Deck 6: Errors in Attention, Perception, and Memory That Affect Thinking

Question 1

Which statement regarding cognitive errors is TRUE?

A) Cognitive errors are logical errors that can impair thinking.
B) Cognition is very accurate and people seldom make cognitive errors.
C) Cognitive errors can be errors in attention, perception, or memory.
D) Thinking errors do not result from any type of cognitive error.

Answer 1

Cognitive errors can be errors in attention, perception, or memory.

Question 2

Which statement is TRUE about human perceptual abilities?

A) Humans perceive most of the energy in the electromagnetic spectrum.
B) People have extended their perception with the aid of instrumentation.
C) Background knowledge does little to guide human perception.
D) Human perceptual abilities are superior to those of other animals.

Answer 2

People have extended their perception with the aid of instrumentation.

Question 3

Psychologically speaking, a sensed presence MOST likely results from a:

A) hallucination.
B) visual illusion.
C) kind of pareidolia.
D) cognitive distortion.

Answer 3

hallucination.

Question 4

In a class demonstration, Professor Rendon asks chocolate-loving students to rate two boxes containing the same chocolates. She explains that one box contains expensive chocolates, while the other box contains inexpensive chocolates. Based on the research reviewed in this chapter, the students MOST likely will rate:

A) both boxes as equal in quality, regardless of their price.
B) the expensive box as containing higher-quality chocolate.
C) both boxes incorrectly, based on the chocolate quality.
D) the inexpensive box as containing higher-quality chocolate.

Question 5

Detective Park watched a surveillance video. He watched the video again, slowed it down, and then noticed a cup on the floor that he had not seen previously. The detective's failure to see the cup on the first viewing can MOST likely be attributed to:

A) inattentional blindness.
B) a visual illusion.
C) a cognitive distortion.
D) change blindness.

Question 6

According to the text, the sleep deprivation experienced by Charles Lindbergh during his transatlantic flight MOST likely contributed to his experiencing:

A) inattentional blindness to the bad weather conditions outside.
B) a type of visual illusion as he looked at objects outside his window.
C) a hallucination in the form of a presence that helped to guide him.
D) a schema that helped him recognize how his mind worked.

Question 7

Thorne and Himelstein (1984) tested whether groups of students would report hearing satanic words in rock songs played backward when instructed under three different conditions. The group instructed to listen for satanic words heard the most satanic words due to the researchers' finding that:

A) sensation can limit the accuracy of perception.
B) perceptions are actually subliminal messages.
C) expectations can bias perception.
D) satanic beliefs influence listeners.

Question 8

As participants in a study by Simon and Chabris (1999) counted passes of a basketball on a video they watched, they failed to see a person walking around in a gorilla suit. This is an example of:

A) a hallucination.
B) inattentional blindness.
C) a visual illusion.
D) visual pareidolia.

Question 9

Some people reported seeing a face on the surface of Mars in data sent back from the Viking spacecraft that flew to Mars in 1976. Psychologists would suggest _____ as the MOST likely explanation for this interpretation

A) an instance of group hallucination
B) visual pareidolia
C) a visual illusion
D) an error in divided attention

Question 10

The "change blindness blindness" effect found by Levin, Momen, Drivdahl, and Simons (2000) shows that people often:

A) perceive something based on the operation of a schema.
B) construct perceptions of objects based on prior knowledge.
C) do not perceive changes from one scene to another.
D) are unaware that they do not accurately detect changes.

Question 11

Tabatha drew the well-reasoned conclusion from the literature that eyewitness memory is often inaccurate. She thought about the issue some more and decided that, in general, memory is inaccurate and cannot be trusted in other situations as well. She seems to be committing the thinking error of:

A) drawing a hasty generalization.
B) making a sweeping generalization.
C) arguing from ignorance.
D) confusing correlation with causation.

Question 12

Palmer (1975) conducted a classic experiment in which participants viewed a kitchen scene, after which they rapidly viewed images of a loaf of bread, a similarly shaped mailbox, and a drum. Which statement BEST explains the participants' better recognition of the bread than the other objects?

A) Knowledge of the context in which an object usually appears facilitates perception of it.
B) The Context in which an object usually appears hinders the perception of it.
C) The context in which an object usually appears neither facilitates nor hinders its perception.
D) Perception of an object depends only on extraction of features of the object.

Question 13

Which concept BEST explains why a person would mistake the planet Venus for a UFO?

A) Inattentional blindness
B) Error in visual perception
C) Hallucination
D) Schema-based thinking error

Question 14

Magicians' feats of "magic" are MOST consistent with an explanation from psychological research about the:

A) visual illusion and distraction that often result in inattentional blindness.
B) mysterious effects not yet well understood by cognitive psychologists.
C) charismatic nature of successful magicians' personalities.
D) manipulation of memory, source confusion, and schema-based perception.

Question 15

Many studies have shown that driving while talking on a cell phone puts drivers at greater risk of accident due to:

A) increased memory lapses.
B) change blindness.
C) divided cognitive resources.
D) visual illusions.

Question 16

When people believe that they have seen a ghost, that experience is MOST likely:

A) a visual illusion.
B) a hallucination.
C) a false memory.
D) an error in pattern recognition.

Question 17

Which statement about hallucinations is TRUE?

A) Hallucinations are essentially perceptual errors about stimuli.
B) Hallucinations should always be considered a normal use of the imagination.
C) Most people who hallucinate have a mental disorder.
D) Most people experience a hallucination at some point in their lives.

Question 18

A stage magician moved her right hand with a flourish that made a snapping sound, and then quietly dropped an object she had been holding in her left hand. A cognitive psychologist would MOST likely explain the audience's belief that the object had disappeared as an effect created by:

A) a visual and auditory illusion.
B) a visual and auditory hallucination.
C) distraction and inattentional blindness.
D) a memorable experience based on a schema.

Question 19

Which statement is TRUE about attention?

A) The cognitive resources available for attention are limited.
B) People can perform multiple tasks at once as well as a single task.
C) All memory errors are basically errors of attention.
D) Attention involves taking in and interpreting sensory data.

Question 20

Simons and Levin (1998) conducted an experiment in which a participant gave directions to a confederate or a person secretly working with the experimenter. This was suddenly interrupted as a panel was carried between the participant and the confederate. At this time, the confederate switched places with a second confederate carrying the panel. Participants often did not notice the switch and resumed giving directions to the new man, showing an effect called:

A) change blindness.
B) change blindness blindness.
C) inattentional blindness.
D) divided attention.

Question 21

Skurnik and his colleagues (2005) found that _____ explains why participants in a study remembered false claims as true only three days after being presented with the claims. (Note: This finding is especially important to critical thinking and helping people to eliminate misconceptions.)

A) experiencing misinformation
B) source forgetting
C) confusing familiarity with truth
D) a schema effect

Question 22

What is the BEST generalization that can be made about the accuracy of memory based on the evidence reviewed in Chapter 6?

A) Memory is generally inaccurate, and we should always expect it to be so.
B) Eyewitness testimony is inaccurate, but the other kinds of memory are accurate.
C) Memory is often inaccurate, but under certain conditions can be very accurate.
D) Techniques like hypnosis can typically eliminate memory inaccuracies and are not susceptible to the misinformation effect.

Question 23

Tuckey and Brewer (2003) had participants in a study watch a simulation of a bank robbery. The participants tended to recall one robber as a male even though the robber's head was covered. The BEST explanation for the participants' recall is:

A) a schema for a bank robber applied in an ambiguous situation.
B) source confusion during recall of the robbery.
C) poor eyewitness identification due to context confusion.
D) a cognitive distortion due to reproductive memory.

Question 24

Tuckey and Brewer (2003) found that participants' recall of a simulated robbery showed the greatest schema effects when what the participants observed was:

A) ambiguous.
B) redundant.
C) illusory.
D) unexpected.

Question 25

Rafael believes that eyewitness memory is quite accurate, which is consistent with the position that memory is:

A) reconstructive.
B) schema-based.
C) reproductive.
D) hypnagogic.

Question 26

The misinformation effect is produced when the experimenter

A) hypnotizes research participants and tells them about some part of a crime right before they observe it.
B) has research participants deliberately recall something and then gives them a leading question after they have recalled it.
C) misinforms research participants about some part of a crime right before they observe it.
D) gives research participants information that could mislead them when obtaining their recall of something they have already observed.

Question 27

Cynthia thinks that eyewitness memory is based on expectation and the influence of prior knowledge. She holds a view MOST consistent with the idea that memory is:

A) schema-based.
B) based on naïve realism.
C) similar to a video-recorder.
D) reproductive.

Question 28

While Bei is taking notes about one slide presented in a lecture, the professor switches to the next slide before Bei finishes taking notes on the first slide. Bei finds herself caught between the notes she needs to take for both slides and attending to the new slide. Bei's difficulty is due to the fact that her:

A) long-term memory has limited capacity and cannot switch attention quickly enough.
B) perceptual system can hold only a small number of words at a time.
C) working memory can hold only a limited amount of information for a brief period.
D) perceptual system cannot send information to her attentional system quickly enough.

Question 29

Those who assume that the results of laboratory experiments on eyewitness memory lead to particular conclusions about the accuracy of eyewitness memory would MOST likely state that:

A) case studies of eyewitnesses provide just as valid information as do true experiments.
B) the results of the studies would be the same if the eyewitnesses were tested under more realistic and stressful conditions.
C) eyewitnesses would recall details more accurately if no misinformation was provided to them.
D) scientists are really interested in finding out if eyewitness memory is very accurate.

Question 30

Which statement is the MOST reasonable conclusion based on the evidence presented in the text on the accuracy of eyewitness memory?

A) Eyewitness testimony and identification are very accurate.
B) Eyewitness testimony and identification are often inaccurate.
C) Both eyewitness testimony and identification are necessarily inaccurate.
D) Eyewitness testimony and identification rarely affect jury decisions.

Question 31

Tuckey and Brewer (2003) had participants recall details from a simulated robbery in which a person's head was covered. Participants tended to recall the robber as a ____, which is____ with schema-based recall.

A) man; consistent
B) man; inconsistent
C) woman; consistent
D) woman; inconsistent

Question 32

A person who thinks that long-term memory and eyewitness memory are _____ MOST likely views memory as reproductive.

A) reconstructive
B) illusionary
C) often inaccurate
D) quite accurate

Question 33

Which critical reading strategy would MOST likely help Gavin quickly activate his prior knowledge and understand the organization of ideas in a lengthy psychological text?

A) Read the first paragraph and memorize ideas.
B) Quickly read or skim the entire passage.
C) Reflect on the meaning of the title.
D) Preview the headings in the passage.

Question 34

All of these critical reading questions would guide Yasmin through a successful analysis and toward a reasonable conclusion EXCEPT:

A) What are the question and related claims in each section?
B) Which pieces of evidence are relevant to support each claim?
C) Is it possible for long-term memory to hold the evidence for each claim?
D) Is the evidence mixed, or does it lead to a clear conclusion?

Question 35

Olga assessed that she did not understand a passage she had just read in her textbook, and then reread the passage. Olga employed the active reading strategy of:

A) trying to memorize important content.
B) skimming the main ideas in a passage.
C) reflecting on her comprehension.
D) engaging in perception while reading.

Question 36

After critically reading the review of the evidence concerning the accuracy of eyewitness testimony and identification, a reader concluded that people are bad at remembering most kinds of everyday information. This reader is showing the thinking error known as:

A) naïve realism.
B) a cognitive overload.
C) confirmation bias.
D) sweeping generalization.

Question 37

The misinformation effect is MOST consistent with the idea that memory:

A) can be improved through special strategies.
B) is reproductive and based on perception.
C) is often based on perception, and sometimes based on attention.
D) is schema-based and reconstructive.

Question 38

After Obi finished his meal, the waitress brought the "xxxxx." A person's ability to finish this sentence with the word "check" illustrates the operation of:

A) source memory.
B) a memory pattern.
C) reproductive memory.
D) a schema, or script.

Question 39

Tasks that put a great load on working memory are associated with

A) effortful, Type 1 thinking.
B) effortful, Type 2 thinking.
C) intuitive Type 1 thinking.
D) intuitive Type 2 thinking.

Question 40

Which finding from memory research discussed in the text illustrates a memory problem in recognizing misconceptions?

A) Mack and Rock found that people did not remember seeing an object in plain view due to inattentional blindness.
B) Loftus and her colleagues repeatedly showed that people are susceptible to the misinformation effect in remembering details about a crime.
C) Skurnik and his colleagues found that participants misremembered false claims as true only three days after the claims were presented to them.
D) Loftus and her colleagues repeatedly showed that people are susceptible to the misinformation effect when trying to reconstruct experiences.

Question 41

In an experiment, Loftus and Palmer (1974) showed participants a video of a car accident. The effect on recall when participants were asked leading questions about the accident was that participants:

A) recalled the color of the car accurately.
B) had accurate recall only after being prompted.
C) estimated the car speed based on a word in the question.
D) recalled the accident without help from word cues.

Question 42

Which effect BEST explains Thompson's identification of Cotton based on his facial features?

A) Misinformation effect
B) Cross-race effect
C) Inattentional blindness
D) Racial discrimination

Question 43

In their literature review of research studies on eyewitness identification, Valentine, Pickering, and Darling (2003) found that 40% of 640 actual witnesses were able to accurately identify the culprit. Which statement MOST accurately evaluates this evidence?

A) The evidence provides weak support because the review was not based on the results of true experiments.
B) The evidence would be stronger if it were based on the testimony of individual witnesses.
C) The review provides high-quality, relevant evidence because it is based on a consensus of findings from scientific research on actual witnesses.
D) The evidence provides weak support because the review did not find that all of the witnesses were inaccurate.

Question 44

Suppose someone came rushing in and unexpectedly said in an excited voice, "I just saw someone rob the bank up the street!" A bystander infers that it was a man who was wearing a mask. This inference is MOST likely guided by the bystander's:

A) perception of the crime.
B) accurate cognition.
C) schema of a bank robbery.
D) source memory.

Question 45

Imagine that you are on a jury that is deliberating a rape case. The defendant is an African American man accused of raping a White woman and holding a gun to her head during part of the assault. The victim identified the defendant from a lineup after a few minutes of viewing the lineup of men, all of whom had criminal records. After the victim identified the defendant, one police officer said, "Good, we thought it was him." The victim then testified that she was sure it was defendant who raped her. Most of the jurors want to vote to convict, but you have reasonable doubt that the defendant was the actual perpetrator. What could you say to the other jurors to convince them that there is reasonable doubt of the man's guilt? Use what you have learned about eyewitness memory to make a well-reasoned argument.

Question 46

The chapter discusses evidence of how Ronald Cotton was misidentified as a rapist by Jennifer Thompson. This evidence is:

A) an anecdote.
B) a statement of authority.
C) a commonsense belief.
D) a correlational study.

Question 47

The idea MOST consistent with a schema-based explanation of own-race bias points to:

A) racial prejudice or animosity toward people of other races.
B) greater experience and knowledge of people of one's own race.
C) a cross-race advantage in identifying people's facial features.
D) an eyewitness identification error of change blindness blindness.

Question 48

Jennifer Thompson MOST likely exhibited the problem of _____ when she identified Cotton as her assailant during Cotton's trial.

A) overconfidence
B) source confusion
C) change blindness
D) visual illusion

Question 49

Analysis of the misidentification of Ronald Cotton revealed that the misidentification involved:

A) a perceptual error.
B) change blindness.
C) own-race bias.
D) lacking confidence in memory.

Question 50

Research has shown that there is a special brain area for face processing (Gauthier et al., 1999) and that cross-culturally people are very good at recognizing facial expressions for basic emotions (Ekman, 1994). According to the text, these findings _____ support for the _____ that eyewitness identification is accurate.

A) do not provide relevant; conclusion
B) provide strong; conclusion
C) provide weak; claim
D) do not provide; assumption

Question 51

Analysis of the misidentifications by Jennifer Thompson of Ronald Cotton as her rapist implicated the following factors:

A) weapon focus, schema effects, and inattentional blindness.
B) schema effects, weapon focus, and a lack of confidence in memory.
C) own-race bias, weapon focus, and overconfidence in memory.
D) improper line-up construction and a lack of confidence in memory.

Question 52

The Australian psychologist Donald Thomson was on television talking about memory while a woman was being raped. The woman later falsely accused Thomson of the crime. The misidentification was MOST likely an example of:

A) change blindness.
B) the misinformation effect.
C) a memory illusion.
D) source confusion.

Question 53

Weapon focus produces errors in eyewitness memory because:

A) people with weapon focus are prone to experience hallucinations.
B) the witness is not paying attention to other details in the crime scene.
C) the witness does not try hard enough to remember details of the crime.
D) people susceptible to weapon focus are also susceptible to own-race bias.

Question 54

Bruce and colleagues (1999) used CCTV videos and asked participants to match a still-frame of a person in the video with high-quality photos, when the participants could do so. Participants were able to match the CCTV still-frame images with the photos 65% of the time. The MOST appropriate interpretation of this finding is that it:

A) provides clear evidence that these participants' eyewitness identification was accurate.
B) provides clear evidence that these participants' eyewitness identification was inaccurate.
C) supports the claim that eyewitness identification is often inaccurate.
D) supports the claim that eyewitness testimony is often inaccurate.

Question 55

The effect of weapon focus on eyewitness memory:

A) supports the claim that eyewitness memory can sometimes be very accurate.
B) is the result of schema effects on recall of the crime scene.
C) probably results from lack of attention to other details of the crime scene.
D) produces a lack of confidence in memory for a crime scene.

Question 56

"Is Eyewitness Memory Accurate?" discusses how Jennifer Thompson mistakenly identified Ronald Cotton as her rapist. Which statement is TRUE about the outcome of Cotton's case?

A) Cotton was later judged to be innocent and acquitted based on DNA evidence.
B) An experiment on eyewitness memory showed that Cotton was not guilty.
C) Jennifer Thompson later testified before a jury that Cotton was innocent.
D) Cotton was convicted because jurors experienced the misinformation effect.

Question 57

The effect of leading questions used in the Loftus and Palmer (1974) study in which participants viewed a film of an accident and then estimated the car's speed is consistent with all of the following EXCEPT:

A) the misinformation effect.
B) reconstruction in memory.
C) schema effects.
D) reproductive memory.

Question 58

Research has shown that cross-culturally people are good at recognizing facial expressions for basic emotions (Ekman, 1994). Which of the following statements does NOT support this finding as evidence that eyewitness identification is accurate?

A) It is an older study that is not based on high-quality scientific evidence.
B) Recognizing emotions in the face is not relevant to eyewitness identification of faces.
C) Facial recognition is made possible by the brain's fusiform facial gyrus.
D) Eyewitnesses do not typically feel strong emotions when they observe people committing a crime.

Question 59

Specifically explain how the three examples at the beginning of the chapter led to wrong conclusions or poor judgments: (1) the attentional error, (2) the perceptual error, and (3) the memory error.