Chapter 9

Anika resisted changing her answer to a test question after reminding herself that "it's always best to stick with your first answer." Anika's decision best illustrates the use of

a heuristic

Charlie got away with cheating in elementary and high school. Now in college there are test proctors who are more observant, Charlie spends as many hours devising new ways to cheat as it would take him to study and perform well in an honest fashion. Charlie's strategy for passing tests illustrates the consequences of

a mental set

Jamilla systematically tried each successive key on her dad's key ring until she found the one that unlocked his office door. This best illustrates problem solving by means of:

an algorithm

Noam Chomsky has emphasized that the acquisition of language by children is facilitated by

an inborn readiness to learn grammatical rules

Despite overwhelming and highly publicized evidence that Senator McEwan was guilty of serious political corruption and misconduct, many who had supported her in past elections remained convinced of her political integrity. Their reaction best illustrates

belief perseverance

Which term refers to all the mental activities associated with thinking, knowing, remembering, and communicating?

cognition

Because she believes that boys are naughtier than girls, Mrs. Zumpano, a second-grade teacher, watches boys more closely than she watches girls for any signs of misbehavior. Mrs. Zumpano's surveillance strategy best illustrates

confirmation bias

The inability to take a new perspective on a problem is called a

fixation

People told that a chemical in the air is projected to kill 10 out of every 10 million people feel more frightened than if told the fatality risk is one-tenth of a percent. This best illustrates the importance of

framing

Marlene forgot to bring a pillow on the camping trip, so she spent a very uncomfortable and restless night. Unfortunately, she never thought of using her down-filled jacket as a pillow. Marlene's oversight best illustrates:

functional fixedness

A sudden realization of the solution to a problem is called

insight

It has been suggested that Alaskan Eskimos' rich vocabulary for describing snow enables them to perceive differences in snow conditions that would otherwise go unnoticed. This suggestion most clearly illustrates

linguistic determinism

During the earliest stage of speech development, infants

make some speech sounds that do not occur in their parents' native language

B.F. Skinner emphasized the importance of _____ in language acquisition

reinforcement

The use of heuristics rather than algorithms is most likely to

save time in arriving at solutions

When her teacher mentioned the arms race, Krista understood that the word "arms" referred to weapons and not to body parts. Krista's correct interpretation best illustrates the importance of

semantics

A European visitor to the US asked a taxi driver, "Can you please a ride to the airport me give?" This visitor has apparently not yet mastered the ___ of the English language.

syntax

Dean overestimates the proportion of family chores for which he takes sole responsibility because it's easier for him to recall what he has done than to recall what other family members have done. This best illustrates the impact of

the availability heuristic

Many people perceive carjackings as more serious threats to their lives than failing to use seatbelts because carjackings are so much more memorable. This best illustrates the importance of

the availability heuristic

The word "prewraps" contains ___ phonemes and ___ morphemes.

7;3

At 17 months of age, Julia says "wada" whenever she wants a drink of water. Julie is most likely in the ___ stage of language development.

one-word

3 year old Rosalie complained, "Boris hinted me with a ball," she was illustrating the tendency of young children to

overgeneralize certain grammatical rules in sentence construction

When someone mentions Ivy League colleges, Trisha immediately thinks of Harvard University. In this instance, Harvard University is a

prototype

Miss Jan De Jong is orderly, neat, fairly quiet, and shy. She enjoys reading in her spare time and belongs to a social club that includes three librarians, nine real estate agents, and eight social workers. A tendency to conclude that Jan must be one of the three librarians would illustrate the powerful influence of:

the representativeness heuristic

Children being to demonstrate that they know how to put words in a sensible order during the ___ stage

two-word