Exam 9: Language and Thinking

Standardization can refer to creating consistent well-controlled testing environments or to the process of creating age-specific norms for a test.

Which of the following statements regarding the process of standardization is most accurate?

A psychologist has a theory that a certain mood disorder is largely due to a deficiency of the neurotransmitter ACS2.The psychologist believes that if the theory is correct then increasing the levels of ACS2 in people with that mood disorder will reduce their symptoms of the mood disorder.To test that hypothesis,the psychologist conducts a well-designed experiment.This example best represents:

When we reason from general principles to a conclusion about a specific case,we are engaging in:

The fact that IQ differences between black and white students have decreased in recent years is generally taken as evidence that this difference was largely be due to ____________ factors.

In developing his tests of intelligence,Alfred Binet assumed that the rate at which mental competence is gained is characteristic of the person and is fairly constant over time.

With respect to a correlation,intelligence is related to brain size in which of the following ways:

Words such as "tree," "water skiing," and "assertive" are considered to be the fundamental units of semantic memory and are all examples of:

Margaret was so excited to share the great news with her friends! She had just taken the Wechsler Intelligence Test and scored a 100.Being a 'C' student,Margaret was thrilled to think that she had actually earned the perfect score of 100! Margaret's teacher informed her that:

Gina works for a widget company where her job is to bundle the widgets in packages of 25.Gina figures out a method of bundling the widgets but fails to implement the final stage of problem solving which in the long-run caused her to miss a more efficient method.This final stage was ________________.

According to statistics,the majority of people with a cognitive disability are classified as:

Procedures or formulas that,if used correctly,always lead to correct solutions are called algorithms.

The errors in logic that occurred in response to the "Linda the feminist bank teller" problem are best explained and interpreted by the _____________________.

Animal researchers noticed that when Nim Chimpsky combined the symbols he'd been taught into longer sequences,he was usually copying his trainer's previous signs or "running on" until he got what he wanted.They took this as evidence that ___________ the assumption that Nim was using real language.

A person who is generating many possible solutions to a problem and is attempting to incorporate new and unusual ideas into these solutions is engaged in convergent thinking.

All of the following were mentioned by the text as examples of mental representations EXCEPT:

Research has indicated that IQ tests are generally correlated around .60 with _________ performance,while the correlations are somewhat smaller (in the .20 to .50 range)when attempting to predict _________ performance.

The surface structure consists of the way symbols are combined within a given language.

It is assumed that the availability heuristic sometimes results in inaccurate judgments by leading people to confuse probability judgments with how easy it is to call up information from memory.

Gary has a beautiful house on the beach in Vancouver.When Gary drives to the office each morning he follows the coastline as he knows his office is directly south of his home and is also on the waterfront.He also uses the coast road to get to the dentist,the grocery store,and the post office.When his teenage son starts driving he immediately points out to Gary that he is driving an extra 6 miles a day when he takes the coast road to the post office.Gary missed the more efficient route due to his _______________.