Unit 1 Exam

Question 1

Which statement did not contribute to the cognitive revolution in the 1950s?

Answer 1

• Animal learning in a laboratory setting helped separate our understanding of how our minds and behaviors work.
• Researchers studying verbal learning realized there was more to learning and memory than observation
• There was a great need to figure out practical issues related to attention and decision-making during WWI

Question 2

The way people’s bodies interact with their environment and how they influence their thought processes is known as ______, and awareness of our own thoughts, knowledge, and insight is ______

Answer 2

cognition; metacognition

Question 3

A cognitive researcher wants to create a graph to examine the accuracy of remembering words on a list between young and older adults. The independent variable would be the accuracy of the words.

Answer 3

True

Question 4

A cognitive psychologist is interested in creating a graph to examine students’ response times (i.e., in milliseconds) when answering three different group sizes of multiplication problems (e.g., small 2 × 3, medium 3 × 8, large 7 × 9). Here, response times are the dependent variable.

Answer 4

True

Question 5

Match the term with its definition:

1. cognitive science
2. cognition
3. cognitive psychology
4. memory

Answer 5

1. interdisciplinary study of thought, language, and the brain
2. mental processes and activities used in perceiving, remembering, thinking, and understanding
3. the study of human memory and mental processes
4. mental processes and acquiring and retaining information

Question 6

Match the neuroscience investigative technique with its definition:

1. PET scan
2. EEG
3. fMRI
4. CT scan

Answer 6

1. tracking radioactive isotopes injected into blood yields images of the functioning of the brain based on cerebral blood flow
2. electrodes on a person’s scalp that records the electrical activity of the brain
3. identifies brain structure and brain areas that are used when performing a particular task by measuring magnetic properties of blood
4. X-rays that can provide 3-D pictures of the physical structure of the brain

Question 7

In alphabetical order, the four major lobes of the brain are:

Answer 7

frontal, occipital, parietal, temporal

Question 8

The receptive and control centers for one side of the body are in the opposite hemisphere of the brain. This is referred to as [x].

Answer 8

contralaterality

Question 9

The type of agnosia in which people have difficulty recognizing faces is called

Answer 9

prosopagnosia

Question 10

Maintaining attention for infrequent events over long periods of time is called

Answer 10

vigilance

Question 11

An ______ is the execution of an unintended, but more automatic, action in the place of an intended, and less automatic, action.

Answer 11

action slip

Question 12

The ______ pathway of visual information determines “where” things are in space, while the ______ pathway determines “what” things are.

Answer 12

dorsal; ventral

Question 13

A rapid movement of the eyes is called a ______; a brief pause of the eyes is a ______

Answer 13

saccade; fixation

Question 14

William James started psychology’s 2nd school of thought in which researchers study the purpose of consciousness and how it adapts; it is called _______

Answer 14

functionalism

Question 15

The textbook’s examples of “Thinking about thinking”, such as answering the question “Does a robin have wings?”, informs us that

Answer 15

mental events can occur very quickly with little conscious awareness.

Question 16

Attempting to understand complex events by breaking them down into their components is known as

Answer 16

reductionism

Question 17

This researcher is credited with developing the first objective method for studying memory.

Answer 17

Hermann Von Ebbinghaus

Question 18

Long-term potentiation is the

Answer 18

strengthening of connection between neurons.

Question 19

Behaviorism redefined psychology to be the scientific study of

Answer 19

observable behavior

Question 20

This researcher is regarded as the “father of psychology” because he established the first psychology laboratory in 1879.

Answer 20

Willhelm Wundt

Question 21

A computer-based technique for modeling complex systems where simple nodes or units that make up the system are interconnected is referred to as a

Answer 21

parallel distributed processing model.

Question 22

The channel capacity analogy states that

Answer 22

any physical device that transmits information has a limited bandwidth.

Question 23

Which of the following is NOT a method for measuring information processes?

Answer 23

Heartbeat rate

Question 24

Which of the following is NOT an assumption of a strict information-processing approach?

Answer 24

parallel processing

Question 25

This neuroinvestigative technique provides good information on “when” a mental process occurs but does not provide very good information on “where” in the brain that process occurs.

Answer 25

EEG

Question 26

The brain measuring technique called _________ uses x-rays to image the structures of the brain, while _________ uses magnetic fields to image brain structures.

Answer 26

CT scans; MRIs

Question 27

Patient K. C. could not remember events in his personal life (episodic memory) but is able to remember facts (semantic memory). This is an example of ____.

Answer 27

dissociation

Question 28

_______ refers to how we interpret and understand sensory info, whereas _______ refers to the stimulation from the environment and how it gets processed in the nervous system.

Answer 28

perception; sensation

Question 29

Visual information endures in visual sensory memory for about 250 milliseconds after which it fades away (decays). How long does auditory sensory memory for spoken language or other complex sounds last for?

Answer 29

2-4 seconds

Question 30

Trans-saccadic memory is memory for

Answer 30

visual information across eye movements.

Question 31

Which is NOT one of the three layers of tissue in the retina?

Answer 31

hair cells

Question 32

The type of interference called Backward Masking refers to

Answer 32

a later stimulus drastically affects the perception of an earlier one

Question 33

These are the basic 3D geometric forms in Biederman’s recognition by components (RBC) model.

Answer 33

Geons

Question 34

This is the number of individual items that can be heard (or seen) and immediately recalled.

Answer 34

Span of apprehension

Question 35

______ processing requires little or no conscious involvement of our attention (e.g., reading color words), whereas _______ processing requires intentional awareness that can limit our attentional resources (e.g., identifying the ink color instead of reading the color words in the Stroop task).

Answer 35

automatic; conscious

Question 36

Which of the following is NOT a criterion for a Automaticity?

Answer 36

The process must contain at least one attentional blink

Question 37

Inhibition is

Answer 37

actively suppressing irrelevant information so that its activation level is below baseline.

Question 38

The tick-tock of the office clock used to bother and distract Gabi from focusing on her work. After a couple of days, she no longer notices the clock sounds and is able to concentrate. Gabi has experienced the process of

Answer 38

habituation

Question 39

Memory for information and for the moment new information was encoded, like memorizing a list of definitions, is called

Answer 39

explicit memory

Question 40

The cause of this disorder arises from an inability to disengage attention, hence disrupting the process of shifting attention to the opposite side of the perceptual world.

Answer 40

hemineglect

Question 41

Mind-wandering is most likely to occur when

Answer 41

a person is not fully engaged in a task.

Question 42

There are three major assumptions that guide cognitive psychology, and each assumption is a counterpoint to previously believed assumptions. Match the cognitive psychology assumption to its proper counterpoint.

1. Mental processes exist
2. Mental processes can be scientifically studied
3. Humans are active information processors

Answer 42

1. behaviorist perspective
2. functionalism perspective, subjective methods such as introspection
3. this perspective presumes that humans passively receive information and knowledge