Cognitive Final

When presented with a list of words along a theme (e.g., "bed," "rest," "slumber," "dream," "tired"), participants often (mis)recall the theme word as part of the list (e.g., "sleep"). This procedure is commonly referred to as the

Deese-Roediger-McDermott procedure.

A lemon that has been painted red, white, and blue and then run over by a car is still likely to be categorized as a lemon. Which of the following is NOT an accurate description of why this might be?

Superficial things like color do not play a role in categorization.

You want to order a pizza and need to pay with a credit card. You glance at your credit card number and then put the card back into your wallet. When it comes time to pay, you can only remember the first four numbers. Which of the following provides the best explanation as to why?

The pizza delivery guy keeps talking while you are rehearsing the digits.

When identifying nonword letter strings that are presented very briefly, participants tend to make specific kinds of errors. How would these errors be best described?

They tend to misidentify strange letter combinations as more common letter combinations

Categorization models based on family resemblance rely on

feature overlap among the members of a category.

A researcher hypothesizes that high doses of caffeine can produce context-dependent learning. To confirm this hypothesis, the researcher would need to show that

if participants study the material while drinking a great deal of coffee, they will remember the material better if they drink a great deal of coffee while taking the memory test.

The task of shadowing involves

immediately repeating, word for word, the contents of a message.

Intrusion errors in memory are errors

in which other knowledge intrudes into the remembered event.

Week after week, Solomon watched his favorite TV show. He never planned to memorize the characters' names and he never took any steps to memorize them. Nonetheless, he soon knew them all. This sort of learning is called

incidental

Which of the Gestalt principles states that we tend to perceive objects in groups?

proximity

If a participant is asked to perform two activities at the same time, performance will be improved if

the two activities are highly dissimilar, drawing on different task-specific resources

A participant is shown a series of stimuli and is asked to name the color of the ink in which the stimuli are printed. The eighth stimulus happens to be printed in green ink. We should expect a relatively slow response if the stimulus happens to be

the word "RED" printed in green.

Attention is limited in several ways. Sometimes we can complete competing tasks at the same time, but sometimes we cannot because the tasks interfere with each other. Which combination of tasks is likely to cause the LEAST amount of interference?

two tasks that require different task-specific resources

Which of the following is NOT an attribute of working memory (sometimes called short-term memory)?

unlimited storage capacity

A CT or computerized axial tomography scan

uses X-rays to study the living brain's anatomy.

The helper that stores visual materials is called the

visuospatial sketchpad.

In order to summarize the Gestalt psychologists' movement in a few words, one might say

"The perceptual whole is different than the sum of its parts."

Among its other functions, the amygdala seems to serve as a(n)

"emotional evaluator" or threat detector.

In an experimental procedure, participants hear a sequence of letters and then, a moment later, are required to repeat back the sequence. The longest sequence for which participants can easily do this is likely to contain approximately ________ letters.

7

It has been suggested that a rigid definition for a category is not possible and that resemblance (much like a family resemblance) may be more appropriate. Why is this the case

Categorization is very often a matter of degree, not an all-or-none process.

We cannot prevent memory errors, but can they be detected?

Correctc. Currently there is no reliable detector.

Dmitri witnessed a bank robbery but now seems unable to remember what he saw. To improve Dmitri's recall, a friend hypnotizes him and asks him, while he is hypnotized, to recall the crime. Research indicates that if questioned while under hypnosis

Dmitri will not give a more accurate account of the crime than he has on other occasions.

In each trial of an experiment, participants see a warning signal and then, a half second later, see a pair of letters. The participants press one button if the letters are the same (e.g., W W ) and a different button if the letters are different (e.g., P X ). In 80% of the trials, the warning signal is identical to the letters that will be shown on that trial. The following are the warning signals and the test stimuli presented on Trial 97 of the procedure: Group 1: warning signal = L; test pair = L L Group 2: warning signal = U; test pair = L L Group 3: warning signal = +; test pair = L L In this setup we should expect the fastest responses from

Group 1 and the slowest responses from Group 2

The face/vase example illustrates what important principle of perceptual organization?

If the figure and the background are ambiguous, the image can be interpreted in multiple ways

A vertical line (like the "l" in "line") could activate all of the following nodes in a feature net EXCEPT

O

Which of the following claims regarding schema-based knowledge is FALSE?

Schema-based knowledge relies on remembering specific information within a memory (e.g., although shelves normally contain books, I remember that those shelves contain only boxes).

Jenna sees a picture of a black lab standing in front of its owner. The dog is blocking part of the owner's leg, so that some of the leg is unavailable to Jenna. How is Jenna likely to perceive this image?

She will think the leg continues behind the body of the dog.

The Necker cube is an example of an ambiguous figure. Which of the following statements regarding the cube is FALSE?

The lines on the page contradict one another and so a cube can never be perceived.

Which of the following is an example of a question that leads to deep processing?

What is the meaning of the word "tantalizing"?

A behaviorist, like John Watson, is LEAST likely to believe which of the following statements?

When it comes to collecting data, introspection is as valuable as behavior.

You are watching TV when a commercial advertising a new pizza place in town comes on. You decide you want pizza and try to memorize the phone number given in the commercial. Just as you are about to dial, your cell phone rings and you talk on the phone for a few minutes. What is MOST likely to happen after you finish your call?

You have forgotten the phone number and must rewind your DVR to retrieve it.

In a visual search, we expect reaction times for recognition to be slowest for

a green vertical line amongst red vertical lines and green horizontal lines

The word-superiority effect refers to the fact that it is easier to recognize

a letter within the context of a word than it is to recognize a letter presented by itself.

Theories of spreading activation assume that activating one node will lead to

all connected nodes being activated.

A late selection view of attention suggests that

all inputs are fully processed; however, only the attended input reaches consciousness.

Which situation is the LEAST difficult (and least dangerous)?

an experienced driver driving home

Ben and Quinn both have lesions in their left frontal lobes. Ben has trouble producing speech; Quinn has difficulties comprehending speech. Both Ben and Quinn are likely to receive a diagnosis of

aphasia

A bigram detector fires in response to the

appropriate letter pair.

When using the digit-span task, the capacity of working memory is estimated to be

approximately seven chunks.

Change blindness demonstrates that

attention is not sufficient for perception.

The memory that contains the full recollection of our lives is referred to as _____ memory.

autobiographical

If asked to name as many birds as they can, participants are most likely to name

birds resembling the prototype (e.g., robin, sparrow)

What sort of processing is dependent on factors in the environment or in the stimulus?

bottom-up

Positron emission tomography (PET) scans show

brain areas that are currently consuming a particularly high level of glucose

A participant who is asked to recall a series of numbers chooses to think about the numbers as though they were years (e.g., 1, 9, 9, 7 becomes "The year I turned 16"). The participant is organizing information into the memory unit known as a(n)

chunk

The term "top-down processing" can be interchanged with the term "________ processing."

concept-driven

Attention is necessary for

conscious perception

Data indicate that, all things being equal, recall performance will be BEST if materials are encoded with _____ processing.

deep

The operations through which we gain new knowledge, retain that knowledge, and later use that knowledge are often divided into three categories. Which of the following is NOT one of those categories?

deliberation

Which of the following tasks is LEAST appropriate as a means of testing implicit memory?

direct memory testing

Mistakes in word reading occur under a feature-net model of recognition. This results because the feature net encourages ________ over ________.

efficiency; accuracy

For most recall tests, the transfer of items into long-term storage is BEST facilitated by _____ rehearsal.

elaborative

Someone versed in memory research could plant false memories in his or her friends or family. Imagine you want to perform such an (unethical) act. Which technique is LEAST likely to be effective in planting the false memories?

electrical shock

Marcus is searching for a red square among an array of red and blue squares. Marcus is easily (and quickly) able to identify the red square because he is engaged in a ________ search.

feature

When engaged in a _____ search, set size does not matter. However, when engaged in a _____ search, set size has an impact on performance.

feature; combination

The cortex makes up the surface of what brain structure?

forebrain

Which lobe or cortex is farthest from the cerebellum?

frontal

Herbert says, "I can't figure out where I've seen that person before, but I know that I have seen her before!" Herbert

has a sense of familiarity but no source memory for the face.

Which of the following does NOT name a hypothesis concerning why we forget?

hypermnesia

Participants are instructed to fixate on a point on a computer screen and report on a "+" sign that appears off to one side. After several trials, the fixation point is replaced by a new shape, but the participants do not notice this change. This is a study of

innatentional blindness

You are shown an odd-looking image and asked to identify it. According to our knowledge of object recognition, your first step would be gathering the raw data, and the second would be ________ data.

interpreting the

A participant is asked to look within himself or herself and report on his or her own mental processes. This method is called

introspection

Liz is trying to remember what she read in a text chapter, but she inadvertently mixes into her recall her own assumptions about the material covered in the chapter. This is an example of

intrusion errors.

Introspection is considered the first step toward a science of cognitive psychology because

it was the first systematic attempt to observe and record the content of mental processes.

An important theme emerging from memory research is that memory connections

make memories easier to locate but can lead to intrusion errors.

The term "basic-level category" refers to the

most natural level of categorization, which is neither too specific nor too general.

A patient has suffered brain damage and, as a result, now seems to ignore all information on the left side of her world. If shown words, she reads only the right half of the word; if asked to copy a picture, she copies only the right half. This patient seems to be suffering from

neglect syndrome.

A feature net is a

network of cognitive "detectors" organized in hierarchical layers.

A number of techniques have been developed that allow us to examine the moment-by-moment activity levels of specifically defined brain areas. These techniques are called

neuroimaging techniques.

Reuben is visiting the aquarium and has just seen an octopus for the very first time. Reuben is therefore likely to have

only exemplar-based knowledge for the concept of octopus.

The phrase "Betsy wants to bring Jacob a present. She shook her piggy bank" is easily understood by most people because

our previous knowledge fills in the necessary details.

A participant is asked, "In the list of words I showed you earlier, was there a word that rhymed with 'lake'?" The participant is likely to be well prepared for this sort of memory test if he or she

paid attention to the sounds of the words when trying to memorize them.

Participants viewed a series of slides depicting an automobile accident. Immediately afterward, half of the participants were asked, "How fast were the cars going when they hit each other?" The other participants were asked, "How fast were the cars going when they smashed into each other?" One week later, all participants were asked more questions about the slides, including whether they had seen any broken glass in the slides. A comparison of the two groups of participants is likely to show that

participants who were asked the "smashed" question gave higher estimates of speed and were more likely to remember seeing broken glass.

An experimenter reads a list of 30 words to a group of participants at the rate of one word per second. This is immediately followed by a free-recall test. A second group of participants hears the same 30 words presented at the faster rate of two words per second. We should expect that the group hearing the slower presentation will show improved memory performance for the

pre-recency portion of the list, but there will be no impact on the recency effect.

The term "introspection" refers to the

process of each person looking within, to observe his or her own thoughts and ideas.

Top-down mechanisms suggest that

processing can be driven by knowledge and expectations.

Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) uses a strong magnetic pulse to

produce a temporary disruption to the brain area, and thus brain function, where it is applied.

Capgras syndrome and other cognitive disorders are useful because they

provide information about normal cognitive functioning

Within working memory, "helpers" like the visuospatial sketchpad and phonological loop

provide short-term storage of items likely to be needed soon by the central executive.

Like patients with Korsakoff 's syndrome, H.M. has difficulty with

recall

The form of brain damage identified as prosopagnosia is primarily characterized by an inability to

recognize faces.

A participant reads a list of words in which the word "elephant" appears several times. Later, the participant tachistoscopically views another list of words. When the word "elephant" appears in the second list, the participant's response rate is faster than for other words not found on the previous list. This effect is called

repetition priming.

Cognitive psychology often relies on the transcendental method, in which

researchers seek to infer the properties of unseen events on the basis of the observable effects of those events.

Memory schemas, or schemata, serve as representations of our _____ knowledge.

semantic

Which of these is LEAST important for memory acquisition?

shallow processing

You should be skeptical of "recovered" memories that were repressed because

some recovered memories turn out to be false memories suggested by therapists.

In many circumstances, participants correctly recognize that a stimulus is familiar but they are mistaken in their beliefs about where and when they encountered the stimulus. This error is referred to

source confusion

One difference between working memory and long-term memory is that

the contents of working memory depend on the content of one's current thinking, but the contents of long-term memory do not.

The "cognitive revolution" is named as such because:

the focus changed from behaviors to the processes underlying those behaviors.

Repression refers to

the removal of memories.

The strategy of maintenance rehearsal involves

the repetition of the items to be remembered, with little attention paid to what the items mean.

We can often recognize an object even if some of the object's parts are hidden from view. Evidence indicates that this recognition from partial viewing will be easiest if

we can see enough of the object to identify some of its geons.

Cognitive psychology relies on evidence from multiple domains (behavioral, neuroscience, trauma, etc.) because

we cannot see the cognitive processes directly.

You give your friend a series of lists of letters to remember. With each perfectly recalled list, you increase the list length by one or two items, until he begins to make errors. This sort of test examines

working-memory span.