Deck 7: Cognitive Development: Information-Processing Perspectives

Question 1

The use of the computer as a model for understanding the child's mind is part of the

A)Vygotskian sociocultural viewpoint.
B)information-processing perspective.
C)Piagetian cognitive theory.
D)executive control process.

Answer 1

information-processing perspective.

Question 2

Cognitive "executive control processes" are like having a

A)note pad that never loses information.
B)utilization deficiency that never gets better.
C)little person in your head who decides what to do.
D)tape recorder that repeatedly plays the same old tape.

Answer 2

little person in your head who decides what to do.

Question 3

When a child looks at something, the information first is registered in a

A)reticular formation.
B)sensory store.
C)knowledge base.
D)memory span.

Answer 3

sensory store.

Question 4

The information-processing perspective on cognition asserts that there is a valid analogy between the mind and the

A)spirit.
B)computer.
C)child's sociocultural context.
D)schemas adapted by assimilation/accommodation.

Question 5

The information-processing perspective's comparison of the mind and a computer should be regarded as

A)a conceptual metaphor.
B)realistic for adults but not for children.
C)realistic for children but not for adults.
D)an outdated idea that lacks experimental support.

Question 6

According to the information-processing perspective, the child's mind is like a

A)"ghost" in a biological machine.
B)computer with hardware and software.
C)stolen credit card that is fraudulently used.
D)pack of journalists interviewing a crime suspect.

Question 7

The brain's information-processing software does all of these operations EXCEPT ____ the data.

A)registering
B)digitizing
C)retrieving
D)analyzing

Question 8

According to the information-processing perspective, the child exerts voluntary control most directly over

A)the sensory store.
B)the short-term store.
C)the environmental input.
D)executive function.

Question 9

SOFTWARE is to HARDWARE as ____ is to ____.

A)EXPLICIT COGNITION :: IMPLICIT COGNITION
B)ACCOMMODATION :: ASSIMILATION
C)STRATEGY :: NERVOUS SYSTEM
D)FREE RECALL :: CUED RECALL

Question 10

In the information-processing perspective, the mind's hardware is the

A)nervous system, including the brain, neurons, and sensory receptors.
B)skeletal system.
C)vital organs, including the heart, lungs, and stomach.
D)corpus callosum.

Question 11

The information-processing perspective is applied particularly to the child's ____ development.

A)sociocultural and sociohistorical
B)altruistic and moral
C)emotional
D)cognitive

Question 12

In the multistore model of information processing, what is meant by the term "store"?

A)A type of memory
B)A shopping location
C)A meeting place near a school
D)A place where toys may be kept temporarily

Question 13

Decisions about learning/memory strategies are made by ____ in the multistore model.

A)executive functions
B)the environmental input
C)semantic organization
D)the knowledge base

Question 14

In the mind, the software is considered to consist of the

A)brain and nervous system.
B)soft tissue surrounding the brain.
C)rules and strategies by which information is stored and analyzed.
D)language-processing centers.

Question 15

A visual sensory store is like a(n)

A)jiggling movement of the eye when the person gets dizzy.
B)itchiness felt when an insect crawls on the skin.
C)brief persistence of an image.
D)echo in the ear.

Question 16

The information capacity of the ____ is extremely large.

A)sensory store
B)memory span
C)short-term store
D)long-term store

Question 17

Ambrose Bierce wrote, "The mind is a mysterious form of matter secreted by the brain; its chief activity consists of trying to understand its own functions." For Bierce, the mind's main activity represents

A)fuzzy traces.
B)metacognition.
C)relational primacy.
D)a reticular formation.

Question 18

Which of the following is NOT among the several types of memory hypothesized by the multistore model?

A)Sensory store
B)Long-term store
C)Short-term store
D)Multipurpose store

Question 19

Malcolm, age nine, demonstrates ____ by saying, "I'm good at remembering words but bad at remembering pictures."

A)cardinality
B)metacognition
C)a mnemonic strategy
D)analogical reasoning

Question 20

Which of these describes the early-to-late flow of fresh information through the multistore model of memory?

A)Long-term memory :: short-term memory :: sensory store
B)Short-term memory :: sensory store :: long-term memory
C)Sensory store :: long-term memory :: short-term memory
D)Sensory store :: short-term memory :: long-term memory

Question 21

With regard to the use of mental strategies, ____ deficiency means that the child does not discover a suitable strategy to accomplish a particular task.

A)relational primacy
B)utilization
C)production
D)mnemonic

Question 22

Suppose that a child has a production deficiency for learning/memory strategies; what ought to be done?

A)Counsel the child to adapt to her disability
B)Give encouragement to raise her self-esteem
C)Teach the child an appropriate strategy
D)Redirect the child to other activities

Question 23

Which of these LEAST requires willful application of a cognitive strategy?

A)Baking a cake by following a cookbook recipe
B)Studying a textbook in preparation for a quiz
C)Recognizing an unusual object by its appearance
D)Looking at a surface while searching for fingerprints

Question 24

A slogan for metacognition would be,

A)"There is more than one way to skin a cat."
B)"The hand is quicker than the eye."
C)"Out of sight, out of mind."
D)"I know how I think."

Question 25

Age-related improvements in ____ are so reliable that this skill is among those that are assessed in children's intelligence tests.

A)attention-deficit hyperactivity
B)perception of cardinality
C)memory rehearsal
D)memory span

Question 26

Strategies are operations that are

A)reflexes that happen quickly to particular stimuli.
B)deliberately applied to improve performance.
C)unconscious and automatically applied.
D)conscious and automatically applied.

Question 27

Metacognition is another term for the brain's

A)executive function.
B)multistore model of memory.
C)implicit cognitions.
D)infantile amnesias.

Question 28

As the child ages, memory span tends to

A)decline greatly.
B)decline slightly.
C)remain quite stable.
D)increase.

Question 29

Mylenization and the elimination of unnecessary neural synapses may explain

A)aging.
B)plasticity.
C)accommodation.
D)improved processing speed.

Question 30

Which maturational change has been identified as the source of age-related improvements in children's processing speed?

A)Myelinization of the brain's associative areas
B)Strengthening of the body's large muscles
C)Resiliency of the body's immune system
D)Tendency to eat a well-balanced diet

Question 31

What trend is known for children's speed of mental processing?

A)Maturing children become faster in many skills.
B)Maturing children become faster, but only in their personal areas of special expertise.
C)The speed of processing remains constant in childhood.
D)Individual differences in processing speed are absent.

Question 32

Chi's study of children's chess memory showed that recall

A)depends on one's expertise with the memorized materials.
B)is a general skill that is independent of the items used.
C)depends on the sociohistorical or cultural context in which the child is reared.
D)is enhanced when good performance is reinforced.

Question 33

Children learn strategies for math, reading, memory, or problem-solving in various places but especially at

A)a parent's lap during preschool age.
B)informal play activities with peers.
C)scouts or other youth activities.
D)school.

Question 34

Bonzo thinks there is some way to memorize the names of animals seen at the zoo, but he can't think of it. Bonzo has a(n) ____ strategy deficiency.

A)production
B)utilization
C)infantile amnesia
D)attention-deficit hyperactivity

Question 35

Eyewitness memory is a special type of ____ about a traumatic experience or misdeed.

A)strategic memory
B)infantile amnesia
C)span of apprehension
D)event memory

Question 36

Kail and others attribute children's improved age-related information-processing speeds to

A)an innate gender difference that favors boys over girls.
B)the improved timers that are available today.
C)improved diet and healthcare.
D)biological maturation.

Question 37

A slogan based on the results of Chi's study of memory for chess pieces would be,

A)"Stupid kids should not play chess."
B)"High self-esteem leads to high performance."
C)"You recall best what you know best."
D)"Genius is 1 percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration."

Question 38

The general developmental trend for strategy use is that as children become more mature, they

A)apply strategies in the same ways as when young.
B)use more strategies, more effectively.
C)become increasingly reliant on unconscious habits.
D)suffer from confusion because they must make choices from an expanded range of possible strategies.

Question 39

"Domain specificity" of mental performance means that

A)performance is best for areas of one's expertise.
B)performance increases broadly while the child matures.
C)errors are common among children in everything they do.
D)expertise applies broadly to many types of tasks.

Question 40

Sixth-graders talk among themselves about who knows the most about dinosaurs. This discussion concerns their

A)mnemonics.
B)knowledge base.
C)dinosaur cardinality.
D)span of apprehension.

Question 41

Five-year-old Boris tells his teacher, "I can't figure out how to memorize zoo animals' names by myself, but if you teach me how, I'm sure I can do it." Boris has a ____ deficiency for learning/memory strategies.

A)metamemory
B)production
C)utilization
D)span of apprehension

Question 42

A ____ deficiency is a spontaneous failure to generate and use learning/memory strategies.

A)rehearsal
B)production
C)metamemory
D)utilization

Question 43

Regarding learning/memory strategies, PRODUCTION is to UTILIZATION as ____ is to ____.

A)MOVEMENT :: IDEA
B)GENERATE :: APPLY
C)DESTINY :: CHOICE
D)CUED RECALL :: FREE RECALL

Question 44

In Siegler's adaptive strategy choice model,

A)the child chooses a strategy from multiple strategies that are available.
B)whatever strategy is best will be selected every time.
C)forgetting can occur from any type of memory system.
D)the maturing child systematically applies more advanced strategies.

Question 45

Mikhail is six years old, and he plays video games. His older brother taught him how to help a hero escape if swallowed by a monster. Mikhail knows the strategy but forgets when to apply it. This is a ____ deficiency.

A)rehearsal
B)production
C)utilization
D)selective attention

Question 46

In a study by Bjorklund, children were trained to use grouping as a means to improve recall. Although the fourth-graders in this study were able to learn the grouping strategy, their recall ability did not improve. This finding is an example of

A)utilization deficiency.
B)production deficiency.
C)encoding.
D)strategy use.

Question 47

Small children are prone to which deficiencies in applying strategies?

A)Deficiencies in neither production nor utilization
B)Deficiencies in production but not in utilization
C)Deficiencies in utilization but not in production
D)Deficiencies in both production and utilization

Question 48

A five-year-old child applies her knowledge to create correct sentences, yet she is unaware consciously what the grammatical rules are. This illustrates

A)explicit cognition.
B)implicit cognition.
C)span of apprehension.
D)a production deficiency.

Question 49

Implicit cognition is mental activity that

A)rarely leads to correct solutions.
B)occurs without the child's awareness.
C)is conscious and deliberately guided.
D)arises out of prehistoric animalistic instincts.

Question 50

Before speaking to her teacher about a sensitive issue, a first-grader thinks about what to say. This is an example of

A)implicit cognition.
B)explicit cognition.
C)a cardinalized script.
D)a reduced attention span.

Question 51

The child is aware of information from

A)implicit or explicit cognition equally and well.
B)implicit or explicit cognition equally and poorly.
C)explicit cognition better than from implicit cognition.
D)implicit cognition better than from explicit cognition.

Question 52

A slogan of Siegler's adaptive strategy choice model might be,

A)"Never give an inch."
B)"A stitch in time saves nine."
C)"There is more than one way to skin a cat."
D)"Seeking success is better than avoiding failure."

Question 53

IMPLICIT COGNITION is to EXPLICIT COGNITION as ____ is to ____.

A)HIDDEN :: SEEN
B)SMALL :: LARGE
C)HUNGRY :: SATIATED
D)MARRIAGE :: DIVORCE

Question 54

The slogan, "The mind has a mind of its own," means that

A)parental influence is a delusional self-deception.
B)thoughts can happen even without the person's volition.
C)multiple-personality disorder occurs in most humans.
D)some children have been reincarnated from a past life.

Question 55

Preschoolers are told about Ellie the elephant, who was given an allowance but then forgot how to spend it. Ellie displayed a (n) ____ deficiency.

A)production
B)utilization
C)autobiographical memory
D)working memory capacity

Question 56

Children may have many strategies available in memory and may select different strategies on various occasions. This is called the ____ model.

A)reticular formation information
B)cardinality multiple option
C)adaptive strategy choice
D)multistore

Question 57

Tweedledom is six, and when he adds numbers, he uses the "sum" strategy, counting both numbers aloud. Tweedledee, his older brother, teaches him the "min" strategy, starting at the larger number and counting up from there. Dom quickly sees that min is better; his failure to use it until shown is a(n) ____ deficiency.

A)metacognitive
B)elaborative
C)production
D)utilization

Question 58

"Don't think about crocodiles flying!" Having just heard this command, most people start to think about those crocodiles anyway. This illustrates

A)fantasies about flying.
B)mental uncontrollability.
C)attentional independence.
D)unconscious rebelliousness.

Question 59

According to the adaptive strategy choice model, the level of sophistication of a chosen strategy will depend on age, experience, and information-processing ability. However, the less sophisticated fall-back strategies will be chosen when

A)brain damage occurs.
B)new, unfamiliar problems are presented.
C)old, simple problems are presented.
D)never.

Question 60

Research on mental uncontrollability has found that young children tend to overestimate their own

A)production and utilization of mnemonics.
B)knowledge about their implicit cognition.
C)degree of willful control over their own thinking.
D)ability to explain the relational primacy hypothesis.

Question 61

The general pattern of implicit memory results is that

A)practice improvements are equivalent at various ages.
B)practice improvements are stronger with children.
C)practice improvements are stronger with adults.
D)children apply strategies, but adults do not.

Question 62

GIST is to VERBATIM as ____ is to ____.

A)VAGUE :: CLEAR
B)CULTURE :: SOCIETY
C)REASONING :: INTUITION
D)CUED RECALL :: FREE RECALL

Question 63

Sally Creamcheese tells her roommate, "The guy I just dated is wonderful. I don't recall what he said tonight, but he is so sincere and nice!" Sally's memory is of the ____ of her impression of her date.

A)reputation
B)verbatim content
C)analogical reasoning
D)gist

Question 64

A slogan of implicit cognition would be,

A)"consciousness during sleep."
B)"action without intelligence."
C)"thought without awareness."
D)"travel without motion."

Question 65

A student tells a classmate, "You didn't miss much from yesterday's class. The professor mostly told about his memory tests with African elephants." The student recalled the ____ of the previous lecture.

A)span of apprehension
B)fuzzy representation
C)explicit cognition
D)implicit cognition

Question 66

Who will most strongly claim that he or she can "think of nothing," with a totally blank mind?

A)A four-year-old preschooler
B)A 12-year-old seventh-grader
C)A 17-year-old high schooler
D)A 40-year-old adult

Question 67

While working on a difficult task, a person "thinks out loud" to demonstrate awareness of her own thought processes, a conscious principle called

A)fuzzy-trace insight.
B)learning to learn.
C)metacognition.
D)cardinality.

Question 68

Research has shown that there is a developmental shift beginning in second grade that favors

A)memories represented as fuzzy gists.
B)cued recall rather than free recall.
C)reliance on implicit cognition skills.
D)memories represented as verbatim precise facts.

Question 69

What stimuli were used in Drummey and Newcombe's study of children's implicit memory?

A)Lists of common words
B)Fragmented, incomplete line drawings
C)Vacation slide pictures in full color
D)Lists of rare words known to children

Question 70

Following a victorious chess game, the winner explained in much detail what his decisions were at each step of the game. The player showed good ____, which means knowledge about his own thought processes.

A)gumption
B)metacognition
C)relational primacy
D)analogical reasoning

Question 71

Which statement about fuzzy traces is FALSE?

A)They are general global impressions.
B)They require little effort to recall or to use.
C)They are the opposite of precise verbatim memories.
D)They are highly prone to interference and forgetting.

Question 72

Remembering the gist is like

A)noticing the forest landscape instead of separate trees.
B)finding dictionary meanings for common everyday words.
C)spending twice as much money as you earn.
D)perceiving humor in ghoulish topics.

Question 73

Teachers in second grade or beyond should adjust their teaching in non-math subjects to emphasize

A)memorization of verbatim factual knowledge.
B)broad impressions instead of verbatim facts.
C)fuzzy furry animals instead of hairless species.
D)tactics to reverse the harms of utilization deficiency.

Question 74

Who will most strongly overestimate his or her own ability to exclude particular thoughts from conscious awareness?

A)A five-year-old preschooler
B)A 10-year-old fifth-grader
C)A 16-year-old high schooler
D)A 50-year-old adult

Question 75

A quiz show winner says, "I don't know how I solved the problem. The solution just popped into mind without thought!" This winner does badly at

A)free recall.
B)metacognition.
C)reticular formation.
D)analogical reasoning.

Question 76

Joe College sat through a lecture with arms folded. He said, "I remember enough. It was on cognition." Joe's memory for the lecture was of its

A)selective attention.
B)emotional undertone.
C)verbatim detail in the professor's explanations.
D)gist.

Question 77

The effort to encode precise verbatim representations instead of fuzzy gists

A)is strongest in preschoolers.
B)increases with age through adulthood.
C)generally enhances the child's friendships.
D)is less useful for math subjects than for other topics.

Question 78

Patient H.M. had his hippocampus removed and is unable to benefit from learning. Yet, with movement skills, he begins practice each later day at a higher level than he began the previous day. H.M. shows

A)implicit memory.
B)analogical reasoning.
C)excellent metacognition.
D)attention-deficit hyperactivity.

Question 79

When age differences are found on memory tests, they are

A)equivalent on implicit and explicit memory tasks.
B)stronger with implicit than with explicit memory tasks.
C)stronger with explicit than with implicit memory tasks.
D)extreme, with adults scoring high and children scoring low.

Question 80

A slogan of the fuzzy-trace theory of knowledge would be,

A)"Details are divine."
B)"Know the general idea, not the boring details."
C)"Imagine yourself in your pet's body and think what it would be like."
D)"Liberate the innate knowledge already in the child."