Human Cognitive Processes (Ch. 12 & 13)

Which concept below is most closely associated with the evolutionary perspective to solving the Wason four-card problem?

Social-exchange theory

Consider the following syllogism: Premise 1: All dogs are cats. Premise 2: All cats say "meow." Conclusion: Therefore, all dogs say "meow." Which statement below describes this syllogism?

The conclusion is valid

Warmth judgments on nearness to a solution ____ prior to the solution of an insight problem and ____ prior to the solution of a non-insight problem.

rise suddenly just; gradually rise

Newell and Simon were early pioneers in designing computer programs that could solve problems. Their research program was based on the idea that problem solving is a process that involves

search

Donovan volunteers his time to campaign for Joel Goodman. He spent all afternoon putting up "Goodman for Congress" signs around his town and arrived back at Goodman headquarters just in time to watch the Goodman-Hernandez debate on TV. Donovan was eager to watch the candidates debate each other, even though he was 100% sure he was going to vote for Goodman. Donovan's first response to the debate will most likely be

"Did you hear how well Goodman answered that question on job creation?"

A researcher records a brainstorming session in an industrial research and development department rather than in an artificial laboratory setting. Later, she analyzes the recorded discussions, identifying certain problem-solving techniques. This research is an example of ____ research.

. in vivo problem-solving

____ identified people's tendency to focus on a specific characteristic of a problem that keeps them from arriving at a solution as a major obstacle to successful problem solving.

Gestalt psychologists

Which of the following is not part of a complete definition of a problem?

Has one correct answer

Which of the following statements would most likely invoke the operation of a permission schema?

If I get an A on my cognitive psychology exam, I can go out with my friends Saturday night.

Which problem provides an example of how functional fixedness can hinder solution of a problem?

Two-string problem

Which of the following provides the best example of functional fixedness?

Using a juice glass as a container for orange juice

Jonas bought a new leather jacket after saving for many months for the luxury purchase. On the first day he went out wearing the new garment, he found a $50 bill on the sidewalk outside of his office. He now refers to the jacket as his "lucky jacket" and believes that it has some magical power to give him good fortune. Jonas's belief in the jacket's cosmic ability is an example of

an illusory correlation

The ability to shift experience from one problem solving situation to a similar problem is known as

analogical transfer.

By doing this, Dr. Curious is studying the effect of _____ on problem solving.

analogies

Derrick purchased a new car, a Ford Mustang, less than a month ago. While sitting in traffic, Derrick says to his girlfriend, "Mustangs must be the best-selling car now. I can't remember seeing as many on the road as I have recently." Derrick's judgment is most likely biased by a(n)

availability heuristic

The finding that people tend to incorrectly conclude that more people die from tornados than from asthma has been explained in terms of the

availability heuristic

In Kaplan and Simon's experiment, they presented different versions of the mutilated checkerboard problem. Participants in the ____ group had the fastest response time.

bread and butter

The typical purpose of subgoals is to

bring the problem solver closer and closer to the goal state.

Of the following real-world phenomena, the confirmation bias best explains the observation that people

can cite several reasons for their position on a controversial issue but none for the opposing side

Consider the following syllogism: If it's a robin then it is a bird. It is a bird. Therefore, it is a robin. In the example above, "Therefore, it is a robin" is a ____ of a ____ syllogism.

conclusion; conditional

If you are given the information that in order to vote in a presidential election, you must be at least 18 years of age, and that Will voted in the last presidential election, you can logically conclude that Will is at least 18 years old. This is an example of using _____ reasoning.

deductive

Greg was recounting a fishing tale of the one that got away: "I had a huge ahi tuna on my line. I fought for it for a few minutes, then my line snapped. The tuna swam away across the pond." Greg's friend, Matt, didn't believe his story because Matt knew that tuna are salt-water fish and aren't found in ponds. Greg's account contains

descriptive information that is inconsistent with base rate information.

Josiah is trying to decide whether or not to take a new job in a new city. He is worried that if he takes the job and fails, he will suffer from intense anxiety and depression. This is an example of

expected emotion

Cosmides and Tooby tested participants' ability to solve variations of the Wason problem, including ones containing stories about a particular culture. Their results showed that ____ is not always necessary for conditional reasoning.

familiarity

Juanita is in a convenience store considering which soda to buy. She recalls a commercial for BigFizz she saw on TV last night. BigFizz is running a promotion where you look under the bottle cap, and one in five bottles has a voucher for a free soda. If Juanita decides to purchase a BigFizz based on this promotion, which is framed in terms of _____, she will use a _____ strategy.

gains; risk-aversion

Experts categorize problems based on

general principles that problems share

After a substantial list has been created, they then go through every idea and rate its merits or deficits, until they come up with the best idea to pitch to the corporate sponsor. This process demonstrates

group brainstorming

There are two gumball machines outside the local grocery store, one large machine and one small machine. Both machines have only yellow and orange gumballs, and each machine contains 50 percent of each color. For each coin, the large gumball machine dispenses 15 gumballs, while the small machine dispenses 5. Tim is a young genius whose interests include probability and sound decision-making. His "probability project of the day" is to get a greater percentage of either of the colors, but not an equal amount of each color. Given this, and presuming Tim has only one coin,

he should use his coin in the small machine

One reason that most people do not easily solve the original (abstract) version of the Wason four-card problem is that they

ignore the falsification principle.

Kirk is a generally anxious person. His anxiety sometimes gets in the way when he tries to make decisions. The anxiety Kirk feels is an example of an ________ emotion.

incidental

Making probable conclusions based on evidence involves _____ reasoning.

inductive

In the Tower of Hanoi problem, the ________ state involves having three discs stacked on the left peg, with the middle and right pegs empty.

initial

Sanfey and coworkers' "ultimatum game" experiment revealed that people tended to make the ____ decision of ____.

irrational; accepting only high offers

The validity of a syllogism depends on

its form.

Your textbook suggests that a trait that appears to be common to both mental illness and creativity is ________.

latent inhibition

Gick and Holyoak proposed that analogical problem solving involves the following three steps:

noticing, mapping, and applying

Finke's "creating an object" experiment had participants create a novel object by combining parts. Once they created an object, they were given the name of an object category and instructed to interpret their creation as a practical object or device within that category. Finke used the term preinventive forms to describe the

novel objects before a function was described

Actions that take the problem from one state to another are known as

operators

Utility refers to

outcomes that achieve a person's goals

When the "abstract" version of the Wason four-card problem is compared to a "concrete" version of the problem (in which beer, soda, and ages are substituted for the letters and numbers),

performance is better for the concrete task

Gestalt psychologists consider problem solving as a process involving

reorganization or restructuring

The radiation problem can be solved using

representation and restructuring

Mr. Huff always passes back exams to his algebra class in descending order (the highest grade is handed out first). Today, Maddelyn was the first to receive her exam. Joy complained, remarking, "Maddelyn, you always get the highest grade in algebra. It was true all last year and so far this year." Maddelyn was not sure if this was correct. To figure out if this was true, Maddelyn should

search her memory for instances when she did get her exam back first and for instances when she did not

The water-jug problem demonstrates that one consequence of having a procedure that does provide a solution to a problem is that, if well-learned, it may prevent us from

seeing more efficient solutions to the problem

Considering the fortress and the radiation problems together, the fortress problem represents the _____ problem.

source

Gentner and Goldinmeadow (2003) illustrated that analogical encoding causes problem solvers to pay attention to ____ features that ____ their ability to solve other problems.

structural; enhance

The fortress problem involves a fortress and marching soldiers, while the radiation problem involves a tumor and rays. Therefore, the two problems have very different

surface features

Experts _____ than novices.

take a more effective approach to organizing the solution to a problem

Illustrative of functional fixedness, people are more likely to solve the candle problem if

the box is empty

Cecile has dreamed of owning her own home for years, and she can finally afford a small cottage in an older neighborhood. She notices that she feels more positive about her home when she drives home by the abandoned shacks, but she hates her home when driving past the fancy mansions with their large lawns. Cecile's emotions are influenced by

the framing effect

At a lunch meeting with a client, the CEO of Gossip Polls, Inc., was asked to determine America's favorite day of the week. Hundreds of Gossip employees across the U.S. started collecting data immediately, calling people at their residences. One hour later, the attitudes from 10,000 Americans, across all 50 states, were collected. A staff member called the CEO, still at her lunch meeting, to tell her the results of the poll: America's favorite day of the week is Monday. Given your text's discussion of inductive reasoning in science, we might suspect that the observations in this poll are not representative because

the people who are home to answer the phone in the early afternoon are not an appropriate cross-section of the U.S. population.

The conjunction rule states that

the probability of two events co-occurring is equal to or less than the probability of either event occurring alone.

Gabrielle is blonde, extremely attractive, and lives in an expensive condo. If we judge the probability of Gabrielle's being a model quite high because she resembles our stereotype of a model, we are using

the representativeness heuristic

Janet is alone in a room that contains a chair and a shelf with a book resting on top. She attempts to retrieve the book, but the shelf is a foot above her reach. How will Janet retrieve the book? Psychologists would NOT classify this scenario as a problem because

the solution is immediately obvious.

Insight refers to

the sudden realization of a problem's solution

Consider the following syllogism: All of the students are tired. Some tired people are irritable. Some of the students are irritable. It is likely that most people will judge this syllogism as

valid because this conclusion is believable

The best description of the purpose of think-aloud protocols is that they are used to determine

what information a person is attending to while solving a problem