Cognitive Test questions

ESSAY:\ How neurons communicate with one another

Neurons are nerve cells and the human brain contains about one billion neurons. A neuron is a cell that is specific for conducting and generating electrical impulses to transmit information "from one part of the brain to another" (How Neurons communicate in Brain, 2017). Because of their branch-like processes, neurons join to form a large system of "wires" that are spread all over the body. And by transmitting messages through this network, various parts of the body can work together and communicate with one another (How Neurons communicate in Brain, 2017). Neurons transmit information by electrochemical processing. Sensory receptors work together with stimuli (i.e. light, sound, pain) that is changed to a code and relayed to the brain by a series of neurons. The brain then decodes the information it received. The information is moved alongside axons and dendrites due to the variations that occur in the electrical properties. This is called action potential and it is started "when a messenger" connects to a receptor. Once that happens, "an electrical signal" (How Neurons communicate in Brain, 2017) is activated so it can be produced "through the neuron" (How Neurons communicate in Brain, 2017). When the signal is at the end of the axon, a neurotransmitter is discharged and the process repeats itself (How Neurons communicate in Brain, 2017).

Attention, perception, memory, and decision making are all different types of mental processes in which the mind engages. These are known as different types of

Cognition

Donders' main reason for doing his choice reaction time experiment was to study

Decision Making

ESSAY: Distinguish between structural models and process models in cognitive psychology. Provide an example of each type of model.​

Structural models are illustrations of objects that can be touched or are real. The models can imitate how the item looks. The structures are also symbolized in the form of a diagram that will not look like the actual structure. An example of a structural model is a model care or model airplane. The models are designed to look like a real care or airplane (Goldstein, 2015). -Process models show the work that is included in cognitive mechanisms. There are boxes that show particular processes and arrows that show the link between the processes. An example of process models is "Broadbent's filter model of attention" (Goldstein, The Roles of Models in Cognitive Psycholgy, 2015).

21. John B. Watson believed that psychology should focus on the study of

a. observable behavior.

36. Donald Broadbent was the first person to develop which of the following?

a. A flow diagram depicting the mind as processing information in a sequence of stages

17. Which of the following methods, often associated with structuralism, was used in the psychology laboratory established by Wilhelm Wundt?

a. Analytic introspection

__________notion that the mind could be represented as operating in a sequence of stages, often represented by boxes, allows cognitive psychologists to develop models that can be tested by further experiments.

a. Broadbent's

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

a. Donald Broadbent

47. Which of the following are the two primary categories of models in cognitive psychology?

a. Structural models and process models

29. 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

a. an inborn biological program.

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

a. cognitive map.

34. The scene of a human sitting at a computer terminal, responding to stimuli flashed on the computer screen, would most likely be described as depicting a(n) experiment.

a. information processing

24. Behaviorists believe that the presentation of___________ increases the frequency of behavior.

a. positive reinforcers

32. Which of the following does NOT characterize the information processing (IP) approach to the study of cognition?

b. IP supports the principle of behaviorism that behavior is a stimulus-response relationship.

31. Which of the following events is most closely associated with a resurgence in interest in the mind within the study of psychology?

b. Skinner's publication of the book, Verbal Behavior

41. Newell and Simon were among the first to use computers in cognitive psychology. Their computer program

b. created proofs for problems in logic.

14. Ebbinghaus's "memory" experiments were important because they

b. plotted functions that described the operation of the mind.

18. The procedure in which trained participants describe their experiences and thought processes in response to stimuli presented under controlled conditions is known as

b. analytic introspection.

10. The first experiments in cognitive psychology were based on the idea that mental responses can be

b. inferred from the participant's behavior.

48. Douglas is working on a project for his cognitive psychology class. He builds a plastic model of the human brain, paints each major structure a different color, and constructs a "map" that shows which functions are controlled by which brain component. Douglas's project is working from a(n)__________ model of cognitive psychology.

b. structural

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

b. there are limits to the human ability to process information.

23. The "Little Albert" experiment involving the rat and the loud noise is an example of which of the following types of experiments?

c. Classical conditioning

20. Which of the following is a criticism of analytic introspection?

c. It produces variable results from person to person.

16. The founder of the first laboratory of scientific psychology was

c. Wilhelm Wundt.

7. In Donders' 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

c. choice reaction time task.

19. An important contribution to the field of psychology resulting from Wilhelm Wundt founding his laboratory at the University of Leipzig in 1879 was

c. producing PhDs who later established psychology departments at other schools, including some in the United States.

44. The "cognitive revolution"

c. was a gradual process that occurred over a few decades.

46. Using behavior to infer mental processes is the basic principle of

cognitive psychology

The branch of psychology concerned with the scientific study of the mind is called

cognitive psychology

25. Which of the following psychologists is known for research on operant conditioning?

d. B.F. Skinner

30. Who proposed that children's language development was caused by imitation and reinforcement?

d. B.F. Skinner

40. The use of the term "artificial intelligence" was coined by

d. John McCarthy.

15. The first formal laboratory of psychology, where the approach of structuralism was created, was founded in which city?

d. Leipzig, Germany

12. Which of the following stimuli were used in Ebbinghaus's "memory" experiment discussed in your text?

d. Three-letter nonsense words

27. Who developed the concept of the cognitive map?

d. Tolman

11. The relationship between the__________ and ____________ is NOT measured directly by cognitive psychologists.

d. cognitive task; mental response

33. Your text describes the occurrence of a "cognitive revolution" during which dramatic changes took place in the way psychology was studied. This so-called "revolution" occurred parallel to (and, in part, because of) the introduction of

d. computers.

35. Colin Cherry's experiment in which participants listen to two messages simultaneously, one in each ear, found all BUT which of the following?

d. even deaf individuals process auditory information, even on a non-conscious level.

26. 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

d. operant conditioning.

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

d. presentation

13. According to Ebbinghaus's savings curve, savings is a function of

elapsed time

9. Donders' measurement of reaction time is particularly important because it demonstrated the "time course" on which the mind operates. Donders found that it took to decide which of two buttons to push in response to a stimulus.

less than one second

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 main point of the Donders' reaction time experiments was to

measure the amount of time it takes to make a decision

22. According to the behaviorists, only the study of_____________ should be the emphasis of the science of psychology.

observable behavior

49. An early model of memory indicates that incoming information is first handled by "sensory" memory, is then moved to "short term" memory, and finally is pushed into "long-term" memory. This model, proposed by Atkinson and Shiffrin in 1968, is an example of a(n) __________________model.

process

In Donders' experiment on decision making, when participants were asked to press a button upon presentation of a light, they were engaged in a

simple reaction time task.

8. Donders' reaction time experiment was performed using stimuli in which of the following sensory modalities?

vision