exam 2 cognitive psych

silviera (1971) conducted a classic experiment using the cheap necklace problem. what was found?

a break helped problem solving if enough preparation time was provided

things you might take on vacation is what type of category?

ad hoc

betty sue has been trying for some time to have children. she goes to her physician to determine the cause and is shocked to find that although female in all other ways, she is genetically male (e.g. XY chromosome). what is the name of for this phenomenon?

androgen insensitivity syndrome

which kind of categories are objects or conventions designed by humans to serve particular functions?

artifact

the ___ is a decision making process when decisions are based on how easily examples come to mind or the number of examples that come to mind

availability heuristic

betty has arrived at her office and believes she smells a gas leak, she reports this to her supervisor. robert says he doesn't smell anything and she's imagining things. who is most likely to be right?

betty

sarah is watching the roulette wheel and the ball drops on black 8 times in a row. she is determined that the next time the roulette wheel will drop on red. which decision making error has she committed?

bias in judging sequences

the wisconsin card sorting task requires a participant to use information from recent experience to plan and coordinate their actions, this test is commonly used to assess the ___ component of working memory.

central executive

which part of working memory plays a major role in attention, planning and coordination?

central executive

the ___ is a technique developed for interviewing eyewitnesses which is based on some specific retrieval techniques and has been shown to increase recall of information without increasing intrusions (false recall or recognition).

cognitive interview

in class we conducted a demonstration in which many students falsely remembered words which were not presented (using the deese-roediger & mcdermott paradigm). these types of memory errors are known as errors of ___.

comission

james is trying to decide which colleges he wants to apply to, he has narrowed his choices to those in his home state of Texas, his now looking at the colleges and comparing price, atmosphere, and location - for example, while UT austin is somewhat pricey, it has a great location, but west texas is inexpensive, but not an ideal location, essentially he is allowing positive attributes to compensate for negative attributes - what type of decision making is he engaging in?

compensatory decision making

which of the following is referred to as the fundamental unit of thought?

concept

to study memory in infants, research is often conducted in which certain behaviors are linked to rewards, this is referred to as ___

conjugate reinforcement

___ are developmental stages during which children are able to acquire certain abilities such as language and depth perception

critical periods

in smith's feature comparison model, which of the following is essential to the meaning of a concept?

defining feature

___ occurs when we are processing the meaning of information in working memory.

elaborative rehearsal

the finding that performed tasks are remembered better than those that are read about is known as ___.

enactment effect

according to the encoding specificity principle, the match between ___ and retrieval is a critical component of memory.

encoding

which type of memory is involved in remembering what you did last weekend?

episodic

___ is the temporary storehouse where you can gather information from the phonological loop, visuo-spatial sketchpad and episodic memory.

episodic buffer

which of the following hormones has been associated with improvements in episodic memory and has been shown to protect the hippocampus and restore hippocampal damage?

estrogen

when asked to describe a police officer, you might recall some specific people you know who are in law enforcement - which theory of category representation discussed in class does this describe?

exemplar

___ is an explanation of decision making which is based on costs and benefits. this is a rational theory that states that we choose those decisions that pay off best

expected value theory

according to the hemisphere encoding-retrieval asymmetry model, both frontal lobes are equally involved in both encoding and retrieval of episodic memories

false

brain development is primarily determined by genetics

false

infants prefer to look at things they have seen a lot and are familiar with

false

maintenance rehearsal is more effective than elaborative rehearsal

false

studies of memory for the events surrounding tragedies (such as the Challenger disaster, 9/11 etc) show that memory for these events is like a flashbulb in which more details are recalled later than an average day.

false

there is a great deal of empirical evidence supporting the notion that we each have our own learning style

false

we are very good at determining how well we have learned material without testing ourselves.

false

___ is when we recognize something as recent memory but cannot fully recollect the details.

familiarity

in a sentence verification task testing smith's feature comparison model, which of the following would occur when there are few shared features?

fast no

in a sentence verification task testing smith's feature comparison model, which of the following would occur when there are a large number of shared features?

fast yes

___ are better at identifying, categorizing and perceiving odors which is likely due to the hormone ___

females: progesterone

in class we discussed a problem with the normative models of decision making in which psychologists have determined that when decisions are framed in terms of gain, we are risk adverse but when decisions are framed in terms of loss, we are risk-seeking. this is known as ___

framing effect

according to dr. merritt's lecture, ___ is both biologically and socially determined

gender

in the levels of processing framework, which of the following would involve "deep" processing?

generating a synonymous word

roger has decided to conduct a study on memory, he wants to maximize performance so rather than have participants simply study items themselves. for example, he gives them HOT: ??? and subjects are asked to indicate the first word that comes to mind, later they are given a free recall test for those items they came up with. roger is trying to capitalize on the well known ___ effect to improve memory performance.

generation effect

individuals with greater working memory capacity tend to have ___.

greater verbal fluency

___ are cognitive short-cuts that involve informal, intuitive strategies for both decision making and problem solving

heuristics

on a recent monday morning, will truman arrives at the office and drops by the water cooler to greet his colleagues. they are discussing the colorado state - utah football game from saturday. will overhears one of the "monday morning quarterbacks" say "i knew that play was not going to work" - will's colleague's overconfidence in his ability to know the outcome of this play after it occurred is called:

hindsight bias

which of the following factors influences one's speed and ability to solve a problem?

how the person represents the problem, the person's short-term memory capacity, the way the problem is stated, the environment in which the problem is given

based on the discussion of depth of processing or levels of processing in class, which is more important - amount of time spent studying or how we study?

how we study

sophia is interested in psychology and she has discovered that birth order is very important, she finds that graduate students are more likely to be first born children. what decision making bias is she guilty of using?

ignoring prior probabilities

___ problems refer to problems with no clear starting point and no clear, readily available path to the solution

ill-defined

studies have shown that students to not often test themselves when studying. unfortunately, they report re-reading and massed practice of material which leads to ___ in which the students feel like they have learned the material but really have not.

illusions of competence

what is of the following is NOT one of the functions of testing yourself while studying that was described in class?

impedes progress because of mistakes

___ is memory for which we have no conscious awareness.

implicit

following a traumatic brain injury, which of the following types of memory is most likely to be unaffected by the injury?

implicit memory

___ refers to a period of rest, following a period of effort in problem solving during which the problem solver puts aside the problem for a while, thereby permitting greater mental flexibility so that insights may arise

incubation

___ occurs when there is competition from new or old material which results in loss of information and is thought to be the mechanism of forgetting from working memory.

interference

which of the following is NOT true regarding gender differences in verbal abilities?

males and females are similar in their writing proficiency

which of the following is a physical difference between males and females?

males have larger brains, males are more often left handed, females have more body fat

when solving the hobbits and orcs problem, helen consistently moves as many hobbits and orcs over the river as she can, while staying within the limits of the rules. she does so in an attempt to reduce the differences between the current state and the goal state as quickly as possible. this is an example of which type of strategy:

means-end analysis

tom and i are betting on a coin toss. if it comes up heads, he will pay me $20, if it comes up tails, i will pay him $10. what is the value of this bet for me, based on expected value theory?

$5

elvira, mistress of the dark has decided to conduct a set of psychology experiments. she is testing her new memory enhancing potion and has designed a battery of tests to give to her subjects. first, she uses a verbal rehearsal task in which she presents participants with short lists of words to remember, to accomplish this task participants will rehearse (i.e. say them to themselves) and then report which items they were able to remember. in her second task, participants complete the vandenburg-kuse test of mental rotation where they are required to determine which of 4 alternatives match a given object, rotated to a different view. which of elvira's tasks will most likely be accomplished by the right hemisphere of her participants' brains?

mental rotation

___ is our knowledge and awareness of our own memory.

metamemory

mink stole is getting ready to head to the grocery store to pick up supplies for a fabulous cocktail party she's throwing. rather than make a list, she attempts to remember the items she needs by imagining them in various locations along the way to the store. this way she can picture the route and the associated items needed. what mnemonic technique has she used?

method of Loci

which is more important for memory performance, the total time we spend studying or the way in which we study?

method of study

in class we discussed a series of studies testing the ___ in which Elizabeth and colleagues were able to demonstrate that by including a misleading piece of information during questioning (i.e. how fast was the car going when it passed the barn?), participants were more likely to incorrectly remember the original event (i.e. remembering a barn that was never there)

misinformation effect

"flowers" and "animals" essentially define themselves and are therefore which kind of category?

natural

mary anne is out shopping for a new car. concerned about the recent rise in gas prices, she has decided she will only consider cars which have an EPA rating of 35 MPG or higher on the highway. which of the choice models of decision making discussed in class has mary anne adopted?

non-compensatory decision making

in the collins & quilian hierarchical model, which of the following represents associations between concepts?

pathway

elvira, mistress of the dark has decided to conduct a set of psychology experiments. she is testing her new memory enhancing potion and has designed a battery of tests to give to her subjects. first, she uses a verbal rehearsal task in which she presents participants with short lists of words to remember, to accomplish this task participants will rehearse (i.e. say them to themselves) and then report which items they were able to remember. in her second task, participants complete the vandenburg-kuse test of mental rotation where they are required to determine which of 4 alternatives match a given object, rotated to a different view. which component of baddeley's model of working memory has elvira tested with her verbal rehearsal task?

phonological loop

___ refers to infant's and children's brains changing over time which allows them to recover more quickly and fully from injury than adults

plasticity

steve spurrier has decided he needs a career change, so he has decided to take the Law School Admissions Test (LSAT) which is a highly speeded test - it is designed to be difficult, if not impossible to finish in the time allotted - which of the following would be the most effective study strategy for Marty?

practice for the exam by completing similar exams under the same time pressure as he will experience in the LSAT

paul has reached the age of 43 and has found himself holding his cell phone and anything he is trying to read further and further from his eyes in order to clearly see. which of the following is Paul most likely suffering from?

presbyopia

book : read :: cassette : ___. this is an example of a:

problem of inducing structure

under greeno's typology, what would the following problem be classified as?

problem of inducing structure

originally it was thought that short-term or working memory capacity was 7+/-2 items, however modern views of working memory hold that this capacity is best explained by ___.

pronunciation time

when asked to describe a typical construction worker, you might picture a man in a hard-hat, even though you may never have seen this particular person before - this demonstrates which theory of category representation discussed in class?

prototype

___ occurs when we specifically recall the context and details of a memory.

recollection

stereotyping is a decision making bias that occurs due to use of the ___ heuristic

representativeness

ryan has a big anatomy test coming up. prior to his big study session ryan has a fight with his partner and is in a sad mood while studying for his exam. if ryan wants to maximize his performance on the exam, what mood should he be in when he takes the exam?

sad

___ is an organized knowledge structure that reflects an individual's knowledge, experience, and expectations about some aspect of the world.

schema

which type of memory is required to remember the fact that the capitol of maine is augusta?

semantic

carrie bradshaw is getting ready for an exam. she spends a couple of hours each night studying for her exam for 2 weeks prior to the exam. as part of her routine she has decaffeinated tea to drink and smokes a cigarette just before studying and during a quick break in the middle of studying, so she can have a steady level of nicotine. based on what you know about state-dependent learning, what should carrie do prior to the exam?

smoke a cigarette so she's under the influence of nicotine at study and test

which of the following is true regarding the effect of spacing out testing on retention?

spacing out testing results in dramatic improvements

in class we discussed a study by loftus & palmer (1974) in which participants viewed a video of a car crash and were asked to estimate how fast the cars were going when the accident occurred. the critical variable was how the question was framed - e.g. how fast were the cars going when they smashed/collided/bumped/hit/contacted each other - what did the investigators find?

speed estimates increased with increasing strength of the description

which of the following is NOT an effective study technique?

studying material during one long session

in a study by godden and baddely (1975) the investigators examined the effect of environment on memory using scuba divers as subjects in which participants were tested both on solid ground and underwater. what was found?

subjects remembered more information underwater than on shore if they studied underwater

in a study examining mental rotation performance in college age females, one study determined that performance could be improved by:

testosterone supplementation

people commonly believe that the sequence of dice rolls "1-2-3-4-5-6" is much less probable than the sequence "3-2-6-1-2-4." this reflects ____

the belief that the second sequence better represents the typical outcome of rolling dice

what is the "spacing effect?" (i.e. massed vs. distributed practice)

the finding that memory for material is improved if studying is spaced out over time (distributed) rather than all at once (massed)

which of the following brain structures is necessary for the formation of new memories?

the hippocampus

bette is trying to memorize a new set of jokes for her new Caesar's Palace act. She is using maintenance rehearsal (saying the lines over and over again to herself) to commit the jokes to memory. what component of working memory is she using to accomplish this task?

the phonological loop

bette is studying for her upcoming exams. she has some pretty tough classes, so she has adopted a strategy of studying the material which is just beyond her current abilities - she thinks she should "stretch" her knowledge by starting with material just past what she can easily comprehend, and then once that material is mastered she can move on to the next, more difficult material. bette has correctly identified an effective strategy we discussed in class - what is this called?

the region of proximal learning

dorothy is at home reading her favorite book, harry potter and the order of phoenix, she likes to imagine what is happening during the book while she is reading and generates visual images in her mind of what is occurring in the text. what component of working memory is she using to accomplish this task?

the visuospatial sketchpad

which of the following is true regarding the psychological task pictured?

this is known as the tower of london; patient H.M. was capable of learning this task without remembering; this is a problem of transformation using Greeno's typology

bob is at home making dinner and he places loaves of bread in the oven which need to bake for 12 minutes. bob does not have a timer so he will have to remember to take the bread out in 12 minutes. this is an example of what kind of task?

time-based prospective memory

infants have an innate knowledge of physics

true

older adults are less likely to suffer from mind wandering than young adults

true

what is an effective way of representing the buddhist monk problem (in which the monk climbs up and down a mountain at various speeds, etc.)?

use a figure

individuals with greater working memory capacity have been shown to have greater ___.

verbal fluency

elvira, mistress of the dark has decided to conduct a set of psychology experiments. she is testing her new memory enhancing potion and has designed a battery of tests to give to her subjects. first, she uses a verbal rehearsal task in which she presents participants with short lists of words to remember, to accomplish this task participants will rehearse (i.e. say them to themselves) and then report which items they were able to remember. in her second task, participants complete the vandenburg-kuse test of mental rotation where they are required to determine which of 4 alternatives match a given object, rotated to a different view. if elvira added an articulatory suppression task (i.e. having subjects say a word over and over) while conducting her other tasks, which one is most likely to show a reduction in performance?

verbal rehearsal

elvira, mistress of the dark has decided to conduct a set of psychology experiments. she is testing her new memory enhancing potion and has designed a battery of tests to give to her subjects. first, she uses a verbal rehearsal task in which she presents participants with short lists of words to remember, to accomplish this task participants will rehearse (i.e. say them to themselves) and then report which items they were able to remember. in her second task, participants complete the vandenburg-kuse test of mental rotation where they are required to determine which of 4 alternatives match a given object, rotated to a different view. which component of baddeley's model of working memory has elvira tested with her mental rotation task?

visuospatial sketchpad

in real-world situations, it is almost always the case that semantic processing during learning leads to better memory than other forms of processing. how would the encoding specificity principle explain this?

we tend to retrieve information based on meaning

which of the following is true regarding desirable difficulties and the region of proximal learning?

you should focus on material that is just beyond your current skill level such that it requires effort but is not impossible

which of the following is NOT true regarding the use of lineups and photospreads when dealing with an eyewitness crime?

- can introduce bias - INSTRUCTIONS ARE IRRELEVANT - presenting lineup sequentially reduces false id's - reinstating context improves accuracy

you have watched a fair coin come up heads three times in a row. you decide to bet $10 on the next coin toss, and based on the previous coin tosses, you choose tails. what is the likelihood that tails will come up in this situation?

1/2 or 50%