Cognitive psychology test one

At the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Symposium on Information Theory, George Miller presented a paper suggesting that

There are limits to the human ability to process information.

What attention model components produces two levels of output?

Treisman's attenuator

In Donders's research on human decision making, he found that it took ____________ to decide which of two buttons to push in response to a stimulus.

less than one second

In Donders's experiment on decision making, when participants were asked to press one button if the light on the left was illuminated and another button if the light on the right was illuminated, they were engaged in a

choice reaction time task

The task of determining the object responsible for a particular image on one's retina is called the

inverse projection problem

A high threshold in Treisman's model of attention implies that

it takes a strong signal to cause activation.

In Schneider and Shiffrin's experiment, in which participants were asked to indicate whether a target stimulus was present in a series of rapidly presented "frames," divided attention was easier

once processing had become automatic.

The process by which small objects become perceptually grouped to form larger objects is the principle of perceptual

organization

A 10-month-old baby is interested in discovering different textures, comparing the touch sensations between a soft blanket and a hard wooden block. Tactile signals such as these are received by the __________ lobe.

parietal

The landmark discrimination problem is more difficult to do if you have damage to your _____ lobe.

parietal

Placing tomatoes, onions, jalapenos, garlic, cilantro, and lime juice into a blender and turning it on to produce salsa is similar to which of the following?

the focused attention stage of feature integration theory

As a result of gaps in the behaviorist paradigm, the new cognitive paradigm began to emerge in which decade?

1950s

The "cognitive revolution"

was a gradual process that occurred over a few decades.

What book was written by Thomas Kuhn?

The Structure of Scientific Revolutions

Lan has no idea what she just read in her text because she was thinking about how hungry she is and what she is going to have for dinner. This is a real-world example of

mind wandering

Groups of interconnected neurons are referred to as

neural circuits

People perceive vertical and horizontal orientations more easily than other orientations according to the

oblique effect

The likelihood principle states that

we perceive the object that is most likely to have caused the pattern of stimuli we have received.

The perception pathway corresponds to the _____ pathway, while the action pathway corresponds to the _____ pathway.

what; where

In which year was positron emission tomography (PET) introduced and made it possible to see which areas of the human brain are activated during cognitive activity?

1976

Which of the following is similar to early ideas scientists had about the brain's physical properties?

A web

Regarding children's language development, Noam Chomsky noted that children generate many sentences they have never heard before. From this, he concluded that language development is driven largely by

An inborn biological program.

Verbal Behavior was written by

B.F. Skinner

Why can we consider Tolman one of the early cognitive psychologists?

Because he used behavior to infer mental processes

Josiah is trying to speak to his wife, but his speech is very slow and labored, often with jumbled sentence structure. Josiah may have damage to which area of the brain?

Broca's area

Which of the following is most closely associated with Treisman's attenuation theory of selective attention?

Dictionary unit

Who introduced the flow diagram to represent what is happening in the mind?

Donald Broadbent

Which memory is used for physical actions?

procedural memory

Newell and Simon were among the first to use computers for artificial intelligence. Their computer program created what

proofs for problems in logic

binding

If you stand very close to a pointillist painting, all you will see are tiny colored dots. But as you step away from the painting, larger areas of color become noticeable and eventually become recognizable objects such as flowers or clouds. This is similar to what idea?

Consider the following definition of the mind: The mind is a system that creates representations of the world so that we can act within it to achieve our goals. Which element of the mind does this definition emphasize?

Functioning and survival

Taking clay and sand to create bricks, which are then used to build modular wall panels, which are then assembled to construct tall buildings, is similar to which of the following neural concepts?

Hierarchical processing

What does NOT characterize the information processing (IP) approach in the study of cognition?

IP emphasizes stimulus-response relationships in cognitive processes.

What is an accurate statement in regard to specificity coding?

It is unlikely to be correct because there are too many stimuli in the world to have a separate neuron for each.

What is a criticism of analytic introspection?

It produces variable results from person to person.

What is NOT true of positron emission tomography (PET)?

It replaced functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) because it was less expensive

By comparing reaction times across different tasks, Donders was able to conclude how long the mind needs to perform a certain cognitive task. Donders interpreted the difference in reaction time between the simple and choice conditions of his experiment as indicating how long it took to

Make a decision about the stimulus

The investigation of how behavior is strengthened by presentation of positive reinforcers (e.g., food) or withdrawal of negative reinforcers (e.g., shock) is best known as

Operant conditioning

How does perceptual load differ from processing capacity?

Perceptual load is individual and processing capacity is universal.

Richard Atkinson and Richard Shiffrin's (1968) model of memory, which was introduced a year after the publication of Neisser's book, described the flow of information in the memory system as progressing through three stages. Which memory holds incoming information for a fraction of a second and then passes most of this information to short-term memory?

Sensory memory

How is the term mind used in this statement: "If you put your mind to it, I'm sure you can solve that math problem"?

The mind as problem solver

How does the phenomenon of apparent movement work?

The perceptual system creates the perception of movement from stationary images.

Which of the following is true about Bayesian inference?

The probability of an outcome is determined by the prior probability and the likelihood of the outcome.

When does bottom-up processing start?

When environmental energy stimulates the receptors

What is the process of unconscious inference?

When our perceptions are the result of inferences that we make about the environment

The existence of transitional probabilities adds a(n) ________ quality to learning and using language.

anticipatory

During a visit to the local museum, you appreciate the incredible beauty of the paintings displayed. Your ability to see the paintings as complete pictures rather than individual, disconnected dots of color, texture, and location occurs through a process called __________.

binding

Which of the following is the process by which features such as color, form motion, and location are combined to create our perception of a coherent object?

binding

The sequence of steps that includes the image on the retina, changing the image into electrical signals, and neural processing is an example of _____ processing.

bottom-up

Which of the following best describes the result of attention in the context of perception?

enhancement

The key structural components of neurons are the

cell body, dendrites, and axons

The ability to focus on one stimulus while filtering out other stimuli is called

cocktail party effect

A mental conception of the layout of a physical space is known as a(n)

cognitive map

What term does NOT reflect functional network activity in the brain?

consistent

Colin Cherry's experiment in which participants listened to two different messages, one presented to each ear, found that people

could focus on one message and ignore the other one at the same time.

Which of the following word strings all refer to the same pathway?

dorsal, where, action

You are walking down the street and see a nice car drive by. You notice its color, movement, and shape. All of these features are processed

in different parts of the brain.

The theory of unconscious inference includes the

likelihood principle

Ebbinghaus's "memory" experiments were important because they

plotted functions that described the operation of the mind.

Behaviorists believe that the presentation of ____________ increases the frequency of behavior.

positive reinforcers

Reaction time refers to the time between the _______ of a stimulus and a person's response to it.

presentation

The value that stays the same as long as there are no signals in the neuron is known as

resting potential

The notion that faster responding occurs when enhancement spreads within an object is called

same-object advantage

Entering a church service and seeing someone selling hot dogs and cotton candy from a cart near the altar would be perceived as a violation of

scene schema

When Sam listens to his girlfriend Susan in the restaurant and ignores other people's conversations, he is engaged in the process of __________ attention.

selective

You are at a parade where there are a number of marching bands. You perceive the bands that are all in the same uniforms as being grouped together. The red uniforms are one band, the green uniforms another, and so forth. You have this perceptual experience because of the law of

similarity

In the text's use of the Olympic Rings example, which Gestalt law contributes to the correct perception of five interlocking circles rather than nine separate segments?

simplicity

Before the advent of intercoms, old mansions had a sash in each room. Each sash was connected to a bell on a master board in the servants' office. When someone pulled a sash in a particular room, a bell corresponding to the room would ring on the master board, informing a servant where to go to provide assistance. This system is similar to

specificity coding

When Carlos moved to the United States, he did not understand any English. Phrases like "Anna Mary Can Pi and I Scream Class Hick" didn't make any sense to him. Now that Carlos has been learning English, he recognizes this phrase as "An American Pie and Ice Cream Classic." This example illustrates that Carlos was not capable of ____ in English.

speech segmentation

Strayer and Johnston's (2001) experiment involving simulated driving and the use of "hands-free" versus "handheld" cell phones found that

talking on either kind of phone impairs driving performance significantly and to the same extent.

The cocktail party effect is

the ability to pay attention to one stimulus while filtering out other stimuli.

If a Gestalt psychologist was baking a cake for an event, what would they be most focused on?

the cake

Broadbent's model is called an early selection model because

the filter eliminates unattended information at the beginning of the information flow.

A synapse is

the gap that separates two different neurons.

John Watson believed that psychology should focus on the study of

observable behavior

According to your textbook, perception goes beyond the simple receipt of sensory information. It is involved in many different cognitive skills. Which of the following is NOT one of those skills as noted by the chapter?

experiencing neuromodulation

When recording from a single neuron, stimulus intensity is represented by the

firing rate of the action potentials.

Barbara has recently been diagnosed with abdominal cancer. Her oncologist wants to determine the best treatment method to eliminate the tumors. Her gastroenterologist is focused on relieving her symptoms and restoring normal digestive functioning. Barbara's psychologist works to help minimize her anxiety and keep her spirits up. The fact that these doctors are considering Barbara's situation with different goals and from different perspectives is similar to the idea of __________ presented in your textbook.

levels of analysis

Recording from single neurons in the brain has shown that neurons responding to specific types of stimuli are often clustered in specific areas. These results support the idea of

localization of function.

If you are folding towels while watching television, you may find that you don't have to pay much attention to the act of folding while keeping up with the storyline on the TV show. Folding the towels would be an example of a(n) ________ task.

low-load

Suppose twin teenagers are vying for their mother's attention. The mother is trying to pay attention to one of her daughters, though both girls are talking (one about her boyfriend, one about a school project). According to the operating characteristics of Treisman's attenuator, it is most likely the attenuator is analyzing the incoming messages in terms of

meaning

The Stroop effect demonstrates people's inability to ignore the __________ of words.

meaning

The term semantics, when applied to perception, means the

meaning of a scene, often related to what is happening within the scene.

According to Treisman's attenuation model, which of the following would you expect to have the highest threshold for most people?

the word "platypus"

What is NOT considered a starting point for perception?

thinking

If a word is identified more easily when it is in a sentence than when it is presented alone, this would be an example of _____ processing.

top-down

When someone accurately identifies a word in a song on a radio broadcast despite static interfering with reception is an example of what?

top-down processing