Psychology Ch. 8

Someone relying on convergent thinking would answer _____ to the query "What can you do with a toothbrush?"

"You brush your teeth with it"

Approximately how many phonemes are found in English?

52

What is the main difference between an algorithm and a heuristic?

An algorithm always leads to a correct solution, while a heuristic does not.

Which of the following most likely makes use of heuristics?

An article by a Nobel Prize winner titled "How to Succeed in Science"

_____ intelligence is the field that examines how to use technology to imitate the outcome of human thinking, problem solving, and creative activities.

Artificial

Clint is mentally rehearsing his golf swing in his mind's eye. Based on the text's discussion of mental imagery, which of the following statements is MOST accurate?

Clint's mental rehearsal should improve his golf swing. Carrying out the task involves the same network of brain cells as the network used in mentally rehearsing it.

_____ psychology is the branch of psychology that focuses on the study of higher mental processes, including thinking, language, memory, problem solving, knowing, reasoning, and judging.

Cognitive

Which of the following is true of creativity?

Cognitive complexity is an important aspect of creativity.

Although used often, the comparison between the computer and human information processing is oversimplified. Why?

Computer information input is precoded and ambiguities are removed before processing.

Connie is telling her mother a story about a scary dog she encountered in a neighbor's yard. "Then I runned away," Connie concludes. Which language acquisition phenomenon is Connie demonstrating? About how old is Connie?

Connie is overgeneralizing. She is probably 3-4 years old.

When comparing algorithms and heuristics, what is a potential advantage of using heuristics for solving real-life problems?

Convenience

The text reports the case of a girl named Genie, who was exposed to virtually no language from the age of 20 months until the age of 13. In what way does Genie's case offer support for the notion of a critical period in language acquisition?

Even with intensive instruction, Genie acquired only a very small vocabulary after the age of 13; furthermore, she never mastered the complexities of language.

A jeweler is unable to fix a particular mounting in a ring because she can imagine only the conventional uses for her tools. This best demonstrates which of the following?

Functional fixedness

Which of the following is TRUE of heuristics?

Heuristics represent commonly used approaches to the solution of a problem.

_____ is defined as a sudden awareness of the relationship among problem elements; it is thought to lead rapidly to the problem's solution.

Insight

Which of the following would NOT be a defining property of the prototype of an airplane?

It is silver.

What is meant by the notion of a critical period for language acquisition?

It is the time in one's childhood in which a child is particularly sensitive to language cues and most easily acquires language.

The study of insight is associated with the German psychologist _____; he studied problem solving among _____.

Kohler; chimpanzees

_____ refers to the tendency for old patterns of problem solving to persist.

Mental set

Which of the following sequences correctly orders the components of language, from the smallest or most specific to the broadest?

Phoneme → syntax → semantics

Cathy just got transferred to a new department. She has long believed that her new supervisor is a cranky, disagreeable person. According to confirmation bias, what will Cathy most likely do on her first day in the new supervisor's department?

She will look for negative behaviors on the part of the supervisor.

Maria is extremely active in politics. She has strong conservative beliefs about what is correct and what is not. Each day when she reads the newspaper, she pays close attention to the editorial section in particular. According to confirmation bias, what will she do when she reads them?

She will only read the editorials that she agrees with.

Which of the following terms best captures the meaning of the term heuristic, as cognitive psychologists use it?

Strategy

Which activity probably requires mindfulness?

Studying psychology

Which of the following is true about mental images?

They are representations in the mind of an object or event.

Theorists taking an interactionist approach to language acquisition:

agree that the brain is hardwired to acquire language.

A rule that guarantees the solution to a problem when it is correctly applied is termed as a(n):

algorithm.

When you use the representativeness heuristic, you are:

assuming that something is typical of its class.

"You always clam up when I ask you what's wrong," Iris tells her boyfriend. Iris is probably making this frequency judgment because she can remember a few times that her boyfriend wouldn't tell her what was bothering him. Iris is using the _____ heuristic.

availability

The _____ heuristic involves judging the probability of an event on the basis of how easily the event can be recalled from memory.

availability

The fact that we hear about airplane crashes on the news more often than we hear about automobile crashes may lead us to believe that we are more likely to die in a plane than a car. This is an example of a(n)

availability heuristic.

In _____, students are educated in their native language and in English simultaneously; in _____, they are educated only in English.

bilingual education; immersion programs

Many smokers like to point to the late George Burns, a famous actor who smoked cigars continuously for many years and lived to be nearly 100, as evidence that smoking is relatively harmless. These individuals tend to ignore the thousands of people who die every year from lung cancer. They are utilizing

confirmation bias.

Infinite generativity refers to the ability to

create unlimited numbers of meaningful sentences.

You have to cook dinner for 30 people on Saturday of this coming weekend. Your apartment is a mess, and you have nothing to wear. You decide to do your laundry Thursday night, buy the groceries on Friday, clean the apartment Saturday morning, and cook the dinner Saturday evening. This process of defining intermediate problems is known as

creating subgoals.

The ability to generate original ideas or develop novel solutions to problems is known as:

creativity.

You would be most likely to seek out information that refutes your hypothesis when you engage in

critical thinking.

Your roommate argues that computers can perform several complex tasks better and more accurately than humans. You counter her argument with the mention of ___________, a task that only humans can perform.

developing new learning goals

In a _____ heuristic, known items are seen as superior to those that are unknown.

familiarity

When you go to the supermarket, you see the brand of cookies you usually buy, and settle for it. Usually it's a good rule of thumb, because it saves a lot of time. You do not ponder over every type of cookie available in the store. This is an example of a(n) _____.

familiarity heuristic

After the outcome of an election is announced, you state that you knew all along what the outcome would be. This is a form of

hindsight bias.

Mental representations of objects are called _____; mental grouping of similar objects, events, or people are called _____.

images; concepts

The term universal linguist refers to the idea that

infants can distinguish all of the sounds that make up human speech.

The theory that language acquisition follows the principles of reinforcement and conditioning is known as the _____ approach.

learning-theory

The _____ hypothesis suggests language leads to thought.

linguistic-relativity

Linguists have identified more than _____ different phonemes among all the world's languages.

more than 800

Creative thinkers are NOT usually

motivated by the feedback of others.

Being receptive to other ways of looking at things is best described as

open-mindedness.

In written language, letters most closely represent _____, whereas sentences may be said to reflect _____.

phonemes; syntax

As compared to less creative individuals, creative persons:

prefer more complex stimuli.

Syllogisms are used to study:

reasoning.

You tell your roommate, "I misplaced my wallet." Your roommate exclaims, "Oh my goodness, you lost your wallet?" You respond, "No, I didn't lose my wallet, I misplaced it." This exchange best demonstrates the ________ aspect of language.

semantic

Phonology is the study of:

speech sounds.

The text's discussion of insight suggests that its key characteristic is its:

suddenness.

Formal reasoning in which people draw a conclusion from a set of assumptions is known as _____ reasoning.

syllogistic

The bicycle talked the boy into buying a candy bar. This sentence is

syntactically correct but semantically incorrect.

Nigel often cites newspaper editorials favoring the presidential candidate he supports; he appears to ignore editorials critical of the candidate. Nigel appears prone to:

the confirmation bias.

Samantha's belief that Gabe, who is muscular and wearing gym shorts, is a member of the football team is an example of

the representativeness heuristic.

Thomas Edison invented the lightbulb only because he experimented with thousands of different kinds of materials for a filament before he found one that worked (carbon). This shows that at the most basic level, we can solve problems through _____.

trial and error

An effective way to strategize your organization of subgoals is to

work backward in your planning.

Millie is stumped by a problem in her pre-calculus text. She furtively glances at the answer provided in the back of the text to get an idea of how the solution should look before she returns to the problem. Millie's strategy most closely resembles the problem-solving heuristic of:

working backward.