Cognitive Science Exam 2

In the field of social cognitive neuroscience, which area serves to �bridge the gap� between the other two fields?

cognitive science/psychology

A researcher observes communication patterns among males and females in a single species of monkey. Which type of research method is being used here?

comparison within species

Information is transferred back and forth between the hemispheres of the brain through the

corpus callosum

Sarah is out for a walk in her neighborhood when a vicious dog jumps at her from behind a bush. Her heart pounding, she leaps out of the way. Seconds later she suppresses her fear, realizing that it is leashed to a tree and cannot reach her. What part of Sarah�s brain might suppress her fear?

cortex

If you believe that working memory evolved in order to help us remember key members of our social group, then what hypothesis do you subscribe to?

cultural intelligence hypothesis

Jessica would like to go on a roller coaster ride with her friends at the amusement park. However, she has lower back pain and decides not to as it might aggravate this condition

deliberative

The two sentences, "The girl tied the ribbon" and "The ribbon was tied by the girl," have

different phrase structure and the same meaning

Having the ability to refer to an object using language, even when the object is not present, is known as:

displacement

Which of the following is not a universal commonality of language?

distinctiveness

Which theory of emotion is the most recent and allows arousal, interpretation, or some combination of the two to affect emotion?

emergence synthesis

Which of the following is not one of the three primary reasons why emotional items might be remembered better?

emotional items are associated with more retrieval cues

Current research on concepts and emotions shows that:

emotions (attitudes) are associated with many of our concepts

In this field, investigators study how the human mind came into existence

evolutionary psychology

A-life simulations demonstrate that

evolutionary-programmed software entities interacting in complex environments are capable of complex behavior

Arachnophobia is an example of a:

evolved psychological mechanism

The subjective experience of terror you have upon seeing a snake is a(n):

feeling

The number of variations of the sentence, �The dog ran around the block� demonstrates which property of language?

generative

In a classic study, Ekman and Friesen (1971) presented photographs of facial expressions to members of a new Guinea tribe. They found that these tribes-people could successfully recognize a set of basic emotions. These were:

happiness, sadness, fear, anger, surprise, disgust

Mary is put into a good mood while studying a list of words. She is then asked to recall them at a later date. Which of the following words will she be more likely to recall?

happy

John is asked to recall what he was doing at the time of the world trade center attacks. Which of the following is the most accurate description of his memory?

he reports having a strong memory for what he was doing at the time but when tested, his accuracy is no better than during a non-emergency situation

Roger is a 67-year old retiree. He wakes up one morning and is not able to feel or see anything on the left side of his body. Most likely he is suffering from:

hemispatial neglect

The cortex of the brain is primarily responsible for

higher-order cognitive activities

Which animals have the largest brain size as measured by the cephalization index?

humans

Select the true statement concerning the emotional robot Kismet - Kismet�s emotions can be characterized as falling within a two-dimensional space of valence (good/bad) and arousal (high/low) - Kismet can hear through a microphone but cannot determine any emotional information from speech - if Kismet does not receive enough stimulation it will act sorrowful to elicit increased interaction with its human playmate - Kismet can perceive but is not capable

if Kismet does not receive enough stimulation it will act sorrowful to elicit increased interaction with its human playmate

Studies demonstrate that when children learn the past tense in language, they

imitate the correct usage of the past tense for irregular verbs but make errors with these verbs after learning the grammar rule associated with the past tense

Select the true statement concerning the research on attention and emotion

in some studies, participants are faster at detecting angry faces than they are at detecting happy faces

Select the true statement concerning autism: - autism symptoms are the same in every individual case - there is no genetic basis for the disorder - it may be caused by several environmental substances linked to birth defects like heavy metals and pesticides - the overall prevalence of autism in the general population is 5-6%

it may be caused by several environmental substances linked to birth defects like heavy metals and pesticides

What imaging technique would allow researchers to develop a complete three-dimensional reconstruction of a mouse brain at the cellular level? This image would show neural structure only, not function

knife-edge scanning microscope

Electroencephalograms (EEG) are used to

measure the brain�s gross electrical activity

Structures located near the center of the brain are said to be

medial

Any process that monitors, regulates, or controls an aspect of cognition is referred to as

metacognition

Which term refers to the fact that a copy of a gene can mutate and serve a different function?

molecular drive

You realize that you have been feeling down all day after hearing the news of your roommate�s grandmother. This state is a(n):

mood

A mother, when speaking to her young child about her father, looks at him. The child then follows her mom�s gaze by looking at her dad. The child has just demonstrated what form of attention?

responding to joint attention (RJA)

Which area of the brain is responsible for overall arousal and alertness level?

reticular activating system

The process by which some attributes help species survival under new conditions is known as ___________

selection

Laura has a fear of public places and of social interaction. When tested, she shows greater amygdala activation (i.e., a more fearful response. when viewing neutral or angry faces. She is best categorized as suffering from:

social phobia

Which type(s) of cognition is associated with the right cerebral hemisphere?

spatial and relational processing

Which animals are capable of solving transitive inference problems?

squirrels, pigeons, and rats

Which of the following structures is primarily responsible for the moving of visual attention from one object or position in space to another?

superior colliculus

Programs that perform the equivalent of applying a phrase-structure grammar to a sentence, breaking it down into hierarchical constituents, are known as

syntactical analysis programs

Which of the following is an instance where an attitude will not guide our actions?: - when outside influences are minimal - when they are specifically relevant to a behavior - when we are more aware of them - when we are tired

when we are tired

Researchers believe that children not exposed to language during the critical period

will suffer severe language impairments

According to Chomsky, a set of rules for modifying a sentence into a closely related one is known as

transformational grammar

Positron Emission Tomography (PET) is best characterized by which of the following descriptions?

uses blood flow as a measure of metabolic activity in the brain

Controlled attentional processes are

voluntarily directed and require conscious control

Select the true statement concerning attitudes: - we spend less time paying attention to information that is consistent with our attitudes - we more easily learn information that is consistent with out attitudes - we cannot hold more than two attitudes about something simultaneously in memory - the more relevant a piece of information is to our attitude, the more likely we are to forget it

we more easily learn information that is consistent with out attitudes

Why is the "bouncer" version of the Wason Selection Task so easy?

Because detecting cheaters was important in early societies characterized by reciprocal altruism

Damage to the arcuate fasciculus produces which of the following?

Broca's aphasia

In language, any sound, word, or picture can be chosen to represent a particular thing. This exemplifies which property of language?

arbitrary

Syntax refers to the rules of

arranging words together in sentences

The _____________ is believed to be the site where a response is selected, especially in cases where the response entails the inhibition of an alternative response.

cingulate cortex

Cosmides and Tooby (1992) refer to the brain as a "Swiss army knife." This belief is most consistent with what approach?

The evolutionary approach

The field of linguistics generally considers language in its spoken form: True or False

True

There is little evidence to support the notion of specific genes in humans for language: True or False

True

Joshua shows an exaggerated interest in other people, along with increased expressiveness and social communicability. He does however suffer from mental retardation, limited spatial skills and motor control. What disorder does he suffer from?

William's syndrome

At what age do children acquire a ToM?

4-5 years

How accurate is the Emotion Recognition project program (Petrushin, 2000) at identifying emotions from spoken language? It is about as accurate as human-level performance

70%

The period during which humans were shaped by evolutionary forces was known as

Environment of Evolutionary Adaptation

Damage to the posterior region of the left hemisphere results in Broca's aphasia, which is characterized by fluent and seemingly automatic speech that has little meaningful content: True or False

False

Language can only be represented in the auditory domain: True or False

False

The environment plays no role in the acquisition of language: True or False

False

Which of the following is a criticism of evolutionary psychology?

It may not be the case that psychological mechanisms are adaptive responses to a survival or reproductive problem

Tom is given a test. He watches a cartoon showing the following series of events. In the cartoon, Suzy places a toy in a red box. Suzy then leaves the room. While she is gone, Mikey in the cartoon moves the toy and puts it in a blue box. Suzy then comes back to the room wanting the toy. Tom is now asked where Suzy will look for it. If Tom has a theory of mind (ToM), what will he say?

Suzy will look for the toy in the red box

The Hebb Rule states that if two connected neurons are activated simultaneously, the synapse between them will be strengthened: TRUE or FALSE

TRUE

Children start out with purely imitative copying, proceed to an understanding of a rule, and ultimately progress to the learning of the exceptions to that rule: True or False

True

In linguistics, domain-specific mechanism are those devoted to the processing purely linguistic information: True or False

True

The ventral visual pathway carries information

about color and form toward the temporal lobe

The dorsal visual pathway carries information

about location and motion toward the parietal lobe

According to the author, which of the following is a problem in emotion-cognition research that remains to be understood? - why some people are better able to suppress their emotions than others - how two emotions, like anger and admiration, may combine to create a third emotion like envy - how thoughts and emotions may combine to determine other emotions such arrogance and self-esteem - all of the above are problems

all of the above

Females generally score higher than men on tests of - verbal fluency - reading speed - comprehension - all of the above

all of the above

Which of the following is true of universal grammar? - it comprises the features that are instantiated in the grammars of all natural languages - it holds that languages at a fundamental level are not different from one another - it is considered as a collection of language rules hardwired into our brain from birth - all of the above

all of the above

Which of the following linguistic systems were utilized to teach animals language skills? - lexigrams - plastic tokens - American Sign Language - all of the above

all of the above

Why, according to Pinker (1997), do we succumb to the gambler's fallacy? - because independent outcomes are only found in artificially engineered devices - because in nature, the past is often the best predictor of the future - because natural events have regular time courses and shared causes - all of the above

all of the above

Which of the following is a legitimate deficit/symptom of autistic patients? - preschool autistic children do not prefer faces over other visual stimuli - they fail to point toward objects of interest - preschool autistic children do not prefer speech over other auditory stimuli - all of the above are symptoms

all of the above are symptoms

Which of the following is a difference between an emotion and a thought? - it is harder to control emotions emotions have a broader impact - on our behavior than thoughts - we experience emotions in our bodies and thoughts in �our heads� - all of the above are valid differences

all of the above are valid differences

How might we go about reducing cognitive dissonance?: - making an excuse - trivializing the incident - trying to feel good about ourselves in other areas - all of the above can reduce cognitive dissonance

all of the above can reduce cognitive dissonance

What brain area is most strongly implicated in a fear response?

amygdala

Based on his lecture style, you immediately decide that you don't like your English professor. This is an example of:

an impression

While driving you are cut off by the driver in front of you. Based on this behavior you conclude that he is reckless and doesn�t care about others. This is:

an internal attribution

The neurotransmitter glutamate is most closely associated with which emotion?

anger and fear

A researcher is interested in reducing prejudice by using an educational program. Which of the four assumptions of social cognition is this?

applicability

Boster and d'Andrade (1989) had professional ornithologists and naive bird observers organize museum specimens of stuffed birds. What did they find?

both groups of participants showed evidence of typicality in their organization

For most individuals, localized sites on the left hemisphere of the brain are devoted to

both language comprehension and production

Which of the following statements is true? - regulatory development governs non-cortical brain development, while mosaic development is the norm for the growth of cortical abilities in humans - mosaic development governs non-cortical brain development, while regulatory development is the norm for the growth of cortical abilities in humans - both mosaic and regulatory development govern non-cortical brain development equally - both mosaic and regulatory development govern the growth of cortical abilities equally

mosaic development governs non-cortical brain development, while regulatory development is the norm for the growth of cortical abilities in humans

__________ complete the neuronal signal across the synapse

neurotransmitters

The capacity to know that something still exists after it cannot be perceived by the senses is known specifically as:

object permanence

What psychological disorder is most closely related to disgust?

obsessive-compulsive disorder

Sometimes called the �cuddle chemical� this hormone is linked to maternal bonding with offspring

oxytocin

What cortical lobe of the brain in humans underlies RJA?

parietal

Mirror neurons fire only when a monkey:

performs an action and watches another monkey or person perform that same action

An inability to recognize faces, despite the capacity to recognize other types of visual stimuli is known as ________________?

prosopagnosia

What ability is not implicated in ToM?

the capacity of working memory

Taking advantage of your newfound knowledge of psychology you decide to put it to the test. You want your roommate to lend you $100. However you think that this amount is too much to ask so you start with a smaller request of $20. This is an example of:

the foot-in-the-door phenomenon

The belief that the probability of an event is influenced by its past history is known as

the gambler�s fallacy

According to the weak version of the linguistic relativity hypothesis,

the language a person speaks influences the way he or she thinks

The posterior attentional network is primarily responsible for

the selection of information based on sensory characteristics

A chimpanzee and a child, each two and a half years old, are given tests. One test involves reasoning about things like space, numbers and causality. The other involves reasoning about members of a social group. On which test do both groups score equally?

the test involving space, numbers, and causality

Which of what follows is not a primary function of emotion according to Rolls (1999)?

they help us locate food and other resources

The goal of cognitive neuroscience is

to explicate the structures and physiological processes underlying specific cognitive functions