Which of the following concerns is NOT addressed by adopting a cognitive approach to the study of psychology?

a) The study of psychology involves entities (like beliefs or desires) that cannot be directly observed. b) Many mental processes are unconscious. c) Many mental processes unfold so rapidly that it is difficult to observe them. d) Just because something happens in a laboratory experiment does not mean it necessarily happens that way in real-life settings.

You’ve met a researcher at a conference who says she is of the same school of thought as the famous nineteenth-century scholars Wilhelm Wundt and Edward Titchener. You can gather from this statement that she feels the best way to study thoughts is to

a) have every person freely introspect about his or her own thoughts. b) have only highly trained and qualified people introspect about their own thoughts. c) use the behaviors that people produce as a basis for inferring their thoughts. d) use simple animal models as a basis for theorizing about cognition in humans.

Using converging methods when constructing a theoretical account is

a) good because it works to eliminate alternative hypotheses. b) good because it ensures consistency in procedures. c) bad because it is confusing to have many different methods. d) bad because there is little consistency between the methods

In a digit-span task, a person hears a series of items and has to repeat them back immediately in correct sequence. This task is often understood to measure the

a) holding capacity of working memory. b) speed with which the person can transfer items from working memory into long-term storage. c) holding capacity of long-term memory. d) speed with which the person can transfer items from sensory memory into working memory.

A psychologist who adheres to the behaviorist school of thought would most likely attribute someone reaching for a slice of pie to

a) an interaction between memory and desire. b) a learned behavior in response to specific environmental triggers. c) a chemical imbalance produced by a deficit in nutrients. d) inadequate maternal supervision and love during infancy.

Performance on a span task is typically reduced when the participant has to perform concurrent articulation. This finding suggests that

a) memory performance suffers when the person is distracted by an especially demanding task. b) memory performance suffers if the person is asked to make some sort of rhythmic movement while memorizing. c) memory performance suffers if the person is prevented from subvocalizing while memorizing. d) memory performance suffers if the person has suffered brain damage.

Which of the following pieces of evidence would NOT be consistent with claims about the articulatory rehearsal loop?

a) In working-memory tasks, when people hear “F” spoken, they sometimes remember “S” instead. b) In working-memory tasks, when people see the letter “F,” they sometimes remember “S” instead. c) Repeating a nonsense syllable over and over interferes with the ability to hold a string of letters in working memory. d) Repeating a nonsense syllable over and over interferes with the ability to hold a sequence of abstract shapes in working memory.

When someone asks you to pass the salt at the dinner table, you are able to understand the request even if it is asked in a variety of different ways. This illustrates that

a) learned associations between stimuli and responses require that the stimulus be exactly the same every time. b) the meaning of an utterance, not the physical stimulus, is most important for predicting behavior. c) introspection is an essential component to understanding human cognition. d) language is a highly reflexive behavior, requiring fast and automatic responses.

If a patient were to suffer amnesia similar to H.M.’s, which of the following would pose a particular problem?

a) recalling the name of childhood pets. b) accessing the background knowledge necessary to understand simple stories. c) navigating streets he knew well before brain surgery. d) remembering her divorce after brain surgery.

Data from people with anarthria, the inability to speak, suggest that

a) actual vocal movements are needed for sound-alike confusions to emerge in working-memory tasks. b) examining brain dysfunctions cannot shed light on the workings of normal brains. c) inner speech relies on brain areas responsible for planning speech. d) learning to speak is intimately connected with hearing.

As one of their main goals, the original behaviorists tried to

a) discover a set of principles concerned with how behavior changes in response to different configurations of stimuli. b) gather a record of specific individuals’ subjective interpretations of internal thought and experiences. c) study the influence of an individual’s interpretation of a situation on his or her consequent behavior. d) show how all of an individual’s feelings can be explained by his or her history of reinforcement.

The use of computers as a metaphor for how humans process information BEST typifies which approach?

a) behaviorism b) introspection c) information-processing psychology d) transcendental psychology

What is the most precise explanation for why many aspects of psychology (and most of cognitive psychology) rely on inferential methods?

a) Language processing requires the ability to draw inferences. b) It is hard to know why the behavior of a particular individual changes. c) Psychology is an inaccurate science. d) Psychology often demands hypotheses about processes that cannot be observed directly in order to explain the capacities and the behaviors that we can observe.

Which of the following strategies might you suggest to a child who is having trouble remembering a list of things?

a) Repeat a nonword over and over while memorizing, in order to prevent other real words from interfering with what he’s trying to remember. b) It does not matter if she rehearses the words or not, because rehearsal has only minor and transient effects on memory. c) Insist on actually the saying the words out loud, since the words must actually be heard through the ears for the rehearsal loop to work. d) Repeat the list over and over either inside the head or out loud; either will be very effective.

Which of the following claims about working memory is NOT accurate?

a) Individuals often confuse similar-sounding words in working-memory tasks. b) Performance in working-memory tasks does require some focus but is not disrupted by relatively mindless tasks such as saying “tah-tah-tah” aloud while holding items in working memory. c) Many amnesiacs (including the famous patient H.M.) appear to have relatively normal working memories, despite profound problems in other aspects of remembering. d) Much evidence suggests that working memory is not a single entity but is instead a system with separate components.

Modern psychologists follow the lead of Immanuel Kant in arguing that the solution to the impasse between introspectionism and behaviorism lies in a method in which we begin with _______ and then proceed to _______.

a) animal models; human models b) internal causes; likely behavioral outcomes c) observable facts; likely internal causes d) the computer as a metaphor; the human mind

Cognitive psychology is primarily concerned with which of the following?

a) the relationship between environmental input and behavior b) the understanding and treatment of mental disorders c) what we know, what we remember, and how we think d) the physical structures of the mind

18
Martin is trying to understand why he’s been forgetting things lately. As a well-trained cognitive psychologist, Martin is likely to investigate this puzzle by

a) examining the circumstances associated with his memory failures, including the complexity or familiarity of the material and how fully he paid attention to the material during learning. b) focusing exclusively on the stimuli he’s encountered recently—including rewards or punishments he’s received for remembering particular items. c) focusing entirely on the conscious experience of trying to remember and then the experience of succeeding or failing. d) relying on the anecdotes he has heard from his friends about when they remember and when they forget.

Which of the following behaviors is most difficult to explain from a behaviorist perspective?

a) Your response to a stimulus is dependent on how you interpret that stimulus. b) You are very likely to respond differently to a novel stimulus than to a familiar one. c) Once you have learned that a particular response is rewarded, you are likely to repeat that response. d) Often someone’s responses are different from what they said initially that they planned or hoped to do.

Researchers in cognitive psychology rely on all of the following forms of data EXCEPT

a) measurements of how long someone needs to make a response. b) the exact types of errors people make. c) which conditions lead to greater accuracy and which lead to poor accuracy. d) anecdotes and testimonials.

Which of the following is the LEAST accurate statement about behaviorism?

a) Behaviorism rejected introspection on the grounds that objectivity is of paramount importance in the study of psychology. b) Behaviorism is primarily designed to explain why organisms believe their behavior is justified or reasonable. c) By focusing on the stimuli to which an organism is exposed and the responses an organism produces and then observing how these change over time, behaviorism can catalogue an individual’s learning history. d) Behaviorism claims that behaviors are often best explained by the presence or absence of reinforcement or

Which of the following was NOT one of the problems associated with introspection as a research technique?

a) Some thoughts are not available to the conscious mind. b) Many introspective claims cannot be tested in a rigorous fashion. c) How people react to a stimulus is heavily influenced by past experience. d) Thoughts and feelings cannot be meaningfully compared across individuals.

Participants are presented with brief series of letters or numbers and must report them back, in order, immediately. In this situation, most people are able to remember a string of approximately _______ letters or numbers. This gives us some evidence that working memory is _______.

a) 26; fairly large b) 7; expandable depending on context c) 7; limited in size d) 2–15; extremely variable between people

Which of the following is a way that cognitive psychology is DIFFERENT from physics?

a) Physicists test their theories using the scientific method. b) Psychologists must take into account the way participants interpret their study. c) Psychology does not allow for direct observation of the causes of phenomena. d) Physics bases its theories on objective, quantifiable data.

Which of the following is TRUE of the working-memory system?

a) The central executive serves the same function as a piece of scrap paper, freeing the rest of the system to do other tasks. b) Working memory has an unlimited capacity. c) The assistants are responsible solely for storage of information. d) Working memory is a single entity with virtually no peripheral mechanisms.

When reading a story about a girl shaking a piggy bank because she wants to buy something, we understand the reasons for her action because

a) our working memory fills in the background information. b) all the necessary information is already present in the story. c) the capacity of working memory is unlimited. d) we provide additional background knowledge based on our own experience.

The famous psychologist Edward Titchener claimed to have identified and catalogued nearly 10,000 sensations that he observed within himself. What method best describes his approach?

a) introspection b) behaviorism c) psychoanalysis d) transcendentalism