Deck 14: Social Cognition

Question 1

People with damage to the orbitofrontal cortex tend to be ________ of their social mistakes in the moment,________ become embarrassed by them if they view a video of themselves after the fact.

A)aware / and they also
B)aware / but they do not
C)unaware / but they do
D)unaware / and they do not

Answer 1

C

Question 2

In what way might the self-referent effect and the depth-of-processing effect be related?

A)Information processed in relation to the self may benefit from the wealth of information about the self in memory.
B)Information processed in relation to the self may be skewed by our biased representations of our own personalities and traits.
C)The self is a special cognitive structure with unique mnemonic or organizational elements.
D)The self has elements that promote processing in a way that is distinct from other cognitive systems.

Answer 2

A

Question 3

In an experiment by William Kelley and colleagues,participants judged personality adjectives in relation to either themselves or the U.S.president.The results suggested that memory for words processed in relation to the self was ________ than that for words processed in relation to the U.S.president,and that the former condition resulted in greater neural activity in the ________ cortex.

A)better / orbitofrontal
B)worse / orbitofrontal
C)better / medial prefrontal
D)worse / medial prefrontal

Answer 3

C

Question 4

Which brain region is the most susceptible to coup-contra-coup injury?

A)The occipital cortex
B)The parietal cortex
C)The temporal cortex
D)The orbitofrontal cortex

Question 5

The most salient symptom in people who have suffered damage to the orbitofrontal cortex is

A)inappropriate social behavior.
B)aphasia.
C)profound mental retardation.
D)agnosia.

Question 6

The self-referent effect refers to the phenomenon that

A)social judgments about oneself tend to be biased.
B)social judgments about oneself tend to be highly accurate.
C)information processed in relation to the self is distorted in memory.
D)information processed in relation to the self is enhanced in memory.

Question 7

Studies using fMRI have found that neural activity in the medial prefrontal cortex ________ when people make self-referential judgments compared to other judgments,suggesting that when we are "at rest" we are engaging in a number of self-referential processes.

A)increases more
B)increases less
C)decreases more
D)decreases less

Question 8

The term theory of mind refers to

A)the philosophical position that the mind is not reducible to the brain.
B)our ability to make inferences about the mental states of other people.
C)the argument that only humans experience self-awareness.
D)the notion that human cognition is deeply rooted in mental representation.

Question 9

Phineas Gage,who suffered injury to the orbitofrontal cortex,experienced changes in all of the following areas as a result of his injury EXCEPT

A)inhibition of inappropriate social behavior.
B)performance on cognitive tests.
C)planning of complex behaviors.
D)personality and temperament.

Question 10

Stanley Klein and colleagues found that after rating a personality adjective for self-descriptiveness,participants were ________ to recall a time in which they exhibited the characteristic,suggesting that self-characteristics ________ linked to recall of specific past behaviors.

A)faster / are
B)slower / are not
C)equally fast / are
D)equally fast / are not

Question 11

The Sally-Anne Task is used to test whether someone

A)understands that people can have different mental states.
B)possesses unconscious biases against women.
C)follows social conventions for appropriate behavior.
D)can form new declarative memories accurately.

Question 12

When reading series of statements such as "At the party,he was the first to start dancing on the table," the ________ is more active when making a personality inference as opposed to remembering the order of the statements.

A)orbitofrontal cortex
B)dorsolateral prefrontal cortex
C)anterior cingulate cortex
D)medial prefrontal cortex

Question 13

What were the circumstances under which Phineas Gage sustained his brain injury?

A)A 20-foot fall during construction of the Eiffel Tower that resulted in coup-contra-coup injury
B)A gunshot wound during the Battle of Gettysburg that penetrated his skull
C)An explosion while laying a Vermont railway that sent a tamping iron through his head
D)A shipwreck off the coast of Australia that deprived his brain of oxygen for 10 minutes

Question 14

One concern with interpreting fMRI studies employing a "resting state" for comparison with cognitive activities of interest is that

A)the brain uses considerably more blood and oxygen when it is "at rest."
B)many processes are engaged "at rest," including self-referential processes.
C)participants in experiments are particularly prone to movement artifacts when "at rest."
D)there is too little blood flow in the brain "at rest" for accurate measurements.

Question 15

Which brain area seems to be the most important for selectively attending to positive self-relevant information,as opposed to negative self-relevant information?

A)The anterior cingulate cortex
B)The medial prefrontal cortex
C)The orbitofrontal cortex
D)The dorsolateral prefrontal cortex

Question 16

People with retrograde and anterograde amnesia are ________ to maintain a sense of self because our judgments about self-characteristics are ________ recall of specific past behaviors.

A)able / dependent on
B)able / not linked to
C)not able / dependent on
D)not able / not linked to

Question 17

When deciding whether an adjective describes ________,we rely on ________.

A)others / memories of specific behaviors
B)ourselves / memories of specific behaviors
C)others / more global perceptions
D)Both b and c are true.

Question 18

Functional MRI and ERP studies suggest that the medial prefrontal cortex may be involved in tasks requiring

A)hierarchical processing.
B)self-referential processing.
C)emotional memory.
D)perceptual memory.

Question 19

A traumatic brain injury in which impact causes the brain to bounce against the back of the skull and then rebound is known as a ________ injury.

A)coup de foudre
B)coup de main
C)coup-contra-coup
D)coup d'oeil

Question 20

Which of the following resulted in the significant personality changes observed in Phineas Gage?

A)Parkinson's disease
B)Temporal lobe epilepsy
C)Orbitofrontal damage
D)Limbic damage

Question 21

Somatic markers are

A)autonomic emotional responses that are associated with other types of memory representations.
B)the characteristically enlarged ERP responses produced by patients with frontal lobe injuries in response to auditory stimuli.
C)small focal lesions that occur as the result of traumatic injury to the frontal lobes.
D)regions within the somatosensory cortex where there are topographic representations of the body surface.

Question 22

Most children who are asked to sort a set of facial pictures will likely sort on the basis of ________,whereas autistic children will likely sort on the basis of ________.

A)emotional expression / physical features
B)physical features / emotional expression
C)eye gaze / emotional expression
D)emotional expression / eye gaze

Question 23

Autistic children are likely to report that ______ when performing the Sally-Anne Task.

A)Sally will look in the location in which Anne has put the marble
B)Sally will look in the location where she originally put the marble
C)Sally will move the marble back to its original location
D)Sally will prefer to focus on her own thoughts and not look for the marble

Question 24

Studies of the neural bases of autism have found that people with autism

A)have less activation in the medial prefrontal cortex and superior temporal sulcus when performing theory of mind tasks.
B)have smaller amygdalae in comparison to nonautistic people.
C)do not significantly deactivate the medial prefrontal cortex when performing non-self-referential tasks.
D)All of the above are true.

Question 25

What might a person with prefrontal damage do upon entering a room containing a hammer,nail,and picture,according to François Lhermitte?

A)Fail to recognize the names or purposes of any of the items
B)Spontaneously provide the name for each of the three objects
C)Use the hammer and nail to hang the picture on the wall
D)Break the picture using the hammer

Question 26

In a social faux pas experiment,participants are presented with a scenario in which one character accidentally says something impolite to another character.When people with orbitofrontal damage perform this task,

A)they fail to understand that anything impolite has been said.
B)they understand that something impolite has been said but that it wasn't intended.
C)they believe that the impolite comment was intentional.
D)they begin to imitate the impolite comments,not realizing this is inappropriate.

Question 27

Damasio's (1994)somatic marker hypothesis argues that memories of responses we have made in the past

A)receive a "time tag" generated by the prefrontal cortex that allows us to keep track of the temporal order in which these responses were originally generated.
B)are stored in either the left or right hemisphere depending on whether the responses involve linguistic or spatial information.
C)are associated with emotion and autonomic sensations that influence whether we choose to engage in that behavior again.
D)engage the prefrontal cortex,which is organized into topographic maps of sensory memories.

Question 28

The term ________ refers to the observation that people with frontal lobe injuries may demonstrate an abnormal dependence on environmental cues in guiding their behavior and may mimic the actions of those around them.

A)imitative behavior
B)utilization behavior
C)simulation theory
D)theory of mind

Question 29

Single-cell recording studies in monkeys and human neuroimaging studies support the idea that the ________ is important for interpreting eye gaze in relation to mental states.

A)temporoparietal junction
B)superior temporal sulcus
C)orbitofrontal cortex
D)medial frontal cortex

Question 30

Studies of people with autism have suggested that they do not significantly deactivate the ________ when performing non-self-referential tasks.This is consistent with the observation that many people with autism have an unusual focus on ________ rather than ________.

A)medial prefrontal cortex / the external world / internal states
B)medial prefrontal cortex / internal states / the external world
C)temporoparietal junction / their own mental states / the mental states of others
D)temporoparietal junction / the mental states of others / their own mental states

Question 31

According to Damasio's (1994)somatic marker hypothesis,linking emotional and autonomic responses to memories of previous behaviors is useful because such connections

A)improve our ability to encode the temporal order of events.
B)allow us to narrow the range of responses from which we choose.
C)facilitate the storage and use of explicit memories.
D)allow us to integrate information from all the senses into coherent memories.

Question 32

To engage in joint attention,a child will pay attention to

A)the direction of your eye gaze.
B)the content of your speech.
C)your hand gestures.
D)your body language.

Question 33

According to the somatic marker hypothesis,people with damage to the orbitofrontal cortex may fail to inhibit socially inappropriate behavior because

A)they are easily distracted and unable to select responses effectively.
B)information about the emotional consequences of their actions has been lost.
C)they have a working memory deficit that makes it difficult for them to consider all of their response options.
D)their injuries produce a general impairment of intellect that makes rational thought difficult.

Question 34

A person with a frontal lobe injury is brought into a doctor's office that contains a typewriter and paper.The person immediately sits down,loads the typewriter with paper,and begins typing.Which term best describes this situation?

A)Imitative behavior
B)Utilization behavior
C)Executive impairment
D)Working memory impairment

Question 35

What did Ami Klin find when autistic people watched the film Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

A)They failed to understand the sarcasm in the dialogue.
B)They began to refer to an imaginary child like the characters in the movie.
C)They did not pay attention to the faces and eyes of the characters.
D)They mimicked the lines spoken by Martha but not George.

Question 36

In a teasing experiment,people with orbitofrontal injuries and control participants were asked to make up nicknames for an experimenter whom they did not know well.What were the results?

A)The control participants chose flattering nicknames,whereas the people with orbitofrontal injuries chose unflattering ones.
B)The people with orbitofrontal injuries chose flattering nicknames,whereas the control participants chose unflattering ones.
C)The control participants refused to perform the task,finding the idea socially inappropriate.
D)The people with orbitofrontal injuries refused to perform the task,finding the idea socially inappropriate.

Question 37

Tasks involving thinking about mental states often engage which region of the brain,in comparison to thinking about social background or life events?

A)The left inferior frontal lobe
B)The left precentral gyrus
C)The right temporoparietal junction
D)The right anterior cingulate

Question 38

What do mentalizing tasks have in common with attentional cuing tasks?

A)Both tasks have strong social cognition components.
B)Both tasks strongly engage the right anterior cingulate.
C)Both tasks require that participants direct their attention away from invalid information.
D)Both b and c are true.

Question 39

Studies of the perception of the self and others have suggested that

A)similar regions of the medial prefrontal cortex are activated when we answer questions about the self and about others.
B)similar regions of the medial prefrontal cortex are activated when we answer questions about the self and about others,if they are close.
C)similar regions of the medial prefrontal cortex are activated when we answer questions about others,regardless of whether they are close.
D)three distinct regions of the medial prefrontal cortex are activated when we answer questions about the self,close others,and acquaintances.

Question 40

Baron-Cohen has proposed that people with ________ have impaired theory-of-mind abilities,coining the term mindblindness.

A)aphasia
B)agnosia
C)agraphia
D)autism

Question 41

In the experimental economics task known as the Ultimatum Game,one participant must choose how to split a sum of money with another player.The second player can choose to accept the offer-or to reject it,upon which neither player receives anything.Consideration of unfair offers is associated with activity in the ________,an area that has been associated with disgust.

A)superior temporal sulcus
B)orbitofrontal cortex
C)cingulate cortex
D)insula

Question 42

The trolley problem and footbridge problem are ethical thought experiments involving life-or-death situations.Which of the following is true?

A)Both situations involve sacrificing one life to save multiple other lives.
B)The death in the trolley problem has greater perceived personal involvement.
C)Most people agree that it is unacceptable to act in either dilemma.
D)Thinking about the trolley problem results in greater emotional processing.

Question 43

Raine (2002)has argued that ________ people are likely to show evidence of reduced neural activity in the orbitofrontal cortex.

A)depressed
B)antisocial
C)manic
D)socially adept

Question 44

Research suggests that self-description judgments rely on recall of specific autobiographical episodes.

Question 45

Neuroeconomics is the field of philosophy that discusses the rights and wrongs of the treatment of or enhancement of the human brain.

Question 46

Neuroeconomic studies have shown that humans

A)make decisions that maximize rewards and minimize losses.
B)make decisions that maximize rewards and minimize losses,unless they have suffered damage to the amygdala.
C)do not always make decisions that maximize rewards and minimize losses.
D)do not always make decisions that maximize rewards and minimize losses,unless they have suffered damage to the orbitofrontal cortex.

Question 47

The most common method for performing frontal lobotomies involved

A)pounding an ice pick through the eye sockets with a small hammer.
B)administering a severe electric shock that was strong enough to damage the sensitive frontal cortex.
C)injecting the person with a strong dose of L-dopa.
D)deliberate damage to the posterior brain areas that were believed to be overactive.

Question 48

The dorsolateral prefrontal cortex plays a strong role in forming impressions about the internal states of other people.

Question 49

The infamous procedure known as the frontal lobotomy was associated most closely with which of the following periods?

A)1870-1890
B)1890-1910
C)1910-1930
D)1930-1950

Question 50

Functional MRI studies of ethical dilemmas suggest that ________ decisions recruit working memory processes,whereas ________ decisions recruit emotional and social cognitive processes.

A)personal / impersonal
B)impersonal / personal
C)moral / ethical
D)ethical / moral

Question 51

Simulation theory suggests that theory of mind is based on an ability to put ourselves in the shoes of another person,using our own minds to simulate what might be going on in the mind of someone else.

Question 52

Phineas Gage was a famous neurological patient who suffered damage to the orbitofrontal cortex.

Question 53

A neurologically intact individual and a person who has an injury to the orbitofrontal cortex are playing a high-stakes poker game.Each player has bet a large sum of money on the current hand.Based on what you know about the orbitofrontal cortex and emotional aspects of memory,which of the following best describes the skin conductance response (SCR)of each player as they prepare to show their hands?

A)Both players have a SCR,but the SCR of the person with orbitofrontal damage is much larger.
B)Both players have a SCR,but the SCR of the person with orbitofrontal damage is much smaller.
C)Both players have a SCR of similar magnitude.
D)The person with orbitofrontal damage has no anticipatory SCR at all.

Question 54

Information processed in relation to the self is better remembered.

Question 55

Neuroeconomic functional MRI studies have suggested that rational decision making is associated with the ________,and emotion-driven decision making is associated with the ________.

A)orbitofrontal cortex / cingulate
B)orbitofrontal cortex / amygdala
C)dorsolateral prefrontal cortex / cingulate
D)dorsolateral prefrontal cortex / amygdala

Question 56

The anterior cingulate cortex is important for distinguishing positive self-relevant information from negative self-relevant information.

Question 57

Research suggests that the brain regions that are active during mentalizing tasks and during attentional cuing are functionally distinct from one another.

Question 58

Which of the following is true of the prefrontal cortex,schizophrenia,and depression?

A)Both schizophrenia and depression are associated with hypermetabolism in the prefrontal cortex.
B)Both schizophrenia and depression are associated with hypometabolism in the prefrontal cortex.
C)Whereas schizophrenia is associated with hypermetabolism in the prefrontal cortex,depression is associated with hypometabolism in the prefrontal cortex.
D)Whereas schizophrenia is associated with hypometabolism in the prefrontal cortex,depression is associated with hypermetabolism in the prefrontal cortex.

Question 59

False-belief tasks require participants to direct their attention away from invalid information to answer questions about another person's mental states.

Question 60

Neuroimaging studies suggest that the medial prefrontal cortex activates more relative to a baseline when people make self-referential judgments compared to other kinds of judgments.

Question 61

What evidence supports the notion that autistic people are "mindblind"? What are some alternative hypotheses?

Question 62

Experimental economics research has often assumed that humans behave as rational agents,always making choices that will maximize gains and minimize losses.What is problematic about this assumption from a psychological or neuroscientific perspective?

Question 63

Describe the role of the medial prefrontal cortex in the perception of the self and of others.How might the two be related?

Question 64

The trolley problem described in your text has many variations.One of them goes as follows: You are a surgeon and have five patients who each need a different organ transplant.No acceptable donor for any of them can be found,until one day a healthy traveler comes into your office and is the perfect donor for all five patients.Are there any circumstances under which it would be morally acceptable to kill this person to save the lives of five others? Based on the study of Greene and colleagues,which areas of your brain did you likely use when thinking about this ethical dilemma?

Question 65

What is the somatic marker hypothesis? Describe a neuropsychological study-real or hypothetical-that would support or disprove the somatic marker hypothesis.