Deck 9: Language, Thought, and Intelligence

Question 1

Noah, a six-month-old baby, utters sounds such as "buh" and "duh." He says a string of single syllables without proper meaning. In this scenario, Noah is most likely ________.

A) chattering
B) cooing
C) cluttering
D) babbling

Answer 1

babbling

Question 2

Linguists define human language as a(n) ________ and ________ communication system.

A) phonetic; open
B) phonetic; derivational
C) symbolic; derivational
D) open; symbolic

Answer 2

open; symbolic

Question 3

Which of the following is a term used by psychologists to describe an image or idea in the mind that stands for an external object or thing sensed in the past or future, not the present?

A) Mental representation
B) Motor imagery
C) Verbal imagery
D) Physical event

Answer 3

Mental representation

Question 4

Which of the following best describes a scenario exemplifying the availability heuristic?

A) Kelly concludes that tall men are intimidating on the basis of just one bad experience with a tall man.
B) Once the tossed coin comes down heads, Gogol expects the next coin to be more likely to be tails than heads.
C) After a recent news story about a disastrous plane crash, Terry is skeptical about flying in an airplane.
D) Once Jon scores two goals, most of his teammates start passing him the ball more often on the assumption that he is "on the ball."

Question 5

Most language theorists agree upon the perspective that ________.

A) acquiring language involves natural abilities that are modified by the environment of the language learner
B) languages are learnt as a result of shaping, successive approximations, and reinforcement
C) the most significant factors influencing language acquisition are one's brain structures and genetic factors
D) social interaction, environmental input, and stimulation are of utmost importance in a child's language development

Question 6

In Carroll's classification, sequential reasoning for fluid intelligence, reading and spelling are a part of ________.

A) abstract intelligence
B) kinesthetic intelligence
C) emotional intelligence
D) narrow intelligence

Question 7

Rachael is a 10-year-old girl. She imagines how her life will pan out in the next ten years when she attends college. Which term aptly describes Rachael's thought?

A) Motor conception
B) Verbal imagery
C) Mental rotation
D) Mental representation

Question 8

Liam goes to a music store. Not knowing which DVDs to buy, he ends up buying DVDs of movies, trailers he has often seen on television. Which of the following indicates the judgment Liam uses when buying the DVDs?

A) The representative heuristic
B) Mental representation
C) The availability heuristic
D) Visual imagery

Question 9

________ are step-by-step formulas or procedures for solving problems.

A) Mnemonics
B) Algorithms
C) Dialectics
D) Hermeneutics

Question 10

Which of the following statements refers to the Whorf-Sapir hypothesis?

A) Grammar is less innate and genetically influenced than is vocabulary.
B) Language has a potential greater than that of simple symbols that goes beyond the meaning.
C) Language has a structure that is subject to manipulation.
D) Language creates thought as much as thought creates language.

Question 11

Which of the following refers to test "fairness?"

A) Ascertaining that test scores predict real-world outcomes
B) Ensuring that tests have a high internal reliability
C) Ensuring that tests really measure intelligence and not something else
D) Applying test results in an impartial way

Question 12

According to Raymond Cattell's theory of intelligence, ________ involves how fast you learn new things.

A) crystallized intelligence
B) creative intelligence
C) emotional intelligence
D) fluid intelligence

Question 13

Which of the following best describes Arthur Jensen's conclusions regarding IQ?

A) Racial-ethnic differences in IQ must be at least partly genetic in origin.
B) Racial and ethnic characteristics do not have any influence on IQ.
C) Nature alone influences the intelligence of an individual.
D) An individual's intelligence is independent of nurture or culture.

Question 14

In the context of cultural views on intelligence, Asian cultures differ from American cultures in that Asian cultures emphasize ________.

A) individualism
B) cognitive skills
C) mindfulness
D) verbal skills

Question 15

Which of the following is true for the mental age of a person?

A) It is based on how the average person performs on a given task.
B) It is based on the average intelligence of people of all ages.
C) It is based on what most children at a particular age level can do.
D) It is the average of the IQs of all people of a particular age.

Question 16

Which of the following statements is true about familial-cultural intellectual disability?

A) It is directly affected by the genetics of an individual.
B) It tends to be a mild form of disability.
C) It is more common in people of high socioeconomic status.
D) It occurs when a person has three rather than two number 21 chromosomes.

Question 17

Which of the following is an obstacle to successful problem solving whereby people grow a tendency to be blind to unusual uses of common, everyday things or procedures?

A) Response bias
B) Divergent thinking
C) Observer effect
D) Functional fixedness

Question 18

According to the Howard Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences, who among the following is most likely to have high naturalistic intelligence?

A) Shiva, who is an architect
B) Anne, who is a poet
C) Divya, who is a politician
D) Gareth, who is a farmer

Question 19

Which of the following is associated with crystallized intelligence rather than with fluid intelligence?

A) Abstract reasoning
B) Pattern recognition
C) Speed of learning
D) Size of vocabulary

Question 20

If language is defined as being "open," what does it mean?

A) It can be changed over time.
B) It follows fixed tenets.
C) It creates a real connection between a sound and the idea associated with it.
D) It allows other languages to freely borrow.

Question 21

The ________ of intelligence holds that the different aspects of intelligence are distinct enough that numerous abilities must be considered, not just one.

A) two-factor theory
B) g-factor theory
C) expectancy theory
D) multiple-factor theory

Question 22

According to Uylings (2006), what happens after neural pruning and neural wiring reach their peak?

A) The sensitivity period begins.
B) The plasticity of neural connections becomes more flexible.
C) The sensitivity period ends.
D) The process of gain field encoding begins.

Question 23

Who among the following have a greater risk of having a baby with Down syndrome?

A) Mothers who opt to have a child later in life
B) Mothers of low socioeconomic status
C) Mothers with a history of familial-cultural retardation
D) Mothers who suffer from hypertension during pregnancy

Question 24

Which pattern of growth partly explains how babies respond to picture books before they learn to talk?

A) Verbal stimulation occurs much before the sensory stimulation stops.
B) The temporal and frontal lobes and the occipital and parietal lobes of the brain grow simultaneously.
C) The temporal and frontal lobes develop before the occipital and parietal lobes of the brain.
D) The visual system is mostly in the occipital lobes and develops before the verbal system.

Question 25

In the context of the sensitivity period of language development, which of the following statements is true?

A) Younger infants do not discriminate phonetic sounds outside of their native language.
B) After about 12 months of age, children only discrimi­nate sounds in their native language.
C) If children are not exposed to any human language before a certain age, their language abilities never fully develop.
D) Speech development in the left hemisphere of the brain occurs independently of any stimulation from the environment.

Question 26

Which of the following is a criterion used to assess the reliability of an intelligence test?

A) Do the test scores predict the test-taker's performance in real-world settings?
B) Does the test measure all the aspects of intelligence, including kinesthetic intelligence?
C) Does the test accurately measure intelligence, or does it measure some other quality?
D) Are the results obtained by a person the same every time he or she takes the test?

Question 27

Isabel works in an advertising firm. She is required to come up with new catchphrases and slogans for a brand. According to the triarchic theory of intelligence, this situation most likely requires an application of her ________.

A) practical intelligence
B) creative intelligence
C) analytical intelligence
D) interpersonal intelligence

Question 28

Jeanne believes that right-handed people are better at playing tennis than left-handed people. When she engages in an argument with her friend, she ignores any evidence that supports the fact that left-handed people are equally good at playing tennis. Jeanne only gathers evidence about her beliefs and tries only to support her perspective. This is an example of ________.

A) omission bias
B) hindsight bias
C) restraint bias
D) confirmation bias

Question 29

Which of the following terms refers to the shortcuts people take to make complex and uncertain decisions and judgments?

A) Heuristic
B) Critical thinking
C) Regression analysis
D) Forecasting

Question 30

Which of the following statements about language development in humans is TRUE?

A) Babies hear fewer phonetic sounds than children or adults hear.
B) Language comprehension is mostly associated with the amygdala.
C) Language production occurs in Broca's area of the brain.
D) Infants begin to discriminate phonetic sounds outside of their native language when they are 12 months old.

Question 31

Which of the following statements is the central tenet of the nativist theory?

A) Language is influenced greatly by socioeconomic factors.
B) Language influences rather than determines people's thinking.
C) Language is discovered rather than learned.
D) Language is something that exists because it is reinforced and shaped.

Question 32

According to the Howard Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences, who among the following is most likely to have high spatial intelligence?

A) Karen, who is an experienced lawyer
B) Jamie, who is a professional dancer
C) John, who is an experienced pilot
D) Rose, who is a professional signer

Question 33

Which of the following explains inductive reasoning?

A) Drawing general conclusions from specific evidence
B) Proving something by showing that all other possibilities are not possible
C) Understanding something by considering it as a whole system and splitting it into parts
D) Reasoning from general statements of what is known to specific conclusions

Question 34

Which of the following statements is true in the context of Chomsky's views on language development?

A) The components of speech seldom vary in where they can be put in sentences.
B) Not all languages have the same components of speech.
C) The language acquisition device must have principles of universal grammar.
D) Grammar is universal, but it may not always follow universal principles.

Question 35

How does cognitive fixation affect individuals solving problems?

A) It enables people to see and analyze a number of possible solutions.
B) It prevents many people from seeing possible solutions to a problem.
C) It prevents people from using past experiences to solve a problem.
D) It enables people to effectively solve problems while thinking on one's feet.

Question 36

Jennifer says that she is good at solving problems which require her to navigate and visualize objects from different angles. Jennifer has a high level of ________.

A) emotional intelligence
B) quantitative intelligence
C) spatial intelligence
D) verbal intelligence

Question 37

If a pregnant lady drinks excessively, her child runs the risk of having ________.

A) Down syndrome
B) Asperger's syndrome
C) fetal alcohol syndrome
D) fragile X syndrome

Question 38

Danny, a 12-year-old, has an IQ score of 65. He belongs to a family with low socioeconomic status. His brother also has an IQ score below 70. Reports indicated that the children had suffered neglect as well as had poor nutrition. In the context of intelligence, the children were diagnosed with familial-cultural intellectual disability that arises from ________.

A) chromosomal abnormality
B) fetal alcohol syndrome
C) environmental deprivation
D) genetic abnormality

Question 39

Identify a difference between visual perception and visual imagery.

A) Visual perception occurs through verbal formulation, whereas visual imagery primarily occurs through mental rotation.
B) Visual perception can be measured on an ordinary scale, whereas visual imagery is abstract, and it is difficult to determine its intensity.
C) Visual perception occurs while the stimulus is still present, whereas visual imagery consists of visual representations created by the brain after the original stimulus is no longer present.
D) Visual perception occurs in the absence of sensory stimulus, whereas visual imagery is imagining an object turning in three-dimensional space for a long period of time.

Question 40

Jennifer is a botanist. She understands how plants and animals live and survive in the environment. According to Howard Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences, Jennifer most likely has high ________.

A) linguistic intelligence
B) interpersonal intelligence
C) bodily-kinesthetic intelligence
D) naturalistic intelligence

Question 41

Diego was born into a Spanish family settled in California. His parents conversed in Spanish. Baby Diego could recognize the sounds of words when his neighbors talked to him in English. However, after he turned one, he could not recognize the English phonetic sounds. Which of the following does this scenario reflect?

A) Infantile amnesia
B) Neural commitment
C) Cue-dependent forgetting
D) Mnemic neglect

Question 42

Most intelligence tests determine a person's overall intelligence score by his or her scores on specific subtests. On which of the following theories are such tests based?

A) The multiple-factor theory
B) The triarchic theory
C) Gardner's theory
D) The g-factor theory

Question 43

Which of the following theories best answers the question "How intelligent are you?"

A) The theory that considers multiple abilities to assess different aspects of intelligence.
B) The theory that considers the analytic, creative, and practical intelligence as distinct.
C) The theory that considers intelligence as a single, general capacity.
D) The theory that focuses on seven different primary mental abilities of a person.

Question 44

When Samantha meets Brenda, who has a laidback attitude and long hair, she promptly concludes that Brenda is Californian even before interacting with her. However, there are many English women who have a laidback attitude and long hair. On what is Samantha's initial judgment based?

A) A regression analysis
B) A representativeness heuristic
C) A means-end analysis
D) An availability heuristic

Question 45

According to the Cattell-Horn-Carroll (CHC) model of intelligence, which of the following types of intelligence is at the top of the hierarchy?

A) General intelligence
B) Narrow intelligence
C) Emotional intelligence
D) Broad intelligence

Question 46

One common way to determine how much of a trait is due to genetic influence is to compare ________.

A) girls and boys
B) parents of twins with parents of triplets
C) animals and birds
D) identical twin pairs to fraternal twin pairs

Question 47

Which of the following lists the stages of creative problem-solving?

A) Prototype, insight, heuristic, and generativity
B) Fixation, preparation, cogitation, and synthesis
C) Fixation, incubation, synthesis, and conclusion
D) Preparation, incubation, insight, and elaboration-verification

Question 48

Matthew sees a nail sticking out from a board which he wishes to push inside. Though there is a brick lying nearby, it does not occur to him that it can serve well to fix the nail. Consequently, he wastes time searching for a hammer. Which of the following does Matthew exhibit?

A) Response bias
B) Cognitive dissonance
C) Observer effect
D) Functional fixedness

Question 49

Which of the following is a principle of language development?

A) Broca's area develops before Wernicke's area in the brain.
B) Children and adults hear more phonetic sounds than babies.
C) The ability to understand words devel­ops before the ability to produce words.
D) Younger infants (6-month-olds) do not discriminate phonetic sounds outside of their native language.

Question 50

Which of the following refers to practical intelligence?

A) The ability to evaluate the worth of information
B) The ability to compare and contrast information
C) The ability to solve problems of everyday life
D) The ability to come up with fresh and innovative ideas

Question 51

The interpretation that genetics influences intelligence to such an extent that one's IQ levels are determined at conception is held erroneous because ________.

A) early interventions do not succeed in changing static IQ levels
B) genes don't interact with environmental forces
C) differences in IQ result from biases in IQ tests that favor people from certain cultural backgrounds
D) interaction of genes with environmental forces can shape gene expression

Question 52

Which of the following best describes cognitive fixation?

A) The ability to break out of a particular mind-set in order to think about a problem from a fresh perspective
B) The inability to methodically develop step-by-step methods to solve a problem
C) The inability to break out of a particular mind-set in order to think about a problem from a fresh perspective
D) The ability to methodically develop step-by-step methods to solve a problem

Question 53

Which of the following is the correct expansion of LAD in language development?

A) Linguistic area development
B) Learning ability device
C) Linguistic assessment domain
D) Language acquisition device

Question 54

Esther took a science test on Monday. She took the same test again on Wednesday. Her intelligence quotient (IQ) scores on the test were different on both occasions. Even though the test items are correlated with each other, the science professor claims that the test did not adequately test the concept taught in the class. Which of following statements is true about the test?

A) The test does not have predictive validity.
B) The test has internal reliability.
C) The test has construct validity.
D) The test has test-retest reliability.

Question 55

Jacob is good at solving math problems. When given a series of numbers and asked to determine the next number in the series, he can correctly arrive at the answer. According to the triarchic theory of intelligence, Jacob has a high level of ________.

A) emotional intelligence
B) interpersonal intelligence
C) practical intelligence
D) analytic intelligence

Question 56

Forest rangers rescue a 12-year-old girl from a forest in the United States. She does not speak any language and knows only one English word, "scared." The girl was lost in the forest when she was barely two years old, and this severely affected her language development. This scenario best reflects the importance of ________ in language development.

A) anchoring
B) the sensitivity period
C) the continued influence effect
D) the focusing effect

Question 57

Which of the following led Charles Spearman to arrive at his theory of intelligence?

A) Research showed that the factors of intelligence correlated strongly with one another.
B) Research showed that intelligence is made up of a number of dissimilar components.
C) Research showed that spatial intelligence is not related to verbal or perceptual intelligence.
D) Research showed that individual intelligence does not differ much from group intelligence.

Question 58

In the context of the stages of language development, ________ is defined as sounds made as a result of an infant's experimentation with a complex range of phonemes, which include consonants as well as vowels.

A) cooing
B) babbling
C) cluttering
D) chattering

Question 59

Which of the following words is used by psychologists to refer to mental processes involved in acquiring, processing, and storing knowledge?

A) Instinct
B) Intuition
C) Cognition
D) Emotion

Question 60

According to the Howard Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences, who among the following is most likely to have high interpersonal intelligence?

A) Mathew, who is an experienced pilot
B) Karen, who is a social worker
C) Lawrence, who is a hunter
D) Kenneth, who is a professional dancer

Question 61

Which of the following statements is true of visual perception?

A) Visual perception occurs while the stimulus is still present.
B) Visual imagery consists of visual representations created by the brain when the original stimulus is present.
C) Visual perception takes longer because the verbal system is older in evolutionary terms than the visual system.
D) Visual perception cannot occur with abstract ideas that have no physical existence.

Question 62

Which of the following holds true for the developers of both the Stanford-Binet and Wechsler tests?

A) Both developed tests that took cultural differences between people into account.
B) Both developed tests which aimed to measure every dimension of intelligence.
C) Both failed to account for the fact that intelligence is a single quality.
D) Both failed to factor in developments in the field of neuroscience.

Question 63

Which of the following best describes the language acquisition device?

A) An innate and biologically based capacity to acquire language.
B) An interactive device that helps a child learn different languages at a time.
C) An innate capacity to come up with novel words and utterances.
D) A device that imitates adult speech to aid language development in children.

Question 64

Why is elaboration-verification undertaken?

A) To verify the authenticity of the means used to find a solution
B) To elaborate on the process used to obtain a solution
C) To attain an understanding of previously unresearched information
D) To confirm the feasibility of the solution

Question 65

A prodigy is one who ________.

A) is extremely gifted and precocious in one area
B) has a minimum intelligence quotient (IQ) of 170
C) does not have a corpus callosum in the brain
D) has three rather than two number 21 chromosomes

Question 66

Which of the following is true of mental representations?

A) They are less useful for thinking about things one sensed in the past.
B) They are not useful for thinking about abstract ideas that have no physical existence.
C) They are frequently not about things one is currently sensing.
D) They usually do not allow one to imagine things in the future.

Question 67

Jared conducts an intelligence quotient (IQ) test in his neighborhood. The test results predict academic performance to be poorer for marginalized communities than non-marginalized communities. Which of the following statements is true about the test?

A) The test has predictive validity.
B) The test is internally reliable.
C) The test is fair.
D) The test is biased.

Question 68

Most current diagnoses of intellectual disability emphasize ________.

A) a person's academic performance
B) a person's verbal intelligence
C) a person's g-factor
D) a person's everyday abilities

Question 69

Which of the following explains the word "syntax"?

A) The rules for arranging words and symbols in sentences
B) The congruity of sound units with one another and with the whole
C) The rhythm, stress, and intonation of speech
D) The reception and perception of speech sounds by the listener

Question 70

Mary, a housewife, goes to a hypermarket to get some medicine for her dog. She skips all the aisles and goes to the part of the hypermarket where pet supplies are stored. She believes that she is more likely to find medicine for her dog in that aisle. This is an example of ________.

A) the gambler's fallacy
B) impact bias
C) the availability heuristic
D) the focusing effect

Question 71

Norman uses a language that has no word for "infinity" and hence cannot think of the concept. Which of the following is associated with Norman's inability to think of the word and concept?

A) Representativeness heuristics
B) Linguistic determinism hypothesis
C) Availability heuristics
D) Metacognitive thinking

Question 72

An individual with savant syndrome is most likely to have ________.

A) a superb educational background
B) an incredible ability for calculating numbers
C) an intelligence quotient (IQ) score above 150
D) an excellent academic achievement

Question 73

Which of the following theorists theorized that intelligence consists of eight distinct capacities?

A) Howard Gardner
B) Alfred Binet
C) Robert Sternberg
D) Ivan Pavlov

Question 74

A savant is most likely to suffer from ________.

A) paraplegia
B) autism
C) attention deficit hyperactivity disorder
D) Lou Gehrig's disease

Question 75

Jordan tells his professor that the science test conducted by the professor did not have construct validity. Jordan's professor tells that the test is well-defined and practical, and most of the students were able to answer the questions without any hassle. Which of the following statements strengthens Jordan's claim?

A) The test did not address whether the construct is related positively to real-world consequences.
B) Only 50 percent of the class took the science test.
C) The test did not test the concept learned by the students.
D) Only students with a high level of emotional intelligence were able to get good scores.

Question 76

According to Uylings' (2006) study, in the context of language development in humans, which of the following statements is true?

A) Sensitivity periods end after neural pruning and neural wiring reach their peak.
B) Pruning increases the plasticity of the neural connections.
C) Sensitivity periods begin after the plasticity of neural connections becomes more flexible.
D) Neural wiring plummets when the sensitivity period begins.

Question 77

Which of the following statements describes deductive reasoning?

A) Proving something by showing that all other possibilities are not logically plausible
B) Reasoning from general statements of what is known to specific conclusions
C) Engaging in comparative thinking to establish the importance of something
D) Understanding something by considering it as a whole system and analyzing the relation between the parts

Question 78

In the context of the relationship between gender and intelligence, women consistently tend to do better than men in ________.

A) math
B) science
C) spatial reasoning
D) perceptual speed

Question 79

Identify a characteristic of creative intelligence.

A) It includes the ability to solve problems of everyday life efficiently.
B) It includes the ability to come up with fresh and useful ideas for solving problems.
C) It involves judging and evaluating information.
D) It involves comparing and contrasting information.

Question 80

Research on gender differences in spatial ability has shown that ________.

A) males generally do better than females on mental rotation tasks
B) females generally do better than males on mental rotation tasks
C) males and females perform at the same skill level on mental rotation tasks
D) both males and females are rarely if ever skilled at mental rotation tasks