Deck 9: A: Cognitive Processes

Question 1

According to the philosopher H.Paul Grice,what is an overarching rule of audience design?

A)the cooperative principle
B)belief-bias
C)linguistic determinism
D)maximizing structural ambiguity

Answer 1

the cooperative principle

Question 2

While Theo is speaking,he is planning his next sentence in his head.Which term best reflects this phenomenon?

A)parallel processing
B)serial processing
C)conceptual processing
D)phonological processing

Answer 2

parallel processing

Question 3

F)C.Donders developed his technique for studying mental processes more than 130 years ago.Which statement best describes the role his methodology plays in the research of cognitive psychologists today?

A)Donders' methods are primarily applicable to animal research.
B)Donders' basic premise is believed to be incorrect.
C)Researchers still follow Donders' basic logic.
D)Researchers use Donders' methodology for stimulus categorization,but not for response selection.

Answer 3

Researchers still follow Donders' basic logic.

Question 4

A fellow student making a classroom presentation says,"Language production concerns what people say verbally and how they say it." What else does language production include?

A)what people think about what they say.
B)what people feel when they say something.
C)writing and signing.
D)verbal language.

Question 5

In a demonstration that is described in the textbook,individuals are asked to determine if pairs of numbers are physically different.Why is it typically more difficult for individuals to make these judgments when the numbers are conceptually close together?

A)Anterograde interference occurs.
B)Retrograde interference occurs.
C)Controlled processes interfere.
D)Automatic processes interfere.

Question 6

Dawne has no difficulty listening to music and carrying on a conversation while she drives her car.Once bad weather hits,however,she turns off the music and asks the passengers to be quiet.How are the poor driving conditions affecting Dawne?

A)They are decreasing her reaction time.
B)They are placing additional demands on her mental resources.
C)They are eliminating the use of controlled processes.
D)The are minimizing the need for response selection.

Question 7

The teacher has written the words "quantity," "quality," "relation," and "manner" on the blackboard.What is the most likely lecture topic?

A)spoonerisms.
B)Grice's maxims.
C)spatial mental models.
D)functional fixedness.

Question 8

Two long-time friends belong to the same community and share many similar life experiences.If both are asked to guess what the other is likely to know,what would be the likely outcome?

A)They will err in the direction of believing that they share little common knowledge.
B)They will be fairly accurate in their guesses.
C)They will express the opinion that they have little idea of what the other knows.
D)They will be no more accurate than two strangers from the same community.

Question 9

What is a spoonerism?

A)a brief verbal exchange indicating love or affection.
B)the belief that one has had an experience previously,though the exact context cannot be recalled.
C)the feeling that a word is on the "tip of one's tongue."
D)an exchange of the initial sounds of two or more words in a phrase or sentence.

Question 10

In which situation are attentional processes most likely controlled?

A)a person signs her name to a traveler's check
B)a youngster takes his first lesson on the proper golf swing
C)an adult hops in his car and drives down the road
D)a waitress listens to customers as she pours their morning coffee

Question 11

In a laboratory,a researcher records how long it takes a volunteer to press a button after a light is turned on.Which term refers to this type of measure?

A)mental speed.
B)the subtraction method.
C)event-related potential.
D)reaction time.

Question 12

Marian likes to impress others with her knowledge of everything,although she has confessed that many times she makes up "facts" to win an argument.Which one of Grice's maxims is being violated?

A)quantity.
B)manner.
C)relation.
D)quality.

Question 13

A question is asked that can have two different meanings.According to psychologists who study language,what information is needed before an appropriate response can be made?

A)Information about sentence meaning.
B)Information about the speaker's meaning.
C)Information about audience design and sentence meaning.
D)Information about the individual who is asking the question.

Question 14

It is the year 1868 and a research assistant is working in the laboratory of F.C.Donders,a Dutch physiologist.While assisting him in his studies of mental processes,what is the research assistant most likely to observe Dr.Donders doing?

A)asking participants to use introspection and reflect on their own thought processes.
B)measuring how long it takes participants to perform a series of experimental tasks.
C)requiring participants to talk out loud as they attempt to solve mental problems.
D)observing participants as they attempt to demonstrate extrasensory abilities.

Question 15

A coworker always tries to dominate discussions by talking constantly.Unfortunately,most of the time he rambles,peppers his discussion with double-meanings,and uses obscure language that requires a dictionary to understand.Which one of Grice's maxims is being violated?

A)manner.
B)quantity.
C)quality.
D)relation.

Question 16

Dr.May is studying mental processes.What would Dr.May most likely assume?

A)serial processing is superior to parallel processing.
B)the absolute time that mental processing takes is independent of the details of different tasks.
C)requiring additional mental tasks effectively reduces total reaction time.
D)individuals have limited resources that must be spread over different mental tasks.

Question 17

A child is practicing scales on his piano.His mother can't wait until he learns some chords so that she can hear several notes together,rather than one note at a time.In psychological terms,to what are the scales comparable?

A)serial processes
B)parallel processes
C)stimulus categorization
D)response selection

Question 18

What was the fundamental premise upon which F.C.Donders based his method for studying mental processes?

A)there are individual differences in the procedures people use to solve mental problems.
B)extra mental steps will result in more time to perform a task.
C)the mental processes of children are qualitatively different from the mental processes of adults.
D)participants can be made aware of their own mental processes.

Question 19

Dr.Taylor works in a field of psychology that is very interdisciplinary,combining the knowledge of several academic specialties such as linguistics,philosophy,computer science,and neuroscience.Which field of psychology does Dr.Taylor most likely study?

A)cognitive psychology.
B)cognitive science.
C)neuropsychology.
D)artificial intelligence.

Question 20

Which statement about sharing common ground with a conversational partner is accurate?

A)It tends to increase the occurrence of spoonerisms.
B)It may be perceived as insincerity.
C)It facilitates communication.
D)It may be perceived as patronizing.

Question 21

Bill has just read the sentence,"The man in the back row has green hair." Based on research on propositional representation in memory,will the words "man" and "hair" be represented in memory together?

A)Yes,because these words belong to the same proposition.
B)Yes,because these words have strong meaningful associations.
C)No,because they are separated by many other words in the actual sentence.
D)No,because the link between the two words is somewhat unusual.

Question 22

What is one major value of speech errors?

A)They provide evidence that memory is typically a reconstructive process.
B)They suggest that attention is a highly selective process.
C)They show the importance of the law of effect in controlling behaviour.
D)They provide insight into the processes that underlie language production.

Question 23

A reader comes across the ambiguous word "bark" when reading a sentence,yet she has absolutely no difficulty understanding its intended meaning.Based on the research on lexical ambiguity,why was she able to disambiguate the word?

A)Because of the degree of emotional reactivity she experienced when she heard the word.
B)Because of the frequency with which she has used the word in the past week.
C)Because of the contextual information.
D)Because of the pattern of eye movements that she makes.

Question 24

What has been concluded about the brains of individuals who qualify as pathological liars?

A)the pathological liars have more of the type of brain tissue that allows neurons to communicate with each other.
B)the pathological liars have smaller hippocampi.
C)there is no difference between the brains of pathological liars and those who are not liars.
D)the pathological liars are born with overactive amygdala functions.

Question 25

Nick has been asked to use the SLIP technique on a classmate to encourage the production of spoonerisms.If Nick follows this procedure,what will he ask his classmate do?

A)try to repeat a tongue twister as quickly as possible.
B)try to recognize words that are briefly presented on a screen.
C)silently read pairs of words and later say word pairs out loud.
D)view lists of words and later recall the lists on which words appeared.

Question 26

What did F.A.Kekulé,who discovered the chemical structure of benzene,Michael Faraday,who discovered many properties of magnetism,and Albert Einstein,the brilliant physicist,have in common?

A)They were all assisted in their work by their use of mental imagery.
B)They were all savants.
C)They all used verbal mental representations exclusively.
D)They were all troubled by a unique form of dyslexia.

Question 27

What did Sue Savage-Rumbaugh discover when working with the apes Kanzi and Mulika?

A)They can communicate through spoken language.
B)They acquire the meaning for certain symbols by observing others.
C)Their communication skills do not generalize to other apes.
D)They cannot acquire the meaning of spoken words.

Question 28

In one procedure designed to produce spoonerisms,participants are asked to silently read lists of word pairs that are models for the sound structure of target spoonerisms,then pronounce word pairs out loud.What have such studies found?

A)spoonerisms with idioms are almost impossible to produce.
B)spoonerisms are more likely when the error still results in real words.
C)errors in blending idioms are more common when the idioms do not share the same underlying meaning.
D)there is no correlation between errors and the production of real words.

Question 29

A remote tribe has only three colour words.As a result,tribal members are less accurate at discriminating different hues within a category.Who would have most likely predicted such findings?

A)Sapir and Whorf
B)Cheney and Seyfarth
C)Savage-Rumbaugh
D)Chomsky

Question 30

What did Dorothy Cheney and Robert Seyfarth discover about the communicative capabilities of vervet monkeys?

A)They modified their calls based on what their audience knew.
B)They did not modify their calls based on what their audience knew.
C)They did not change their rate of alarms whether they were with their own offspring or with monkeys unrelated to them.
D)They could not make calls to signal the presence of different dangers.

Question 31

The sentence,"Visiting relatives can be a nuisance," best illustrates what type of ambiguity.

A)lexical
B)constant
C)pseudo
D)structural

Question 32

Which statement best characterizes the results of research on the claim of linguistic relativity?

A)Language may,in some circumstances,have an impact on thought.
B)Despite years of research,no study has yet been conducted that shows differences in thought that can be connected to differences in language.
C)It is clear that language differences affect differences in thought processes more than language differences affect differences in culture.
D)To date,researchers have been unable to discover a methodology that will permit testing of the hypothesis of linguistic relativity.

Question 33

In the context of language understanding,what is a proposition?

A)a type of inference.
B)a sarcastic request.
C)the single most important idea contained in an utterance.
D)a main idea in an utterance.

Question 34

Glancing over the shoulder of a man on the bus who is reading a newspaper,Dean sees the headline "Shooting of Hunters Terrible." What does Dean's ability to disambiguate the meaning of the utterance depend primarily upon?

A)the presence of contextual cues.
B)Dean's ability to visually represent the meaning.
C)Dean's memory for similar accidents.
D)the isolation of propositions.

Question 35

When compared to people who tell the truth,what does the research suggest about those who don't?

A)liars provide fewer details in their accounts.
B)liars provide exact details in their accounts.
C)liars provide more details in their accounts.
D)liars resort to confabulation.

Question 36

What have researchers concluded from studies of speech errors in the laboratory?

A)the planning process in language production tends to stay one word ahead of the spoken utterance.
B)there may be mental processes that detect and edit potential speech errors.
C)errors involving blends of words are less common than predicted.
D)spoonerisms are less likely when the error will result in a real word.

Question 37

What does our capacity to use context to resolve ambiguities demonstrate?

A)there is often a mismatch between language production and language understanding.
B)there is a good match between language production and language understanding.
C)language production and language understanding are unrelated functions.
D)language production suffers as a result of language understanding.

Question 38

Edward Sapir and Benjamin Lee Whorf are giving a lecture on the relationship between language and thought.What hypothesis would they most likely put forward?

A)there are cross-linguistic differences in thought.
B)language is primarily a left-brain activity,whereas thought is a dual hemisphere activity.
C)language processes are primarily learned,while thought processes are primarily inborn.
D)each member of a language community thinks very differently from every other member of that same community.

Question 39

What can be concluded from the results of the early experiments in which researchers attempted to teach language to chimpanzees?

A)They showed that chimps can be taught to communicate like humans.
B)They indicated that humans were cueing the chimps to make appropriate linguistic responses.
C)They determined that chimps could not acquire linguistic abilities.
D)They led to controversy as to whether the chimps' linguistic abilities were equivalent to meaningful language.

Question 40

The distinguished gentleman whispered to the equally distinguished lady,"Madam,your ship is slowing." What does this statement illustrate?

A)a spoonerism.
B)what Herbert Clark and Catherine Marshall would call "common knowledge."
C)Grice's maxim.
D)inductive reasoning.

Question 41

Researchers studying spatial mental models have asked participants to develop mental representations of settings based on textual material.The participants are then asked to use these mental models to answer questions about objects in the setting.What were the findings?

A)performance is affected by the order in which the objects are presented.
B)where the objects are located in the participants' mental models affects their speed of access to the information.
C)participants are faster to locate objects that are visualized as primary colours.
D)few participants are able to respond correctly,suggesting that only some participants form mental models.

Question 42

Several sentences are written on the blackboard: "All teachers work hard.I am a teacher.I work hard." To what do these sentences likely refer?

A)inductive reasoning.
B)a heuristic.
C)a syllogism.
D)linguistic copresence.

Question 43

How do the results of fMRI scans compare when participants were engaged in either a perception task or an imagery task?

A)The brain scans were identical.
B)More brain regions were activated for the imagery task.
C)Brain regions for the imagery task were a subset of those for perception.
D)Participants used special regions of the brain to create a visual image.

Question 44

Kevi wants to hang her new painting,but she can't find her hammer.She pulls off her shoe and uses the heel to pound in the nail.Which term best describes this scenario?

A)the belief-bias effect.
B)deductive reasoning.
C)a think-aloud protocol.
D)lack of functional fixedness.

Question 45

What does the "monk puzzle" presented in the textbook illustrate?

A)functional fixedness adversely affects problem solving.
B)the way a problem is represented will affect its difficulty.
C)individuals tend to judge as valid those conclusions with which they agree.
D)a mental set can increase the speed of problem solving.

Question 46

In the context of problem-solving,which term refers to the steps one may take to move from an initial state to a goal state?

A)rules.
B)laws.
C)principles.
D)operations.

Question 47

Carl is participating in an experiment where he will be asked a series of questions about his knowledge of a new neighbourhood.How will Carl best be able to learn the neighbourhood prior to responding to the questions?

A)by being given a survey description of the neighbourhood.
B)by learning specific routes to and from particular locations in the neighbourhood.
C)by learning about one large landmark in the center of the neighbourhood that can be seen from a far distance.
D)as the passenger in a vehicle that travels throughout the neighbourhood.

Question 48

Herb is a participant in a study of problem solving.To help understand the steps Herb is going through to solve the problem,the researcher has asked him to verbalize his ongoing thoughts.What do researchers studying problem solving call these verbalizations?

A)think-aloud protocols.
B)moment-by-moment introspections.
C)subvocalizations.
D)auditory thoughts.

Question 49

Which type of problem best characterizes social issues such as homelessness,poverty,lack of education,and violence?

A)inductive.
B)deductive.
C)well defined.
D)ill defined.

Question 50

In an experimental psychology class,the students watch a rat run from the start box to a goal box in a maze that has been set up to allow only left-hand turns.The rat's behaviour reminds the students of problem solving.In this context,what is equivalent to the maze?

A)problem space.
B)initial state.
C)set of operations.
D)goal state.

Question 51

Which form of deductive reasoning was introduced by the Greek philosopher Aristotle over 2,000 years ago?

A)the algorithm.
B)the heuristic.
C)the syllogism.
D)inductive reasoning.

Question 52

In a study described in the textbook,people read passages that put them in the middle of scenes with objects spread around them.They read,for example,"Directly behind you at eye level is an ornate lamp attached to the balcony wall." When asked to recall the details of the scenes,how did the participants respond?

A)They took more time to say what objects were in front of them.
B)They took more time to say what objects were behind them.
C)They showed no differences in responses based on spatial position.
D)They took more time to say what objects were the farthest distance away.

Question 53

Debi is learning a complex dance routine but finds all of the details overwhelming.According to the research on problem solving,what should Debi do to improve her performance?

A)adopt an availability heuristic.
B)focus on the components that are easiest to perform.
C)practice each behaviour separately until each component of the routine requires less effort.
D)use think-aloud protocols to gain insight into the task demands.

Question 54

Jerry's chair has begun to wobble because a screw has gotten a little loose.Jerry puts in a work order to the maintenance department as a means to resolve the problem.Which term refers to Jerry's inability to realize that a dime from his own pocket could also have been used as a means to resolve the problem?

A)the availability heuristic.
B)functional fixedness.
C)inductive reasoning.
D)the belief-bias effect.

Question 55

Which term best charaterizes problems in which the initial state,the goal state,and the operations are all clearly specified?

A)well defined.
B)framed.
C)comprehensive.
D)superordinate.

Question 56

When playing chess,Sonya uses the strategy,"protect the king." Which term refers to the use of such "rules of thumb"?

A)algorithms.
B)inductive reaasoning.
C)analogies.
D)heuristics.

Question 57

Jane is working on a puzzle that requires her to work a ring across some pegs to the point where the ring fits on the final black peg.If Jane was focusing on the final black peg of this puzzle,which problem-solving term would be most applicable?

A)internal state
B)goal state
C)set of operations
D)algorithm

Question 58

Which term refers to a step-by-step procedure that always provides the right answer for a particular type of problem?

A)availability heuristic
B)representativeness heuristic
C)algorithm
D)anchoring heuristic

Question 59

In a study that is described in the textbook,participants had to decide whether rotated letters were normal or mirror images of themselves.What did an analysis of participant reaction times indicate?

A)decision times were proportional to the degree to which each letter had to be mentally rotated.
B)females had faster response times than males.
C)the task proved impossible for most participants to perform.
D)there was little relationship between the degree to which each letter had to be mentally rotated and reaction times.

Question 60

According to Deborah Saucier,who is most likely to give directions by saying "stay on this road for 2 kilometres,then turn left and keep going for 5 kilometres"?

A)Someone who is good at map reading.
B)Someone who has a good compass sense of direction.
C)Someone who is good at mental rotation.
D)Someone who has high visual imagery.

Question 61

In the past when Aurora has gotten lost while driving,she has been more likely to stop and ask for directions than to look at a map.Now that she is lost again,she decides to stop by a convenience store to ask for directions.What does Aurora's behaviour illustrate?

A)deductive reasoning.
B)logical problem solving.
C)the belief-bias effect.
D)analogical problem solving.

Question 62

People are likely to overestimate the absolute number of minority individuals who are involved in criminal activity because the mass media typically overrepresents the number of minority individuals engaged in criminal behaviour.Which term best characterizes this phenomenon?

A)anchoring bias.
B)the availability heuristic.
C)a frame.
D)decision aversion.

Question 63

As a man skims over the instructions on the application for the Senior Soccer League,he reads the statement,"Anyone who is 40 years old or older and who is in good health may apply." Since he is over 40 years old and in good health,he assumes that he can apply.What type of reasoning has been applied?

A)valid
B)deductive
C)logical
D)formal

Question 64

Amy is a participant in a PET scan study that requires her to answer questions using deductive reasoning.Which part of Amy's brain would show greater activation?

A)the right hemisphere
B)the left hemisphere
C)the frontal lobe
D)the occipital lobe

Question 65

Under which condition does belief bias exist?

A)when there is a conflict between two types of mental processes used in deductive reasoning.
B)when a real-world model cannot be used to validate conclusions.
C)if a person has had no personal experience with the logical elements in the syllogism.
D)if the individual making the judgment has committed logical errors in the past.

Question 66

After using the same mathematical formula to solve the first nine problems of her homework assignment,a student automatically starts problem number ten using the same solution strategy.Which term best reflects this approach?

A)a mental set.
B)syllogistic thinking.
C)a pragmatic reasoning schema.
D)belief bias.

Question 67

Misha is attempting to solve a problem through analogical reasoning.How should Misha increase her chances of being successful?

A)focus on making creative links among ideas.
B)use past experiences with similar problems.
C)make use of abstract analogies.
D)avoid a dependence upon common underlying structures.

Question 68

Which of the following is an example of judgment?

A)He chose chemistry as his major.
B)She bought the less expensive dress,even though she liked the other one better.
C)She didn't think their marriage would work.
D)He took the afternoon flight because it was nonstop.

Question 69

At the bookstore,Sunshine finds a book entitled,Make Better Judgments! It deals with the pitfalls of heuristic use,and she considers reading it.Realistically,how might Sunshine's increased knowledge of the kinds of errors that result from heuristics affect her future judgments?

A)Given that heuristics are resistant to learning,the book should have little impact on Sunshine's behaviour.
B)Since heuristics are seldom used,Sunshine's judgments should remain relatively unchanged.
C)Having knowledge about heuristic errors does not guarantee that they will never occur.
D)Once Sunshine becomes familiar with heuristic errors,her future judgments should be vastly improved.

Question 70

After the opera,Serge asks Ben what he thought about the performance.According to Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman,what will Ben most likely do?

A)develop a mental chart listing the pros and cons of the performance.
B)rely on heuristics to derive an opinion about the performance.
C)ask Serge what he thinks before he makes a judgment.
D)use a deductive reasoning procedure.

Question 71

Which of the following is an example of decision making?

A)She chose the job that paid less but offered more opportunities for advancement.
B)He felt the teacher was pompous,arrogant,and self-centered,just like himself.
C)She loves the taste of fresh fruit on her morning cereal.
D)Though it wasn't true,he told people that the reason he didn't go to graduate school was because he couldn't afford it.

Question 72

In a study that is described in the textbook,participants carried out two types of reasoning tasks while their brains were undergoing PET scans.What were the results of this study?

A)reasoning tasks produced an equal amount of activity in right and left hemispheres.
B)inductive and deductive reasoning produced greater activation in the right hemisphere.
C)inductive and deductive reasoning produced greater activation in the left hemisphere.
D)deductive reasoning produced greater activation in the right hemisphere,and inductive reasoning produced greater activation in the left hemisphere.

Question 73

Mental sets can enhance problem solving under some conditions.However,under which conditions are they generally inappropriate?

A)When one has to solve a problem quickly.
B)When the problem solving situation changes.
C)When it is necessary to rely on what has worked in the past.
D)When one is solving mathematics problems.

Question 74

According to Herbert Simon,what underlies the "bounded rationality" of human thought processes?

A)the tendency of humans to be too constrained by past experiences.
B)utilizing deductive reasoning rather than inductive problem-solving techniques.
C)applying limited resources to situations that require a quick response.
D)the overwhelming evolutionary significance of language development.

Question 75

Which statement about inductive reasoning is accurate?

A)the two premises are assumed to be correct.
B)conclusions may be likely,but not certain.
C)the task is to determine if a conclusion that is given is valid.
D)conclusions follow necessarily from the premises.

Question 76

What can be concluded from the research on the ability of people to engage in deductive reasoning?

A)Individuals generally lack confidence in their deductive reasoning abilities.
B)Most individuals do not have a general,abstract sense of formal logic.
C)The use of formal logic is equivalent to real-world deductive reasoning.
D)The use of deductive reasoning is affected by one's specific knowledge of the world.

Question 77

Terri is driving on the 1st of July to a city that she has never visited.There is no place to park and the traffic seems very heavy.As she looks for a parking place,she see streams of people heading toward the main street which has been blocked off to traffic.Not certain of what to make of all this,Terri thinks a few seconds and determines that a parade is imminent.What process has Terri used to arrive at this conclusion?

A)analogical problem solving.
B)the availability heuristic.
C)deductive reasoning.
D)inductive reasoning.

Question 78

Which term refers to the practice of basing judgments on how easily information comes to mind?

A)the availability heuristic.
B)the representativeness heuristic.
C)an anchoring bias.
D)deductive reasoning.

Question 79

Asia is working on the Wason selection task.She is shown four cards and is testing a rule.What should Asia do to improve her perfromance on this task?

A)choose the cards that are the least obvious.
B)attempt to reduce her anxiety level.
C)apply her real-world knowledge.
D)experiment with an unfamiliar rule.

Question 80

According to the text,which term refers to the process of selecting and rejecting options?

A)problem solving
B)framing
C)judgment
D)decision making