Deck 9: Cognitive Development: The Information-Processing Approach

Question 1

Which of the following statements is true?

A) Children are less accurate than adults in identifying perpetrators in police line-ups
B) Children are more accurate than adults in identifying perpetrators in police line-ups
C) Children are just as accurate as adults in identifying perpetrators in police line-ups
D) Children's memory capacity does not develop until the age of 12

Answer 1

Children are just as accurate as adults in identifying perpetrators in police line-ups

Question 2

Which activities involve the psychological processes studied by information processing researchers?

A) Learning to read
B) Finding a street address
C) Figuring out how to open a locked door
D) All of the alternatives are correct.

Answer 2

All of the alternatives are correct.

Question 3

The information processing perspective differs from the traditional learning view because information processing theorists are concerned with __________ rather than with __________, as are traditional learning theorists.

A) input into the sensory registers; external responses
B) the internal processes involved when information is processed; external stimuli and external responses
C) more recent phenomena; phenomena more familiar to the animal lab experimentalist
D) how information is processed to produce response output; permanent memory store

Answer 3

the internal processes involved when information is processed; external stimuli and external responses

Question 4

According to the flowchart metaphor, a teacher's goal is to get the pupils to store information in their

A) auditory registers.
B) sensory registers.
C) short-term memories.
D) long-term memories.

Question 5

Ryan, a second grader, is practicing his spelling with his father when he comes across a new word he has not heard before. According to the flowchart metaphor, where does this new word that he has just heard enter first?

A) Visual register
B) Auditory register
C) Short-term memory (working memory)
D) Response-generating mechanism

Question 6

Which statement below is false?

A) Humans and computers can be said to store representations of symbols.
B) Humans and computers can be said to manipulate symbols to solve problems.
C) Humans and computers are limited in the amount of information they can store and manipulate.
D) Humans can learn from experience and modify their rule systems in a progressively adaptive direction, however, computers cannot.

Question 7

The term flowchart and the concept of a computer metaphor are related most to

A) learning theory.
B) the nurture perspective.
C) environmental/learning theory.
D) information processing.

Question 8

__________ refers to programming a computer to perform a cognitive task in the same way in which humans are thought to perform it.

A) Computer programming
B) Computer simulation
C) Rule-encoding
D) Symbol manipulation

Question 9

At the most specific level, the computer makes possible one of the prime methodologies of the information-processing approach,

A) computer programming.
B) symbol manipulation.
C) computer simulation.
D) rule-encoding.

Question 10

The information-processing approach that is most similar to the complex system of neurons in the human brain is

A) the computer simulation model.
B) the flowchart model.
C) connectionism.
D) Case's operating space-short-term-storage space model.

Question 11

Connectionist computer programs take the form of

A) microgenetic studies.
B) training studies.
C) parallel symbolic systems.
D) artificial neural networks.

Question 12

The microgenetic technique is to the longitudinal approach as a

A) movie is to snapshots.
B) pen is to a pencil.
C) point is to a dot.
D) moon is to the sun.

Question 13

The min strategy involves

A) programming computers to solve a problem in the smallest number of steps.
B) programming computers to simulate mathematical abilities in children.
C) counting up from the larger of two addends to arrive at a sum.
D) counting down from the larger of two addends to arrive at a sum.

Question 14

Which approach allows a researcher to gather the most information about the path, rate, breadth, variability, and sources of cognitive change?

A) Cross sectional
B) Interview
C) Microgenetic
D) Correlational

Question 15

What do information processing approaches have in common with Piaget's theory?

A) All agree that a complex system of mental rules underlies cognitive performance.
B) All subscribe to a stage model of development.
C) All emphasize environmental influences more than biological influences on development.
D) All attempt to explain and describe basic cognitive processes such as sensation, perception, and attention.

Question 16

Compared to Piaget's theory, most information processing theories tend to

A) be less concerned with process-oriented questions.
B) describe development in terms of broader stages.
C) be more domain-specific.
D) be less concerned with underlying psychological processes than behaviour.

Question 17

Event memory involves the use of

A) scripts for sequences of familiar actions or routine events in a familiar context.
B) pre-existing knowledge to interpret information that is taken in.
C) specific, personal, and long-lasting memories about the self.
D) a past stimulus when the stimulus is no longer present.

Question 18

Constructive memory involves the use of

A) scripts for sequences of familiar actions or routine events in a familiar context.
B) pre-existing knowledge to interpret information that is taken in.
C) specific, personal, and long-lasting memories about the self.
D) a past stimulus when the stimulus is no longer present.

Question 19

Eight-month-old David watched as his mother covered his favourite toy with a diaper. David later moved the diaper in order to retrieve his toy. In remembering where his toy was, David utilized

A) recall memory.
B) recognition memory.
C) constructive memory.
D) event memory.

Question 20

Suppose that you witnessed a hold-up at a bank, and you were later asked to identify the robber in a police line up. This identification of the robber from a line up of people involves

A) recall memory.
B) recognition memory.
C) constructive memory.
D) event memory.

Question 21

Suppose that you witnessed a hold-up at a bank, and you were later asked to help a police artist develop a sketch of the robber. You would rely on _______ to develop the sketch.

A) recall memory
B) recognition memory
C) constructive memory
D) event memory

Question 22

Rosita's baby sitter lives in an apartment complex with an unusual and striking entrance. Every morning when Rosita's father carries her through the entrance on the way to the sitter's apartment, Rosita begins to bounce and babble in excitement. Rosita's behaviour best illustrates

A) recall memory.
B) constructive memory.
C) recognition memory.
D) script memory.

Question 23

Victor's parents brought him to Disneyland when he was 5 years old. He relies on __________ to remember his trip.

A) Recognition memory
B) Autobiographical memory
C) Self-constructive memory
D) None of the alternatives are correct

Question 24

Habituation studies have been relied on to investigate the information processing abilities of nonverbal infants. Dishabituation or the __________ informs researchers about the infant's recognition memory.

A) recovery of response to a new stimulus
B) failure to habituate to a single stimulus
C) loss of interest in a single stimulus
D) infant's fatigue

Question 25

We can learn a lot about newborn memory capabilities through __________ studies.

A) habituation
B) classical conditioning
C) operant conditioning
D) All of the alternatives are correct.

Question 26

Studies that demonstrate newborns prefer to listen to stories and languages they were exposed to in utero provide evidence that very young infants are capable of

A) habituation.
B) classical conditioning.
C) recognition memory.
D) recall memory.

Question 27

The habituation paradigm is used to test _______ in infants.

A) recognition memory
B) generalizability
C) operant conditioning
D) recall

Question 28

The fact that babies as young as 2 months of age will kick their leg in order to make a mobile jump suggests that

A) even very young infants can be classically conditioned.
B) babies will emit behaviour simply to produce an interesting sight.
C) in order to serve as a reinforcer for infants, a consequence must satisfy a biological need.
D) habituation emerges very early in infancy.

Question 29

Flavie is 2 months old. Her parents have bought her a new play mat that includes a mobile. When kicked, the mobile will light up and play music. Which of the following statements is true?

A) Flavie will be able to learn that kicking the mobile will lead to an action
B) Flavie does not have enough memory capacity to remember this association
C) Flavie will use the mobile to prevent her from getting upset
D) All of the alternatives are correct

Question 30

One- and two-day-old infants received a sucrose solution. The sucrose served as an unconditioned stimulus that elicited the unconditioned response of sucking. The conditioned stimulus consisted of the experimenter stroking the baby's forehead immediately before the delivery of sucrose. The conditioned response is the

A) sucking in response to the sucrose alone.
B) sucking in response to the forehead stroking alone.
C) sucking in response to dextrose.
D) head turn toward the sucrose.

Question 31

One- and two-day-old infants received a sucrose solution. The sucrose served as an unconditioned stimulus that elicited the unconditioned response of sucking. Milliseconds before the delivery of sucrose, the experimenter stroked the baby's forehead. Eventually, to the stroke of the forehead, the baby would suck. The conditioned stimulus is

A) the stroke of the forehead.
B) the sucrose alone.
C) the experimenter.
D) dextrose.

Question 32

In their first half of life, infants' memories are not as developed as are those of older infants. Which modification to research procedures has resulted in the earliest indication of a long-term memory?

A) Employing speech stimuli
B) Employing dynamic, moving stimuli
C) Employing face stimuli
D) Employing mobiles as stimuli

Question 33

Using a dynamic, moving stimulus, Bahrick and Pickens showed a memory retention of up to three months in

A) newborns.
B) 2-month-olds.
C) 3-month-olds.
D) 5-month-olds.

Question 34

Three-month-old infants are exposed to the mobile procedure in which they learn to activate a mobile by kicking their legs. For about how long will the babies be able to remember the association between the kicking and the movement of the mobile?

A) 1 hour
B) 1 day
C) 1 week
D) 1 year

Question 35

Two groups of infants were exposed to the mobile procedure in which they learned to activate a mobile by kicking their legs. After 13 days, one group of infants watched as the experimenter jiggled the mobile over their heads. How did the infants in the two groups behave when placed in the mobile procedure at day 14?

A) Both groups did a moderate amount of kicking.
B) The infants who saw the mobile jiggled at day 13 kicked more than the babies who did not observe the jiggling.
C) The infants who did not see the mobile jiggled at day 13 kicked more than the babies who watched the experimenter jiggle the mobile.
D) Neither group appeared to remember the association between kicking their legs and the movement of the mobile.

Question 36

Infants were exposed to the mobile procedure in which they learned to activate a mobile by kicking their legs. After 13 days, they watched as the experimenter jiggled the mobile over their heads. In this experiment, __________ occurred when the mobile was jiggled.

A) memory loss
B) reactivation
C) cueing
D) crying

Question 37

__________ refers to the preservation of the memory for an event through reencounter with at least some portion of the event in the interval between initial experience and memory test.

A) Long-term memory
B) Reactivation
C) Memory-loss prevention
D) Activation

Question 38

Infants, age 12 to 24 months, were shown a series of pictures of various kinds of food, then given a choice of looking at either a previously unseen item from the food category (e.g., an apple) or an item from a new category (e.g., a chair). What were the findings of this study?

A) The infants looked longer at the chair than the apple, suggesting they had learned a general category of food and found a new category more interesting.
B) The infants looked longer at the apple than the chair, suggesting they had learned a general category of food and found it comforting to look at a familiar category.
C) The older infants looked longer at the chair, suggesting they had learned a general category of food, whereas the younger infants looked longer at the apple, suggesting they had not noticed a relationship among the food items presented previously.
D) The infants spent an equal amount of time looking at the chair and the apple, suggesting they had not noticed a relationship among the food items presented previously.

Question 39

If Alice is 17 months old, she should be able to remember information for approximately _______ weeks.

A) 3
B) 7
C) 9
D) 13

Question 40

Thirteen-month-olds can remember and imitate simple sequences of action such as how to give teddy a bath (first place in tub, then wash with a sponge, then dry with a towel). This example suggests that ___________ have their origins in infancy.

A) scripts
B) categorization abilities
C) metamemory skills
D) problem-solving strategies

Question 41

Matthew, a 14-month-old, has just watched his first deer hunting movie with his father. Research suggests that

A) If he sees a deer, he will not "remember" to pretend to shoot it because his memory is not yet developed
B) If he sees a deer, he will shoot it as in the hunting movie
C) He will know how to manipulate guns and hunting material because watching this movie has allowed him brain to make different associations (recall memory)
D) None of the alternatives are correct

Question 42

The statement there is no autobiographical memory for the events of infancy refers to

A) prospective recall.
B) infantile amnesia.
C) retroactive memory.
D) the conjugate reinforcement technique.

Question 43

Three possible contributions to developmental improvement in memory that are considered by the text are

A) greater use of mnemonic strategies, greater knowledge about memory, and more powerful cognitive structures.
B) increase in eidetic memory, physiological changes in the brain, and increase in metamemory.
C) decrease in mnemonics, decrease in metamemory, and increase in adaptation.
D) elimination of the utilization deficiency, increase in production deficiency, and refined equilibration.

Question 44

Techniques that people use in an attempt to help them remember something are called

A) metamemory.
B) scripts.
C) schemas.
D) mnemonic strategies.

Question 45

Tim was asked to remember pictures of a cow, truck, tree, car, dog, and flower. Tim rearranged the pictures into the following pairs: cow-dog, car-truck, and tree-flower during his study period. The pictures were then taken away, and Tim was asked to recall them. The fact that Tim used a mnemonic strategy but it didn't seem to help suggests that he has a

A) utilization deficiency.
B) production deficiency.
C) organization deficiency.
D) conceptual deficiency.

Question 46

Classic research by Flavell and his colleagues showed that most older children use rehearsal as a mnemonic strategy. Kamisha, as expected by Flavell's research, uses rehearsal to memorize verses for Sunday school each week. One day at school, her teacher asks her to memorize a short speech for a school assembly. Kamisha does not know how to begin memorizing this short speech. It doesn't occur to her to use rehearsal. This is an example of

A) utilization deficiency.
B) production deficiency.
C) organization deficiency.
D) conceptual deficiency.

Question 47

Marissa is undergoing neuropsychological testing and is being asked to remember a list of words. Which of the following is a strategy she might attempt to use to remember the words?

A) Utilization
B) Elaboration
C) Recall
D) None of the alternatives are correct

Question 48

Flavell and his colleagues asked 5-, 7-, and 10-year-olds to participate in a memory task. Each participant was shown an array of 7 pictures, and a subset of the 7 was pointed to on a given trial. The participants were told to remember the subset of pictures in order. These researchers found that:

A) there was a utilization deficiency; children who rehearsed did not remember more.
B) there was a production deficiency; children who knew how to rehearse didn't use rehearsal.
C) surprisingly, there was no age difference in performance.
D) surprisingly, even the 5-year-olds used elaboration.

Question 49

Two brothers, ages 3 and 6, are taking turns hiding the car keys from their mother. What memory strategies are the two brothers likely to use to help themselves remember where the car keys are?

A) The 3-year-old is likely to use rehearsal, whereas the 6-year-old will use elaboration.
B) The 3-year-old is likely to rehearse the location by repeating it out loud, whereas the 6-year-old is likely to silently rehearse the location.
C) The 3-year-old is not likely to rehearse the location whereas the 6-year-old may rehearse the location.
D) The 3-year-old is likely to use rehearsal, whereas the 6-year-old will simply remember the location without employing any strategies.

Question 50

Between age 6 and adolescence, children become increasingly likely to use mnemonics to remember a list of words such as cow, truck, tree, car, dog, flower, etc. The mnemonic that the youngest children would be most likely to use is

A) organizing them into abstract categories.
B) rehearsing the entire list out loud.
C) creating visual images that link the items.
D) elaboration.

Question 51

When compared to the performance of older children on memory tasks, younger children are

A) less likely to use any memory strategies.
B) more likely to limit rehearsal to items that are visually present.
C) less likely to use elaboration.
D) All of the alternatives are correct.

Question 52

The last memory strategy to appear in children's repertoire is

A) elaboration.
B) organization.
C) categorization.
D) rehearsal.

Question 53

In one study, children as young as 3 years of age had to keep track of a toy dog that was hidden under one of several cups. What memory strategy did the children use to help them remember where the dog was hidden?

A) The children rehearsed the location out loud.
B) The children sat with their eyes and a finger fixed on the cup where the dog was hidden.
C) The children placed a raisin on top of the cup with the dog.
D) The children did not use any strategies to help them remember where the dog was hidden.

Question 54

Which of the following is the least mature mnemonic strategy?

A) Repeating the times-tables over and over again
B) Grouping to-be-remembered items into categories
C) Staring at and putting one's finger on a cup that momentarily covers the toy whose movements must be tracked
D) Linking a new, to-be-remembered item to a familiar image or story

Question 55

Mnemonic strategies that students use in an attempt to remember school material are

A) called study strategies.
B) typically acquired and mastered by the end of elementary school.
C) directly taught by teachers and are an established part of the curriculum.
D) called academic schemes.

Question 56

Memory strategies appear to aid memory by

A) expanding the capacity of the sensory register.
B) strengthening neural connections.
C) overcoming information-processing limitations.
D) exercising the executive function.

Question 57

Knowing that you have an easier time remembering baseball statistics than the birthdates of relatives is an example of

A) social cognition.
B) metamemory.
C) a script.
D) habituation.

Question 58

Metacognition refers to

A) knowledge about memory.
B) cognitions that are mathematical in nature.
C) thoughts about mental or psychological phenomena.
D) effects of a general knowledge system about how information is interpreted and remembered.

Question 59

The kind of metamemorial knowledge that 6-year-olds possess includes

A) the understanding that, at McDonald's, you pay for your food before you eat it.
B) a clear recollection of the birth of a sibling when they were three years of age.
C) awareness that it is easier to remember the names of the children in their own kindergarten class than the names of children in a different class.
D) knowledge that The Incredibles are fictional characters.

Question 60

When asked how many items from a list of 10 they would be able to recall, more than half of the preschoolers and kindergarteners asked responded with an estimate of

A) 1.
B) 5.
C) 8.
D) 10.

Question 61

Studies that examine the relationship between metamemory and performance on memory tasks suggest that

A) while practice on memory tasks improves performance, efforts to train children in various forms of metamemory have not improved performance on memory tasks.
B) as metamemory increases, memory performance decreases.
C) what children know about their memory processes is not always reflected in their actual behaviour.
D) what children know about their memory is highly predictive of how they will perform on a wide range of memory tasks.

Question 62

What is the relationship between knowledge base and memory development?

A) Increases in knowledge base and improvements in memory develop in parallel but do not influence each other directly.
B) While increases in memory abilities lead to increases in knowledge, the reverse is not true.
C) As children acquire more knowledge, it becomes harder for them to remember new information.
D) As children acquire more knowledge, they understand more and hence remember more.

Question 63

Constructive memory refers to

A) techniques that people use in an attempt to remember something.
B) thoughts that have constructive psychological phenomena as their target.
C) the preservation of the memory for an event through reencounter with at least some portion of the event in the interval between initial exposure to, and the time of recall about, the event.
D) effects of the general knowledge system on how information is interpreted and remembered.

Question 64

Researchers interested in constructive memory study

A) how general knowledge affects memory.
B) the development of memory strategies.
C) how metamemory leads to improved memory performance.
D) how developmental increases in cognitive capacity lead to decreases in memory performance.

Question 65

How do "constructive memory" processes change with age?

A) Children's memory becomes more accurate and less affected by prior knowledge.
B) Children become increasingly likely to rely on what they know to draw inferences beyond the information given.
C) Children draw fewer inferences from the information given.
D) As one's knowledge base increases, the ability to remember events literally (like a video recorder) increases.

Question 66

Because of the nature of constructive memory,

A) memory ends up being a literal copy of what is experienced.
B) memory is fixed.
C) memory for an event can become distorted.
D) different individuals typically assimilate an event in the same way.

Question 67

Karina, a five-year old, is shown some gender-stereotypical pictures that were reversed (for example, a boy playing with dolls and a girl playing with trucks and tractors). Based on recent research on constructive memory, what is Karina most likely to remember?

A) She is most likely to "correct" these images by saying that the boy was playing with the trucks and tractors and that the girl was playing with the dolls
B) She is going to remember all of the images correctly
C) She is most likely not to be able to remember a single item from the pictures because she is too young
D) None of the alternatives are correct

Question 68

When Piaget and Inhelder asked 4- and 5-year-old children to draw their recollections of a seriated array they had seen 1 week earlier, their illustrations

A) suggested a more accurate understanding of seriation than is typically observed when preschoolers actually solve seriation problems.
B) included different errors than are typically observed when preschoolers actually solve seriation problems.
C) included the same errors observed when preschoolers actually solve seriation problems.
D) included far more errors than is observed when preschoolers have the opportunity to physically place sticks in serial order.

Question 69

Which of the following influences constructive memory?

A) Cognitive level
B) Gender and ethnic stereotypes
C) Information stored in long-term-memory
D) All of the alternatives are correct.

Question 70

Memory for the arrangement of chess pieces on a checkerboard has been used to assess

A) eyewitness memory.
B) expertise.
C) constructive memory.
D) utilization deficiency.

Question 71

Controlled investigations into the reliability of children's eyewitness testimony suggest that

A) children are more likely to omit certain details than they are to introduce false information.
B) the younger the child (up to age 3), the more accurate the recall is likely to be.
C) young children are less likely to incorporate the implications of leading questions into subsequent testimony than are adults.
D) children appear to be particularly poor at memory for faces.

Question 72

For the purposes of eyewitness testimonies, recall inaccuracies in children can be reduced by using

A) very specific questions.
B) a free-recall format.
C) mnemonic strategies.
D) a uniformed police officer to conduct all testimonial interviews.

Question 73

Schneider et al. compared the performance of 10- to 13-year-olds and adults on a task involving memory for the layout of chess pieces on a chessboard. Half of the children and adults were chess experts and half were not. They found that the

A) adults outperformed the children, regardless of chess expertise, presumably because of the adults' larger short-term memory capacity.
B) child experts outperformed the adult novices because their knowledge of chess aided memory.
C) child experts performed as well as the adult novices, suggesting that knowledge can compensate for memory limitations.
D) child experts performed as well as adult novices when there were a few pieces on the board, but when many chess pieces were involved, the adult novices outperformed the children.

Question 74

Schneider and colleagues compared memory for the arrangement of chess pieces in experts and novices. Participants were early adolescents and adults. They found that

A) the adults in the study remembered less than the early adolescents on other memory tests that did not rely on expertise in chess.
B) expertise had no effect on memory performance.
C) it seems that experts are less likely to use memory strategies effectively in the area of expertise.
D) older age was associated with better performance when chess expertise was not relevant to the task.

Question 75

Robert, 3 years old and Jack, 6 years old, were both witnesses to a store robbery. Which of the following statements is true?

A) Both Robert and Jack will be able to provide very accurate descriptions of the thief
B) Jack is most likely to remember more accurate details of the event
C) Robert is most likely to remember more accurate details of the event
D) Jack is more suggestible to influence than Robert

Question 76

By which age has it been demonstrated that infants have some sensitivity to numbers?

A) Shortly after birth
B) 3 months
C) 5 months
D) 12 months

Question 77

In a series of studies, Wynn used Baillargeon's possible event-impossible event procedure to study 5-month-old infants' understanding simple addition and subtraction. Infants' reactions:

A) did not differ between possible and impossible event situations.
B) reflected surprise when possible events were depicted, but not when impossible events were depicted.
C) suggested that the infants have rudimentary arithmetic ability, but other interpretations of the findings are possible.
D) were difficult to interpret, because object permanence was a necessary skill that the 5-month-olds did not have yet.

Question 78

Gallistel and Gelman (1992) have proposed that number skills in infants are due to the existence of

A) a preverbal counting mechanism that represents quantity.
B) preverbal arithmetic skills of subtraction and addition.
C) an unsuitable methodology that has led to the misinterpretation of simple perceptual preferences.
D) improvements in long-term memory.

Question 79

Although many accept that 5-month-old infants have basic number concepts, children do not have an understanding of the underlying number principles until at least

A) 6 months of age.
B) 12 months of age.
C) 18 months of age.
D) 36 months of age.

Question 80

Bailey, a 4-year-old, always recites numbers in the same order ("1, 3, 4, ….). According to Gelman and Gallistel, which of the following counting principle is applied?

A) one-one
B) stable-order
C) abstraction
D) All of the alternatives are correct