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1-32. A psychologist who favors the Gestalt approach would be most likely to criticize the fact that behaviorists a. ignore the context in which a behavior occurs. b. overemphasize introspection. c. are not sufficiently rigorous in designing their psychological research. d. pay too much attention to insight. Answer: a Section Ref: Historical Perspective on the Field Difficulty: Medium
1-33. During the 1950s, many psychologists were becoming discouraged with behaviorism, and cognitive psychology began to emerge. A major reason they were disappointed with behaviorism is that a. it considered only psychological processes that are clearly observable. b. it paid too much attention to individual differences. c. it failed to develop objective methods of measuring behavior. d. it focused too much on emotional factors, and not enough on observable behaviors. Answer: a Section Ref: Historical Perspective on the Field Difficulty: Medium
1-34. Which of the following students provides the best summary of the decline of behaviorism and the rising popularity of the cognitive approach? a.
Sarah: “Psychologists began to realize that the behaviorists only emphasized behavior, and they admired how the cognitive approach emphasized people's emotional experiences.” b. Harlan: “Many psychologists favored the cognitive approach, because the behaviorist approach could not account for complex thought processes.” c. Ilia: “Most psychologists thought that the behaviorist approach was too heavily influenced by its early gestalt principles.” d. Savita: “In general, psychologists realized that the cognitive approach was better than the behaviorist approach in explaining individual differences.” Answer: b
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Section Ref: Historical Perspective on the Field Difficulty: Hard
1-35. Cognitive psychologists believe that behaviorists cannot explain human language because a. b.
behaviorists place too much emphasis on genetic explanations. behaviorists cannot provide appropriate explanations because their research rarely uses operational definitions. c. language has a complex structure that cannot be explained in terms of stimuli and responses. d. language is acquired in humans through adults’ careful teaching of young children. Answer: c Section Ref: Historical Perspective on the Field Difficulty: Medium
1-36. During the late 1960s, psychologists began to favor the cognitive approach, because they felt that the behaviorist approach a. b. c.
emphasized unobservable cognitive processes. overused Wundt’s technique of introspection. placed too much emphasis on concepts such as reinforcement and observable responses. d. devoted too much research to the organization of memory. Answer: c Section Ref: Historical Perspective on the Field Difficulty: Medium
1-37. According to the discussion about the rise of cognitive psychology, a.
enthusiasm for behaviorism decreased because it was difficult to explain complex human behavior using only the concepts from learning theory. b. Piaget’s research on children’s thinking was actually ignored until cognitive psychology was well established in the 1970s. c. modern linguistics favors behaviorism rather than cognitive approaches. d. behavioral approaches to human memory are still more widely accepted than cognitive approaches. Answer: a Section Ref: Historical Perspective on the Field Difficulty: Medium
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1-38. Which of the following people was known for seeing human memory as an active, constructive process in which we interpret and transform the information that we encounter? a. Bartlett b. Watson c. James d. Wundt Answer: a Section Ref: Historical Perspective on the Field Difficulty: Easy
1-39. If a study has high ecological validity, then the most likely conclusion is that a. it had a large number of participants. b. it was conducted with animals, taking proper cautions about their safety. c. the results could be applied in real-world situations. d. the study was conducted by researchers with a behaviorist approach. Answer: c Section Ref: Historical Perspective on the Field Difficulty: Medium
1-40. Which of the following titles of research projects would have the most ecological validity? a. “Planning strategies used in grocery-store shopping” b. “Recall for nonsense words after varying delay periods” c. “Children’s ability to perform abstract reasoning tasks” d. “Perception of the loudness of isolated computer-generated tones” Answer: a Section Ref: Historical Perspective on the Field Difficulty: Medium
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1-41. Cognitive science is a. b. c. d.
an earlier version of modern behaviorism. a new approach for treating psychological disorders. an interdisciplinary field that explores questions about the mind. the application of principles from cognitive psychology to industry and other realworld settings. Answer: c Section Ref: Mind, Brain, and Behavior Difficulty: Easy
1-42. Which of the following interests is shared by researchers within the discipline of cognitive science? a. Internal representations of the world b. Individual differences c. The relationship between emotions and thought d. An emphasis on problem solving Answer: a Section Ref: Mind, Brain, and Behavior Difficulty: Medium
1-43. An important feature of cognitive science is that it emphasizes a. individual differences in cognition. b. an interdisciplinary approach. c. that all mental processes should be explained in biological terms. d. that researchers should focus on personality characteristics. Answer: b Section Ref: Mind, Brain, and Behavior Difficulty: Easy
1-44. Based on the discussion of artificial intelligence in Chapter 1, a. b. c.
both computers and humans have limited capacities. the psychologists who developed the information-processing approach emphasized that human cognitive processes are very different from artificial-intelligence models. a flowchart cannot be used in studying either computers or human cognitive processes.
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d. the computer metaphor has only limited usefulness. Answer: a Section Ref: Mind, Brain, and Behavior Difficulty: Hard
1-45. Researchers in artificial intelligence emphasize that a.
both the human brain and the computer can compare symbols and make choices, based on that comparison. b. human memory distinguishes between short-term memory and long-term memory, whereas computer models have no comparable distinction. c. neither the human mind nor the computer can compare symbols. d. a flowchart designed in connection with a computer is very different from human mental processes. Answer: a Section Ref: Mind, Brain, and Behavior Difficulty: Medium
1-46. The term “pure AI” refers to a. b. c. d.
research that considers human limitations in cognitive processing. an approach that attempts to accomplish a task as efficiently as possible. an emphasis on the ecological validity of research in cognitive psychology. a technique used in neuroscience that records the responses from a single cell in the brain. Answer: b Section Ref: Mind, Brain, and Behavior Difficulty: Easy
1-47. According to your textbook, the artificial intelligence (AI) approach a. b.
creates computer models that demonstrate intelligent behavior. emphasizes that humans possess a central processing mechanism that has unlimited capacity. c. is currently too vague and nonspecific to be tested. d. focuses on the development of cognitive abilities during childhood. Answer: a Section Ref: Mind, Brain, and Behavior
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1-48. Some researchers believe that the human brain works like a complex, sophisticated machine. These researchers would favor a. the Gestalt approach. b. the analogy approach. c. the computer metaphor. d. the lesion approach. Answer: c Section Ref: Mind, Brain, and Behavior Difficulty: Medium
1-49. According to Chapter 1 in your textbook, the computer-simulation method a.
attempts to explain how a computer can perform a cognitive task as quickly as possible. b. is not yet sophisticated enough to perform any cognitive task as efficiently as humans can. c. typically produces an idealized version of how humans should perform a cognitive task, rather than how they actually do perform it. d. tries to create a program that performs a cognitive task in the same way that humans would perform it. Answer: d Section Ref: Mind, Brain, and Behavior Difficulty: Medium
1-50. Suppose that several cognitive scientists are trying to program a computer so that it solves a particular problem in the same way a human does, taking into account that a human may make a few false starts before successfully solving the problem. This approach is called a. the neuroscience approach. b. behavioral modeling. c. the “Pure AI” approach. d. computer simulation. Answer: d Section Ref: Mind, Brain, and Behavior Difficulty: Medium
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1-51. The information-processing approach a. b. c.
grew directly out of behaviorism. was facilitated by the early research in computer science. was inspired by linguists, such as Noam Chomsky, who provided extensive analyses about the way that sentences are coded in memory. d. is primarily used to explain cognitive development. Answer: b Section Ref: Mind, Brain, and Behavior Difficulty: Medium
1-52. According to the information-processing approach, a. b.
we process all information at either a deep or shallow level of processing. introspection is the most important research technique; with the proper controls, introspection can be very reliable. c. decision-making is the primary component of all cognitive processes. d. mental processes can be interpreted as a flow of information, somewhat similar to the way a computer operates. Answer: d Section Ref: Mind, Brain, and Behavior Difficulty: Medium
1-53. A cognitive psychologist who analyzes a cognitive task in terms of a series of stages— like the way a computer operates—is using which of the following approaches? a. The information-processing approach b. The introspection approach c. The gestalt approach d. The parallel distributed processing approach Answer: a Section Ref: Mind, Brain, and Behavior Difficulty: Medium
1-54. Information processing models assume that
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a. information from your senses about stimuli in the outside world can be compared to inputting information on a computer keyboard. b. Information from your senses is processed and recognized instantaneously. c. A stimulus does not need to be interpreted or identified before a decision is made about how to respond to the stimulus. d. subsystems based on algorithms are not necessary to model cognitive processes. Answer: a Section Ref: Mind, Brain, and Behavior Difficulty: Medium
1-55. Which of the following students provides the best summary about the current status of the information-processing approach? a.
Alena: “The information-processing approach is now more popular than the parallel distributed processing approach, because most cognitive tasks require serial processing.” b. Magda: “The information-processing approach has declined in popularity during recent years, because those models are not complex enough to explain many cognitive activities.” c. Dave: “The information-processing model is still extremely popular, and it remains at the cutting edge of cognitive psychology.” d. Samuel: “The most important model is one in which the information-processing approach has been blended with the gestalt approach, in order to explain higher mental processes.” Answer: b Section Ref: Mind, Brain, and Behavior Difficulty: Hard
1-56. Why are cognitive psychologists less interested in the information-processing approach than they were in earlier years? a.
They now realize that the complexity of human thinking requires more sophisticated models. b. They acknowledge that behaviorist principles can explain memory more effectively. c. They argue that the model does not place enough emphasis on serial processing. d. They point out that the model works only for visual information, rather than for auditory information. Answer: a Section Ref: Mind, Brain, and Behavior
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1-57. One of the characteristics of the human brain that is especially important in the connectionist approach is that the brain a. is divided into several distinct lobes. b. has two hemispheres that are somewhat similar to each other. c. has networks that link together many neuron-like units. d. has a very specific location in which it performs each cognitive activity. Answer: c Section Ref: Mind, Brain, and Behavior Difficulty: Medium
1-58. An important characteristic of the connectionist approach to cognition is that a. b. c. d.
it handles information by processing it one step at a time. it first analyzes an object’s shape, then its size, and finally its color. it can perform many operations at the same time. it predicts that humans perform cognitive tasks much more accurately than they actually do. Answer: c Section Ref: Mind, Brain, and Behavior Difficulty: Medium
1-59. Suppose that you look up from this exam, and you immediately perceive a scene that includes students, desks, and classroom walls. In order to perceive it quickly, you are probably using a. serial processing. b. parallel processing. c. ecological validity. d. metacognition. Answer: b Section Ref: Mind, Brain, and Behavior Difficulty: Medium
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1-60. The perspective called the “parallel distributed processing approach” includes the word “parallel” in its name because: a. b.
the human brain can process several items simultaneously. both the human brain and the PDP models have parallel weaknesses in terms of processing speed. c. an item stored in your brain is registered in just one very small location. d. the neural network in your brain is arranged in parallel columns. Answer: a Section Ref: Mind, Brain, and Behavior Difficulty: Medium
1-61. An important difference between the classical AI approach and the connectionist approach is that the classical AI approach a. is designed to resemble the human brain. b. proceeds one step at a time. c. is more successful in explaining rapid cognitive processes. d. emphasizes motivational goals as well as cognitive tasks. Answer: b Section Ref: Mind, Brain, and Behavior Difficulty: Medium
1-62. An important characteristic of the connectionist approach is that a.
the neural activity that corresponds to a particular cognitive activity is typically limited to a single small location. b. many cognitive activities rely on serial operations. c. it is flexible enough to explain many cognitive skills. d. it can only explain higher mental processes, such as decision making. Answer: c Section Ref: Mind, Brain, and Behavior Difficulty: Medium
1-63. Suppose that you meet a professor who is trying to determine what portions of the brain are involved in trying to recall a word that is on the tip of your tongue. This person is likely to use the approach of
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a. artificial intelligence. b. cognitive neuroscience. c. gestalt psychology d. behaviorism. Answer: b Section Ref: Mind, Brain, and Behavior Difficulty: Medium
1-64. According to the first chapter in your textbook, research in cognitive neuroscience a. b. c.
shows that most cognitive processes can be traced to a specific location in the brain. often obtains brain images while people are working on a cognitive task. is currently most likely to explore cognitive processes by using the brain-lesion method. d. has declined in its popularity during the past 10–15 years. Answer: b Section Ref: Mind, Brain, and Behavior Difficulty: Medium
1-65. A research team is studying which parts of the brain are active when a participant looks at a photograph of a person, and tries to judge how intelligent that person is. This kind of study is an example of a. the artificial intelligence approach. b. the information-processing approach. c. social cognitive neuroscience. d. computer simulation Answer: c Section Ref: Mind, Brain, and Behavior Difficulty: Medium
1-66. Research on people with brain lesions a. b. c.
usually focuses on the way that isolated nerve cells function. emphasizes that most people who have had strokes won’t ever recover the ability to perform a cognitive task. is a relatively recent neuroscience approach to cognition.
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d.
studies people who cannot perform specific cognitive tasks after they have had a stroke, tumor, or accident. Answer: d Section Ref: Mind, Brain, and Behavior Difficulty: Medium
1-67. Some cognitive neuroscientists study brain lesions to learn more about brain functions. However, a major problem with this technique is that a. the brain damage may extend into several areas of the brain. b. this technique is low in ecological validity. c. it requires using a radioactive chemical, which may be dangerous. d. it cannot be used in studying humans or other primates. Answer: a Section Ref: Mind, Brain, and Behavior Difficulty: Medium
1-68. When neuroscientists use PET scans (positron emission tomography), a.
they assess the regions of the brain in which blood flow increases while a person is performing a task. b. they record the neural impulses from one neuron in the human brain. c. they stimulate a brain region in a patient who recently had a stroke or tumor. d. they place electrodes on a person’s scalp. Answer: a Section Ref: Mind, Brain, and Behavior Difficulty: Medium
1-69. According to the discussion of cognitive neuroscience, the PET-scan technique a. b.
is too dangerous to use with human participants. is currently used when researchers want to test memory; however, it is not adaptable for other cognitive processes. c. can measure human cognitive processes that are completed within one-tenth of a second. d. measures blood flow in the brain. Answer: d Section Ref: Mind, Brain, and Behavior
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1-70. Which of the following students provides the best understanding of the PET scan technique? a.
Prinsetta: “PET scans record fluctuations in the brain activity that are completed within a fraction of a second.” b. Lisa: “Unfortunately, the PET scan can only be used for someone who has a brain lesion.” c. Jeff: “A PET scan is basically a very fast version of the event-related potential.” d. Jamie: “The PET scan creates an image based on a chemical that travels through the bloodstream.” Answer: d Section Ref: Mind, Brain, and Behavior Difficulty: Hard
1-71. In contrast to a PET scan, the fMRI technique a. b. c.
requires an injection of a radioactive chemical. provides more precise information when measuring a series of events in the brain. is more accurate in determining what a person is thinking, for instance, whether the thoughts are pleasant or unpleasant. d. involves placing electrodes on a person’s scalp. Answer: b Section Ref: Mind, Brain, and Behavior Difficulty: Medium
1-72. How does the functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging technique (fMRI) compare with other imaging techniques? a. b.
It requires more processing time than PET scans, so it is more widely available. It is more effective than the PET scan in measuring brain activity that occurs rapidly. c. It does not provide precise information about the timing of various brain activities. d. It produces images that are roughly comparable to the ERP technique. Answer: b Section Ref: Mind, Brain, and Behavior Difficulty: Medium
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1-73. A researcher wants to study how people’s attention shifts when they see a visual stimulus in an unexpected portion of a screen that they are viewing; this attention shift occurs in just a fraction of a second. Which of the following techniques is this researcher most likely to use? a. The neural-network approach b. A positron emission tomography (PET) scan c. The functional magnetic resonance imaging technique (fMRI) d. The event-related potential technique (ERP) Answer: d Section Ref: Mind, Brain, and Behavior Difficulty: Hard
1-74. Imagine that some researchers are trying to design a computer-simulation model for an arithmetic task. They would be most likely to a.
begin by using the single-cell recording technique, and then gradually shift to the fMRI technique. b. design a system that solves each arithmetic problem as quickly as possible. c. examine the way people’s strategies change as they become more familiar with the task. d. create a system that uses a problem-solving technique that is similar to the way humans would solve the problem. Answer: d Section Ref: Mind, Brain, and Behavior Difficulty: Medium
1-75. Suppose that you want to see whether the human brain responds differently when a person reads a pleasant word, rather than an unpleasant word. Which of the following neuroscience techniques would provide the most useful information about processing these two kinds of words? a. b. c. d.
The event-related potential (ERP) technique The connectionist approach The brain-lesion technique A positron emission tomography (PET) scan
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Answer: a Section Ref: Mind, Brain, and Behavior Difficulty: Medium
1-76. A neuroscience technique that provides time-course information about the processing of stimuli, plus coarse-grained information about the location of neural tissue that is involved in this processing, is called a. the event-related potential (ERP) technique b. magnetoencephalography (MEG) c. the brain-lesion technique d. positron emission tomography (PET) scan Answer: b Section Ref: Mind, Brain, and Behavior Difficulty: Medium
1-77. According to Chapter 1’s introduction to the chapters in your textbook, perceptual processes a.
use previous knowledge in order to interpret the stimuli that are registered by our senses. b. are primarily concerned with concept formation. c. include pattern recognition, but not attention. d. are primarily explained by behaviorist principles. Answer: a Section Ref: Textbook Overview Difficulty: Medium
1-78. Metacognition refers to a. your thoughts about your cognitive processes. b. a technique that records brief fluctuations in the brain’s electrical activity. c. the application of cognitive psychology in everyday, naturalistic situations. d. the use of computers to model human cognitive activity. Answer: a Section Ref: Textbook Overview Difficulty: Easy
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1-79. Which of the following is the best example of a schema? a. b. c.
your knowledge of the last 10 winners of the “Best Picture” Academy Award Your tendency to read familiar words more quickly than unfamiliar words Your understanding that the concept “dentist’s office” includes a waiting room and a receptionist, but not video games d. Your ability to reach for your car’s turn signal on the left side of the steering wheel, even if you could not verbally describe where it is located Answer: c Section Ref: Textbook Overview Difficulty: Medium
1-80. One component of your general knowledge focuses on semantic memory. Which of the following would be an example of semantic memory? a. Your ability to create a mental image b. Your ability to add several three-digit numbers together c. A strategy you use to memorize important material for a test d. Your knowledge that the word “bear” is similar to the word “lion” Answer: d Section Ref: Textbook Overview Difficulty: Medium
1-81. Suppose that you hear about a research project in linguistics that is exploring the topic called discourse. Which of the following would be the most likely topic for this research? a. “How do students pronounce individual letters within a word?” b. “Can students recognize the grammatical category of words?” c. “Are students aware of the past tense of verbs?” d. “What are students’ ideas about how a story should end?” Answer: d Section Ref: Textbook Overview Difficulty: Medium
1-82. According to the themes of your textbook, a.
our cognitive processes typically operate independently of one another.
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b. c.
our cognitive processes usually occur automatically. our cognitive processes are quite accurate; our errors can often be traced to strategies that are useful in other situations. d. we react to negative information more efficiently than we react to positive information. Answer: c Section Ref: Textbook Overview Difficulty: Easy
1-83. According to the discussion of the themes of the textbook, a.
negative information is consistently easier to process than positive information, because it is more startling. b. our cognitive processes are interrelated with one another. c. our higher mental processes generally operate independently of the more basic mental processes. d. in general, our cognitive processes are not very accurate. Answer: b Section Ref: Textbook Overview Difficulty: Medium
1-84. Suppose that you attend a lecture on the bottom-up processes involved in speech perception. The lecturer is likely to emphasize a.
how the listener’s auditory system registers and transmits information about the speech sounds. b. the listener’s familiarity with the language. c. the listener’s knowledge about grammar. d. the listener’s expectations about what the speaker will say. Answer: a Section Ref: Textbook Overview Difficulty: Medium
1-85. Chapter 1 of your textbook ends with a discussion about the five themes of this book. According to this discussion, a. b.
cognition is generally not very accurate. cognition typically emphasizes both top-down and bottom-up processing.
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c.
children typically emphasize top-down processing, but adults typically emphasize bottom-up processing. d. cognition is typically more accurate for negative information than for positive information. Answer: b Section Ref: Textbook Overview Difficulty: Medium
1-86. Which of the following students provides the most accurate interpretation of one of the themes of the textbook? a.
Daquan: “In general, our cognitive processes may operate quickly, but we make numerous errors.” b. Jessica: “In general, our cognitive processes tend to be passive, unless we make a special effort.” c. Sam: “We are typically more accurate in processing negative information, rather than positive information.” d. Sophie: “Many cognitive processes emphasize both top-down processing and bottom-up processing.” Answer: d Section Ref: Textbook Overview Difficulty: Medium
1-87. Prior to 1995, cognitive psychologists tended to focus strongly on understanding a. why certain individuals perform better or worse on a particular task b. how cognitive processes change over time c. how the “average” person performs on cognitive tasks d. why depressed individuals underperform relative to nondepressed individuals Answer: c Section Ref: Textbook Overview Difficulty: Easy
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CHAPTER 2: Visual and Auditory Recognition
2-1.
What is perception? a. b.
Perception is the immediate registration of information by the sensory receptors. Perception uses previous knowledge to gather and interpret the stimuli registered by the senses. c. Perception involves only unprocessed sensory information. d. Perception requires complex problem solving. Answer: b Section Ref: Overview of Visual Object Recognition Difficulty: Easy
2-2.
Which of the following students provides the best, most complete definition of the term “perception”? a.
Andrew: “Perception refers to the process of converting external stimuli into electrical signals within the nervous system.” b. Marie-France: “Perception refers to the registration of visual information on the retina.” c. Marco: “Perception refers to the mental images we create without any input from the external world.” d. Sarah: “Perception uses our previous knowledge to collect and interpret sensory stimuli.” Answer: d
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Section Ref: Overview of Visual Object Recognition Difficulty: Hard
2-3. Suppose that you are looking at an object on your desk. Which of the following is the best example of the term perception? a.
You combine your previous knowledge, together with the information registered by your eyes. b. You compare this object with a set of geons, to determine the best match. c. Your retina registers the size, shape, and color of this object. d. Information from your retina travels directly to the primary visual cortex and the inferotemporal cortex. Answer: a Section Ref: Overview of Visual Object Recognition Difficulty: Medium
2-4.
According to the introductory discussion about perceptual processes, a.
humans have relatively primitive perceptual processes, compared to models created by artificial intelligence. b. although perception appears to be straightforward, it actually requires more cognitive effort than tasks such as problem solving. c. unlike other cognitive tasks, perception requires only bottom-up processing. d. perception requires both information from the stimulus and knowledge about previous perceptual experiences. Answer: d Section Ref: Overview of Visual Object Recognition Difficulty: Medium
2-5.
The identification of a complex arrangement of visual stimuli is known as
a. sensation. b. recognition by components. c. object recognition. d. connectionism. Answer: c
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2-6.
Which of the following is the best example of object recognition?
a. Seeing a particular visual stimulus and mentally rotating it b. Seeing a particular visual stimulus and identifying it as the letter M c. Solving a complex reasoning problem d. Switching your attention from one conversation to another Answer: b Section Ref: Overview of Visual Object Recognition Difficulty: Medium
2-7.
Right now, the words in this sentence are being registered on the retina of your eye. This representation on your retina is called
a. sensory memory. b. the template. c. the proximal stimulus. d. the distal stimulus. Answer: c Section Ref: Overview of Visual Object Recognition Difficulty: Medium
2-8.
You are now reading a sentence on an examination. The actual stimulus (the words on the piece of paper) is called
a. the distal stimulus. b. the proximal stimulus. c. the geon. d. the template. Answer: a
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2-9.
Suppose that you hear another student turning a page of this exam. The representation of that noise by the receptors in your auditory system is called
a. iconic memory. b. an illusory contour. c. the proximal stimulus. d. the distal stimulus. Answer: c Section Ref: Overview of Visual Object Recognition Difficulty: Medium
2-10. Which of the following statements about object recognition is correct? a.
Visual information is first processed in the primary visual cortex, but it is eventually stored in the retina. b. In general, we need at least one second to recognize an object. c. The primary visual cortex is responsible for identifying complex objects; in contrast, other portions of the brain identify lines and simple shapes. d. Regions of the cortex beyond the primary visual cortex are active when we identify complex objects. Answer: d Section Ref: Overview of Visual Object Recognition Difficulty: Medium
2-11. Suppose that you look at a television screen for less than a second and then close your eyes. The image that is briefly preserved after the stimulus has disappeared is held in a. iconic memory. b. echoic memory. c. short-term memory. d. long-term memory. Answer: a
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2-12. The primary visual cortex is located in the _______ lobe of the brain. a. frontal b. occipital c. temporal d. parietal Answer: c Section Ref: Overview of Visual Object Recognition Difficulty: Easy
2-13. According to the gestalt psychology approach to visual perception, a.
when we look at an object for the first time, we see a random arrangement of stimuli. b. the distal stimulus is more important than the proximal stimulus. c. we tend to see well-organized patterns, rather than random-looking stimuli. d. we first extract the template, and then later we extract the geon. Answer: c Section Ref: Overview of Visual Object Recognition Difficulty: Easy
2-14. Suppose that a psychologist loans you an art book and says that the book includes some interesting ambiguous figure-ground pictures. You should expect to see a. b. c.
a random arrangement of black-and-white figures. a photo of real-life figures, rather than black-and-white shapes. a picture in which a specific region is the central figure one moment, but this region becomes the background the next moment. d. a picture that has at least two subjective contours. Answer: c
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2-15. Imagine that you are looking at a geometric drawing. At first, one shape in this drawing seems to be in front of other shapes. The next moment, this same shape seems to be located behind a second shape. This phenomenon is called: a. depth perception. b. an illusory contour. c. an ambiguous figure-ground relationship. d. holistic recognition. Answer: c Section Ref: Overview of Visual Object Recognition Difficulty: Medium
2-16. The discussion of the template model of object recognition pointed out that a.
this model is now the most widely accepted explanation for complex recognition tasks, although it cannot account for simpler tasks. b. this model is considered to be the most flexible of the current approaches. c. this model would have difficulty explaining how we can recognize handwritten letters. d. this model provides the best account for the development of object recognition during childhood. Answer: c Section Ref: Overview of Visual Object Recognition Difficulty: Easy
2-17. The template model of object recognition would have the most difficulty explaining a. how people recognize letters of the alphabet if you turned the letters upside-down. b. how computers recognize a standardized set of numbers. c. how people can recognize an isolated letter, without any word context. d. how people recognize neatly printed numbers. Answer: a
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2-18. The feature-analysis approach to object recognition argues that a.
recognition involves a match between the overall shape of an item and the gestalt features stored in memory. b. recognition involves detecting specific characteristics of the stimulus. c. the match between the stimulus and the template must be exactly correct. d. we need to explain how people are able to recognize the arrangement of objects in a specific scene. Answer: b Section Ref: Overview of Visual Object Recognition Difficulty: Medium
2-19. The feature-analysis theories a.
can only explain letter recognition; they cannot account for the recognition of other two-dimensional visual stimuli such as triangles or squares. b. argue that each visual stimulus is unique, with no features in common with other visual stimuli. c. propose that each visual stimulus must be compared with an idealized representation of an entire stimulus in memory. d. state that we differentiate among stimuli in terms of a limited number of specific characteristics. Answer: d Section Ref: Overview of Visual Object Recognition Difficulty: Medium
2-20. In object recognition, an important problem with the feature-analysis approach is that a. it can only explain how we perceive large objects. b. it can only explain colored objects. c. there is no neuroscience evidence for this approach. d. it cannot explain how we perceive an object from different viewpoints. Answer: d
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2-21. You have no difficulty distinguishing between the letters O and W, but it takes longer to distinguish between the letters O and Q. Which theory of object recognition does this support? a. Template-matching theory b. Subjective-contour theory c. Feature-analysis theory d. Recognition-by-components models Answer: c Section Ref: Overview of Visual Object Recognition Difficulty: Hard
2-22. Neuroscience research has been conducted on the response of individual neurons to lines that have different orientations. The results of this research are most compatible with the _______________ approach to object recognition. a. feature-analysis b. template c. parallel distributed processing d. recognition-by-components Answer: a Section Ref: Overview of Visual Object Recognition Difficulty: Easy
2-23. Which of the following is the best example of a geon? a. A template for the letter K, as it is stored in memory b. A straight, vertical, 2-dimensional line c. A 3-dimensional cylinder d. The comparison process used to differentiate a template from a distinctive feature Answer: c
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2-24. The recognition-by-components theory argues that we recognize an object by a. b.
analyzing the arrangement of simple 3-dimensional shapes that form the object. comparing each object to the idealized version of that object, as stored in long-term memory. c. registering each major line, curve, and angle of an object. d. perceiving the overall form of an object as one complete shape or gestalt. Answer: a Section Ref: Overview of Visual Object Recognition Difficulty: Easy
2-25. Imagine that you attend a lecture given by a guest lecturer. He emphasizes that people can recognize complex shapes and other visual images—such as animals and machinery—in terms of arrangements of basic 3-D shapes. This lecturer probably would be a strong supporter of which of the following approaches? a. Top-down processing b. Template-matching theory c. Feature-analysis theory d. Recognition-by-components theory Answer: d Section Ref: Overview of Visual Object Recognition Difficulty: Medium
2-26. According to the research on the recognition-by-components theory, a.
the theory is especially accurate in its ability to explain how we perceive moving objects. b. the theory has difficulty explaining how we recognize three-dimensional objects, though it explains how we can perceive letters of the alphabet. c. the theory primarily applies to the performance of people who have visual deficits. d. the theory needs to include a mechanism for recognizing objects seen from an unusual point of view, or else it would be inadequate. Answer: d
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2-27. Chapter 2 discusses a concept in object recognition called the “viewer-centered approach.” Which of the following students provides the most accurate description of this approach? a. b.
David: “This approach explains how an object appears to be three-dimensional.” Javier: “This is an adjustment that the visual system makes when the viewer walks closer to an object.” c. Melissa: “This is a modification of the recognition-by-components approach, to explain how we perceive an object from an unusual angle.” d. Becca: “This is a theoretical approach to perception that explains how each individual assumes that her or his perception is the only accurate representation.” Answer: c Section Ref: Overview of Visual Object Recognition Difficulty: Hard
2-28. Bottom-up processing a. b. c. d.
is the most widely accepted explanation for illusory contours. describes the influence of expectations upon object recognition. emphasizes the importance of sensory stimuli in object recognition. explains why we are able to recognize words more easily when they appear in sentences, rather than alone. Answer: c Section Ref: Top-Down Processing and Visual Object Recognition Difficulty: Medium
2-29. Bottom-up processing a. focuses on the contribution of the stimulus to object recognition. b. emphasizes that we can pay attention to several objects simultaneously. c. emphasizes that our higher mental processes facilitate object recognition. d. occurs only after top-down processing has been completed. Answer: a
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2-30. If you were to study top-down processing as it applies to smell, which of the following topics would be most relevant? a.
Whether people recognize a lemon fragrance more readily when they see a photo of a lemon than when they see a photo of a rose. b. Whether the chemical structure of lemon-fragrance molecules is substantially different from the chemical structure of rose-fragrance molecules. c. Whether the receptors in the nasal passages respond differently to lemon and rose fragrances. d. Whether the brain stores lemon and rose fragrances in different locations. Answer: a Section Ref: Top-Down Processing and Visual Object Recognition Difficulty: Medium
2-31. Suppose that you walk past the home of your friend, John. Standing in front of the house is someone who somewhat resembles your friend, so you shout, “Hi, John!” To your embarrassment, it is not John but his younger brother—substantially shorter and with darker hair. This error can be traced to a. serial processing. b. parallel processing. c. bottom-up processing. d. top-down processing. Answer: d Section Ref: Top-Down Processing and Visual Object Recognition Difficulty: Medium
2-32. Your friend Sophie said that she would call you at 8:00 p.m. When the phone rings at 8:00 p.m., you answer and say “Oh, hi, Sophie.” Then you realize that the caller is a different friend with a similar voice, but somewhat higher pitched. Your initial error can be explained by a. change blindness. b. top-down processing. c. bottom-up processing. d. recognition-by-components theory. Answer: b
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2-33. According to the discussion of object recognition, a.
the bottom-up approach emphasizes the importance of previous information in processing new stimuli. b. top-down processing emphasizes that it is most efficient to begin at the top of a object that you are trying to recognize. c. top-down processing does not play a major role in object recognition. d. object recognition must involve both top-down and bottom-up processes. Answer: d Section Ref: Top-Down Processing and Visual Object Recognition Difficulty: Medium
2-34. You recognize the letter n more quickly in the word pattern than when it appears by itself. This is an example of a. top-down processing. b. bottom-up processing. c. a template for the letter n. d. a recognition module. Answer: a Section Ref: Top-Down Processing and Visual Object Recognition Difficulty: Easy
2-35. You can identify a letter more accurately when it appears in a word than when it does not. This phenomenon is called the a. letter superiority effect. b. bottom-up effect. c. word superiority effect. d. change-blindness effect. Answer: c
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2-36. According to the word superiority effect, a.
we have trouble noticing when one of the letters in a word disappears from the stimulus. b. we can recognize a letter faster and more accurately when it is part of a word, rather than when this letter appears by itself. c. we can recognize an unfamiliar word more quickly than an isolated letter of the alphabet. d. bottom-up processing is more helpful than top-down processing. Answer: b Section Ref: Top-Down Processing and Visual Object Recognition Difficulty: Easy
2-37. Which of the following examples would be most comparable to the word superiority effect if we were to apply this phenomenon to hearing? a.
You can identify a particular phoneme more readily if it is embedded in a word than if you hear that same phoneme in isolation. b. If you are right-handed, you can identify a spoken word more readily if it is spoken in your right ear, rather than your left ear. c. You can hear a spoken word more accurately when you see the written pattern at the same time, but this does not apply to smaller segments, such as individual letters. d. You can recognize and remember short words more readily than long words in a conversation. Answer: a Section Ref: Top-Down Processing and Visual Object Recognition Difficulty: Medium
2-38. Your textbook discussed in some detail a study by Rueckl and Oden (the “bears/beans” study). These researchers manipulated both the features of a letter within a word and the context in which the word appeared. This study demonstrated that a. both bottom-up and top-down processing operate. b. under appropriate conditions, people only pay attention to distinctive features. c. sensory memory can be extended when a word appears in context. d. top-down processing almost always leads to more accurate pattern recognition. Answer: a
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2-39. The term “change blindness” refers to the observation that a. people with poor eyesight tend not to notice that a visual object is rotating. b. people often fail to see that an object in a scene has changed. c. people often fail to notice that a new object has suddenly appeared in a scene. d. infants are not able to create a gestalt in a subjective-contour figure. Answer: b Section Ref: Top-Down Processing and Visual Object Recognition Difficulty: Easy
2-40. Suppose that you are watching a movie. Two men are talking, and the camera focuses on a man in a blue shirt, with long sideburns. The focus shifts to the other man. Then it returns to the man in the blue shirt—but now his sideburns are about an inch shorter. If you fail to notice that he looks different, you are exhibiting a. bottom-up processing. b. change blindness. c. the principle that face recognition is “special.” d. the recognition-by-components approach. Answer: b Section Ref: Top-Down Processing and Visual Object Recognition Difficulty: Medium
2-41. Change blindness and inattentional blindness are similar because both of these phenomena a. demonstrate the importance of top-down processing. b. emphasize the importance of bottom-up processing. c. illustrate categorical perception. d. provide support for the recognition-by-components approach to perception. Answer: a
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2-42. Suppose that a close friend is telling you about a very emotional experience she has just had. You are paying such close attention to her that you fail to notice that some strangers have just entered the room. This incident is an example of a. change blindness. b. illusory contour. c. inattentional blindness. d. a gestalt. Answer: c Section Ref: Top-Down Processing and Visual Object Recognition Difficulty: Medium
2-43. Chapter 2 discussed two related topics, called change blindness and inattentional blindness. According to this discussion, a.
we need to monitor our environment more carefully, so that our perception is more accurate. b. in reality, these cognitive errors can be traced to strategy that makes sense in the real world. c. both of these topics reflect a basic deficit in object recognition. d. both of these topics can be traced to overactive bottom-up processing. Answer: b Section Ref: Top-Down Processing and Visual Object Recognition Difficulty: Medium
2-44. Suppose that a group of researchers would like to explore how we perceive objects in the real world, rather than just in a laboratory. This approach emphasizes a. a well-controlled design. b. the viewer-centered approach. c. holistic recognition. d. ecological validity. Answer: d
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2-45. When a study has high ecological validity, a. people tend to receive similar scores on two different versions of a relevant test. b. people typically make more errors than if the test is low in ecological validity. c. at least two researchers recorded the answers supplied by the participants. d. the methods and results apply to real world applications or settings. Answer: d Section Ref: Top-Down Processing and Visual Object Recognition Difficulty: Easy
2-46. Many researchers argue that face perception is “special”; we process faces in a different way than we process other visual stimuli. According to this perspective, a. b.
we process the color of human faces before we process their shape. unlike other objects, information about faces does not pass through the primary visual cortex. c. we recognize faces in terms of their entire shape, rather than in terms of their isolated features. d. because faces are so complex, we take a long time to recognize that an object is a face; in contrast, we recognize simpler objects much more quickly. Answer: c Section Ref: Specialized Visual Recognition Processes Difficulty: Easy
2-47. Which of the following students’ statements best summarizes the research on face perception? a.
Eduardo: “Faces are perceived in the same fashion as other similarly complex objects.” b. Sarita: “We process faces in terms of their general structure; for other objects, we are more likely to process isolated features.” c. Akiko: “We perceive faces in a more serial fashion, processing one feature at a time, for other objects, features are processed simultaneously.” d. Nelson: “We process faces in a bottom-up fashion; we process other objects in a top-down fashion.” Answer: b
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2-48. Suppose that you are looking at a simple geometric design. If you were to perceive it holistically you would a. first analyze it into parts, and then assemble the parts into a whole. b. use a visual template that precisely matches the shape of the entire stimulus. c. recognize it in terms of its overall structure and shape. d. compare it with a set of features stored in memory. Answer: c Section Ref: Specialized Visual Recognition Processes Difficulty: Easy
2-49. The discussion about face recognition points out that we perceive a face in terms of a “gestalt.” You can therefore conclude that a. b. c.
we perceive faces in terms of their overall structure. each element of someone’s face (eyes, nose, etc.) is unique to that particular face. we use top-down processing when we perceive a face, moving from the eyes, to the nose, etc. d. we process faces the same as we process other visual stimuli. Answer: a Section Ref: Specialized Visual Recognition Processes Difficulty: Easy
2-50. Individuals with prosopagnosia a. can recognize faces, but not common objects. b. cannot recognize the emotion shown on a face. c. cannot recognize faces of even their own spouses or children. d. may have suffered damage to the occipital lobe. Answer: c Section Ref: Specialized Visual Recognition Processes Difficulty: Medium
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2-51. The face-inversion effect indicates that a. upright and inverted faces are processed by different lobes of the brain. b. people can process inverted faces just as quickly as upright faces. c. faces are processed holistically rather than through their isolated parts. d. faces are processed in an almost entirely bottom-up fashion. Answer: c Section Ref: Specialized Visual Recognition Processes Difficulty: Medium
2-52. There is a great deal of controversy in neuroscience over a. b. c. d.
the idea that faces are processed differently than other stimuli. the idea that the processing of faces is localized to a specific brain region. the specific location of the fusiform face area of the brain. whether brain damage can affect face processing without affecting the processing of other visual objects. Answer: b Section Ref: Specialized Visual Recognition Processes Difficulty: Medium
2-53. Chapter 2 discusses a study by Burton and his colleagues on people’s ability to identify a face that is shown in a video security system. According to the results of this study, a.
people are especially likely to be confident that they correctly identified a person’s face if they are familiar with this person. b. people are surprisingly accurate in identifying the faces of both familiar and unfamiliar persons. c. people are surprisingly inaccurate in identifying the faces of both familiar and unfamiliar persons. d. compared to other people, police officers are more accurate on this face-recognition task. Answer: a
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2-54. Rhodes’ research indicates that people are generally accurate in guessing the ages of unfamiliar persons, based on their faces. This research has important implications for a. bartenders serving alcohol. b. students identifying their professors. c. doctors diagnosing cases of schizophrenia. d. eyewitnesses identifying suspects from a lineup. Answer: a Section Ref: Specialized Visual Recognition Processes Difficulty: Medium
2-55. Chapter 2 discussed individual differences in people’s ability to judge the facial emotion that is being expressed in a series of photos. The results of this study suggest that people with schizophrenia a. b. c.
are significantly more accurate than people in a control group. are just as accurate as people in a control group. are significantly less accurate than people in a control group, but they respond at about the same speed. d. are significantly less accurate than people in a control group, and they also respond more slowly. Answer: b Section Ref: Specialized Visual Recognition Processes Difficulty: Medium
2-56. Chapter 2 discussed individual differences in the ability to recognize another person’s facial expressions. This research showed that individuals with schizophrenia are more likely than people in a control group a. to respond slowly. b. to make errors in identifying the facial expression. c. to use holistic processing. d. to use a template that processes facial expression. Answer: a
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2-57. The term “phoneme” refers to a. the written representation of a basic speech sound. b. the basic unit of spoken language. c. the meaning of a word, within the context of a sentence. d. the grammatical aspects of a word. Answer: b Section Ref: Speech Perception Difficulty: Easy
2-58. The boundaries between words in spoken language a. are just as distinctive as the boundaries between words in written language. b. are more distinctive in English than in other languages. c. are often missing, so that two words are not separated by an actual pause. d. are difficult for children to perceive, though adults rarely make perceptual errors. Answer: c Section Ref: Speech Perception Difficulty: Easy
2-59. According to the research on word boundaries in speech, a. b.
phonemic restoration helps us detect word boundaries. listeners are typically accurate in detecting word boundaries, even when there is no actual gap. c. most people are clearly aware that speakers tend to run their words together d. the boundary between spoken words is even more clear-cut than the boundary between printed words. Answer: b
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2-60. According to the discussion of phoneme perception, a. b.
this task is not very challenging because of context cues. this task is not very challenging because each phoneme is pronounced in such a standard fashion. c. this task is challenging because the English language has over 200 distinct phonemes. d. this task is challenging because of the variability in speakers’ pronunciation of phonemes. Answer: d Section Ref: Speech Perception Difficulty: Medium
2-61. Which of the following students provides the most accurate summary about phoneme pronunciation, as discussed in the section on speech perception? a.
George: “Humans manage to perceive the phoneme intended by the speaker, even though phoneme pronunciation is quite variable.” b. Angela: “Humans tend to perceive phonemes inaccurately, but top-down processing helps to increase their accuracy.” c. Jakob: “Humans have great difficulty with phoneme perception, because most speakers have sloppy phoneme pronunciation.” d. Galit: “Each phoneme is pronounced in a consistent fashion, so that speech perception is remarkably accurate.” Answer: a Section Ref: Speech Perception Difficulty: Hard
2-62. Studies of speech perception show that a. speech sounds are transmitted one at a time, just as letters follow one another in writing. b. when the first phoneme of a word is being spoken, the mouth prepares to pronounce the next phoneme in the word. c. a phoneme’s sound remains constant, no matter which phonemes precede and follow it. d. context is of little use in helping people determine the identity of a missing phoneme. Answer: b
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2-63. The o sound in the word dog influences the position of your mouth when you pronounce the remainder of the word. This phenomenon is called a. the McGurk effect. b. categorical perception. c. phonemic restoration. d. coarticulation. Answer: d Section Ref: Speech Perception Difficulty: Medium
2-64. Which of the following students provides the most accurate information about the variability found in the way we pronounce pronouns? a.
Melissa: “Aside from the pitch of a person’s voice, phoneme pronunciation is relatively uniform.” b. Nico: “The variability in pronunciation is so great that we frequently have trouble comprehending a spoken sentence.” c. Annabelle: “Despite the great variability in pronunciation, we perceive speech quite accurately.” d. Alan: “Fortunately, coarticulation is a helpful part of our speech perception, and it compensates for the fact that people’s speech shows great variability.” Answer: c Section Ref: Speech Perception Difficulty: Hard
2-65. Coarticulation is the tendency a.
for phoneme pronunciation to vary slightly, depending on the surrounding phonemes. b. to read more than one word at a time. c. to transmit meaning as well as phoneme information in any given English sentence. d. to use visual cues to help you interpret phonemes. Answer: a
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Chapter 2: Perceptual Processes: Recognition Page 23 of 28
Section Ref: Speech Perception Difficulty: Medium
2-66. Suppose that you are listening to a lecture, and another student’s chair squeaks loudly during the middle of a word, so that the middle of that word cannot be heard. Nonetheless, you do not detect any interruption in the word. This example is closest to which of the following cognitive phenomena? a. Phonemic restoration b. Coarticulation c. Bottom-up processing d. The recognition-by-components approach Answer: a Section Ref: Speech Perception Difficulty: Medium
2-67. According to the discussion of phonemic restoration, a.
if we fail to hear a particular phoneme in a word, we won’t be able to identify the word. b. phonemic restoration makes use of top-down processing. c. phonemic restoration is typically caused by variations in phoneme pronunciation. d. phonemic restoration is typically caused by coarticulation. Answer: b Section Ref: Speech Perception Difficulty: Medium
2-68. Your textbook states that phonemic restoration is a kind of illusion. This statement is true because a.
we think that we hear boundaries between words, even when a physical boundary does not really exist. b. we think that we are accurate when we replace a missing phoneme, but we typically make many errors. c. we make too much use of bottom-up processing. d. we think that we hear a speech sound, even if it is not present in the distal stimulus. Answer: d
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Chapter 2: Perceptual Processes: Recognition Page 24 of 28
Section Ref: Speech Perception Difficulty: Medium
2-69. Research on context and speech perception has demonstrated that a.
people are amazingly accurate in identifying when speech sounds are missing in a sentence. b. people often do not notice a missing sound when it occurs within the context of a sentence. c. speech perception is almost entirely a bottom-up process. d. when a phoneme in a sentence is mispronounced, people typically cannot understand the sentence. Answer: b Section Ref: Speech Perception Difficulty: Medium
2-70. Heather notes that it is always easier to understand her sister’s speech when they converse on Skype as compared to conversing on the telephone. Her sister believes that the sound quality on Skype may be better than on her smart phone. However, Heather thinks about her Cognitive Psychology class and reasons that the phenomenon may be an illustration of a. coarticulation. b. phonemic restoration. c. word boundary effects. d. the importance of visual cues in speech processing. Answer: d Section Ref: Speech Perception Difficulty: Medium
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Chapter 2: Perceptual Processes: Recognition Page 25 of 28
2-71. Which of the following students best summarizes the information about visual cues and speech perception? a.
Dawan: “Adults who have normal hearing often fail to appreciate the visual cues, even though these cues are helpful.” b. Cheryl: “Surprisingly, adults can perceive speech just as accurately without visual cues as they can with visual cues.” c. Ralph: “Adults cannot distinguish among the visual cues associated with the phonemes, so they do not link these cues with the auditory stimuli.” d. Tiffany: “Although children pay attention to these visual cues, adults do not.” Answer: a Section Ref: Speech Perception Difficulty: Hard
2-72. Suppose that you are watching a television talk show. The picture on your TV set is clear, but the sound is somewhat muffled. If the visual information helps you interpret some of the words that the talk-show host is saying, you are demonstrating a. phonemic restoration b. the phonetic module. c. coarticulation. d. the McGurk effect. Answer: d Section Ref: Speech Perception Difficulty: Medium
2-73. The research on speech perception demonstrates that a. b. c.
each phoneme has a unique but consistent pronunciation. context can be used to identify a missing vowel, but not a missing consonant. people use visual cues from the speaker's mouth in order to perceive an ambiguous sound. d. listeners typically perceive a solid stream of language, without any breaks in the stream. Answer: c
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Chapter 2: Perceptual Processes: Recognition Page 26 of 28
Section Ref: Speech Perception Difficulty: Medium
2-74. The theorists who argue for a special mechanism approach to speech perception emphasize that humans have a special-purpose portion of the brain that makes speech perception easier. They call this special mechanism a a. phonemic restoration unit. b. coarticulation device. c. phonetic module. d. categorical perception module. Answer: c Section Ref: Speech Perception Difficulty: Easy
2-75. Suppose that you are reading a journal article that supports the “special mechanism approach” to speech perception. Which of the following statements would you be most likely to see? a. b.
Humans have an inborn ability that helps them perceive speech sounds. Humans can perceive speech sounds especially well when the sounds are accompanied by music. c. Speech perception operates in the same way as visual perception. d. We can remember spoken sentences better than printed sentences. Answer: a Section Ref: Speech Perception Difficulty: Hard
2-76. According to the general mechanism approach, speech perception can be explained by a.
the same kind of learning mechanisms that humans use in acquiring other cognitive skills. b. an innate ability to acquire language. c. a neural unit in the temporal lobe of the cortex that is “programmed” shortly before birth. d. listeners’ skills in coordinating phonemes with the lip position of a speaker. Answer: a
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Chapter 2: Perceptual Processes: Recognition Page 27 of 28
Section Ref: Speech Perception Difficulty: Medium
2-77. If you favor the general mechanism approach to speech perception, you would argue that a. b.
people process speech sounds the same way that they process other kinds of sounds. humans have a special phonetic module that handles all general speech perception tasks. c. the McGurk effect does not support the general mechanism approach, but most other research supports this approach. d. people use categorical perception when listening to a language sound; they do not use categorical perception on other cognitive tasks. Answer: a Section Ref: Speech Perception Difficulty: Medium
2-78. What can we conclude about the two major explanations for speech perception? a.
Humans show categorical perception for nonspeech sounds, which argues against a phonetic module approach. b. Humans show categorical perception for nonspeech sounds, which argues for a phonetic module approach. c. Humans cannot use visual cues as aids to the perception of phonemes, which argues against a general mechanism approach. d. Infants use a general mechanism approach, whereas adults typically use a phonetic module approach. Answer: a Section Ref: Speech Perception Difficulty: Hard
2-79. The “general mechanism approach” to speech perception argues that a.
we first obtain a general idea about a spoken message, and then we fill in the specific details. b. we use similar processes for both speech perception and other auditory perception tasks. c. learning does not play a major role in speech perception. d. children are born with a general understanding about speech, and they fill in specific information as they grow older. Answer: b
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Chapter 2: Perceptual Processes: Recognition Page 28 of 28
Section Ref: Speech Perception Difficulty: Easy
2-80. Which of the following favors a special mechanism approach to speech perception? a. Recent discoveries of categorical perception for nonspeech sounds b. Early research on categorical perception of speech sounds c. ERP shifts that are similar in processing speech and music d. The McGurk effect Answer: b Section Ref: Speech Perception Difficulty: Medium
2-81. Which of the following students provides the best overview about the research on theories of speech perception, as discussed in Chapter 2? a.
Kaitlin: “Because speech is important to human survival, people have a specialized brain structure that helps them decode speech sounds.” b. Anastazia: “The research on categorical perception provides the strongest evidence that the special mechanism approach to speech perception is correct.” c. Samaria: “In general, most theorists believe that the human nervous system processes speech sounds in the same way it processes nonspeech sounds.” d. Jared: “The research on the McGurk effect demonstrates that the special mechanism approach to speech perception is correct.” Answer: c Section Ref: Speech Perception Difficulty: Hard
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Chapter 3: Perceptual Processes: Attention
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CHAPTER 3: Attention and Consciousness
3-1.
According to your textbook’s introduction to Chapter 3, attention
a. relies exclusively on bottom-up processing. b. uses both top-down and bottom-up processing. c. is a time-consuming but highly accurate cognitive process. d. is a quick process that is highly inaccurate. Answer: b Section Ref: Overview of Attention Difficulty: Easy
3-2.
Which of the following would be least interested in the topic of attention?
a. William James b. Early behaviorists c. Modern-day cognitive psychologists d. Neuroscientists Answer: b Section Ref: Overview of Attention Difficulty: Medium
3-3. According to your textbook, _______ is an important “gatekeeper” that allows you to diret your mental effort toward thoughts and environmental stimuli that are most important to you at a given time. a. object recognition b. speech perception c. attention d. problem solving Answer: c Section Ref: Overview of Attention Difficulty: Easy
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3-4.
Chapter 3: Perceptual Processes: Attention
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Imagine that you are listening to a friend complaining about a course assignment, but you are simultaneously trying to read the newspaper. This is an example of
a. top-down processing. b. divided attention. c. selective attention. d. the binding problem. Answer: b Section Ref: Overview of Attention Difficulty: Medium
3-5.
Imagine that you are trying to concentrate on a Sudoku puzzle, but your little sister is simultaneously asking you questions about the latest Disney movie. This is an example of a. bottom-up processing. b. selective attention. c. object recognition. d. divided attention. Answer: d Section Ref: Overview of Attention Difficulty: Medium
3-6.
Multitasking is a form of
a. divided attention b. selective attention c. dichotic listening d. shadowing Answer: a Section Ref: Overview of Attention Difficulty: Easy
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Chapter 3: Perceptual Processes: Attention
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Suppose that a friend at your college says that she can multitask very effectively, even when two tasks are challenging. Based on the information in Chapter 3, you would conclude that a.
she may be one of the 20–25% of college students who actually does manage to multitask quickly and accurately. b. she may be able to perform two tasks very quickly, but the research shows that she would make about 5% more errors than if she performs just one task. c. she may be able to perform two tasks very accurately, but the research shows that she would take about 10% longer than if she performs just one task. d. she may believe that she can multitask effectively, but the research does not support this belief. Answer: d Section Ref: Overview of Attention Difficulty: Medium
3-8.
Shawn claims that he multitasks very effectively, and also says that he actually performs better while multitasking than when doing a single task. You ask Shawn to test this claim. Shawn reads a newspaper article while listening to a baseball game, and then reads another article in silence. Based on research on multitasking, when you time Shawn’s reading speed and test his comprehension, you are likely to find that his reading is a. b. c. d.
faster but less accurate when listening to the game. slower but more accurate when listening to the game. both slower and less accurate when listening to the game. both faster and more accurate when listening to the game, just as he claimed it would be. Answer: c Section Ref: Overview of Attention Difficulty: Medium Objective text: 3-9.
Which of the following students provides the most accurate summary about phone use when someone is driving? a.
Henri: “As long as someone other than the driver is talking on the phone, there’s no problem.” b. Edith: “As long as a driver uses a hands-free phone, there’s no problem.” c. Charles: “When drivers are talking on the phone, they pay less attention to objects that appear in the middle of their visual field.” d. Jeanne: “When drivers are talking on the phone, the passengers can carry on a continuous conversation without affecting the driver.” Answer: c
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Chapter 3: Perceptual Processes: Attention
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Section Ref: Overview of Attention Difficulty: Hard
3-10. Which of the following students provides the best summary of the research about using a cell phone and paying attention while driving? a.
Hans: “As long as you talk on a hands-free cell phone, you can still pay full attention to driving.” b. Gail: “As long as you are an experienced driver, talking on a hand-held cell phone or a hands-free cell phone will not distract your attention.” c. María Luisa: “Talking on a hands-free cell phone can distract your attention.” d. Josh: “Fortunately, drivers are not distracted when a passenger is having a conversation on a phone.” Answer: c Section Ref: Overview of Attention Difficulty: Hard
3-11. Suppose that you are sitting in a classroom, trying to follow your professor’s lecture while trying to ignore a loud conversation out in the hallway. This situation most closely resembles a. parallel processing. b. holistic processing. c. a divided-attention task. d. a dichotic listening task. Answer: d Section Ref: Overview of Attention Difficulty: Medium
3-12. On a dichotic listening task, a. b.
people can accurately monitor two tasks at the same time. people can accurately monitor two tasks at the same time, except when the tasks are both auditory. c. people notice little about the message that they are supposed to ignore. d. experts tend to process the message that they are supposed to ignore, but novices don’t process an irrelevant message. Answer: c
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Chapter 3: Perceptual Processes: Attention
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Section Ref: Overview of Attention Difficulty: Easy
3-13. Research on dichotic listening shows that a. b. c.
most people have great difficulty attending to one task while ignoring another task. when people pay attention to one task, they typically notice little about other tasks. selective attention is an unfortunate problem that limits our performance enormously. d. we can usually shadow one series of items and process another series very accurately. Answer: b Section Ref: Overview of Attention Difficulty: Medium
3-14. Suppose that you are sitting in a cafeteria, trying to focus on a comment from a student on your left, while a student on your right is talking to a friend. This situation resembles the laboratory setup known as a. the Stroop task. b. dichotic listening. c. bottom-up processing. d. the feature-integration theory approach. Answer: b Section Ref: Overview of Attention Difficulty: Medium
3-15. Chapter 3 discussed a study in which people in a laboratory setting were instructed to pay close attention to one message and to ignore a second message that mentioned their own name. According to your textbook, a. b. c.
about one-third of the time, people noticed their name in the irrelevant message. people almost always noticed their name in the irrelevant message. people almost always noticed their name in the relevant message, but they almost never noticed their name in the irrelevant message. d. people were much more likely to notice their name in the irrelevant message than they would in a situation that has high ecological validity. Answer: a
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Chapter 3: Perceptual Processes: Attention
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Section Ref: Overview of Attention Difficulty: Medium
3-16. Suppose that some students are participating in a dichotic listening task. Which of the following kinds of students would be most likely to notice their names in the irrelevant message? a. Students with high working-memory capacity b. Students with low working-memory capacity c. Students who hear both messages presented quickly d. Students who make many errors on the Stroop task Answer: b Section Ref: Overview of Attention Difficulty: Hard
3-17. Lin has a high working memory capacity, whereas Emily has a low working memory capacity. Both Lin and Emily are trying to listen to a recording of a lecture for an online class. When their friend Chris mentions their names from across the room, a. both Lin and Emily are likely to hear their names. b. neither Lin nor Emily will be likely to hear their names. c. Lin is likely to hear his name, but Emily will not hear her name. d. Emily is likely to hear her name, but Lin will not hear his name. Answer: d Section Ref: Overview of Attention Difficulty: Hard
3-18. The Stroop effect is related to selective attention because a.
people are required to pay selective attention to the shape of the object, rather than its meaning. b. people are required to pay selective attention to the color of the stimulus, rather than the name of the stimulus. c. the stimuli elicit selective parallel distributed processing. d. attention involves only bottom-up processing. Answer: b
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Chapter 3: Perceptual Processes: Attention
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Section Ref: Overview of Attention Difficulty: Medium
3-19. Suppose that Lori is taking the Stroop test. Research suggests that, when shown the word “yellow” printed in green ink, Lori will a.
be more likely to slow down or make an error when asked to read the word “yellow” than if the word had been printed in yellow ink. b. be more likely to slow down or make an error when asked to name the ink color (green) than if the word had been “green.” c. read the word more quickly than if it had been printed in black ink. d. show no difference in reaction time to this item, for either reading the word or naming the ink color, than to the word “blue” printed in blue ink. Answer: b Section Ref: Overview of Attention Difficulty: Medium
3-20. Suppose that Susan is taking the Stroop test, and the first item shows the word “red,” printed in blue ink. According to your textbook, one reason that she will have trouble reporting the ink color (blue) for this item is that a. b. c.
she has had more experience in reading words than in identifying ink colors. colors have more emotional meaning than words do. colorful arrangements of visual stimuli can actually facilitate an adult’s reading ability. d. the left eye processes word meaning and the right eye processes the color of a stimulus. Answer: a Section Ref: Overview of Attention Difficulty: Medium
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Chapter 3: Perceptual Processes: Attention
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3-21. Clinical psychologists have conducted research on the Stroop effect. This research shows that a.
individuals who have a phobia have trouble reporting the color of words related to their phobia. b. individuals who have a phobia want to avoid words related to their particular phobia, so they report the ink color of these words quickly and accurately. c. individuals who are depressed perform more accurately on the Stroop task than do nondepressed individuals. d. the performance of individuals with psychological disorders does not differ significantly from the performance of control-group individuals. Answer: a Section Ref: Overview of Attention Difficulty: Medium
3-22. Imagine that your friend Pete has an intense fear of spiders. If he tries the emotional Stroop test, he would be most likely to a. report the ink color slowly if the words were related to spiders. b. report the ink color quickly if the words were related to spiders. c. report the ink color more accurately if the words were related to spiders. d. respond the same as people without a fear of spiders. Answer: a Section Ref: Overview of Attention Difficulty: Medium
3-23. Suppose that Jessica has a phobic disorder, a fear of snakes. A clinical psychologist gives her the appropriate version of an emotional Stroop task. Jessica would be likely to: a. b.
respond more quickly to items related to snakes than to other items. show an attentional bias, so that she pays less attention to the color of the ink, when the word is related to snakes. c. identify the colors more accurately for items related to snakes. d. ignore the meaning of the word itself and focus exclusively on the color of the ink. Answer: b Section Ref: Overview of Attention Difficulty: Medium
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Chapter 3: Perceptual Processes: Attention
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3-24. Suppose that researchers show you one blue X surrounded by 25 red Xs. According to the discussion of visual search, you would locate that blue X a. significantly more slowly than if there were only three other red Xs. b. significantly more quickly than if there were only three other red Xs. c. just as quickly as if there were only three other red Xs. d. significantly more quickly than if the other items were blue and red Os. Answer: c Section Ref: Overview of Attention Difficulty: Medium
3-25. Psychologists have conducted studies in which the participants must detect a stimulus in a display of many other objects. According to this research, people usually detect a. a combined feature more quickly than an isolated feature. b. a feature that is present more quickly than a feature that is absent. c. a stationary object more quickly than a moving object. d. a small object more quickly than a large object. Answer: b Section Ref: Overview of Attention Difficulty: Medium
3-26. Suppose that you are looking for a dark-colored car in a row of parked cars. Among them, 11 are light colored and one is dark colored. The dark-colored car seems to pop out. In this example, a. b. c. d.
you are using focused attention. you are using bottom-up processing. you are demonstrating the feature-present/feature-absent effect. a dark-colored object is more likely to stimulate the movement-detection cells in the retina. Answer: b Section Ref: Overview of Attention Difficulty: Hard
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Chapter 3: Perceptual Processes: Attention
Page 10 of 26
3-27. Imagine that you need to meet someone at the airport. You would notice him more quickly if he had told you “Look for the only person wearing a hat” than if he told you, “Look for the only person not wearing a hat.” This situation is most similar to a. b. c. d.
the Stroop effect. the isolated-feature/combined-feature effect. the feature-present/feature-absent effect. Wolfe’s finding that we detect a target more accurately if the target appears frequently, rather than rarely. Answer: c Section Ref: Overview of Attention Difficulty: Medium
3-28. The letters Q and O differ only in the presence or absence of a single feature. Based on research on visual search, you would find it a. easier to detect a Q in an array of Os than to detect an O in an array of Qs. b. easier to detect an O in an array of Qs than to detect a Q in an array of Os. c. equally easy to detect an O in an array of Qs and a Q in an array of Os. d. easier to detect a Q in an array of three Os than a Q in an array of 10 Os. Answer: a Section Ref: Overview of Attention Difficulty: Hard
3-29. When people are asked to describe how they move their eyes when reading, they often report that they _____. In reality, their eyes actually _____. a.
move their eyes smoothly and continuously across a line of text; make a series of little jumps. b. move their eyes smoothly and continuously across a line a text; move smoothly and continuously, just as reported. c. make a series of little jumps with their eyes; make a series of little jumps, just as reported. d. make a series of little jumps with their eyes; move smoothly and continuously across a line of text. Answer: a Section Ref: Eye Movements in Reading Difficulty: Medium
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Chapter 3: Perceptual Processes: Attention
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3-30. You need saccadic eye movements when you are reading this sentence in order to a. focus on the consonants, rather than the vowels. b. increase the size of your perceptual span. c. decrease the number of fixations necessary for accurate reading. d. move your eye so that the next words are registered in the fovea. Answer: d Section Ref: Eye Movements in Reading Difficulty: Easy
3-31. The series of little jumps made by your eyes as they move across a page during reading is called a. fixation. b. saccadic eye movement. c. perceptual span. d. parafoveal preview. Answer: b Section Ref: Eye Movements in Reading Difficulty: Easy
3-32. What is the function of saccadic eye movement? a.
It moves the eye backwards or forward in a very small amount so that the image does not fade on the retina. b. It keeps an image stable on the retina while we move around in the environment. c. It tracks objects that are moving at a smooth, regular speed. d. It focuses the area of greatest visual accuity over the material to be seen. Answer: d Section Ref: Eye Movements in Reading Difficulty: Medium
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Chapter 3: Perceptual Processes: Attention
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3-33. Saccadic movements are a.
the miniature eye movements our eyes make when they are attempting to identify the features of the individual letters in a word. b. the very rapid movements of the eye from one location to another. c. the eye movements made to change our focus from a distant object to a nearby object. d. eye movements made only when we are asleep; they accompany dreams. Answer: b Section Ref: Eye Movements in Reading Difficulty: Easy
3-34. Right now, you are moving your eyes as you read this question on your exam. The letters that you can see at any given moment—in between eye movements—would be called a. a fixation. b. the perceptual span. c. a saccadic eye movement. d. the fovea. Answer: b Section Ref: Eye Movements in Reading Difficulty: Easy
3-35. The fact that English-speaking readers can access information about upcoming words, even though they are currently fixated on a word to the left, is referred to as a. fixation. b. the fovea. c. a saccadic eye movement. d. parafoveal preview. Answer: d
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Chapter 3: Perceptual Processes: Attention
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Section Ref: Eye Movements in Reading Difficulty: Easy
3-36. In making a saccadic eye movement in reading a sentence in English, you are most likely to move to a. a blank space between words b. the word “the” c. a word that is highly predictable from the context of the sentence d. the middle of a long word Answer: d Section Ref: Eye Movements in Reading Difficulty: Medium
3-37. Chinese readers make saccadic eye movements when they are reading a book written in Chinese script. Compared to English readers, the Chinese readers a.
move their eyes only two–three characters in a saccade, because each Chinese character contains more information. b. move their eyes a greater distance in a saccade, because each Chinese character provides less information. c. move their eyes a greater distance in a saccade, because each Chinese character provides more grammatical information. d. move their eyes a greater distance in a saccade, because English has so many irregularities in its spelling. Answer: a Section Ref: Eye Movements in Reading Difficulty: Easy
3-38. According to the research on saccadic eye movements, a.
people reading English are likely to see more letters to the left side of the central letter, rather than to the right side. b. poor readers tend to make more regression movements than good readers do. c. good readers tend to wait longer during the fixation pauses than poor readers do. d. good readers are more likely than poor readers to stop on a white space between two words. Answer: b
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Chapter 3: Perceptual Processes: Attention
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Section Ref: Eye Movements in Reading Difficulty: Medium
3-39. Compared to a good reader, a poor reader is likely to a. make larger saccadic eye movements. b. make more regressions to earlier material. c. stop for less time during a fixation pause. d. have a larger perceptual span. Answer: b Section Ref: Eye Movements in Reading Difficulty: Medium
3-40. Suppose that you are searching a cast list for a play to determine whether or not you received a role after auditioning. The system in your brain that is most involved in this search is the a. cerebral blood flow system. b. executive attention network. c. frontal lobe of the cerebral cortex. d. orienting attention network. Answer: d Section Ref: Neuroscience of Attention Difficulty: Medium
3-41. Imagine that you are searching your room for a specific textbook. Which portion of the cortex would be most active during this search? a. The parietal lobe b. The occipital lobe c. The temporal lobe d. The frontal lobe Answer: a Section Ref: Neuroscience of Attention Difficulty: Hard
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Chapter 3: Perceptual Processes: Attention
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3-42. Which of the following visual activities would be most likely to employ the orienting attention network? a. You notice that a red light on your car’s dashboard has just started to flash. b. You are searching for an empty seat in a crowded classroom. c. You are reporting the color of ink for each word on the Stroop test. d. You are looking at a doorway, ready to say “hello” when each person enters. Answer: b Section Ref: Neuroscience of Attention Difficulty: Medium
3-43. Suppose that Silvia has had a stroke that damaged part of the left hemisphere of her brain, and a neurologist says that she has “unilateral spatial neglect.” You would expect that she a. has reduced vision for colored objects. b. ignores objects that appear in her right visual field. c. claims that she can see objects, even when there are no nearby objects. d. can see objects, but she cannot name them. Answer: b Section Ref: Neuroscience of Attention Difficulty: Medium
3-44. The neuroscience research on the executive attention network shows that this system a. primarily activates the prefrontal part of the cortex. b. is fairly well developed in infants. c. helps you search an area for a specific target. d. helps you notice a new stimulus. Answer: a Section Ref: Neuroscience of Attention Difficulty: Medium
3-45. PET scan research shows that the _________ cortex shows increased blood flow when people perform visual searches. a. prefrontal b. parietal c. temporal d. occipital Answer: b
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Chapter 3: Perceptual Processes: Attention
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Section Ref: Neuroscience of Attention Difficulty: Medium
3-46. When you try the Stroop task, you need to say the name of the colors and inhibit your automatic tendency to read the words. This kind of search typically activates a. your executive attention network. b. your orienting attention network. c. your saccadic eye movements. d. your parietal lobe. Answer: a Section Ref: Neuroscience of Attention Difficulty: Easy
3-47. The neuroscience research on the executive attention network shows that this system primarily activates the a. parietal lobe. b. temporal lobe. c. prefrontal portion of the cortex. d. occipital lobe. Answer: c Section Ref: Neuroscience of Attention Difficulty: Medium
3-48. The bottleneck theory is inadequate in accounting for attention because a.
it proposes that humans have many different kinds of attention, and the current research shows that they have only one kind. b. it explains only the data gathered with the event-related potential technique and not with other neuroscience research methods. c. it argues that people actually filter out very little irrelevant information. d. it underestimates the flexibility of our attention. Answer: d Section Ref: Theories of Attention Difficulty: Easy
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Chapter 3: Perceptual Processes: Attention
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3-49. What is the current status of the bottleneck theory of attention? a.
It is relatively accurate in explaining the functions of the executive attention network. b. It explains auditory attention, but not visual attention. c. It explains attention patterns in children, but not in adults. d. It is not flexible enough to explain human attention. Answer: d Section Ref: Theories of Attention Difficulty: Medium
3-50. According to Anne Treisman’s feature-integration theory, a. b. c.
distributed attention uses parallel search through the visual field. people first focus selective attention on important parts of the stimulus. focused attention is a relatively low-level kind of attention; people can quickly perform two focused-attention tasks simultaneously. d. people use focused attention for vision, and they use distributed attention for hearing. Answer: a Section Ref: Theories of Attention Difficulty: Medium
3-51. According to Anne Treisman’s feature-integration theory, _____ attention is a relatively low-level kind of processing that uses parallel search through the visual field. a. focused b. selective c. distributed d. binding Answer: c Section Ref: Theories of Attention Difficulty: Easy
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Chapter 3: Perceptual Processes: Attention
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3-52. Suppose that you are looking at a jewelry counter containing dozens of red ruby pendants and one green emerald pendant. According to Anne Treisman’s theory, if the emerald seems to jump out at you perceptually, a. b. c.
you probably searched all the pendants serially. focused attention drew your attention to the one discrepant feature. you automatically processed some features, such as the color of the jewels, during distributed attention. d. you were searching for a conjunction of two properties. Answer: c Section Ref: Theories of Attention Difficulty: Medium
3-53. Suppose that you are working on a jigsaw puzzle, and you need to find a sky-blue corner piece. According to Anne Treisman’s theory of attention, a.
you would find the blue corner piece equally fast, whether the puzzle has 100 piece or 500 pieces. b. the number of other corner pieces and the number of other blue pieces would influence the time taken to find the blue corner piece. c. you would find the blue corner piece faster than you would find any pieces that are blue. d. it would take less time to find that the blue corner piece is not there than to find that it is there. Answer: b Section Ref: Theories of Attention Difficulty: Medium
3-54. Suppose that you are searching for a set of square-shaped, red earrings on a jewelry counter that has four kinds of earrings: square blue, square red, round blue, and round red. If Treisman’s research on attention applies to this task, a.
you would find the square red earrings equally fast, whether there are few or many other earrings. b. you would find the square red earrings faster than you would find any earrings that are red. c. the number of other square earrings and the number of other red earrings would influence the time taken to find the square red earrings. d. it would take less time to find that the square red earrings are not there than to find that they are there. Answer: c
Cognition 10e Test Bank
Chapter 3: Perceptual Processes: Attention
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Section Ref: Theories of Attention Difficulty: Medium
3-55. In the chaotic aftermath of a robbery, you see a tall thin man in a red shirt and a shorter man in a black jacket running from the scene of the crime. According to research on illusory conjunctions, it would not be surprising for you to later remember seeing a. only the tall, thin man b. three men instead of two c. a tall, thin man in a black jacket d. two shorter men, both wearing red Answer: c Section Ref: Theories of Attention Difficulty: Medium
3-56. On the way to the grocery store, you witness a car accident on a crowded street. A red Ford pickup truck rear-ends a blue minivan and then drives away. The driver of a black Toyota Prius stops to help the driver of the blue minivan. You stop and call 911. In the chaos of the scene, according to the research on illusory conjunctions, it would not be surprising if you reported seeing a. a pickup truck hitting a minivan; you don’t remember the color. b. a red vehicle hitting a blue vehicle; you don’t remember the type of vehicle. c. details of only the vehicle that drove away, which caught your attention more. d. a blue pickup truck hitting a red minivan. Answer: d Section Ref: Theories of Attention Difficulty: Medium
3-57. Research by Anne Treisman has demonstrated that a. b.
focused attention produces many more errors than distributed attention. in focused attention, an unusual stimulus appears to “pop out” from the other stimuli in the display. c. illusory conjunctions are especially likely when people perform a task at a leisurely rate. d. when people use focused attention, they typically perceive a figure whose shape is linked with its appropriate color. Answer: d
Cognition 10e Test Bank
Chapter 3: Perceptual Processes: Attention
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Section Ref: Theories of Attention Difficulty: Hard
3-58. An illusory conjunction occurs when a.
people pay selective attention to unusual features and ignore ordinary, common features. b. people are not able to use focused attention. c. people use bottom-up processing. d. people use templates during object recognition. Answer: b Section Ref: Theories of Attention Difficulty: Hard
3-59. Suppose that you are running to catch a subway. You race past a large poster that shows various foods in uncharacteristic colors, such as an orange strawberry and a red carrot. However, you actually perceive a red strawberry and an orange carrot. In Anne Treisman’s theory, this phenomenon would be called a. overactive bottom-up processing. b. attentional bias. c. a Gestalt. d. an illusory conjunction. Answer: d Section Ref: Theories of Attention Difficulty: Medium
3-60. Which of the following is correct regarding the current status of Treisman’s featureintegration theory? a.
Research indicates that there are actually more than two types of attentional processes. b. Research indicates that distributed attention can occasionally resemble focused attention. c. We now fully understand how visual attention helps us gather relevant information from a real-world scene. d. Treisman’s theory has been rejected because of modern neuroscience evidence against it. Answer: b
Cognition 10e Test Bank
Chapter 3: Perceptual Processes: Attention
Page 21 of 26
Section Ref: Theories of Attention Difficulty: Easy
3-61. According to your textbook, consciousness refers to a. your ability to pay attention to two messages simultaneously. b. your ability to suppress undesirable thoughts. c. your awareness of the outside world and of your perceptions, images, and feelings. d. your awareness about your automatic-processing ability. Answer: c Section Ref: Consciousness Difficulty: Easy
3-62. Your awareness about both the surrounding world and your cognitive processes is called a. working memory. b. orienting attention network. c. attention. d. consciousness. Answer: d Section Ref: Consciousness Difficulty: Easy
3-63. In general, consciousness is associated with a. focused attention but not necessarily with distributed attention. b. both focused and distributed attention. c. distributed attention but not necessarly with focused attention. d. neither focused nor distributed attention. Answer: a Section Ref: Consciousness Difficulty: Medium
Cognition 10e Test Bank
Chapter 3: Perceptual Processes: Attention
Page 22 of 26
3-64. Your inability to follow the instruction, “Do not think about a white bear!” is an example of a. mindless reading. b. mind wandering. c. thought suppression. d. mental control. Answer: c Section Ref: Consciousness Difficulty: Medium
3-65. You are reading your textbook, and your eyes are moving over the page, but later you realize that you can’t remember anything about the information on the page. In this phenomenon, a. you actually process the meaning of the words subconsciously. b. your eyes use normal saccadic movements. c. you are actually daydreaming. d. you are using a technique known as thought suppression. Answer: c Section Ref: Consciousness Difficulty: Medium
3-66. Which of the following students provides the most complete, accurate information about the topic called “mind wandering”? a. b.
Daphne: “When your mind wanders, your visual acuity actually improves.” Dan: “When your mind wanders, you no longer can match an object’s shape with its color.” c. Evan: “Mind wandering occurs when your attention shifts from distributed attention to focused attention.” d. Karolina: “Mind wandering occurs when your thoughts shift from the outside world to your inner thoughts.” Answer: d Section Ref: Consciousness Difficulty: Hard
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Chapter 3: Perceptual Processes: Attention
Page 23 of 26
3-67. Nisbett and Wilson examined people’s consciousness about their higher mental processes. According to their research, a. b. c. d.
we can usually provide valid introspections about conscious processes. it is impossible to have access to our thought processes. we are often unable to introspect accurately about our thought processes. we can introspect accurately about memory and higher mental processes, but not about perception. Answer: c Section Ref: Consciousness Difficulty: Medium
3-68. According to Nisbett and Wilson, we typically have access to a. the processes of thought but not the products of thought. b. both the products and processes of thought. c. neither the products nor the processes of thought. d. the products of thought but not the processes that created them. Answer: d Section Ref: Consciousness Difficulty: Easy
3-69. Your verbal reports about your cognitive processes are most likely to be accurate for which of the following tasks? a. b. c.
Describing how you recalled the name of your first-grade teacher. Describing how you managed to solve a particular problem. Guessing which items from a list of psychology terms you would be most likely to define correctly on an examination. d. Determining whether your attention is drifting when you should be focusing on a task. Answer: c Section Ref: Consciousness Difficulty: Medium
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Chapter 3: Perceptual Processes: Attention
Page 24 of 26
3-70. Research on people’s consciousness of their own thought processes has taught us that a.
Cognitive psychologists can confidently rely on people’s introspections when studying higher thought processes. b. Cognitive psychologists should not rely on people’s introspections when studying higher thought processes. c. Cognitive psychologists can rely on people’s introspections about their attentional processes but not about their complex decision processes. d. The behaviorists were correct in assuming that cognition cannot be studied objectively. Answer: b Section Ref: Consciousness Difficulty: Medium
3-71. Imagine that you have been on a strict diet for several weeks. No matter how hard you try, you can’t avoid thinking about chocolate chip cookies and lemon meringue pie. You are having difficulty with a. thought suppression. b. divided attention. c. illusory conjunctions. d. shadowing Answer: a Section Ref: Consciousness Difficulty: Medium
3-72. The phrase “ironic effects of mental control” means that a.
we have difficulty on a Stroop task, because we pay attention to meaning, rather than ink color. b. ironically, we often make more errors on a familiar attention task than we make on an unfamiliar attention task. c. when we try to avoid a particular thought, it may be even more likely to enter consciousness. d. we often cannot introspect accurately about the cognitive processes we use in everyday life. Answer: c
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Chapter 3: Perceptual Processes: Attention
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Section Ref: Consciousness Difficulty: Medium
3-73. Suppose that Elaine has been instructed to think freely about black cats for five minutes, whereas Kathleen has been ordered not to think about black cats for five minutes. After the initial five-minute period has passed, both Elaine and Kathleen are allowed to think about black cats. According to Wegner and his coauthors, during this second time period, what is most likely to happen? a.
Both Elaine and Kathleen will spend equal amounts of time thinking about black cats. b. Elaine will spend more time thinking about black cats than Kathleen will. c. Kathleen will spend more time thinking about black cats than Elaine will. d. We cannot predict which person will spend more time thinking about black cats, because ironic effects are unpredictable. Answer: c Section Ref: Consciousness Difficulty: Medium
3-74. A man is being tested in a cognitive psychology laboratory. If he has blindsight, he will a. say he cannot see an object, even though he often points in the correct direction. b. use parallel processing when serial processing is more appropriate. c. make more saccadic eye movements than regression movements. d. accurately report the color of the object, but not its shape. Answer: a Section Ref: Consciousness Difficulty: Easy
3-75. Which of the following is considered to be the best current explanation of the visual condition called “blindsight”? a. b. c. d.
In reality, the visual cortex of these individuals is not physically damaged. These individuals actually underestimate the extent of their visual deficit. These individuals typically have difficulties with their executive attention network. Some information from the retina travels to regions of the cortex outside the visual cortex. Answer: d
Cognition 10e Test Bank Section Ref: Consciousness Difficulty: Medium
Chapter 3: Perceptual Processes: Attention
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Chapter 4: Working Memory
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CHAPTER 4: Working Memory
4-1.
Suppose that you are calculating your recent expenses, and you are adding up five 2-digit numbers in your head. As you begin to calculate the final sum, you feel that you’ve reached the limits of your memory. This strain can be traced to
a. the difficulty of keeping all this material in your working memory. b. the difficulty of transferring material from working memory to long-term memory. c. a conflict between top-down and bottom-up processing. d. material that is larger than the span of sensory memory. Answer: a Section Ref: Classical Research on Short-Term Memory Difficulty: Medium
4-2.
According to Chapter 4, working memory is especially important because a.
it provides a perfect copy of the physical stimulus, for example, a visual image that accurately represents the words on a page. b. it demonstrates that there is a clear-cut limit to the number of items we can store for a short time. c. it is the first process that occurs after the stimulus has entered long-term memory. d. it keeps some items active, so that we can use these items when we are working on a relevant task. Answer: d Section Ref: Classical Research on Short-Term Memory Difficulty: Medium
Cognition 10e Test Bank 4-3.
Chapter 4: Working Memory
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According to the discussion at the beginning of the chapter on working memory (Chapter 4), a. b.
most psychologists now believe that working memory has an unlimited capacity. working memory allows you to keep information accessible so that you can use it on a variety of current tasks. c. psychologists now agree that working memory and long-term memory have very different functions. d. working memory is the brief storage period prior to short-term memory in the classical information-processing models. Answer: b Section Ref: Classical Research on Short-Term Memory Difficulty: Easy
4-4.
According to the introduction of Chapter 4, one important function of working memory is a. b. c.
to provide a template that makes it easier to recognize objects. to store knowledge about a wide variety of topics. to provide a large storage space for all your current sights, sounds, and other perceptual experiences. d. to coordinate your current mental activities. Answer: d Section Ref: Classical Research on Short-Term Memory Difficulty: Medium
4-5.
Working memory is useful in our daily lives because a. b. c.
it is flexible, so that you can work on a variety of tasks within a short time period. it has a strict limit; you, therefore, cannot confuse one task with another task. it accurately stores items for up to 10 minutes, even when you are working on another task. d. it has no upper limit. Answer: a Section Ref: Classical Research on Short-Term Memory Difficulty: Hard
Cognition 10e Test Bank 4-6.
Chapter 4: Working Memory
Page 3 of 27
George Miller’s (1956) classic article, on the magical number seven, introduced the concept of a chunk. According to Miller’s terminology, a chunk a.
should be measured in terms of the number of items that can be spoken within a 30second interval. b. is the basic unit in short-term memory. c. is the portion of the brain in which short-term memories are stored. d. is the maximum limit of your short-term memory. Answer: b Section Ref: Classical Research on Short-Term Memory Difficulty: Easy
4-7.
Solange is trying to recall her friend’s new zip code, which is 14454. She remembers it by saying, “My birthday is September 14th; my father is 45 years old, and my nephew is 4 years old.” Apparently, Solange a.
has arranged her friend’s zip code so that it can best be stored in the phonological loop. b. has arranged her friend’s zip code so that it can best be stored in the visuospatial sketchpad. c. has created chunks out of the zip code. d. is trying to avoid acoustic confusions. Answer: c Section Ref: Classical Research on Short-Term Memory Difficulty: Medium
4-8.
One of the most widely cited articles in psychology is George Miller’s (1956) article on the size of short-term memory. According to your text, this article was important in cognitive psychology because a. b.
it clearly established the rigid limits of short-term memory’s size. it demonstrated that short-term memory was distinctly different from long-term memory. c. it focused on a cognitive process—mentally converting the stimulus—at a time when most psychologists focused on people’s external behavior. d. it showed that the key to the limits of short-term memory was the amount of time required to pronounce the stimuli. Answer: c Section Ref: Classical Research on Short-Term Memory Difficulty: Hard
Cognition 10e Test Bank 4-9.
Chapter 4: Working Memory
Page 4 of 27
According to the chapter on working memory, what was nontraditional about George Miller’s article on the “magical number seven”? a.
Research in a wide variety of cross-cultural settings continues to confirm that working memory is limited to seven items. b. Researchers had previously thought that the capacity of visual memory had no strict limits. c. Miller’s research helped to persuade psychologists that the Atkinson–Shiffrin model of memory was inadequate. d. Miller’s article emphasized active mental processes, rather than simply focusing on the stimulus and the response. Answer: d Section Ref: Classical Research on Short-Term Memory Difficulty: Hard
4-10. Imagine that you have volunteered to participate in some psychology research. The researcher tells you to look at several words briefly and then count backwards for about half a minute before recalling those words. The researcher is probably measuring a. sensory memory. b. long-term memory. c. short-term memory. d. semantic memory. Answer: c Section Ref: Classical Research on Short-Term Memory Difficulty: Medium
4-11. A friend has just told you his cell phone number, and you repeat it to yourself several times as you search for a pen to record it. The technique you are using to remember the number is called a. rehearsal. b. the serial position effect. c. release from proactive interference. d. the working-memory approach. Answer: a Section Ref: Classical Research on Short-Term Memory Difficulty: Medium
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Chapter 4: Working Memory
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4-12. As Chapter 4 discusses, John Brown, Lloyd Peterson, and Margaret Peterson created a classic technique for assessing short-term memory. In this technique, people saw some stimuli, counted backwards by threes during the delay period, and then tried to recall the original stimuli. The results of their research showed that a. b. c.
people could recall up to 10 stimuli, after a delay period of 3 minutes. people systematically recalled only 10% of the stimuli, on each trial in the study. at the beginning of the session, people could recall only 20% of the items; by the end of the session, they recalled about 40% of the items. d. after many previous trials, people had difficulty recalling the stimuli, even with only a short delay. Answer: d Section Ref: Classical Research on Short-Term Memory Difficulty: Medium
4-13. Suppose that your professor makes a graph that shows the relationship between the order in which a topic was covered in the course and the class’s accuracy on test items for that topic. This graph would be called as a a. serial position curve. b. free recall curve. c. memory span curve. d. Brown/Peterson & Peterson curve. Answer: a Section Ref: Classical Research on Short-Term Memory Difficulty: Medium
4-14. Chapter 4 discussed research on the recency effect. How is this research related to shortterm memory? a.
The final words in a list are recalled accurately because they are still in short-term memory. b. There is a clear-cut difference between pattern perception and short-term memory. c. The material can pass directly into long-term memory, without first entering shortterm memory. d. The recency effect showed that the capacity of short-term memory is extremely large. Answer: a Section Ref: Classical Research on Short-Term Memory Difficulty: Medium
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Chapter 4: Working Memory
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4-15. Suppose that you are listening to an announcer read the names of the winners in an athletic event. You recall the last four names accurately, but you can’t recall the names that appeared earlier in the list. This phenomenon is called as a. the primacy effect. b. proactive interference. c. chunking. d. the recency effect. Answer: d Section Ref: Classical Research on Short-Term Memory Difficulty: Medium
4-16. Suppose that a friend asks you what movies you have seen within the past year. Your recall is especially accurate for the movies you saw during the last 2 weeks. This phenomenon is called a. chunking. b. the recency effect. c. the primacy effect. d. proactive interference. Answer: b Section Ref: Classical Research on Short-Term Memory Difficulty: Medium
4-17. Imagine that you are tutoring high school students, and you have quickly presented 12 new terms to them. They are likely to recall the first few terms most accurately because of a. the primacy effect. b. the rehearsal effect. c. the chunking effect. d. the recency effect. Answer: a Section Ref: Classical Research on Short-Term Memory Difficulty: Medium
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Chapter 4: Working Memory
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4-18. Suppose that a professor asks the students in her class to say their names out loud (one at a time) on the first day of class. Then she asks them to write down as many of their classmates’ names as they can recall. Then she constructs a graph that shows “Number of correct responses” on the Y-axis and “Serial position of the name” on the X-axis. The shape of the graph a. b. c.
will be a straight line, with the greatest accuracy on the first items. will be a straight line, with the greatest accuracy on the last items. will be an upside-down U-shaped line, with the greatest accuracy on the middle items. d. will be a U-shaped line, with the greatest accuracy on the first and last items. Answer: d Section Ref: Classical Research on Short-Term Memory Difficulty: Medium
4-19. Suppose that you are having trouble recalling the information for a question about Baddeley’s theory because the information about Atkinson and Shiffrin’s theory (which you learned earlier) keeps interfering. This phenomenon is called a. proactive interference. b. the recency effect. c. the primacy effect. d. chunking. Answer: a Section Ref: Classical Research on Short-Term Memory Difficulty: Medium
4-20. Suppose that you have been studying some terms related to your course in biopsychology. After you have been studying for about 15 minutes, you find that you are having more trouble learning and remembering new terms. This problem is an example of a. the episodic buffer. b. the chunking phenomenon. c. subvocalization. d. proactive interference. Answer: d Section Ref: Classical Research on Short-Term Memory Difficulty: Medium
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Chapter 4: Working Memory
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4-21. Suppose you are accustomed to driving a car in which the switch for the windshield wipers is located to the left of the steering wheel. Then you borrow a friend’s car. To use the wipers on this car, you must activate the switch to the right of the steering wheel, but you keep reaching toward the left. You are demonstrating a. proactive interference. b. the phonological loop. c. the effects of “magical number seven.” d. a real-life version of the Brown/Peterson & Peterson test of memory. Answer: a Section Ref: Classical Research on Short-Term Memory Difficulty: Medium
4-22. Which of the following students has the best understanding of the concept “release from proactive interference”? a.
Maura: “Students are likely to use simple repetition when learning new material; if you teach them a memory strategy, their memory improves.” b. Ilya: “The phrase refers to the strategy people use to move a particular stimulus from working memory to long-term memory.” c. Alessandro: “People are typically not conscious of their learning strategies; however, if they can focus their attention on their memory, they can avoid interference from other stimuli.” d. Tara: “As you learn a series of stimuli from the same category, memory will become less accurate; if you switch to a new category, memory will improve.” Answer: d Section Ref: Classical Research on Short-Term Memory Difficulty: Hard
4-23. Suppose that you have been studying your French vocabulary words for several hours, and you are making an increasing number of mistakes. Then you switch to reviewing the new terms for your upcoming biology test, and your performance is noticeably better. You are experiencing a. the serial-position effect b. thought suppression. c. release from proactive interference. d. the recency effect. Answer: c Section Ref: Classical Research on Short-Term Memory Difficulty: Medium
Cognition 10e Test Bank
Chapter 4: Working Memory
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4-24. Chapter 4 discussed a classic study by Wickens and his colleagues (1976) in which each of five groups of participants learned a series of words belonging to one category (e.g., “occupations” or “meats”). On the final trial, they all switched to words belonging to a new category (“fruits”). What did the results of this study show about the recall for this final set of words? a. b.
Contrary to expectations, semantic similarity had no influence on recall. Contrary to expectations, participants explained that they stored these final words in terms of visual images. c. Participants in all five groups showed no release from proactive interference. d. Recall on the final set of words was most accurate when the previous items had belonged to a different semantic category. Answer: d Section Ref: Classical Research on Short-Term Memory Difficulty: Easy
4-25. According to the research about factors that affect the capacity of working memory, a.
the fact that people tend to substitute acoustically similar items during recall illustrates that acoustic factors are more important than semantic factors. b. there is no evidence for the influence of semantic information on working memory. c. the studies on release from proactive interference demonstrate that semantic factors can influence working memory. d. many studies have demonstrated that the information in working memory does not have acoustic properties. Answer: c Section Ref: Classical Research on Short-Term Memory Difficulty: Hard
4-26. Your textbook discussed the research on release from proactive interference in working memory. One study used five different categories of words, such as fruits and occupations. The results of this study indicated that a. b. c. d.
encoding in working memory is almost exclusively acoustic. long-term memory can supplement the acoustic basis of working memory. material in working memory can be stored in terms of meaning. material in working memory that has been stored in terms of sound is easier to recall after a brief delay, compared to material that has been stored in terms of meaning. Answer: c
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Chapter 4: Working Memory
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Section Ref: Classical Research on Short-Term Memory Difficulty: Hard
4-27. According to the Atkinson–Shiffrin model, a.
almost all the stimuli that pass through sensory memory will end up in long-term memory. b. we need to identify the biological correlates of memory. c. memory can be represented as a series of stages in which information is passed between separate storage areas. d. an item is more likely to be stored in memory if it is accompanied by insight. Answer: c Section Ref: Classical Research on Short-Term Memory Difficulty: Easy
4-28. Which of the following students provides the best information about short-term memory in the Atkinson–Shiffrin model? a. b.
Albena: “Items in your short-term memory are often lost within 30 seconds.” Martin: “The information in short-term memory is automatically transferred to long-term memory.” c. Candace: “Short-term memory serves as a large storage area for all sensory memories.” d. Peter: “Short-term memory emphasizes only the visual characteristics of the stimulus.” Answer: a Section Ref: Classical Research on Short-Term Memory Difficulty: Easy
4-29. According to Atkinson and Shiffrin’s classic theory, a. b. c.
short-term memory and long-term memory are distinctly different processes. items stored in short-term memory are fairly permanent. rehearsal is necessary in order to move material from sensory memory to short-term memory. d. there are no strict limits in the capacity of short-term memory. Answer: a
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Chapter 4: Working Memory
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Section Ref: Classical Research on Short-Term Memory Difficulty: Easy
4-30. In the Atkinson–Shiffrin model of short-term memory, the concept called “control processes” a. emphasizes iconic memory. b. emphasizes information that is presented too quickly to be remembered. c. is a strategy that helps you remember items more accurately. d. is a strategy that involves vision, instead of hearing. Answer: c Section Ref: Classical Research on Short-Term Memory Difficulty: Medium
4-31. What is the current status of the Atkinson–Shiffrin model of memory? a. b. c. d.
Almost all of the recent research supports the model. Only the concept of sensory memory is still of interest to researchers. The theory has been completely abandoned, because there is no research support for the distinction between short-term memory and long-term memory. Some studies support the distinction between short-term memory and long-term memory, but other studies suggest that these two forms of memory are actually similar
Answer: d Section Ref: Classical Research on Short-Term Memory Difficulty: Medium
4-32. Which of the following students provides the best overview of the current status of the Atkinson–Shiffrin model? a.
Flora: “It lost popularity after Miller’s article on the ‘magical number seven’ failed to support the concept of short-term memory.” b. Nicola: “This model continues to be important because recent research clearly supports the distinction between short-term memory and long-term memory.” c. Bruce: “The research has not clearly demonstrated that short-term memory is different from long-term memory.” d. Miguel: “The model now plays a major role in the parallel distributed processing (PDP) approach.” Answer: c
Cognition 10e Test Bank
Chapter 4: Working Memory
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Section Ref: Classical Research on Short-Term Memory Difficulty: Hard
4-33. How would you characterize Alan Baddeley’s description of working memory? a. It is a large storehouse of information, much like a huge university library. b. It is a solid, stable, industrious machine that systematically processes information. c. It is a highly active area in which information is being manipulated and changed. d. It is a movie screen, continuously registering a stream of complex, colorful images. Answer: c Section Ref: The Turn to Working Memory Difficulty: Medium
4-34. Baddeley’s model of working memory had a different focus from the earlier approaches to short-term memory because a.
he emphasized that working memory is useful in holding related items in our memory simultaneously. b. he devised a precise operational definition for every component of working memory. c. he examined a much more limited set of processes, compared to earlier models. d. he focused much more on the visual characteristics of stimuli than on the auditory characteristics of the stimuli. Answer: a Section Ref: The Turn to Working Memory Difficulty: Medium
4-35. According to Baddeley and his colleagues, a.
short-term memory is a more useful concept than working memory because it emphasizes the short duration of this stage in a memory model. b. working memory is much more rigid and inflexible than previous theorists had suggested. c. the purpose of working memory is to hold information briefly, and then process and use this information. d. working memory is the verbal, activated component of long-term memory. Answer: c Section Ref: The Turn to Working Memory Difficulty: Medium
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Chapter 4: Working Memory
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4-36. Compared to the earlier view of short-term memory, the current view of working memory a. b. c. d.
argues that memory is much more fragile. proposes that working memory is simply an early stage of long-term memory. states that information is continuously being manipulated and changed. suggests that the Atkinson–Shiffrin model should be supplemented by at least five additional kinds of brief memory. Answer: c Section Ref: The Turn to Working Memory Difficulty: Medium
4-37. Which of the following students’ statements best characterizes Baddeley’s view of working memory? a.
Sam: “Working memory has four separate components, each with its own specialized kind of cognitive activity.” b. Lois: “Working memory consists of two components, short-term working memory and long-term working memory.” c. Kyung: “Working memory is an activated state of the more general long-term memory store.” d. Manuel: “Current research shows that there really is no important difference between working memory and long-term memory.” Answer: a Section Ref: The Turn to Working Memory Difficulty: Medium
4-38. Baddeley proposed that his approach to working memory differed from earlier approaches because a. b.
it emphasizes the differences between working memory and long-term memory. it emphasizes that working memory is an essential component for numerous cognitive tasks. c. it focuses on hearing, rather than vision. d. it focuses on the differences between human memory and the memory of other primates. Answer: b Section Ref: The Turn to Working Memory Difficulty: Easy
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Chapter 4: Working Memory
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4-39. Baddeley chose the metaphor of a “workbench” to represent his model of working memory because a. b.
his model was straightforward, just like all the components of an actual workbench. his model emphasizes the spatial components of working memory, and a workbench emphasizes spatial projects, rather than verbal projects. c. rehearsal is important in memory, and rehearsal is also important when you think about projects that would require a workbench. d. working memory focuses on a wide variety of projects, and a workbench can also handle a wide variety of projects. Answer: d Section Ref: The Turn to Working Memory Difficulty: Medium
4-40. What evidence suggested to Baddeley that working memory has several components? a. b. c. d.
The research on release from proactive interference Complex computer simulations Modeling using the parallel distributed processing approach Research showing that people can rehearse words and make spatial judgments at the same time Answer: d Section Ref: The Turn to Working Memory Difficulty: Medium
4-41. Imagine that you are trying to remember a reservation code that someone told you a minute ago. The number was 5834DM, but you remember it as 5834BN. This kind of error is called a. subvocalization. b. an episodic buffer. c. an acoustic confusion. d. release from proactive interference. Answer: c Section Ref: The Turn to Working Memory Difficulty: Medium
Cognition 10e Test Bank
Chapter 4: Working Memory
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4-42. Baddeley’s model of working memory proposes a feature called the “phonological loop.” This feature allows you to a. solve geometric problems. b. store the sound of someone’s name. c. rotate mental images. d. determine whether one number is larger or smaller than another. Answer: b Section Ref: The Turn to Working Memory Difficulty: Medium
4-43. Suppose that you are trying to perfect your accent in Spanish. Your teacher just pronounced the word “ferrocarril,” and you are trying to keep the “rolling r” sound in your memory long enough to pronounce it yourself. In Baddeley’s model, you are most likely to use your a. visuospatial sketchpad. b. long-term memory. c. central executive. d. phonological loop. Answer: d Section Ref: The Turn to Working Memory Difficulty: Medium
4-44. The discussion of working memory examines research on “acoustic confusions.” How are acoustic confusions relevant to working memory? a.
When material is processed in the phonological loop, similar-sounding items can be confused with one another. b. When material is processed in the visuospatial sketchpad, similar-sounding items can be confused with one another. c. The central executive has several component processes, including the task of resolving acoustic confusions. d. This research suggests that the phonological loop plays a relatively minor role in working memory. Answer: a Section Ref: The Turn to Working Memory Difficulty: Medium
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Chapter 4: Working Memory
Page 16 of 27
4-45. Suppose that you are trying to improve your pronunciation of French by listening to French popular songs. You try to imitate the French pronunciation at the same time that you translate the words into English. According to Baddeley’s model, a. b.
you can manage both tasks simultaneously without a decrease in accuracy. you’ll probably have a difficult time on these tasks, because both tasks involve the phonological loop. c. you’ll probably have a difficult time, because the pronunciation involves the visuospatial sketchpad, and the translation involves the phonological loop. d. you will have an easy time if you ignore the central executive, but a difficult time if you use the central executive. Answer: b Section Ref: The Turn to Working Memory Difficulty: Medium
4-46. You will have difficulty reading your textbook if you are simultaneously singing the words to your favorite song. How would Baddeley explain this phenomenon? a.
The words from the textbook and the words from the song will interfere with each other in the phonological loop. b. The visuospatial sketchpad is overcrowded, because both of these tasks have a strong visual component. c. The central executive cannot handle two verbal tasks at the same time. d. The singing prevents the words in your textbook from passing directly from semantic memory into long-term memory. Answer: a Section Ref: The Turn to Working Memory Difficulty: Medium
4-47. Suppose that you are trying to read the name of a psychologist who studies creativity, “Csikszentmihalyi.” You find that you are silently pronouncing his name as you read it, because a. b. c.
your visuospatial sketchpad can maintain only a limited amount of information. challenging words are automatically shunted off to the central executive. the visuospatial sketchpad and the phonological loop are both activated, because of the spatial nature of the unfamiliar letter sequence d. the phonological loop plays a role in reading, as well as in memory. Answer: d Section Ref: The Turn to Working Memory Difficulty: Medium
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Chapter 4: Working Memory
Page 17 of 27
4-48. According to the discussion of working memory, the phonological loop a. is useful when you learn a foreign language. b. primarily activates the right hemisphere of the brain. c. primarily receives information from the episodic buffer. d. has a large capacity when you are learning new vocabulary words. Answer: a Section Ref: The Turn to Working Memory Difficulty: Easy
4-49. According to the neuroscience research on the phonological loop, a.
studies using the single-cell recording technique in humans have located the phonological loop in the auditory cortex. b. the left temporal lobe and the frontal lobe are activated by auditory tasks. c. the right temporal lobe and the frontal lobe are activated by auditory tasks. d. no systematic activation patterns have yet been discovered. Answer: b Section Ref: The Turn to Working Memory Difficulty: Easy
4-50. Chapter 4 described research by LJRomero Lauro and her colleagues, which used a method called “Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation.” These authors concluded that a. b.
working memory really is a storehouse that has a limit of 5–9 items. the left parietal lobe and the left frontal lobe are both relevant when you are reading long sentences with complex grammar. c. the right hemisphere and the left hemisphere are equally involved in language comprehension. d. the left hemisphere is relevant for long sentences, whereas the right hemisphere is relevant for complex sentences. Answer: b Section Ref: The Turn to Working Memory Difficulty: Easy
4-51. You are trying to retain—in your working memory—a mental picture of a stranger’s face. According to Baddeley, you are using your a. visuospatial sketchpad. b. episodic buffer. c. phonological loop. d. central executive. Answer: a
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Chapter 4: Working Memory
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Section Ref: The Turn to Working Memory Difficulty: Medium
4-52. Suppose that you have been watching a figure skating competition. You close your eyes and you try to remember how the last skater performed her final jump, then glided to the center of the rink and finished with a spin. The component of your working memory that is now most active is a. the phonological loop. b. the visuospatial sketchpad. c. the episodic buffer. d. the central executive Answer: b Section Ref: The Turn to Working Memory Difficulty: Medium
4-53. According to Baddeley’s approach to working memory, the visuospatial sketchpad a. b.
is similar to the phonological loop because each has a limited capacity. is similar to the phonological loop because each is primarily handled by the left hemisphere of the brain. c. is different from the phonological loop, because the visuospatial sketchpad does not have a limited capacity. d. is different from the phonological loop, because the phonological loop does not have a limited capacity. Answer: a Section Ref: The Turn to Working Memory Difficulty: Medium
4-54. Suppose that you are looking at a complex, detailed painting of a dog. Which of the following working-memory tasks would interfere most with your ability to form a clear image of this painting? a. hearing the sound of a barking dog b. creating an auditory image of a favorite song c. creating a mental image of a dog that you actually see every day d. adding three single-digit numbers together Answer: c
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Chapter 4: Working Memory
Page 19 of 27
Section Ref: The Turn to Working Memory Difficulty: Medium
4-55. Baddeley’s model of working memory points out that a. b.
the capacity of the visuospatial sketchpad is limited. the limits of the phonological loop and the visuospatial sketchpad depend upon one another; if one process is active, the other cannot handle new material. c. all material must pass from the phonological loop into the visuospatial sketchpad. d. the phonological loop simply stores material, whereas the visuospatial sketchpad actively reinterprets that information. Answer: a Section Ref: The Turn to Working Memory Difficulty: Medium
4-56. In a study on working memory, one group of participants repeated a sound, thereby blocking acoustic coding for other material. This research showed that a. b. c.
working memory disappeared completely. when acoustic coding was blocked, people often used visual coding. acoustic coding was even more likely in long-term memory than in working memory. d. semantic coding was the dominant mode in working memory, whereas acoustic coding was more likely in long-term memory. Answer: b Section Ref: The Turn to Working Memory Difficulty: Easy
4-57. One reason that the visuospatial sketchpad is more challenging to study than the phonological loop is that a.
it’s difficult to find ecologically valid situations in which the visuospatial sketchpad is relevant. b. participants are more likely to guess the correct answer, compared to studies that focus on the phonological loop. c. participants may spontaneously provide a verbal label for a shape, so the task may actually use the phonological loop. d. visual information must be presented more slowly than phonological information. Answer: c
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Chapter 4: Working Memory
Page 20 of 27
Section Ref: The Turn to Working Memory Difficulty: Easy
4-58. Suppose that a study examines whether people have trouble creating a mental image of a famous painting while they are watching a cartoon on television. You would expect to find that a. contrary to Baddeley's theory, the phonological loop and the visuospatial sketchpad clearly work together on most tasks. b. people have trouble on a task that employs the visuospatial sketchpad, if they are simultaneously performing another visual task. c. watching the cartoon actually enhances your accuracy when you use your visuospatial sketchpad to create a mental image of a painting. d. people have trouble on this task unless they transfer all information to the episodic buffer. Answer: b Section Ref: The Turn to Working Memory Difficulty: Hard
4-59. Amy recently saw a Broadway musical. As she listens to the soundtrack in her car a few days later, she forms clear visual images of the scenes from the show. This may cause her to experience difficulty driving, because of the limited capacity of her a. b. c. d.
central executive. visuospatial sketchpad phonological loop. episodic buffer.
Answer: b Section Ref: The Turn to Working Memory Difficulty: Medium
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Chapter 4: Working Memory
Page 21 of 27
4-60. Amy recently saw a Broadway musical. As she listens to the soundtrack in her car a few days later, she forms clear visual images of the scenes from the show. The part of the brain that is most activated while she does this is the a. b. c. d.
left cerebral hemisphere, especially the frontal and occipital lobes. right cerebral hemisphere, especially the frontal and parietal lobes. cerebellum. lateral hypothalamus.
Answer: b Section Ref: The Turn to Working Memory Difficulty: Hard
4-61. Neuroscientists who have examined the visuospatial sketchpad have discovered that a.
visual tasks typically activate the right hemisphere, whereas spatial tasks typically activate the left hemisphere. b. visual and spatial tasks typically activate the right hemisphere of the brain. c. visual and spatial tasks are apparently converted into a verbal code, because they primarily activate the left hemisphere of the brain. d. there is no clear correspondence between visuospatial tasks and the patterns of brain activation. Answer: b Section Ref: The Turn to Working Memory Difficulty: Easy
4-62. You have set aside 2 hours to study for an exam in this course, and you are currently deciding to review the new terms, writing down any terms that you cannot define. Which feature of Baddeley's theory handles this planning activity? a. The phonological loop b. The visuospatial sketchpad c. The episodic buffer d. The central executive Answer: d Section Ref: The Turn to Working Memory Difficulty: Medium
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Chapter 4: Working Memory
Page 22 of 27
4-63. In the working-memory model, which of the following cognitive activities would the central executive be most likely to perform? a. b.
Representing the information from a geometry problem Deciding which items on a list should be remembered and which should be forgotten. c. Actively transferring the information from working memory into sensory memory d. Listening to a series of words in random order. Answer: b Section Ref: The Turn to Working Memory Difficulty: Medium
4-64. In the discussion of working memory, why did Teasdale and his colleagues (1995) conclude that daydreaming is processed by the central executive? a.
People daydreamed more creatively when they were instructed to use their central executive. b. People typically used their sensory receptors for this task, so the central executive was automatically activated. c. People could generate a sequence of random numbers more successfully if they were not daydreaming. d. People reported that they could not daydream in vivid detail if they were simultaneously engaged in another task that required the central executive. Answer: c Section Ref: The Turn to Working Memory Difficulty: Medium
4-65. Chapter 4 discusses neuroscience research on the central executive. According to this discussion, the central executive a. b. c. d.
is primarily controlled by brain structures located below the cortex. is primarily controlled by brain structures at the back of the cortex. is primarily controlled by portions of the frontal lobe. apparently does not have a consistent connection with any part of the brain, at least according to the current research. Answer: c
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Chapter 4: Working Memory
Page 23 of 27
Section Ref: The Turn to Working Memory Difficulty: Easy
4-66. McCabe and colleagues note that the concept of the central executive in cognitive psychology is very similar to the concept of _______ in the cognitive neurosciences. a. the prefrontal executive attention network b. hemispheric specialization c. buffering d. brain plasticity Answer: a Section Ref: Classical Research on Short-Term Memory Difficulty: Medium
4-67. According to the Baddeley’s revised model of working memory, one major purpose of the episodic buffer is to a. b. c. d.
store musical information (such as pitch and tones) for brief periods of time. manage the decisions that are too complicated for the central executive. coordinate the meaning and the visual appearance of written text. provide temporary storage for information from long-term memory, the phonological loop, and the visuospatial sketchpad. Answer: d Section Ref: The Turn to Working Memory Difficulty: Medium 4-68. Researchers in neuroscience, over the past two decades, have spent a great deal of time working on the a. b. c. d.
executive attention network. central executive processor. phonological loop. visuospatial sketch pad.
Answer: a Section Ref: The Turn to Working Memory Difficulty: Easy
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Chapter 4: Working Memory
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4-69. Baddeley’s current model of working memory includes a feature called the episodic buffer. According to Baddeley’s description, the episodic buffer a. b. c.
contains material that has not yet reached our conscious awareness. has a smaller capacity than any of the other components of working memory. briefly holds material from the phonological loop, the visuospatial sketchpad, and long-term memory. d. stores our very earliest memories from early childhood, which have an important effect on other components of working memory. Answer: c Section Ref: The Turn to Working Memory Difficulty: Easy
4-70. Baddeley’s model of working memory now includes a feature called the “episodic buffer.” According to Baddeley, this feature a. b.
is an important component of the central executive. keeps a permanent record of the associations between the visuospatial sketchpad and the phonological loop. c. allows you to make connections among the visuospatial sketchpad, the phonological loop, and information from long-term memory. d. preserves emotional characteristics that are connected with earlier events. Answer: c Section Ref: The Turn to Working Memory Difficulty: Medium
4-71. The chapter on working memory discussed several studies about individual differences in working memory. Which of the following students provides the best information about how working memory is related to academic skills? a.
Samantha: “People who have an unusually large capacity in their episodic buffer are likely to earn poor grades in school.” b. Aroona: “People who are especially skilled on a task that uses the central executive are likely to score high in reading comprehension.” c. Sanjay: “The research failed to support Baddeley’s model; most academic tasks require the equal participation of all four components of working memory.” d. James: “The research failed to support Baddeley's model; there is no relationship between central-executive skills and a wide variety of other measures that should be related to the central executive and a wide variety of academic skills.” Answer: b
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Chapter 4: Working Memory
Page 25 of 27
Section Ref: Applications of Working Memory Difficulty: Hard
4-72. Your textbook discusses research about the relationship between depression and performance on tasks involving the phonological loop. This research showed that a.
people with depression performed significantly worse than people without depression. b. people with depression actually performed significantly better than people with depression. c. there was no difference in the performance of the two groups, once the researchers corrected for the fact that the depressed group had lower vocabulary skills. d. people with depression tended to transform the stimuli into visual patterns that activated the visuospatial sketchpad Answer: a Section Ref: Applications of Working Memory Difficulty: Easy
4-73. Christopher and MacDonald compared the working memory capacities of people with and without major depression. They found that, in general, depressed people performed a. b. c. d.
better on tasks involving the phonological loop. better on tasks involving the visuospatial sketchpad. worse on tasks involving the phonological loop, but better on tasks involving the central executive. worse on tasks involving either the phonological loop, visuospatial sketchpad, or central executive.
Answer: d Section Ref: Applications of Working Memory Difficulty: Easy
4-74. Based on Chapter 4’s discussion of depression and working memory, a clinical psychologist should know that people with depression a. b. c.
have trouble on a wide variety of tasks involving the central executive. seldom report any cognitive problems. have much more trouble on tasks involving the visuospatial sketchpad than on tasks involving the phonological loop. d. have trouble when the phonological loop is involved in two simultaneous tasks. Answer: d
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Chapter 4: Working Memory
Page 26 of 27
Section Ref: Applications of Working Memory Difficulty: Hard
4-75. People with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder often have problems because they are impulsive and inattentive. The component of working memory that is most likely to be relevant in these problems is a. the episodic buffer. b. the central executive. c. the visuospatial sketchpad. d. the phonological loop. Answer: b Section Ref: Applications of Working Memory Difficulty: Easy
4-76. Chapter 4 discusses characteristics of individuals with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). According to this discussion, people with ADHD are especially likely to have difficulty with which of the following components of working memory? a. The phonological loop b. The visuospatial sketchpad c. The episodic buffer d. The central executive Answer: d Section Ref: Applications of Working Memory Difficulty: Easy
4-77. People with _____ often show problems in daily functioning because their excessive worrying takes up so much of their working memory capacity that it reduces their ability to perform cognitive tasks. a. major depression b. ADHD c. schizophrenia d. GAD Answer: d Section Ref: Applications of Working Memory Difficulty: Easy
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Chapter 4: Working Memory
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Chapter 5: Long-Term Memory
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CHAPTER 5: Long-Term Memory
5-1.
Which of the following statements about episodic memory is correct? a. b.
Episodic memory stores information about events in our lives. Episodic memory refers to working memory, whereas semantic memory refers to long-term memory. c. Episodic memory includes knowledge about words and symbols. d. Episodic memory refers to our memory about how to perform tasks. Answer: a Section Ref: Overview of Long-Term Memory Difficulty: Easy
5-2.
Which of the following statements is an example of episodic memory?
a. Trees often lose their leaves in the fall. b. I know how to record a program from PBS. c. The word semantic is related to the word meaning. d. I remember reading the book Sense and Sensibility in twelfth grade. Answer: d Section Ref: Overview of Long-Term Memory Difficulty: Medium
5-3.
Which of the following is an example of episodic memory?
a. I remember receiving the letter of acceptance from my college. b. I remember how to make spinach lasagna. c. I know that daffodils bloom in the spring. d. I know that Spanish has two different words for “to be.” Answer: a Section Ref: Overview of Long-Term Memory Difficulty: Medium
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Chapter 5: Long-Term Memory
Page 2 of 30
Which of the following is an example of semantic memory?
a. Before dinner tonight, I must go to the fitness center. b. I recall the first time I ever thought about becoming a psychology major. c. I remember seeing the word consciousness in the third chapter of this textbook. d. I know that cabbage tastes bitter. Answer: d Section Ref: Overview of Long-Term Memory Difficulty: Medium
5-5.
Consider this sentence: “I know that the winters in Wisconsin are colder than the winters in New Jersey.” This sentence is an example of
a. episodic memory. b. semantic memory. c. source monitoring. d. memory encoding. Answer: b Section Ref: Overview of Long-Term Memory Difficulty: Medium
5-6. Consider this sentence: “I know that winters in Wisconsin are colder than winters in South Carolina.” The knowledge expressed in this sentence is probably coded a. b. c. d.
acoustically, by the sound of the words. visually, by the appearance of the letters. semantically, by its meaning. in visual, acoustic, and semantic form.
Answer: c Section Ref: Overview of Long-Term Memory Difficulty: Hard
5-7.
Imagine that you have to turn the clocks ahead for daylight saving time. You manage to recall the rather complex system by which you can advance the clock in your car. This skill is an example of your
a. working memory. b. semantic memory. c. episodic memory. d. procedural memory. Answer: d
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Chapter 5: Long-Term Memory
Page 3 of 30
Section Ref: Overview of Long-Term Memory Difficulty: Medium
5-8. Your knowledge of how to program your DVR to record your favorite television show is an example of a. b. c. d.
working memory. semantic memory. episodic memory. procedural memory.
Answer: d Section Ref: Overview of Long-Term Memory Difficulty: Medium
5-9.
Suppose that you look at a new term in a foreign language, and this item is then stored in your memory. Cognitive psychologists call this process
a. procedural memory. b. retrieval. c. encoding. d. recognition. Answer: c Section Ref: Encoding in Long-Term Memory Difficulty: Medium
5-10. The levels-of-processing approach a.
states that we remember material better if we encode it in terms of sensory characteristics. b. states that deeper processing of material usually leads to more permanent retention. c. emphasizes the difference between short-term memory and long-term memory. d. emphasizes that the best way to learn something is to repeat it over and over. Answer: b Section Ref: Encoding in Long-Term Memory Difficulty: Easy
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Chapter 5: Long-Term Memory
Page 4 of 30
5-11. According to the levels-of-processing approach, the most effective way to learn a passage in a textbook is usually in terms of a. its meaning. b. its physical characteristics. c. the sound of the words that you need to remember. d. the color of ink in which the passage is printed Answer: a Section Ref: Encoding in Long-Term Memory Difficulty: Medium
5-12. Suppose that you are trying to recall a friend’s phone number, so you repeat it over and over to yourself without analyzing it or giving it a meaning. According to the levels-ofprocessing approach, this activity would be categorized as a. shallow processing. b. working-memory processing. c. deep processing. d. the self-reference effect. Answer: a Section Ref: Encoding in Long-Term Memory Difficulty: Medium
5-13. What is one explanation that Craik and his colleagues propose for the reason why a deep level of processing leads to greater recall? a. b.
At a deep level, you recognize the patterns more efficiently. Deep levels make the stimulus different from other memory traces in the system; it’s more distinctive. c. Deep levels place more emphasis on vivid physical characteristics of the material. d. Encoding specificity is more likely to occur. Answer: b Section Ref: Encoding in Long-Term Memory Difficulty: Easy
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Chapter 5: Long-Term Memory
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5-14. Suppose that when you hear a new acquaintance's name, Chris Money, you think about the meaning of the name Money, including both coins and dollar bills, and the importance of money in our culture. The kind of processing you would be using is called a. serial processing. b. automatic processing. c. sensory memory. d. elaboration. Answer: d Section Ref: Encoding in Long-Term Memory Difficulty: Medium
5-15. Which of the following students provides the best understanding of the concept called elaboration? a.
Harry: “Elaboration means that you retrieve an item from working memory and use it immediately. b. Jodi: “Elaboration happens when you have successfully used encoding specificity.” c. Elizabeth: “Elaboration means that you are trying to make an item as different as possible from all other items in memory." d. Soltan: “Elaboration means that you think about how an item is related to other concepts.” Answer: d Section Ref: Encoding in Long-Term Memory Difficulty: Medium
5-16. What can we conclude about the self-reference effect? a.
Although early research found evidence of this effect, more recent experiments have been unable to demonstrate it. b. Although the self-reference effect operates with children, it does not apply to adolescents or adults. c. The research shows that people are more likely to recall words that apply to themselves compared with words that do not apply. d. The self-reference effect is one exception to the general tendency for deep levels of processing to be particularly effective in enhancing memory. Answer: c Section Ref: Encoding in Long-Term Memory Difficulty: Easy
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Chapter 5: Long-Term Memory
Page 6 of 30
5-17. Researchers have developed several explanations for the observation that people recall information more accurately if they try to connect that information with themselves. Chapter 5 noted that one likely explanation is that people are more likely a.
to use encoding specificity when connecting information to other people, so this problem leads to memory errors. b. to use auditory cues when connecting information to other people, so this problem leads to memory errors. c. to link self-referenced information to a more distinctive and more well-rehearsed set of cues, so this enhances recall. d. to picture themselves in an unusual context, and this novel context enhances recall. Answer: c Section Ref: Encoding in Long-Term Memory Difficulty: Easy
5-18. In general, self-reference instructions a. enhance memory in the laboratory, but not in real-life settings. b. enhance short-term memory, but not long-term memory. c. enhance memory in a wide variety of situations. d. are actually no more effective than instructions to use shallow processing. Answer: c Section Ref: Encoding in Long-Term Memory Difficulty: Easy
5-19. You read in a psychology journal that the authors of an article have conducted a metaanalysis. You conclude that they have a.
analyzed the variety of independent variables that would probably influence the dependent variable they are studying. b. conducted a study with at least 100 participants. c. located previous studies on a topic and then statistically combined the results of those studies in order to determine an overall effect. d. interviewed at least 20 experts in the appropriate field and compared their opinions on a particular topic. Answer: c Section Ref: Encoding in Long-Term Memory Difficulty: Easy
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Chapter 5: Long-Term Memory
Page 7 of 30
5-20. Suppose that some researchers would like to see whether memory is enhanced by using vivid imagery. They locate a large number of studies and use a statistical method to combine all the information to determine whether vivid imagery is effective. The method they use would be called as a. dissociation. b. correlation. c. meta-analysis. d. metamemory. Answer: c Section Ref: Encoding in Long-Term Memory Difficulty: Medium
5-21. Foley and her colleagues (1999) proposed that the research on self-reference may actually underestimate the magnitude of the self-reference effect. They reached this conclusion because a.
participants typically process items at a shallow level of processing, even when they are instructed to use deep processing. b. the meta-analysis of the data on the self-reference effect demonstrates that this technique is not especially helpful. c. participants cannot really relate items to their own lives. d. the participants reported that they had often used self-reference processing, even when they had received other instructions. Answer: d Section Ref: Encoding in Long-Term Memory Difficulty: Easy
5-22. Chapter 5 discusses a study by Foley and her colleagues, in which participants listened to a list of concrete nouns. Students in one group were told to visualize each object; students in another group were told to imagine themselves using the object. One important finding was that a. b.
people remembered more nouns in the “visualize” condition. people often imagined themselves using the object, even if they were in the “visualize” condition. c. people apparently follow a researcher’s instructions quite carefully. d. there was no evidence for the self-reference effect. Answer: b Section Ref: Encoding in Long-Term Memory Difficulty: Easy
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Chapter 5: Long-Term Memory
Page 8 of 30
5-23. According to your textbook, which of the following is one likely explanation for the selfreference effect? a.
Self-reference instructions increase the likelihood of the item being stored in procedural memory. b. Self-reference instructions increase the capacity of working memory. c. When people think about whether words apply to themselves, they consider how their personal characteristics are interrelated. d. In reality, most people emphasize the physical characteristics of the stimulus, rather than using self-reference. Answer: c Section Ref: Encoding in Long-Term Memory Difficulty: Easy
5-24. The encoding-specificity principle suggests that a.
we recall something better if we are in the same context in which we originally learned the material. b. we recall something better if we are in a context that is moderately different from the original learning context—not too similar and not too different. c. recall depends upon how specific the instructions are; vague instructions lead to poor recall. d. it is more effective to encode material during learning than to decode the material during recall. Answer: a Section Ref: Encoding in Long-Term Memory Difficulty: Easy
5-25. Chapter 5 describes a study by Marian and Fausey, who studied English–Spanish bilinguals. They presented two stories in English and two stories in Spanish. Then the researchers asked questions about the stories, sometimes in English and sometimes in Spanish. The results showed that a.
there were no significant differences between conditions, demonstrating that encoding-specificity effect is weak. b. people were more accurate in the English–English condition, compared with the Spanish–Spanish condition. c. people were more accurate in the Spanish–Spanish condition, compared with the English–English condition. d. people were more accurate when the language of the stories matched the language of the questions. Answer: d
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Chapter 5: Long-Term Memory
Page 9 of 30
Section Ref: Encoding in Long-Term Memory Difficulty: Easy
5-26. Years ago, you read a story called “Le Petit Prince” (“The Little Prince”) in French. According to the encoding-specificity principle, you would be likely to remember more about the story if a. b. c. d.
you were asked questions about it in English. you were asked questions about it in French. you were asked to think about how the story related to your own life. you were asked to think about how the words appeared on the pages of the book.
Answer: b Section Ref: Encoding in Long-Term Memory Difficulty: Medium
5-27. What can we conclude about the encoding-specificity principle? a. b. c.
Context effects are very clear-cut, especially in laboratory research. Current research suggests no evidence for the encoding-specificity principle. Context effects are often demonstrated in our daily experiences, but the effect is relatively weak in laboratory research. d. Context effects are especially prominent when the material has been well learned. Answer: c Section Ref: Encoding in Long-Term Memory Difficulty: Medium
5-28. The research on encoding specificity shows that the effect a. is more likely when items have been in memory for a long time. b. is more likely when tested by recognition, rather than recall. c. works only for negative or neutral events. d. works best when testing physical context, rather than mental context. Answer: a Section Ref: Encoding in Long-Term Memory Difficulty: Easy
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Chapter 5: Long-Term Memory
Page 10 of 30
5-29. Which of the following students has the best understanding about the inconsistent research results on encoding specificity? a. b.
Albena: “Encoding specificity works especially well in laboratory settings.” Mary Lou: “Encoding specificity works especially well for events that happened long ago.” c. George: “Encoding specificity is especially likely when the material has been well learned.” d. Takeshi: “According to the research, physical context is more important than all other encoding cues; studies that have congruent physical context are very likely to demonstrate encoding specificity.” Answer: b Section Ref: Encoding in Long-Term Memory Difficulty: Hard
5-30. In Chapter 5 of your textbook, the discussion of encoding specificity and level of processing emphasized that a.
both encoding specificity and level of processing activate the visual cortex during processing, and this activation directly improves recall. b. recall is more accurate if the instructions during encoding match the instructions during remembering; this match may actually be more important than deep processing. c. the most important factor in determining recall is whether people processed the material using deep processing or shallow processing. d. encoding specificity is the most important factor in laboratory research on memory, whereas level of processing is the most important factor for everyday memory tasks. Answer: b Section Ref: Encoding in Long-Term Memory Difficulty: Hard
5-31. Which of the following students provides the best summary of the research on the relationship between encoding and retrieval? a.
Chad: “Performance at retrieval is consistently best for those items that were encoded with deep levels of processing.” b. Juan: “When retrieval emphasizes shallow processing, then shallow processing is more effective at the time of encoding.” c. Silvia: “The research on source monitoring casts doubt on the relationship between encoding and retrieval.” d. Saundra: “For visual stimuli, encoding and retrieval are closely correlated; for auditory stimuli, they are not.” Answer: b
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Chapter 5: Long-Term Memory
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Section Ref: Encoding in Long-Term Memory Difficulty: Hard
5-32. Suppose that you performed a classic levels-of-processing memory task. At the time of retrieval, you are asked, “Was there a word on the list that rhymed with log?” You will be most likely to remember the word “dog” if you originally processed it by answering the question, a. b. c. d.
“Is it printed in capital letters?” “Does it rhyme with log?” “Is it a type of animal?” “Does it fit into the sentence: The ____ jumped up on the man.”
Answer: b Section Ref: Encoding in Long-Term Memory Difficulty: Medium
5-33. Which of the following is an example of an explicit memory task? a.
You are shown a set of photos and you are asked which ones are familiar because you have seen them before. b. You supply free associations more quickly to words that you have recently seen than to words you have not recently seen. c. You are shown some word fragments, and you complete the words more quickly if you have seen them before. d. You dial a familiar phone number more quickly than an unfamiliar phone number. Answer: a Section Ref: Retrieval in Long-Term Memory Difficulty: Medium
5-34. Which of the following is an example of an implicit memory task? a.
Recognizing which advertisements had been presented 1 hour ago and which ones are new b. Recalling the names of popular fairy tales c. Matching French vocabulary words with their English translations d. Completing a word for which the first and last letter have been supplied Answer: d
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5-35. Suppose that students in a research study see a list of English words. Which of the following would be the best way for the researchers to test implicit memory later on in the session? a. b.
Ask them to recall as many words as possible. Show them a longer list of words and ask them to recognize which ones they saw earlier. c. See if they show more encoding specificity for the words that were not in the original list. d. Show them a longer list of words, with several letters missing from each word, and ask them to complete the words. Answer: d Section Ref: Retrieval in Long-Term Memory Difficulty: Medium
5-36. Suppose that you have been looking at a magazine that contains a number of photos of attractive desserts, including one of a lemon meringue pie. Later, someone asks you what your favorite dessert is, and you reply “lemon meringue pie,” You actually like other desserts equally well, though they were not among those original photos. This example is most like a. an explicit-memory task. b. an implicit-memory task. c. a mood-congruent task. d. a procedural memory task. Answer: b Section Ref: Retrieval in Long-Term Memory Difficulty: Medium
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5-37. Which of the following is an example of the concept known as dissociation? a. b.
Mood-congruence effects are usually stronger than mood-incongruence effects. Many people perform well on implicit memory tasks, even when they perform poorly on explicit memory tasks. c. Depressed people recall unpleasant material better than pleasant material, whereas non-depressed people recall pleasant material better than unpleasant material. d. Mood-congruence effects are fairly strong, whereas implicit-memory effects are inconsistent and not very strong. Answer: c Section Ref: Retrieval in Long-Term Memory Difficulty: Hard
5-38. Suppose that you have been looking at a magazine that contains a number of photos of attractive desserts, including one of a lemon meringue pie. Later, someone asks you what your favorite dessert is, and you reply “lemon meringue pie,” you actually like other desserts equally well, though they were not among those original photos. You have experienced a. b. c. d.
a failure of explicit memory. a dissociation. repetition priming. retrograde amnesia.
Answer: c Section Ref: Retrieval in Long-Term Memory Difficulty: Medium
5-39. According to the research on implicit memory and explicit memory, a.
people with amnesia typically perform better on explicit memory tasks than on implicit memory tasks. b. when the tests are conducted properly, most people with normal memory reveal very little implicit memory. c. on implicit memory tasks, people recall much more when they have used deep levels of processing, rather than shallow levels. d. psychologists sometimes discover a dissociation; for example, a variable may have a large effect on an explicit task, but a small effect on an implicit task. Answer: d Section Ref: Retrieval in Long-Term Memory Difficulty: Medium
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5-40. Suppose that you hear about a man who has retrograde amnesia. What kind of memory task will he find most difficult? a. Working-memory tasks b. Remembering events that happened before his brain injury c. Remembering visual information about events that happened after his brain injury d. Remembering verbal information about events that happened after his brain injury Answer: b Section Ref: Retrieval in Long-Term Memory Difficulty: Medium
5-41. Research suggests that people with anxiety disorders a. b.
remember threatening words very accurately on all types of memory tests. show greater implicit memory for threatening words, but are not significantly different from low-anxious participants on explicit memory tasks c. are more likely to recall negative, anxiety-arousing words than low-anxious participants are. d. show no differences from low-anxious participants in any type of memory task. Answer: c Section Ref: Retrieval in Long-Term Memory Difficulty: Medium
5-42. Chapter 5 discussed research about anxiety disorders and memory accuracy for words related to anxiety. According to this research, a.
no matter how memory is measured, there are no significant differences between low-anxious and high-anxious people with respect to memory for words related to anxiety. b. high-anxious and low-anxious people differ significantly, when memory is measured in terms of implicit memory. c. high-anxious and low-anxious people differ significantly, when memory is measured on a recognition test. d. high-anxious and low-anxious people differ significantly, when memory is measured on a recall test. Answer: d Section Ref: Special Topics in Long-Term Memory Difficulty: Easy
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5-43. A person with anterograde amnesia a. has difficulty forming memories of things that happened after the brain damage. b. has difficulty on implicit memory tasks, rather than explicit memory tasks. c. has relatively weak long-term memory, compared to working memory. d. is likely to retain expertise in one specific area of knowledge. Answer: a Section Ref: Retrieval in Long-Term Memory Difficulty: Easy
5-44. Compared to control-group participants, people with anterograde amnesia are likely to a. perform similarly on implicit memory tasks, but poorer on explicit memory tasks. b. perform similarly on explicit memory tasks, but poorer on implicit memory tasks. c. perform significantly worse on both implicit and explicit tasks. d. perform well on recognition tasks, but poorly on all other measures of memory. Answer: a Section Ref: Retrieval in Long-Term Memory Difficulty: Easy
5-45. The term autobiographical memory generally refers to a. research conducted in the laboratory. b. memory for issues and events from your own life. c. remembering that you must do a specific task in the future. d. memory for the events that are related to the lives of relatives and close friends. Answer: b Section Ref: Autobiographical Memory Difficulty: Easy
5-46. Your memory for the issues and events that are related to your own life is called a. implicit memory. b. encoding specificity. c. elaboration. d. autobiographical memory. Answer: d Section Ref: Autobiographical Memory Difficulty: Easy
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5-47. According to the discussion in the chapter on long-term memory, ecological validity a.
is typically greater in the research on encoding than in the research on autobiographical memory. b. is relatively strong when the research examines the correspondence between a reallife event and the memory of the event. c. is more likely in the research on implicit memory than in the research on explicit memory. d. is a concept that was strongly emphasized in the early history of cognitive psychology, but it is now considered relatively unimportant. Answer: b Section Ref: Autobiographical Memory Difficulty: Medium
5-48. Which of the following is the most accurate summary statement about the research on autobiographical memory? a.
Most memory errors concern relatively trivial information, rather than central, important information. b. In autobiographical memory, implicit memory is much more accurate than explicit memory. c. Our autobiographical memory tends to be highly accurate, even for minor details. d. Each time we receive new information about a life event, it is stored together with a “marker” that indicates when this new information was added. Answer: a Section Ref: Autobiographical Memory Difficulty: Medium
5-49. According to the discussion of schemas and memory, a. b.
we form schemas based on our previous experiences with someone or something. once an event has occurred, we can no longer recall any specific information about the event. c. schemas only operate prior to the occurrence of an event. d. current researchers do not consider schemas to be a useful term in cognitive psychology. Answer: a Section Ref: Autobiographical Memory Difficulty: Easy
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5-50. According to the textbook’s description of a schema, a. a schema for an event is usually much more positive than the event really was. b. our schema for an event tends to be highly accurate. c. a schema is like a flashbulb memory, because it contains so many details. d. our schemas tend to guide our recall. Answer: d Section Ref: Autobiographical Memory Difficulty: Easy
5-51. Which of the following students’ statements is the best summary of the consistency bias? a.
Victor: “We are highly accurate in remembering events that happened to us personally.” b. Kyoko: “According to the consistency bias, we are consistently biased toward memories that enhance our self-esteem.” c. Harlan: “We often tend to adjust our memories in order to be consistent with the shared recall of friends and family members.” d. Nimian: “We sometimes exaggerate the extent to which our past ideas are consistent with our present ideas.” Answer: d Section Ref: Autobiographical Memory Difficulty: Medium
5-52. Suppose that you have spent some time thinking about how you are going to discuss a certain issue with a friend. Later, you try to decide whether you had actually discussed this issue, or whether you simply imagined doing so. This is an example of a. implicit memory. b. schematization of memory. c. reality monitoring. d. mood congruence. Answer: c Section Ref: Autobiographical Memory Difficulty: Medium
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5-53. Stephanie is trying to decide whether she told Sid that the history test had been postponed—or whether she had only imagined telling him this. Stephanie is currently engaging in a. flashbulb memory. b. an implicit memory task. c. reality monitoring. d. a dissociation. Answer: c Section Ref: Autobiographical Memory Difficulty: Medium
5-54. According to the research and discussion about source monitoring, a.
government agencies, corporations, and the media sometimes make sourcemonitoring errors. b. source-monitoring errors are generally easy to correct. c. people are almost always accurate in recognizing which ideas from an earlier session were actually their own. d. source monitoring occurs fairly often for visual information, but only rarely for auditory information. Answer: a Section Ref: Autobiographical Memory Difficulty: Easy
5-55. Suppose that your cousin believes that he has a vivid memory for the details surrounding the death of a famous person. This phenomenon is often called a. a reconstructed memory. b. mood congruence. c. a semantic memory. d. a flashbulb memory. Answer: d Section Ref: Autobiographical Memory Difficulty: Medium
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5-56. Imagine that a friend has just read a magazine article that discusses flashbulb memories, and your friend argues that people retain a very clear memory of certain emotional events. What would you respond? a.
“Yes, the research strongly supports the concept of certain strong, almost permanent memories for highly important events.” b. “Yes, the article is correct that some memories are very clear, but these fade after 2–3 years.” c. “No, the article overstates the case; these memories can be inaccurate and can fade with time.” d. “No, there is no evidence for flashbulb memories.” Answer: c Section Ref: Autobiographical Memory Difficulty: Hard
5-57. According to the research on flashbulb memories, a.
researchers agree that flashbulb memories are indeed more accurate than memories for other important events. b. people claim that they have accurate memories for these events, but many researchers have found that the memories contain inaccuracies. c. flashbulb memories are accurate only for unpleasant memories, rather than for pleasant ones. d. during the current era, no researcher has demonstrated more accurate recall for these significant life events. Answer: b Section Ref: Autobiographical Memory Difficulty: Medium
5-58. The chapter on long-term memory discussed the research by Talarico and Rubin, about students’ memory for how they learned about the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. According to this research, a. b.
the students were overconfident that their recall of the event was accurate. the number of inconsistent details, supplied by the students, stayed the same over time. c. the students’ recall was much more accurate for the terrorist attack than for an ordinary event. d. the students’ memory for the terrorist attack actually included more inconsistent details than consistent details. Answer: a
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Section Ref: Autobiographical Memory Difficulty: Medium
5-59. Suppose that Joe experienced a hurricane about 18 months ago. His cousin Sam read about the hurricane in the newspaper, but he did not experience it. Which of the following would be most likely? a.
Joe would actually recall very little information about the hurricane, due to repression and other avoidance strategies. b. Joe would seldom think about the hurricane; if asked, however, he could accurately reconstruct the details. c. Joe’s recall would be more accurate than Sam’s, even if it is not perfect. d. Joe and Sam would have fairly similar patterns of recall, despite the differences in their experience with the hurricane. Answer: c Section Ref: Autobiographical Memory Difficulty: Medium
5-60. What general conclusion can we draw about our memory accuracy for important events in our lives (“flashbulb memories”)? a.
For these events, our memories are so accurate that the name “flashbulb memory” is appropriate. b. For a disastrous event, people who live far away from the event are actually somewhat more likely than others to develop an accurate “flashbulb memory.” c. These “flashbulb memories” can be explained by ordinary mechanisms, such as rehearsal frequency. d. Surprisingly, these “flashbulb memories” become even more accurate as time passes since the original event. Answer: c Section Ref: Autobiographical Memory Difficulty: Medium
5-61. Why is retroactive interference relevant to the post-event misinformation effect? a. b.
Recently learned material may interfere with the older memories. Information gathered prior to an event may somehow bias the way you perceive the event. c. More vivid information will be recalled more accurately than less vivid information. d. Eyewitnesses are less confident than they should be. Answer: a
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Section Ref: Autobiographical Memory Difficulty: Easy
5-62. According to the research on the post-event misinformation effect, a. b.
people are remarkably resistant to new, inconsistent information. a question containing incorrect information can alter people’s recall of the original event. c. misleading information influences recall for children, but not for adults. d. these new memories created by post-event information are more vivid than memories created by real events. Answer: b Section Ref: Autobiographical Memory Difficulty: Easy
5-63. Which of the following statements would be most consistent with the constructivist approach to memory? a.
“We often reconstruct the specific details of an event, and we fail to see its similarity to other similar events in our life.” b. “Our memory for an event sometimes changes over time, depending on our current beliefs.” c. “Memory resembles a blank slate, on which the events of our life are recorded; the marks on that slate that are most permanent will be the ones that endure in our memory.” d. “The constructivist approach is especially useful when people want to increase the accuracy of their memory.” Answer: b Section Ref: Autobiographical Memory Difficulty: Medium
5-64. Suppose that you have just read an autobiography by a novelist. You read a critique of that autobiography, which argues that we must take a constructivist approach to the book. This critique is likely to emphasize that a. b. c.
people’s recall is generally highly accurate. people systemically describe themselves as smarter and better than they really are. the novelist may have written things about the past that were consistent with her current interpretation of her life—but may not have happened that way. d. existential moments shape our reality, and they are guided by our early childhood experiences. Answer: c
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Section Ref: Autobiographical Memory Difficulty: Medium
5-65. Chapter 5 discusses several variables that can influence the accuracy of eyewitness testimony. According to this discussion, eyewitness testimony is most likely to be accurate when a. someone was carrying a weapon. b. there was a long delay between the event and the eyewitness testimony. c. the misinformation is believable. d. there is no social pressure for the witness to supply information. Answer: d Section Ref: Autobiographical Memory Difficulty: Easy
5-66. People are more likely to make errors in eyewitness testimony a. if the original event was actually very consistent with a schema. b. if there was believable post-event misinformation. c. if there is no social pressure. d. if these people provided eyewitness testimony immediately after the event. Answer: b Section Ref: Autobiographical Memory Difficulty: Easy
5-67. Eyewitness testimony is most likely accurate accurate when a. the witnesses do not experience social pressure. b. the misinformation seems highly probable. c. the witnesses are praised for their memory performance. d. the witnesses are tested for explicit memory, rather than implicit memory. Answer: a Section Ref: Autobiographical Memory Difficulty: Easy
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5-68. Which of the following eyewitnesses would be most likely to accurately identify an attacker? a. b. c. d.
Mary, who was threatened with a gun Jose, who saw a lineup over a year after the crime occurred Courtney, who identified a pickpocket from a lineup in which the investigating officer was careful to give her no feedback Sam, who was questioned with leading questions containing plausible but incorrect details
Answer: c Section Ref: Autobiographical Memory Difficulty: Medium
5-69. When people estimate their confidence while providing eyewitness testimony, a. b.
they are typically more correct than they estimate themselves to be. they are almost as confident about their incorrect memories as they are about their correct memories. c. their confidence about their eyewitness testimony is strongly correlated with the accuracy of the testimony. d. their confidence is reduced because of the constructivist effect. Answer: b Section Ref: Autobiographical Memory Difficulty: Easy
5-70. Suppose that Peter is an expert in gymnastics. You would expect to find that a. he is also an expert in several other unrelated areas. b. he actually has less vivid imagery about gymnastics than a nonexpert would have. c. he has an IQ that is in the gifted range. d. he practices gymnastics very conscientiously, typically at least an hour every day. Answer: d Section Ref: Special Topics in Long-Term Memory Difficulty: Medium
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5-71. Suppose that you hear a guest lecturer who says, “We must remember that expertise is typically context specific.” Another way of stating this point is that a.
a person’s expertise is often limited to one specific area; he or she may have average-level performance in other areas. b. an expert is even more likely than a novice to demonstrate encoding specificity. c. an expert is more likely than a novice to show dissociation on a variety of tasks. d. an expert’s performance is limited to the structure of his or her knowledge, rather than organizational or rehearsal processes. Answer: a Section Ref: Special Topics in Long-Term Memory Difficulty: Easy
5-72. Expertise is helpful in remembering material because experts a. tend to inhibit the development of mental images that can interfere with learning. b. are likely to reorganize the material that they must recall. c. use rote rehearsal more frequently than novices do. d. are less likely to “overlearn” material than novices do. Answer: b Section Ref: Special Topics in Long-Term Memory Difficulty: Easy
5-73. Research on expertise in memory indicates that a.
experts do not really perform substantially better than other people on memory tasks, when you consider memory for material related to their area of expertise. b. experts are usually accurate in reconstructing missing parts of information from material that they partially remember. c. experts typically have both a well-organized knowledge structure in a particular area and outstanding general memory skills. d. expertise is primarily helpful because it exercises the mind, similar to the way a body-builder exercises the muscles of the body. Answer: b Section Ref: Special Topics in Long-Term Memory Difficulty: Medium
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5-74. Hruska and colleagues had expert and novice doctors read clinical cases and reason about the appropriate treatment while undergoing fMRI neuroimaging. Their results suggested that a.
experts showed more activation in the prefrontal cortex, areas implicated in working-memory processes, than novices did. b. experts and novices showed equal activation in the prefrontal cortex. c. neither experts nor novices showed activation in the prefrontal cortex. d. expert doctors possessed more sophisticated long-term memory knowledge that reduced the burden on their working memory systems. Answer: d Section Ref: Special Topics in Long-Term Memory Difficulty: Medium
5-75. Psychologists in the United States have conducted research on identifying faces of people from different ethnic groups. This research shows that a.
Black and European American individuals are usually more accurate in recognizing members of their own ethnic groups, rather than members of other groups. b. Black individuals are significantly more accurate than European American individuals in recognizing members of both ethnic groups. c. in the current era, ethnicity is not a factor in recognizing faces. d. the results on ethnicity and recognition are so complex that no overall conclusions can be drawn. Answer: a Section Ref: Retrieval in Long-Term Memory Difficulty: Easy
5-76. According to the research on the own-ethnicity bias, a.
people are always more accurate in recognizing individuals from their own ethnic group than from another ethnic group. b. people may not show the own-ethnicity bias if they have frequent contact with people from another ethnic group. c. people actually recognize individuals better if they are from a different ethnic group. d. there is currently little evidence for this kind of bias. Answer: b Section Ref: Retrieval in Long-Term Memory Difficulty: Easy
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5-77. Chapter 5 discussed a study on the own-ethnicity bias. The study was conducted in Great Britain, where many residents are South Asian. According to this study, a.
British White residents were more accurate in distinguishing British White faces than South Asian faces. b. British White residents were equally accurate in distinguishing British White faces and South Asian faces. c. South Asian residents were more accurate in distinguishing South Asian faces than British White faces. d. British White residents and South Asian residents are equally accurate in distinguishing both kinds of faces, probably because there are currently many films and advertisements that feature South Asian residents. Answer: a Section Ref: Retrieval in Long-Term Memory Difficulty: Easy
5-78. In general, what is the relationship between emotional tone and recall accuracy in longterm memory? a.
Emotional tone has little influence on recall in long-term memory, although it does influence working memory. b. Recall is generally most accurate for mildly unpleasant items. c. Recall is generally most accurate for neutral items. d. Recall is generally most accurate for pleasant items. Answer: d Section Ref: Special Topics in Long-Term Memory Difficulty: Easy
5-79. The Pollyanna Principle is consistent with which theme of the textbook? a. The cognitive processes are interrelated. b. The cognitive processes are active, rather than passive. c. The cognitive processes are efficient and accurate. d. People process positive information more accurately than negative information. Answer: d Section Ref: Special Topics in Long-Term Memory Difficulty: Hard
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5-80. Chapter 5 discussed a study by Waring and Kensinger (2011), in which people looked at stimuli that were either very positive, very negative, or neutral; each stimulus was shown together with a neutral background, such as a river. The results of this study showed that people were least likely to recognize this neutral background a. when the stimulus was very positive. b. when the stimulus was very negative. c. when the stimulus was neutral. d. when they were tested immediately after the stimuli had been presented. Answer: b Section Ref: Special Topics in Long-Term Memory Difficulty: Easy
5-81. Suppose that you are an advertiser, and a television station has told you that you can select the TV program in which you want your advertisement to appear. According to the research on long-term memory, you want your ad to appear in a program that is a. emotionally neutral. b. mildly unpleasant. c. a violent cartoon show. d. a violent news program. Answer: a Section Ref: Special Topics in Long-Term Memory Difficulty: Medium
5-82. Chapter 5 discussed the relationship between the violence of a TV program and people’s recall of commercials shown during that program. According to this research, people recall a commercial more accurately a. b. c. d.
when the program is extremely violent. when the program is moderately violent. when the program is nonviolent. when the visual component of the program is nonviolent but the auditory component is moderately violent. Answer: c Section Ref: Special Topics in Long-Term Memory Difficulty: Easy
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5-83. Over time, unpleasant memories a. b. c. d.
never fade. fade less than pleasant memories. fade about the same as pleasant memories. fade more than pleasant memories.
Answer: d Section Ref: Special Topics in Long-Term Memory Difficulty: Easy
5-84. Which of the following students provides the most accurate summary about the emotions associated with events that occurred in the past? a. b.
Hongbo: “Neutral events usually become more negative.” Josiah: “The emotional tone of pleasant events fades more than the emotional tone of negative events.” c. Anna: “The emotional tone of unpleasant events fades more than the emotional tone of pleasant events.” d. Sidney: “People who tend to be depressed show no fading in emotional tone for either pleasant or unpleasant events.” Answer: c Section Ref: Special Topics in Long-Term Memory Difficulty: Medium
5-85. Which of the following statements most accurately captures the point of view called the “false memory perspective” with respect to childhood sexual abuse? a.
As adults, people construct an incorrect memory about abuse, and they believe that the abuse actually did occur. b. As adults, people are encouraged to report an incorrect memory about abuse, but they actually know that the abuse did not occur. c. As adults, people construct an incorrect memory that their childhood was actually quite pleasant, and they cover up their actual experience of abuse. d. As children, people construct an incorrect memory about abuse, but as adults, they realize that the abuse did not occur. Answer: a Section Ref: Special Topics in Long-Term Memory Difficulty: Medium
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5-86. According to the discussion of the “false memory controversy,” a.
we have extensive evidence that people repress painful memories and later recover them. b. in some cases, therapists have suggested that unpleasant events may have occurred during childhood, and people may mistakenly believe that they actually occurred. c. researchers have constructed a checklist to determine whether an individual is telling the truth about an early life event; this checklist has high validity. d. the research shows that people seldom make errors; when they say they experienced an event, it is almost certain that they did so. Answer: b Section Ref: Special Topics in Long-Term Memory Difficulty: Medium
5-87. In laboratory studies of false memories, about ___ of participants actually come to remember an event that never actually occurred. a. b. c. d.
10% 25% 50% 75%
Answer: b Section Ref: Special Topics in Long-Term Memory Difficulty: Easy
5-88. Freyd proposed that the concept of betrayal trauma can explain why people may forget about their own experience with sexual abuse during childhood. Which of the following statements would be most consistent with this perspective? a.
“When a child is sexually abused by a trusted adult, the child may not be able to recall the abuse at a later time.” b. “Memory for child sexual abuse is just as accurate as memory for other childhood events.” c. “Memory is largely constructed, so an adult can construct a childhood event that did not really occur, as long as it is consistent with that adult’s current knowledge and ideas.” d. “Certain events are so traumatic to a child that he or she will recall them especially vividly—somewhat like a flashbulb memory.” Answer: a
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Section Ref: Special Topics in Long-Term Memory Difficulty: Medium
5-89. Several students are discussing the controversy about recovered memory and false memory. Which of the following students provides the best summary of the “recovered memory perspective”? a.
Michele: “According to this perspective, all memories that adults recover about childhood sexual abuse are inaccurate, resulting from source-monitoring problems.” b. Magali: “This perspective says that there is no objective way to tell whether recovered memories are accurate, so that individuals are advised not to be concerned about them.” c. Greg: “According to this perspective, childhood sexual abuse is so traumatic that people may forget those memories for a while, but may retrieve them during adulthood.” d. Sol: “According to this perspective, a recovered memory is actually a constructed memory, in other words, people revise the past so that it is consistent with the present.” Answer: c Section Ref: Special Topics in Long-Term Memory Difficulty: Medium
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Chapter 6: Memory Strategies & Metacognition
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CHAPTER 6: Memory Strategies and Metacognition
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6-1. Lori types her notes on her laptop during her professor’s lectures, but she also checks her email and monitors Facebook at the same time. Although Lori insists that she’s a good multitasker, Steve informs her that she would remember the material better if she closed her email and browser during class. Steve’s good advice is based on knowledge of a. b. c. d.
working memory. divided attention. levels of processing. encoding specificity.
Answer: b Section Ref: Memory Strategies I: Memory Strategies Informed by Memory Concepts Difficulty: Medium
6-2. Research on divided attention suggests that a. b. c. d.
your memory for details learned while reading a textbook will not be affected if you listen to popular vocal music (with lyrics) while reading. students who use Internet access in lecture rooms to “take breaks” to check email or text messages perform better than students who focus all of their mental efforts on the lecture only. some students perform better while multitasking than they do while focusing all of their attention on one task. distractions such as email and Facebook prevent students from remembering a lecture as effectively as they might remember without distraction.
Answer: d Section Ref: Memory Strategies I: Memory Strategies Informed by Memory Concepts Difficulty: Medium
6-3. You have enrolled in Professor Lawrence’s Sociology class this semester, and a friend (who took the same professor last year) warns you that Professor Lawrence tends to speak rapidly and present a great deal of information in a short time. You decide to be sure that you have read the assigned textbook chapter before each class meeting to familiarize yourself with the concepts before the lecture begins. Your strategy is based on the idea of a. b. c. d.
dividing your attention for better processing. maximizing encoding specificity effects. minimizing the cognitive load on your working memory. processing the information at shallow levels for better long-term memory.
Answer: c Section Ref: Memory Strategies I: Memory Strategies Informed by Memory Concepts
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Difficulty: Medium
6-4. Heather complains that her professor’s Powerpoint slides are crowded with details and that she can’t copy what is on the slides while listening to the lecture and taking notes on what is being said. Heather’s complaint has to do with the limits of her a. b. c. d.
working memory. divided attention. levels of processing. encoding specificity.
Answer: a Section Ref: Memory Strategies I: Memory Strategies Informed by Memory Concepts Difficulty: Medium
6-5.
Suppose that you are studying for a biopsychology examination, and you decide to try asking yourself questions about why various structures in the central nervous system operate the way they do. According to the discussion of memory strategies, your technique would
a. enhance encoding specificity. b. promote simple rehearsal. c. lead to divided attention. d. encourage a deep level of processing. Answer: d Section Ref: Memory Strategies I: Memory Strategies Informed by Memory Concepts Difficulty: Medium
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6-6. According to research on memory benefits from deep processing of material, students learned more in a psychology course on personality theories if they a. b. c. d.
read each chapter through without stopping. kept a journal in which they applied the theories to acquaintances and famous people. listened to emotional music while reading the material. took their exams in a different classroom from where they had listened to lectures.
Answer: b Section Ref: Memory Strategies I: Memory Strategies Informed by Memory Concepts Difficulty: Easy
6-7. Deep processing increases distinctiveness, which can be especially important in learning a. b. c. d.
formulas. complex theories. names. the order of discoveries.
Answer: c Section Ref: Memory Strategies I: Memory Strategies Informed by Memory Concepts Difficulty: Easy
6-8.
Suppose that you study for your next examination in this course by reviewing each topic and asking how the information might be relevant to the career you want to pursue. Your study technique makes use of
a. the encoding-specificity principle. b. the self-reference principle. c. the Pollyanna Principle. d. the shallow-rehearsal technique. Answer: b Section Ref: Memory Strategies I: Memory Strategies Informed by Memory Concepts Difficulty: Medium
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Sean is studying for his philosophy final exam. He knows that the test will be all essays, and he knows that the professor often asks students to compare two philosophical approaches. As part of his studying, he writes several practice essays in which he compares some philosophical approaches. Sean’s study method makes use of the cognitive principle called
a. implicit memory. b. the hierarchy technique. c. encoding specificity. d. method of loci. Answer: c Section Ref: Memory Strategies I: Memory Strategies Informed by Memory Concepts Difficulty: Medium
6-10. You are studying for an exam in your Forensic Psychology class. You know that 30% of the items will be fill-in-the-blank questions that require you to recall the term or name that best fits the description. Which of the following study techniques would make use of the encoding specificity principle? a.
Quizzing yourself with flash cards (one side has a term or name and the other has the definition/description) b. Having a study partner quiz you with multiple choice questions c. Writing practice essays about the main concepts in the textbook d. Drawing pictures of the main ideas from your lecture notes Answer: a Section Ref: Memory Strategies I: Memory Strategies Informed by Memory Concepts Difficulty: Medium
6-11. According to the principle of memory called the total-time hypothesis, a.
your score on a memory task is related to the amount of time you spend in learning the material. b. the total time you spend in learning the material is such an important factor that it overshadows the combined impact of all the other memory strategies. c. your score on a memory task is positively correlated with the total time you spend in strengthening your brain by using general memory-building exercises. d. the total time spent studying will typically decrease in a linear fashion, for each repetition of the list Answer: a
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6-12. The research on practice and memory improvement demonstrates that a.
for most people, one exposure to the material is sufficient unless that material is extremely difficult. b. several reviews of the same material—without taking breaks in between—is especially effective. c. in general, we have little evidence for the total time hypothesis. d. learning is more effective if learning trials are spread out over time, rather than if you study without a break. Answer: d Section Ref: Memory Strategies II: Practice and Mnemonics Difficulty: Easy
6-13. Which of the following students has the best understanding about how to apply the distributed-practice effect? a.
Shannon: “Your memory is better if you associate each item in a list with a specific geographic location, but your mental image must leave sufficient space between these locations.” b. Akiko: “It’s best to repeat one item over and over for at least a minute, then rest, and then continue this pattern with subsequent items.” c. Derrick: “It’s best to take breaks between your study sessions, so that your learning trials are spread across time.” d. Joaquim: “When you want to learn a list of word pairs, put a blank space next to each item, and then fill in the blank with another member of each word pair.” Answer: c Section Ref: Memory Strategies II: Practice and Mnemonics Difficulty: Hard
6-14. Suppose that you are a counselor at a summer camp, and you want to learn the children’s names. You decide to rehearse the names during each mealtime for 3 days. This would be an example of a technique called a. the distributed-practice effect. b. external memory aids. c. source monitoring. d. elaboration. Answer: a
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6-15. Suppose that you hear a lecture about memory improvement, and the speaker says, “We must remember the value of desirable difficulties.” The speaker is likely to emphasize that a.
academic tests must be difficult enough to differentiate between the students who deserve A’s and the students who deserve lower grades. b. professors who want to assess their academic programs must be sure that the courses are sufficiently difficult. c. students’ motivation will be higher if they are allowed to select the appropriate level of difficulty for the material in a course they are taking. d. if students test themselves several minutes after learning some material, they will make more errors, which will encourage them to spend more time studying. Answer: d
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6-16. An instructor makes online practice quizzes available to her students in order to help them study for the midterm exam. She allows the students to take each practice quiz more than once, but requires them to wait at least one day between attempts. She is trying to help students by making use of the principle of a. b. c. d.
encoding specificity. levels of processing. desirable difficulties. massed learning.
Answer: c Section Ref: Memory Strategies II: Practice and Mnemonics Difficulty: Easy
6-17. According to research on desirable difficulties, you should wait at least _____ between study sessions in order to maximize long-term retention. a. b. c. d.
5 minutes half an hour 2 hours 1 day
Answer: d Section Ref: Memory Strategies II: Practice and Mnemonics Difficulty: Easy
6-18. According to research on the testing effect, a.
although testing can improve recall, it is not as helpful as spending the same amount of time studying. b. testing consistently improves recall, no matter whether the retention interval is short or long. c. this effect operates only when students receive feedback on their test scores. d. one explanation is that test-taking creates desirable difficulties. Answer: d
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6-19. Roediger and Karpicke’s 2006 study of the testing effect indicated that taking memory tests improves retention as compared to extra studying a. b. c. d.
at short retention intervals but not long ones. only at retention intervals of 1 week or longer. even when students receive no feedback on the accuracy of their test results. only when the format of the first test matches the format of the final test.
Answer: c Section Ref: Memory Strategies II: Practice and Mnemonics Difficulty: Easy
6-20. Research on the testing effect suggests that the beneficial effects of testing a. b. c. d.
are limited by encoding specificity to testing formats that are the same as those originally used. involve helping you to identify the material on which you need to spend more time studying, but do not actually increase your memory for the material on which you have been tested. work only when accurate feedback is promptly given. stretch beyond increased memory for the same information in the same testing format.
Answer: d Section Ref: Memory Strategies II: Practice and Mnemonics Difficulty: Easy
6-21. Studies of test anxiety indicate that a. b. c. d.
people with test anxiety learn material effectively but are unable to perform well in a testing situation. people with test anxiety tend to report poorer study skills. test anxiety is myth that is used to excuse poor performance. high levels of worry are not related to reading comprehension.
Answer: b Section Ref: Memory Strategies II: Practice and Mnemonics Difficulty: Easy
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6-22. Which of the following students provides the best definition of the term mnemonics? a. b. c. d.
Alfredo: “Mnemonics is the use of imagery to assist our memory.” Julia: “Mnemonics is the use of external memory aids to improve our memory.” Cynthia: “Mnemonics refers to using a strategy to improve our memory.” Jaime: “Mnemonics is any memory trick that actually improves our prospective memory.” Answer: c Section Ref: Memory Strategies II: Practice and Mnemonics Difficulty: Easy
6-23. What can we conclude about the use of imagery to improve memory? a. b.
Imagery seems to be involved only in retrieval, rather than in encoding. In general, people recall only 10% more if the instructions emphasize imagery, instead of simple repetition. c. Compared to repetition instructions, imagery instructions produce much better recall. d. Imagery is helpful on recognition tasks, but not on recall tasks. Answer: c Section Ref: Memory Strategies II: Practice and Mnemonics Difficulty: Medium
6-24. Suppose that you meet a student named Jane Frostig, and you try to recall her last name by imagining that she has chocolate frosting spread across her forehead. Which mnemonic method would this represent? a. Keyword method b. Method of loci c. Chunking method d. Source monitoring Answer: a Section Ref: Memory Strategies II: Practice and Mnemonics Difficulty: Medium
6-25. According to the research on the keyword method, this technique a. b. c.
is no longer considered to be a useful mnemonic. is often helpful for learning people’s names. is actually less effective when people use distributed practice, rather than learning the material all at once. d. works only for abstract nouns, rather than concrete nouns. Answer: b
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6-26. Suppose that a friend tells you a phone number that you need to dial, as soon as you are done talking. You don’t have a pencil, so you remember it by grouping it into two sections, one with three digits, and one with four digits. The method you have used is called a. the chunking method. b. the method of loci. c. the keyword method. d. the narrative technique. Answer: a Section Ref: Memory Strategies II: Practice and Mnemonics Difficulty: Medium
6-27. Mandi is studying for her biopsychology exam by creating a diagram for the parts of the human nervous system. Her diagram shows two basic divisions, the peripheral nervous system and the central nervous system; each of these systems is further divided and then subdivided. Mandi is using a. the method of loci. b. the spacing effect. c. the keyword method. d. the hierarchy technique. Answer: d Section Ref: Memory Strategies II: Practice and Mnemonics Difficulty: Medium
6-28. The hierarchy technique is an example of a mnemonic device that primarily emphasizes a. mental imagery. b. organization. c. the self-reference effect. d. prospective memory. Answer: b Section Ref: Memory Strategies II: Practice and Mnemonics Difficulty: Easy
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6-29. Which of the following is not an example of a mnemonic technique that emphasizes organization? a. Keyword method b. Hierarchy c. First-letter technique d. Narrative technique Answer: a Section Ref: Memory Strategies II: Practice and Mnemonics Difficulty: Medium
6-30. Your instructor for your History of Psychology class has told you that using the chapter outline in the textbook is a good way to study for the exam. This suggestion is based on research supporting the use of ________ as study aids. a. b. c. d.
keywords first-letters hierarchies visual images
Answer: c Section Ref: Memory Strategies II: Practice and Mnemonics Difficulty: Medium
6-31. Elaine memorized the lakes of the Great Lakes by using the word HOMES (Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie, Superior). Elaine has used the a. b. c. d.
keyword method. narrative technique. first-letter technique. hierarchy method.
Answer: c Section Ref: Memory Strategies II: Practice and Mnemonics Difficulty: Medium
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6-32. The narrative technique a. b. c.
is effective only for improving working memory. is effective only for items presented at the beginning of a list. can produce recall that is approximately six times the recall produced in a control group. d. requires you to combine the first letter of each word in a list that you need to remember. Answer: c Section Ref: Memory Strategies II: Practice and Mnemonics Difficulty: Easy
6-33. According to the discussion of the narrative technique, a.
this technique is effective if you need to learn a single list of items; its effectiveness is reduced when learning multiple lists. b. the research suggests that this technique works well as long as you can create the story easily and also recall it easily. c. this technique is effective with college students, but not for people with memory impairments. d. this method is so effective that it works even if you use a weak story to link together the items. Answer: b Section Ref: Memory Strategies II: Practice and Mnemonics Difficulty: Easy
6-34. Chapter 7 discussed a study by Hartwig and Dunlosky, who assessed whether college students’ study techniques were correlated with their college grades. This research showed that a.
there was a strong correlation between the measures of “study techniques” and grades in college. b. the study was flawed, because of the research was acknowledged to have a serious problem with the issue that “correlation is not necessarily causation.” c. surprisingly, there was no correlation between any of the variables. d. there was actually a negative correlation between study techniques and grades in college, probably because the students with the lowest grades actually exaggerated the amount of time spent studying. Answer: a Section Ref: Memory Strategies II: Practice and Mnemonics Difficulty: Medium
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6-35. Suppose that you need to remember to pick up a book at the library after your examination today. This kind of memory task is an example of a. retrospective memory. b. implicit memory. c. prospective memory d. organizational mnemonics. Answer: c Section Ref: Memory Strategies II: Practice and Mnemonics Difficulty: Medium
6-36. According to your textbook, retrospective memory a. means that some new information interferes with some old information. b. refers to some information that you learned in the past. c. means that you use some mnemonic devices to improve your memory. d. refers to your ability to predict how well you will do on a memory test. Answer: b Section Ref: Memory Strategies II: Practice and Mnemonics Difficulty: Easy
6-37. According to the discussion of prospective and retrospective memory, a. b.
distinctive encoding improves performance on both kinds of memory tasks. the research on retrospective memory is typically higher in ecological validity than is the research on prospective memory. c. a delay period has a stronger effect on retrospective memory than on prospective memory. d. retrospective-memory tasks typically activate the frontal lobe of the brain, but prospective-memory tasks do not. Answer: a
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6-38. Which of the following students provides the best definition of the term “ecological validity”? a.
Emily: “Ecological validity means that you are testing hypotheses that assess people’s concern about the environment.” b. Patrick: “Ecological validity refers to research in which you assess two different dependent variables.” c. Tessa: “Ecological validity means that there is a high similarity between the situation where the study is being conducted, and the situation in “real life” where the results will be applied.” d. Theodora: “Ecological validity means that you take two dependent variables, determine whether they are correlated with each other, and then see whether they are correlated with the independent variable.” Answer: c Section Ref: Memory Strategies II: Practice and Mnemonics Difficulty: Medium
6-39. Absentminded behavior is most likely to occur a. b. c.
when you are performing a very important behavior. when you are performing a source-monitoring task. when you are performing a routine activity, but you are thinking about the separate steps involved in the action. d. when a prospective-memory task requires you to interrupt a routine activity. Answer: d Section Ref: Memory Strategies II: Practice and Mnemonics Difficulty: Medium
6-40. Suppose that people are working on an ongoing task. They are most likely to forget to complete a prospective-memory task if a. they create a mental image of that prospective-memory task. b. they are performing the ongoing task automatically. c. the ongoing task is relatively easy. d. they create some concrete, external reminder of the prospective-memory task. Answer: b
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6-41. Absentminded behavior is especially likely to occur a.
when you must remember to do something that is not part of your customary routine. b. when you are in an unfamiliar setting. c. when you are trying to performing a task especially carefully. d. when you are performing a retrospective-memory task. Answer: a Section Ref: Memory Strategies II: Practice and Mnemonics Difficulty: Easy
6-42. Prospective memory errors are especially likely to occur when you are simultaneously a. performing a task automatically in a familiar setting. b. performing a task effortfully in a familiar setting. c. performing a task automatically in an unfamiliar setting. d. performing a task effortfully in an unfamiliar setting. Answer: a Section Ref: Memory Strategies II: Practice and Mnemonics Difficulty: Medium
6-43. According to the discussion of improving prospective memory, a. b.
external memory aids tend to decrease the accuracy of prospective memory. it’s helpful to figure out a specific reminder that you can place in a relevant location. c. the same identical factors influence the accuracy of both retrospective memory and prospective memory. d. prospective memory errors are especially likely when people are using focused attention rather than divided attention. Answer: b Section Ref: Memory Strategies II: Practice and Mnemonics Difficulty: Easy
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The term metacognition refers to a. b.
an especially deep level of processing—even deeper than the self-reference effect. the perspective that memory improvement must be comprehensive, instead of targeting just one memory strategy. c. remembering to do something in the future. d. our knowledge and control of our cognitive processes. Answer: d Section Ref: Metamemory Difficulty: Easy
6-45. Which of the following students provides the best comparison between the term “metacognition” and the term “self-knowledge”? a.
Sue: “Metacognition refers to people’s beliefs about other people; in contrast, selfknowledge is a broad term that refers to people’s beliefs about themselves.” b. Audrey: “Metacognition refers to your knowledge about your cognitive skills; selfknowledge is a general term that includes a wide variety of beliefs about yourself.” c. Timoteo: “Metacognition refers to your study strategies; in contrast, self-knowledge refers to your knowledge about whether you will be able to apply those study strategies.” d. Sergei: “Metacognition refers to your prediction about your past performance; selfknowledge refers to your predictions about your future performance." Answer: b Section Ref: Metamemory Difficulty: Medium
6-46. Harrison knows that he will typically perform better in an exam if he reads the textbook chapters in the early afternoon and if he reviews the material by trying to explain it in his own words. Harrison is demonstrating a. levels of processing. b. mnemonics. c. metacognition. d. the keyword method. Answer: c Section Ref: Metamemory Difficulty: Medium
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6-47. According to Baddeley’s approach to working memory, the central executive plays a role when students are studying for an exam a. b.
because it is important in source-monitoring tasks. because it helps individuals who have ADHD, so that they can actually suppress competing answers. c. because it helps people plan how they will divide their time during studying. d. because it strengthens and expands the limits of the phonological loop. Answer: c Section Ref: Metamemory Difficulty: Hard
6-48. Which of the following students provides the best summary of why a person’s confidence is important to the topic of memory strategies and metacognition? a.
Asli: “In general, people are overconfident that they will remember material accurately.” b. Megan: “Ironically, people are overconfident about eyewitness testimony and underconfident about material they learn in an academic setting.” c. George: “People are especially likely to be overconfident if they have studied material by using the self-reference technique.” d. Xavier: “People are generally overconfident when they use memory strategies and underconfident when they use metacognition.” Answer: a Section Ref: Metamemory Difficulty: Hard
6-49. Why should you pay attention to metamemory if you want to improve your memory? a.
The guidelines of metamemory suggest that rote rehearsal is the most effective mnemonic device. b. Metamemory can help you decide which strategies work best for you. c. Metamemory allows you to process information in a parallel fashion, rather than a serial fashion. d. Metamemory is the study of memory for people’s names, and people report particular difficulty with memory for names. Answer: b Section Ref: Metamemory Difficulty: Hard
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6-50. Suppose that a friend is having difficulty in introductory psychology, so you decide to give her some memory tips. If you decide to emphasize metamemory, you would be likely to a. b. c. d.
make her think more about the factors that influence her memory. emphasize that, in the ideal situation, memory is schematic. inform her that the tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon is more a myth than a reality. emphasize shallow processing for working memory and deep processing for longterm memory. Answer: a Section Ref: Metamemory Difficulty: Medium
6-51. If you had one important message about memory improvement that you could convey to a friend, what should it be? a.
The total amount of time you spend practicing the items is more important than the study techniques that you use. b. Interactive images are more effective than non-interactive images. c. Use the first-letter mnemonic whenever possible. d. Try to think about your memory strategies, plan how to study, and monitor whether you understand material. Answer: d Section Ref: Metamemory Difficulty: Hard
6-52. Which of the following definitions for the term “foresight bias” is most accurate? a.
A foresight bias occurs when the researchers try to anticipate—in advance—the problems with a study. b. Foresight bias occurs when researchers examine the dependent variables to see whether they will be high in external validity. c. Foresight bias occurs when people judge their mastery of some material that they have been studying, although they have been using an inappropriate mnemonic device. d. Foresight bias occurs when people are too confident that they will do well in a future exam, based on the estimates they make while studying the material. Answer: d Section Ref: Metamemory Difficulty: Medium
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6-53. Your textbook discussed a metamemory study that asked students to estimate their total score on a test that they had just taken. The comparison between the students’ actual score and their estimated score showed that a. b. c.
the students consistently overestimated how well they had performed. the students consistently underestimated how well they had performed. the students with the lowest actual scores provided the most accurate estimated scores. d. the students with the highest actual scores provided the most accurate estimated scores. Answer: d Section Ref: Metamemory Difficulty: Medium
6-54. Chapter 6 discusses the accuracy of people’s metamemory for pairs of words on an itemby-item basis. This research suggests that a.
people are not very accurate in guessing which pairs of words they are likely to recall at a later time. b. people clearly underestimate their ability to recall pairs of words at a later time. c. people are more accurate when predicting on an “item-by-item” basis as compared to an overall score basis. d. people have fairly accurate metamemory when the stimuli are pairs of words. Answer: c Section Ref: Metamemory Difficulty: Easy
6-55. In which of the following conditions is your metamemory accuracy likely to be the highest? a. b. c. d.
When material is difficult, rather than easy When the material is concerned with nonsense words, rather than English phrases When learning has been incidental, rather than intentional When you wait several minutes before judging whether you’ll remember the material Answer: d Section Ref: Metamemory Difficulty: Medium
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6-56. Suppose that you are studying for a vocabulary test, and you want to accurately predict your score in that test. Your prediction accuracy would be highest if you a. tested yourself immediately after learning the words. b. tested yourself several minutes after learning the words. c. estimate how many words you already knew before beginning to study. d. figure out—in advance—whether you typically have trouble on vocabulary tests. Answer: b Section Ref: Metamemory Difficulty: Medium
6-57. Chapter 6 discussed college students’ metamemory about factors affecting memory accuracy. According to this discussion, a.
students with ADHD consistently overestimate their memory accuracy, compared with students without ADHD. b. students are usually accurate in predicting how many hours they should study in order to get a good score in an exam. c. students usually believe that simple rehearsal is an effective way to study for an exam. d. students are aware that the research shows that you remember words better if they are printed in a large font size, rather than a small font size. Answer: c Section Ref: Metamemory Difficulty: Medium
6-58. Part of the section on metamemory examined how students regulate their study strategies. If you are typical of the college students discussed in that section—and the task is relatively easy—you would be likely to a.
spend somewhat more time on the more difficult material, but not as much time as it deserves. b. fail to review the material you already know. c. show no relationship between study time and the difficulty of the material. d. spend roughly three times as long on difficult topics as on the topics you already know. Answer: a Section Ref: Metamemory Difficulty: Easy
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6-59. According to the research on students’ distribution of their study time, they tend to a. systematically study the difficult items more than the easy ones. b. study the difficult items somewhat more than the easy ones. c. devote the same amount of time to both the difficult items and the easy ones. d. study the easy ones somewhat more than the difficult ones. Answer: b Section Ref: Metamemory Difficulty: Easy
6-60. Part of Chapter 6 examined students’ study strategies for easy and difficult material. Which of the following students provides the most accurate perspective on that research? a.
Carlo: “When the memory task is relatively easy, students spend about the same amount of time studying the easiest items and the most difficult items.” b. Sondra: “When the memory task is relatively easy, students spend the most time on the difficult items; when the memory task is relatively difficult, students spend the most time on the easy items.” c. Phil: “Students study the difficult items more than the easy items when the material is related to their own interests; otherwise, they show no consistent pattern in their study strategies.” d. Indira: “Students’ study strategies depend on their motivational level; the most motivated students divide their time equally among the topics, but the less motivated students spend more time on the difficult tasks.” Answer: b Section Ref: Metamemory Difficulty: Hard
6-61. Suppose that you have just learned that you will have a quiz in about 30 minutes on a set of fairly difficult short essays that you haven’t even glanced at. If you are like the students described in the discussion of regulating study strategies, you would a. b. c.
select the most difficult essays to read first. select the easiest essays to read first. select easier essays to read first if you are an expert, but select more difficult essays to read first if you are a novice. d. show no systematic pattern in reading the essays. Answer: b Section Ref: Metamemory Difficulty: Medium
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6-62. Researchers have conducted many studies about how students allocate their time, when studying for an exam. In general, these studies show that a. b. c. d.
without time pressure, students spend more time studying difficult material. without time pressure, students spend more time studying easy material. with time pressure, students spend more time studying difficult material. with time pressure, students tend to study randomly, without using strategies about which items to focus on. Answer: a Section Ref: Metamemory Difficulty: Easy
6-63. According to research on the tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon, a. b. c.
when an item is on the tip of your tongue, you will seldom be able to recover it. your mental dictionary is arranged in alphabetical order. you can identify similar-sounding words, but you cannot accurately guess the number of syllables in the target word. d. you can typically provide a similar-sounding word, which matches the target word reasonably closely. Answer: d Section Ref: Metamemory Difficulty: Easy
6-64. How is the tip-of-the-tongue experience relevant to metacognition? a.
People can provide accurate introspections about the way their semantic memory is organized. b. People are more accurate in supplying a similar-sounding word than a similarmeaning word. c. When people report a tip-of-the-tongue state, they accurately assess that they are close to identifying the missing word. d. People can accurately describe the process by which they recover a word that was previously on the tip of their tongue. Answer: c Section Ref: Metamemory Difficulty: Hard
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6-65. The tip-of-the-tongue experience is related to metacognition because a.
people think about whether they are likely to remember the target word, and this estimate is one kind of metacognitive task. b. people are highly accurate in both their tip-of-the-tongue estimates and their metacognition estimates. c. people consistently underestimate their accuracy on both tip-of-the-tongue tasks and other metacognitive tasks. d. people first give a general estimate of their accuracy, and then they systematically make adjustments to that estimate. Answer: a Section Ref: Metamemory Difficulty: Hard
6-66. Which of the following statements is correct about the current research on the tip-of-thetongue phenomenon? a.
Monolingual adults and bilingual adults are equally likely to report this phenomenon. b. People are fairly accurate in guessing the number of syllables in the target word, but they are less accurate in guessing the target word’s first letter. c. The phenomenon seems to be limited to the English language. d. Research in languages that have grammatical gender shows that people can typically identify the gender of the target word. Answer: d Section Ref: Metamemory Difficulty: Easy
6-67. Amelia speaks French and English fluently. Connor speaks only English. According to research, a. b. c. d.
Amelia and Connor should experience the tip-of-the-tongue effect equally frequently. Connor should experience the tip-of-the-tongue effect more frequently than Amelia. Amelia should experience the tip-of-the-tongue effect more frequently than Connor. Amelia should never experience the tip-of-the-tongue effect.
Answer: c Section Ref: Metamemory Difficulty: Medium
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6-68. The term “tip-of-the-finger effect” refers to a subjective experience of knowing a target word but not being able to recall it right now, as experienced by a. b. c. d.
blind people who read Braille. deaf people. people whose culture is known for using gestures frequently. multilingual people.
Answer: b Section Ref: Metamemory Difficulty: Medium
6-69. The concept called “feeling of knowing” a. b.
describes how confident you are that you provided the right answer on a test. is an estimate of the likelihood that you will recognize the correct answer to a question. c. is more closely related to retrospective memory than to metamemory. d. is not significantly correlated with the amount of partial information we can retrieve. Answer: b Section Ref: Metamemory Difficulty: Easy
6-70. As you read this question, you may be asking yourself whether you understand it. If so, you are engaging in a. meta-analysis. b. metamemory. c. metacomprehension. d. source monitoring. Answer: c Section Ref: Metamemory Difficulty: Medium
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6-71. What can we conclude about college students’ accuracy on measures of metacomprehension? a.
Students’ metacomprehension is generally as accurate as their metamemory for learning pairs of English words. b. Metacomprehension is about as accurate for reading comprehension as for other items on the verbal portion of the SAT. c. Students are only slightly more confident about the items they answered correctly than the items they answered incorrectly. d. There is no relationship between students’ confidence about whether they answered an item correctly and their actual accuracy. Answer: c Section Ref: Metamemory Difficulty: Easy
6-72. Which of the following students provides the most accurate summary of the research on metacomprehension accuracy among college students? a.
Cheryl: “Students’ metacomprehension accuracy and their reading comprehension scores are significantly correlated.” b. Jacques: “Students tend to underestimate their scores on a reading comprehension test.” c. Ed: “Students are much more confident about the comprehension questions they answered correctly, compared with those they answered incorrectly.” d. Hannelore: “Unfortunately, students’ metacomprehension accuracy does not improve when they get feedback about their ability to assess their reading comprehension.” Answer: a Section Ref: Metamemory Difficulty: Hard
6-73. According to the discussion of metacomprehension, a.
college students do not need special training in this area, because their metacomprehension is reasonably accurate. b. metacomprehension can be improved when students receive feedback about their understanding before they take a test. c. good readers and poor readers do not differ in their awareness of reading strategies. d. metacomprehension is basically the same as meta-analysis. Answer: b
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Section Ref: Metamemory Difficulty: Easy
6-74. Which of the following students provides the most accurate advice about metacomprehension? a.
Arianna: “Students typically have better metacognition if they read a passage, wait briefly, and then summarize the passage.” b. Krisanthi: “Surprisingly, students who use shallow processing have more accurate metacomprehension than students who use deep processing.” c. David: “Good readers and poor readers are equally likely to know that they should try to make connections among the concepts they are reading about.” d. Derek: “Good readers and poor readers are equally likely to be aware of helpful reading strategies.” Answer: a Section Ref: Metamemory Difficulty: Medium
6-75. Colin has high reading comprehension abilities, as measured by his scores on the verbal SAT. Stefan has only average reading comprehension. Both Connor and Stefan read a series of unfamiliar text passages, and then answer reading comprehension questions about the passages. For the items for which Connor and Stefan both express an average certainty rating of 75%, you would expect that a. b. c. d.
Connor would get about 75% of those items correct. Stefan would get about 75% of those items correct. Both Connor and Stefan would be overconfident about their scores. Both Connor and Stefan would be underconfident about their scores.
Answer: a Section Ref: Metamemory Difficulty: Medium
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Chapter 7: Mental Imagery and Cognitive Maps
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CHAPTER 7: Mental Imagery and Cognitive Maps
7-1.
How does mental imagery compare with perception?
a. Perception relies exclusively on bottom-up processing. b. Perception relies exclusively on top-down processing. c. Mental imagery relies exclusively on bottom-up processing. d. Mental imagery relies exclusively on top-down processing. Answer: d Section Ref: Classical Research on Visual Imagery Difficulty: Easy
7-2.
According to the introduction of the chapter on imagery, a.
people often create mental images, but they seldom use these images in problem solving or other higher mental processes. b. students report that they use visual imagery and auditory imagery equally often. c. psychologists have conducted more research on visual imagery than any other kind of imagery. d. the first psychologists to pay attention to imagery were the radical behaviorists, in the late 1920s. Answer: c Section Ref: Classical Research on Visual Imagery Difficulty: Easy
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Chapter 7: Mental Imagery and Cognitive Maps
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Which of the following students provides the most accurate information about the current importance of mental imagery and spatial skills? a.
Assaf: “Spatial ability plays a very important part in careers related to science and technology.” b. Lucille: “Within the area of mental imagery, people now conduct more research on auditory imagery than on visual imagery.” c. Sondra: “Elementary school teachers in the U.S. are now emphasizing spatial skills much more than in the previous decade.” d. Evgeni: “Unfortunately, people cannot greatly improve their spatial skills, once they have reached early adolescence.” Answer: a Section Ref: Classical Research on Visual Imagery Difficulty: Medium
7-4. Which of the following students would need to have the greatest spatial skill? a. b. c. d.
Thomas, an English major Stephanie, a History major Elise, an Engineering major Patrick, a Music major
Answer: c Section Ref: Classical Research on Visual Imagery Difficulty: Medium
7-5.
According to the discussion of the history of research on mental imagery, a.
the early behaviorists rejected research about mental imagery, but they began to conduct imagery research during the early 1950s. b. the topic of mental imagery has consistently been more popular in the United States than in Europe. c. the popularity of mental imagery increased as cognitive psychology became more influential. d. surprisingly, theorists and researchers did not mention mental imagery until about 1930. Answer: c Section Ref: Classical Research on Visual Imagery Difficulty: Easy
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Chapter 7: Mental Imagery and Cognitive Maps
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One of the most difficult problems in conducting research on imagery is that a.
the individual differences are so large that it’s virtually impossible to find any consistent results. b. it is difficult to examine such an inaccessible mental process. c. people’s introspections about imagery are so vivid that they prevent researchers from manipulating most variables. d. only a relatively small proportion of people seem to use imagery on a regular basis. Answer: b Section Ref: Classical Research on Visual Imagery Difficulty: Medium
7-7.
In the Shepard and Metzler study, people judged whether two figures that were in different orientations were the same or different. What did this study demonstrate? a.
It takes much longer to rotate pairs in depth (e.g., by turning a figure away from you) than to rotate pairs in the picture plane (e.g., by turning a figure clockwise). b. The amount of rotation necessary before making “same–different” judgments influences decision speed. c. There were no consistent relationships between the variables examined in this study. d. The propositional-storage interpretation of imagery is correct. Answer: b Section Ref: Classical Research on Visual Imagery Difficulty: Easy
7-8.
Suppose that you are taking a course in geometry. You are trying to determine whether two geometric shapes are identical, so you mentally rotate one of the figures in a clockwise fashion. You are likely to find that a.
you will not be very accurate in this task, because mental imagery is very poor for geometric figures. b. you will take more time than if you had to rotate the figure in a 3-dimensional plane (e.g., away from you). c. you will rotate the figure more quickly than if you had to rotate it in a counterclockwise fashion. d. you will take longer to rotate it 120° than 40°. Answer: d Section Ref: Classical Research on Visual Imagery Difficulty: Medium
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7-9. Which of the following people would be expected to be especially skilled at 180° mental rotations? a. b. c. d.
Left-handers Typesetters Elderly people Deaf people who are fluent in American Sign Language
Answer: d Section Ref: Classical Research on Visual Imagery Difficulty: Easy
7-10. Cognitive neuroscience research on mental rotation suggests that the motor cortex is active when people mentally rotate objects a. b. c. d.
after first having physically rotated objects with their hands. after standard instructions to rotate the figure in their mind. after watching a motor rotate objects. in three dimensions, but not in two dimensions.
Answer: a Section Ref: Classical Research on Visual Imagery Difficulty: Medium
7-11. An analog code means that a. a representation is very similar to the physical object. b. we store information in terms of abstract descriptions. c. we construct a representation from a verbal description. d. the image is permanently stored in working memory. Answer: a Section Ref: Classical Research on Visual Imagery Difficulty: Easy
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Chapter 7: Mental Imagery and Cognitive Maps
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7-12. If your mental image of your aunt’s face is stored in an analog code, a.
thinking about the image would produce increased blood flow throughout your frontal cortex. b. the representation would resemble the specific features and facial arrangement found on your aunt’s face. c. the code would include language-like descriptions of the most important attributes of her face. d. that image would be represented in terms of both the alignment and the rotation heuristics. Answer: b Section Ref: Classical Research on Visual Imagery Difficulty: Medium
7-13. Suppose that you have a mental image of your favorite male actor. If that image is stored in a propositional code, the representation would emphasize a. b. c. d.
spatial relationships, including information about angles and lines. a correspondence between the mental imagery and perceptual imagery. a language-like description. spatial relationships for the actor’s general shape, but a language-like description for the details of his face. Answer: c Section Ref: Classical Research on Visual Imagery Difficulty: Medium
7-14. Those who argue that we store mental imagery information in terms of propositions would claim that a. storage is most like vision. b. storage is most like an abstract spatial representation. c. storage is most like language. d. representation closely resembles the physical object. Answer: c Section Ref: Classical Research on Visual Imagery Difficulty: Easy
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7-15. Which of the following students provides the most accurate information about analog codes and propositional codes for mental images? a.
Qing: “An analog code emphasizes the physical resemblance between a visual stimulus and the corresponding mental image.” b. Dave: “An analog code emphasizes the stimulation of the receptors, for example the receptors in the retina of the eye.” c. D’Naijha: “A propositional code emphasizes the stimulation of the sensory portions of the cerebral cortex.” d. Oscar: “A propositional code emphasizes the spatial relationships between the components of a mental image.” Answer: a Section Ref: Classical Research on Visual Imagery Difficulty: Medium
7-16. Suppose that you and a group of other students want to conduct a study on mental rotation, using photographs of human faces. You find that people take longer to rotate a mental image, as the size of the rotation increases. Which approach do your data support? a. The propositional approach b. The analog approach c. Both the propositional approach and the analog approach d. Neither the propositional nor the analog approach Answer: b Section Ref: Classical Research on Visual Imagery Difficulty: Hard
7-17. The research on mental rotation has shown that a.
people use very different strategies when they rotate letters of the alphabet, as opposed to abstract geometric figures. b. right-handed people and left-handed people are basically identical in their ability to recognize pictures of left and right hands. c. young people are typically faster than elderly people in the speed of their mental rotation. d. young people and elderly people differ greatly in their sense of direction. Answer: c Section Ref: Classical Research on Visual Imagery Difficulty: Easy
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Chapter 7: Mental Imagery and Cognitive Maps
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7-18. When people look at a 3-dimensional figure and mentally rotate this figure, a.
they mentally rotate this figure much more quickly in a counter-clockwise direction, compared to a clockwise direction. b. individual differences are not very strong on this task. c. they make judgments more quickly when rotating the mental image only a small distance, rather than a large distance. d. people can actually identify a figure much more quickly if it is upside down, rather than in the normal upright orientation. Answer: c Section Ref: Classical Research on Visual Imagery Difficulty: Medium
7-19. Suppose that researchers are studying mental rotation, and they are comparing the performance of one group of people who are deaf and are fluent in American Sign Language and a second group of people who are not deaf and have had no experience with American Sign Language. Which of the following patterns of results would you be most likely to find, with respect to mental rotation? a.
The individuals who are deaf would be more skilled, because auditory information would not interfere with their performance. b. The individuals who are deaf would be more skilled, because they are accustomed to seeing hand positions from a different perspective. c. The individuals who are not deaf would be more skilled, because they have extra clues from the auditory information that accompanies hand movement. d. The individuals who are not deaf would be more skilled, because they have had extra practice “translating” auditory stimulation into changes in visual images. Answer: b Section Ref: Classical Research on Visual Imagery Difficulty: Medium
7-20. Psychologists have studied how deaf individuals perform on mental rotation tasks when they are fluent in American Sign Language. The research shows that these individuals: a. b.
make more errors than people who use spoken communication. make fewer errors than other people, because they are accustomed to viewing a scene from a different perspective. c. make fewer errors than other people, because they are not distracted by various sounds in the surrounding area. d. make the same number of errors as other people. Answer: b
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Section Ref: Classical Research on Visual Imagery Difficulty: Medium
7-21. Imagine that you read about research in which students study a map of an imaginary college campus. Then they are instructed to mentally travel between two points on this map. According to their results, the mental travel time increases as the distance increases between the two points. These results seem to support a. the analog code. b. the propositional code. c. the alignment heuristic. d. the spatial framework model. Answer: a Section Ref: Classical Research on Visual Imagery Difficulty: Medium
7-22. Suppose that you are reading a book that describes how the inside of the U.S. Supreme Court looks from a lawyer’s point of view. Based on the discussion of neuroscience research and visual imagery, what would you predict about your visual system’s reaction to this description? a.
The cones in the retina would be stimulated more than the rods (assuming that the scene took place during the daytime). b. Your visual cortex would show increased blood flow. c. Your auditory cortex would show the largest increase in blood flow, because of the auditory code required during reading. d. Because no neurological correlates have yet been discovered, no measurable response would be located. Answer: b Section Ref: Classical Research on Visual Imagery Difficulty: Medium
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Chapter 7: Mental Imagery and Cognitive Maps
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7-23. The neuropsychology evidence on the imagery question shows that a. b.
imagery and perception involve entirely different biological processes. during mental imagery, some portions of the visual-processing regions of the cortex seem to be activated. c. the primary similarity between imagery and perception is that the visual receptors in the retina are stimulated in both cases. d. the neuroscience research in this area has a major problem with demand characteristics, so we cannot draw clear-cut conclusions. Answer: b Section Ref: Classical Research on Visual Imagery Difficulty: Easy
7-24. Reed conducted research demonstrating that people had difficulty locating a parallelogram in their mental image of a six-sided star. This research a. b. c. d.
supports the analog position on mental images. demonstrates that mental images require a four-stage processing sequence. supports the idea that we use verbal descriptions to store mental images. demonstrates that we must reject both the analog and propositional views of mental imagery. Answer: c Section Ref: Classical Research on Visual Imagery Difficulty: Easy
7-25. Your textbook described a study in which people saw an ambiguous figure, for instance, a sketch that could represent either a rabbit or a duck. When the figure was removed, the people were asked to create a mental image of the figure. The results showed that a. b. c. d.
people could not create any mental images of the figures. people created the mental image but could not reinterpret the mental image. people created the mental image, and they also reinterpreted the mental image. the demand characteristics were so strong that the results of this study are questionable. Answer: b Section Ref: Classical Research on Visual Imagery Difficulty: Easy
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Chapter 7: Mental Imagery and Cognitive Maps Page 10 of 27
7-26. The research on mental imagery and ambiguous figures suggests that a. b.
once again, the analog code is strongly supported. people have such limited visual imagery for ambiguous figures that neither the analog code nor the propositional code is supported. c. demand characteristics on this task are so strong that no firm conclusions can be reached. d. some imagery tasks use a propositional code, but others use an analog code. Answer: d Section Ref: Classical Research on Visual Imagery Difficulty: Hard
7-27. Nishimura and colleagues used magnetoencephalography techniques to investigate individual differences in mental imagery. They found that, when asked to visualize famous landmarks, a. b. c.
both visualizers and verbalizers showed activity in occipital regions of the cortex. both visualizers and verbalizers showed activity in the frontal cortical areas. visualizers showed more activity in the occipital regions, whereas verbalizers showed more activity in the frontal cortical areas. d. visualizers showed more activity in the frontal cortical areas, whereas verbalizers showed more activity in the occipital regions. Answer: c Section Ref: Classical Research on Visual Imagery Difficulty: Hard
7-28. Which of the following students provides the best summary of the research on imagery and distance? a.
Jian: “Unfortunately, researchers have not yet found an effective method for studying how people represent distances in their mental images.” b. Kristen: “We take longer to scan a large mental distance than a small mental distance.” c. Anna: “In general, the research on imagery and size supports the propositional explanation of mental imagery.” d. Janki: “Kosslyn’s original research supported the analog explanation of mental imagery, but the more recent research does not show a consistent relationship between mental distances and decision speed.” Answer: b
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Chapter 7: Mental Imagery and Cognitive Maps Page 11 of 27
Section Ref: Factors That Influence Visual Imagery Difficulty: Medium
7-29. Suppose that you are reading an article about visual imagery. The researchers point out that demand characteristics might have influenced the results of this study. One example of this possibility would be: a. b. c.
the participants tried to ruin the researchers’ results by refusing to follow directions. the participants tried to answer as quickly as possible, so they could leave early. cues within the study conveyed the researchers’ hypothesis to the participants, potentially influencing the participants’ responses. d. the researchers used a heuristic when trying to explain the results of this study. Answer: c Section Ref: Factors That Influence Visual Imagery Difficulty: Medium
7-30. Why do researchers in the area of mental imagery need to be concerned about demand characteristics? a. b. c.
Experimenters might unintentionally convey their hypotheses to the participants. Experimenters typically expect participants to perform very well on imagery tasks. When experimenters expect a certain outcome in their research, the participants unconsciously produce results that contradict this expectancy. d. Demand characteristics typically increase the magnitude of individual differences. Answer: a Section Ref: Factors That Influence Visual Imagery Difficulty: Easy
7-31. Paivio conducted a study on mental imagery for the faces of clocks. His study demonstrated that a.
individual differences are small, with respect to response latency on clock imagery tasks. b. high-imagery people have faster reaction times than low-imagery people. c. the larger the difference between the two angles that were being compared, the slower the decision speed. d. experimenter expectancy can explain the results of this research. Answer: b
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Chapter 7: Mental Imagery and Cognitive Maps Page 12 of 27
Section Ref: Factors That Influence Visual Imagery Difficulty: Easy
7-32. From the research on mental imagery for the positions of the hands on a clock, we can conclude that a. b.
in this area, there is strong evidence for propositional codes. so few people can construct this kind of mental image that we need to be concerned about the limits of imagery research. c. people with high mental imagery ability perform this task faster than people with low mental imagery ability. d. decisions about the shapes of images require much longer when the two images are very different than when they are very similar. Answer: c Section Ref: Factors That Influence Visual Imagery Difficulty: Medium
7-33. According to the research on mental imagery and shape, people take longer to make a judgment when two mental images have similar shapes than when they have different shapes. This finding tends to support a. experimenter expectancy. b. the introspection approach. c. bottom-up processing. d. the analog-code approach. Answer: d Section Ref: Factors That Influence Visual Imagery Difficulty: Medium
7-34. Which of the following students provides the most accurate statement about the research on mental imagery? a.
Susan: “There is a negative correlation between the size of a mental rotation and the number of seconds required to perform that mental rotation.” b. Shirin: “When people make judgments about the shapes of U.S. states, their judgments for mental images are similar to their judgments for physical stimuli.” c. Dirk: “In general, the research on mental imagery supports the propositional perspective on mental imagery, rather than the analog perspective.” d. Cyndi: “People make judgments about complex mental shapes in roughly the same way as they make judgments about complex physical shapes; but this similarity doesn’t hold true for simple mental shapes.” Answer: b
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Chapter 7: Mental Imagery and Cognitive Maps Page 13 of 27
Section Ref: Factors That Influence Visual Imagery Difficulty: Hard
7-35. The research on visual imagery and interference shows that a. b.
people have trouble seeing a blue arrow when they are imagining a tree. people have trouble seeing a blue arrow while they are imagining the sound of a musical instrument. c. the studies support the propositional-code perspective of mental imagery. d. a mental image does not typically interfere with seeing a physical image. Answer: a Section Ref: Factors That Influence Visual Imagery Difficulty: Easy
7-36. Which of the following everyday examples would be most similar to the research findings on visual images and interference? a.
When you form a visual image of a friend’s face, you have difficulty seeing a faint visual stimulus. b. When you form a visual image of a friend’s face, you are faster at identifying his or her voice. c. A visual image will enhance your ability to see a faint visual stimulus, but it will reduce your ability to hear a faint auditory stimulus. d. When you form an auditory image of a doorbell ringing, you will be better at detecting a tone of a similar pitch; in contrast, you will be worse at detecting a tone that is at least an octave higher or lower. Answer: a Section Ref: Factors That Influence Visual Imagery Difficulty: Medium
7-37. Which of the following students’ statements provides the best summary of the section on visual imagery and interference? a.
Chaim: “Although the early research showed that mental images interfere with perceptual stimuli, the more recent research shows no such evidence.” b. Alexei: “Experimenter expectancy plays such an important role that the appropriate research has not yet been conducted.” c. Sarah: “Interference is greater if the mental image and the physical stimulus are in the same mode (e.g., both visual) rather than in different modes.” d. Rigoberta: “The studies on this topic provide the strongest support of the propositional code that researchers have yet demonstrated.” Answer: c
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Chapter 7: Mental Imagery and Cognitive Maps Page 14 of 27
Section Ref: Factors That Influence Visual Imagery Difficulty: Hard
7-38. According to the research on mental imagery and interference, which of the following tasks would be most difficult? a.
Trying to think about the sound of a particular word in French, while listening to a favorite song. b. Trying to create a mental image of a friend’s face, while listening to a favorite song. c. Trying to mentally rotate a visual image, while listening to a favorite song. d. Trying to think about the sound of a particular word in French, while mentally rotating a mental image of a friend’s face. Answer: a Section Ref: Factors That Influence Visual Imagery Difficulty: Medium
7-39. Researchers have conducted studies on a variety of vision-like processes that are unfamiliar to the general public. This research demonstrates that a mental image has roughly the same effect that an actual visual stimulus has, for example, in producing the masking effect. On the basis of this research, we can conclude that a. demand characteristics probably cannot explain the results. b. the propositional-coding explanation is likely to be correct. c. visual imagery is stronger than auditory or motor imagery. d. experimenter expectancy consistently influences the research on mental imagery. Answer: a Section Ref: Factors That Influence Visual Imagery Difficulty: Easy
7-40. Your textbook discusses research showing that people have better acuity for mental images that are visualized in the center of the retina, rather than in the periphery of the retina. The reason that this research is significant is that a. b.
it offers strong support for the propositional approach to mental images. it demonstrates that the previous imagery research had been influenced by experimenter expectancy. c. the research is similar to the results obtained when people perceive actual visual stimuli. d. it demonstrates that individual differences in visual imagery are actually very small. Answer: c
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Chapter 7: Mental Imagery and Cognitive Maps Page 15 of 27
Section Ref: Factors That Influence Visual Imagery Difficulty: Medium
7-41. Considering all of the evidence presented in your textbook regarding the analog view of mental images, one can conclude that a.
the analog viewpoint is no longer appropriate, because the majority of research supports the propositional viewpoint. b. the research allows us to conclude that mental imagery operates exactly the same way that perception operates. c. mental imagery is somewhat similar to visual perception. d. both the analog viewpoint and the propositional viewpoint are inconsistent with the current research, so that a new model needs to be developed. Answer: c Section Ref: Factors That Influence Visual Imagery Difficulty: Hard
7-42. In light of the research presented in your textbook regarding the analog and propositional viewpoints, a.
the two viewpoints are incompatible; researchers can support either perspective, but not both. b. most mental imagery tasks seem to use an analog code, but some mental imagery tasks seem to use a propositional code. c. the propositional viewpoint argues that people do not experience actual mental images. d. the analog viewpoint is supported by the observation that people cannot re-examine a mental image and provide a new interpretation of that image. Answer: b Section Ref: Factors That Influence Visual Imagery Difficulty: Hard
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7-43. Which of the following students provides the most accurate information about gender comparisons in cognitive skills? a.
Debra: “Males are consistently better than females in both mathematics and spatial ability.” b. Andy: “The only large gender differences are in verbal ability, where females typically earn higher scores.” c. Eladj: “The only large gender differences are in spatial ability, where males often earn higher scores.” d. Amelie: “Actually, there are no moderate or large gender differences in any area of cognitive skills. Answer: c Section Ref: Factors That Influence Visual Imagery Difficulty: Medium
7-44. In your textbook, Chapter 7 discusses meta-analyses that focus on gender comparisons in cognitive abilities. Which of the following is the area in which gender differences are typically the largest? a. Verbal abilities b. Mathematics abilities c. Spatial abilities such as locating hidden figures in a drawing d. Spatial abilities such as mental rotation Answer: d Section Ref: Factors That Influence Visual Imagery Difficulty: Easy
7-45. Chapter 7 examines gender comparisons in mental rotation skills. According to this discussion, a.
gender differences tend to be smaller for mental rotation problems than for other mental imagery tasks. b. none of the research has reported significant gender differences in mental rotation. c. all of the research has reported significant gender differences in mental rotation. d. the research sometimes shows that the gender differences in mental rotation disappear when the instructions are changed. Answer: d Section Ref: Factors That Influence Visual Imagery Difficulty: Medium
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Chapter 7: Mental Imagery and Cognitive Maps Page 17 of 27
7-46. Based on the research on gender differences in cognitive abilities, on which task would you expect men and women to show the greatest differences? a. b. c. d.
Vocabulary size Performance in a math class Providing directions from point A to point B while looking at a map Reading comprehension
Answer: c Section Ref: Factors That Influence Visual Imagery Difficulty: Medium
7-47. Which of the following provides the best example of auditory imagery? a. b. c. d.
Creating a mental image of your favorite actor’s face Creating a mental image of the scent of your mother’s perfume Creating a mental map of your campus Creating a mental image of the chorus of your favorite song
Answer: d Section Ref: Auditory Imagery Difficulty: Medium
7-48. In comparison to visual imagery, research suggests that auditory imagery is a. b. c. d.
less vivid. a rare ability that only trained musicians have. more detailed. more likely to be the subject of published research.
Answer: a Section Ref: Auditory Imagery Difficulty: Easy
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Chapter 7: Mental Imagery and Cognitive Maps Page 18 of 27
7-49. Research on auditory imagery and pitch suggests that a. b. c. d.
there are similar “distance” effects in auditory imagery as there are in visual imagery. people can only imagine a very small range of pitches. when imagining sounds, people tend to imagine them in a monotone, without pitch variation. women are better at imagining a variety of pitches than men are.
Answer: a Section Ref: Auditory Imagery Difficulty: Hard
7-50. Which of the following is the best example of timbre? a. b. c. d.
The difference between a tune played in two different octaves on a piano The difference between the sound of a church bell directly overhead and the same bell a mile away The difference between a note sung by a female soprano and a female alto The difference between the sound made by a flute and the sound made by a violin
Answer: d Section Ref: Auditory Imagery Difficulty: Medium
7-51. Studies in which trained musicians rated the similarity of perceived and imagined musical instruments show that a. b. c. d.
auditory imagery for timbre is quite similar to the actual perception of timbre. auditory imagery for timbre is significantly different than the actual perception of timbre. auditory imagery for volume is significantly different than the actual perception of volume. auditory imagery for pitch is significantly different than the actual perception of pitch.
Answer: a Section Ref: Auditory Imagery Difficulty: Easy
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Chapter 7: Mental Imagery and Cognitive Maps Page 19 of 27
7-52. Which of the following statements about cognitive mapping is correct? a. b. c.
Cognitive maps consistently use analog rather than propositional encoding. The research on cognitive mapping is generally high in ecological validity. Spatial cognition is a topic within cognitive mapping that deals exclusively with tabletop models. d. So far, almost all of the research on cognitive mapping has been confined to people’s knowledge about the layout of college campuses. Answer: b Section Ref: Cognitive Maps Difficulty: Medium
7-53. The research on cognitive maps suggests that a.
people—surprisingly—are just as accurate in reading a road map when it does not match the orientation of their mental map as when it has the same orientation. b. people create cognitive maps from several successive views, if the area is very large. c. individual differences in people’s senses of direction are very small. d. there is a very high correlation between people’s verbal skills and their skills in creating cognitive maps. Answer: b Section Ref: Cognitive Maps Difficulty: Easy
7-54. According to the introductory discussion of cognitive maps, a.
the term cognitive map refers to the map constructed by neuroscientists, in which each location of the cortex is paired with a related cognitive task. b. whereas the term cognitive map refers to our mental representation of an imaginary region, the term spatial cognition applies to our mental representation of an actual geographic area. c. compared to the research on the nature of mental images, the research on cognitive maps is more likely to emphasize geographical representations. d. so far, cognitive maps have been examined almost exclusively by psychologists, rather than researchers from other disciplines. Answer: c Section Ref: Cognitive Maps Difficulty: Easy
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7-55. Suppose that you are driving to an unfamiliar city. To reach your destination with the smallest number of navigational errors, how should your map be oriented? a. b. c.
“North” should be at the top. “South” should be at the top. The map should be oriented so that the top is in the same direction that you are traveling. d. Surprisingly, the research shows that the orientation of the map has little influence on navigation accuracy. Answer: c Section Ref: Cognitive Maps Difficulty: Medium
7-56. The introductory discussion of cognitive maps in Chapter 7 points out that a.
researchers in the area of artificial intelligence have developed programs that can create highly accurate cognitive maps. b. most of the errors we make on cognitive maps can be traced to defects in humans’ ability to construct mental images. c. most errors in mental maps can be traced to a rational strategy. d. in general, the errors on cognitive maps are larger and less systematic than the errors people make in storing verbal information. Answer: c Section Ref: Cognitive Maps Difficulty: Easy
7-57. A general conclusion about cognitive maps is that a. they bear little relationship to physical reality. b. they are highly accurate. c. they are fairly accurate, and the errors that they show tend to be rational. d. they are fairly accurate, but the errors that they show tend to be random. Answer: c Section Ref: Cognitive Maps Difficulty: Easy
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Chapter 7: Mental Imagery and Cognitive Maps Page 21 of 27
7-58. Suppose that you have just studied a map of a region, and you have formed a cognitive map for it. Based on what you know from Chapter 7, we could predict that a.
you would estimate that two cities are far apart if there are many other cities in between. b. you would estimate that two cities are close if there are many cities in between. c. the number of intervening cities only influences distance estimates when people are very familiar with the route. d. the number of cities on the route between two cities has little effect on distance estimates. Answer: a Section Ref: Cognitive Maps Difficulty: Medium
7-59. Suppose that you are drawing a map, from memory, of the streets and buildings in a city you know well. If you were to show a bias in your recall of the buildings, you would be likely to a. b. c. d.
place the buildings in a cluster near the center of town. place buildings with similar functions near each other. fail to recall clusters from certain geographic regions. first place one cluster of related buildings on the map, and then insert other important buildings on the map one at a time. Answer: b Section Ref: Cognitive Maps Difficulty: Medium
7-60. Alex lives in the United States, 20 miles due south of the boundary between the U.S. and Canada. His friend Shawn lives 30 miles due south of Alex. However, Alex thinks he lives closer to Shawn, rather than to the Canadian border. This is an example of a. the rotation heuristic. b. the alignment heuristic. c. border bias. d. a spatial framework model. Answer: c Section Ref: Cognitive Maps Difficulty: Medium
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Chapter 7: Mental Imagery and Cognitive Maps Page 22 of 27
7-61. Suppose that Arthur lives in Houston, Texas, and his friend Scott lives in a much smaller city about 20 miles from Houston. Arthur seems to think that it is farther from Houston to that small town, compared to the distance from the small town to Houston. Arthur is demonstrating the a. spatial framework model. b. landmark effect. c. alignment heuristic. d. rotation heuristic. Answer: b Section Ref: Cognitive Maps Difficulty: Medium
7-62. If you were to draw a map of the town or city in which your college is located, a. b. c. d.
you would make the streets intersect at sharp angles, rather than right angles. you would make the streets more curved than they really are. you would tend to make the streets intersect at 90° angles. you would show a blending of your college building and the surrounding region, even if the boundary is really quite clear-cut. Answer: c Section Ref: Cognitive Maps Difficulty: Medium
7-63. According to the rotation heuristic, a.
people line up two or more geographic areas so that they form a straight row with one another. b. people tend to align angles so that the lines are perpendicular to each other. c. people tend to remember figures as being more vertical or horizontal than they really are. d. people tend to rotate their cognitive maps in a random pattern. Answer: c Section Ref: Cognitive Maps Difficulty: Easy
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Chapter 7: Mental Imagery and Cognitive Maps Page 23 of 27
7-64. When most people draw a map of the coastline of the United States, they show Miami about due south of Boston, when Miami is actually fairly far to the west. This error is an example of a. the 90° heuristic. b. the alignment heuristic. c. the rotation heuristic. d. the symmetry heuristic. Answer: c Section Ref: Cognitive Maps Difficulty: Medium
7-65. Suppose you draw a map of Italy, and you show the “boot” located in a north–south direction, rather than slanted at an angle. This would be an example of the a. regularization heuristic. b. alignment heuristic. c. symmetry heuristic. d. rotation heuristic. Answer: d Section Ref: Cognitive Maps Difficulty: Medium
7-66. Suppose that in your college campus, Building A is east of Building B, but they aren’t exactly in a straight row; one is 15 feet north of the other. The students’ cognitive maps show them in a straight row, however. A likely explanation for this effect is a. the rotation heuristic. b. the meta-analysis technique. c. the 90° angle heuristic. d. the alignment heuristic. Answer: d Section Ref: Cognitive Maps Difficulty: Medium
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Chapter 7: Mental Imagery and Cognitive Maps Page 24 of 27
7-67. Suppose you draw a map of a familiar street in your neighborhood. You draw all the houses an equal distance from the street, even though some houses are clearly closer to the street than others. Your error is an example of a. the 90° angle heuristic. b. the spatial framework model. c. the symmetry heuristic. d. the alignment heuristic. Answer: d Section Ref: Cognitive Maps Difficulty: Medium
7-68. The alignment heuristic and the rotation heuristic are different from each other because a.
the alignment heuristic encourages us to line up streets at right angles with each other. b. the rotation heuristic involves turning a single figure in a clockwise or counterclockwise fashion. c. the rotation heuristic leads us to rotate rivers and other natural structures, but not human-made structures. d. the alignment heuristic applies to geometric figures, but not cognitive maps. Answer: b Section Ref: Cognitive Maps Difficulty: Medium
7-69. Which of the following students provides the most accurate general summary of the research on cognitive maps? a.
Francine: “When people store spatial information, they tend to represent their cognitive maps as being more regular and orderly than they really are.” b. Justin: “Unfortunately, people seem to have difficulty retaining visual information, and so our cognitive maps are highly inaccurate.” c. Ana María: “People are actually much more accurate in creating cognitive maps than they are in recalling a story.” d. Oskar: “People’s mental maps for large geographic regions are fairly accurate, but their mental maps for small geographic regions are likely to reveal many errors.” Answer: a Section Ref: Cognitive Maps Difficulty: Hard
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Chapter 7: Mental Imagery and Cognitive Maps Page 25 of 27
7-70. Suppose that you are listening to your professor’s description of the layout of several buildings in a city. If the discussion of mental maps can be applied to your representation of this city, it is most likely that a.
you will store this information in a passive fashion, without creating a cognitive map. b. your cognitive map will represent the distances as being larger than they really are. c. you will construct a cognitive map to represent the arrangement of buildings. d. your cognitive map will be highly inaccurate. Answer: c Section Ref: Cognitive Maps Difficulty: Medium
7-71. You are driving in your car, listening to a mystery story on the radio. The narrator has just described the room, and then the main character turns 180° to face the location that had previously been at her back. Your response time to locate objects on your mental map would be quickest for a. objects that are above or below her. b. objects that are in front of or behind her. c. objects that are to her left or right. d. all objects; the data do not show consistent differences. Answer: a Section Ref: Cognitive Maps Difficulty: Medium
7-72. According to the spatial framework model described by Franklin and Tversky, a. b.
people can make decisions equally quickly about all directions. people turn their head in the specified direction, so that the major relevant variable is the amount that their head is turned. c. people base their responses on propositional coding of all three relevant dimensions. d. the above/below direction has special prominence in our mental maps. Answer: d Section Ref: Cognitive Maps Difficulty: Easy
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Chapter 7: Mental Imagery and Cognitive Maps Page 26 of 27
7-73. The spatial framework model emphasizes that people are typically most accurate when judging a. b. c. d.
the above–below dimension. the front–back dimension. the right–left dimension. the right dimension if they are right handed, and the left dimension if they are left handed. Answer: a Section Ref: Cognitive Maps Difficulty: Easy
7-74. Which of the following students’ statements best describes the spatial framework model proposed by Franklin and Tversky? a.
Susan: “The mental maps we create do not have a built-in bias; we attach the same significance to left–right distinctions as to up–down distinctions.” b. Nadia: “The vertical dimension seems to have special significance when we try to create representations of our environment.” c. Stanley: “When we hear a story, we automatically assume the perspective of someone looking down on the scene from above, because of the up–down heuristic.” d. Igor: “People vary greatly in the way they construct mental maps when they hear a narrative; some rotate the scene to match the perspective of the main character, but most look at the scene as if they were outside the scene, looking in.” Answer: b Section Ref: Cognitive Maps Difficulty: Medium
7-75. Chapter 7 discussed topics related to imagery and cognitive maps. Which of the following students provides the most accurate information about the situated cognition approach? a.
Tom: “You always need to emphasize your current situation, if you want to construct an accurate cognitive map.” b. Cynthia: “Our knowledge depends partly on information in our current environment.” c. Manny: “This term is basically equivalent to another term, called a heuristic.” d. Beatriz: “This term is basically equivalent to the propositional code, in connection with imagery.” Answer: b
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Section Ref: Cognitive Maps Difficulty: Medium
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Chapter 8: General Knowledge
Page 1 of 29
CHAPTER 8: General Knowledge
8-1.
According to the chapter called “General Knowledge,” an important point is that this knowledge
a. allows us to make inferences based on logical interpretations. b. is almost always implicit, rather than explicit. c. is usually available only to people with expertise in the specified area. d. is primarily constructed by combining information in our working memory. Answer: a Section Ref: Background and Approaches to Semantic Memory Difficulty: Easy
8-2.
Which of the following students provides the best definition of the term “inference,” in connection with the discussion of semantic memory in Chapter 8? a.
Don: “An inference refers to those conclusions and logical implications that people make, even when they were never directly stated in the original stimulus.” b. Javier: “An inference is the grammatical structure of a sentence, in both written and spoken language.” c. Polina: “An inference occurs when one speaker stops talking, and another begins to speak.” d. Lindsey: “An inference is basically an alternate term for the word validity.” Answer: a Section Ref: Background and Approaches to Semantic Memory Difficulty: Easy
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Chapter 8: General Knowledge
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8-3. “Marie received seven presents at her birthday party. The stuffed elephant was her favorite gift.” If you believe that one of the seven presents that Marie received was, in fact, a stuffed elephant, you have made a. b. c. d.
an attribution error. an inference. an episodic mistake. a script.
Answer: b Section Ref: Background and Approaches to Semantic Memory Difficulty: Medium
8-4.
The term semantic memory can be defined as
a. events that happened in one’s own life. b. information that can be associated with a certain date in the past. c. knowledge in one’s own area of expertise. d. our well-organized knowledge about the world. Answer: d Section Ref: Background and Approaches to Semantic Memory Difficulty: Easy
8-5.
The well-organized knowledge that you have about the world is called
a. declarative memory. b. implicit memory. c. explicit memory. d. semantic memory. Answer: d Section Ref: Background and Approaches to Semantic Memory Difficulty: Easy
8-6.
Which of the following students provides the best description of semantic memory? a.
Wei-Hang: “Semantic memory allows us to link each concept with an example from episodic memory.” b. Andy: “Semantic memory refers to our organized knowledge about the world.” c. Alexia: “Semantic memory forces us to notice—and exaggerate—the precise details that make one concept different from another.” d. Yelena: “Semantic memory forces us to take each schema that is stored and convert it into a script-like form.” Answer: b
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Chapter 8: General Knowledge
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Section Ref: Background and Approaches to Semantic Memory Difficulty: Medium
8-7. Which of the following provides the best example of semantic memory? a. b. c. d.
Knowing what you ate for breakfast today Knowing the definition of the word “concept” Knowing where you went for dinner on your last birthday Knowing how old you were when you first visited Disney World
Answer: b Section Ref: Background and Approaches to Semantic Memory Difficulty: Medium
8-8.
According to the discussion in Chapter 8, the best definition of the word concept is: a. b. c. d.
a specific set of objects that belong together. your mental representation of a category. the best example of a particular category. the information in your immediate environment, which contributes to your general knowledge. Answer: b Section Ref: Background and Approaches to Semantic Memory Difficulty: Easy
8-9.
In Chapter 8, how is the term “situated cognition approach” related to the concept of “knowledge?” a.
We use the situated cognition approach when we need to think about graded structures. b. The situated cognition approach is a central part of the parallel distributed processing approach. c. The situated cognition approach proposes that cues from our immediate environment help us to code a concept. d. The situated cognition approach helps us to distinguish between categories and concepts. Answer: c Section Ref: Background and Approaches to Semantic Memory Difficulty: Medium
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Chapter 8: General Knowledge
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8-10. According to the prototype approach to semantic memory, a.
every item that meets the specified requirements of a category belongs to that category. b. a prototype is an example of the category that is neither the best example, nor the worst example. c. we judge whether an item is similar to the prototype in order to decide whether it belongs to a category. d. nonprototypes are items that do not belong to any category. Answer: c Section Ref: Background and Approaches to Semantic Memory Difficulty: Medium
8-11. Chapter 8 discusses the term “graded structure” in connection with the prototype theory of semantic memory. The best example of this term is a. b. c.
the observation that we frequently make spontaneous generalizations. the structure of our knowledge during the tip-of-the-tongue effect. the arrangement of words in a specific category, from most prototypical to least prototypical. d. the fact that the terms “concept” and “category” are related but somewhat different from each other. Answer: c Section Ref: Background and Approaches to Semantic Memory Difficulty: Medium
8-12. The category “animal” has a graded structure, which means that a. most of the examples are well known to the general public. b. the members of that category are not all equally representative of that category. c. procedural knowledge is more important than declarative knowledge. d. there is a family resemblance among the members of this category. Answer: b Section Ref: Background and Approaches to Semantic Memory Difficulty: Easy
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Chapter 8: General Knowledge
Page 5 of 29
8-13. If you have just heard the word vegetable, you can quickly make judgments about the word carrot; in contrast, your judgments about the word mushroom take much longer. According to the prototype approach, this observation shows that a. family resemblance is stronger for prototypes than for nonprototypes. b. prototypes are items that have the smallest number of connection weights. c. after priming, people respond faster to prototypes than to nonprototypes. d. basic-level categories are judged more quickly than superordinate-level categories. Answer: c Section Ref: Background and Approaches to Semantic Memory Difficulty: Medium
8-14. Suppose that you and a friend have been discussing cognitive psychology. You are more likely to respond quickly to the concept “semantic memory” than if you had been discussing basketball. This would be an example of a. the false alarm effect. b. the network effect c. the prototype effect. d. the semantic priming effect. Answer: d Section Ref: Background and Approaches to Semantic Memory Difficulty: Medium
8-15. Research on the idea of “family resemblance” has demonstrated that a.
in a family resemblance category, there must be at least one attribute that is shared by all examples of that concept. b. a prototype is equivalent to a family resemblance category. c. in a family resemblance category, each example has at least one attribute in common with some other example of the concept. d. family resemblance categories are artificial, and they are found more often in the laboratory than in real life. Answer: c Section Ref: Background and Approaches to Semantic Memory Difficulty: Easy
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Chapter 8: General Knowledge
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8-16. Which of the following is an example of a subordinate-level category? a. b. c. d.
Apple Macintosh computer Computer Electronic devices Things you find in an office
Answer: a Section Ref: Background and Approaches to Semantic Memory Difficulty: Medium
8-17. The category “Bartlett pear” is a a. episodic-memory category. b. superordinate-level category. c. basic-level category. d. subordinate-level category. Answer: d Section Ref: Background and Approaches to Semantic Memory Difficulty: Medium
8-18. The category “furniture” is a a. prototype. b. superordinate-level category. c. basic-level category. d. subordinate-level category. Answer: b Section Ref: Background and Approaches to Semantic Memory Difficulty: Medium
8-19. According to the discussion of categories, the basic level of reference has special status. This means that a. b.
the basic level is more likely than other levels to show family resemblance. basic-level names are used more often and they are more informative than the superordinate-level names. c. the basic level is the most general label that can be supplied. d. basic-level names are prototypes, whereas superordinate- and subordinate-level names are not. Answer: b
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Chapter 8: General Knowledge
Page 7 of 29
Section Ref: Background and Approaches to Semantic Memory Difficulty: Easy
8-20. Which of the following students has the most accurate information about the research on levels of categorization? a. b.
Stacy: “We use family-resemblance names in order to identify objects.” Midori: “Members of superordinate-level concepts are especially likely to produce the priming effect.” c. Scott: “Brain imaging research shows that the prefrontal cortex is activated when people judge superordinate terms; it is less active with basic-level terms.” d. Rasa: “Experts and novices both use basic-level terms more than subordinate-level terms.” Answer: c Section Ref: Background and Approaches to Semantic Memory Difficulty: Medium
8-21. Which of the following students provides the most accurate information about the prototype approach to semantic memory? a. b. c.
Elisabeth: “People store an abstract representation of each basic-level category.” Lester: “The prototype approach applies only to inanimate objects.” Horatio: “The data on the semantic-priming effect are not consistent with the prototype approach.” d. Joni: “Superordinate terms tend to activate different regions of the cortex from the regions activated by basic-level terms.” Answer: d Section Ref: Background and Approaches to Semantic Memory Difficulty: Medium
8-22. The prototype approach to semantic memory works especially well in which of the following conditions? a. b. c.
When applied to a group of items that have no single characteristic in common When explaining how we store details about each individual example of a category When accounting for why experts and nonexperts differ with respect to their use of subordinate-level categories d. When pointing out why people believe that some categories have clear-cut boundaries, rather than fuzzy boundaries Answer: a
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Chapter 8: General Knowledge
Page 8 of 29
Section Ref: Background and Approaches to Semantic Memory Difficulty: Hard
8-23. Research by Novick examined whether the meaning of airplane changed for U.S. students around the time of the 2001 terrorist attacks. According to this research, a.
airplane became a more prototypical example of a vehicle shortly after the attacks, but it was judged less prototypical about 4 months later. b. the number of connection weights for airplane decreased at the time of the attacks, but soon afterwards, the number of connection weights increased. c. shortly after the attacks, airplane shifted from being a prototype to becoming an exemplar. d. for experts, the meaning of airplane changed significantly; for novices, the meaning remained stable. Answer: a Section Ref: Background and Approaches to Semantic Memory Difficulty: Easy
8-24. How do the prototype approach and the exemplar approach differ from each other? a. b.
The prototype approach emphasizes that all examples of a concept are equally good. The exemplar approach represents a concept in terms of many specific examples of a concept. c. The exemplar approach focuses on the most frequently encountered example of a concept. d. The exemplar approach argues that an exemplar is an idealized example, based on all members of a category. Answer: b Section Ref: Background and Approaches to Semantic Memory Difficulty: Easy
8-25. The exemplar approach to semantic memory proposes that a.
exemplars are stored at the basic level; nonexemplars are stored at the subordinate level. b. an exemplar is an idealized example of a category, derived by taking an average of the members of that category. c. experts make better use of exemplars, whereas novices make better use of prototypes. d. we store a number of examples for each concept; to classify a new stimulus, we compare it with this set of examples. Answer: d
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Chapter 8: General Knowledge
Page 9 of 29
Section Ref: Background and Approaches to Semantic Memory Difficulty: Medium
8-26. Which of the approaches to semantic memory emphasizes that our memory stores many specific members of a category? a. The prototype approach b. The schema approach c. The parallel distributed processing approach d. The exemplar approach Answer: d Section Ref: Background and Approaches to Semantic Memory Difficulty: Easy
8-27. The exemplar approach to concepts suggests that our categories are based on a. the most typical items. b. less typical items as well as highly typical items. c. family resemblance. d. the pattern of connections between the members of a category. Answer: b Section Ref: Background and Approaches to Semantic Memory Difficulty: Medium
8-28. Chapter 8 discussed in some detail the research by Heit and Barsalou about students’ understanding of the concept “animal.” If this research could be generalized to the concept “fruit,” you would expect to find that a.
experts considered prototypical fruits to be oranges and apples, whereas novices considered those fruits to be nonprototypical. b. the less common fruits would be more likely to show spontaneous generalization. c. the concept “fruit” includes some uncommon fruits as well as some prototypes. d. spreading activation is the most useful mechanism for understanding the meaning of “fruit.” Answer: c Section Ref: Background and Approaches to Semantic Memory Difficulty: Medium
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Chapter 8: General Knowledge
Page 10 of 29
8-29. Which of the following students provides the most accurate comparison between the prototype approach and the exemplar approach? a.
Tariq: “The prototype approach works well for concepts that are nouns, whereas the exemplar approach works well for concepts that are verbs, especially verbs that show action.” b. Clifford: “The prototype approach says that concepts are associated with one best example of a category; the exemplar approach says that concepts are associated with many specific examples of a category.” c. Ekaterina: “At first, researchers emphasized that these two approaches would be very different from each other; now researchers say that they are identical, when focusing on everyday objects and organisms.” d. Lynne: “The prototype approach emphasizes items that exist in real life; the exemplar approach emphasizes geometric figures that don’t exist in real life. Answer: b Section Ref: Background and Approaches to Semantic Memory Difficulty: Medium
8-30. The exemplar approach to semantic memory is especially relevant a. when you want to emphasize how various concepts are related to each other. b. when the categories are very fluid and not very clearly defined. c. when all of the items are low-frequency nouns. d. when a category has a relatively small number of members. Answer: d Section Ref: Background and Approaches to Semantic Memory Difficulty: Medium
8-31. When we compare network models with the prototype approach, we find that network models a. b. c. d.
place more emphasis on a graded structure. are better in describing how prototypical items are processed. make better use of the sentence verification technique. are more likely to emphasize how different members of a category are related to one another. Answer: d Section Ref: Network Models of Semantic Memory Difficulty: Easy
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Chapter 8: General Knowledge
Page 11 of 29
8-32. According to the network models of semantic memory, a.
activation expands from the node that has been activated, extending outward to other related nodes. b. only a small number of nodes are connected with other nodes c. nonprototypes are just as important as prototypes. d. each item is compared with a prototype to determine the category to which it belongs. Answer: a Section Ref: Network Models of Semantic Memory Difficulty: Easy
8-33. According to your textbook, Anderson’s ACT-R theory a. b.
is broader in scope than the prototype approach or the exemplar approach. points out that higher mental processes require insight and the reorganization of large bodies of information. c. emphasizes that procedural knowledge is roughly comparable to semantic memory. d. argues that semantic memory is basically organized into a series of hierarchies. Answer: a Section Ref: Network Models of Semantic Memory Difficulty: Medium
8-34. According to the discussion in Chapter 8, John Anderson’s ACT-R theory a. b.
focuses on discovering how experts and novices categorize new objects. explains how working memory processes semantic information; however, ACT-R theory is not currently concerned with the way this information is stored in longterm memory. c. proposes that each concept in semantic memory can be described in terms of a list of characteristics that its members must possess. d. attempts to explain processes such as language, reasoning and decision making—in addition to semantic memory. Answer: d Section Ref: Network Models of Semantic Memory Difficulty: Easy
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Chapter 8: General Knowledge
Page 12 of 29
8-35. According to John Anderson’s theories of semantic memory and other aspects of cognitive processes, a. b. c. d.
each of the components of cognition operates independently. every concept in a proposition can be represented by a network of connections. the term spreading activation refers to our knowledge about facts and things. each item in semantic memory is listed according to its appropriate graded structure. Answer: b Section Ref: Network Models of Semantic Memory Difficulty: Medium
8-36. According to Anderson and colleagues, the smallest unit of knowledge that people can judge to be either true or false is called a a. b. c. d.
schema. proposition. prototype. exemplar.
Answer: b Section Ref: Network Models of Semantic Memory Difficulty: Easy
8-37. Which of the following is the best example of a single proposition? a. b. c. d.
Actor Alan Rickman portrayed “Snape” in the Harry Potter movies. Author Dean Koontz has written many best-selling suspense novels. The Chicago Cubs baseball team play in ivy-covered Wrigley Field. Peter Dinklage is an actor.
Answer: d Section Ref: Network Models of Semantic Memory Difficulty: Medium
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Chapter 8: General Knowledge
Page 13 of 29
8-38. Which of the following students provides the best description for how John Anderson’s model of semantic memory accounts for our long-term learning? a. b.
Xianming: “By practicing, we can strengthen the links between two concepts.” Joan: “Working memory has a capacity that is potentially unlimited; learning basically increases the capacity of working memory.” c. Tashica: “If many links are activated at the same time, each of these links is greatly strengthened—even more than if only one link is activated.” d. Dan: “Through learning, our exemplars become increasingly strengthened.” Answer: a Section Ref: Network Models of Semantic Memory Difficulty: Hard
8-39. The parallel distributed processing approach would be most closely affiliated with which of the following approaches to semantic memory? a. Network models b. The prototype approach c. The exemplar approach d. The schema approach Answer: a Section Ref: Network Models of Semantic Memory Difficulty: Medium
8-40. In the name parallel distributed processing approach, the word distributed refers to a. the distribution of information across many locations in the brain. b. the distribution of attention while processing memorable material. c. spontaneous generalization, or remembering material that was not initially learned. d. the simultaneous processing of several ideas. Answer: a Section Ref: Network Models of Semantic Memory Difficulty: Easy
8-41. Which of the following descriptions serves as the best metaphor for the parallel distributed processing approach? a. A drawer with three compartments b. A computer that uses a serial approach. c. A net with many interconnections d. A safe that can be opened by only one combination code Answer: c
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Chapter 8: General Knowledge
Page 14 of 29
Section Ref: Network Models of Semantic Memory Difficulty: Medium
8-42. A basic principle that lies at the core of the parallel distributed processing approach is that a. b. c. d.
we cannot remember information unless it has been recently processed. the longer something remains in memory, the more likely it is to be forgotten. neuron-like units are connected with each other by a system of networks. material that we acquired intentionally will be retained better than material acquired by incidental learning. Answer: c Section Ref: Network Models of Semantic Memory Difficulty: Easy
8-43. According to the parallel distributed processing approach to semantic memory, a.
concepts are linked together in a chain, and activation can move down that chain while we are thinking about this concept. b. several patterns of activation can proceed at the same time. c. when we think about a particular concept, the nonprototypes are activated at the exact same time as the prototypes. d. each concept is associated with 10–12 stable attributes that do not change. Answer: b Section Ref: Network Models of Semantic Memory Difficulty: Easy
8-44. In explaining semantic memory, the parallel distributed processing approach a. b.
argues that we consider an item’s attributes one at a time. points out that we can often identify an object, even if one of the clues to that object’s identification is incorrect. c. proposes that human memory is more rigid than previous theories have suggested. d. emphasizes that the mind works in a linear fashion, moving from a stimulus to a response. Answer: b Section Ref: Network Models of Semantic Memory Difficulty: Easy
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Chapter 8: General Knowledge
Page 15 of 29
8-45. If an important component of your television set is defective, the television will not operate, even if all the other parts are in good working order. According to the parallel distributed processing approach, a.
memory is similar; for instance, if the short-term store is not working, an item will not be recalled. b. memory is similar; for instance, a defect in one component spreads to other components. c. memory is different; for instance, the functioning parts help to heal the defective part. d. memory is different; for instance, memory can often operate, even if some of the input is inappropriate. Answer: d Section Ref: Network Models of Semantic Memory Difficulty: Medium
8-46. In the parallel distributed processing approach, the concept called “spontaneous generalization” means that a.
the connection weights determine the level of activation that is passed between the nodes in a network. b. we make generalizations, based on a fairly large number of exemplars. c. we can use individual cases to draw conclusions about some general information. d. experts store information in nodes, whereas novices store them in individual neurons. Answer: c Section Ref: Network Models of Semantic Memory Difficulty: Easy
8-47. One of the major ideas behind the parallel distributed processing approach to memory is that a. b.
if one piece of information is missing, we cannot continue to perform the task. our memory for individuals is stored in terms of a hierarchy, from the most general to the most specific information. c. we can show spontaneous generalization, figuring out information about a group of people, based on information about the individual members of that group. d. general knowledge is stored in sensory memory and working memory, rather than in long-term memory. Answer: c
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Chapter 8: General Knowledge
Page 16 of 29
Section Ref: Network Models of Semantic Memory Difficulty: Easy
8-48. One feature of the parallel distributed processing approach is called spontaneous generalization. Which of the following is an example of this principle? a.
You can recall a person’s complete name more effectively when given a first name than when given a last name. b. You decide, based on people whom you know, that people from the Midwest are friendlier than people from New England. c. You can find someone’s house, even though you were told it was white, rather than pale yellow. d. You assign different connection weights to more recently acquired information than to information you acquired long ago. Answer: b Section Ref: Network Models of Semantic Memory Difficulty: Medium
8-49. Which concept can help to explain stereotyping? a. b. c. d.
Exemplars Priming Spontaneous generalization Connection weights
Answer: c Section Ref: Network Models of Semantic Memory Difficulty: Easy
8-50. According to the discussion of the parallel distributed processing approach to memory, the term default assignment means that a.
we can figure out missing information about someone or something, based on information about similar people or things. b. the item in the neural network that receives the greatest amount of stimulation receives the default assignment. c. when our information about something is defective or faulty, we seldom experience an activated network. d. we can use attributes (such as an object’s shape) to locate material in memory. Answer: a
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Chapter 8: General Knowledge
Page 17 of 29
Section Ref: Network Models of Semantic Memory Difficulty: Easy
8-51. The parallel distributed processing approach to memory accounts for the way people make default assignments. If you were to make a default assignment about a woman you do not know very well, you might a. assume that she is guilty of a crime, even if she is not. b. insist that you heard information about her, even if you did not. c. forget relevant information that you actually heard about her. d. believe that she is fairly sophisticated, because she comes from a large city. Answer: d Section Ref: Network Models of Semantic Memory Difficulty: Medium
8-52. According to the parallel distributed processing model of semantic memory, how does spontaneous generalization differ from default assignment? a. b.
In spontaneous generalization, we make a more conscious effort to draw inferences. In spontaneous generalization, we can only account for conditioning (e.g., classical conditioning), whereas default assignment is a more sophisticated process. c. Spontaneous generalization takes place in long-term memory; default assignment takes place in working memory. d. In spontaneous generalization, we draw a conclusion about an entire category; in default assignment, we draw a conclusion about one member of a category. Answer: d Section Ref: Network Models of Semantic Memory Difficulty: Easy
8-53. Which of the following statements about the parallel distributed processing approach is correct? a.
When one unit is stimulated, all the units that are connected with it are simultaneously inhibited. b. When one unit is stimulated, all the other units are automatically given a default assignment. c. When one unit reaches an appropriate activation level, it can either inhibit or excite other units to which it is connected. d. At any given time, numerous serial operations are proceeding at the same time through several portions of the cortex. Answer: c
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Chapter 8: General Knowledge
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Section Ref: Network Models of Semantic Memory Difficulty: Easy
8-54. In the parallel distributed processing approach, learning basically involves a. graceful degradation. b. spontaneous inhibition of default assignments. c. spontaneous generalization to new nodes in the network. d. the strengthening of connections among relevant nodes. Answer: d Section Ref: Network Models of Semantic Memory Difficulty: Hard
8-55. The parallel distributed processing approach a. b. c.
is not consistent with the neurological properties of the brain. is especially strong in explaining how we solve problems. provides a comprehensive explanation for our ability to remember earlier material, even though that material was replaced by more recent information. d. emphasizes the growth in the strength of connections among items during the process of learning. Answer: d Section Ref: Network Models of Semantic Memory Difficulty: Medium
8-56. Suppose you meet someone, and you can recall both her face and her name, but you cannot recall exactly where you first met her. In terms of parallel distributed processing, this phenomenon would be called a. graceful degradation. b. reassignment of connection weights. c. spontaneous generalization. d. a default assignment. Answer: a Section Ref: Network Models of Semantic Memory Difficulty: Medium
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8-57. Suppose you are thinking about a male student whom you met during your first year of college. You can recall that he knew your high school English teacher, that he didn’t like his roommate, that he was average height and weight, and he wore glasses—but you cannot remember his name. This situation is an example of a. graceful degradation. b. spontaneous generalization. c. serial processing. d. default assignment. Answer: a Section Ref: Network Models of Semantic Memory Difficulty: Medium
8-58. What is the current status of the parallel distributed processing approach? a.
It was popular when the Atkinson–Shiffrin model was judged to be too rigid, but it is no longer prominent. b. Research shows that it has no neurological support. c. Many cognitive psychologists are hopeful that PDP research may provide important links between psychology and neuroscience. d. It is so limited in scope that it probably will not remain popular for long. Answer: c Section Ref: Network Models of Semantic Memory Difficulty: Hard
8-59. Which of the following students’ statements represents the best understanding of the concept of schemas? a.
Rosario: “Schemas are typically counterproductive, causing more errors than correct responses.” b. Dean: “Schemas help us anticipate what will happen in a situation.” c. Angelique: “Schemas refer to the order in which events occur, whereas scripts refer to the general characteristics of a situation.” d. Edgar: “Schemas are especially well developed for nonprototypical items.” Answer: b Section Ref: Schemas and Scripts Difficulty: Easy
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Chapter 8: General Knowledge
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8-60. According to the discussion of schemas in Chapter 8, a.
a schema applies to your generalized knowledge, such as knowledge about how to register for classes at your college. b. a schema can be divided into smaller units of knowledge, called “scripts.” c. each person in a particular culture has a schema for an everyday event that is very different from other people’s schemas for that event. d. in most cases, a schema can be directly converted to an exemplar. Answer: a Section Ref: Schemas and Scripts Difficulty: Easy
8-61. Which of the following concepts is most closely associated with the term schema? a. Heuristic b. Nonprototype c. Serial processing d. Exemplar Answer: a Section Ref: Schemas and Scripts Difficulty: Easy
8-62. Suppose that you hear that Dr. Angela Smith is a clinical psychologist who uses schema therapy. You would expect that she is likely to work with clients by a.
figuring out some helpful new schemas that can replace harmful schemas that they had learned in the past. b. asking them to listen to a series of words, each time supplying a word that is consistent with a schema. c. trying to classify each person’s psychological disorder according to a carefully developed set of schemas. d. encouraging them to classify a series of ambiguous images. Answer: a Section Ref: Schemas and Scripts Difficulty: Medium
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8-63. You walk into a movie theater lobby and are surprised to see a rack of clothing on sale in a corner. Your surprise is due to your _____ about movie theater lobbies. a. b. c. d.
exemplars parallel processes schema tip-of-the-tongue effect
Answer: c Section Ref: Schemas and Scripts Difficulty: Medium
8-64. If you are buying concert tickets at a box office, there are certain procedures and interactions that occur in a standard fashion. This sequence of events is known as a. a script. b. parallel distributed processing. c. family resemblance. d. an inference. Answer: a Section Ref: Schemas and Scripts Difficulty: Medium
8-65. Suppose that you want to bring your car to a garage for repairs. This procedure requires you to call for an appointment, drive to the appropriate location, leave your keys, and arrange for a time when you will return for your car. Cognitive psychologists call this sequence of actions a. an exemplar. b. a script. c. a family resemblance. d. a graded structure. Answer: b Section Ref: Schemas and Scripts Difficulty: Medium
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8-66. According to the research on scripts, a. b. c.
the structure of a script is very similar to the structure of a prototype. scripts do not seem to have a specific chronological structure. a person’s recall is enhanced if a script is identified at the beginning of a description. d. experts and novices have similar understanding of a script’s structure. Answer: c Section Ref: Schemas and Scripts Difficulty: Easy
8-67. People tend to recall the events in a script more accurately if a. they have not personally experienced the events described in the script. b. the script is first generalized into a schema. c. the script is identified at the beginning of the description. d. the script is not a prototype. Answer: c Section Ref: Schemas and Scripts Difficulty: Easy
8-68. Chapter 8 described a study in which participants stayed briefly in an office. Later, their recall showed that a. b.
when people have a schema for a scene, their recall is typically accurate. people with little expertise on a topic are likely to have particularly clear-cut schemas for that topic. c. people are likely to recall objects and events that are consistent with the schema. d. schemas usually reduce our memory accuracy. Answer: c Section Ref: Schemas and Scripts Difficulty: Easy
8-69. Suppose that some research participants are asked to remember a story. Furthermore, this story contains some particularly vivid and surprising material that is not consistent with a standard schema. The participants would be most likely a. to show spreading activation to schema-inconsistent material. b. to emphasize prototypical information. c. to prefer scripts to schemas. d. to recall the schema-inconsistent material. Answer: d
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Section Ref: Schemas and Scripts Difficulty: Medium
8-70. People are especially likely to remember schema-inconsistent material when a. this material is ordinary and routine. b. this material flows naturally from the earlier material c. this material is not relevant for people’s lives. d. this material is surprising. Answer: d Section Ref: Schemas and Scripts Difficulty: Easy
8-71. Suppose you are sitting in an art class, and you have been instructed to draw from memory the scene you see from a window in your own bedroom. Although you cannot actually see the top of a tree through the bedroom window, you still draw the complete tree. The error you have committed is called a. episodic memory. b. boundary extension. c. change blindness. d. a script error. Answer: b Section Ref: Schemas and Scripts Difficulty: Medium
8-72. Imagine that you are taking an art history course. You’re thinking about a painting that you liked, especially because the artist captured a woman’s facial expression very skillfully. You remember that you saw this woman’s entire face, but then you check the painting. Actually, part of her face is hidden from view. What concept in the description of schemas is most similar to this incident? a. The pragmatic approach b. A script c. An implicit-memory task d. Boundary extension Answer: d Section Ref: Schemas and Scripts Difficulty: Medium
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8-73. Think about the various approaches to general knowledge, as discussed in Chapter 8. Which of these approaches is most closely related to the concept of boundary extension? a. The prototype approach b. The exemplar approach c. The parallel distributed processing (PDP) approach d. The schema approach Answer: d Section Ref: Schemas and Scripts Difficulty: Medium
8-74. In what way is the topic of boundary extension related to the topic of schemas? a. b.
Both of them describe a sequence of events that occur in a predictable order. Both refer to situations where we can fill in missing information, either visual information or verbal information. c. In both cases, we tend to recall schema-inconsistent information more accurately than schema-consistent information. d. In both cases, the exemplar approach to semantic memory is more useful than the prototype approach to semantic memory. Answer: b Section Ref: Schemas and Scripts Difficulty: Hard
8-75. Which of the following students provides the most accurate description of the way that boundary extension might operate in eyewitness testimony? a.
Daniel: “Each time the eyewitness retells the story, the boundary becomes increasingly well defined.” b. Nora: “In reality monitoring, eyewitnesses have difficulty establishing the boundary between events that actually happened and events that they simply imagined.” c. Dora María: “A lawyer can carefully manipulate the questions, so that eyewitnesses remember the inferences, rather than events that actually happened.” d. Augusto: “Eyewitnesses may believe that they saw a person’s entire face, when part of the face was actually blocked from view.” Answer: d Section Ref: Schemas and Scripts Difficulty: Medium
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8-76. According to research on memory for interrelated sentences, a. b. c.
people recall hearing many sentences that were never actually presented. people’s verbatim memory is generally close to perfect. people often believe that they have heard a sentence before, even if the meaning of that sentence is very different from the original. d. several minutes after the material has been presented, people usually cannot remember the general meaning of that material. Answer: a Section Ref: Schemas and Scripts Difficulty: Medium
8-77. Suppose that a friend missed class and asks you to tell him, word for word, about the professor’s description of the next assignment. Your description captures the basic message, even though none of your sentences are precisely what your professor said. This phenomenon is a good example of a. abstraction. b. boundary extension. c. change blindness. d. a script. Answer: a Section Ref: Schemas and Scripts Difficulty: Medium
8-78. According to the constructive model of memory, a.
people construct a hypothesis about what they expect to hear, and this concept guides speech perception. b. listeners integrate information from individual sentences in order to construct more complex ideas. c. sentences are joined together in memory, though the elements can be easily untangled. d. we construct the meaning of a sentence by analyzing the sentence’s components. Answer: b Section Ref: Schemas and Scripts Difficulty: Medium
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8-79. Suppose that a researcher conducts a study on schemas. The results demonstrate that the participants blended information together from several sentences, rather than remembering the exact wording of each sentence. These results would support the a. constructive model of memory. b. exemplar view of concepts. c. family-resemblance approach to concepts. d. pragmatic view of memory. Answer: a Section Ref: Schemas and Scripts Difficulty: Medium
8-80. Suppose that you attend a lecture in which a psychologist says, “Memory is created by gathering together and integrating information from a variety of sources. After a memory has been formed, we cannot accurately recall the source of each memory component.” This speaker would be most likely to endorse the ______________ view of memory. a. constructive b. boundary-extension c. exemplar d. pragmatic Answer: a Section Ref: Schemas and Scripts Difficulty: Medium
8-81. According to the research about the constructive model of memory, a. b. c. d.
detailed information enters into our memory in a passive fashion. we frequently integrate information from several different sources. we typically pay attention to the exact wording of a verbal message. we typically over-emphasize family resemblance when deciding which information should be maintained. Answer: b Section Ref: Schemas and Scripts Difficulty: Medium
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8-82. The pragmatic view of memory proposes that a.
people typically pay attention to the gist of a story; however, if they realize that exact wording is important, they are likely to emphasize verbatim recall. b. people are more concerned with the politeness of a message than with its grammatical structure or the specific meaning in that message. c. people realize that researchers are going to be testing verbatim recall, so they pay much more attention to the specific words than they do in real-life situations. d. we tend to remember schema-inconsistent material more accurately than schemaconsistent material. Answer: a Section Ref: Schemas and Scripts Difficulty: Easy
8-83. In the classic research on inferences, Sir Frederick Bartlett told British students a Native American story. In this research, the students a. b. c.
had especially vivid memory for the details that did not match British folk tales. had surprisingly strong verbatim memory for most of the information in the story. initially omitted some details that did not match British folk tales, and they omitted even more of these unusual details several days afterwards. d. had poor recall initially for most components of the story, but they recalled the details better several days afterwards. Answer: c Section Ref: Schemas and Scripts Difficulty: Easy
8-84. Researchers have conducted studies about memory for inferences related to gender stereotypes. According to tests that assess explicit memory, a.
people actually remember a greater percentage of items that are the opposite of the common gender stereotype. b. people take the pragmatic approach in processing the material, and they recall the exact wording of the original material. c. in the current era, people apparently no longer hold gender stereotypes. d. people tend to recall gender-stereotyped material somewhat better than nonstereotyped material. Answer: d Section Ref: Schemas and Scripts Difficulty: Easy
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8-85. Psychologists have conducted research on implicit measures of gender stereotyping. This research shows that people typically respond in a stereotyped fashion a. on a measure of event-related potential and on the Implicit Association Test. b. on a measure of event-related potential, but not on the Implicit Association Test. c. on the Implicit Association Test, but not on a measure of event-related potential. d. on neither a measure of event-related potential nor on the Implicit Association Test. Answer: a Section Ref: Schemas and Scripts Difficulty: Medium
8-86. Suppose that researchers want to determine whether young college students have stereotypes about elderly people. An implicit measure of stereotyping would be better than an explicit measure because a.
an implicit measure would be less influenced by people’s tendency to supply a socially appropriate answer. b. the norms are more accurate if they are based on implicit measures. c. people’s schemas would have greater influence on implicit measures. d. the pragmatic view of memory would interfere with an explicit measure. Answer: a Section Ref: Schemas and Scripts Difficulty: Medium
8-87. What can we conclude about the role of schemas in memory? a. b.
In general, schemas seldom operate in memory during adulthood. Schemas often operate; however, we sometimes remember material that is not consistent with a schema. c. When people have normally functioning memory processes, schemas consistently operate in memory. d. Schemas operate consistently in our everyday experiences, though we find little evidence for them in the laboratory. Answer: b Section Ref: Schemas and Scripts Difficulty: Hard
8-88. Which of the following statements presents the most accurate view of how schemas operate in memory? a. Schemas can only operate in the initial selection of material to encode; they do not affect the integration process.
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Schemas are so powerful that we never remember information that is inconsistent with our schemas. Schemas are particularly influential in the remembering of visual scenes. We store all memories in abstract fashion, losing the details of the exact words of the original presentation.
Answer: c Section Ref: Schemas and Scripts Difficulty: Medium
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CHAPTER 9: Language I: Introduction to Language and Language Comprehension
9-1.
According to Chapter 9, a.
the speaking vocabulary of the average North American is between 10,000 and 12,000 words. b. it would take about 2,000 times the age of the earth to say all the potential 20-word English sentences that could be generated. c. whereas memory is an active process, language comprehension is primarily passive. d. the term syntax refers to the sound of spoken language. Answer: b Section Ref: Overview of Psycholinguistics Difficulty: Easy
9-2.
According to the introduction on language comprehension (Chapter 9), a.
language requires very little active processing of information; language comprehension is primarily automatic. b. language can be described in terms of a relatively small number of specific tasks. c. language is not closely related to other cognitive tasks. d. we consult our background knowledge, which is related to language, so we can understand complex ideas. Answer: d Section Ref: Overview of Psycholinguistics Difficulty: Easy
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Units of language such as pre-, sound and -s are known as
a. phonemes. b. morphemes. c. syntax. d. semantics. Answer: b Section Ref: Overview of Psycholinguistics Difficulty: Medium
9-4.
The basic units of meaning in a language are known as
a. words. b. phonemes. c. morphemes. d. syntax. Answer: c Section Ref: Overview of Psycholinguistics Difficulty: Easy
9-5.
You have learned that if you want to combine a noun such as girl with a verb such as run, the noun precedes the verb, and you must add an s to form girl runs. The rules that govern this kind of procedure are known as
a. semantics. b. phonemics. c. pragmatics. d. grammar. Answer: d Section Ref: Overview of Psycholinguistics Difficulty: Medium
9-6.
________ refers to how we combine morphemes into words, whereas ________ refers to how we organize words into sentences.
a. morphology; syntax b. pragmatics; syntax c. syntax; morphology d. syntax; grammar Answer: a
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Section Ref: Overview of Psycholinguistics Difficulty: Medium
9-7. Which of the following is an example of a phoneme? a. b. c. d.
Psychology “I before E, except after C” th Dogs bark
Answer: c Section Ref: Overview of Psycholinguistics Difficulty: Medium
9-8.
Suppose that you are walking on your college campus, and a stranger asks you how to get to the library. Before answering, you need to figure out whether this person is familiar with any of the landmarks on the campus. Your concern about background information is most relevant for the aspect of language known as
a. phonemes b. semantics. c. syntax. d. pragmatics. Answer: d Section Ref: Overview of Psycholinguistics Difficulty: Medium
9-9.
A key point in Noam Chomsky’s approach to psycholinguistics is an emphasis on
a. how children learn language by operant conditioning. b. how each language in the world has its own unique set of rules about syntax. c. how humans have language skills that are inborn. d. how language is closely connected with other cognitive skills. Answer: c Section Ref: Overview of Psycholinguistics Difficulty: Easy
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9-10. In the sentence, “Chris called up the psychology professor,” what is the surface structure? a. “Chris called professor.” b. “The psychology professor was called up by Chris.” c. “Chris called up the psychology professor.” d. “Chris (subject) called up (verb) the psychology professor (object).” Answer: c Section Ref: Overview of Psycholinguistics Difficulty: Medium
9-11. According to Chomsky’s approach, the relationship between “The dog chased the cat” and “The cat was chased by the dog” can be described as a. b. c. d.
one deep structure with two surface structures two deep structures with one surface structure two deep structures and two surface structures two deep structures linked by a transformational rule
Answer: a Section Ref: Overview of Psycholinguistics Difficulty: Medium
9-12. According to Chomsky’s approach to language, a. b.
the words that are actually spoken are called deep structure. if two sentences have similar surface structure, they must also have similar deep structure. c. ambiguity arises when a surface structure has two different deep structures. d. when two different surface structures have the same deep structure, the two surface structures are called prototypes. Answer: c Section Ref: Overview of Psycholinguistics Difficulty: Easy
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9-13. Chapter 9 discussed Noam Chomsky’s theories about language. According to this discussion, a. b.
Chomsky’s theories emphasize that humans have inborn skills in language. Chomsky’s theories were useful to behaviorists, because his theories made predictions about observable language behavior. c. Chomsky argues that children’s language acquisition is possible because of their sophisticated working memory. d. Chomsky argues that children’s language skills depend on the linguistic rules that their parents teach them. Answer: a Section Ref: Overview of Psycholinguistics Difficulty: Easy
9-14. According to Chomsky, sentences such as “Teddy ate the broccoli” and “The broccoli was eaten by Teddy” are related through a. surface structure rules. b. transformational rules. c. pragmatic rules. d. ambiguity processes. Answer: b Section Ref: Overview of Psycholinguistics Difficulty: Easy
9-15. According to the cognitive-functional approach to language, a. b.
we need to explore how morphology has implications for syntax. people have strong, explicit knowledge about the way they understand and create language. c. the purpose of language is to convey meaning to other people. d. language is a unique skill, and it is not really related to other cognitive processes such as attention and memory. Answer: c Section Ref: Overview of Psycholinguistics Difficulty: Easy
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9-16. The cognitive-functional approach to language emphasizes that a.
speakers typically use language skillfully, which helps listeners to pay attention to the most important part of a message. b. speakers realize that people are especially skilled at understanding nested language. c. linguistic information is processed by isolated parts of the brain that are not connected with other brain regions. d. the right hemisphere of the brain functions differently than the left hemisphere. Answer: a Section Ref: Overview of Psycholinguistics Difficulty: Medium
9-17. Which of the following topics would be most relevant for a psychologist who favors the cognitive-functional approach to language? a.
What kind of cues do listeners pick up on when determining whether a speaker is very enthusiastic about an idea, rather than just mildly enthusiastic? b. What kinds of rules do people use when they want to determine the deep structure of an ambiguous sentence? c. What is the function of each of the language areas of the brain, with respect to reading a question and formulating an answer? d. When do listeners take a modular approach to language, and when do they integrate language with other cognitive processes (e.g., memory and problem solving)? Answer: a Section Ref: Overview of Psycholinguistics Difficulty: Medium
9-18. According to the research on understanding sentences, a. b.
negative sentences are easier to understand than affirmative sentences. when a sentence has several negative terms, people’s understanding of the sentence is only slightly better than guessing or chance level. c. ambiguous sentences are easy to understand, unless they are in the passive voice. d. the voice of a sentence (active vs. passive) does not influence understanding. Answer: b Section Ref: On-line Sentence Comprehension Difficulty: Easy
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9-19. Which of the following statements about the passive voice is correct? a.
A sentence using the passive voice typically has a very different meaning than a sentence using the active voice. b. We use the passive voice and the active voice equally often in English. c. People understand a sentence more quickly if the sentence is active, rather than passive. d. Writing manuals often encourage scientists to write in the passive voice in order to appear more scholarly. Answer: c Section Ref: On-line Sentence Comprehension Difficulty: Easy
9-20. Which of the following sentences should be easiest to comprehend? a. b. c. d.
My cat Lupin chased the mouse under the sofa. The mouse was chased under the sofa by my cat, Lupin. The cat that chased the mouse was named Lupin. Heather denied that her cat did not chase the mouse.
Answer: a Section Ref: On-line Sentence Comprehension Difficulty: Medium
9-21. When processing language, we begin making judgments about what the sentence means before we have heard (or read) the entire sentence. This is referred to as a. b. c. d.
passive voicing. lexical ambiguity. incremental interpretation. transformation.
Answer: c Section Ref: On-line Sentence Comprehension Difficulty: Easy
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9-22. Leslie is participating in an experiment in which she presses the spacebar on a computer keyboard in order to see one word of a sentence at a time. Her reaction time to process each individual word is measured. This procedure is an example of a a. b. c. d.
self-paced reading task. off-line language processing task. lexical masking task. syntactic processing task.
Answer: a Section Ref: On-line Sentence Comprehension Difficulty: Medium
9-23. In a self-paced reading task, participants read either Sentence A: “The teacher that criticized the student apologized” or Sentence B: “The teacher that the student criticized apologized.” Because of the more complex syntax, participants who read Sentence B should show greater reaction time than participants who read Sentence A to which of the following words? a. b. c. d.
teacher criticized student apologized
Answer: b Section Ref: On-line Sentence Comprehension Difficulty: Hard
9-24. You hear that a friend works in a “small machinery store,” and you do not know whether “small” describes the size of the store or the size of the machinery in the store. This situation is called a. indirect access. b. a nested structure. c. pragmatics. d. ambiguity. Answer: d Section Ref: On-line Sentence Comprehension Difficulty: Medium
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9-25. When a sentence in a written passage contains an ambiguous word, a.
people typically do not notice the ambiguity until they have finished reading the entire sentence. b. people apparently access only the best-known meaning of that word. c. people are highly unlikely to notice that the word may be ambiguous. d. people typically pause while they process the ambiguous word. Answer: d Section Ref: On-line Sentence Comprehension Difficulty: Easy
9-26. Which of the following is true about sentences that are grammatically complex? a. b. c.
They make fewer demands on a reader’s memory resources. They are very infrequent in language. Even when people are given practice with complex sentences, they do not improve their processing speed. d. Highly experienced readers actually experience less processing difficult with complex grammar than they do with simple grammar. Answer: b Section Ref: On-line Sentence Comprehension Difficulty: Medium
9-27. According to the current explanation for how we process an ambiguous word, a.
we typically ignore ambiguity until after we have completely processed the sentence. b. context constrains the activation of alternative meanings from the very beginning of processing. Therefore, many alternative meanings are never really considered. c. activation builds up equally for all meanings of an ambiguous item. d. initially activation builds up for the most familiar meanings of a word; then context helps to eliminate the irrelevant meanings. Answer: d Section Ref: On-line Sentence Comprehension Difficulty: Medium
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9-28. The fact that a “bat” could be a flying mammal or a necessary tool to play baseball is an example of a. syntactic ambiguity. b. lexical ambiguity. c. the lack of proper rules in the English language d. pragmatics. Answer: b Section Ref: On-line Sentence Comprehension Difficulty: Medium
9-29. Eye tracking studies such as the experiment by Tanenhaus and colleagues suggest that our interpretation of the grammar of a sentence a. b. c. d.
depends primarily on our level of experience with the language’s syntax. depends on the linguistic context of the sentence within a paragraph or story. can be influenced by nonlinguistic context such as the visual environment. cannot be influenced by nonlinguistic environments unless one’s knowledge of the language is weak.
Answer: c Section Ref: On-line Sentence Comprehension Difficulty: Easy
9-30. According to the good-enough processing approach, a. b. c.
we frequently process only part of a sentence. we initially process only one meaning of an ambiguous word. we frequently misinterpret sentences because we misrepresent syntactical ambiguities. d. people work hard to create the most accurate, detailed interpretation of every sentence that they read or hear. Answer: a
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Section Ref: On-line Sentence Comprehension Difficulty: Easy
9-31. Tierney uses neuroscientific testing methods to examine the underlying brain structures and systems that support language. Her discipline would most accurately be described as a. b. c. d.
cognitive neuroscience. linguistic neurology. neurolinguistics. psycholinguistics.
Answer: c Section Ref: Brain and Language Difficulty: Easy
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9-32. During the past decade, researchers have increasingly used the ____ technique to investigate language in humans. a. b. c. d.
lesioning ERP functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) eye tracking
Answer: c Section Ref: Brain and Language Difficulty: Easy
9-33. Which of the following techniques is used to provide precise information about the timecourse of linguistic processing events? a. b. c. d.
lesioning ERP functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) eye tracking
Answer: b Section Ref: Brain and Language Difficulty: Easy
9-34. Suppose that you are working with an elderly woman who had a stroke. She is looking at her radio, and you ask her if the radio is broken. With great effort, she says, “Not working.” Based on this information, you would most likely suspect that she has a. pragmatic difficulties. b. Broca’s aphasia. c. Wernicke's aphasia. d. retrograde amnesia. Answer: b Section Ref: Brain and Language Difficulty: Medium
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9-35. Suppose that you ask a stranger what time it is, and he produces several wordy sentences that don’t seem to make sense. Without knowing additional information, you would suspect that he has a. Wernicke’s aphasia. b. Broca’s aphasia. c. retrograde amnesia. d. dyslexia. Answer: a Section Ref: Brain and Language Difficulty: Medium
9-36. Which of the following students’ statements provides the best summary of the information on aphasia? a.
Uma: “People with Broca’s aphasia have trouble expressing language; their language comprehension is normal.” b. John: “Contrary to popular opinion, Broca’s aphasia and Wernicke’s aphasia are virtually identical.” c. Lata: “People with Wernicke’s aphasia produce large quantities of speech, but it often doesn’t make sense; they also have trouble understanding speech.” d. Suzanne: “People with Wernicke’s aphasia can understand instructions that involve a sequence of actions; people with Broca’s aphasia cannot understand this kind of message.” Answer: c Section Ref: Brain and Language Difficulty: Medium
9-37. Neurolinguists have demonstrated that _________ is active when people complete a Stroop task, and also when people process syntactically ambiguous sentences. a. b. c. d.
Wernicke’s area Broca’s area the right temporal lobe the right frontal lobe
Answer: b Section Ref: Brain and Language Difficulty: Easy
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9-38. According to the discussion of neurolinguistics, a.
for most people—but not all—language is primarily localized in the left hemisphere of the brain. b. for most people—but not all—language is primarily localized in the right hemisphere of the brain. c. for most right-handers, language is localized in the right hemisphere of the brain. d. for most people, language is processed almost identically by both hemispheres. Answer: a Section Ref: Brain and Language Difficulty: Easy
9-39. In general, the right hemisphere of the brain is more likely than the left hemisphere to emphasize a. speech perception. b. the interpretation of the emotional tone of a message. c. the division of a word into morphemes. d. the concrete information conveyed in a sentence. Answer: b Section Ref: Brain and Language Difficulty: Easy
9-40. Suppose that a friend asks you, “Is it true that the left hemisphere of the brain handles all language processing tasks?” Your response should be, a.
“Yes, because research shows that the right hemisphere processes spatial information, rather than linguistic information.” b. “No, because the current research shows that both hemispheres are equally important in processing language.” c. “Sort of, because the left hemisphere handles syntax and semantics, whereas, the right hemisphere handles speech perception.” d. “Sort of, because the left hemisphere typically handles a majority of language processing for most people, but the right hemisphere is important in interpreting abstract information.” Answer: d Section Ref: Brain and Language Difficulty: Medium
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9-41. Which of the following students provides the most accurate statement about neurolinguistics research? a.
Augusto: “In right-handed people, language is processed almost exclusively by the right hemisphere.” b. Heidi: “Right-handed people and left-handed people show very similar patterns of hemispheric specialization.” c. Esther: “Virtually all language tasks are performed by the left hemisphere of the brain; the right hemisphere does not play a substantial role in language processing.” d. Laura: “The left hemisphere handles most language tasks, but the right hemisphere processes some abstract components.” Answer: d Section Ref: Brain and Language Difficulty: Medium
9-42. When the fMRI technique is used in studying language comprehension, a.
both the left and the right hemisphere are active, though their functions are somewhat different. b. people’s responses occur so quickly that the fMRI is not especially useful. c. the results reveal that people who have experienced strokes show remarkably normal patterns of brain activity. d. the results reinforce the conclusion that language tasks are handled exclusively by the left hemisphere. Answer: a Section Ref: Brain and Language Difficulty: Hard
9-43. Chapter 9 describes the mirror system. This system could be relevant in neurolinguistics because mirror neurons: a. are especially important when we want to produce language. b. may allow some access to languages other than English. c. may be especially active when we listen to speech in a noisy setting. d. illustrate a new strategy for assessing lateralization. Answer: c Section Ref: Brain and Language Difficulty: Easy
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9-44. According to the introductory discussion of the reading process, a. b. c. d.
reading appears to be a modular process. the average adult reads at the rate of about 100 words per minute. reading is a process that relies on a variety of other cognitive skills. most people can introspect accurately about the cognitive processes required when they read an isolated sentence. Answer: c Section Ref: Reading Difficulty: Easy
9-45. English is more challenging than many other world languages because: a. English words are much longer. b. English grammar is more challenging. c. English words are more difficult to recognize when they are spoken. d. English words have a greater number of irregular pronunciations. Answer: d Section Ref: Reading Difficulty: Easy
9-46. Languages like Russian or Spanish are considered easier to read than English because a.
Russian and Spanish have a one-to-one correspondence between letters of the alphabet and speech sounds. b. Russian and Spanish have fewer irregular grammatical structures. c. Russian and Spanish alphabets have fewer letters than the English alphabet does. d. Russian and Spanish words are shorter, on the average. Answer: a Section Ref: Reading Difficulty: Easy
9-47. In contrast to written language, spoken language is especially likely a. to be spread out across space. b. to be controllable with respect to the rate of input. c. to require the use of working memory. d. to have discrete boundaries between words. Answer: c
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Section Ref: Reading Difficulty: Easy
9-48. Which of the following students provides the most accurate statement comparing reading and the comprehension of spoken language? a.
Courtney: “The processes of reading and comprehending spoken language are remarkably similar, and involve the same brain processes.” b. Tomas: “Readers can see discrete boundaries between words, whereas listeners often encounter unclear boundaries in spoken language.” c. Maria-Carla: “Children require elaborate teaching to master both written and spoken languages.” d. Eric: “Adult readers typically learn new words more quickly when they appear in a spoken form, rather than a written form.” Answer: b Section Ref: Reading Difficulty: Medium
9-49. In contrast to spoken language, written language is more likely a. to be spread out across time. b. to allow re-scanning of the input. c. to be supplemented by nonverbal cues. d. to reveal a continuous flow of input, without discrete boundaries between the units. Answer: b Section Ref: Reading Difficulty: Easy
9-50. Part of Chapter 9 discusses a comparison between reading and listening to spoken language. When you read, you are a. more likely to encounter error-free language. b. more likely to encounter nonverbal cues. c. less likely to re-scan the language input. d. less likely to detect clear-cut boundaries between words. Answer: a Section Ref: Reading Difficulty: Easy
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9-51. If you use the direct-access route while reading, a. b.
you can recognize a word directly from its component sounds. you directly access easy words through the visual route; you directly access difficult words through the auditory route. c. your teacher probably emphasized how a word is pronounced. d. you can recognize a word based on the visual stimulus of the letters in a word. Answer: d Section Ref: Reading Difficulty: Medium
9-52. When readers use the direct-access route to recognizing written words, a.
they learn to distinguish between a letter’s distinctive features and its characteristic sound. b. they translate the visual stimuli into sound before locating a word’s meaning. c. they recognize each word’s syntactic function before they recognize its meaning. d. they recognize a word from the visual stimulus without having to translate first into sound. Answer: d Section Ref: Reading Difficulty: Easy
9-53. Chapter 9 discusses a study by Luo and his colleagues, in which people made semantic judgments about two-word sequences such as APPLE-PAIR. If the participants in this study judged that these two words were indeed semantically related, the results would support which of the following hypotheses about reading? a. The direct-access route b. The indirect-access route c. The modular hypothesis d. The cognitive-functional hypothesis Answer: b Section Ref: Reading Difficulty: Medium
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9-54. According to the research on the indirect-access route in reading, a.
readers cannot translate visual stimuli into sounds unless they have the benefit of context. b. children who can identify sounds in a word are likely to earn high scores on standardized reading tests. c. training in semantic skills is just as likely as training in phoneme skills to improve children’s ability to identify words. d. in general, children’s reading skills are somewhat poorer if they have been trained in phonics skills. Answer: b Section Ref: Reading Difficulty: Easy
9-55. Adults tend to read tongue twisters more slowly than other sentences of the same length and complexity. This observation a. supports the constructive approach to language. b. illustrates the importance of word boundaries in a reading task. c. illustrates the importance of context in determining the meaning of a word. d. supports the indirect-access route approach reading. Answer: d Section Ref: Reading Difficulty: Medium
9-56. Research on word recognition suggests that a.
word recognition can use either a direct or an indirect route, depending upon factors such as the skill level of the reader. b. poor readers need to translate written words into sound prior to recognition; good readers consistently recognize the printed words directly. c. written words must always be translated into sound prior to recognition; theorists agree on this particular principle. d. readers need to translate ambiguous words into sound; they recognize other words directly. Answer: a Section Ref: Reading Difficulty: Medium
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9-57. Which of the following students provides the most widely accepted perspective on word recognition? a.
Irving: “Beginning readers typically use the direct-access route; mature readers typically use the indirect-access route.” b. Isidoro: “Readers of all skill levels typically use the direct-access route. c. Anna: “Beginning readers are likely to operate according to the Atkinson–Shiffrin model; mature readers consistently use the direct-access route.” d. Jeanne: “Most theorists acknowledge that the dual-route explanation of reading is most consistent with the research.” Answer: d Section Ref: Reading Difficulty: Medium
9-58. Which of the following children is likely to have the lowest reading-accuracy score, assuming that each is “average” for their language group? a. a child who is learning to read German b. a child who is learning to read French c. a child who is learning to read English d. a child who is learning to read Portuguese Answer: c Section Ref: Reading Difficulty: Easy
9-59. The whole-word approach to teaching reading emphasizes that a. b. c.
readers directly connect a written word with the word’s meaning. we should emphasize the way that words sound. readers perceive the individual letters in the visual stimulus, so we should take a bottom-up approach to reading. d. beginning readers emphasize the whole word; advanced readers emphasize the sounds within each word. Answer: a Section Ref: Reading Difficulty: Easy
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9-60. Which of the following students provides the most accurate summary of the wholelanguage approach to reading? a.
Matthias: “Teachers should emphasize the meaning of a story, so that children would be eager to learn to read.” b. Mark: “Teachers should emphasize the gestalt of each word, in other words, the whole word, rather than just a collection of letters.” c. Becca: “Teachers should read interesting books to children, so that children can appreciate how stories are constructed.” d. KayLyn: “Teachers should provide extensive background information on a story, before the children try to read the text.” Answer: a Section Ref: Reading Difficulty: Medium
9-61. Imagine that you are listening to a reading researcher, who is discussing the approach that should use for elementary school children in the United States. Which of the following arguments are you most likely to hear? a.
“The phonics approach is best because it is most likely to encourage children’s motivation.” b. “The whole-word approach is best because English has a close correspondence between a word’s spelling and its sound.” c. “Neither the phonics nor the whole-word approach is effective, so the reading teachers are searching for a new approach.” d. “The phonics and the whole-word approach should be combined, because each approach provides some benefits.” Answer: d Section Ref: Reading Difficulty: Medium
9-62. When you read a section of your cognitive psychology textbook, you read language units that are longer than an isolated paragraph. This kind of language is called a. phonemes. b. discourse. c. pragmatics. d. schemas. Answer: b Section Ref: Discourse Comprehension Difficulty: Easy
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9-63. Which of the following research topics would be most likely to emphasize the discourse aspect of language? a.
Do people create shorter sentences when requesting something from a friend, rather than a stranger? b. At what age do children begin to create two-word phrases? c. Does the phonics approach increase children’s ability to pronounce English words? d. Under what circumstances will students be able to identify a theme in a short story? Answer: d Section Ref: Discourse Comprehension Difficulty: Medium
9-64. Imagine that you are reading a short story about two students named Chris and Freddie. As you read this story, you find that you are trying to figure out why Chris is avoiding Freddie, and how Freddie must feel about this avoidance. These cognitive efforts would be most consistent with which of the following views of reading? a. The indirect-access route b. The phonetic module hypothesis c. The constructionist view of inferences. d. Chomsky’s approach to psycholinguistics Answer: c Section Ref: Discourse Comprehension Difficulty: Medium
9-65. The phrase “theory of mind” refers to our tendency to a. try to figure out the mental state of other people in our lives. b. try to figure out our own motivation for our actions. c. analyze behavior in terms of rewards and punishments. d. emphasize the surface structure of language over the deep structure. Answer: a Section Ref: Discourse Comprehension Difficulty: Medium
9-66. When we make an inference during reading, we use our _____ in order to access information that is not explicitly stated in the written text. a. phonetic knowledge b. syntactic knowledge c. world knowledge d. logical reasoning ability Answer: c
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Section Ref: Discourse Comprehension Difficulty: Medium
9-67. The constructionist view of discourse comprehension is most likely to emphasize a. a character’s emotions and motivations. b. the meaning of each sentence, rather than inferences. c. the phonemes represented in the text. d. the fact that readers typically use a shallow level of processing. Answer: a Section Ref: Discourse Comprehension Difficulty: Easy
9-68. The discussion of reading comprehension emphasized that people draw inferences during reading. For example, when people were reading a passage that contradicted an inference, they usually took longer to read it a.
if the goal sentence was located near the contradictory material, rather than far away. b. only if they were allowed a long processing time between reading the passage and judging it. c. in both the “near” and the “far” conditions. d. if they were novices, rather than experts. Answer: c Section Ref: Discourse Comprehension Difficulty: Easy
9-69. People are especially likely to draw inferences during reading a. when researchers examine backward inferences rather than forward inferences. b. when readers have a large working-memory capacity. c. when they learned to read according to the whole-word approach. d. when they read scientific texts. Answer: b Section Ref: Discourse Comprehension Difficulty: Easy
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9-70. What general conclusion can we reach about making inferences during reading? a. People are generally reluctant to make inferences unless they are convinced that the inference is justified. b. People consistently make inferences, especially if they have relatively poor metacomprehension skills. c. People often make inferences, especially if they have expertise in the topic. d. People are generally reluctant to make inferences unless someone specifically urges them to do so. Answer: c Section Ref: Discourse Comprehension Difficulty: Easy
9-71. Which of the following statements is true about inferences made during reading? a. We do not store inferences in long term memory. b. We store inferences separately from the statements that actually occurred in the text. c. We always construct and store inferences, even when reading complex scientific texts. d. We often retain the gist or general meaning of a passage, forgetting that we constructed some elements that did not actually appear in the story. Answer: d Section Ref: Discourse Comprehension Difficulty: Easy
9-72. Inferences drawn beyond the level of a paragraph—for example, inferences based on the genre of the book that we are reading, or based on our preferences for how we want a story to end—are called a. higher-level inferences. b. discourse-level inferences. c. metacognitive inferences. d. bottom-up processes. Answer: a Section Ref: Discourse Comprehension Difficulty: Easy
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9-73. Your textbook discusses the topic of metacomprehension in young children. According to this discussion, a.
young children do not have the skills that they need, in order to use metacomprehension. b. teachers do not try hard enough to emphasize metacomprehension. c. the stories in the textbooks do not require metacomprehension. d. children’s memory skills are very limited, because their working memory holds only two or three words at a time. Answer: a Section Ref: Discourse Comprehension Difficulty: Easy
9-74. Which of the following students provides the best summary about teaching metacomprehension skills? a.
Martina: “The research suggests that teachers should encourage metacomprehension skills, beginning in first grade.” b. Johnny: “If students reach college without learning metacomprehension skills, it’s probably too late for them to master these techniques.” c. Souren: “Educators are now developing programs to teach metacomprehension skills to students before they reach high school. d. Suzanne: “The research suggests that children already know metacomprehension skills, if they initially learned to read using the phonics method.” Answer: c Section Ref: Discourse Comprehension Difficulty: Medium
9-75. Which of the following statements is true about children’s reading comprehension skills? a. b. c.
Children have the appropriate skills for metacomprehension at an early age. Reading skills improve when children try to relate the text to nearby photos. Older children, teenagers and adults can think about their reading and listening strategies in order to improve them. d. Once children reach middle school, it is too late to begin to teach metacomprehension strategies. Answer: c Section Ref: Discourse Comprehension Difficulty: Medium
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CHAPTER 10: Language II: Language Production and Bilingualism
10-1. Which of the following statements about language production is correct? a.
Roughly the same amount of research has been conducted on language comprehension and language production. b. It is easier to conduct research on language comprehension than on language production. c. During the past decade, psychologists have grown even less interested in language production than in previous years. d. There is much more research on written language production than on spoken language production. Answer: b Section Ref: Speaking I: Overview of Production Processes Difficulty: Easy
10-2. Psychologists have conducted more research on language comprehension than on language production. Which of the following students provides the best explanation for this discrepancy? a.
Tina: “Psychologists find language comprehension to be more interesting from the perspective of social interactions.” b. Nayan: “Researchers find it easier to conduct research on language comprehension, because they can easily vary the material that participants hear or see.” c. Garth: “Researchers in the discipline of speech therapy have already conducted the relevant research on language production.” d. Louise: “Language production was the major topic of research just after the cognitive approach became popular; in the last decade, language comprehension has become the major topic of research.” Answer: b Section Ref: Speaking I: Overview of Production Processes Difficulty: Medium
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10-3. Why is research on language comprehension easier to conduct than research on language production? a. b.
Language comprehension occurs more frequently than language production. Language comprehension can be studied with participants of all ages, whereas language production can only be studied in older children and adults. c. Language comprehension is more overt, whereas language production is more covert. d. It is easier to manipulate a variable that can influence language comprehension than it is to manipulate a variable that can influence language production. Answer: d Section Ref: Speaking I: Overview of Production Processes Difficulty: Medium
10-4. One reason that psychologists conduct relatively little research on language production is that a. it is difficult to conduct research that is ethically appropriate. b. the research overemphasizes the introspection technique. c. it is difficult to manipulate the relevant independent variables. d. people make numerous mistakes in producing language. Answer: c Section Ref: Speaking I: Overview of Production Processes Difficulty: Medium
10-5. What can we conclude about the accuracy of speech production? a.
People frequently make errors that include phoneme combinations rarely found in English. b. For most speakers, their language production is only about 45% accurate. c. Speech production is far more accurate than language comprehension. d. Even high-status speakers may produce a large number of speech errors. Answer: d Section Ref: Speaking I: Overview of Production Processes Difficulty: Easy
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10-6. Sarah is trying to say the phrase “big blue bird,” and it comes out “big blue blird.” She has made a a. linearization error. b. pragmatic error. c. slip-of-the-tongue. d. prosody error. Answer: c Section Ref: Speaking I: Overview of Production Processes Difficulty: Medium
10-7. Suppose that you want to say, “red bugs,” and instead you say, “beg rugs.” This kind of slip-of-the-tongue error is called a a. sound error. b. morpheme error. c. word error. d. pragmatic error. Answer: a Section Ref: Speaking I: Overview of Production Processes Difficulty: Medium
10-8. Saying “incycled reformation” when you meant to say “recycled information” is an example of a a. b. c. d.
sound error. morpheme error. word error. right brain lesion.
Answer: b Section Ref: Speaking I: Overview of Production Processes Difficulty: Medium
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10-9. According to Dell’s theory of speech errors, a.
slip-of-the-tongue occur because each sound can be activated by several different words. b. slip-of-the-tongue tend to involve words from different syntactic categories. c. slip-of-the-tongue occur because people focus too closely on the pragmatics of language. d. slip-of-the-tongue occur because we pay too much attention to word choice. Answer: a Section Ref: Speaking I: Overview of Production Processes Difficulty: Easy
10-10. According to Dell’s explanation, a slip-of-the-tongue occurs because of a. unconscious anxiety about the content of speech production. b. classical conditioning. c. interference from inappropriate sounds that are highly active. d. a variant of the Stroop effect. Answer: c Section Ref: Speaking I: Overview of Production Processes Difficulty: Medium
10-11. How is the concept of gist relevant when you are planning to speak a sentence? a. The gist of a sentence automatically solves the linearization problem. b. The gist of a sentence frequently coordinates the prosody of the utterance. c. The gist organizes several interrelated concepts, in order to produce discourse. d. The gist is the overall meaning of a message that we want to convey. Answer: d Section Ref: Speaking I: Overview of Production Processes Difficulty: Easy
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10-12. The term discourse refers to a.
a sentence in which the speaker has made a speech error, and the listener fails to detect this error. b. an interchange between two or more people, in which one person tries to convince the listener or listeners. c. a series of sentences that describes a sequence of events, organized in terms of the date of occurrence. d. language units that are more than a sentence in length. Answer: d Section Ref: Speaking I: Overview of Production Processes Difficulty: Easy
10-13. If you give a friend a fairly lengthy description about how you studied for your last exam, you are producing a. prosody. b. a directive. c. pragmatics. d. discourse. Answer: d Section Ref: Speaking I: Overview of Production Processes Difficulty: Medium
10-14. Which of the following students provides the most accurate statement about the specific kind of discourse known as a narrative? a.
Tonya: “In a narrative, a speaker talks for a while without interruption, in order to describe a series of events.” b. William: “A narrative is the listener’s ongoing interpretation of the speaker’s utterances.” c. Skip: “A narrative is the verbal response that the listener is silently constructing; this narrative will be presented as soon as the speaker’s turn has been completed.” d. Guillermo: “A narrative is a series of sentences that the speaker develops in order to present a specific logical argument.” Answer: a Section Ref: Speaking I: Overview of Production Processes Difficulty: Medium
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10-15. Suppose that you are telling a story. According to the research on narratives, a.
you are likely to interrupt your story several times to ask your listeners whether they have had similar experiences. b. you are not likely to preplan the organization of the narrative before you speak. c. the organization of this kind of discourse generally has a fairly clear structure. d. people typically begin a narrative by emphasizing the point of the narrative. Answer: c Section Ref: Speaking I: Overview of Production Processes Difficulty: Medium
10-16. A narrative usually concludes with a. b. c. d.
a brief overview of the story. a summary of the characters and setting. the point of the story. a signal that the narrative is complete.
Answer: d Section Ref: Speaking I: Overview of Production Processes Difficulty: Easy
10-17. Stephen is describing an explosion in an action film, and pushes his open-fingered hands violently into the air to simulate the outward force. Stephen has made a(n) a. b. c. d.
deictic gesture. iconic gesture. beat gesture. formal gesture.
Answer: b Section Ref: Speaking II: Language Production and Naturalistic Communication Difficulty: Medium
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10-18. Melody points to the Student Union while giving directions to a new student. Melody has made a(n) a. b. c. d.
deictic gesture. iconic gesture. beat gesture. formal gesture.
Answer: a Section Ref: Speaking II: Language Production and Naturalistic Communication Difficulty: Medium
10-19. Caroline gestures rhythmically with her hand while rattling off a list of bones in the human body. Caroline is using a(n) a. b. c. d.
deictic gesture. iconic gesture. beat gesture. formal gesture.
Answer: c Section Ref: Speaking II: Language Production and Naturalistic Communication Difficulty: Medium
10-20. According to the discussion of word production in Chapter10, a.
the most challenging aspect of language production is the motor movements required to produce the various phonemes. b. researchers agree that during language production, we simultaneously retrieve information about three components of language—grammar, meaning, and sound. c. if you try to produce a particular noun, you will often retrieve it more effectively if you make a hand gesture. d. most college-educated North Americans have a speaking vocabulary of about 25,000 words. Answer: c Section Ref: Speaking II: Language Production and Naturalistic Communication Difficulty: Easy
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10-21 Chapter 10 described a study in which participants listened to definitions of concrete nouns, and they were asked to produce the correct noun. The participants were more likely to say the correct noun if a. their hand movements were restricted. b. their hand movements were unrestricted. c. they were told to pronounce the noun as quickly as possible. d. they were told to pronounce the noun as slowly as possible. Answer: b Section Ref: Speaking II: Language Production and Naturalistic Communication Difficulty: Easy
10-22. Which of the following students provides the best information about the term “embodied cognition”? a.
Elizaveta: “Embodied cognition proposes that your motor system sometimes reveals your knowledge.” b. Artur: “Embodied cognition means that there is no connection between your mind and your motor system.” c. Rachel: “Embodied cognition is an outdated theory; it proposed that information flows from the sensory receptors to the motor system, and then flows to the cerebral cortex.” d. Erik: “Embodied cognition emphasizes that you can use your body movements to help you learn a new language that you are trying to master.” Answer: a Section Ref: Speaking II: Language Production and Naturalistic Communication Difficulty: Medium
10-23. In discussing the social aspects of language, psycholinguistics researchers sometimes use a metaphor of two people dancing. Why is this metaphor appropriate? a. Because one person must lead and the other must follow b. Because two people must coordinate their efforts c. Because one person is usually a novice and the other is an expert d. Because each person is trying to impress the other person Answer: b Section Ref: Speaking II: Language Production and Naturalistic Communication Difficulty: Easy
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10-24. Knowledge of the social rules of language is called a. syntax. b. morphemes. c. pragmatics. d. semantics. Answer: c Section Ref: Speaking II: Language Production and Naturalistic Communication Difficulty: Easy
10-25. Joan is eating lunch, and she says to Brad, “Can you pass the salt?” Brad replies “Yes, I can”; however, he doesn’t actually pass the salt. What kind of miscommunication does this brief conversation suggest? a. A slip-of-the-tongue b. A syntactic error c. A pragmatic problem d. The linearization problem Answer: c Section Ref: Speaking II: Language Production and Naturalistic Communication Difficulty: Medium
10-26. Which of the following topics examines the pragmatic aspects of language? a. The problem of understanding ambiguous sentences b. Whether we talk differently to a child than to an adult c. Whether the verb agrees with the appropriate noun d. The problem of slips-of-the-tongue Answer: b Section Ref: Speaking II: Language Production and Naturalistic Communication Difficulty: Medium
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10-27. Suppose that a psychology professor begins a lecture by saying, “OK, do you all remember the concept of ‘ecological validity’?” The students all nod their heads. During this interaction, the professor was primarily interested in a. solving the linearization problem. b. avoiding a syntactic error. c. formulating an indirect request. d. establishing common ground. Answer: d Section Ref: Speaking II: Language Production and Naturalistic Communication Difficulty: Medium
10-28. The concept of common ground was discussed in connection with the social context of speech. Common ground means that a. b. c.
a speaker must coordinate gestures with spoken language. the linearization problem should not dominate the social components of speech. two speakers must agree to reveal similar amounts of personal information about themselves. d. the speakers share somewhat similar information and experiences. Answer: d Section Ref: Speaking II: Language Production and Naturalistic Communication Difficulty: Easy
10-29. A 17-year-old camp counselor is trying to teach a new game to 5- and 6-year-olds. He begins by asking, “OK, do any of you know some games where you look for things that are hidden?” His strategy would be called a. trying to establish common ground. b. emphasizing prosody. c. trying to solve the linearization problem. d. a shallow level of processing Answer: a Section Ref: Speaking II: Language Production and Naturalistic Communication Difficulty: Medium
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10-30. Which of the following students provides the best information related to the concept called common ground? a.
Raoul: “Common ground occurs when you want to show that you know more about a topic than other people in your group.” b. Cyd: “Common ground happens when one or more speakers make an ambiguous statement.” c. Ruth: “For people to achieve common ground, the speakers need to clarify misunderstandings.” d. Sam: “Common ground is relatively easy to establish, as long as people speak the same language.” Answer: c Section Ref: Speaking II: Language Production and Naturalistic Communication Difficulty: Medium
10-31. Chapter 10 discussed a study by Clark and Wilkes-Gibbs in which two people try to communicate about the order in which various geometric figures are to be arranged. The research showed that a. b. c.
people could not accomplish this task unless they were close friends. people soon developed a shorthand communication system. people typically increased their hand gestures at the same time that they decreased their verbal output. d. people seem to remain fairly stable across trials in terms of the number of turns required to agree upon a figure. Answer: b Section Ref: Speaking II: Language Production and Naturalistic Communication Difficulty: Easy
10-32. Chapter 10 discussed research in which two people need to work together to place some abstract shapes in a specified order. This research showed that: a.
people had great difficulty agreeing about the descriptions for abstract shapes, so this task was extremely challenging. b. people typically reached agreement after only one trial. c. people quickly learned to create brief names for each abstract shape. d. people cannot establish “common ground” with strangers. Answer: c
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Section Ref: Speaking II: Language Production and Naturalistic Communication Difficulty: Easy
10-33. A sentence that asks someone to do something is called a a. directive. b. heuristic. c. structural ambiguity. d. pragmatic. Answer: a Section Ref: Speaking II: Language Production and Naturalistic Communication Difficulty: Easy
10-34. A third-grader calls out an answer in class, without raising his hand. The teacher says, “Is your arm broken, Johnny?” The teacher’s remark can be called a(n) a. direct request. b. indirect request. c. failure to establish common ground. d. pragmatic violation. Answer: b Section Ref: Speaking II: Language Production and Naturalistic Communication Difficulty: Medium
10-35. A professor looks out at her class and notices that Jackie is falling asleep. She says loudly, “Wouldn’t you be more comfortable in your own bed, Jackie?” The professor is using a kind of directive known as a. a metalinguistic message. b. establishing common ground. c. the communication of gist. d. an indirect request. Answer: d Section Ref: Speaking II: Language Production and Naturalistic Communication Difficulty: Medium
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10-36. Chapter 10 discussed Lakoff’s concept of framing, in connection with language production. Which of the following options is the best example of a frame? a. b.
You and a friend have different ideas about the concept of “freedom.” The German language typically places the verb at the end of a sentence, whereas the English language typically places the verb toward the beginning of a sentence. c. People who have worked together for many months are more skilled at creating directives. d. A person tries to use carefully calculated language, in order to bribe a police officer. Answer: a Section Ref: Speaking II: Language Production and Naturalistic Communication Difficulty: Medium
10-37. Compared to writing, speaking is more likely to a. involve delayed feedback from other people. b. require many revisions. c. use relatively simple syntax. d. require more time to be produced. Answer: c Section Ref: Language Production and Writing Difficulty: Easy
10-38. Compared to speaking, writing is more likely a. to be carefully studied by researchers. b. to be performed in isolation. c. to be an automatic process. d. to establish common ground. Answer: b Section Ref: Language Production and Writing Difficulty: Easy
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10-39. Researchers have compared people’s spoken language with their written language. When people speak, they are: a. more likely to use complex syntax. b. more likely to refer to themselves. c. less likely to create common ground. d. less likely to use high-frequency words. Answer: b Section Ref: Language Production and Writing Difficulty: Easy
10-40. According to the research about the writing process, a. b. c.
writing is produced by directly accessing semantic memory. the components of working memory are all active during writing. writing requires the extensive use of default assumptions and graceful degradation during parallel distributed processing. d. writing is essentially the same as speaking, except for the motor movements required to produce language. Answer: b Section Ref: Language Production and Writing Difficulty: Medium
10-41. Chapter 10 pointed out that people who are working on a writing assignment are operating on a “full-time cognitive overload.” This phrase suggests that a.
people need to write down phrases as soon as they are created, to reduce this overload problem. b. decision making is a central component of writing, so that writers can reject ideas that are not productive. c. it’s important to transfer ideas from working memory to long-term memory, prior to writing them down. d. writers typically use all the components of working memory, as well as long-term memory. Answer: d Section Ref: Language Production and Writing Difficulty: Medium
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10-42. Chapter 10 discussed research by Kellogg and his colleagues, which examined the cognitive components of writing. According to this research, a. b.
the phonological loop does not appear to be involved during any form of writing. the phonological loop is involved when we write a complete sentence, but not when we are writing a short word. c. the visual component of the visuospatial sketchpad is involved when we are writing about concrete nouns. d. the spatial component of the visuospatial sketchpad is involved when we are writing about abstract concepts. Answer: c Section Ref: Language Production and Writing Difficulty: Easy
10-43. According to the discussion about the cognitive approach to writing, a.
most people report that a writing assignment requires a relatively small portion of their cognitive capacity. b. the phonological loop is seldom active when people are working on a writing assignment. c. people often use the “visual” part of the visuospatial sketchpad when they are trying to define a concrete word. d. the central executive is relatively inactive when people are writing a paper. Answer: c Section Ref: Language Production and Writing Difficulty: Easy
10-44. According to the discussion of writing in Chapter 10, a.
the stages of writing do not overlap with one another, unlike the situation in spoken language. b. the components of writing are relatively simple; they seldom strain the limits of attention. c. good writers are more likely than poor writers to spend time carefully planning a writing assignment. d. the prewriting phase is a relatively automatic component of language. Answer: c
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Section Ref: Language Production and Writing Difficulty: Easy
10-45. Suppose that you decide to adopt the advice suggested in the discussion of writing in Chapter 10. You are likely to write a better paper if you a. generate sentences prior to the prewriting phase. b. construct a written outline before beginning. c. make certain that the stages in writing do not overlap with each other. d. try to avoid using the active-voice form of every verb. Answer: b Section Ref: Language Production and Writing Difficulty: Medium
10-46. According to the research on sentence generation during writing, a. b. c. d.
the linearization problem is seldom an issue for written language. hesitant phases tend to alternate with fluent phases. sentence generation is typically an orderly, systematic process. sentence generation during writing has almost nothing in common with sentence generation during speaking. Answer: b Section Ref: Language Production and Writing Difficulty: Easy
10-47. An English professor has just asked the students in his class to revise their term papers. He is likely to find that a.
the students will carefully evaluate whether their paper accomplishes their goals for the assignment. b. students will actually spend about 30% of their total writing time on revising. c. most students will examine only one sentence at a time, checking spelling and grammar. d. most students will be very aware of the major problems in their paper. Answer: c
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Section Ref: Language Production and Writing Difficulty: Medium
10-48. When revising their papers, first-year college students are more likely than expert writers to a. spend a large percentage of the time revising their writing. b. approach the revision phase one sentence at a time. c. provide a specific diagnosis for a defective sentence. d. figure out whether their writing shows good transitions between ideas. Answer: b Section Ref: Language Production and Writing Difficulty: Easy
10-49. Which of the following people provides the most accurate information on the revision phase of writing? a.
Satyajit: “Students usually spend very little time in revising a paper they have written.” b. Yasujiro: “Students typically underestimate the amount of time they spend in revising their papers.” c. Margarethe: “When students are asked to revise sentences written by another person, they typically focus on the organizational problems.” d. Luís: “Students are remarkably accurate when identifying the specific grammatical errors in an essay.” Answer: a Section Ref: Language Production and Writing Difficulty: Medium
10-50. Some research has been conducted about how students revise their papers during the writing process. According to this research, a. b. c.
students are not highly accurate in identifying defective sentences in their papers. the revision process takes about 30% of students’ time spent on a paper. students can proofread their own papers more accurately than the papers of other students. d. students can proofread their own paper more accurately immediately after they have written it; accuracy drops after a delay of one day or more. Answer: a
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Section Ref: Language Production and Writing Difficulty: Easy
10-51. What can we conclude about the comparison between experts and nonexperts, with respect to writing? a. b.
An expert writer is more likely to approach a revision one sentence at a time. An expert writer is more likely to have a global sense—rather than a specific sense—that something is wrong with a sentence. c. An expert writer spends longer looking for spelling errors. d. An expert writer pays more attention to transitions between ideas. Answer: d Section Ref: Language Production and Writing Difficulty: Easy
10-52. Sara and Jeanette are roommates who are enrolled in the same English class. Both have just completed their research papers, and Sara wishes to have her paper proofread. Based on the research of Daneman and Stainton (1993), who would be more accurate in proofreading Sara’s paper? a. b. c. d.
Sara Jeanette Sara and Jeanette would be equally accurate Proofreading is unnecessary if the pre-writing stage was completed effectively.
Answer: b Section Ref: Language Production and Writing Difficulty: Medium
10-53. Sara has spoken English all her life. In high school and college, she takes French and eventually becomes fluent in that language. This is an example of a. simultaneous bilingualism. b. sequential bilingualism. c. the dual-route approach d. multilingualism. Answer: b
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Section Ref: Bilingualism Difficulty: Medium
10-54. According to the introductory discussion of bilingualism, a. b.
more than half of the people in the world are at least partially bilingual. technically, a multilingual is someone who speaks two different languages that have different historical origins. c. a speaker’s first language is the language that she or he currently speaks most fluently. d. the majority of the world’s bilinguals learned their second language during high school. Answer: a Section Ref: Bilingualism Difficulty: Easy
10-55. Anne is 20 years old, and she has spoken English all her life. She has taken Spanish courses in both high school and college. She enrolls in a study-abroad program in Buenos Aires and becomes fluent in Spanish, before returning to the United States. Annes situation is an example of a. sequential bilingualism. b. simultaneous bilingualism. c. metalinguistics. d. multilingualism. Answer: a Section Ref: Bilingualism Difficulty: Medium
10-56. Jason is an infant whose parents speak English at home. When his parents are at work, Jason stays in a family day care home where all the employees speak only Spanish. Jason is experiencing a. multilingualism. b. a confirmation of the critical period hypothesis. c. sequential bilingualism. d. simultaneous bilingualism. Answer: d
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Section Ref: Bilingualism Difficulty: Medium
10-57. According to your text, the U.S. educational system frequently a.
pressures immigrant children to develop their English skills, and it does not emphasize the value of children retaining their first language. b. values children who retain fluency in a first language such as Vietnamese, Portuguese, or Arabic. c. makes great efforts to encourage simultaneous bilingualism. d. believes that a student’s attitude toward people who speak a foreign language is much more important than his or her skill in speaking that language. Answer: a Section Ref: Bilingualism Difficulty: Easy
10-58. What can we conclude about the relationship between attitudes and proficiency in a second language? a.
After becoming proficient in French, English Canadians are no more positive about French Canadians. b. A student’s attitude toward a group that speaks another language is not related to his or her ability to learn that language. c. People who are positive toward speakers of another language are likely to learn that language more quickly than those who are neutral or negative about that group. d. Because attitudes are a topic from social psychology, and second-language proficiency is a topic from cognitive psychology, this kind of interdisciplinary research has not yet been conducted. Answer: c Section Ref: Bilingualism Difficulty: Medium
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10-59. Your textbook discusses a 2010 study, with bilingual Arab Israeli students who were enrolled at a university in Israel. The fluently bilingual researcher spoke to students in either Arabic or Hebrew. The results of this study showed that these students: a.
understood the instructions better if they were tested in their first language (Arabic), even though they were supposed to be bilingual. b. understood the instructions better if they were tested in their second language (Hebrew), even though they were supposed to be bilingual. c. had more positive attitudes toward Jewish individuals when the researcher was speaking Hebrew. d. had more positive attitudes toward Jewish individuals when the researcher was speaking Arabic. Answer: c Section Ref: Bilingualism Difficulty: Easy
10-60. The early research and theory on bilingualism a. b.
were remarkably sophisticated in terms of manipulating the appropriate variables. were not valid, because the bilinguals had actually received a greater amount of formal language training. c. actually measured short-term memory in monolinguals and working memory in bilinguals. d. argued that bilingualism produced a cognitive deficit. Answer: d Section Ref: Bilingualism Difficulty: Easy
10-61. Comparisons of bilingual and monolingual speakers have shown that a. monolinguals acquire more expertise in their native language. b. bilinguals are more aware that the names assigned to concepts are arbitrary. c. bilinguals do not perform as well on concept-formation tasks as monolinguals do. d. monolingual children are better at following complicated instructions. Answer: b Section Ref: Bilingualism Difficulty: Medium
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10-62. Suppose that you have a summer job in which you work with both monolingual and bilingual children, although the two groups are otherwise similar. You would expect to find that a. b.
the monolingual children would typically be better at following directions. the bilingual children would learn the pragmatics of only one language, so if English is their second language, they would be likely to make pragmatic errors. c. the bilingual children would usually be better at following complex instructions. d. the bilingual children would generally perform better at all language tasks except for tasks requiring metalinguistic expertise. Answer: c Section Ref: Bilingualism Difficulty: Medium
10-63. Imagine that an elementary teacher has two classes, one monolingual and the other bilingual—though their other characteristics are similar. The bilingual class is more likely to a. have a better understanding of the structure of their first language. b. believe that a moon must be called “moon”; it could not have another name. c. have difficulty with the pragmatic aspects of language. d. perform poorly on tests of nonverbal intelligence. Answer: a Section Ref: Bilingualism Difficulty: Medium
10-64. Which of the following students’ statement is the best summary of the research on bilingualism? a.
Nils: “Bilinguals have an advantage over monolinguals in their syntax, but not in their basic understanding of language.” b. Joe: “Bilinguals have advantages over monolinguals in many areas, such as metalinguistics and performance on cognitive tasks; they have slight disadvantages in a few areas.” c. Jorge: “Bilinguals have an advantage over monolinguals in terms of social skills concerned with language; however, when we look at proficiency in their first language, monolinguals have a better command of syntax.” d. Tanya: “So far, no major differences between monolinguals and bilinguals have been detected.” Answer: b
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Section Ref: Bilingualism Difficulty: Medium
10-65. Suppose you are testing children who are monolingual English speakers and children who are fluent in both English and Spanish. Assuming that their other characteristics are similar, you are likely to find that a. b.
the monolinguals are more polite than the bilinguals. the bilinguals are more aware of situations in which a listener might require additional information. c. the monolinguals are better at following your instructions. d. the two groups are similar in their pragmatic and syntactic skills, but not in their metalinguistic skills. Answer: b Section Ref: Bilingualism Difficulty: Medium
10-66. On which of the following tasks is a bilingual child likely to have some difficulty, compared with a monolingual child? a. Understanding the structure of his or her native language. b. Awareness that names are arbitrarily assigned to concepts. c. Sensitivity to the pragmatics of language conversation. d. Processing language quickly. Answer: d Section Ref: Bilingualism Difficulty: Medium
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10-67. Which of the following students provides the most accurate information about bilingual people and monolingual people? a.
Molly: “On every cognitive skill that has been measured so far, bilingual people consistently score higher than monolingual people.” b. Liam: “On every metalinguistic task that has been tested so far, bilingual people consistently score higher than monolingual people.” c. Ross: “Bilingual people are more likely than monolingual people to develop dementia at a young age.” d. Amelie: “Bilingual people are more likely to notice some pragmatic components of a language task.” Answer: d Section Ref: Bilingualism Difficulty: Medium
10-68. Which of the following is true about bilingual individuals? a. b. c. d.
They tend to have more years of formal education than monolingual individuals. They are less sensitive to pragmatic aspects of language. They are less fluent in their first language than monolingual individuals. They perform better on concept-formation tasks than monolingual individuals.
Answer: d Section Ref: Bilingualism Difficulty: Easy
10-69. Suppose that you are listening to a lecture by a speaker who supports the critical period hypothesis for a particular motor skill in children. The speaker is likely to say that a. b. c.
the ability to acquire this skill increases gradually over time. the ability to acquire this skill shows an abrupt increase during development. children will show a gradual decline in acquiring the skill competently, as the age of acquisition increases. d. children will show an abrupt drop in acquiring the skill competently, as the age of acquisition increases. Answer: d Section Ref: Proficiency and Second Language Acquisition Difficulty: Medium
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10-70. Hsi-Yen came to the United States from China when she was 14. Compared to her brother, who was 5 when he arrived, Hsi-Yen is most likely to have difficulty with a. phonology. b. constructing a simple sentence. c. mastery of pragmatics. d. vocabulary. Answer: a Section Ref: Proficiency and Second Language Acquisition Difficulty: Medium
10-71. Chapter 10 examined a study by Flege and his colleagues (1999), concerning the pronunciation skills of people who had emigrated from Korea to the United States. According to this research, a.
people who had come to the United States during childhood were least likely to speak English with an accent. b. people who had come to the United States during adolescence were least likely to speak English with an accent. c. people who had come to the United States during adulthood were least likely to speak English with an accent. d. age of arrival had no effect on pronunciation skills, though it had a significant effect on the mastery of grammar. Answer: a Section Ref: Proficiency and Second Language Acquisition Difficulty: Easy
10-72 What is the most controversial issue concerning bilingualism and age of acquisition? a. b.
Can adult bilinguals acquire pragmatic competence in their second language? Are adults and children equally talented in acquiring new vocabulary words in a second language? c. With respect to the mastery of phonology, do people who acquired a second language as adults differ from people who acquired a second language as children? d. With respect to the mastery of grammar, do people who acquired a second language as adults differ from people who acquired a second language as children? Answer: d Section Ref: Proficiency and Second Language Acquisition Difficulty: Easy
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10-73. What can we conclude about the relationship between a person’s age of acquisition of a second language and his or her mastery of grammar? a. b.
So far, no research has demonstrated a relationship between these two variables. Linguistically skilled individuals tend to master grammar better if they learn a second language during childhood; individuals with below-average skills tend to master grammar better if they learn a second language during adulthood. c. The results clearly support the critical period hypothesis, because people have greater mastery of grammar if they learn a second language during childhood. d. The results are complicated, because the answer depends on the match between the two languages, as well as the amount of education in the second language. Answer: d Section Ref: Proficiency and Second Language Acquisition Difficulty: Medium
10-74. Suppose you have a 22-year-old friend who came to North America from Korea when he was 15 and then began to learn English. If he is like the participants in Flege’s study on bilingualism, he will find that a.
he will develop trouble in Korean with verb tenses and the gender of nouns, but will maintain his Korean vocabulary. b. he will lose a substantial percentage of his Korean vocabulary. c. he will have difficulty mastering English vocabulary. d. he will master English grammar as well as a Korean speaker who learned English as a 10-year-old child, as long as they both have the same amount of U.S. education. Answer: d Section Ref: Proficiency and Second Language Acquisition Difficulty: Medium
10-75. What can we conclude about age of acquisition and mastery of a second language? a.
We cannot draw any conclusions until we have researched using the experimental method. b. For speakers of first languages similar to English, it’s better to learn English early; for speakers of first languages that are different from English, it’s better to learn English late. c. The research shows quite clearly that children acquire a second language more rapidly than adults do. d. The research is not clear-cut; instead, the findings seem to depend upon factors such as the similarity between the first language and the second language. Answer: d
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Section Ref: Proficiency and Second Language Acquisition Difficulty: Medium
10-76. Chapter 10 examines the relationship between age of acquisition and ability to learn a second language. Before we can draw conclusions about this topic, which of the following questions needs further attention? a.
Do the same findings hold true when the second language is something other than English? b. Are children and adults equally skilled in learning vocabulary words in their new language? c. Do the results on grammar hold true when a younger group and an older group have similar formal training in the English language? d. Does age of acquisition have a significant effect on phonology in a second language? Answer: a Section Ref: Proficiency and Second Language Acquisition Difficulty: Medium
10-77. Chapter 10 discussed a study that compared the working-memory skills of three groups of Dutch–English bilinguals. This study concluded that a. the students had the best working-memory scores. b. the teachers had the best working-memory scores. c. the simultaneous interpreters had the best working-memory scores. d. the three groups did not differ significantly in their working-memory scores. Answer: c Section Ref: Proficiency and Second Language Acquisition Difficulty: Easy
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10-78. You are testing the cognitive abilities of three groups of bilingual French–English speakers in Montreal, whose native language is French: university students, English teachers, and French–English interpreters. On a test of reading span, administered in English, you would expect that a. b. c. d.
The teachers would perform the best, followed by the interpreters and the students. there would be no significant differences between the groups. the interpreters would perform significantly better than the teachers and students. the interpreters and teachers would perform similarly, and would outperform the students significantly.
Answer: c Section Ref: Proficiency and Second Language Acquisition Difficulty: Medium
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Chapter 11: Problem Solving and Creativity
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CHAPTER 11: Problem Solving and Creativity
11-1. In problem solving, the term obstacles refers to a. the situation at the beginning of problem solving. b. the method by which people understand the problem. c. restrictions that are encountered in problem solving. d. the portion of a problem that you initially examine during problem solving. Answer: c Section Ref: Understanding the Problem Difficulty: Easy
11-2. Which of the following students provides the most accurate basic information about problem solving? a.
Damon: “Problem solving is a very sophisticated cognitive activity, which most adults do not use in their daily activities.” b. Nicholas: “Problem solving emphasizes the acquisition and storage of information, but it seldom focuses on the transformation of knowledge: c. Gracie: “People are more likely to be creative if the problem includes several obstacles.” d. Tiffany: “In problem solving, you need to reach a goal, but the solution is not an obvious one.” Answer: d Section Ref: Understanding the Problem Difficulty: Easy
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11-3. According to your textbook, cognition is the acquisition, storage, transformation, and use of knowledge. Compared to more basic cognitive processes such as working memory, problem solving makes more use of which of those four processes? a. Acquisition of knowledge b. Storage of knowledge c. Transformation of knowledge d. Use of knowledge Answer: c Section Ref: Understanding the Problem Difficulty: Easy
11-4. Which of the following students provides the best definition for the term thinking? a.
Denise: “Thinking means that you go further than the material you were given, in order to reach a goal.” b. Wilfredo: “Thinking means that you use parallel processing in order to consider many unrelated things at the same time.” c. Lyssu: “Thinking requires you to use divided attention in order to contemplate all the obstacles relevant to the task.” d. Anne: “Thinking primarily emphasizes the acquisition and storage of knowledge.” Answer: a Section Ref: Understanding the Problem Difficulty: Medium
11-5. According to the introduction to the chapter on problem solving, a. b.
the most useful problem-solving strategy is called the trial-and-error method. people are likely to take a more passive approach when solving problems than when working on most other cognitive tasks. c. people typically solve a problem by visualizing the goal state and ignoring the initial state. d. people typically use problem-solving strategies that can produce a solution fairly quickly. Answer: d Section Ref: Understanding the Problem Difficulty: Medium
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Chapter 11: Problem Solving and Creativity
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11-6. According to the introduction to the chapter on problem solving, a.
the process of problem solving is more passive than most other areas of cognitive activity. b. most people typically emphasize bottom-up processing, rather than top-down processing. c. when faced with a problem, most people become somewhat rigid and simply proceed with their first instinct. d. people typically use strategies that are designed to produce a quick solution. Answer: d Section Ref: Understanding the Problem Difficulty: Medium
11-7. Suppose you have just read over an algebra problem, and you have now created an internal representation of the important information. According to the discussion of problem solving, you have mastered the stage called a. problem finding. b. understanding. c. heuristic choice. d. background knowledge. Answer: b Section Ref: Understanding the Problem Difficulty: Medium
11-8. According to the introduction to the section on problem understanding, a.
understanding occurs when we have evolved an external representation for an internal problem. b. a primary criterion for understanding is the ability to represent the problem in matrix form. c. attention is necessary for problem solution, but it is not essential for problem understanding. d. understanding requires a close correspondence between the situation you need to understand and your own internal representation. Answer: d Section Ref: Understanding the Problem Difficulty: Medium
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Chapter 11: Problem Solving and Creativity
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11-9. Suppose that you are trying to solve the problem of assembling a new bookcase that you have just bought, using a sheet of instructions as a guide. According to the discussion of problem understanding, a. b.
you must use heuristics in order to understand a problem. a problem will have a coherent representation, as long as you have used your background knowledge about your previous experiences with assembling items. c. you need to mentally represent the problem, and this representation must be consistent with the assembly instructions. d. the major component of this phase of problem solving is the decision to use symbols and visual images to represent the various steps that are illustrated in the assembly instructions. Answer: c Section Ref: Understanding the Problem Difficulty: Medium
11-10. Imagine that you are currently trying to solve a problem. Which of the following statements about attention would be relevant to your situation? a. b. c.
You may experience divided attention because of distracting ideas. If it is a real-world problem, divided attention is not likely to present a problem. If it is a real-world problem, the appropriate part of the problem—the part that requires attention—should be obvious. d. Although attention is important in problem solving, good problem solvers and poor problem solvers do not differ in their ability to pay attention to specific inconsistencies. Answer: a Section Ref: Understanding the Problem Difficulty: Medium
11-11. Working memory is important when people are trying to solve an algebra “word problem” because a.
you need to keep the important parts of the problem in your mind while working on the problem. b. these problems usually involve objects that have different shapes and sizes, so it’s naturally a difficult task. c. these problems do not use the phonological loop, so it’s especially difficult to discover the solution. d. people often miss the obvious solution, and they therefore have to try again. Answer: a
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Chapter 11: Problem Solving and Creativity
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Section Ref: Understanding the Problem Difficulty: Easy
11-12. Suppose that you have solved a problem by letting the letter x represent one unknown and by letting the letter y represent another unknown. Which problem-solving method have you used? a. Symbols b. Imagery c. Matrix d. Graph Answer: a Section Ref: Understanding the Problem Difficulty: Easy
11-13. An important potential problem with using symbols to represent a problem is that a. b.
people typically use at least twice as many symbols as they need. people usually construct a hierarchical tree diagram, even though they intended to use symbols. c. people insert the symbols into the wrong matrix. d. people have trouble translating words into the appropriate symbols. Answer: d Section Ref: Understanding the Problem Difficulty: Easy
11-14. Suppose that you want to make a chart that lists the possible combinations that can be formed with four basic flavors of cake and three basic flavors of frosting. This chart would be called a. a matrix. b. a statistical interaction. c. a visual image. d. the symbol approach. Answer: a
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Chapter 11: Problem Solving and Creativity
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Section Ref: Understanding the Problem Difficulty: Medium
11-15. Suppose that you are in charge of the Psychology Club’s annual picnic, and you need to fill each student’s lunch container with a main course (beef, chicken, or vegan), as well as a dessert (lemon or chocolate). The most effective way to represent this information would be to create a. a matrix. b. a graph c. symbols d. a diagram Answer: a Section Ref: Understanding the Problem Difficulty: Hard
11-16. According to the research on the use of diagrams in problem solving, a. b.
diagrams are often helpful because they can convey information in a clear way. a hierarchical tree diagram is a list of steps that must be followed in solving a problem. c. the most effective way to use diagrams is to construct a matrix representing all possible combinations of options. d. people seldom solve problems by using diagrams, because verbal representations are much more appealing. Answer: a Section Ref: Understanding the Problem Difficulty: Medium
11-17. According to the research on visual images and problem solving, a.
when people solve a problem using imagery, they rarely supplement an image with verbal material. b. visual images are typically more rational than verbal methods of representing the problem. c. visual imagery often prevents people from solving a problem creatively. d. visual images often allow problem solvers to select nontraditional solutions for problems. Answer: d
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Chapter 11: Problem Solving and Creativity
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11-18. According to the discussion of visual imagery during problem solving, a.
visual images can be nontraditional, so they are sometimes more helpful than symbols and other methods of representing a problem. b. surprisingly, people who are high in visual-imagery abilities are no more likely than other people to use imagery effectively during problem solving. c. visual imagery is helpful only if problem solvers are initially instructed to visualize a familiar object. d. a disadvantage to visual imagery is that it can only be used if you have a clear idea about the solution to the problem. Answer: a Section Ref: Understanding the Problem Difficulty: Medium
11-19. You would expect a matrix to be a useful problem solving representation when a. b. c. d.
the problem is very abstract. the problem is relatively simple. the information is stable, not changing over time. you need to represent visual information.
Answer: c Section Ref: Understanding the Problem Difficulty: Hard
11-20. Psychologists who support the situated-cognition approach to problem solving would be most likely to emphasize a.
that people often learn to solve a problem in a specific context, and then they cannot transfer it to other situations. b. how people reach creative solutions, rather than obvious solutions. c. that people can easily transfer their knowledge from one problem to another similar problem. d. how people typically divide their attention among several competing components of the initial state. Answer: a
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11-21. Dwaine has just completed a high school course in algebra. However, when he needs to solve a problem that uses basic algebra, he finds that he does not know how to apply his knowledge. Cognitive psychologists would argue that Dwaine a. b.
is having trouble because of the situated-cognition issue. should apply the matrix method, because it is especially useful for algebra problems. c. is probably using an inappropriate algorithm. d. should try parallel processing. Answer: a Section Ref: Understanding the Problem Difficulty: Medium
11-22. Which of the following students provides the best summary of the situated-cognition approach? a.
Pearlie: “People typically cannot solve a problem unless they picture themselves situated at the goal state.” b. Laurie: “Visual imagery is especially helpful because it encourages problem solvers to vividly picture themselves in the situation.” c. Vladimir: “Psychologists who study problem solving should emphasize how people can solve everyday problems in the real world, rather than in an artificial setting.” d. Samuel: “Psychologists can understand problem solving better if they try playing the role of a research participant who is faced with a representative problem.” Answer: c Section Ref: Understanding the Problem Difficulty: Medium
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11-23. Which of the following research topics would be most interesting to a psychologist who favors the situated-cognitive approach? a.
When working on a geometry problem, do people solve the problem more quickly if they are shown a diagram, in addition to the verbal form of the problem? b. On a problem requiring a matrix solution, are people faster at solving problems if they have already tried several easier versions of the problem? c. On a math problem requiring symbols, does the amount of irrelevant information influence the accuracy of the solution to the problem? d. What kind of strategies do college students use when trying to solve the problem of getting a ride to their hometown for a vacation? Answer: d Section Ref: Understanding the Problem Difficulty: Medium
11-24. Which of the following research topics on problem solving would have the lowest ecological validity? a.
How people plan their route through a hardware store, so that they can locate the items as quickly as possible. b. How diners in a restaurant figure out how to divide a bill fairly among themselves. c. How parents of preschoolers plan a birthday party. d. How students in a geometry class use information from previous problems to solve the current problem. Answer: d Section Ref: Understanding the Problem Difficulty: Medium
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11-25. Which of the following research questions would have the highest ecological validity? a. b. c. d.
Does instruction in the use of a matrix decrease the amount of time needed to solve logic puzzles? How do people determine how many rolls of wallpaper to use when planning to wallpaper a bedroom? How does time pressure affect people’s ability to solve algebra problems? Does culture affect people’s likelihood of solving the Buddhist Monk Problem successfully?
Answer: b Section Ref: Understanding the Problem Difficulty: Medium
11-26. Why is the embodied cognition approach important when people are trying to solve certain kinds of problems? a. If they examine their immediate environment, the answer is often obvious. b. This approach often produces a strong visual image. c. The problem solver is less likely to use analogies. d. Your gestures often encourage you to express abstract thoughts and terms. Answer: d Section Ref: Understanding the Problem Difficulty: Easy
11-27. Your friend Jerome has lost his contact lens in his room. He begins searching in one corner and methodically moves from right to left and then back from left to right, examining every square inch. What strategy is he using? a. Exhaustive search b. Parallel processing c. Heuristic search d. Functional fixedness Answer: a Section Ref: Problem-Solving Strategies Difficulty: Medium
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11-28. In problem solving, a method that always produces a problem solution (though not necessarily very efficiently) is known as a. an algorithm. b. a heuristic. c. a matrix. d. the hill-climbing heuristic. Answer: a Section Ref: Problem-Solving Strategies Difficulty: Easy
11-29. Jane is given an anagram to solve: DFROJ In attempting to solve the anagram, Jane takes out a sheet of paper and methodically begins to write down every possible combination of these five letters: DFRJO, DFJOR, DFJRO, DFORJ, and so forth Jane’s strategy would be described as a. b. c. d.
a heuristic. means-end analysis. an algorithm. working backwards.
Answer: c Section Ref: Problem-Solving Strategies Difficulty: Medium
11-30. In problem solving, heuristics a. are relatively unsophisticated strategies. b. are bound to produce a solution, if you apply them rigorously. c. are strategies that examine only some of the alternatives. d. are seldom as useful as algorithms. Answer: c Section Ref: Problem-Solving Strategies Difficulty: Medium
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11-31. If you solve a problem by using the solution strategy from an earlier problem, which of the following problem-solving strategies are you using? a. The General Problem Solver b. Means-ends analysis c. Analogy d. Backward search Answer: c Section Ref: Problem-Solving Strategies Difficulty: Easy
11-32. Research on problem isomorphs has demonstrated that a. b.
in general, novices are better than experts in identifying problem isomorphs. problem solving often requires peeling away the superficial features of a problem, in order to discover problem isomorphs. c. most problem solvers can easily detect problem isomorphs. d. unsituated learning produces a greater number of correct solutions than does situated learning. Answer: b Section Ref: Problem-Solving Strategies Difficulty: Easy
11-33. A major problem with using the analogy approach to problem solving is that a. b. c.
people pay too little attention to structural features. people pay too little attention to surface features. people select an inappropriate matrix to represent their understanding of the problem. d. people perform an exhaustive search, which is a time-consuming approach to problem solving. Answer: a Section Ref: Problem-Solving Strategies Difficulty: Medium
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11-34. In order to understand a problem, you need to understand the underlying meaning. This basic core of a problem is called its a. mental set. b. goal state. c. surface features. d. structural features. Answer: d Section Ref: Problem-Solving Strategies Difficulty: Easy
11-35. When people try to solve problems, which feature of the problem should they emphasize the most? a. Structural features b. Surface features c. Schematic features d. Algorithms Answer: a Section Ref: Problem-Solving Strategies Difficulty: Medium
11-36. Which of the following circumstances is most likely to encourage the successful use of analogies in problem solving? a. b.
Requiring people to use a mental set Having people study the source problem very carefully, rather than simply trying to solve it c. Having people try to solve several problems that are structurally similar, before they see the target problem d. Encouraging people to compare at least two problems that have different structural features Answer: c Section Ref: Problem-Solving Strategies Difficulty: Easy
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11-37. People are especially likely to use analogies effectively in problem solving a. b. c. d.
when they are well trained in means-ends analysis. when they have been trained to pay attention to structural similarities. when they are working on an ill-defined problem. when they are trying to solve a problem that is unrelated to other problems they have recently solved. Answer: b Section Ref: Problem-Solving Strategies Difficulty: Easy
11-38. Suppose that several high school algebra teachers are trying to encourage their students to use analogies more appropriately when they try to solve word problems. The teachers should instruct students a. b.
to make an educated guess about the answer before trying to solve it. to make a matrix that shows the surface similarities between a current problem and a previous problem. c. to sort a number of problems into categories, based on structural similarities. d. to use the hill-climbing heuristic. Answer: c Section Ref: Problem-Solving Strategies Difficulty: Medium
11-39. In the means-ends heuristic, a. the matrix approach is most useful. b. we disregard some aspects of the problem in order to make the problem simpler. c. we solve a problem by emphasizing embodied cognition. d. we divide the problem into a number of subproblems. Answer: d Section Ref: Problem-Solving Strategies Difficulty: Easy
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11-40. Suppose that you have an assignment to write a review of the literature on a topic in cognitive psychology. If you used the means-ends heuristic, you would begin by a.
breaking the problem into parts (e.g., select a topic, locate resources, etc.) and then solve each part. b. creating a matrix consisting of possible problems and possible solutions. c. searching systematically through all possible alternatives (e.g., all possible topics on perception, all possible topics on memory, etc.) until you have found a solution. d. trying to think of occasions on which you faced a similar problem (e.g., writing a paper in a child development course) and use that information to help you solve the present problem. Answer: a Section Ref: Problem-Solving Strategies Difficulty: Medium
11-41. Suppose that you belong to an organization that plans to sponsor a speaker for next semester. At the planning meeting, the group members begin by dividing the project into four components: choosing the speaker, making arrangements for the speaker’s travel, fundraising, and publicity. This arrangement is closest to the problem-solving strategy called a. the situated cognition approach. b. the hill climbing heuristic. c. the means-ends heuristic. d. the analogy approach. Answer: c Section Ref: Problem-Solving Strategies Difficulty: Medium
11-42. Research on the means-ends heuristic in problem solving has shown that a.
people tend to move through the various states in problem solving at a fairly steady rate. b. most people realize that they often must move temporarily away from the goal in order to reach the correct problem solution. c. most people are reluctant to move temporarily away from the goal in order to reach the correct problem solution. d. the means-ends approach is roughly equivalent to the analogy approach. Answer: c
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11-43. When people are solving a problem such as the Elves and Goblins problem in your textbook, they generally avoid a. using bottom-up processing. b. dividing a problem into subproblems. c. increasing the difference between the current state and the goal state. d. using the means-ends approach to solve the problem. Answer: c Section Ref: Problem-Solving Strategies Difficulty: Easy
11-44. In computer simulation, the computer is programmed a. b.
to perform a task the same way that a human would. to perform a task that matches the minimum performance of a human problem solver. c. to use algorithms, but not heuristics. d. to solve a problem as efficiently as possible. Answer: a Section Ref: Problem-Solving Strategies Difficulty: Easy
11-45. The computer simulation called General Problem Solver a. solves problems in the most efficient fashion possible. b. solves problems using the analogy method. c. solves problems using means-ends analysis. d. alternates between forward searches and backward searches in problem solving. Answer: c Section Ref: Problem-Solving Strategies Difficulty: Medium
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11-46. Which of the following is the best example of the hill-climbing heuristic? a.
You try to figure out what courses you’ll take next semester by obtaining an overview of the initial state; this perspective is similar to the overview from the top of a hill. b. You want to become a social worker, so at each choice point, you choose the option that appears to lead most directly toward your goal. c. You divide the problem into an orderly series of “hills,” each of which must be surmounted before you move forward. d. You realize that you must sometimes move backwards (returning to a previous “hill”), in order to move forwards to a solution. Answer: b Section Ref: Problem-Solving Strategies Difficulty: Medium
11-47. According to the discussion of problem-solving approaches, the hill-climbing heuristic a. b. c.
can only be used when you represent the problem in terms of visual imagery. is one of the most sophisticated problem-solving heuristics. is often used if you do not have information on how to reach your goal, so you select the best option at each choice point. d. is especially helpful when a problem requires you to move backwards in order to eventually move forwards. Answer: c Section Ref: Problem-Solving Strategies Difficulty: Easy
11-48. A major problem with the hill-climbing heuristic is that a.
people choose the most direct route at every choice point, even though an indirect route may be better in the long run. b. people are inefficient in dividing the problem into the appropriate subproblems. c. people typically show functional fixedness. d. people are too likely to move backwards, rather than forwards. Answer: a Section Ref: Problem-Solving Strategies Difficulty: Easy
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11-49. Anita wants a high-paying career after college. After graduation, she must choose between a job with a moderate salary but a good chance for advancement, and a job with a much higher salary but less chance for long-term advancement. If Anita chooses the higher salary now, she is probably using the heuristic known as a. b. c. d.
mean-end analysis. working backwords. hill-climbing. computer simulation.
Answer: c Section Ref: Problem-Solving Strategies Difficulty: Medium
11-50. Which of the following students provides the most accurate information about expertise during problem solving? a.
Lisa: “Experts are better at estimating how long it would take nonexperts to solve a problem.” b. Pernelle: “Experts are more likely to use a mental set.” c. Jack: “Experts are more likely to use their top-down processing effectively.” d. Sabino: “Experts are more likely to use serial processing.” Answer: c Section Ref: Factors That Influence Problem Solving Difficulty: Medium
11-51. Which of the following students provides the best summary of the relationship between expertise and top-down/bottom-up processing? a.
Carrie: “Expert problem solvers tend to emphasize top-down processing because this framework provides the best overview of the problem.” b. María Elena: “Expert problem solvers use their knowledge (top-down processing), but they also attend to the unique features of the problem (bottom-up processing).” c. Raoul: “The basic problem is that experts consistently overuse bottom-up processing, and they ignore top-down processing.” d. Herbie: “Experts make too much use of bottom-up processing; novices make too much use of top-down processing.” Answer: b
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11-52. According to the discussion of problem-solving expertise in Chapter 11, a.
expertise is typically defined in terms of problem-solving speed, rather than problem-solving accuracy. b. in some fields, expertise is not strongly correlated with the number of years of experience. c. true experts can acquire their expertise without extensive practice because they truly seem to be “born” with their skills. d. experts tend to have an especially well-developed working memory for general information, not just in their area of expertise. Answer: b Section Ref: Factors That Influence Problem Solving Difficulty: Medium
11-53. In which of the following areas are expert problem-solvers and novice problem-solvers likely to be most similar? a. General memory skills b. Memory for concepts that are relevant to the problem c. Schemas that are relevant to the problem d. The representation of the problem Answer: a Section Ref: Factors That Influence Problem Solving Difficulty: Medium
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11-54. Anatoly has been playing chess since early childhood, and is described as an expert player. His cousin Viktor has only recently begun to play the game, and describes himself as a novice. We would expect Anatoly to outperform Viktor on tests of his memory for a. b. c. d.
general knowledge and trivia. random configurations of chess pieces on a board. chess positions from actual chess games. knowledge about the history of chess.
Answer: c Section Ref: Factors That Influence Problem Solving Difficulty: Medium
11-55. According to the research on expertise and problem solving, a.
expert chess-players are much better than novices at remembering random arrangements of chess pieces. b. expert problem-solvers are more likely than novices to emphasize structural features in the representation of a problem. c. experts and novices are similar in their usage of means-ends heuristics. d. experts are skilled at judging whether a problem will be difficult for novices to solve. Answer: b Section Ref: Factors That Influence Problem Solving Difficulty: Medium
11-56. Chapter 11 compared how—on some tasks—experts and novices use parallel processing. According to this discussion, a. b. c.
novices use parallel processing more than experts do. experts use parallel processing more than novices do. when researchers have controlled for the kind of problem that is being solved, experts and novices make similar use of parallel processing. d. both experts and novices make too much use of parallel processing. Answer: b Section Ref: Factors That Influence Problem Solving Difficulty: Easy
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11-57. Suppose that you have always prepared a casserole in a certain fashion. Then you buy a food processor. It would be most efficient to prepare the ingredients in a new order, but you follow your old, familiar order. The strategy that you are using is a. the hill-climbing heuristic. b. a mental set. c. parallel processing. d. divergent production. Answer: b Section Ref: Factors That Influence Problem Solving Difficulty: Medium
11-58. Suppose that you learned to make peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches by spreading peanut butter on one piece of bread, jelly on the other, and then placing the two pieces together. You are now making sandwiches for a crowd, and you use this same strategy. However, it would be more efficient to first spread peanut butter on half the pieces, and then spread jelly on the other half. Your inefficient problem solving illustrates the concept called a. parallel processing. b. insight. c. mental set. d. problem isomorphs. Answer: c Section Ref: Factors That Influence Problem Solving Difficulty: Medium
11-59. According to the research on mental sets, a. b. c.
mental set is an overreliance on bottom-up processing. mental set is especially helpful when you are trying to solve a problem creatively. people may produce inferior problem solutions if they are shown examples of possible solutions before they try to solve the problem. d. mental sets neither help nor hinder problem solving. Answer: c Section Ref: Factors That Influence Problem Solving Difficulty: Medium
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11-60. Suppose that you belong to an organization in which an average of only 8 out of 12 people attend meetings on a regular basis. Which of the following ideas best illustrates the way of overcoming a mental set when solving this problem of low attendance? a.
Try to think of all the previous techniques the group has used, and vote to decide which technique to use this time. b. Encourage everyone to try to figure out a new way to solve the problem, avoiding the solutions that the group members had previously tried. c. Emphasize the importance of functional fixedness when trying to solve the problem. d. Use the hill-climbing heuristic to make sure that the group members choose the most direct route, each time they make a decision. Answer: b Section Ref: Factors That Influence Problem Solving Difficulty: Medium
11-61. Suppose that you believe you can increase your cognitive performance by challenging yourself to work harder and more effectively. According to your textbook, you would have a. a fixed mindset. b. overactive bottom-up processing. c. a growth mindset. d. creativity. Answer: c Section Ref: Factors That Influence Problem Solving Difficulty: Medium
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11-62. Heidi is taking an online class with timed exams, and Heidi complains that the exams are not fair to her because she reads more slowly than the average student. Heidi’s instructor tells her that reading speed and comprehension are skills that can be improved with practice, and encourages her to overcome this obstacle instead of using it as an excuse. Heidi’s instructor is encouraging her to adopt a. b. c. d.
a fixed mindset. a growth mindset. functional fixedness. creativity.
Answer: b Section Ref: Factors That Influence Problem Solving Difficulty: Medium
11-63. What is the difference between functional fixedness and mental set? a. b.
A mental set is more rigid than functional fixedness. Functional fixedness emphasizes the objects involved in solving the problem, whereas mental set emphasizes the problem solver’s strategies. c. Functional fixedness applies to problem finding, whereas mental set applies to problem solving. d. There is no substantial difference; the two terms are identical. Answer: b Section Ref: Factors That Influence Problem Solving Difficulty: Easy
11-64. In functional fixedness, a.
if an object has one particular function, we realize that the object can also be used in other capacities. b. we realize that a problem can be solved most efficiently by the hill-climbing heuristic. c. we rely too heavily on bottom-up processing. d. we assign a particular use to an object, and that use tends to remain stable. Answer: d Section Ref: Factors That Influence Problem Solving Difficulty: Easy
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11-65. Which of the following would be an example of functional fixedness? a.
Wanting to use a rope to tie your car trunk closed and failing to realize that you could use a coat-hanger for the task b. Thinking that you must solve an algebra problem the same way you solved the previous problem in the book c. Beginning at the end of an analogy problem and working backwards toward the initial state d. Failing to concentrate on the surface structure of a problem Answer: a Section Ref: Factors That Influence Problem Solving Difficulty: Medium
11-66. Evelyn notices that a screw on her bicycle is loose, and she doesn’t have a screwdriver with her. So she searches through her pocket and finds a dime, which is the appropriate thickness to tighten the screw. Evelyn has demonstrated a. overcoming a mental set. b. overcoming functional fixedness. c. overcoming a heuristic. d. a fixed mindset. Answer: b Section Ref: Factors That Influence Problem Solving Difficulty: Medium
11-67. Suppose your friend Ellen has lost the back to her earring. She looks around her room, picks up a pencil, removes the eraser, and uses the eraser as a substitute for the missing part. According to the chapter on problem solving, Ellen a. has solved an ill-defined problem. b. is too heavily guided by mental set. c. has focused on the initial state. d. has overcome functional fixedness. Answer: d Section Ref: Factors That Influence Problem Solving Difficulty: Medium
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11-68. Heather and Tom want to bake some blueberry muffins, but they do not have a muffin tin. So Heather takes some soda cans out of the recycling bin, Tom cuts the top 2 inches off of each can, and they use the bottoms of the cans to bake their muffins. Tom and Heather have demonstrated a. b. c. d.
a fixed mindset. use of an algorithm. overcoming functional fixedness. the means-end analysis heuristic.
Answer: c Section Ref: Factors That Influence Problem Solving Difficulty: Medium
11-69. One way that functional fixedness and mental set are similar to each other is that a. Both emphasize our reliance on bottom-up processing. b. Both show that we rely too heavily on a strategy that is typically useful. c. Both show that we tend to emphasize the positive, rather than the negative. d. Both emphasize our inability to use situated learning effectively. Answer: b Section Ref: Factors That Influence Problem Solving Difficulty: Medium
11-70. Suppose that Ramón is a Latino college student who is taking a course in engineering. He is about to take the first exam in this course. He looks around the room and notices that he appears to be the only Latino student in the class. Ramón is likely to experience a. functional fixedness. b. bottom-up processing. c. stereotype threat. d. intrinsic motivation. Answer: c Section Ref: Factors That Influence Problem Solving Difficulty: Medium
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11-71. Chapter 11 discusses the effects of ethnic and gender stereotypes on a test that measures math problem-solving ability. This research shows that a.
Asian women perform relatively well if their ethnicity is emphasized before they begin the math test. b. Asian women perform relatively well if their gender is emphasized before they begin the math test. c. European American women are not aware of stereotypes, and so they perform better than Asian women. d. There were no ethnic or gender differences in this study, showing that stereotypes in these two areas are no longer relevant in math problem solving. Answer: a Section Ref: Factors That Influence Problem Solving Difficulty: Easy
11-72. Chapter 11 examines the effect of stereotype threat on problem solving. Which of the following students provides the most accurate information about stereotype threat? a.
Kirsten: “When people are in a threatening situation, they try to act in a counterstereotypical fashion.” b. Liam: “Stereotype threat seems to reduce the capacity of working memory.” c. Treena: “Stereotype threat seems to increase the use of the hill-climbing heuristic.” d. Scott: “Stereotype threat seems to change problem-solving strategies, so that people are more likely to attend to the structural similarities of problems.” Answer: b Section Ref: Factors That Influence Problem Solving Difficulty: Medium
11-73. Which of the following students provides the best explanation for stereotype threat during problem solving? a.
Alper: “Stereotype threat can usually be traced to overactive bottom-up processing.” b. Kristi: “Stereotype threat is basically caused by a growth mindset.” c. Kevin: “Stereotype threat typically occurs because people use parallel processing, rather problem-solving heuristics.” d. Nita: “Stereotype threat seems to cause a reduction in working memory, due to factors such as high arousal.” Answer: d
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11-74. Imagine that a group of male college students is about to take a test of their ability to “read” other people’s body language. The students are divided into three groups. Group A is not told anything about how males and females tend to perform on this test. Group B is told that males tend to outperform females on this test. Group C is told that females tend to outperform males on this test. Based on research regarding stereotype threat, we would expect that a. b. c. d.
all three groups will perform similarly on the test. Group C will perform best, followed by Group A and then Group B. Group B will perform best, followed by Group A and then Group C. Both Group B and Group C will outperform Group A.
Answer: c Section Ref: Factors That Influence Problem Solving Difficulty: Medium
11-75. The discussion of insight in problem solving pointed out that a. b.
gestalt psychologists emphasized the importance of insight in solving problems. behaviorist psychologists were especially interested in the kinds of problems that require insight. c. when people solve insight problems, their confidence builds gradually as they work on the solution to a problem. d. people solve noninsight problems more quickly when they realize that their basic assumptions are not appropriate. Answer: a Section Ref: Factors That Influence Problem Solving Difficulty: Easy
11-76. According to the discussion of insight problems and noninsight problems, a.
insight requires a sudden solution to a problem, without awareness that the problem has been successfully solved. b. people solve insight problems more gradually than noninsight problems. c. noninsight problems require more creativity than insight problems. d. noninsight problems are typically solved in a systematic, one-step-at-a-time fashion. Answer: d
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11-77. Which of the following students’ summaries about metacognition and problem solving is the most accurate? a.
Delmer: “Our metacognitions are typically more accurate for insight problems than for noninsight problems.” b. Midori: “Students are not able to predict how well they are doing on a wide variety of problem-solving tasks.” c. Saundra: “On insight problems, our confidence increases suddenly; on noninsight problems, our confidence builds up gradually.” d. Steve: “Students typically have a feeling that they know the solution when they are several steps away from solving a problem—whether the problem is an insight problem or a noninsight problem.” Answer: c Section Ref: Factors That Influence Problem Solving Difficulty: Medium
11-78. The introductory discussion about creativity in Chapter 11 pointed out that a.
the definition of “creativity” specifies that the problem solution must be produced by the process of insight. b. researchers do not agree on a universal definition of the term “creativity.” c. researchers have conducted numerous studies on creativity, but this research has not yet been described in many psychology journals or books. d. unlike other kinds of problem-solving tasks, creativity does not require us to reach a goal state. Answer: b Section Ref: Creativity Difficulty: Easy
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11-79. According to the discussion of creativity, a. b.
various measures of creativity are highly correlated with one another. divergent production involves finding the one way in which many different items are related to one another. c. creative solutions must be novel and useful. d. psychologists agree upon a definition of creativity, but not on a way to measure it. Answer: c Section Ref: Creativity Difficulty: Easy
11-80. Divergent production a. is one kind of means-end strategy. b. involves making a number of different responses to a variety of test items. c. is the most valid measure of creativity. d. tends to be highly correlated with other measures of creativity. Answer: b Section Ref: Creativity Difficulty: Easy
11-81. Steve is a college sophomore who is fascinated by politics, even though he isn’t currently enrolled in any related courses. He spends several hours each day reading a variety of political columns, visiting his favorite news websites, and talking about political issues. Researchers would say that Steve is high in a. intrinsic motivation. b. extrinsic motivation. c. divergent production. d. convergent production. Answer: a Section Ref: Creativity Difficulty: Medium
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11-82. Which of the following examples about intrinsic motivation is correct? a. b. c. d.
You are working hard on a task because you know it will lead to a high grade. You are working hard on a task because you think it is interesting. You keep working on a task, even when you think it is boring. You decide not to work hard on a competition with a cash prize, because you know that other people need the money more than you do. Answer: b Section Ref: Creativity Difficulty: Medium
11-83. The section on creativity in Chapter 11 examined research about intrinsic motivation and creativity in writing poetry. According to this research, people were especially likely to be creative a. b. c.
when they had high intrinsic motivation for working on the task. when they knew that the best poem would receive a cash prize. when they wrote poems with other participants in the same room, rather than when no other participants were in the room. d. when the researchers specified the initial state, the goal state, and the obstacles. Answer: a Section Ref: Creativity Difficulty: Easy
11-84. Imagine that you are conducting a summer workshop to enhance the creativity of high school students. Which of the following ideas should you use, based on your understanding of Chapter 11? a. b. c.
Watch the students carefully, so that they know you are monitoring their progress. Offer a prize for the most creative project. List on the blackboard the name of the most creative student of the week; however, make certain that no material rewards are given. d. Do not place firm restrictions on the ways in which the students can express their creativity. Answer: d Section Ref: Creativity Difficulty: Medium
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11-85. Chapter 11 describes the relationship between several personality characteristics and creativity. According to the research by Veena Pradhu and her colleagues, students are likely to be more creative if a. they are low in self-efficacy. b. they are low in intrinsic motivation. c. they are high in intrinsic motivation d. they are high in extrinsic motivation. Answer: c Section Ref: Creativity Difficulty: Easy
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CHAPTER 12: Deductive Reasoning and Decision Making
12-1. Suppose that you are given several pieces of information, and you must infer whether the logical consequence of that information is correct. The task you are performing is called a. decision making. b. insightful problem solving. c. divergent thinking. d. deductive reasoning. Answer: d Section Ref: Deductive Reasoning Difficulty: Medium
12-2. Here is a reasoning problem: If Mary is a psychology major at your college then she must take statistics. Mary graduates from your college without taking statistics. Therefore, Mary is not a psychology major. What kind of problem is this? a. Analogy b. Conditional reasoning problem c. The crystal-ball technique d. Syllogism Answer: b Section Ref: Deductive Reasoning Difficulty: Medium
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12-3. Julio has been told, “If your name appears on the list outside Dr. Forest’s office, you’ll be in the psychology honors class next semester.” Julio’s name does indeed appear on the list. Julio concludes that he will be in the psychology honors class next semester. Julio is using a. conditional reasoning. b. the framing effect. c. decision making. d. hindsight bias Answer: a Section Ref: Deductive Reasoning Difficulty: Medium
12-4. Here is a reasoning problem: “Some vegetables have seeds. Some things that have seeds are fruits. Therefore, some vegetables are fruits.” What kind of reasoning does this represent? a. A syllogism b. Conditional reasoning c. Propositional reasoning d. The availability heuristic Answer: a Section Ref: Deductive Reasoning Difficulty: Medium
12-5. Consider the following problem: “Some college students are bright. All bright people are hard working. Therefore, all college students are hard working.” What kind of thinking task does this problem represent? a. Propositional reasoning b. Problem solving c. A syllogism d. Decision making Answer: c Section Ref: Deductive Reasoning Difficulty: Medium
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12-6. Here is a reasoning problem. “All writers are creative. Some actors are creative. Therefore, some actors are writers.” This is an example of a. b. c. d.
propositional reasoning. problem solving. decision making. a syllogism.
Answer: d Section Ref: Factors That Influence Problem Solving Difficulty: Medium
12-7. A professor knows that if it is raining outside, the window of her office will be wet. She looks at her window and notices that it is wet. She, therefore, concludes that it must be raining outside. Which kind of reasoning is she using? a. Affirming the consequent b. Affirming the antecedent c. Denying the consequent d. Denying the antecedent Answer: a Section Ref: Deductive Reasoning Difficulty: Medium
12-8. Here is a reasoning problem: “If today is Tuesday then my cognition class meets this morning. Today is not Tuesday. Therefore, my cognition class does not meet this morning.” What kind of reasoning does this represent? a. Affirming the consequent b. Denying the consequent c. Denying the antecedent d. Affirming the antecedent Answer: c Section Ref: Deductive Reasoning Difficulty: Medium
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12-9. Yesterday, Dr. Ling announced to his biopsychology class, “If we are going to have a review session on Tuesday, everyone in the class will receive an e-mail message on Friday.” Elspeth is enrolled in the class, and she did not receive a message on Friday. Based on these premises, she concludes that the class will not have a review session on Tuesday. She is using the kind of reasoning known as a. affirming the antecedent. b. affirming the consequent. c. denying the antecedent. d. denying the consequent. Answer: d Section Ref: Deductive Reasoning Difficulty: Medium
12-10. Which of the following kinds of propositional reasoning is actually valid? a. b. c. d.
Affirming the antecedent Affirming the consequent Denying the antecedent Disproving the antecedent
Answer: a Section Ref: Factors That Influence Problem Solving Difficulty: Easy
12-11. The discussion about conditional reasoning pointed out that a. b. c.
the easiest kind of conditional reasoning task is denying the consequent. conditional reasoning tasks are much more difficult to solve than syllogisms. negative terms (e.g., never) do not affect the difficulty of a conditional reasoning problem. d. the central executive is especially active on conditional reasoning tasks. Answer: d Section Ref: Deductive Reasoning Difficulty: Easy
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12-12. Heuristics are relevant when we try to answer a reasoning problem because a.
we carefully assess the logic behind each reasoning problem, rather than responding quickly. b. we often answer a reasoning problem by using a heuristic that a conclusion is a “good bet,” even if it is not always true. c. we are especially accurate on reasoning problems that involve “affirming the consequent.” d. we are significantly more accurate if we try decision-making strategies in trying to solve reasoning problems. Answer: b Section Ref: Deductive Reasoning Difficulty: Easy
12-13. Which of the following students provides the most accurate summary of Type 1 and Type 2 processing, in connection with reasoning and decision making? a. b. c. d.
Rika: “In Type 1 processing, we make very careful judgments; in Type 2 processing, we don’t really care about our accuracy.” Joe: “Adults consistently use Type 1 processing; children and adolescents consistently use Type 2 processing.” Heather: “Type 1 processing is used for reasoning; Type 2 processing is used for decision making.” Frank: “Type 1 processing doesn’t require much conscious attention; Type 2 processing is slow, and we need to pay close attention.”
Answer: d Section Ref: Deductive Reasoning Difficulty: Medium
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12-14. Which of the following statements about factors affecting conditional reasoning is correct? a.
The length of a problem is more important in determining problem difficulty than is the abstractness of the problem. b. People typically make more errors with abstract problems than with concrete problems. c. People have more difficulty with sentences containing a single negative than they have with double-negative sentences. d. If a problem contains the word not in the antecedent, people have difficulty; however, the word not in the consequent does not influence response speed. Answer: b Section Ref: Deductive Reasoning Difficulty: Medium
12-15. According to the discussion of logical reasoning, a. b.
conditional reasoning does not seem to require the use of working memory. conditional reasoning is the one area in which negative information and positive information are equally easy to process. c. people usually perform better on conditional reasoning problems if the statements are concrete, rather than abstract. d. surprisingly, people actually have more trouble solving a concrete problem than an abstract problem. Answer: c Section Ref: Deductive Reasoning Difficulty: Medium
12-16. When people draw a logical conclusion on the basis of whether it agrees with their everyday knowledge, they are demonstrating the a. affirming-the-consequent error. b. belief-bias effect. c. small-sample fallacy. d. Wason selection-task effect. Answer: b Section Ref: Deductive Reasoning Difficulty: Easy
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12-17. Studies on the belief-bias effect conclude that a. in general, people select answers that are correct from a logical standpoint. b. the anchoring and adjustment heuristic often operates inappropriately. c. people typically have the biased belief that they ought to affirm the consequent. d. people often select answers that are “common sense” rather than logically correct. Answer: d Section Ref: Deductive Reasoning Difficulty: Easy
12-18. Research on the belief-bias effect shows that a. b.
it is especially likely to operate for experts. people who earn high scores on a test of flexible thinking are especially likely to demonstrate the belief-bias effect. c. familiar statements often lead people to use “common sense” rather than logical reasoning. d. it emphasizes how people exaggerate their bottom-up processing. Answer: c Section Ref: Deductive Reasoning Difficulty: Easy
12-19. Which of the following students provides the most accurate information about the beliefbias effect? a.
Tabitha: “The belief-bias effect means that novices are not as accurate as experts when solving reasoning problems.” b. Pilar: “The belief-bias effect demonstrates that top-down processes are active when we use deductive reasoning.” c. Joell: “Flexible thinkers are especially likely to make mistakes due to the belief-bias effect.” d. Abilash: “The belief-bias effect operates for syllogisms, but not for conditional reasoning problems.” Answer: b Section Ref: Deductive Reasoning Difficulty: Medium
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12-20. According to the discussion in Chapter 12, the belief-bias effect a. is an example of overreliance on bottom-up processing. b. is likely to operate for people who have difficulty thinking flexibly. c. reveals that people provide irrational answers on logical reasoning tasks. d. arises from the general human tendency to answer “true,” rather than “false.” Answer: b Section Ref: Deductive Reasoning Difficulty: Medium
12-21. Which of the following students’ statements best summarizes the research on the beliefbias effect? a.
Petra: “The belief-bias effect shows us how top-down processing influences logical reasoning; we should emphasize the actual information in the reasoning problem.” b. Chris: “The belief-bias effect illustrates how people systematically keep trying to confirm a hypothesis, rather than trying to disconfirm it.” c. Josh: “According to the belief-bias effect, people systematically prefer a conclusion that is stated in the positive form, rather than a conclusion that uses the word not.” d. Cynthia: “The belief-bias effect shows us that people draw conclusions in logical reasoning on the basis of how frequently their prior beliefs come to mind.” Answer: a Section Ref: Deductive Reasoning Difficulty: Medium
12-22. According to the research on the confirmation bias, a. people would rather focus on the antecedent than on the consequent. b. people would rather think in terms of what is not true than in terms of what is true. c. people would rather confirm a hypothesis than disprove it. d. people would rather deny the consequent than affirm the antecedent. Answer: c Section Ref: Deductive Reasoning Difficulty: Easy
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12-23. According to the discussion of the confirmation bias in deductive reasoning, a. b.
the confirmation bias slightly increases the accuracy of answers for novices. the confirmation bias typically occurs when people rely too strongly on the crystalball technique. c. the confirmation bias means that people prefer to demonstrate that a hypothesis is true, rather than to demonstrate that it is false. d. typically only about 10% of college students tend to show the confirmation bias. Answer: c Section Ref: Deductive Reasoning Difficulty: Medium
12-24. Your text discussed a classic study in which people were asked which cards they would need to turn over in order to find out whether a rule about the letters and numbers on the cards was true or false. What did the study show? a. People rely too heavily on denying the consequent. b. People have difficulty understanding double negatives. c. People typically avoid trying to disproving their hypotheses. d. People overuse bottom-up processing. Answer: c Section Ref: Deductive Reasoning Difficulty: Medium
12-25. Cynthia has developed an informal hypothesis: “If a student is a psychology major, then that student favors gun control.” She questions 20 psychology majors and all 20 do favor gun control. However, she does not pursue additional information. Specifically, she does not seek out people who oppose gun control to determine whether they are psychology majors. From the perspective of deductive reasoning, Cynthia has a. demonstrated confirmation bias. b. relied too heavily on the belief-bias effect. c. relied too heavily on counterexamples. d. overused the availability heuristic. Answer: a Section Ref: Deductive Reasoning Difficulty: Medium
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12-26. According to the research on the classic “selection task” (involving the cards that contain a letter and a number), a.
accuracy often depends on factors such as the concreteness and familiarity of the problem. b. performance is better when people use top-down processing. c. surprisingly, people perform better when the task is abstract than when it is concrete. d. people prefer to use syllogisms, rather than conditional reasoning. Answer: a Section Ref: Deductive Reasoning Difficulty: Medium
12-27. On the classic selection task in conditional reasoning, people work on the problem, “If a card has a vowel on one side, then it has an even number on the other side.” Research on variations of this task indicates that a. b.
people consistently seek out negative information rather than positive information. the problem is easier to solve if it describes something concrete, such as drinking age. c. this is one of the few tasks that people can solve more accurately in their heads than when the problem is represented with concrete objects. d. people are systematically influenced by the representativeness heuristic. Answer: b Section Ref: Deductive Reasoning Difficulty: Medium
12-28. The research on logical reasoning shows that the confirmation bias is especially likely to operate when the participants a.
are working on an ecologically valid task, rather than a task in the psychology laboratory. b. use a diagram to solve the problem, rather than solving it “in their heads.” c. are working on a task that focuses on arbitrary stimuli, rather than on human interactions. d. rely too heavily on bottom-up processes. Answer: c Section Ref: Deductive Reasoning Difficulty: Medium
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12-29. Suppose that Joseph Brown is a U.S. diplomat who works in Country X, and he is trying to assess whether Country X poses a threat to the United States. The diplomat gathers evidence that Country X poses a threat, but he does not try to gather evidence that Country X does not pose a threat. This error is called a. the failure to transfer knowledge to a new task. b. the belief-bias effect. c. the anchoring-and-adjustment heuristic. d. the confirmation bias. Answer: d Section Ref: Deductive Reasoning Difficulty: Medium
12-30. Theme 2 argues that people are usually fairly accurate on cognitive tasks. How does this theme apply to deductive reasoning tasks? a.
People are not very accurate on everyday deductive-reasoning tasks, so the theme doesn’t apply here. b. The reasoning tasks we encounter in our daily lives are generally more concrete, so we are more likely to be accurate. c. People typically change these reasoning tasks into decision-making tasks, which are easier to solve quickly and accurately. d. People really are quite accurate on reasoning tasks, even when these tasks are abstract. Answer: b Section Ref: Deductive Reasoning Difficulty: Hard
12-31. An important difference between reasoning and decision making is that in reasoning, a. we have well-established rules for arriving at conclusions. b. the premises are more likely to be ambiguous. c. the problem has greater ecological validity. d. we are not as likely to know whether our conclusions are correct. Answer: a Section Ref: Decision Making I: Overview of Heuristics Difficulty: Easy
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12-32. An important difference between reasoning and decision making is that a. reasoning tasks are more likely to use established rules to reach a conclusion. b. reasoning tasks are more likely to generate ecologically valid research. c. decision-making tasks are more likely to emphasize abstract premises. d. decision-making tasks are more likely to include all the necessary information. Answer: a Section Ref: Decision Making I: Overview of Heuristics Difficulty: Easy
12-33. Heuristics in decision making a. b. c.
may become a liability when they are applied inappropriately. always lead us to the correct decision. are mathematical formulas that precisely predict how people will perform on decision-making tasks. d. are helpful in decision-making situations, but people rarely apply them. Answer: a Section Ref: Decision Making I: Overview of Heuristics Difficulty: Easy
12-34. Which of the following students’ statements provides the best overview of the research on decision making? a.
Samantha: “People consistently make correct decisions based on the information they are given; problems arise when some crucial information is missing.”" b. Nayan: “People’s use of heuristics in decision making is usually adaptive, unless the heuristics are applied inappropriately.”" c. Arthur: “"People consistently make incorrect decisions, unless the material is extremely concrete.”" d. Shirley: “The most common kinds of decision-making errors involve belief-bias errors; otherwise, decision making is reasonably accurate.” Answer: b Section Ref: Decision Making I: Overview of Heuristics Difficulty: Medium
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12-35. Suppose that Oksana is driving in a car to a friend’s house. As she pulls into the friend’s driveway, she sees that the odometer shows the number 2222.2 miles. She says to herself, “This number is weird…something really unusual is going to happen today when I am with my friend.” This reaction would be an example of a. the consistency bias. b. the law of large numbers. c. the representativeness heuristic. d. the anchoring-and-adjustment heuristic. Answer: c Section Ref: Decision Making I: Overview of Heuristics Difficulty: Medium
12-36. A family has three children, all of whom are boys. Everyone predicts that their next child will be a girl. Which heuristic does this demonstrate? a. Representativeness b. Availability c. Anchoring and adjustment d. Denying the consequent Answer: a Section Ref: Decision Making I: Overview of Heuristics Difficulty: Medium
12-37. Suppose that you are assigning eight college students to two committees. By chance, one committee has four students from the social sciences, and the other has four students from the humanities. If people protest that this arrangement does not seem to be random, they are following a. the confirmation bias. b. the base-rate fallacy. c. the availability heuristic. d. the representativeness heuristic. Answer: d Section Ref: Decision Making I: Overview of Heuristics Difficulty: Medium
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12-38. According to the discussion of representativeness, a.
we believe that random-looking outcomes are more likely than orderly-looking outcomes. b. we take sample size into account when we make decisions. c. we take base rates into account when we make decisions. d. we are underconfident when we make decisions in a laboratory setting. Answer: a Section Ref: Decision Making I: Overview of Heuristics Difficulty: Medium
12-39. According to the discussion of sample size and representativeness, a. a small sample is more reliable than a large sample. b. when a sample is large, people trust the results more than they should. c. people tend to pay too much attention to the base rate. d. people frequently commit the small-sample fallacy. Answer: d Section Ref: Decision Making I: Overview of Heuristics Difficulty: Easy
12-40. One reason that decision makers often use the representativeness heuristic inappropriately is that a. b. c. d.
they pay too much attention to the base rate. they do not pay enough attention to sample size. their decisions are influenced too greatly by a large sample size. they estimate frequency in terms of how easily they can think of examples that have a particular characteristic. Answer: b Section Ref: Decision Making I: Overview of Heuristics Difficulty: Medium
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12-41. A coin has been tossed six times, and has landed on “heads” five out of the six times. Haley comments that the coin must not be a fair coin, but Zhanna says that this conclusion is unwarranted. Haley has fallen victim to the a. b. c. d.
small-sample fallacy. base rate fallacy. anchoring and adjustment heuristic. false algorithm.
Answer: a Section Ref: Decision Making I: Overview of Heuristics Difficulty: Medium
12-42. According to the discussion of the representativeness heuristic in Chapter 12, people often commit the small-sample fallacy in social situations. An example of this point is that a.
people may form a stereotype, based on only a few members of a particular ethnic group. b. people frequently try to confirm their current hypothesis. c. people judge others in terms of personal characteristics that are easy to remember. d. people judge the conjunction of two events to be more likely than just one of those events. Answer: a Section Ref: Decision Making I: Overview of Heuristics Difficulty: Medium
12-43. You decide that a bearded professor wearing a rumpled sports coat is a member of the art faculty, rather than the business school faculty (which actually has more members) because he looks like an artist. What judgment error have you committed? a. You relied too heavily on the anchoring and adjustment heuristic. b. You should not have trusted your hindsight so completely. c. You should have been more aware of the law of large numbers. d. You did not pay enough attention to the base rate. Answer: d Section Ref: Decision Making I: Overview of Heuristics Difficulty: Medium
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12-44. When people commit the base-rate fallacy, they often a. rely too heavily on the availability heuristic. b. believe that the conjunction of two events is more likely than either event by itself. c. pay too little attention to information about relative frequency. d. are especially likely to demonstrate the hindsight bias. Answer: c Section Ref: Decision Making I: Overview of Heuristics Difficulty: Easy
12-45. Suppose that you see a male student on your campus who is wearing a suit and a tie. You conclude, “He must be a business major; he couldn’t be a psychology major.” However, your college has twice as many psychology majors as business majors. Your decision is apparently guided by a. confirmation bias. b. the representativeness heuristic. c. my-side bias. d. the anchoring and adjustment heuristic. Answer: b Section Ref: Decision Making I: Overview of Heuristics Difficulty: Medium
12-46. Suppose that a doctor decides that a patient has a cold, rather than a much rarer disease, Disease X. She decides the disease is a cold, even though one symptom is fairly typical of Disease X and fairly atypical of a cold. This doctor is a. paying attention to the base rate of the diseases. b. showing the confirmation bias. c. demonstrating the small-sample fallacy. d. combining the availability heuristic with the representativeness heuristic. Answer: a Section Ref: Decision Making I: Overview of Heuristics Difficulty: Medium
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12-47. Why is the concept of base rate important in decisions that involve the representativeness heuristic? a.
People usually don’t pay enough attention to base rate when making these decisions. b. People are so aware of information about base rate that they typically make accurate decisions. c. People rarely make the small-sample fallacy when making these decisions. d. When people have a background in statistics, they are much more likely to make correct decisions on tasks involving the representativeness heuristic. Answer: a Section Ref: Decision Making I: Overview of Heuristics Difficulty: Easy
12-48. Suppose that you hear about a friend who graduated from your college in performing arts. In addition, suppose that you judge that she is more likely to be selling insurance and active in community theater than she is to be selling insurance. You have committed a. the anchoring and adjustment heuristic. b. the crystal-ball technique. c. the belief-bias effect. d. the conjunction fallacy. Answer: d Section Ref: Decision Making I: Overview of Heuristics Difficulty: Medium
12-49. Suppose that a friend is wondering what ever happened to a classmate named Bob who attended your high school and was on the wrestling team. You say that Bob is now a banker. Your friend says, “Well, Bob is likely to be a banker who is still interested in sports, rather than just a plain banker.” Your friend has just demonstrated a. the availability heuristic. b. the conjunction fallacy. c. an illusory correlation. d. the confirmation bias. Answer: b Section Ref: Decision Making I: Overview of Heuristics Difficulty: Medium
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12-50. Research on the conjunction fallacy shows that a. b. c.
people pay more attention to statistical probability than to heuristic strategies. people pay too much attention to sample size. people sometimes believe that the probability of a combination of two attributes is statistically more likely than the probability of one of those attributes. d. people simply misunderstand the instructions because the material is so vivid; when the task is explained, the conjunction fallacy disappears. Answer: c Section Ref: Decision Making I: Overview of Heuristics Difficulty: Easy
12-51. Which of the following students provides the most accurate information about the representativeness heuristic? a.
Ko-Eun: “We use the representativeness heuristic when we judge frequency in terms of how easily we can think of examples of a category.” b. Tianna: “The representativeness heuristic demonstrates that we initially make a guess, and then we make modest adjustments to that initial guess.” c. Brandon: “When using the representativeness heuristic, we overemphasize the base rate and don’t pay enough attention to the availability heuristic.” d. Celia: “The representativeness heuristic typically works well, although we tend to ignore other relevant information that we should consider.” Answer: d Section Ref: Decision Making I: Overview of Heuristics Difficulty: Medium
12-52. When we make judgments based on the ease with which examples come to mind, we are using a. the availability heuristic. b. the representativeness heuristic. c. the anchoring and adjustment heuristic. d. the conjunction fallacy. Answer: a Section Ref: Decision Making I: Overview of Heuristics Difficulty: Easy
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12-53. You are trying to decide whether it will rain tomorrow, based on how many rainy days you remember from the last week. Which heuristic are you using? a. Availability b. Crystal-ball technique c. Anchoring and adjustment d. Representativeness Answer: a Section Ref: Decision Making I: Overview of Heuristics Difficulty: Medium
12-54. Suppose that you are trying to decide whether to buy tomatoes or cucumbers in a grocery store. You think about the wide variety of recipes that use tomatoes, compared with only a few recipes that use cucumbers. You are using a. the representativeness heuristic. b. the anchoring-and-adjustment heuristic. c. the availability heuristic. d. the confirmation bias. Answer: c Section Ref: Decision Making I: Overview of Heuristics Difficulty: Medium
12-55. Suppose that someone asks you to name the most popular television situation comedies, and you respond with the names of two shows that you regularly watch. This would be an example of a. anchoring and adjustment. b. an illusory correlation. c. representativeness. d. availability. Answer: d Section Ref: Decision Making I: Overview of Heuristics Difficulty: Medium
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12-56. Barnett believes that “most people” share his political views. However, Barnett is basing his judgment on the views of his close friends, with whom he discusses politics most frequently, and with whom he shares core values and attitudes. Barnett is relying on the _____ heuristic. a. b. c. d.
representativeness availability anchoring and adjustment conjunction
Answer: b Section Ref: Decision Making I: Overview of Heuristics Difficulty: Medium
12-57. According to the discussion of the availability heuristic, a. b.
this heuristic is consistently more accurate than the representativeness heuristic. we use this heuristic when we try to estimate probability by thinking of relevant examples. c. this heuristic emphasizes that we ignore the conjunction fallacy. d. this heuristic explains why we typically provide confidence intervals that are too narrow. Answer: b Section Ref: Decision Making I: Overview of Heuristics Difficulty: Easy
12-58. In contrast to the representativeness heuristic, the availability heuristic a. begins with a specific situation, and you must judge its likelihood. b. begins with a set of assumptions. c. involves recalling some examples of a general category. d. is related to hindsight bias. Answer: c Section Ref: Decision Making I: Overview of Heuristics Difficulty: Medium
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12-59. Psychologists have published an article which shows that many U.S. residents avoided flying in airplanes after the 2001 terrorist attacks. In fact, for several months afterwards, many people decided to drive, rather than fly. This phenomenon can best be explained by a. the influence of recency on availability. b. the conjunction fallacy. c. the illusory correlation effect. d. too much emphasis on the likelihood ratio. Answer: a Section Ref: Decision Making I: Overview of Heuristics Difficulty: Medium
12-60. Dr. Anna Smith is a clinical psychologist. She just heard about someone who had a bad reaction to a medication. She knows that this medication has worked well with many of her clients who have experienced depression during the last few months. With respect to decision-making heuristics, she should be concerned that her future decisions about this medication might be influenced by a. the conjunction fallacy. b. the relationship between illusory correlations and the representativeness heuristic. c. anchoring and adjustment. d. the tendency for recency to influence availability. Answer: d Section Ref: Decision Making I: Overview of Heuristics Difficulty: Medium
12-61. Suppose that you are trying to decide whether to take a course from Professor Jones or Professor Smith. Your friends have made many positive comments about both professors. You decide to take a course with Professor Jones, because today you heard more praise about Professor Jones. You are using a. the availability heuristic. b. the anchoring and adjustment heuristic. c. the representativeness heuristic. d. the recognition heuristic. Answer: a Section Ref: Decision Making I: Overview of Heuristics Difficulty: Medium
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12-62. People who often watch soap operas are likely to believe that amnesia, extramarital affairs, and mysterious disappearances occur more often than they actually occur in real life. A likely explanation for this finding is that a. familiarity influences availability. b. these events are actually underreported by the media. c. frightening events are more likely to be handled by deductive reasoning. d. they are overusing the crystal-ball technique. Answer: a Section Ref: Decision Making I: Overview of Heuristics Difficulty: Medium
12-63. What is one of the difficulties with the availability heuristic? a. It seldom leads to a correct decision in everyday life. b. Frequency estimation may be distorted by the familiarity of the examples. c. People rely too much on adjustments and not enough on the anchor. d. People rely too much on abstract evidence, rather than concrete evidence. Answer: b Section Ref: Decision Making I: Overview of Heuristics Difficulty: Medium
12-64. Research on the availability heuristic shows that a.
when medical journals contain many articles about a particular disease, physicians are likely to believe that it is easily curable. b. estimates for a country’s population are distorted by the frequency with which the country is mentioned in the news. c. more recent events tend to be given relatively little weight in making frequency estimates, compared with events that occurred long ago. d. people almost always select answers that are consistent with deductive reasoning. Answer: b Section Ref: Decision Making I: Overview of Heuristics Difficulty: Medium
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12-65. Suppose that a quiz show host asks a contestant which city in France has the greater population, Paris or Nantes. The contestant immediately responds, “Paris.” According to the discussion of decision making, a. b.
this is an example of an illusory correlation. people usually have difficulty in answering questions that use the anchoring and adjustment heuristic. c. this is a variant of the representativeness heuristic. d. this is an example of the recognition heuristic. Answer: d Section Ref: Decision Making I: Overview of Heuristics Difficulty: Medium
12-66. Which of the following heuristics is most likely to produce a correct decision? a. The availability heuristic b. The representativeness heuristic c. The recognition heuristic d. The anchoring and adjustment heuristic Answer: c Section Ref: Decision Making I: Overview of Heuristics Difficulty: Easy
12-67. Chapter 12, on reasoning and decision making, emphasizes that we frequently endorse our current hypotheses and thoughts, rather than questioning them. Which of the following topics is least likely to show an overemphasis on our current hypotheses? a. The confirmation bias b. Illusory correlations c. The recognition heuristic d. The anchoring and adjustment heuristic Answer: c Section Ref: Decision Making I: Overview of Heuristics Difficulty: Hard
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12-68. We often tend to see psychological patterns in the pictures that people draw. For example, we might think that suspicious people would tend to draw exaggerated eyes. What error in judgment does this represent? a. The confirmation bias b. Illusory correlation c. Law of small numbers d. The my-side bias Answer: b Section Ref: Decision Making I: Overview of Heuristics Difficulty: Medium
12-69. According to the social cognition approach to stereotypes, we form stereotypes primarily a. b. c.
because of our normal cognitive processes. because we dislike certain categories of people. because we feel guilty, and we want to blame other categories of people for some problems. d. because of factors that evolutionary psychology can explain. Answer: a Section Ref: Decision Making I: Overview of Heuristics Difficulty: Easy
12-70. How could the illusory correlation effect produce a stereotype? a. b.
People use the prospect theory to predict the likelihood of the stereotype. People use the representativeness heuristic to determine whether a particular stereotype seems likely for a particular group of people. c. People pay too much attention to a group of people who have a particular combination of characteristics, and they ignore the other three possible combinations of characteristics. d. People overemphasize the estimate provided by anchor, and they pay too little attention to bottom-up processing. Answer: c Section Ref: Decision Making I: Overview of Heuristics Difficulty: Medium
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12-71. A likely explanation for the illusory correlation effect is that a.
people choose a stereotype as an anchor, and they make only small adjustments based on that anchor. b. people believe that correlations are illusions, somewhat similar to optical illusions. c. we pay too much attention to just one cell in the matrix, rather than the three other possible combinations of variables. d. we select the least available cell as an anchor, and then we make adjustments away from that anchor. Answer: c Section Ref: Decision Making I: Overview of Heuristics Difficulty: Medium
12-72. Which of the following students has the best explanation for illusory correlations? a.
Tim: “Illusory correlations arise when people focus their attention on only one set of characteristics, and they do not consider the other sets of characteristics.” b. Joanne: “Illusory correlations are based on the inappropriate use of confidence intervals.” c. Sophie: “Illusory correlations resemble the conjunction fallacy, in which we believe that two psychological characteristics or categories are related to each other.” d. Ingo: “Actually, a recent meta-analysis showed that—ironically—illusory correlations are illusory.” Answer: a Section Ref: Decision Making I: Overview of Heuristics Difficulty: Medium
12-73. A friend tells you that drama majors tend to be extremely disorganized. However, when you actually make a tally of 10 friends who are drama majors and 20 friends who are not, you find no relationship. Your friend’s error was most likely to be an example of a. the hindsight bias. b. an illusory correlation. c. the framing effect. d. the anchoring and adjustment heuristic. Answer: b Section Ref: Decision Making I: Overview of Heuristics Difficulty: Medium
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12-74. Which of the following students provides the most accurate perspective on the availability heuristic? a.
Barbara: “The availability heuristic is actually very accurate, and it almost always leads us to the correct decision.” b. Harley: “The availability heuristic is generally accurate, but recency and familiarity can distort our decisions.” c. Angela: “The availability heuristic is generally accurate, except that we should be cautious about the recognition heuristic, which is not very accurate.” d. Magda: “Unfortunately, the availability heuristic is the least accurate of the three major heuristics, especially because of the hindsight bias.” Answer: b Section Ref: Decision Making I: Overview of Heuristics Difficulty: Medium
12-75. A professor asks students to guess what percent of people in homeless shelters are parents and children. Before you can consider your answer, another student shouts out “about 10%.” Your answer may be either higher or lower than it would be otherwise because of a. the belief-bias effect. b. the confirmation bias. c. the anchoring and adjustment heuristic. d. the hindsight bias. Answer: c Section Ref: Decision Making I: Overview of Heuristics Difficulty: Medium
12-76. You estimate the number of soft drinks you’ll need for the 4th of July picnic, based on the Christmas party consumption, but taking into account the fact that the weather will be warmer. Which heuristic does this example illustrate? a. Availability b. Base rate fallacy c. Anchoring and adjustment d. Representativeness Answer: d Section Ref: Decision Making I: Overview of Heuristics Difficulty: Medium
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12-77. A physician is trying to convince a man that he must give up smoking. The man initially believes that the probability of lung cancer is increased by only 10% if he smokes. Why are decision-making heuristics relevant to this situation? a. The situation will encourage the conjunction fallacy. b. The probability of an illusory correlation is increased. c. Familiarity distorts availability judgments. d. The man’s estimate will be influenced by a low anchor. Answer: d Section Ref: Decision Making I: Overview of Heuristics Difficulty: Medium
12-78. When people estimate confidence intervals, they typically a. provide estimates that are too wide. b. rely too heavily on the representativeness heuristic. c. are not sufficiently confident about their decisions. d. provide estimates that are too narrow. Answer: d Section Ref: Decision Making I: Overview of Heuristics Difficulty: Easy
12-79. Anchoring and adjustment is relevant when we estimate confidence intervals because a. we are overconfident about the adjustment process. b. we rely too heavily on the anchor. c. we make adjustments in our estimates that are larger than they should be. d. we should apply the adjustment prior to the anchor. Answer: b Section Ref: Decision Making I: Overview of Heuristics Difficulty: Easy
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12-80. Suppose that a student named John is asked to judge how many students are enrolled in his introductory biology class. He replies, “about 100….well, maybe between about 90 and 110.” Based on the discussion of confidence intervals, you predict that a.
John’s estimate probably relies too heavily on the ease with which examples come to mind. b. John is likely to be heavily influenced by the confirmation bias. c. John probably relied too heavily on the initial anchor of 100 students. d. John probably would have been wiser to use the representativeness heuristic to estimate the confidence intervals. Answer: c Section Ref: Decision Making I: Overview of Heuristics Difficulty: Medium
12-81. Imagine that your professor is discussing the prevalence of psychological disorders in the general population, and he says, “A study conducted in 2012 estimated that about 11% of the population has a psychological disorder at any one time.” If you were to estimate a confidence interval, based on this number—11%—you would be most likely a. b.
to use the confirmation bias inappropriately. to estimate this range by using the availability heuristic, which would be biased because of recent examples. c. to rely too heavily on an anchor, and not make large enough adjustments to that anchor. d. to use decision frames inappropriately. Answer: c Section Ref: Decision Making I: Overview of Heuristics Difficulty: Medium
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12-82. Because of a recently passed law, in Oregon, everyone who gets a driver’s license or state identification card is automatically registered to vote; they must choose to “opt out” if they do not wish to be registered. In most states, a person must take steps to register to vote. In the future, if voting statistics show that significantly more Oregonians than other U.S. citizens are registered to vote, we might say that this is a good example of the _______ heuristic in action. a. b. c. d.
representativeness availability anchoring and adjustment default
Answer: d Section Ref: Decision Making I: Overview of Heuristics Difficulty: Medium
12-83. Researchers such as Gerd Gigerenzer argue that people create a wide variety of heuristics that generally help them make adaptive decisions in the real world—a point of view referred to as a. b. c. d.
anchoring and adjustment. irrational decision making. framing. ecological rationality.
Answer: d Section Ref: Decision Making I: Overview of Heuristics Difficulty: Easy
12-84. The research on the framing effect suggests that a. decisions are overly influenced by the availability heuristic. b. the hindsight bias is more influential than the representativeness heuristic. c. we tend to be overconfident about the accuracy of our decisions. d. we are influenced by the wording of a question and the background information. Answer: d Section Ref: Decision Making II: Applications of Decision-Making Research Difficulty: Easy
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12-85. Suppose that you hear someone say, “I don’t care how many days I am sick; I just care how many days I am well.” Which of the following concepts from decision making would be most relevant to this statement? a. The framing effect b. The hindsight bias c. The my-side bias d. The conjunction fallacy Answer: a Section Ref: Decision Making II: Applications of Decision-Making Research Difficulty: Medium
12-86. According to the framing effect, a.
under some circumstances, the framework of a question encourages too much reliance on the representativeness heuristic. b. when people make decisions, the deep structure—or frame—is more important than the surface structure. c. decision-makers show a clear-cut tendency to assume that the same frame holds true for all the decisions in a particular set. d. the way in which a question is asked has an important influence on people’s decisions. Answer: d Section Ref: Decision Making II: Applications of Decision-Making Research Difficulty: Medium
12-87. If a researcher wants to conduct a study on the framing effect, which of the following would be the most likely topic for the study? a.
“How do math undergraduates and math professors differ in their confidence about decisions?” b. “How long do people maintain their commitment to an unsatisfactory decision?” c. “Under what circumstances do people overestimate their ability to predict events that have already occurred?” d. “Should a product that costs $300 and is marked down to $200 be advertised as only $200 or $100 off?” Answer: d
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Section Ref: Decision Making II: Applications of Decision-Making Research Difficulty: Medium
12-88. Suppose that a politician is drafting her position paper on the educational situation in her district. She is trying to decide whether she should say, “If we adopt Plan A, we estimate that 10% of our students will drop out of high school before graduating.” Alternately, she might say, “If we adopt Plan A, we estimate that 90% of our students will graduate from high school.” She would probably find that her audience responds differently to these two versions of her talk, because of a. the belief-bias effect. b. the anchoring and adjustment heuristic. c. the hindsight bias. d. the framing effect. Answer: d Section Ref: Decision Making II: Applications of Decision-Making Research Difficulty: Medium
12-89. According to the research on prospect theory, a. b. c.
people generally avoid risks. when the situation involves possible losses, people usually seek risks. most people can overcome the framing effect because they naturally focus on the risks involved. d. people consistently make decisions that are correct from a statistical point of view. Answer: b Section Ref: Decision Making II: Applications of Decision-Making Research Difficulty: Medium
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12-90. Jeff is concerned that the framing effect may be influencing his decision to study abroad next semester. According to Chapter 12, an effective way to correct for the framing effect is to a. b.
see whether he can come up with some representative counter-examples. apply the anchoring-and-adjustment heuristic to see whether the decision can be appropriately adjusted. c. consider how many positive and how many negative examples come readily to mind. d. consider how he would feel about not studying abroad next semester. Answer: d Section Ref: Decision Making II: Applications of Decision-Making Research Difficulty: Medium
12-91. At midterm, a college determines that 300 of its students are at risk for suspension this semester. Its tutoring center argues that, with a series of targeted emails encouraging students to come in for help, it can promise to certainly save 100 of those students from suspension. However, an external firm approaches the college with an offer to start a new program, with a 1/3 chance of preventing all 300 students from being suspended (and a 2/3 chance of saving none of these students). Under which circumstances is the college most likely to hire the external firm? a. b. c. d.
the tutoring center and the external firm emphasize the number of students to be “saved” in their presentations the tutoring center and the external firm emphasize the number of students who will be suspended under each of their programs the tutoring center emphasizes the potential number of students to be suspended, while the external firm emphasizes the potential number of students saved from suspension both the tutoring center and the external firm place equal emphasis on the students to be “saved” and the students who will be suspended under each approach
Answer: b Section Ref: Decision Making II: Applications of Decision-Making Research Difficulty: Medium
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12-92. Which of the following students provides the most accurate information about the research on overconfidence? a.
Solange: “Overconfidence applies to many other cognitive tasks, in addition to decision making.” b. Igor: “The research on overconfidence shows that participants are consistently overconfident, no matter what kind of questions they are asked.” c. Steve: “Individual differences are surprisingly small in this area; both experts and novices show similar levels of overconfidence.” d. Amber: “The overconfidence effect can be traced to illusory correlations.” Answer: a Section Ref: Decision Making II: Applications of Decision-Making Research Difficulty: Medium
12-93. According to the research on overconfidence, a.
overconfidence can be easily demonstrated in the laboratory, but not in real-world situations. b. politicians—like other people—are frequently overconfident. c. overconfidence is limited to decision making; it does not seem to apply to other cognitive tasks. d. overconfidence seems to apply to about 40% of the population; about 30% are accurate, and the remaining 30% are underconfident. Answer: b Section Ref: Decision Making II: Applications of Decision-Making Research Difficulty: Medium
12-94. Suppose that you are working as an industrial/organizational psychologist for a company. You’ve determined that the employees tend to be too confident about sales decisions that later turn out to be unwise. Remembering what you learned in your cognitive psychology course, your wisest decision would be to a. b. c.
use the crystal-ball technique. use the meta-analysis technique. emphasize that the employees should try to find more information that confirms their beliefs, rather than disconfirming those beliefs. d. emphasize that the employees need to review the principles of propositional calculus. Answer: a
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Section Ref: Decision Making II: Applications of Decision-Making Research Difficulty: Medium
12-95. Suppose you have a friend who is just beginning college, and she plans to go to school half-time. She estimates that she will earn her bachelor’s degree in about 7 years, rather than 8 years. It is most likely that she a. is avoiding the use of the recognition heuristic. b. is using a syllogism inappropriately. c. is falling victim to the planning fallacy. d. should make better use of conditional reasoning. Answer: c Section Ref: Decision Making II: Applications of Decision-Making Research Difficulty: Medium
12-96. According to the research on the reasons for overconfidence, a. b.
people are aware that their knowledge is based on uncertain assumptions. people are typically conscientious about searching for examples to contradict a conclusion. c. people often have trouble recalling the alternate hypotheses. d. people are overly eager to think of situations in which some alternative hypotheses would be correct. Answer: c Section Ref: Decision Making II: Applications of Decision-Making Research Difficulty: Easy
12-97. Suppose that you are having a serious argument with a friend, and you are convinced that your own perspective is correct. According to the discussion in Chapter 12, this situation is an example of a. hindsight bias. b. my-side bias. c. the crystal-ball technique. d. the conjunction rule. Answer: b
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Section Ref: Decision Making II: Applications of Decision-Making Research Difficulty: Medium
12-98. In the hindsight bias, a. people rely too much on an anchor, and they fail to make appropriate adjustments. b. the availability heuristic is more useful than the representativeness heuristic. c. people believe that their foresight is more accurate than their hindsight. d. people overestimate their accuracy for predicting past events. Answer: d Section Ref: Decision Making II: Applications of Decision-Making Research Difficulty: Easy
12-99. Suppose that you are watching television just after a Congressional election, and your favorite candidate has won—although the election was close. You say to a friend, “Well, I was really quite confident that he would win.” This might be an example of a. a conjunction fallacy. b. the framing effect. c. the hindsight bias. d. the representativeness heuristic. Answer: c Section Ref: Decision Making II: Applications of Decision-Making Research Difficulty: Medium
12-100. A group of fantasy football players are discussing the previous weekend’s games, which included a season-ending injury to a top player. Kat is heard to say, “I knew that quarterback was going to get injured eventually. He can’t get rid of the ball quickly enough, so he’s always getting sacked.” Kat is probably being influenced by a. the framing effect. b. the representativeness heuristic. c. the conjunction fallacy. d. hindsight bias. Answer: d Section Ref: Decision Making II: Applications of Decision-Making Research Difficulty: Medium
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12-101. The decision theorists who favor the ecological-rationality perspective are most likely to argue that a. b. c.
humans have an inborn predisposition to use decision-making heuristics. when humans are in a good mood, they are more accurate on decision-making tasks. when humans have received appropriate training, they make virtually no errors on decision-making tasks. d. humans typically make wise decisions in naturalistic situations. Answer: d Section Ref: Decision Making II: Applications of Decision-Making Research Difficulty: Medium
12-102. Suppose that Kaitlin has a satisficing decision-making style, and she is shopping for a winter jacket. She would be most likely to a.
examine as many jackets as possible, taking into consideration their price, color, style, and warmth. b. first select the two attributes that she considers most important—such as price and style—and focus on all jackets that meet these two criteria. c. find a jacket that is good enough to meet her standards, even if it is not ideal. d. create a list of pros and cons for the jackets that are acceptable, and choose the jacket on the basis of this list. Answer: c Section Ref: Decision Making II: Applications of Decision-Making Research Difficulty: Medium
12-103. Schwartz and his colleagues examined the relationship between decision-making style and measures of depression. Their results showed that people with a maximizing decision-making style a.
tended to be less depressed, probably because they were pleased with their highquality decisions. b. tended to be less depressed, probably because they enjoyed the process of decision making. c. tended to be more depressed, probably because they experience regret that the items they did not select might be better. d. tended to be more depressed, probably because they spent so much time on the process of decision making. Answer: c
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Section Ref: Decision Making II: Applications of Decision-Making Research Difficulty: Easy
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Chapter 13: Cognitive Development
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CHAPTER 13: Cognitive Development Throughout the Lifespan
13-1. Psychologists favor the lifespan approach to development because a.
it illustrates that the changes during late adulthood are even more dramatic than the changes during infancy. b. the research techniques are more valid than when other approaches are used. c. it demonstrates that the cognitive changes between infancy and old age are relatively minor. d. it emphasizes that people continue to develop throughout their lifetime. Answer: d Section Ref: The Lifespan Development of Memory Difficulty: Easy
13-2. One important reason that research on infant cognitive abilities is difficult to conduct is that a.
infants do not have measurable memory skills until 6 months of age, so we cannot assess other cognitive abilities that depend on memory. b. infants under the age of 3 months are too young to participate in research. c. it’s difficult to assess cognitive processes because of infants’ limited motor and language skills. d. psychologists have typically concentrated on perceptual abilities, rather than cognitive abilities. Answer: c Section Ref: The Lifespan Development of Memory Difficulty: Easy
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Chapter 13: Cognitive Development
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13-3. Your textbook describes several methodological problems that arise when conducting research with elderly individuals. These problems included the fact that a. elderly people tend to be better educated than younger people. b. elderly people are typically less anxious than younger people. c. elderly people typically have more health problems than younger people. d. irrelevant variables are often too carefully controlled. Answer: c Section Ref: The Lifespan Development of Memory Difficulty: Easy
13-4. Suppose researchers test 100 college students, whose ages range from 18 to 23. They also test 100 people at a nearby community center for older adults, whose ages range from 70 to 75. The participants are instructed to read a series of short essays and answer questions on them. The average score is 72% correct for the elderly people and 85% correct for the college students. Which of the following four conclusions would you be most likely to choose? a.
You would conclude that the younger people have better memory than the older people. b. You would conclude that the differences in the average scores can be traced to differences in the working memory of the two groups. c. You would recommend that the same study should be repeated with larger groups of participants. d. You would recommend that the study should be repeated, matching the two groups in terms of variables such as education and health. Answer: d Section Ref: The Lifespan Development of Memory Difficulty: Medium
13-5. According to the introductory information about cognitive skills in elderly people, a. b.
in general, elderly adults are more confident about their skills than young adults are. other variables—such as health or education—can explain part of the age-related cognitive differences. c. when researchers eliminate several other relevant variables, elderly adults and young adults have almost identical cognitive abilities. d. in general, elderly adults and young adults have had similar recent experience with memorizing material. Answer: b
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Chapter 13: Cognitive Development
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Section Ref: The Lifespan Development of Memory Difficulty: Easy
13-6. According to the discussion of infants’ memory, a b.
there is no evidence of long-term memory until infants are about 6 months of age. the major problem in studying infants’ memory is that babies cannot accurately see visual stimuli until they are 3–4 months old. c. it is so difficult to measure infants’ memory that we do not know much about the memory skills of young infants. d in the infants’ brain, some parts concerned with memory are not fully developed. Answer: d Section Ref: The Lifespan Development of Memory Difficulty: Easy
13-7. Studies on infants’ recognition of their mothers show that a.
infants recognize their mother’s face for the first time when they are about 4 months old. b. infants can recognize their mother’s face and voice before they reach the age of 1 week. c. it is so difficult to test infants’ memory that we cannot test infants’ face or voice recognition until they are about 2 months of age. d. infants’ perceptual skills are so limited that they cannot recognize either the face or the voice of their mother until 6 months of age. Answer: b Section Ref: The Lifespan Development of Memory Difficulty: Easy
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Chapter 13: Cognitive Development
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13-8. According to research on infants’ recognition of their mothers, a.
infants can recognize that mothers look different from strangers, beginning at less than 1 week of age. b. because infants’ vision is so primitive, they cannot visually recognize their mothers until they are about 6 weeks of age. c. prior to birth, the walls of the uterus prevent the sound of the mother’s voice from reaching the fetus. d. infants do not seem to be able to distinguish their mother’s voices from those of strangers until they are 4 weeks of age. Answer: a Section Ref: The Lifespan Development of Memory Difficulty: Easy
13-9. Chapter 13 discussed research conducted in China on infants’ ability to recognize their mother’s voice 1 or 2 weeks before the infants were born. In one condition, infants heard their mother’s voice reading a poem. This research was appropriately conducted because, in the second condition, infants heard a. their mother reading the same poem at a different time. b. their mother reading a different poem. c. another woman reading a different poem. d. another woman reading the same poem. Answer: d Section Ref: The Lifespan Development of Memory Difficulty: Easy
13-10. When Carolyn Rovee-Collier and other researchers use the conjugate reinforcement technique, a. b.
the babies show habituation to a stimulus that is presented repeatedly. the babies suck at a higher rate to produce the voice of their mother than the voice of a stranger. c. the babies kick in order to produce movement of a mobile. d. the babies receive a “peekaboo” reinforcement when they recognize a familiar object. Answer: c
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Chapter 13: Cognitive Development
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Section Ref: The Lifespan Development of Memory Difficulty: Easy
13-11. When Carolyn Rovee-Collier and other researchers use the conjugate reinforcement technique, a baby demonstrates memory by a.
showing dishabituation to a familiar stimulus, measured in terms of sucking responses. b. staring longer at a mobile that has never been seen before. c. smiling more at a familiar stimulus than at an unfamiliar stimulus. d. kicking his or her leg when the mobile is presented. Answer: d Section Ref: The Lifespan Development of Memory Difficulty: Easy
13-12. Chapter 13 discussed Rovee-Collier’s conjugate reinforcement technique, and its usefulness in testing infant memory. The basic logic behind this technique is that a. b.
infants will prefer to look at complex objects, rather than simple objects. infants will respond to their parents by gazing at them longer than they gaze at strangers. c. infants will remember—after a delay—how to kick their leg in order to produce movement in a mobile. d. infants can be classically conditioned to show a startle reflex to an unfamiliar sound. Answer: c Section Ref: The Lifespan Development of Memory Difficulty: Medium
13-13. According to research about the importance of context in infant memory, a. b.
context does not seem to have an important influence on infants’ memory. when infants are younger than 6 months, context has no influence on infants’ memory; however, context is important for infants who are older than 6 months. c. infants actually show enhanced memory if the researchers test memory in a different context. d. context effects are even stronger for infants than for adults. Answer: d
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Section Ref: The Lifespan Development of Memory Difficulty: Easy
13-14. Researchers have used Carolyn Rovee-Collier’s conjugate reinforcement technique to assess memory during infancy. According to this research, a. b.
infants show no measurable signs of memory until they are at least 4 months of age. if you change the environmental context in which the mobile is presented, infants show much lower retention. c. context apparently does not influence infants’ memory. d. unlike adults, infants show no evidence of the spacing effect. Answer: b Section Ref: The Lifespan Development of Memory Difficulty: Easy
13-15. Carolyn Rovee-Collier and her colleagues conducted research to see whether infants demonstrate the spacing effect. The results of this research showed that a.
infants and adults responded similarly; both remembered better when their practice was distributed over time. b. infants and adults responded similarly; both remembered better when they learned the material in one concentrated session. c. infants remembered better when practice was distributed; adults remembered better when they learned the material in one concentrated session. d. infants remembered better when they learned the material in one concentrated session; adults remembered better when practice was distributed. Answer: a Section Ref: The Lifespan Development of Memory Difficulty: Easy
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Chapter 13: Cognitive Development
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13-16. According to research on infant memory, if you want an infant to remember the sound of your voice, you should a. b. c. d.
speak in a soft voice for a long duration, such as an hour or more. speak in a loud voice for a long duration, such as an hour or more. speak briefly to the infant several times each day, with quiet time in between not expect memory until at least the age of 4 months.
Answer: c Section Ref: The Lifespan Development of Memory Difficulty: Medium
13-17. Carolyn Rovee-Collier’s research used a moving mobile or a moving train to assess infant memory. This research shows a. b.
a steady improvement in memory during the first 18 months of life. no consistent pattern in memory development because the measure of memory used for the first 6 months yields very different data from the measure of memory used later in infancy. c. a very low level of correct responses during the first 6 months, because infants’ brain development is incomplete, followed by a very rapid increase in memory. d. a very rapid increase in memory during the first 6 months, followed by a more gradual increase and then a plateau. Answer: a Section Ref: The Lifespan Development of Memory Difficulty: Easy
13-18. Memory research is easier to conduct with children than with infants. However, one potential problem when children participate in memory studies is that a. they have no measurable working memory. b. it is extremely difficult to motivate children to participate in research. c. children’s shape perception will not be mature until they are about 8 years old. d. they may fail to understand the task instructions. Answer: d Section Ref: The Lifespan Development of Memory Difficulty: Easy
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Chapter 13: Cognitive Development
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13-19. According to the research on children’s working memory, a. b.
children’s memory span remains fairly constant between the ages of about 2 and 10. children do not seem to have a functioning visuospatial sketchpad until they are about 10 years of age. c. scores on tests of phonological working memory are correlated with reading skills. d. scores on tests of visuospatial working memory do not seem to be correlated with any academic skills. Answer: c Section Ref: The Lifespan Development of Memory Difficulty: Easy
13-20. Suppose that 6-year-old children and college students are given several memory tasks. Which of the following tasks is likely to reveal the smallest differences between the two groups? a. Recall b. Recognition c. Working memory d. Source monitoring Answer: b Section Ref: The Lifespan Development of Memory Difficulty: Easy
13-21. What can we conclude about children’s memory? a. b. c. d.
Children’s memory spans are remarkably similar to adults’ memory spans. In general, children have excellent recognition memory. Children’s recall memory does not improve substantially as they mature. Young children tend to recall items much more accurately than they recognize them. Answer: b Section Ref: The Lifespan Development of Memory Difficulty: Easy
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Chapter 13: Cognitive Development
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13-22. Chapter 13 discussed children’s autobiographical memory. According to the research on this topic, a.
adolescents are very accurate in recalling events that had occurred to them when they were 2–3 years old. b. children develop a variety of memory strategies by time they are 4 years old, and these strategies help them increase their recall. c. children’s source monitoring is highly accurate by the time they are 3 years old, and this skill help them increase their recall. d. children’s language skills increase rapidly after the age of 2, and these skills help them increase their recall. Answer: d Section Ref: The Lifespan Development of Memory Difficulty: Easy
13-23. Suppose that a 4-year-old and a 10-year-old are working together to make a surprise birthday card for their father. Later, they tell their father which parts each of them constructed. Based on the material in Chapter 13, you would expect to find that a.
the two children have similar accuracy, because working memory does not vary much with age. b. the two children have similar accuracy, because source monitoring does not vary much with age. c. the older child is more accurate, because the 4-year-old child will demonstrate almost complete childhood amnesia. d. the older child is more accurate, because source monitoring is more accurate for older children. Answer: d Section Ref: The Lifespan Development of Memory Difficulty: Medium
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Chapter 13: Cognitive Development
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13-24. Suppose that you are reading a story to a group of 6-year-old children; the story concerns a young child who is dancing around the room. You say to the children, “Try to think about how it would feel if you were dancing around this classroom.” Based on the research of Foley and Ratner (1998), you would probably find that a.
some of the children would later report that they had in fact danced around the classroom. b. because children do not develop visual imagery until they are about 7 or 8, they would typically report, “You told us to think about dancing—but I didn’t really dance.” c. many children would report that they had actually heard dance music. d. the children would have no recall of the instructions, because they have so much difficulty understanding instructions. Answer: a Section Ref: The Lifespan Development of Memory Difficulty: Medium
13-25. Ryan, age 16, is talking to his mother. He claims to remember a visit to England when he was only 18 months old. Ryan’s mother, skeptical, suggests that he really only remembers hearing about the trip, because his parents talked about it so much over the years. Ryan’s mother is suggesting that Ryan has made a a. b. c. d.
source monitoring error. conjugate reinforcement error. utilization deficiency error. sensory memory failure.
Answer: a Section Ref: The Lifespan Development of Memory Difficulty: Medium
13-26. Suppose that you are enrolled in a child development course. In discussing children’s memory, the professor says, “Preschool children are likely to demonstrate utilization deficiency.” Which of the following options would be the most likely next sentence? a. b.
“You can teach them memory strategies, but they may not use them appropriately.” “They can only use organizational strategies; they cannot utilize rehearsal or imagery.” c. “Preschoolers lack the brain development to utilize working memory. d. “They realize that memory strategies would increase their recall, but they have difficulty remembering what the strategies are.” Answer: a
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13-27. Studies of children’s memory show that rehearsal a. is a highly effective memory strategy. b. is more likely in older children than in younger children. c. often occurs spontaneously in children as young as 2. d. is only helpful on long-term memory tasks. Answer: b Section Ref: The Lifespan Development of Memory Difficulty: Easy
13-28. According to the research on children’s memory strategies, a. b. c.
even very young children make excellent use of the rehearsal strategy. rehearsal is one of the most effective memory strategies. young children typically group similar items together in order to learn lists of words. d. young children can remember better if they use rehearsal strategies, but they typically do not use them spontaneously. Answer: d Section Ref: The Lifespan Development of Memory Difficulty: Easy
13-29. What can we conclude about children’s use of organizational strategies in memory? a.
Young children are just as likely as older children to rearrange pictures of the words that they must remember. b. Most young children are aware that organization would be helpful in memory tasks, but they lack the ability to organize. c. Young children who have been taught an organizational strategy usually show improved recall. d. When young children are told, “Remember these items,” they spontaneously organize the items. Answer: c
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13-30. According to the research on children’s memory, the imagery strategy a.
is clearly the most useful mnemonic device that children can use in order to remember items. b. can be taught to children as a mnemonic device, but it only aids working memory. c. has not been demonstrated to be useful for children younger than 10 years of age. d. can sometimes be used effectively as a mnemonic device for children as young as 6 years of age. Answer: d Section Ref: The Lifespan Development of Memory Difficulty: Easy
13-31. Chapter 13 discussed the development of imagery as a strategy for improving children’s memory. According to this discussion, a. b. c.
children as young as 4 will spontaneously use imagery as an aid to their memory. children as young as 6 can be trained to use imagery as an aid to their memory. children as young as 6 can create mental images, but they cannot use imagery as a strategy for memory improvement. d. most college students make effective use of imagery as a memory strategy. Answer: b Section Ref: The Lifespan Development of Memory Difficulty: Easy
13-32. Chapter 13 examined an experiment by Leichtman and Ceci on preschool children’s eyewitness testimony. According to this research, a. b.
children’s expectations about a stranger’s behavior did not affect their recall. children’s memory may not be perfect, but they can distinguish between what really happened and a false statement of what had happened. c. children in the control condition were not very accurate in recalling events. d. under certain circumstances, young children are fairly likely to report events inaccurately. Answer: d
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13-33. Suppose that you are on a jury in which a 7-year-old child has provided eyewitness testimony about an automobile accident. Based on what you know from Chapter 13, you should keep in mind that a.
this child should be much less likely than a 3-year-old to be influenced by incorrect suggestions after the accident. b. this child should be much more likely than a 3-year-old to be influenced by incorrect suggestions after the accident. c. this child should be much more likely than a 3-year-old to be influenced by a stereotype that had been conveyed prior to the accident. d. this child’s memory should not be influenced by either stereotypes or post-event information. Answer: A Section Ref: The Lifespan Development of Memory Difficulty: Medium
13-34. The research on children’s eyewitness testimony shows that a.
children’s accuracy is not correlated with the complexity of the interviewer’s language. b. children’s accuracy is not correlated with their age. c. young children are likely to make errors when the interviewer asks questions in an emotional tone. d. young children are likely to respond “I don’t know” when they cannot recall the details of an event. Answer: c Section Ref: The Lifespan Development of Memory Difficulty: Easy
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13-35. Some of the research on children’s eyewitness testimony has important implications for the courtroom. According to that research, a.
children are more accurate if interviewers ask the questions in a very emotional tone. b. as children grow older, they are increasingly likely to change their mind during a cross-examination. c. children are more likely than adults to say “I don't know” if they are unsure about the accuracy of their memory. d. young children have fairly accurate memory, under ideal circumstances. Answer: d Section Ref: The Lifespan Development of Memory Difficulty: Medium
13-36. Chapter 13 discussed eyewitness-testimony research by Henry and Gudjonsson. These researchers compared children with typical development and children with an intellectual disability. The results showed that the children with typical development a.
recalled more items correctly and were less likely to be influenced by misleading information. b. recalled more items correctly and were equally likely to be influenced by misleading information. c. recalled the same number of items correctly and were less likely to be influenced by misleading information. d. recalled the same number of items correctly and were equally likely to be influenced by misleading information. Answer: a Section Ref: The Lifespan Development of Memory Difficulty: Medium
13-37. Chapter 13 compared children who have intellectual disabilities and children in a mainstream school. Everyone watched a brief video and then answered questions. The results showed that the typically developing children a. b.
did not differ from the children with intellectual disabilities on any measure. recalled the same number of items correctly, but they were less likely to recall the misleading information. c. recalled the same number of items correctly, but they were more likely to recall the misleading information. d. recalled a greater number of items correctly, and they were less likely to recall the misleading information. Answer: d
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13-38. The discussion of working memory in elderly people pointed out that a.
elderly people and young adults do not seem to differ on any measures of working memory. b. elderly people show consistent deficits on working memory tasks, in comparison with young adults. c. elderly people and young adults are most different from each other on easy working memory tasks. d. elderly people and young adults are most different from each other on difficult working memory tasks. Answer: d Section Ref: The Lifespan Development of Memory Difficulty: Easy
13-39. Suppose that you are volunteering at a community program for elderly adults. With respect to working memory, you should remember that these elderly individuals will have the most difficulty when they are asked to a. store sounds in the phonological loop. b. remember sentences that are spoken at a normal rate. c. rearrange information before recalling it. d. recall more than three numbers in the same order in which they were presented. Answer: c Section Ref: The Lifespan Development of Memory Difficulty: Easy
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13-40. Suppose that your elderly uncle is coming to visit. You are concerned because you will be discussing some important issues and do not want to overload his working memory. Based on the information in Chapter 13, you would suspect that a.
you probably do not need to worry, because no age-related differences have been reported for working memory. b. you probably do not need to worry, as long as you aren’t talking to him while he is doing another complex task at the same time. c. you probably need to worry, because elderly people show deficits in the functioning of the phonological loop. d. you probably need to worry, because young adults and older adults have similar working memory only when speech rate is significantly slower than normal. Answer: b Section Ref: The Lifespan Development of Memory Difficulty: Medium
13-41. Air traffic controllers are required to retire at the age of 56. This is because of age-related declines in a. b. c. d.
long-term memory. working memory. autobiographical memory. logical reasoning.
Answer: b Section Ref: The Lifespan Development of Memory Difficulty: Easy
13-42. According to the research on prospective memory, elderly people a. b. c. d.
consistently make more errors than younger people. typically make more errors than younger people. make about the same number of errors as younger people. make about the same number of errors on real-life tasks, but more errors on tasks that are low in ecological validity. Answer: b Section Ref: The Lifespan Development of Memory Difficulty: Easy
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13-43. Your textbook compares prospective memory in younger adults and older adults. The research typically shows that elderly adults a.
make fewer prospective memory errors, probably because they have developed effective strategies for remembering to do things in the future. b. make fewer prospective memory errors, probably because retired adults do not need to remember so many work-related responsibilities. c. make more prospective memory errors, probably because this kind of memory task is mostly based on working memory, and elderly people often have trouble with working memory. d. make more prospective memory errors, probably because this kind of task is mostly based on implicit memory, and elderly people often have trouble with implicit memory. Answer: c Section Ref: The Lifespan Development of Memory Difficulty: Medium
13-44. The research on implicit memory in older adults shows that a.
older adults have a slight advantage over younger adults in this area because of their greater life experience. b. older adults are much less accurate than younger adults in this area; in fact, the age differences are larger than on explicit memory tasks. c. older adults and younger adults perform fairly similarly on implicit memory tasks. d. the results in this area are extremely variable, depending upon the method used; some tasks reveal very large age-related differences, others reveal no differences whatsoever. Answer: c Section Ref: The Lifespan Development of Memory Difficulty: Medium
13-45. What can we conclude about memory in elderly people? a. b. c.
Their implicit memory is substantially less accurate than that of young adults. Elderly people show rapid declines in recognition memory. Elderly people usually remember more material in the afternoon than in the morning. d. Elderly people sometimes have more difficulty than young adults on long-term recall tasks. Answer: d
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13-46. Based on the information in Chapter 13, you could predict that elderly people would typically recall the most information on a. an explicit memory task in the morning. b. an explicit memory task in the late afternoon. c. an implicit memory task in the morning. d. an implicit memory task in the late afternoon. Answer: c Section Ref: The Lifespan Development of Memory Difficulty: Medium
13-47. On many long-term memory tasks, young adults remember more than older adults. However, the two groups are fairly similar a.
when memory is measured in terms of recognition memory, rather than recall memory. b. when working on an explicit memory task, rather than an implicit memory task. c. when contextual cues are missing. d. when recalling unrelated pairs of English words. Answer: a Section Ref: The Lifespan Development of Memory Difficulty: Easy
13-48 Studies on long-term memory in elderly people usually show that a. b.
elderly people show substantial deficits in implicit memory. elderly people and young adults perform similarly on all the major tests of longterm memory. c. elderly people are usually somewhat better than young adults in recalling people’s names. d. in many—but not all—areas, young adults and elderly adults perform similarly. Answer: d
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13-49. What can we conclude about the reasons for long-term memory problems in elderly individuals? a. Almost all of the deficits can be traced to factors other than a person’s age. b. Elderly individuals consistently use less effective memory strategies. c. Most of the decline can be traced to deficits in language-processing skills. d. Some of the decline can be traced to changes in the brain. Answer: d Section Ref: The Lifespan Development of Memory Difficulty: Easy
13-50. As discussed in Chapter 13, researchers admit that we do not yet have a complete explanation for the fact that—on some long-term tasks—elderly adults remember less than young adults. However, which of the following students provides the best summary of one factor that accounts for age-related differences? a.
Sergei: “Elderly adults remember contextual cues better than young adults, and these cues tend to disrupt performance on explicit recall tasks.” b. Isabelle: “Elderly adults typically fail to use long-term memory strategies based on organization and imagery; as a result, information often cannot be retained in longterm memory.” c. Mandy: “Elderly adults are more likely than young adults to have difficulty paying attention, which can affect performance on memory tasks.” d. Christopher: “Elderly adults are much too confident about their memory skills, so they actually spend less time rehearsing the material.” Answer: c Section Ref: The Lifespan Development of Memory Difficulty: Medium
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13-51. Which of the following students provides the most accurate information about memory in elderly adults, as opposed to younger adults? a.
Kanako: “Elderly adults are much more likely to have decreased frontal-lobe activation.” b. Stacey: “Elderly adults often have more trouble paying attention.” c. Curtis: “Elderly adults have much more trouble using strategies to enhance their performance on long-term memory tasks.” d. Juan: “Elderly adults have much more trouble on implicit memory tasks.” Answer: b Section Ref: The Lifespan Development of Memory Difficulty: Easy
13-52. Research on elderly people shows that they often take longer to perform cognitive tasks than do younger adults. This phenomenon is called a. contextual-cues deficit. b. implicit memory. c. semantic deficits. d. cognitive slowing. Answer: d Section Ref: The Lifespan Development of Memory Difficulty: Easy
13-53. Which of the following topics would be especially interesting to child psychologists who want to investigate theory of mind? a.
Do children realize that parents can remember a longer list of words than children do? b. Which is a more effective memory strategy for 10-year-olds, imagery or organization? c. Do children perform better on implicit memory tasks or explicit memory tasks? d. Can utilization deficit explain children’s poor performance on recall tasks? Answer: a Section Ref: The Lifespan Development of Metamemory Difficulty: Medium
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13-54. Which of the following students provides the best summary of the research on children’s metamemory? a.
Arthur: “Children understand some of the characteristics of memory, but they don’t realize that you need to make a real effort in order to memorize something.” b. Maya: “Children have very little awareness of any aspects of metacognition until they have reached school age.” c. Katarina: “Children develop metacognitive abilities much earlier than psychologists had previously suspected; these skills are quite sophisticated by the time children reach school age.” d. Luke: “Unfortunately, it is difficult to assess cognitive skills in preschool children; but 5-year-olds have metacognitive skills that resemble the skills of 10-year-olds.” Answer: a Section Ref: The Lifespan Development of Metamemory Difficulty: Medium
13-55. According to the discussion of metamemory, children who are between the ages of about 5 and 10 typically a.
believe that they need to make an effort if they genuinely want to remember something. b. underestimate how well they will perform on a memory test. c. were only slightly more confident about the items they had answered correctly, compared to their confidence about the items they had answered incorrectly. d. use appropriate memory strategies if they realize that they don’t know the material. Answer: c Section Ref: The Lifespan Development of Metamemory Difficulty: Easy
13-56. Jason is a 10-year-old boy who knows that a science test is scheduled for tomorrow morning. According to the discussion of children’s metacognition, Jason probably a. believes that he doesn’t need to spend much time studying for the test. b. plans to use distributed learning in studying for the test. c. can accurately assess which items he has mastered and which require more study. d. plans to use at least two different memory strategies in studying for the test. Answer: a Section Ref: The Lifespan Development of Metamemory Difficulty: Medium
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13-57. Anna, who is 10-year-old, and her 5-year-old sister Penny watched a new animated movie, and then they are asked a series of questions about the movie. For each question they answer, they are also asked to rate their confidence in their answer. Which of the following is most likely to be true? a. b. c. d.
For the questions they answered correctly, both Anna and Penny will be highly confident. For the questions they answered correctly, Anna will be much more confident than Penny. For the questions they answered incorrectly, both Anna and Penny will show a lack of confidence. For the questions they answered incorrectly, Anna will be more confident than Penny.
Answer: a Section Ref: The Lifespan Development of Metamemory Difficulty: Medium
13-58. The discussion of children’s metamemory examined research by Roebers and her colleagues. This research asked 5–10-year-old children to judge whether they had answered memory questions correctly. The results showed that a.
these children were much more confident about the questions they answered correctly compared with the questions they answered incorrectly. b. these children were equally confident about the questions they answered correctly and the questions they answered incorrectly. c. these children were overconfident about the questions that they had actually answered incorrectly. d. these children were unable to understand the metamemory task, so the results of this study were inconclusive. Answer: c Section Ref: The Lifespan Development of Metamemory Difficulty: Medium
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13-59. The research on the relationship between metamemory and children’s memory performance is complicated. However, a general pattern is that a.
children who have a well-developed metamemory tend to use strategies more wisely, but this does not improve their performance. b. metamemory is relatively easy to measure in young children. c. metamemory and memory performance are moderately correlated with each other. d. the correlations between metamemory and memory performance are significant only when we study younger children. Answer: c Section Ref: The Lifespan Development of Metamemory Difficulty: Easy
13-60. Chapter 13 discussed whether children’s poor memory performance can be traced to faulty metamemory and ineffective use of memory strategies. According to this discussion, a. b.
the correlation between metamemory and memory performance is extremely high. the correlation between metamemory and strategy use is high, but neither of these two factors is correlated with memory performance. c. the correlation between metamemory and memory performance is moderate, and it would probably be higher if we could accurately measure children’s metamemory. d. none of the appropriate correlations is statistically significant, so some other factor—other than metamemory accuracy and strategy use—must account for children’s memory deficits. Answer: c Section Ref: The Lifespan Development of Metamemory Difficulty: Medium
13-61. Which of the following students provides the best information about the metacognitive skills of elderly people? a.
Pascal: “Elderly adults are similar to young adults in accurately predicting which items they will recall at a later time.” b. Ladi: “Elderly adults are consistently less effective in monitoring their memory.” c. Jacqueline: “Elderly adults have less knowledge than young adults about how their memory works.” d. Lucy: “In general, elderly adults and young adults are similar, except that elderly adults spend less time on any given metacognitive task, in comparison to young adults.” Answer: a
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13-62. Older adults are more likely than younger adults to a. b.
be able to monitor their memory performance accurately. select the most difficult items for further study rather than studying items that they have already mastered. c. know which memory strategies are most effective. d. be overconfident on working memory tasks. Answer: d Section Ref: The Lifespan Development of Metamemory Difficulty: Easy
13-63. The discussion of metacognition in elderly adults suggests that a.
adults typically experience a decline in all major metacognitive skills as they grow older. b. young adults are more aware than elderly adults that some memory strategies are more effective than other memory strategies. c. young adults are more accurate than elderly adults in predicting which items they will recall on a memory test. d. young adults and elderly adults are reasonably similar in many metacognitive skills. Answer: d Section Ref: The Lifespan Development of Metamemory Difficulty: Medium
13-64. Chapter 13 discusses elderly people’s awareness of memory problems. According to this discussion, a.
people who are high in memory self-efficacy typically believe that they cannot prevent memory problems. b. memory self-efficacy is especially strong in people with dementia. c. elderly people who are aware of their memory problems are less likely to develop memory strategies. d. the stereotype—about forgetfulness in late adulthood—may encourage elderly adults to believe that cognitive decline is unavoidable. Answer: d
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13-65. The research on infants’ speech perception suggests that a.
infants can appreciate phoneme similarities shortly after birth, but they cannot appreciate phoneme differences until they are almost 12 months old. b. infants have such limited skills that psychologists cannot design appropriate research on speech perception in infants younger than 6 months of age. c. infants can perceive the differences between a variety of similar phonemes; this ability is present either at birth or during the first weeks of life. d. the perception of phonemes does not change after the age of 6 months. Answer: c Section Ref: The Development of Language Difficulty: Medium
13-66. According to the research on infant speech perception, a.
infants cannot distinguish between their native language and an unfamiliar language until they are about 1 year of age. b. infants’ ability to appreciate phoneme contrasts in an unfamiliar language improves substantially during the first 2 years of life. c. infants are slow to develop language because they cannot recognize the basic phonemes of their native language until they are about 9 months of age. d. by the age of about 5 months, infants respond more to their own name than to a different name. Answer: d Section Ref: The Development of Language Difficulty: Medium
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13-67. Imagine that you are volunteering in a child-care center, and you are currently taking care of infants who are less than 1 year of age. Which of the following language skills would you expect to be the first one to develop? a. b.
The infants can recognize the sound of their own name. The infants look longer at their mother when hearing the word “Mommy”; they look longer at their father when hearing the word “Daddy.” c. The infants have developed some sophisticated concepts, for example, realizing that an unfamiliar animal is likely to drink water. d. The infants appreciate that an angry voice goes with an angry facial expression. Answer: a Section Ref: The Development of Language Difficulty: Medium
13-68. Younger infants are actually more skilled than older infants and adults in a. recognizing their own names. b. perceiving speech-sound contrasts in their native language. c. recognizing similarities in speech sounds. d. distinguishing speech sounds in unfamiliar languages. Answer: d Section Ref: The Development of Language Difficulty: Easy
13-69. According to research by Walker–Andrews, the understanding that facial expression must correspond with vocal intonation is present at the age of a. 7 months. b. 3 days. c. 2 years. d. 5 years. Answer: a Section Ref: The Development of Language Difficulty: Easy
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13-70. Chapter 13 discusses research by McDonough and Mandler, in which 9-month-olds showed that they knew that animals drink, whereas vehicles can carry people. This research suggests that babies a. show habituation. b. prefer nouns and verbs to words that merely show a grammatical function. c. are aware of syntax. d. appreciate semantic concepts. Answer: d Section Ref: The Development of Language Difficulty: Easy
13-71. According to the discussion of early language production, a. b. c.
true babbling involves only vowels. babbling is a form of intentional communication. when infants are 1-month-old, their babbling already sounds like the language spoken in their home. d. intentional communication begins at about 9 months of age. Answer: d Section Ref: The Development of Language Difficulty: Medium
13-72. According to the discussion of child-directed speech, a.
adults who use child-directed speech tend to make language acquisition somewhat easier for children. b. adults who use child-directed speech actually make language acquisition more difficult for children. c. unfortunately, fathers are not skilled in using child-directed speech. d. unfortunately, older children are not skilled in using child-directed speech. Answer: a Section Ref: The Development of Language Difficulty: Easy
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13-73. Chapter 13 discussed research about whether 12–18-month-old children can learn language by watching a DVD. The DVD shows a household object, while a voiceover says the object’s name. According to the results, children learned significantly more words a.
if the children watched the video by themselves, compared with a control group that had no video. b. if the parent taught the child the words, compared with the child learning the words from the video. c. if the parent watched the video and interacted with the child, compared with the child just watching the video. d. if the child was in the control group, without any video or teaching; their vocabulary actually increased as much as when children’s parents taught them the words. Answer: b Section Ref: The Development of Language Difficulty: Easy
13-74. A father says to his son, “Go over to the chair and get my overcoat.” (The overcoat is the only item on the chair.) The next day, the son talks about his daddy’s overcoat; apparently he has already learned this new word. This is an example of a. pragmatics. b. habituation. c. an overextension. d. fast mapping. Answer: d Section Ref: The Development of Language Difficulty: Medium
13-75. A mother hands little Marc his familiar bowl, which contains a red fruit he has never seen before. She says, “Look, here are some strawberries!” When he sees this same fruit at dinnertime, he points and says a word something like “strawberries.” Marc is demonstrating a. overextension. b. fast mapping. c. an appreciation of syntax. d. an appreciation of pragmatics. Answer: b
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Section Ref: The Development of Language Difficulty: Medium
13-76. Suppose that a child uses the word baby to refer to toddlers and older children as well as infants. This would be an example of a. overregularization. b. overextension. c. incorrect syntax. d. fast mapping. Answer: b Section Ref: The Development of Language Difficulty: Medium
13-77. Which of the following is an example of the concept overregularization? a. A child asks an embarrassing question to a stranger. b. A child shows inappropriate fast mapping. c. A child says, “I eated my cereal.” d. A child talks to a younger child, using overly difficult language. Answer: c Section Ref: The Development of Language Difficulty: Medium
13-78. Young Jamie tells his mother, “Doggy runned away from me.” The use of “runned” is an example of a. fast mapping. b. overextension. c. overregularization. d. syntax. Answer: c Section Ref: The Development of Language Difficulty: Medium
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13-79. Suppose that you are scanning a journal in child development. You see the title of an article about language, which emphasizes the word “morphology.” The most likely topic of this article would be how children a. learn new words. b. create the past tense for verbs. c. combine words into sentences. d. describe how a toy works, when speaking to a younger child. Answer: b Section Ref: The Development of Language Difficulty: Medium
13-80. Which of the following examples would be most consistent with Marcus’s (1996) ruleand-memory theory for children’s choice of past-tense verbs? a.
Children systematically add “-ed” to every present-tense verb, to create a past-tense verb, and they remember this rule. b. Children typically add “-ed” to present-tense verbs, but they have also learned the past tense of a small number of irregular verbs. c. Children create a rule, based on adults’ models of past tense, and the children store this rule in long-term memory. d. Children keep a tally of the statistically likely pattern of past-tense words, and they retrieve this rule from memory when appropriate. Answer: b Section Ref: The Development of Language Difficulty: Medium
13-81. If children follow Marcus’s “rule-and-memory” theory for creating the plural form of nouns, we would expect that English-speaking children would a. b.
add the ending “s” or “es” to every noun. vary the strategy for creating a plural form, and then notice which strategy receives the most positive reaction from grownups. c. add “s” or “es” to most nouns, but remember some important words that have an irregular plural. d. use overextensions more frequently than overregularizations. Answer: c Section Ref: The Development of Language Difficulty: Medium
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13-82. An important factor that helps children develop their syntax is that a. b. c.
they develop fast mapping at an early age. they become skilled at overextensions. their working memory increases, allowing them to produce more combinations of words. d. they become less self-centered, so that it becomes easier to convey a request to another person. Answer: c Section Ref: The Development of Language Difficulty: Easy
13-83. Jenny is 4 years old, and she has recently learned that she should not tell other people that they are fat. What aspect of language has this child demonstrated? a. Syntax b. Overextension c. Morphology d. Pragmatics Answer: d Section Ref: The Development of Language Difficulty: Medium
13-84. Imagine that 6-year-old Debbie is beginning to tell you a story about her family’ trip to a folk song festival. Before she starts, she says, “O.K., have you ever heard about the Old Songs Folk Festival?” Her skill in determining whether you have the appropriate background for the story is most relevant to an aspect of language called a. syntax. b. pragmatics. c. source monitoring. d. fast mapping. Answer: b Section Ref: The Development of Language Difficulty: Medium
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13-85. Suppose that a 4-year-old boy has just visited the zoo. He is describing what he saw, first to an adult, and then to his 2-year-old sister. You would expect to find that a. b. c. d.
he uses the same kind of language for both people. he inappropriately uses more complicated language for his sister than for the adult. he uses more complicated language for the adult than for his sister. he would use more complicated language for the adult only if he is gifted in language skills. Answer: c Section Ref: The Development of Language Difficulty: Medium
13-86. Imagine that you are babysitting for a 5-year-old girl named Chloe. You are telling Chloe about a trip you took last week. Chloe would be most likely to a. b. c. d.
nod her head from time to time. interrupt you continuously, because she has no appreciation for turn-taking. fail to provide any indication that she is listening to you. respond to you by using the same kind of language she would use for a younger child. Answer: a Section Ref: The Development of Language Difficulty: Medium