Deck 11: Thinking and Problem Solving

Question 1

A feature common among studies of complex mental processes is that

A) there are often very few observations per experimental condition.
B) variability is often low.
C) statistical power is often high.
D) between-subjects designs are uncommon.

Answer 1

there are often very few observations per experimental condition.

Question 2

Which of the following is true?

A) The failure to replicate an experimental outcome can be instructive.
B) The issue of generality of results is independent of the problem of replicability.
C) Direct replications may be thought of as converging operations.
D) Performing replications of an experiment adds little to our understanding of the phenomenon being studied.

Answer 2

The failure to replicate an experimental outcome can be instructive.

Question 3

In a __________ replication, the experimenter may change the original procedure slightly by manipulating factors not varied in the original experiment and thus establish boundary conditions for the phenomenon in question.

A) direct
B) analogical
C) systematic
D) conceptual

Answer 3

systematic

Question 4

An experimenter's confidence in the reliability of a result

A) increases with the number of observations on which it is based.
B) is highest when a between?subjects design is used?.
C) increases with the variability of the data.
D) decreases as the power of the statistical test used to assess the result increases.

Question 5

Adamson's research on functional fixedness shows that _________ is a more sensitive dependent measure than __________.

A) latency; verbal report
B) percent correct; latency
C) latency; percent correct
D) verbal report; percent correct

Question 6

Köhler's approach to problem solving in chimpanzees

A) emphasized the importance of insight.
B) emphasized the conceptual nature of problem solving.
C) went beyond trial and error learning.
D) all of the these

Question 7

__________ refers to actual replicability of experiments.

A) Statistical reliability
B) Experimental reliability
C) Conceptual replication
D) Verification

Question 8

Thorndike's puzzle boxes

A) were specially constructed to study problem solving in animals.
B) contained food as positive reinforcement.
C) were mazes that animals traveled through to obtain food.
D) were puzzles which had no solutions.

Question 9

In Gick and Holyoak's (1980) experiments on analogical problem solving

A) some participants were told to use the analogous story as a hint in solving the problem.
B) participants rated the adequacy of proposed solutions to a problem.
C) all participants read a story analogous to the problem scenario before providing a solution.
D) participants constructed scenarios similar to those presented for study.

Question 10

Gick and Holyoak (1980) found that the ability to solve a problem

A) did not depend on the participant's having previously read the solution to a similar problem.
B) was dependent on the participant's being explicitly told to use the example as a hint in solving the problem.
C) was independent of whether participants had been told to use the story as a hint in solving the problem.
D) was unrelated to the participant's familiarity with similar problems.

Question 11

According to Holyoak's theory, experience with the fortress problem will help a person solve the tumor problem

A) in all cases.
B) only if the person finds correspondences between the original problem and the transfer problem.
C) only if the original problem immediately precedes the transfer problem.
D) only if the instructions are similar.

Question 12

Ensuring experimental control is often more difficult in research on thinking and problem solving because

A) between-subjects designs are often used.
B) experiments in this area are often more complicated than experiments in other areas of psychology.
C) there are many extraneous variables that might influence performance.
D) all of these.

Question 13

A result is statistically reliable if

A) the change observed in the independent variable is not due to chance factors.
B) the change observed in the dependent variable would only rarely occur by chance.
C) a repetition of the experiment yields the same result.
D) inferential statistics are used to evaluate the outcome.

Question 14

Which of the following is NOT true of the successful behavior exhibited by Thorndike's cats in escaping from puzzle boxes?

A) It became more systematic with repeated trials.
B) It could initially be described as trial and error learning.
C) It seemed accidental during the first few trials
D) It showed the occurrence of a sudden insight into the solution of the problem.

Question 15

Current research and theory in thinking and problem solving

A) reflect the influence of earlier animal research.
B) reflect the influence of Gestalt psychology.
C) are concerned with replication and reliability.
D) all of the these

Question 16

The fact that most people would not think of using a newspaper to clean a car windshield is an example of.

A) functional fixedness.
B) feeling-of-knowing.
C) systematic analogy.
D) insight.

Question 17

__________ means that the elements that correspond in two problems are related to each other in a way that is not inconsistent with other mappings.

A) Direct mapping
B) Indirect mapping
C) Structural consistency
D) Structural inconsistency

Question 18

_________ is the name for people's tendency to search for evidence that supports their hypothesis

A) Mapping
B) Conceptual replication
C) Confirmation bias
D) Functional fixedness

Question 19

Duncker's research on the box problem showed that

A) very few participants were able to solve the problem in any condition.
B) participants were less likely to solve the problem if the boxes contained other objects than it the boxes did not contain other objects.
C) participants were more likely to solve the problem if the boxes contained buttons than if the boxes contained candles.
D) the functional fixedness effect was not reliable.

Question 20

Köhler's research on problem solving in chimpanzees

A) involved problems which could be solved in a simple and direct fashion.
B) were analogous to Thorndike's puzzle box experiments.
C) involved problems for which there were no immediately obvious solutions.
D) emphasized its conceptual nature rather than its trial-and-error aspect.

Question 21

The power of a statistical test refers to

A) the ability of the test to reject the null hypothesis when it is, in fact, false.
B) the probability of rejecting the null hypothesis when it is, in fact, true.
C) the usefulness of the test in a wide variety of experimental designs.
D) the test-retest reliability of a psychological test.

Question 22

Between-subjects designs are often used in research on complex cognitive processes because

A) they reduce the variability of observations.
B) they require fewer participants compared to within-subjects designs.
C) they prevent the occurrence of carryover effects.
D) they increase our confidence in the reliability of the results.

Question 23

There are often very few observations per condition when studying complex cognition because

A) it is often necessary to test each participant individually in a time-consuming procedure.
B) there is very little variability among subjects in performance of these tasks.
C) the variability among subjects can be compensated for statistically.
D) statistical power is not affected by the number of observations obtained.

Question 24

After obtaining an interesting result in an experiment on solving insight problems, an experimenter repeats the experiment three more times using different types of insight problems. This is an example of

A) direct replication.
B) systematic replication.
C) mapping.
D) functional fixedness.

Question 25

Which of the following is true?

A) When an experiment produces a statistically significant difference between conditions, we can be certain that the independent variable is responsible for the difference observed.
B) When an experiment is statistically reliable, we can be confident that the results will generalize to other situations.
C) Statistical reliability should be given more weight than experimental reliability.
D) Experimental reliability should be given more weight than statistical reliability.

Question 26

In problem solving research, it is often necessary to use a between-subjects design in order to

A) avoid ceiling effects.
B) reduce the number of participants in the experiment.
C) reduce the variability of observations.
D) avoid carryover effects.

Question 27

Statistical and experimental reliability mean the same thing.

Question 28

Reliability of results from a single experiment can be assessed using appropriate statistical analysis.

Question 29

Current research in problem solving and thinking reflects a greater influence of behaviorism than of the Gestalt approach.

Question 30

In their critique of the use of verbal reports as a source of data about the cognitive processes involved in a variety of different tasks, Nisbett and Wilson (1977) argued that

A) People are often unable to given accurate reports of the factors which have influenced their behaviors.
B) Retrospective accounts by the participants of the ways in which they performed a task may provide valuable insights into the processes involved in doing the task.
C) Verbal reports are an accurate source of information about the factors involved in our behaviors, decisions, and emotions.
D) People have direct, introspective access to their cognitive processes.

Question 31

Which of the following is NOT true?

A) A direct replication adds little to our understanding of a phenomenon.
B) A systematic replication is a form of converging operations.
C) A conceptual replication can clarify the boundary conditions under which an event will occur.
D) Systematic and conceptual replications add to our confidence in the reliability of an experimental result.

Question 32

A ___________ replication is more similar to the original experiment than a _________ replication.

A) systematic; direct
B) direct; conceptual
C) conceptual; direct
D) conceptual; systematic

Question 33

Experimenters using verbal reports as research tools

A) can rely on them as the sole dependent measure in an experiment.
B) should continue to do so since verbal reports are perfectly correlated with performance.
C) may find the discrepancies between verbal reports and behavioral measures to be interesting in and of themselves.
D) find few discrepancies between people's verbal reports and more objective behavioral measures of cognitive processes.

Question 34

Even if the percentages of people solving a problem under different conditions were the same, differences in performance may be revealed by

A) the quality of the solution.
B) the time to solve the problem.
C) problem solving latencies.
D) all of the these

Question 35

Metcalf's research on 'feelings of warmth' judgments, suggests that

A) participants are very accurate in judging when they are close to the solution of an insight problem.
B) the solutions to insight problems given when participants reported feeling close to a solution were more likely to be incorrect than correct.
C) insight problems are solved gradually, and not in a burst of insight.
D) people's subjective sense of whether they will solve a problem is very accurate.

Question 36

The primary independent variable in problem solving research is

A) the way in which the problem is presented.
B) the percentage of participants solving the problem.
C) the level of the participant's IQ.
D) the latency in solving the problem.

Question 37

A result is said to be reliable if a repetition of the experimental procedure yields the same outcome.

Question 38

Which of the following would NOT be considered a manipulation of the way in which a problem is presented in an experiment on problem solving?

A) varying the order in which information is given to the participants
B) varying the amount of irrelevant information given to the participants
C) varying the amount of a reward offered to the participants for solving the problem successfully
D) varying the nature of a diagram provided to the participants

Question 39

Which of the following is NOT true of the feeling?of?knowing phenomenon?

A) People's judgments of their prospective ability to recognize the answer to a question are positively correlated with later recognition performance.
B) Even though people may not be able to produce the answer to a question, they are fairly good at predicting whether they could recognize it if it were later presented to them.
C) Although feeling-of-knowing performance is fairly good, it is far from perfect.
D) People tend to underestimate their knowledge.

Question 40

Verbal reports are unacceptable as behavioral evidence.

Question 41

One factor affecting reliability is the number of observations per experimental condition.

Question 42

It is advisable to use verbal reports in conjunction with other behavioral measures rather than as the sole source of evidence for a phenomenon.

Question 43

The key to experimental replicability is the systematic manipulation or control of relevant variables.

Question 44

Metcalfe found that the 'feeling-of-warmth" ratings that participants gave as they attempted to solve a problem tended to follow an insight pattern.

Question 45

Köhler's chimpanzees exhibited insight in problem solving.

Question 46

Functional fixedness is observed when a common object is used in some novel and creative manner.

Question 47

Thorndike observed that cats learned to escape from puzzle boxes by trial and error.

Question 48

The terms verbal report and subjective report are interchangeable.

Question 49

There is strong evidence that incubation plays an important role in problem solving.

Question 50

Verbal reports are accepted as dependent measures in psychological research since they are so unreliable.

Question 51

Between?subjects designs tend to produce data that are more variable than data obtained from within-subjects designs.

Question 52

If a result is not reliable then it probably will not generalize to other settings.

Question 53

The power of a statistical test is partially determined by the number of participants.

Question 54

There may be a lack of statistical power if the null hypothesis is false and the statistical test is not significant.

Question 55

Holyoak's theory of structural consistency helps to specify the conditions under which analogous solutions are difficult or easy.

Question 56

Thorndike's experiments on problem solving in cats showed that the success of a correct movement had no effect unless food was provided as negative reinforcement.

Question 57

If an experimental result is real there is no need to do a conceptual replication.

Question 58

Inferential statistics are used to determine whether an experimental outcome would have occurred by chance.

Question 59

Subjective report is the name for people's tendency to search for evidence that supports their hypothesis.

Question 60

Gick and Holyoak (1980) found no difference in problem solving performance between subjects who read an analogous problem story prior to solving a problem and participants who did not.

Question 61

How is the issue of generality of results related to the replicability of an experiment?

Question 62

Briefly describe the research conducted by Thorndike and Köhler on problem solving. How did these two researchers differ in their approaches to this problem?

Question 63

Functional fixedness may hamper the solving of a problem. Explain this term and describe an experiment that supports the claim that it can have a negative effect on problem solving. What is the effect of verbalization and labeling on functional fixedness?

Question 64

Discuss the various types of replication. Why are they valuable?

Question 65

Analogy refers to the understanding of one thing in terms of another.

Question 66

The idea that incubation leads to insight is called the law of effect.

Question 67

Distinguish between experimental and statistical reliability. Which of these is more important and why? How might the failure to replicate a result be an interesting contribution to knowledge about a phenomenon?

Question 68

A verbal report is not an acceptable measure according to behaviorists.

Question 69

Research on thinking has not made much use of verbal reports.

Question 70

The ability to think about a problem in a novel way that allows it to be solved is called insight

Question 71

Describe Gick and Holyoak's theory of structural consistency, and explain how it accounts for the occurrence of analogical transfer.

Question 72

What is incubation? Describe the research that has examined this issue. How would you go about investigating incubation?

Question 73

Verbal reports are sometimes used in the study of thinking, but caution must be exercised in their use. Why? Describe research findings that support your argument.

Question 74

Do you think that the law of effect can explain how we solve problems? In which circumstances does it work? When does it not work?

Question 75

What are some of the factors that make experimental control more difficult in research on complex cognition? Describe one approach that has been used in problem solving research to address each of these control issues.

Question 76

Under which situations do you think verbal reports are most informative? Why?