Deck 1: The Science of the Mind

Question 1

Behaviorists study organisms'

A)expectations.
B)desires and motivations.
C)dreams.
D)responses.

Answer 1

D

Question 2

Cognitive processes are NOT necessary for which daily activity?

A)reading a newspaper
B)studying for a test
C)talking on the phone
D)breathing

Answer 2

D

Question 3

Historically,the movement known as behaviorism was to a large extent encouraged by scholars' concerns regarding

A)psychotherapy.
B)an exaggerated focus on participants' responses.
C)research based on introspection.
D)a focus on brain mechanisms and a corresponding inattention to mental states.

Answer 3

C

Question 4

Which of the following statements about introspection is FALSE?

A)It is the only way to observe conscious events directly.
B)It is subjective.
C)It provides strong evidence for hypothesis-testing.
D)It was a technique used historically to study cognition.

Question 5

Patients suffering from clinical amnesia are characterized by

A)memory dysfunction.
B)an inability to recognize patterns.
C)inarticulate speech.
D)impaired language comprehension.

Question 6

Introspection was employed as a research tool in the late 1800s because

A)it was regarded as the only way to observe the mind's contents directly.
B)it provided data from individuals without any specialized training.
C)conscious events are just as important as unconscious events.
D)it provided cognitive psychology's first testable claims.

Question 7

Which of the following statements about introspection is FALSE?

A)A verbal report based on introspection may provide a distorted picture of mental processes that are nonverbal in nature.
B)Different participants might be using different terms to describe similar experiences.
C)Introspection provides valuable scientific data,but only after the person doing the introspection has received many hours of training.
D)Participants cannot possibly introspect about events that are unconscious.

Question 8

Of the following,introspection is LEAST useful for studying

A)topics that are strongly colored by emotion.
B)mental events that are unconscious.
C)processes that involve conceptual knowledge.
D)events that take a long time to unfold.

Question 9

Alyssa wants to be a psychologist but is unsure which topic within psychology most interests her.Which of the following topics would be LEAST likely to lead her into cognitive psychology?

A)amnesia
B)language acquisition
C)Lyme disease
D)problem-solving strategies

Question 10

A behaviorist,like John Watson,is LEAST likely to believe which of the following statements?

A)Our learning history powerfully influences our behaviors.
B)Children are a good source for data.
C)The mind is not amenable to scientific inquiry because it is not easily observed.
D)When it comes to collecting data,introspection is as valuable as behavior.

Question 11

Which of the following topics is NOT commonly studied within cognitive psychology?

A)anger management
B)decision making
C)memory
D)attention

Question 12

Research with H.M.provides an illustration for which major theme of the chapter?

A)Introspection is an important research tool for cognitive psychologists.
B)Cognitive psychology can help us understand a wide range of activities that depend on someone's ability to remember.
C)Memory is not very important.
D)The disruption caused by brain damage depends on how widespread the damage is,and not on the specific sites that are damaged.

Question 13

In cognition,as in other sciences,we develop claims that can be tested.These claims are generally referred to as

A)research proposals.
B)empirical models.
C)statistical comparisons.
D)hypotheses.

Question 14

A participant is asked to look within himself or herself and report on his or her own mental processes.This method is called

A)logical inference.
B)reconstruction.
C)introspection.
D)mentalistic study.

Question 15

Consider the sequence "Betsy wanted to bring Jacob a present.She shook her piggy bank." Most people,after hearing this sequence,believe Betsy was checking her piggy bank to see if she had money to spend on the gift.This inference about Betsy's goals depends on the fact that

A)our previous knowledge fills in background information whenever we're understanding an event or conversation.
B)readers are likely to know someone named Jacob.
C)English,unlike other languages,requires speakers to mention all of the people involved in an event.
D)the individual sentences are short.

Question 16

The term "introspection" refers to the

A)process by which one individual seeks to infer the thoughts of another individual.
B)procedure of examining thought processing by monitoring the brain's electrical activity.
C)process of each person looking within,to observe his or her own thoughts and ideas.
D)technique of studying thought by interpreting the symbols used in communication.

Question 17

Genie wonders why she can never remember the names of new acquaintances.In search of an answer,she examines and reflects on her feelings about meeting new people.Genie is engaged in which process?

A)practical rehearsal
B)introspection
C)learning history analysis
D)goal retrieval

Question 18

Of the following,behaviorists argued that ________ were most important in analyzing behavior.

A)expectations
B)beliefs
C)wishes
D)learning histories

Question 19

Which of the following statements is LEAST likely to apply to patient H.M.?

A)"He cannot remember what he did earlier today,including events that took place just an hour ago."
B)"He read this story last month,but he was still surprised by how the story turned out."
C)"Even though he has encountered the nurse many times,he is still unable to recognize her."
D)"He remembered that it was only a week ago that he'd heard the sad news that his uncle had died."

Question 20

Which of the following statements provides the most serious obstacle to the use of introspection as a source of scientific evidence?

A)When facts are provided by introspection,we have no way to assess the facts themselves,independent of the reporter's perspective.
B)Introspection is only effective for children,because children have not yet learned to inhibit their own self-reports.
C)Introspection is a valid method only if the person doing the introspection goes into a trancelike state.
D)The process of reporting on one's own mental events is too slow to be scientifically useful.

Question 21

Which technique was commonly used in Wilhelm Wundt's laboratory?

A)introspection
B)physiological analysis
C)operant conditioning
D)classical conditioning

Question 22

Cognitive psychology often relies on the transcendental method,in which

A)mental events are explained by referring to events in the central nervous system.
B)information from introspection transcends behavioral data.
C)researchers seek to infer the properties of unseen events on the basis of the observable effects of those events.
D)theories are tested via computer models.

Question 23

For 10 days,a group of rats is simply allowed to explore a maze.On Day 11,food is introduced at a specific location within the maze,and the rats find it.On Day 12,the rats move to the food's location just as quickly as rats who had been trained for many days with food in that location.The most plausible explanation for this result is that

A)the rats permitted only to explore learned the layout of the maze.
B)the reward of food was not sufficient to shape the trained rat's behavior.
C)the ability of rats to locate food is innate.
D)the rats trained to locate food learned the layout of the maze.

Question 24

Contemporary cognitive psychologists are MOST interested in examining the relationship between ________ and ________.

A)stress hormones;behavior
B)memory capacity;lifetime achievement
C)introspection;self-awareness
D)cognitive processes;behavior

Question 25

Cognitive psychologists try to make inferences about causes,based on the observed effects.In this way,cognitive psychologists use methods like those commonly employed by

A)crime scene investigators.
B)garbage collectors.
C)chefs.
D)construction workers.

Question 26

The philosopher Immanuel Kant based many of his arguments on transcendental inferences.
A commonplace example of such an inference is a

A)physicist inferring what the attributes of the electron must be on the basis of visible effects that the electron causes.
B)computer scientist inferring what the attributes of a program must be on the basis of his or her long-range goals for the program's functioning.
C)biologist inferring how an organism is likely to behave in the future on the basis of assessment of past behaviors.
D)behaviorist inferring how a behavior was learned on the basis of a deduction from well-established principles of learning.

Question 27

What evidence supports Edward Tolman's belief that it is possible for rats to acquire new knowledge?

A)development of a cognitive map
B)increased physiological response to a reward
C)decreased avoidance of punishment
D)observational introspection

Question 28

Who proposed the concept of a "cognitive map"?

A)Ulric Neisser
B)Frederic Bartlett
C)Noam Chomsky
D)Edward Tolman

Question 29

The "cognitive revolution" is named as such because

A)the focus changed from behaviors to the processes underlying those behaviors.
B)the change was accompanied by violence.
C)the focus changed from animals to humans.
D)philosophers such as Kant were strongly opposed to the change.

Question 30

One important difference between classical behaviorism and cognitive psychology is that cognitive psychology

A)argues that unobservable mental states can be scientifically studied.
B)rejects the use of human participants.
C)insists on studying topics that can be directly and objectively observed.
D)emphasizes the evolutionary roots of human behavior.

Question 31

The process of taking observable information and inferring a cause is known as

A)mentalistic inference.
B)the transcendental method.
C)cause and effect.
D)introspection.

Question 32

Noam Chomsky criticized ________ and noted that it failed to explain ________.

A)Gestalt psychology;visual perception
B)introspection;individual differences
C)behaviorism;language development
D)direct observations;abstract thinking

Question 33

________ techniques allow us to scrutinize the precise structure and moment-by-moment pattern of activation in the brain.

A)Introspection
B)Neuropsychological
C)Neuroimaging
D)Observational

Question 34

Modern psychology turned away from behaviorism in its classic form for many reasons,including the fact that

A)classical behaviorism failed to consider the mental processes underlying cognition.
B)humans are more similar to computers than to other species studied in the laboratory.
C)psychology rejected behaviorism's emphasis on an organism's subjective states.
D)an organism's behavior can be changed by learning.

Question 35

A Gestalt psychologist is likely to focus on which of the following?

A)individual elements of an experience
B)differences in reaction time
C)how elements of an experience interact to form new wholes
D)objective and subjective experiences

Question 36

The seminal work of ________ was instrumental in the development of experimental psychology.

A)Donald Broadbent
B)Wilhelm Wundt
C)John Watson
D)Immanuel Kant

Question 37

The branch of psychology concerned with the scientific study of knowledge is

A)cognitive psychology.
B)humanistic psychology.
C)neuropsychology.
D)behaviorism.

Question 38

Which of the following would a classical behaviorist be LEAST likely to study?

A)a participant's response to a regularly occurring situation
B)a participant's beliefs
C)changes in a participant's behavior that follow changes in the environment
D)principles that apply equally to human behavior and to the behavior of other species

Question 39

Wilhelm Wundt would be LEAST interested in an individual's

A)feelings.
B)perception of temperature.
C)reaction to a conditioned stimulus.
D)recollections.

Question 40

If Sheila says,"Pass the salt,please," you are likely to pass her the salt.You'll probably respond in the same way if Sheila (a chemistry major)instead asks,"Could you please hand me the sodium chloride crystals?" This observation seems to indicate that our behavior is

A)primarily controlled by the physical characteristics of the stimuli we encounter.
B)shaped by the literal meanings of the stimuli we encounter.
C)determined by simple associations among the stimuli we encounter.
D)governed by what the stimuli we encounter mean to us.

Question 41

The development of computers facilitated research in cognition by

A)suggesting hypotheses that framed the steps of cognition as stages of information processing.
B)more accurately capturing reaction time.
C)integrating elements of subjective experiences.
D)discrediting behavioral principles.

Question 42

You've just ordered your lunch and are waiting for your food to be delivered when your friend Jill says,"I don't understand why you would need to take a whole class on cognitive psychology.It doesn't seem that important to our everyday lives." Describe to Jill all the ways she will rely on cognitive processing during this meal.

Question 43

Despite the fact that we cannot directly observe mental activity,cognitive psychologists are able to scientifically study these processes.Explain why this is possible by describing Kantian logic.Next,provide at least three measurable variables and explain why they could be reliably used as proxies for mental behavior.

Question 44

Describe the case of H.M.What does his story tell us about the role that memory plays in our sense of self?

Question 45

An information processing approach to understanding cognition does NOT

A)propose a sequence of mental operations to explain cognition.
B)use computer models to describe cognitive processes.
C)describe cognition as processing information in stages.
D)rely on behavioral principles to explain specific stimulus-response relationships.

Question 46

A(n)________ is general knowledge about what is typically involved in a type of situation or event.

A)schema
B)response set
C)cognitive map
D)instinct

Question 47

Cognitive psychologists utilize different methods to understand cognitive processes.Describe three different methods to investigate memory functioning.

Question 48

Mikey is 4 years old and has begun acting out.Every time he throws a tantrum,his mother rushes over to console him.In analyzing this behavior,what sort of factors would most interest a behaviorist? On what factors would a cognitive psychologist using the transcendental method focus? What conclusions will each psychologist reach?

Question 49

Schemas reflect a(n)________ that ________ comprehension of a specific experience.

A)objective appraisal;inhibits
B)mental framework;facilitates
C)pattern of thought;inhibits
D)habit;facilitates

Question 50

Compare and contrast the introspection,behaviorist,and cognitive approaches to studying mental activities.Which approach do you find most compelling,and why?

Question 51

Who used the language of computer science to describe human cognition?

A)Donald Broadbent
B)Colin Cherry
C)Frederic Bartlett
D)Wilhelm Wundt

Question 52

Describe introspection and then describe two limitations to this method.

Question 53

Define "schema." Describe how schemas shape and organize our experiences.