Deck 10: Theories of Media Cognition and Information Processing

Question 1

If someone's cognitive resources are limited, this means that they ___.

A) have less intelligence than someone else
B) are exploring a situation by relying on old schemas
C) have a limited ability to process new information
D) have spent too much time trying to process information

Answer 1

C

Question 2

Which best describes how effectively TV news informs viewers?

A) most people learn a lot by watching TV news
B) TV news provides most people with a good understanding of current events
C) most people have difficulty learning much from TV news
D) TV news is much more effective than reading newspapers

Answer 2

C

Question 3

Information processing theory indicates that most of the time we are________.

A) information avoiders
B) information handlers
C) information addicts
D) information sorters

Answer 3

A

Question 4

Information processing theory indicates that multitasking when we use media _______.

A) is a very efficient way to use cognitive resources
B) will lead to fewer mistakes since we are less distracted
C) will be problematic because it will push our cognitive resources to the limit
D) is a very efficient way of handling information

Question 5

The cognitive structures that are abstracted from past experiences are _.

A) cognitive constructions
B) memories
C) cognitions
D) schemas

Question 6

Tom Patterson's research on how journalists frame elections has shown that over the past many years journalists have_______.

A) continued to use the horse-race frame for most news stories
B) increasingly avoided negative frames that alienate voters
C) changed from horse-race frames to issue frames
D) made less use of any type of frame

Question 7

________ states that partisans who feel strongly about an issue will tend to see balanced media coverage as biased against their point of view.

A) Media imbalance hypothesis
B) Partisan media model
C) Hostile media effect
D) Third-person effect

Question 8

The ______________ states that there are two routes (central and peripheral) to persuasion.

A) Hostile Media Effect
B) Elaboration Likelihood Model
C) Irrational Processing Model
D) Information Processing Theory

Question 9

People are more likely to be persuaded to make enduring changes in their beliefs, attitudes or behaviors if _______.

A) they use media to pull in information and consciously consider it
B) they are pushed by media to pay attention to information
C) they are distracted while they use media
D) they aren't hostile toward media

Question 10

_________ theory predicts that people will be persuaded if they become involved in media stories and identify with media characters.

A) Media transportation
B) Hostile media
C) Media education
D) Narrative persuasion

Question 11

The delay hypothesis states that learning from media tends to take place slowly as people deal with the flood of information from media. As a result, learning tends to be ______.

A) elaborated
B) hostile and biased
C) useful and accurate
D) incorrect and misleading

Question 12

The theory of affective intelligence states that when messages contain negative information that triggers people's emotions, they will ______.

A) experience the hostile media effect
B) heighten their attention and carefully process the information
C) selectively avoid the information and quickly forget it
D) become depressed

Question 13

Walter Lippmann and others concerned about propaganda in the early 20^th century viewed average people as ________.

A) cognitively well-equipped to comprehend an increasingly complex world
B) sufficiently embedded in their social groups to make sense of matters that affected them
C) affective reasoners looking for support for their pre-existing attitudes
D) unable to comprehend an increasingly complex world

Question 14

The nature/nurture divide is the question of how much genetics and brain physiology influence human behavior as opposed to_________.

A) learning and culture
B) mass communication
C) affect
D) cognition and thought

Question 15

Advertisers and marketers employ ______, that is, biometric measures like brainwaves, facial expressions, eye-tracking, sweating, and heart rate monitoring, to find ways to by-pass consumers' reason and logic in order to directly reach their subconscious.

A) peripheral-route messaging
B) central-route messaging
C) neuromarketing research
D) affect targeting

Question 16

Much of people's information processing is out of their conscious control.

Question 17

People are not so much information avoiders as they are information handlers.

Question 18

Information-processing theory recognizes that we have limitless cognitive resources.

Question 19

Though we usually think of television as an easy medium to understand, it is actually a difficult medium to use.

Question 20

When schemas are constructed around a phenomenon's identifiable characteristics, say the parts of a boat, it is a specific form of schema called a script.

Question 21

A shadowy figure dashes across one side of the movie screen and you instinctively turn your attention to that movement, demonstrating your orienting response.

Question 22

Schema-inconsistent advertising typically puts off consumers, producing less attention to the ad.

Question 23

According to the hostile media effect, partisans remember more negative references to their position that positive ones in news accounts of an issue of importance to them.

Question 24

The Elaboration Likelihood Model assumes that because people want to hold correct attitudes, they will bring maximum cognitive scrutiny to their information processing.

Question 25

The Elaboration Likelihood Model argues that people sometime process information along the peripheral route in which they bring as much scrutiny to the information as possible.

Question 26

The hostile media effect is likely a product of people's routine cognitive processing-selective perception and systematic information processing.

Question 27

More so than other mass communication theorists, critical cultural theorists rely heavily on the scientific method when conducting research.

Question 28

Peripheral route information process tends to rely on heuristics.

Question 29

Research has connected three elements of the "Big Five" model of personality traits-extraversion, agreeableness, and openness to experiences-to individual's use of social networking.

Question 30

The Elaboration Likelihood Model and the heuristic-systematic model of information processing both accept the sufficiency principle.