CH 1 OST

Using converging methods when constructing a theoretical account is what?

good because it works to eliminate alternative hypotheses. Feedback: Using converging methods allows you to test different aspects of a question, which will help with discounting possible alternative hypotheses.

You've met a researcher at a conference who says she is of the same school of thought as the famous nineteenth-century scholars Wilhelm Wundt and Edward Titchener. You can gather from this statement that she feels that the best way to study thoughts is to

have only highly trained and qualified people introspect about their own thoughts. Feedback: Wundt and Titchener felt that only trained people could access their thoughts accurately.

In a digit-span task, a person hears a series of items and has to repeat them back immediately in correct sequence. This task is often understood to measure what?

holding capacity of working memory. Feedback: Holding a sequence of items temporarily (e.g., for several seconds) involves the use of working memory. Neither sensory memory (less than 3 seconds) nor long-term memory (minutes to hours) operates at this time scale.

Data from people with anarthria, the inability to speak, suggest what?

inner speech relies on brain areas responsible for planning speech. Feedback: Being able to imagine speech relies on many of the same brain mechanisms that are used to produce it.

The famous psychologist Edward Titchener claimed to have identified and catalogued nearly 10,000 sensations that he observed within himself. What method best describes his approach?

introspection Feedback: Introspection is the activity of observing one's own thoughts.

Performance on a span task is typically reduced when the participant has to perform concurrent articulation. This finding suggests what?

memory performance suffers if the person is prevented from subvocalizing while memorizing. Feedback: Concurrent vocalization interrupts the inner speech mechanism and reduces the ability to perform subvocalization.

Which of the following is the LEAST accurate statement about behaviorism?

Behaviorism is primarily designed to explain why organisms believe their behavior is justified or reasonable. Feedback: What someone believes is an internal characteristic, which cannot be observed by, and therefore is not part of, behaviorism.

Participants are presented with a brief series of letters or numbers and must report them back, in order, immediately. In this situation, most people are able to remember a string of approximately __________ letters or numbers. This gives us some evidence that working memory is __________.

7; limited in size Feedback: The actual answer is 7±2, and hence there is a limit on how many items can be remembered.

A psychologist who adheres to the behaviorist school of thought would most likely attribute someone reaching for a slice of pie to: A. an interaction between memory and desire. B. a learned behavior in response to specific environmental triggers. C. a chemical imbalance produced by a deficit in nutrients. D. inadequate maternal supervision and love during infancy.

B. a learned behavior in response to specific environmental triggers. Feedback: Behaviorism involves the study of how behavior changes in response to external stimuli.

What was NOT one of the problems associated with introspection as a research technique?

How people react to a stimulus is heavily influenced by past experience. Feedback: This is true for other research techniques and hence is not a limitation for experiments based exclusively on introspection.

What is a way in which cognitive psychology is different from physics?

Psychologists must take into account the way in which participants interpret their study. Feedback: Experiments in cognitive psychology rely on participants interpreting and responding to stimuli.

What is the most precise explanation for why many aspects of psychology (and most of cognitive psychology) rely on inferential methods?

Psychology often demands hypotheses about processes that cannot be observed directly in order to explain the capacities and the behaviors that we can observe. Feedback: What goes on in the mind cannot be observed directly. Thus hypotheses have to be formed to understand what is happening in the mind.

Which of the following strategies might you suggest to a child who is having trouble remembering a list of things?

Repeat the list over and over either inside the head or out loud; either will be very effective. Feedback: By keeping the items in the articulatory loop, you increase the possibility that they will be stored permanently in long-term memory.

Which of the following pieces of evidence would NOT be consistent with claims about the articulatory rehearsal loop?

Repeating a nonsense syllable over and over interferes with the ability to hold a sequence of abstract shapes in working memory. Only the answer "Repeating a nonsense syllable over and over interferes with the ability to hold a sequence of abstract shapes in working memory" involves shapes and syllables, which are not purely verbal information.

Which behavior is difficult to explain from a behaviorist perspective?

Your response to a stimulus is dependent on how you interpret that stimulus. Feedback: Interpretation of a stimulus occurs within an individual and is not observable.

Which of the following claims about working memory is NOT accurate? a. Individuals often confuse similar-sounding words in working-memory tasks. b. Performance in working-memory tasks does require some focus but is not disrupted by relatively mindless tasks such as saying "tah-tah- tah" aloud while holding items in working memory. c. Many amnesiacs (including the famous patient H.M.) appear to have relatively normal working memories, despite profound problems in other aspects of remembering. d. Much evidence suggests that working memory is not a single entity but is instead a system with separate components.

b. Performance in working-memory tasks does require some focus but is not disrupted by relatively mindless tasks such as saying "tah- tah-tah" aloud while holding items in working memory. Feedback: The tah-tah-tah task ties up the articulatory loop and lowers people's ability to perform verbal working-memory tasks.

Which of the following is TRUE of the working-memory system? a. The central executive serves the same function as a piece of scrap paper, freeing the rest of the system to do other tasks. b. Working memory has an unlimited capacity. c. The assistants are responsible solely for the storage of information. d. Working memory is a single entity with virtually no peripheral mechanisms.

c. The assistants are responsible solely for the storage of information. Feedback: Both the articulatory loop and the visuospatial sketch pad are involved in storing information.

Which of the following concerns is NOT addressed by adopting a cognitive approach to the study of psychology? a. The study of psychology involves entities (like beliefs or desires) that cannot be directly observed. b. Many mental processes are unconscious. c. Many mental processes unfold so rapidly that it is difficult to observe them. d. Just because something happens in a laboratory experiment does not mean it necessarily happens that way in real-life settings.

d. Feedback: Because cognitive psychology uses an experimental approach, it will inevitably have problems with applications to real life.

Researchers in cognitive psychology rely on all of the following forms of data EXCEPT: a. measurements of how long someone needs to make a response. b. the exact types of errors people make. c. which conditions lead to greater accuracy and which lead to poor accuracy. d. anecdotes and testimonials.

d. anecdotes and testimonials. Feedback: Anecdotes and testimonials rely on a person's report of what happened and are not directly observable by the experimenter.

Martin is trying to understand why he's been forgetting things lately. As a well-trained cognitive psychologist, Martin is likely to investigate this puzzle by what?

examining the circumstances associated with his memory failures, including the complexity or familiarity of the material and how fully he paid attention to the material during learning. Feedback: In this example, Martin is trying to gather clues to figure out why he has been forgetting things.

Modern psychologists follow the lead of Immanuel Kant in arguing that the solution to the impasse between introspectionism and behaviorism lies in a method in which we begin with __________ and then proceed to __________.

observable facts; likely internal causes Feedback: This is called transcendentalism and involves matching what can be observed with an unobservable cause.

If a patient were to suffer amnesia similar to the amnesia suffered by H.M., what would pose a particular problem?

remembering his or her divorce after brain surgery Feedback: H.M. had a problem forming new long-term memories after his surgery.

When someone asks you to pass the salt at the dinner table, you are able to understand the request even if it is asked in a variety of different ways. This illustrates what?

the meaning of an utterance, not the physical stimulus, is most important for predicting behavior. Feedback: Even though the words that are used may vary, the meaning is the same.

When reading a story about a child shaking a piggy bank because he or she wants to buy something, we understand the reasons for this action because...?

we provide additional background knowledge based on our own experience. Feedback: This requires an inference that piggy banks have coins, which make noise when shaken. This is part of our background knowledge.

Cognitive psychology is primarily concerned with what?

what we know, what we remember, and how we think Cognitive psychology is the study of knowledge.