Midterm#1 - Practice Test
The branch of psychology concerned with the scientific study of the mind is called? a) Cognitive Psychology b) Introspection c) Behaviourism d) Memory consolidation
Cognitive Psychology
Which part of a neuron transmits signals to other neurons? a. Dendrites b. Axons c. Cell body d. Nerve net
Axons
Who proposed that children's language development was caused by imitation and reinforcement? a. Noam Chomsky b. John Watson c. Keller Breland d. B. F. Skinner
B.F. Skinner
Why can we consider Tolman one of the early cognitive psychologists? a. Because he used behavior to infer mental processes b. Because of his focus on measuring behavior c. Because he focused on the stimulus-response connections in the rat's mind during his maze experiment d. Because of his interest in operant conditioning
Because he used behaviour to infer mental processes
Studying the mind requires both __________ and __________ experiments. a. nomothetic; idiographic b. behavioral; physiological c. brain; body d. observational; correlational
Behavioural; physiological
A person with strong ________ would likely have a deeper experience of Bayesian influence. a. principles b. eyesight c. sensation d. beliefs
Beliefs
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. a. bottom-up b. top-down c. Gestalt d. Serial
Bottom-up
The relationship between the ____________ is NOT measured directly by cognitive psychologists. a. physiological response and the behavioral outcome b. cognitive task and the behavioral outcome c. cognitive task and the physiological response d. cognitive task and the mental response
Cognitive task and the mental response
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 a. memory recall task. b. simple reaction time task. c. choice reaction time task. d. operant conditioning task.
Choice Reaction Time Task
The "Little Albert" experiment involving the rat and the loud noise is an example of which of the following types of experiments? a. Reaction time b. Unconscious inference c. Classical conditioning d. Operant conditioning
Classical Conditioning
The study of the physiological basis of cognition is known as a. cognitive psychology. b. neuroscience. c. cognitive neuroscience. d. neuropsychology.
Cognitive Neuroscience
Who developed the concept of the cognitive map? a. Raynor b. Sanders c. James d. Tolman
Tolman
Neurons that respond to specific qualities of objects, such as orientation, movement, and length, are called a. retinal cells. b. feature detectors. c. dendrites. d. Receptors.
Feature Detectors
The fusiform face area (FFA) in the brain is often damaged in patients with a. Broca's aphasia. b. Wernicke's aphasia. c. prosopagnosia. d. Alzheimer's disease.
Prosopagnosia
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 b. A computer program for solving logic problems c. An experimental procedure for studying the way people process information d. The first textbook of cognitive psychology
A flow diagram depicting the mind as processing information in a sequence of stages
Marie Antoinette, the last Queen of France before the revolution, was famously killed by guillotine (i.e., her head was chopped off at the neck). A neuroscientist would call this: a. a coronal section of the spinal cord b. a sagittal section of the spinal cord c. a horizontal section of the spinal cord d. what is this ... history class???
A horizontal section of the spinal cord
Jenny, an ornithologists, studies bird flight. For her PhD, she creates a computer program that uses her knowledge of Newton's Laws and flight dynamics to predict a bird's flight path based on its size, shape, and the force generated by its wings. At what level of analysis is Jenny studying bird flight? a. algorithmic b. computational c. implementational d. radical
Algorithmic
The results of Gauthier's "Greeble" experiment illustrate a. that neurons specialized to respond to faces are present in our brains when we are born. b. that training a monkey to recognize the difference between common objects can influence how the monkey's neurons fire to these objects. c. an effect of experience-dependent plasticity. d. that our nervous systems remain fairly stable in different environments.
An effect of experience-dependent plasticity
Donders' main reason for doing his choice reaction time experiment was to study a. sensation. b. childhood attachment styles. c. decision making. d. personality development.
Decision Making
Brain imaging has made it possible to a. determine which areas of the brain are involved in different cognitive processes. b. view individual neurons in the brain. c. show how environmental energy is transformed into neural energy. d. view propagation of action potentials.
Determine which areas of the brain are involved in different cognitive processes
According to Ebbinghaus's research on memory, savings is a function of a. word familiarity. b. sensory modality. c. elapsed time. d. reaction time.
Elapsed Time
Which neuroimaging technique is based on the idea that oxygenated blood flows to active brain areas? a. electroencephalogram (EEG) b. functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) c. transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) d. electrocorticography (ECoG)
Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI)
As we listen to music, we are aware of the melody as opposed to the individual notes that comprise the melody. This perceptual phenomenon is compatible with the principles of: a. psychometric psychologists. b. Gestalt psychology. c. bottom-up processing d. the signal detection theory.
Gestalt Psychology
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? a. Specificity coding b. Localization of function c. Hierarchical processing d. Distributed representation
Hierarchical processing
Which of the following does NOT characterize the information processing (IP) approach to the study of cognition? a. IP depicts the mind as processing information in a sequence of stages. b. IP emphasizes stimulus-response relationships in cognitive processes. c. IP involves the use of computers as a metaphor to understand human cognition. d. IP traces the sequence of mental operations involved in cognition.
IP emphasizes stimulus-response relationships in cognitive processes
The task of determining the object responsible for a particular image on one's retina is called the a. radiated wavelength paradox. b. inverse projection problem. c. serial location task. d. fusiform face role.
Inverse Projection Problem
If the intensity of a stimulus that is presented to a touch receptor is increased, this tends to increase the __________ in the receptor's axon. a. rate of nerve firing b. size of the nerve impulses c. speed of nerve conduction d. All of these are correct.
Rate of nerve firing
Which of the following statements is the most accurate with regard to specificity coding? a. It is probably accurate, which explains why the human nervous system contains over one hundred billion neurons. b. Research has found that specificity encoding does occur for lower animals, such as dogs and cats, but has not found this phenomenon to exist in human beings. c. It is unlikely to be correct because there are too many stimuli in the world to have a separate neuron for each. d. Specificity coding is one of the areas that is only theoretical and not applied, and thus there is no way to know if it truly exists in human beings.
It is unlikely to be correct because there are too many stimuli in the world to have a separate neuron for each
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: a. cortical association. b. dissociation. c. localization of function. d. the information processing approach.
Localization of function
The term semantics, when applied to perception, means the a. meaning of a scene, often related to what is happening within the scene. b. regularly occurring physical properties of an environment. c. inferences made based on the likelihood of a particular stimulus. d. statistical probabilities of one particular sound following another in language.
Meaning of a scene, often related to what is happening within the scene
Some argue that mirror neuron activity is epiphenomenal (i.e., a neural association between brain areas that are often active at the same time). If this view is true, it implies that: a. Mirror neurons play a necessary role in the perception of actions b. Mirror neurons allow humans to experience empathy c. Mirror neuron activity is real, it just doesn't contribute to the perception of actions d. Mirror neuron activity is not real (i.e., it's some sort of artifact)
Mirror neuron activity is real, it just doesn't contribute to the perception of action
Groups of interconnected neurons are referred to as a. myelin sheaths. b. potentiated somas. c. neural circuits. d. spreading activations.
Neural Circuits
Visual processing in the ventral stream is hierarchical. This means that neurons in the ________________ lobe respond to basic features of images and have ________________ receptive fields. a. temporal lobe; small b. temporal lobe; large c. occipital lobe; small d. occipital lobe; large
Occipital Lobe; small
Speech segmentation is defined as a. creating a sentence from a series of spoken words. b. ignoring the spaces between the spoken words of a sentence. c. organizing the sounds of speech into individual words. d. recognizing a few words out of many when hearing a largely unfamiliar language.
Organizing the sounds of speech into individual words
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 Gestalt law of: a. simplicity. b. similarity. c. pragnanz. d. familiarity.
Similarity
Which of the following provides the best neuropsychological evidence that the dorsal (or "where/how") stream is involved in visual motion perception: a. damage to the parietal lobe impairs motion perception while sparing form perception b. damage to the temporal lobe impairs form perception while sparing motion perception c. damage to primary visual cortex impairs motion perception d. the observation of both a and b in different groups of patients
The observation of both a and b in different groups of patients
Which of the following is true about Bayesian inference? a. The probability of an outcome is determined by chance. b. The probability of an outcome is determined solely by the likelihood of the outcome. c. The probability of an outcome is determined by the prior probability and the likelihood of the outcome. d. The probability of an outcome is determined solely by our initial belief about the probability of an outcome.
The probability of an outcome is determined by the prior probability and the likelihood of the outcome
After a period of exploration in a maze, Tolman famously noted that rats were able to find food in one arm of the maze using the most direct path (and without using their sense of smell) even if the path they took had never been rewarded. To the chagrin of the behaviourists, this provided critical evidence that: a. rats are cunning little creatures! b. the rats navigated the maze using a cognitive map c. operant conditioning does not always require a reward d. none of the above
The rats navigated the maze using a cognitive map
Maria took a drink from a container marked "milk." Surprised, she quickly spit out the liquid because it turned out that the container was filled with orange juice instead. Maria likes orange juice, so why did she have such a negative reaction to it? Her response was most affected by a. reception of the stimulus. b. bottom-up processing. c. top-down processing. d. focused attention.
Top-down Processing
In the original dual stream model, the perception pathway corresponds to the _____ pathway, while the action pathway corresponds to the _____ pathway. a. where; what b. what; where c. size; distance d. distance; size
What; where