Exam 8: A--Cognition and Language

You have bought a $500 ticket package to take all of your family to Sea World on the first weekend in June. Your spouse has free passes to an IMAX viewing of Jaws for the same day. The morning of your outing, you notice storm clouds coming in and the weatherman says that there is a 95% chance of rain and lightning. You think that it might make more sense to go to the IMAX showing, but you paid significantly more for Sea World. Where would you be more likely to go? Name this phenomenon and briefly describe the premise of this type of cognitive error.

When you increase your attention to something in your visual field, the part of your visual cortex sensitive to that area becomes __________.

The tendency to read the words, instead of saying the color of ink, is known as the Stroop effect.

In general, it is easier to learn a second language at a younger age than at an older age.

Some children grow up in a bilingual environment, learning two languages about equally well. Describe the two disadvantages and one primary advantage to bilingualism identified in the chapter.

__________ is your tendency to respond to some stimuli more than others at any given time or to remember some stimuli more than others at any given time.

Although other species have the ability to communicate, only human languages have the property of productivity.

Strategies for simplifying a problem or for guiding an investigation are known as heuristics.

Psychologists use the term __________ to refer to your tendency to respond to or to remember some stimuli more than others at any given time.

Becoming an expert in a given field (whether playing chess or the violin) takes about ten years of concentrated practice.

In decision making, the maximizing strategy approximates the use of __________ whereas satisficing is more of a __________ approach.

Individuals sometimes face a choice among a huge number of options. For example, when you go to library to check out a book, do you go through every book to find the perfect book for your mood or do you browse several books until you find one that looks interesting? People generally follow two strategies; maximizing and satisficing. Define each term and describe which of the above scenarios for checking out a book goes with each.

In decision making, __________ means searching only until you find something that is good enough.

A person who suffers from __________ may be mentally retarded but still able to produce language in a normal and skillful way.

You wait in line for over an hour to buy a movie ticket for the late show. You then learn there is a strong, unpleasant odor in the theatre and that the movie is long and bad. According to the sunk cost effect, you will cut your losses (the money you spent on the ticket) and avoid the movie.

A mechanical, repetitive procedure for solving a problem or testing every hypothesis is called an __________.

Broca's aphasia is a condition marked by impaired recall of nouns and impaired comprehension of language, despite the ability to speak fluently and grammatically.

You see the letters "RED" printed in green ink. The difficulty you have in naming the color (instead of reading the word) is known as the Stroop effect.

Cognitive psychologists conduct the majority of their research by asking subjects to describe their own thinking.

In general, it is easier to learn a second language during high school once you have mastered grammar for your primary language.