Question 1

Chapter 1 of your Cognition textbook discusses the status of cognitive psychology.According to this discussion,the cognitive approach

Accepted Answer

A)  primarily emphasizes our unconscious thoughts.
B)  can explain a major part of your daily experiences.
C)  is prominent within social psychology,but it has not yet been applied to biological areas of psychology.
D)  has had surprisingly little connection with clinical psychology. B

Question 2

Which of the following students provides the best summary about the current status of the information-processing approach?

Accepted Answer

A)  Alena: "The information-processing approach is now more popular than the parallel distributed processing approach,because most cognitive tasks require serial processing."
B)  Magda: "The information-processing approach has declined in popularity during recent years,because those models are not complex enough to explain many cognitive activities."
C)  Dave: "The information-processing model is still extremely popular,and it remains at the cutting edge of cognitive psychology."
D)  Samuel: "The most important model is one in which the information-processing approach has been blended with the gestalt approach,in order to explain higher mental processes." B

Question 3

According to the information-processing approach,

Accepted Answer

A)  we process all information at either a deep or shallow level of processing.
B)  introspection is the most important research technique; with the proper controls,introspection can be very reliable.
C)  decision-making is the primary component of all cognitive processes.
D)  mental processes can be interpreted as a flow of information,somewhat similar to the way a computer operates. D

Question 4

Which of the following movements emphasized the human tendency to actively organize what we see?

Accepted Answer

A)  Behaviorism
B)  Gestalt psychology
C)  Empiricism
D)  Clinical psychology

Question 5

Based on the information in Chapter 1,how would you describe the approach of William James?

Accepted Answer

A)  He emphasized rigorous experimentation and carefully controlled research.
B)  He asked research participants to report their sensations and perceptions as objectively as possible.
C)  He emphasized the kinds of psychological experiences that people encounter in their everyday lives.
D)  He emphasized that we must look for the unconscious forces that underlie cognitive activities.

Question 6

Imagine that you are attending a lecture by a guest speaker who describes a theory and then says,"Let's now look at the empirical evidence." Which of the following would most likely be the speaker's next sentence?

Accepted Answer

A)  "Other psychologists have objected to my approach on the following theoretical grounds."
B)  "We conducted an experiment to test this hypothesis."
C)  "The theorists who belonged to the empirical school rejected the behaviorist tradition,for the following reasons."
D)  "By combining both the cognitive approach and the psychodynamic approach,we can devise a new theoretical approach to the problem."

Question 7

An important characteristic of the connectionist approach to cognition is that

Accepted Answer

A)  it handles information by processing it one step at a time.
B)  it first analyzes an object's shape,then its size,and finally its color.
C)  it can perform many operations at the same time.
D)  it predicts that humans perform cognitive tasks much more accurately than they actually do.

Question 8

In the introspection technique,

Accepted Answer

A)  people describe what they are thinking as they perform a task.
B)  people report their daily experiences in an informal,unstructured fashion.
C)  the experimenter observes how people respond to learning tasks.
D)  emotional responses are emphasized,rather than a variety of thought processes.

Question 9

Cognitive psychologists believe that behaviorists cannot explain human language because

Accepted Answer

A)  behaviorists place too much emphasis on genetic explanations.
B)  behaviorists cannot provide appropriate explanations because their research rarely uses operational definitions.
C)  language has a complex structure that cannot be explained in terms of stimuli and responses.
D)  language is acquired in humans through adults' careful teaching of young children.

Question 10

An important difference between the classical AI approach and the connectionist approach is that the classical AI approach

Accepted Answer

A)  is designed to resemble the human brain.
B)  proceeds one step at a time.
C)  is more successful in explaining rapid cognitive processes.
D)  emphasizes motivational goals as well as cognitive tasks.

Question 11

The information-processing approach

Accepted Answer

A)  grew directly out of behaviorism.
B)  was facilitated by the early research in computer science.
C)  was inspired by linguists,such as Noam Chomsky,who provided extensive analyses about the way that sentences are coded in memory.
D)  is primarily used to explain cognitive development.

Question 12

According to your textbook,the artificial intelligence (AI)approach

Accepted Answer

A)  creates computer models that demonstrate intelligent behavior.
B)  emphasizes that humans possess a central processing mechanism that has unlimited capacity.
C)  is currently too vague and nonspecific to be tested.
D)  focuses on the development of cognitive abilities during childhood.

Question 13

Suppose that you attend a lecture on the bottom-up processes involved in speech perception.The lecturer is likely to emphasize

Accepted Answer

A)  how the listener's auditory system registers and transmits information about the speech sounds.
B)  the listener's familiarity with the language.
C)  the listener's knowledge about grammar.
D)  the listener's expectations about what the speaker will say.

Question 14

Suppose that you look up from this exam,and you immediately perceive a scene that includes students,desks,and classroom walls.In order to perceive it quickly,you are probably using

Accepted Answer

A)  serial processing.
B)  parallel processing.
C)  ecological validity.
D)  metacognition.

Question 15

In contrast to a PET scan,the fMRI technique

Accepted Answer

A)  requires an injection of a radioactive chemical.
B)  provides more precise information when measuring a series of events in the brain.
C)  is more accurate in determining what a person is thinking,for instance,whether the thoughts are pleasant or unpleasant.
D)  involves placing electrodes on a person's scalp.

Question 16

According to the themes of your textbook,

Accepted Answer

A)  our cognitive processes typically operate independently of one another.
B)  our cognitive processes usually occur automatically.
C)  our cognitive processes are quite accurate; our errors can often be traced to strategies that are useful in other situations.
D)  we react to negative information more efficiently than we react to positive information.

Question 17

According to the discussion in Chapter 1,behaviorism places the most emphasis on

Accepted Answer

A)  interpersonal relationships.
B)  observable activities.
C)  unconscious emotions.
D)  mental processes.

Question 18

Researchers in artificial intelligence emphasize that

Accepted Answer

A)  both the human brain and the computer can compare symbols and make choices,based on that comparison.
B)  human memory distinguishes between short-term memory and long-term memory,whereas computer models have no comparable distinction.
C)  neither the human mind nor the computer can compare symbols.
D)  a flowchart designed in connection with a computer is very different from human mental processes.

Question 19

Which of the following perspectives was most likely to emphasize the importance of a precise operational definition?

Accepted Answer

A)  William James's work on the tip-of-the-tongue effect
B)  Wilhelm Wundt's introspection approach
C)  The behaviorists' research with animals
D)  The gestalt approach to perception

Question 20

According to the discussion of the themes of the textbook,

Accepted Answer

A)  negative information is consistently easier to process than positive information,because it is more startling.
B)  our cognitive processes are interrelated with one another.
C)  our higher mental processes generally operate independently of the more basic mental processes.
D)  in general,our cognitive processes are not very accurate.

Exam 1: An Introduction to Cognitive Psychology