Deck 10: Language and Cognition

Question 1

Scientists who study language are called

A) psychologists.
B) behaviorists.
C) linguists.
D) analysts.

Answer 1

C

Question 2

Phonemes are

A) words in a language that sound alike.
B) basic speech sounds that make up languages.
C) rules for constructing phrases and sentences in a language.
D) strings of words that are put together to form a sentence.

Answer 2

B

Question 3

English language units like "-ing" and "-ed" are considered morphemes because they

A) change the meanings of words when used as suffixes.
B) are used differently than other common suffixes.
C) change words in subtle and gradual ways.
D) are used in sentences to meet certain rules of grammar.

Answer 3

A

Question 4

Today your speech will include sentences that you have never exactly uttered before. This illustrates the _______ capacity of language.

A) telegraphic
B) heuristic
C) dyslexic
D) generative

Question 5

Linguists like Noam Chomsky distinguish between the specific words that are put together in a sentence, called the _______, and the meaning underlying those words, called the _______.

A) semantics; syntax
B) deep structure; surface structure
C) phonemes; morphemes
D) surface structure; deep structure

Question 6

Which of the following statements draws the most accurate conclusion about the difference between human and nonhuman animal communication?

A) Other animals, most notably birds, use complex generative systems for producing new forms of communication.
B) Though members of other species communicate with each other, and some can understand human language, humans use the most complex systems of communication.
C) Human languages are far less complex than the signals that some animals, such as dolphins, use to communicate.
D) Given adequate training, nonhuman primates can learn to use human sign language better than humans can.

Question 7

Which of the following animals was able to learn about 150 English words and could speak short English phrases?

A) Kanzi, the bonobo
B) Clever Hans, the horse
C) Premack, the porpoise
D) Alex, the African gray parrot

Question 8

Babies string meaningless sounds-like "da"-together over and over again. Linguists call this

A) telegraphic speech.
B) phoning.
C) babbling.
D) aphasia.

Question 9

Telegraphic speech is a linguistic term used to describe

A) the speech of bilingual adults.
B) a communication form in young children in which they use only a few words, or even a single word, to express an idea.
C) the way children repeat nonsensical sounds over and over again before they are 12 months old.
D) the hypothesis of linguistic relativism.

Question 10

Imagine you have a sibling, Henry, who is two years old. When he is thirsty, he says "Henry milk." This is an example of

A) babbling.
B) linguistic relativism.
C) overgeneralization.
D) telegraphic speech.

Question 11

Refer to the table below.
The table provides details on some of the typical stages of language development. What can you conclude from the table?

A) Children generally learn to say about ten new words a day between two and three years of age.
B) Children who are between two and three years of age generally understand more words than they are able to speak.
C) Between two and three years of age, children can only speak in one-word utterances.
D) By the time a child is three years old, he or she can follow a series of three directions.

Question 12

Refer to the graphs below.
The figure shows data from an infant who sucked on a pacifier in order to hear sounds. By comparing graphs B and C, determine which of the following conclusions is supported.

A) The infant can easily tell the difference between any two phonemes.
B) When the infant hears an unfamiliar phoneme, his or her rate of sucking instantly decreases.
C) The less similar two phonemes are, the more likely the infant is to notice a change in sound between the phoneme that is presented first and the phoneme that is presented second.
D) When the infant hears the same phoneme over and over again, his or her rate of sucking increases gradually.

Question 13

Motherese is a

A) language spoken only by women.
B) type of speech with slow, exaggerated pronunciation that parents use with babies.
C) simple form of language that parents teach to their children.
D) term used to describe the attachment bond between mother and infant.

Question 14

What makes motherese appealing to babies?

A) Every sound a mother makes strengthens her connection with her baby.
B) The singsong qualities of motherese communicate positive emotion and reward.
C) Babies create sounds, and motherese reinforces their attempts at language.
D) The simple language of motherese is easier to comprehend than fully developed words and sentences.

Question 15

The fact that people with Williams syndrome have normal verbal abilities but severe deficits in spatial reasoning suggests that

A) language is directly related to all other aspects of cognition, and we cannot master one without the other.
B) the human brain may be specialized to pick up languages in a way that is distinct from solving other tasks.
C) as concepts, intelligence and language are one in the same.
D) spatial skills are closely related to language skills.

Question 16

The rare genetic disorder that is characterized by normal verbal abilities but severe deficits in spatial reasoning is called

A) Wernicke's aphasia.
B) Huntington's disease.
C) Williams syndrome.
D) Parkinson's disease.

Question 17

One of the best sources of evidence that there is a sensitive period for human language development is that

A) humans always develop language skills, no matter what linguistic environment they are in.
B) it can be very difficult for adults who are learning a second language to become proficient in the grammar of that language.
C) it is nearly impossible for children to master two languages before the age of ten.
D) the later one starts learning a language, the better he or she is at mastering the phonemes in the new language.

Question 18

Dyslexia is defined as difficulty in

A) writing long sentences with words that sound similar to one another.
B) constructing grammatical sentences while speaking.
C) developing a normal vocabulary.
D) learning to read.

Question 19

Aphasia, which is often the result of brain injury or disease, is a term that refers to

A) a language impairment that occurs after language is acquired.
B) the inability to learn language at a reasonable rate.
C) impairments in reading that last into adulthood.
D) the inability to speak a second language without an accent.

Question 20

The case of the patient Tan is significant to the history of psychology and neurology because the case provides evidence that

A) language is processed by both hemispheres of the brain.
B) no specific brain area could be identified as playing a role in specific language skills.
C) only a small portion of language processing occurs in the cerebral cortex.
D) there may be a direct correspondence between a specific part of the brain and specific language skills.

Question 21

Damage to Broca's area leads to an aphasia characterized by

A) fluent but nonsensical speech.
B) difficulty in speech comprehension, but not in speech production.
C) difficulty in speech production, but not in speech comprehension.
D) declining language function near the end of life.

Question 22

Imagine you are volunteering for the first time in a residential hospital for brain injury rehabilitation. You meet a patient named Ben who can say "hello" and "thank you" but little else. It is likely that Ben has sustained damage to

A) Broca's area.
B) Wernicke's area.
C) the occipital cortex.
D) the right hemisphere of the cortex.

Question 23

Which of the following would be the most likely response from a Broca's aphasia patient when asked if he or she would like a drink of water?

A) "Ahhhhhh-I, um, yes please."
B) "Why yes, thank you so much!"
C) "Y-y-y-yes, I-I would love some w-w-water."
D) "The water is heavy look down the water trap I'm hungry."

Question 24

Damage to Wernicke's area in the brain leads to an aphasia characterized by

A) fluent speech, which may be garbled.
B) difficulty in learning a second language.
C) difficulty in speaking, but not in understanding, words.
D) declining language function near the end of life.

Question 25

Imagine you are volunteering in a residential hospital for brain injury rehabilitation. You meet a patient named Jan who sounds almost normal when speaking, if you don't listen to exactly what she is saying. You quickly realize, however, that though Jan speaks fluently, little that she says makes sense. Jan most likely has suffered damage to

A) Broca's area.
B) Wernicke's area.
C) the cerebellum.
D) the left parietal lobe.

Question 26

Which of the following would be the most likely response from a Wernicke's aphasia patient who is asked if he or she is having a good day?

A) "Yes…uh…th…th…a…nks."
B) "Yes, today has been very good."
C) "Y-y-y-yes, I-I'm having a l-l-l-lovely day."
D) "The day I'm having today before the time ran out on the clock was ringing."

Question 27

Saying that language is lateralized in the brain means that

A) language function is primarily associated with one hemisphere of the brain.
B) both hemispheres of the brain contribute equally to language function.
C) without a corpus callosum, we would not be able to use language.
D) only the right frontal lobe is responsible for language processing.

Question 28

The hypothesis that the language we speak influences the way we think is called

A) lateralization.
B) linguistic relativism.
C) the framing effect.
D) the availability heuristic.

Question 29

Cognitive psychologists focus on studying how

A) our behaviors are influenced by genetics.
B) we acquire and process information to gain knowledge.
C) sensory information is registered by sensory receptors.
D) social influences shape behavior.

Question 30

Categorization is the process of

A) constructing concepts from specific events in our lives.
B) recognizing similarities and differences among concepts.
C) mentally representing concepts with a prototype.
D) taking a mental shortcut to find a quick solution to a problem.

Question 31

In cognitive psychology, a prototype is the

A) example of a concept that is unlike any other example.
B) single feature common to all members of a category.
C) kind of memory distortion in which all features of an object are blended together.
D) best example of a concept that fits a particular category.

Question 32

In terms of prototypes and concepts, a desk is to office furniture as a _______ is to _______.

A) hammock; home furniture
B) sandwich; lunch
C) milkshake; a beverage
D) two-dollar bill; United States currency

Question 33

Psychoanalyst C. G. Jung measured patients' _______ in word association tasks in order to study mental processing.

A) recall accuracy
B) reaction time
C) mental imagery
D) insight

Question 34

Mental imagery refers to the

A) earliest stage of skill acquisition, during which there is conscious awareness of efforts.
B) ability to visualize images or events in our minds.
C) concentration of the mind on a particular object or process.
D) automaticity of our reading skills.

Question 35

Use the following to answer questions :
Refer to the graphs below

Participants in a study were asked to examine pairs of drawings of three-dimensional objects in which the members of each pair were shown in different positions. The graphs above compare the time required to mentally rotate objects up to 180 degrees in two dimensions (plane of paper) and in three dimensions (depth of paper).
-The results show that

A) participants had more success rotating the objects in the plane of paper than in the depth of paper.
B) in general, it takes slightly longer to mentally rotate objects in the depth of paper than in the plane of paper.
C) the more degrees of rotation that were required to line up two images, the more time participants needed to complete the task.
D) there is no observable difference in mental processing time for the two tasks.

Question 36

Use the following to answer questions :
Refer to the graphs below

Participants in a study were asked to examine pairs of drawings of three-dimensional objects in which the members of each pair were shown in different positions. The graphs above compare the time required to mentally rotate objects up to 180 degrees in two dimensions (plane of paper) and in three dimensions (depth of paper).
-The results shown in the graphs hold true for pairs of

A) objects that are in the same position but are shown in different sizes.
B) unlike objects that are in exactly the same position but not for pairs of identical objects.
C) identical objects but not for pairs of unlike objects.
D) identical and unlike objects in any position.

Question 37

The ability to perform very well with a minimum of effort is the defining aspect of

A) arrested development.
B) a skill.
C) an initial state.
D) a goal state.

Question 38

Which of the following is an example of a person who is in the cognitive stage of skill acquisition?

A) George is just beginning to learn how to play the guitar and has to concentrate hard to avoid hitting the wrong notes.
B) James learned how to play guitar last year. Even though he cannot play and sing at the same time, he has become quite adept at strumming.
C) Joan has been playing guitar well for years but still needs to play from sheet music when playing with friends.
D) Carrie is a great guitar player whose performance does not require much of her attention.

Question 39

During the associative phase of skill acquisition,

A) a person is consciously aware of all of his efforts.
B) the skill can be done automatically.
C) any thinking while performing hurts performance.
D) a person's performance will decline significantly if he is distracted.

Question 40

Which of the following is an example of a person who is most likely in the associative phase of skill acquisition?

A) Bill has just learned to type and frequently misspells words.
B) Jane still has to look at her fingers while she types or she hits all the wrong keys.
C) Though Dave has improved his speed and accuracy throughout his typing course, he still makes typographical errors.
D) Dominique types 100 words per minute and can do so accurately while carrying on a conversation.

Question 41

Once you reach the autonomous phase of skill acquisition, you

A) have to concentrate even harder to avoid making errors.
B) seem to perform without steady concentration.
C) still make frequent errors, but they are rarer than before.
D) have accrued one thousand hours of practice.

Question 42

Which of the following is an example of a person in the autonomous phase of skill acquisition?

A) James's basketball play is so fluid that he looks as if he were born to play.
B) Denise is still learning the rules of basketball but has a pretty good jump shot.
C) Frank needs more practice before he can pass the ball without turning it over.
D) Devon is getting better at dribbling, but sometimes she hits her foot with the ball.

Question 43

Which of the following reflects the myth of subliminal perception?

A) Though you do not consciously notice it, the momentary sight of a running faucet makes you thirsty.
B) A picture of a juicy burger on a billboard makes you want to stop for lunch.
C) The flash of a series of words has no effect on your word choice in an exercise that follows.
D) Imagining the warmth of sunshine and the sound of ocean waves helps you relax.

Question 44

The experience of flow is best exemplified by

A) a person tearing tickets at the entrance to a baseball game while smiling and greeting every ticket holder.
B) an assembly-line worker bolting on automobile bumpers for three hours without a break.
C) a jazz musician absorbed in playing without a conscious effort in the experience of soloing.
D) a portrait artist struggling to correctly represent the contours of a face.

Question 45

Attention is best defined as the

A) information presented to your conscious perception.
B) subliminal perception of information.
C) concentration of the mind on a particular object or process.
D) supraliminal perception of information.

Question 46

Which of the following best exemplifies the concept of attentional spotlight?

A) You can direct your attention to the student sitting beside you, even though your eyes are focused on the instructor in front of you.
B) Your attention is much like a spotlight in that where you are looking dictates how much information you glean from the television.
C) By not focusing your eyes on a particular object during a lecture, you are more likely to absorb information.
D) Your ability to detect changes in your environment is better if you are not intently focused on what is happening.

Question 47

The cocktail party effect describes a phenomenon in which

A) you remember details of events to which you are paying close attention.
B) it is more likely that you will hear your name called if you are not looking at the person calling it.
C) you can selectively attend to a particular conversation out of the many conversations taking place.
D) it is easier to hear the person you are talking to when it is quieter in the room.

Question 48

The concept of inattentional blindness is illustrated when you

A) are concentrating so hard on studying that you fail to notice your roommate leaving for class.
B) have slept through your alarm and missed your first class of the day.
C) love to watch movies over and over again to see all the subtleties you missed before.
D) have fallen asleep while studying because the textbook is so dull.

Question 49

While your instructor is presenting a lecture with great theatrical enthusiasm, he fails to notice that several students have gotten up and left the room. This is an example of

A) attentional blink.
B) subliminal perception.
C) hindsight bias.
D) change blindness.

Question 50

In the popular cartoon Where's Waldo, viewers search for a character in a red-and-white striped shirt and hat. This character, Waldo, is hidden among numerous people and objects, many of which are also colored red and white, making Waldo very difficult to locate. In this cartoon, the red-and-white-stripe theme is the

A) anchoring effect.
B) goal state.
C) heuristic.
D) target.

Question 51

The cognitive process of assessing information to select a course of action among several alternatives is called _______. One aspect of this process, called _______, is the cognitive process of forming an opinion or making an evaluation by comparing possible actions.

A) decision making; framing
B) judgment; framing
C) anchoring; judgment
D) decision making; judgment

Question 52

Imagine you are moderating a discussion board on a Website devoted to exploring bias in decision making and judgment. Which of the following comments should be deleted for being inaccurate?

A) Misinformation spread by policy makers will often lead voters to make bad decisions.
B) Expert appraisers at antique shows never show bias because they know so much about antiques.
C) You can get a fair deal from a used car dealer if you do not accept an initial low offer for your used car.
D) Humans tend to regard past events as being more predictable than they really were.

Question 53

You want to earn a decent salary at a potential job. You know that there is room for negotiation, so you ask for a slightly higher hourly rate than you think the employer will accept. If the employer ends up giving you an hourly rate close to your initial asking rate, he or she has likely been influenced by the

A) Monty Hall problem.
B) anchoring effect.
C) framing effect.
D) availability heuristic.

Question 54

The _______ is an example of a decision-making error in which someone fails to properly estimate the probability of a particular outcome after being given additional information.

A) Tower of Hanoi problem
B) Monty Hall problem
C) framing effect
D) availability heuristic

Question 55

The hindsight bias describes the tendency to

A) accurately recall the events of your own life but not others' lives.
B) reconsider a decision based on new information.
C) mistake a favorable decision as unfavorable.
D) misremember your previous views to fit your current knowledge or beliefs.

Question 56

Which of the following best illustrates the concept of hindsight bias?

A) You have just been given inside information about a new company and decide to buy stock in a different company.
B) Even though you had stated before a game that you thought your team would lose, after they win the game, you say that you knew that your team was going to win.
C) When trying to choose between two kinds of cars, you choose the kind that you have seen in a commercial on television.
D) After buying an expensive item, you feel worse than before you bought it.

Question 57

Which of the following best illustrates the concept of confirmation bias?

A) You are a proponent of gun control. You seek out news sources and stories that affirm your beliefs about gun control.
B) After meeting someone who, prior to the meeting, you believed to be rude, you say that you have always admired that person.
C) You are much less likely to accept a task at work that is difficult for you than one that is easy for you.
D) You prefer to solve challenging problems because you view yourself as intelligent.

Question 58

Use the following to answer questions :
Refer to the graph below

-What does the graph tell you about the relationship between the days of the lunar cycle and emergency room visits?

A) The relationship between the days of the lunar cycle and emergency room visits is positive and linear.
B) There appears to be no relationship between the days of the lunar cycle and the number of emergency room visits.
C) Emergency room visits peak around a full moon every month.
D) There is a negative correlation between the days of the lunar cycle and emergency room visits.

Question 59

Use the following to answer questions :
Refer to the graph below

-In the face of the evidence in the graph, confirmation bias might contribute to the persistence of a person's belief that there is a connection between a full moon and strange events because the person would

A) continue to take into account strange events that happen both around the time of the full moon and at other times in the lunar cycle.
B) pay attention to strange events only if they coincide with a full moon.
C) frame the strange events that occur around the time of the full moon as being stranger than they actually are.
D) say that he never believed there to be such a connection, anyway.

Question 60

The framing effect in decision making is achieved by

A) altering the way information is presented to a person to make him or her more or less likely to choose one option over the other.
B) reducing the amount of time that a person has to make a decision.
C) restricting the number of options a person has.
D) expanding the number of options a person has.

Question 61

A reluctance to take a risk that might lead to a loss of money is an example of

A) the anchoring effect.
B) loss aversion.
C) the gambler's fallacy.
D) algorithmic thought.

Question 62

Believing that a coin is more likely to land on "tails" because it has landed on "heads" for the last four tosses is an example of

A) confirmation bias.
B) hindsight bias.
C) the anchoring effect.
D) the gambler's fallacy.

Question 63

Researchers have studied problem solving by examining the course of people's solutions to the _______ problem, which involves transferring a series of different-sized disks from one spindle to another, following a specific set of rules.

A) gambler's fallacy
B) Tower of Hanoi
C) two-string
D) Monty Hall

Question 64

Problem solving is often described in terms of the situation at the beginning of the problem, or _______, and the desired outcome of the problem, or _______.

A) algorithm; end game
B) initial state; goal state
C) heuristics; goal state
D) operators; initial state

Question 65

Rules that govern how you can get from the situation at the beginning of a problem to the desired outcome are called

A) heuristics.
B) algorithms.
C) constraints.
D) operators.

Question 66

A(n) _______ is a specific set of steps that will always solve a particular problem, whereas _______ are easy-to-follow rules that often solve a problem.

A) heuristic; constraints
B) algorithm; heuristics
C) heuristic; algorithms
D) initial state; heuristics

Question 67

The concept of the availability heuristic is illustrated when you

A) choose Pepsi because you like the logo better than the Coke logo.
B) are asked to decide on the winner of a competition, and you arbitrarily choose the person that you think you know better.
C) decide that it would be safer to fly rather than drive to your vacation destination, given all of the recent media coverage of plane crashes.
D) always choose the route that is different from the last route you took when deciding what route to take while driving.

Question 68

While attempting to solve a riddle, if you go from not having a clue what the answer is to solving the riddle in a flash (without resorting to trial and error), you have most likely experienced

A) subliminal perception.
B) insight.
C) an impasse.
D) the framing effect.

Question 69

A friend who is learning English says things like "I am go to come home after class." He is struggling with the _______ of the language.

Question 70

When a child says "More cake!" she is using _______ speech.

Question 71

Many children suffer from _______, a disorder that makes learning to read difficult.

Question 72

At a nursing home, you meet a patient who has extreme difficulty producing speech. He talks only in a labored manner. This patient likely has damage to _______ in the left frontal lobe.

Question 73

In the _______, a short-lasting anesthetic is delivered to one brain hemisphere to determine which hemisphere principally mediates language.

Question 74

_______ is the process of recognizing the similarities and differences among various concepts.

Question 75

When a person reaches the _______ phase of skill acquisition, he or she needs to pay little or no conscious attention to the task in order to perform well.

Question 76

You order a salad, with dressing on the side, from a tall waiter in a white shirt. Several minutes later, a short waiter in a light blue shirt brings you a salad with dressing on top and you say angrily, "I specifically asked you to put the dressing on the side!" In confusing the two waiters, you have demonstrated _______.

Question 77

_______ is a brief lapse of attention that occurs shortly after a person detects a target.

Question 78

You can use the _______ to your advantage when making a very low offer for an auction item in the hopes of getting a good price.

Question 79

Many investors have held onto stocks that have been declining in value for a long time because they are afraid of losing their original stake. The principle of _______ explains this behavior.

Question 80

Because of the _______, you might decide that your neighborhood is too dangerous to live in after someone is assaulted one block away, even if your neighborhood has the lowest crime rate in the city.