Week 4 Chapter 4

Question 1

Suppose you’re studying in the library and you hear someone else’s cell phone conversation, which, in turn, causes you to lose your focus on your work. This example illustrates ___.
a. attentional capture
b. divided attention
c. selective attention
d. distraction

Answer 1

d. distraction

Question 2

Yvonne is attempting to listen to a conversation from her friend while simultaneously being alert for an expected cell phone call. This example illustrates ___.
a. divided attention
b. attentional capture
c. selective attention
d. distraction

Answer 2

a. divided attention

Question 3

Suppose you’re at a loud party where you’re trying really hard to listen to a conversation that you’re having with a friend. In doing so, you’re showing ___.
a. divided attention
b. distraction
c. selective attention
d. attentional capture

Answer 3

c. selective attention

Question 4

What is the key difference between distraction and attentional capture?
a. load
b. intensity
c. sensation
d. meaning

Answer 4

b. intensity

Question 5

Which of the following should have the lowest threshold for being activated to attention according to Treisman?
a. an unfamiliar foreign phrase
b. an important technical term used at your father’s work
c. a medical condition that you’ve never heard of
d. your name

Answer 5

d. your name

Question 6

Low-load tasks are to high-load tasks as _____ is to _____.
a. difficult; easy
b. easy; difficult
c. attention; practice
d. practice; attention

Answer 6

b. easy; difficult

Question 7

Which of the following is the key factor in the cocktail party effect?
a. dictionary unit
b. scene schema
c. filter
d. attenuator

Answer 7

c. filter

Question 8

Suppose you’re scanning a photograph of a class picture and you briefly pause on one face. In doing so, you are showing ___.
a. a saccadic eye movement
b. a saliency map
c. fixation
d. processing capacity

Answer 8

c. fixation

Question 9

Which component of Broadbent’s model of attention is focused on the meaning of a stimulus?
a. filter
b. detector
c. dictionary unit
d. attenuator

Answer 9

b. detector

Question 10

Which term has been used to describe Treisman’s attenuation model?
a. warped
b. salient
c. late
d. leaky

Answer 10

d. leaky

Question 11

In the context of attention, perceptual load is focused on which concept?
a. physiology
b. difficulty
c. salience
d. quantity

Answer 11

b. difficulty

Question 12

Marvella is able to shell peas from her garden while watching TV because shelling peas is a ________ task.
a. high salience
b. low load
c. inattentional
d. precued

Answer 12

b. low load

Question 13

Who developed a test that demonstrates the distractive power of some task-irrelevant stimuli?
a. Balint
b. Stroop
c. MacKay
d. Treisman

Answer 13

b. Stroop

Question 14

If someone is suffering from Balint’s syndrome, then they would likely have damage to the ___ lobe of the brain.
a. frontal
b. parietal
c. temporal
d. occipital

Answer 14

b. parietal

Question 15

Because Robbie will be late to the big outdoor concert, he tells Serena to wear that ugly lime green top. This will increase Serena’s ________ so Robbie can find her in the crowd.
a. schema
b. load
c. salience
d. binding

Answer 15

c. salience

Question 16

Marisol was pleasantly surprised when she walked into the hospital to visit her father and saw an espresso bar and a four-piece jazz quartet playing. What caused Marisol’s response?
a. a low-load in her salience map
b. a deviation from her scene schema
c. a shift in her convert attention
d. a warping of her overt attention

Answer 16

b. a deviation from her scene schema

Question 17

Which term best reflects the act of scanning to direct attention?
a. subjective
b. illusory
c. anticipatory
d. fixated

Answer 17

c. anticipatory

Question 18

Rashid is working on the car in the garage when his son James rides down the driveway on his bike. Without looking up from under the hood, Rashid calls out, “You know you’re grounded, James. Get back in the house and wash the dishes!” How did Rashid know James was breaking the rules?
a. covert attention
b. change detection
c. inattentional blindness
d. experience sampling

Answer 18

a. covert attention

Question 19

Which of the following best reflects the function of human attention?
a. fishing pole
b. magnifying glass
c. flash drive
d. blender

Answer 19

b. magnifying glass

Question 20

Attentional warping involves which of the following?
a. a switch to peripheral vision
b. an expansion of brain maps
c. a shift in overt attention
d. an excess of daydreaming

Answer 20

b. an expansion of brain maps

Question 21

Which of the following best reflects the amount of learning required for participants to engage in automatic processing during Schneider and Shiffrin’s “divided attention” experiment?
a. none
b. a small amount
c. a moderate amount
d. a large amount

Answer 21

d. a large amount

Question 22

Which of the following is NOT required for a person to engage in automatic processing?
a. sense memory
b. intent
c. cognition
d. attention

Answer 22

b. intent

Question 23

Peter was so stressed about his presentation tomorrow that he was surprised to find himself pulling into his driveway after work. He didn’t remember one bit of what is usually a nasty commute on packed roads. What enabled Peter to make it home safely?
a. attentional warping
b. automatic processing
c. experience sampling
d. brain mapping

Answer 23

b. automatic processing

Question 24

Based on research, the driver’s lack of attention 3 seconds before an accident plays a role in how many traffic accidents?
a. about a third
b. more than half
c. nearly two-thirds
d. over three-fourths

Answer 24

d. over three-fourths

Question 25

When you check WhatsApp on your phone and see two new messages, you will be more likely to check WhatsApp again later—even if you’re in a classroom or at dinner—because your behavior has been ________.
a. sampled
b. automatic
c. mapped
d. reinforced

Answer 25

d. reinforced

Question 26

Many students claim that they are highly skilled at multitasking. What would a cognitive psychologist call this activity?
a. divided perceptual salience
b. continuous partial attention
c. allocated attentional capture
d. attenuated load processing

Answer 26

b. continuous partial attention

Question 27

When is a person most likely to engage in mind wandering?
a. while eating
b. at church
c. at work
d. during sex

Answer 27

c. at work

Question 28

For decades, children waiting to see the dentist have done a familiar challenge in Highlights magazine. They compare two illustrations that look almost identical and try to identify 15 things that are different. What are the children engaging in?
a. dichotic viewing
b. divided attention
c. Stroop testing
d. change detection

Answer 28

d. change detection

Question 29

When Skylar was young, he loved his favorite toy clown. It had a rainbow polka-dot suit, fuzzy green hair, long brown shoes, and a big red nose. Which of the following enabled Skylar to see a clown and not just a collection of bright colors?
a. sampling
b. warping
c. Binding
d. conjunction

Answer 29

c. binding

Question 30

Which of the following controls the attention of someone who is trying to locate a blonde friend wearing a red shirt in a crowd?
a. limbic attention network
b. dorsal attention network
c. parietal attention network
d. ventral attention network

Answer 30

d. ventral attention network