Cognitive Psych Midterm

1. One of the main reasons why visual perception is ambiguous is that A. the retina is two-dimensional. B. the information in the light is insufficient. C. the world does not accurately specify the percept. D. there are great individual differences.

A

10. When cognition is viewed in terms of different descriptive levels, an underlying assumption is that A. levels differ qualitatively, as well as quantitatively. B. the most specific level is the best level of description. C. more specific stages provide more complete information. D. all of the above

A

2. Computational complexity presents a problem in every area of cognition because in each area A. there are too many possibilities available. B. there are too few good possibilities available. C. there is no way to distinguish among possibilities. D. more than one accurate possibility is always available.

A

3. Which kind of knowledge would likely make easiest the task of pointing to one location in a large building while standing in another location? A. route knowledge B. survey knowledge C. propositional knowledge D. all of the above would be equal

A

4. In Sperling's partial report procedure, delaying the cue that identifies which row of letters to report for 500 milliseconds makes partial report performance _____ full report performance. A. equal to B. better than C. worse than D. more accurate than

A

4. Navon's (1977) experiments using stimuli with global vs. local features (large letter F made up of small letter Bs) suggested what about detection of different kinds of features? A. Information from global features typically becomes available quicker than information from local features. B. Information from local features typically becomes available quicker than information from global features. C. There is little difference between local and global feature processing. D. none of the above

A

5. The experimental task in which people are exposed to information on two auditory channels at once is known as A. dichotic listening. B. crosstalk. C. echoic memory. D. none of the above

A

5. The following pattern: XXXX YYYY will be seen as two rows because of the Gestalt principle of A. similarity. B. good continuation. C. proximity. D. closure

A

6. You've just finished your graphic design homework of drawing a three-dimensional outline picture of a nifty new toaster oven, when your roommate comes in and spills correction fluid all over it. "Wow," says your roommate, "what's that a picture of?" Your roommate has the best chance of figuring out what the now-ruined picture is of if... A. the correction fluid covers up mainly the middles of straight lines, leaving areas where lines meet visible B. the correction fluid covers up entire parts of the drawing, leaving a few middle parts of straight lines visible C. the correction fluid covers up mainly areas where lines meet, leaving the middle sections of straight lines visible D. the correction fluid covers up entire parts of the drawing, leaving a few middle parts of curved lines visible.

A

8. Experiments showing that pictures are remembered better than words are demonstrating A. the picture-superiority effect. B. propositional representation. C. spatial neglect. D. that the brain uses categorical and continuous representations.

A

1. Modern science relies A. more on intuition than on case studies. B. more on empiricism than on reasonableness. C. more on logical deduction than on experimentation. D. more on authority than on correlation.

B

1. Most people can navigate successfully around their bedrooms even when it is pitch dark. We can do this, in large part, because A. there is always some light available to see by. B. we can make use of stored mental representations of the room. C. we have automatic programs for navigating familiar spaces. D. we use information from our other senses to cue locations in the room.

B

10. Recognizing a word by identifying the component letters is an example of ___ processing; recognizing a word by identifying its shape is an example of ___ processing. A. top-down; bottom-up B. bottom-up; top-down C. serial; parallel D. parallel; serial

B

11. If someone is searching for a purple cat against a background of yellow cats, their search will likely be _____; if they are searching for a purple cat against a background of purple dogs and yellow cats their search will likely be _____. A. fast; fast B. fast; slow C. slow; fast D. slow; slow

B

12. The metaphor of attention as a "spotlight" has been a very popular and useful concept in cognitive psychology. The spotlight metaphor describes attention well in many ways, EXCEPT... A. the focus of attention can be shifted from one object to another B. the focus of attention can be shifted from one location to another C. the focus of attention can be widened or narrowed D. the focus of attention can usually only be directed to one place at any instant

B

14. Children with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder show abnormal functioning of several different aspects of attention to varying degrees. The BIGGEST difficulty these children have is in A. shifting attention. B. sustaining attention. C. dividing attention. D. developing automaticity.

B

2. Visual perception is inherently indirect. This is because A. the same object can lead to many percepts. B. the perceiver must interpret the perceptual information. C. we perceive light coming from objects, not the objects themselves. D. perception occurs through the brain, not the eye.

B

3. By using the _____ technique, Sperling demonstrated that the capacity of the sensory store was _____ than had previously been thought. A. partial report; smaller B. partial report; larger C. whole report; smaller D. whole report; larger

B

3. If you expect a person that you meet to act hostile, this person may indeed act hostile. This phenomenon is a an example of A. ambiguity. B. self-fulfilling prophecy. C. satisficing. D. cognitive biases.

B

3. Low spatial frequencies involve ____ lines, with ____ lines per unit of distance. A. thin; few B. thick; few C. thin; many D. thick; many

B

4. Why do most people believe that Reno is east of Los Angeles? A. because they rely on a map-like representation of the cities B. because they rely on knowledge about locations of Nevada and California C. because they rely on route information D. none of the above

B

6. A psychologist writes a paper entirely about lawlike relations between how much money people win or lose at a slot machine and how many times they will play it. This psychologist would be best described as A. an introspectionist. B. a behaviorist. C. a cognitive psychologist. D. materialistic.

B

7. Which is an advantage of behaviorism over introspectionism? A. Behaviorism provides a framework for studying thoughts that are not accessible by introspection. B. Behavior is not determined by free will. C. Behaviorists performed strictly controlled experiments that would be easy to repeat in another laboratory. D. Behaviorism provides an explanation for the internal processes relating stimuli and response.

B

8. Techniques for studying the brain that have high spatial resolution tell us _____ an activity is occurring; techniques with high temporal resolution tell us _____ an activity is occurring. A. when; where B. where; when C. how; when D. where; how

B

9. Gauthier and Tarr (1997) made up a set of non-face objects, called greebles. After their subjects had learned to make fine discriminations among greebles over many trials, the subjects A. had more trouble with changes in orientation of greebles than of other objects. B. were very good at identifying greebles, but showed no unique effects in processing them. C. preferred looking at greebles to looking at faces. D. both A and B

B

9. Relative to event related potential measurement, functional magnetic resonance imaging has _____ temporal resolution and _____ spatial resolution. A. better; worse B. worse; better C. equal; better D. better; equal

B

9. Which of the following suggest most strongly that people identify faces using global or holistic properties? A. A picture of a face with someone else's nose added is recognized less well than the original picture. B. A picture of a face with the eyes moved wider apart is recognized less well than the original picture. C. Both A and B are equally good evidence for global or holistic face identification. D. Neither A nor B suggest that face identification is a global or holistic process.

B

1. Psychologists suggest there are two main types of attention, the kind of attention involved in _____ and the kind of attention involved in _____. A. binding, automaticity B. early selection, late selection C. complex action; perception D. vision; audition

C

13. The Psychological Refractory Period (PRP) paradigm has been used by Pashler and others to study central attention. With two basic tasks that start together, we generally find that increasing the difficulty of response selection for the stimulus for task 1 _____ the time required to respond to task 2, and that increasing the difficulty of response selection for the stimulus for task 2 ____ the time to respond to task 2. A. increases; increases B. decreases; decreases C. increases; does not change D. does not change; increases

C

5. Cognitive psychologists emphasize the study of general principle over the study of individual cases because A. it is difficult to study individuals scientifically. B. similarities are more important than differences. C. understanding similarities allows an understanding of differences. D. it is difficult to draw generalizable conclusions about individual differences.

C

5. Consider an experiment in which subjects were asked to imagine themselves walking from one location to another on campus. Given what you know about mental images, you might best predict that A. it will take the same time to imagine the walk as the walk would actually take. B. the time to imagine the walk will be unrelated to the actual distance of the walk. C. longer walks will take more time to imagine, but there will be no proportional relation between imagining time and distance. D. the time to imagine a walk will be proportional to the distance walked.

C

6. Kosslyn's studies of mental imagery tasks serve as evidence for analog representation because A. people were not sensitive to nonspatial, hierarchical, propositional information when they made judgments about maps. B. people showed more interference on visual tasks than auditory tasks. C. people showed a similar pattern of responses for scanning images and scanning physical scenes. D. people took longer to verify the details of larger mental images.

C

6. The very famous psychological phenomenon called the "cocktail party effect" refers to... A. the ability to focus on a single speaker despite your cognitive abilities being partially degraded by intoxication with alcohol B. the tendency for you to have your attention captured by someone speaking you name C. the ability to focus on a single speaker despite a large amount of other speech and noise D. the tendency to be distracted by surrounding noise and speech when trying to concentrate on a single speaker

C

7. Treisman and Gormican (1988) found that it is easier to spot a tilted line in a background of vertical lines than to spot a vertical line in a background of tilted lines. Their explanation was that A. it is easier to perform template matching on a tilted line. B. the background of tilted lines will pop out. C. tilted lines have an extra feature compared to vertical lines. D. the differences between vertical lines and tilted lines is encoded as a spatial relation.

C

8. What is a geon? A. a kind of format B. a simple feature of an object, such as a vertical edge C. a basic object part that is present in many different objects D. a template representing the shape of a whole object

C

10. With regard to multiple resource theory, which of the following dual task situations should theoretically show the LEAST resource conflict? A. reading for comprehension while taking dictation B. giving directions to someone over the phone while playing a video game C. writing a term paper while singing along to the radio D. driving a car while talking on a cell phone

D

2. The span of apprehension is a limit on A. the number of items that someone can hold in long-term memory B. the number of items that someone can hold in short-term memory C. the number of items that someone can hold in sensory memory D. the number of items that can be comprehended in a short period of time

D

2. Which best describes the relation between analog and propositional representations? A. Some kinds of knowledge may be represented in an analog manner but are impossible to represent in a propositional manner. B. For spatial layout information, a propositional representation is easier to update than an analog representation. C. Analog representations are better than propositional representations. D. Analog and propositional representations may contain the same information, but one representation may make some kinds of information more accessible.

D

4. One of the major challenges to doing research in cognitive psychology is that A. it is difficult to construct good control groups. B. one has to rely on intuition. C. it is difficult to arrive at valid operational definitions. D. any of the measures are indirect.

D

7. Anit is trying to remember what kind of buttons were on a shirt she tried on yesterday. Based on research about mental imagery, Anit might be advised to try A. imagining the shirt with and without the buttons. B. increasing the size of the mental image of the shirt. C. imagining the shirt rotating in a complete circle on the hanger. D. imagining herself wearing the shirt.

D

7. Which is a crucial difference between early-selection and late-selection theories of attention? A. Early-selection theories suggest that attentional limits are due to short-term memory limits. B. Late-selection theories suggest that attentional limits are due to iconic memory limits. C. Early-selection theories suggest that many input channels are processed in parallel after they reach iconic memory. D. Late-selection theories suggest that many input channels are processed in parallel until they reach short-term memory.

D

8. According to Kahneman's (1973) capacity theory of attention, A. two tasks will be difficult to perform at the same time if they both draw significantly from the same limited pool of resources. B. shifts in resource allocation priorities can lead to shifts in performance. C. multiple tasks that do not require much cognitive effort should not interfere with each other. D. all of the above

D

9. It is typically much easier to have a serious conversation while cooking dinner than while reading a novel because A. cooking and talking depend on resources from the same resource pool. B. cooking and talking depend on resources from different resource pools. C. reading and talking depend on resources from the same resource pool. D. both B and C

D

"Bird's-eye view" knowledge of how to get from point A to point B is route knowledge; knowledge gained by walking the path from point A to point B is survey knowledge.

F

Automaticity develops faster for varied mapping tasks than it does for consistent mapping tasks

F

Mental images of perceptually reversible figures are not reversible.

F

With sufficient practice, varied mapping visual search tasks can be performed as parallel search.

F

Research on theoretical Turing machines suggests that the human brain is structured similarly to a computer

False

The primary criticism of behaviorism in human psychology is its failure to adequately deal with stimulus-response learning

False

The picture-superiority effect describes the finding that pictures are typically remembered better than words.

T

When people judge Reno (in Nevada) to be east of Los Angeles (in California) on the basis of Nevada being east of California, they are basing their judgments on incongruent superordinate knowledge.

T

A Turing test is a method by which we might decide if a computer is able to "think".

True

Attentional mechanisms of perceptual enhancement primarily work by reducing internal noise in order to better process external signals.

True

Behaviorism describes learning in terms of observable, objective, external stimuli and responses

True

Characterizing human performance in terms of information processing was one of the key ideas in cognitive psychology

True

In general, analog representations of spatial information will be easier to update than propositional representations of the same information.

True

Most early selection theories of attention require that the attentional bottleneck must be located before features are compiled into objects

True