Cognitive Psych Exam 4 Flashcards

To say that people are loss averse means they:

a) Do not like losing things

b) Dislike losing goods of a certain value more than they like gaining goods of the same value

c) Are risk seeking in the domain of losses

d) Are risk averse in the domain of losses

Morphemes are the smallest:

a) Units of sound in a language that change meaning

b) Units of meaning in a language that change sound

c) Pronounceable units of a language

d) Units of meaning in a language

Experimental studies show that, for equal losses or gains, people are:

a) risk averse for losses and gains

b) risk taking for losses and gains

c) risk averse for gains and risk taking for losses

d) risk averse for losses and risk taking for gains

Which of the following is true about phonemes and morphemes?

a) Phonemes are sounds made to produce speech, and morphemes are gestures made to produce sign language

b) Phonemes are the smallest unit of meaning and morphemes are the smallest unit of speech

c) In a language like English, both phonemes and morphemes can be combined to make new words

d) Languages differ in their rules for how morphemes can be combined, but all languages use phonemes in the same way.

What is a common way to gain insight while trying to solve a problem?

a) Allow the problem to incubate in the back of your mind

b) Utilize deliberate practice to improve performance

c) Develop a mental set for viewing the problem

d) Apply an analogy based on a problem you already solved.

Which of the following is a major feature of Chomsky’s nativist theory of language acquisition?
a. Infants can distinguish all the sounds of the world’s languages at birth.

b. Children learn words by associating sounds with contexts.

c. Innate mechanisms guide the selection of rules for learning any language.

d. There is a critical period for learning language in early childhood.

The sentence “Colorless green ideas sleep furiously,” is an example of a sentence that is:

a. Phonologically correct but lacks grammatical syntax.

b. Syntactically correct but meaningless.

c. Neither phonologically nor syntactically correct.

d. Syntactically ambiguous

A friend of yours has never taken a psychology course before. You show her four cards labeled P, 7, E, 4, and ask her which cards need to be turned over to verify the rule “If there is a consonant on the front, then there is an odd number on the back.” The correct answer is to turn over the cards labeled “P” and “4”, but your friend foolishly turns over cards labeled “P” and “7”. You reassure her that most people make this mistake, which is known as (a/an):

a. Schema

b. Functional fixedness

c. Availability heuristic

d. Confirmation bias

Which of the following statements about expertise is FALSE?

a. Expertise takes many years to achieve.

b. Experts often do not need a strategy before solving a problem.

c. Experts rely on specific principles and concepts.

d. Expertise does not generalize to other domains.

Which of the following is an example of functional fixedness?

(A) Using a blanket as a floor mat

(B) Not being able to solve a math problem because you are using the incorrect formula

(D) Failing to use your keys to open a package when you can’t find a pair of scissors

(E) Picking up a tangerine and calling it an orange

After watching the evening news, Khloe believes the newscast contains only tragic events like floods, earthquakes, and murders. When asked to think carefully about the newscast, she did recall many other events. Th is is an example of:

(A) Representative heuristic

(B) Availability heuristic

(D) Functional fixedness

(E) Insight

On her way to London, Janet was invited into the cockpit to meet the pilot, Alex. She was surprised to see that Alex was a woman. Th is is an example of:

(A) Confirmation bias

(B) Convergent thinking

(D) Representative heuristic

(E) Availability heuristic

Phonemes are best defi ned as:

(A) The smallest meaningful combination of sounds in a language

(B) The basic sounds of consonants and vowels

(D) A set of rules that specify how we combine words to form meaningful sentences

(E) A special form of communication

Noam Chomsky’s language theory included the idea that:

(A) Language development occurs between the ages of three and five.

(B) Children learn language through positive and negative reinforcement.

(D) Children model language development from those around them.

(E) Children have an innate mental grammar

Which of the following statements is not supported by the Whorf-Sapir linguistic relativity hypothesis?

(A) The language a person speaks determines the way a person thinks.

(B) If language lacks expression, the thought that corresponds will likely not occur.

(D) If language affects our ability to store information, it should affect our thought process.

(E) To understand new vocabulary, it is easier to think about the relationship between language and thought.

Suppose you consider elderly people to be infirm and mentally slow. Every time you see elderly people in need of care or assistance, you take it as evidence of your belief, while ignoring the many cases of healthy, active elderly people. This is an example of:

(A) Representative heuristic

(B) Availability heuristic

(D) Confirmation bias

(E) Functional fixedness

Which of the following is not a good example of the ability to overcome functional fixedness?

(A) A potato is used as a temporary gas cap.

(B) A paper clip is used to make earrings.

(D) A credit card is used as a bookmark.

(E) A math formula is used to solve a math problem.

Which of the following statements best describes an example of availability heuristic?

(A) After speaking in front of 200 people, Tim is no longer afraid of public speaking.

(B) Jane thinks all men will eventually cheat on her.

(C) Steven complains to his wife about work after a very bad day, but at the office party Steven’s wife sees how much he enjoys what he does.

(D) Rob claims that when he is confronted with a problem, he likes to come up with one correct solution.

(E) After meeting a celebrity, Todd now wants to become an actor and eventually become famous.

Which of the following terms is not an example of a problem-solving technique?

(A) Functional fixedness

(B) Trial and error

(D) Brainstorming

(E) Heuristics

Th is problem-solving technique involves analyzing the diff erence between the current situation and the desired end, and then doing something to reduce that difference.

(A) Subgoals

(B) Means-end analysis

(D) Heuristic

(E) Algorithm

If you are given the information that in order to vote in a presidential election, you must be at least 18 years of age, and that Will voted in the last presidential election, you can logically conclude that Will is at least 18 years old. This is an example of using _____ reasoning.

a. inductive
b. deductive
c. conjunctive
d. descriptive

Making probable conclusions based on evidence involves _____ reasoning.

a. deductive
b. syllogistic
c. inductive
d. connective

An experiment measures participants' performance in judging syllogisms. Two premises and a conclusion are presented as stimuli, and participants are asked to indicate (yes or no) if the conclusion logically follows from the premises. Error rates are then calculated for each syllogism. This experiment studies _____ reasoning.

a. deductive
b. intuitive
c. falsification
d. inductive

Consider the following syllogism:

All cats are birds.
All birds have wings.
All cats have wings.

This syllogism is

a. valid.
b. invalid.
c. true.
d. both valid and true.

The validity of a syllogism depends on

a. the truth of its premises.
b. the truth of its conclusion.
c. its form.
d. both the truth of its premises and the truth of its conclusion

Consider the following syllogism:

Premise 1: All dogs are cats.
Premise 2: All cats say "meow."
Conclusion: Therefore, all dogs say "meow."

Which statement below describes this syllogism?

a. Both premises are valid
b. The conclusion is valid
c. The conclusion is not valid
d. The conclusion is true

A syllogism is valid if

a. the conclusion follows logically from the two premises.
b. the two premises and the conclusion are true.
c. there is evidence to support the two premises.
d. there is no more than one exception to the conclusion.

For which type of syllogism do people exhibit the best performance in judging validity?

a. Denying the antecedent
b. Denying the consequent
c. Affirming the antecedent
d. Affirming the consequent

If it is raining, then I will take my umbrella. It is not raining. Therefore, I didn't take my umbrella.

This syllogism is an example of

a. denying the antecedent.
b. denying the consequent.
c. affirming the antecedent.
d. affirming the consequent.

Consider the following conditional syllogism:

Premise 1: If I study, then I'll get a good grade.
Premise 2: I didn't study.
Conclusion: Therefore, I didn't get a good grade.

This syllogism is an example of

a. affirming the antecedent.
b. denying the consequent.
c. denying the antecedent.
d. affirming the consequent.

Consider the following conditional syllogism:

Premise 1: If I don't eat lunch today, I will be hungry tonight.
Premise 2: I ate lunch today.
Conclusion: Therefore, I wasn't hungry tonight.

This syllogism is an example of

a. affirming the consequent.
b. denying the antecedent.
c. affirming the consequent.
d. denying the antecedent.

According to your text, the key to solving the Watson four-card problem is

a. a mental model.
b. a categorical syllogism.
c. the law of large numbers.
d. the falsification principle.

The rule of the Wason four-card problem is, "If there is a vowel on one side, then there is an even number on the other side." Let's say you are presented with A, 8, M, and 13, each showing on one of four cards. To see if the rule is valid, you would have to turn over the cards showing

a. 8 and M.
b. A and M.
c. A and 13.
d. 8 and 13.

When the "abstract" version of the Wason four-card problem is compared to a "concrete" version of the problem (in which beer, soda, and ages are substituted for the letters and numbers),

a. performance is better for the concrete task.
b. performance is better for the abstract task.
c. performance is the same for both tasks.
d. performing the abstract task improves performance of the concrete task.

Bonnie has ordered her monthly supply of medicines through the mail for the past five years. Except for one order, all orders have arrived within two business days. Bonnie placed an order yesterday, and she expects to receive her order tomorrow. Bonnie is using

a. an omission bias.
b. inductive reasoning.
c. the conjunction rule.
d. the similarity-coverage model.

Derrick purchased a new car, a Ford Mustang, less than a month ago. While sitting in traffic, Derrick says to his girlfriend, "Mustangs must be the best-selling car now. I can't remember seeing as many on the road as I have recently." Derrick's judgment is most likely biased by a(n)

a. atmosphere effect.
b. availability heuristic.
c. focusing illusion.
d. permission schema.

Wally and Sharon are out on a date. When Sharon asks Wally where they should go for dinner, Wally says "My coworkers keep telling me about that new Japanese place downtown, so it must be a great place to eat." Wally's response illustrates the use of a(n)

a. availability heuristic.
b. confirmation bias.
c. conjunction rule.
d. permission schema.

The finding that people tend to incorrectly conclude that more people die from tornados than from asthma has been explained in terms of the

a. representativeness heuristic.
b. availability heuristic.
c. falsification principle.
d. belief bias.

Mia has lived in New York City all her life. She has noticed that people from upper Manhattan walk really fast, but people from lower Manhattan tend to walk slowly. Mia's observations are likely influenced from a judgment error based on her using

a. the law of large numbers.
b. an atmosphere effect.
c. an illusory correlation.
d. the falsification principle.

Gabrielle is blonde, extremely attractive, and lives in an expensive condo. If we judge the probability of Gabrielle's being a model quite high because she resembles our stereotype of a model, we are using

a. the representative heuristic.
b. the availability heuristic.
c. framing.
d. the law of small numbers.

Lydia is 48 years old, single, outspoken, and very bright. She majored in philosophy as an undergraduate. As a student, she was deeply concerned with issues of discrimination and social justice, and she participated in anti-nuclear demonstrations. Which of the following alternatives is most probable?

a. Lydia is a U.S. Congresswoman.
b. Lydia is a U.S. Congresswoman and active in the feminist movement.
c. Lydia is a U.S. Senator.
d. Lydia is a U.S. Senator and active in the feminist movement.

The conjunction rule states that

a. the probability of two events co-occurring is the sum of the probabilities of each event occurring.
b. the probability of two events co-occurring is equal to or less than the probability of either event occurring alone.
c. people make decisions based upon both the costs and benefits of the choices.
d. people make decisions based upon possible benefits when the choices are framed positively and based upon possible costs when the choices are framed negatively.

Failing to consider the law of large numbers most likely results in errors concerning

a. confirmation bias.
b. utility.
c. the falsification principle.
d. the representativeness heuristic.

Glinda is sure that if her boyfriend proposes, she will feel elation. This is an example of an

a. expected emotion.
b. immediate emotion.
c. integral immediate emotion.
d. incidental immediate emotion.

People tend to overestimate

a. what negative feelings will occur following a decision more so than positive feelings.
b. what positive feelings will occur following a decision more so than negative feelings.
c. what positive and negative feelings will occur following a decision to the same degree.
d. subjective utility values following a decision.

By using a(n) , a country could increase the percentage of individuals agreeing to be organ donors dramatically.

a. opt-out procedure
b. opt-in procedure
c. pragmatic reasoning schema
d. permission schema

Juanita is in a convenience store considering which soda to buy. She recalls a commercial for BigFizz she saw on TV last night. BigFizz is running a promotion where you look under the bottle cap, and one in five bottles has a voucher for a free soda. If Juanita decides to purchase a BigFizz based on this promotion, which is framed in terms of _____, she will use a _____ strategy.

a. losses; risk-taking
b. gains; risk-taking
c. losses; risk-aversion
d. gains; risk-aversion

Which property below is NOT one of the characteristics that makes human language unique?

a. Hierarchical structure
b. Communication
c. Governed by rules
d. all of these make human language unique

B.F. Skinner, the modern champion of behaviorism, proposed that language is learned through

a. parsing.
b. genetic coding.
c. syntactic framing.
d. reinforcement.

Noam Chomsky proposed that

a. humans are genetically programmed to acquire and use language.
b. language is learned through the mechanism of reinforcement.
c. as children learn language, they produce only sentences they have heard before.
d. the underlying basis of language is different across cultures.

One of Chomsky's most persuasive arguments for refuting Skinner's theory of language acquisition was his observation that children

a. produce sentences they have never heard.
b. show similar language development across cultures.
c. are rewarded for using correct language.
d. learn to follow complex language rules, even though they are not aware of doing so.

The word "bad" has ____ phoneme(s).

a. one
b. two
c. three
d. four

"Kitchen tables" consists of ____ morphemes.

a. two
b. three
c. four
d. five

An experiment on the phonemic restoration effect would most likely include

a. an extraneous cough.
b. two similar-sounding letters (e.g., "T" and "C").
c. a categorical perception task.
d. a garden-path sentence.

In the phonemic restoration effect, participants "fill in" the missing phoneme based on all of the following EXCEPT

a. the context produced by the sentence.
b. the portion of the word that was presented.
c. the meaning of the words that follow the missing phoneme.
d. a mental "skimming" of the lexicon to find likely words.

The word frequency effect refers to the fact that we respond more

a. slowly to low-frequency words than high-frequency words.
b. slowly to letters appearing in non-words than letters appearing in words.
c. quickly to letters that appear multiple times in a word than just once in a word.
d. quickly to phonemes that appear multiple times in a word than just once in a word.

Which set of stimuli would be the best selection for having people perform a lexical decision task?

a. Common words "cat, boat" and uncommon words "peon, furtive"
b. Concrete words "window, monkey" and abstract words "doubt, energy"
c. Words "pizza, history" and non-words "pibble, girk"
d. Correctly spelled words "speech, potato" and misspelled words "speach, potatoe"

In the lexical decision task, participants are asked to

a. separate a sentence into individual words.
b. decide which meaning of an ambiguous sentence is correct in a specific situation.
c. identify words that are contained in sentences.
d. decide whether a string of letters is a word or a non-word.

Lexical ambiguity studies show that people initially access

a. only the meaning of an ambiguous word that is consistent with the context.
b. multiple meanings of an ambiguous word.
c. the appropriate meaning of an ambiguous word based on syntax.
d. the appropriate meaning of an ambiguous word based on the principle of late closure.

Which of the following is NOT influenced by meaning?

a. Word frequency effect
b. Word superiority effect
c. Phonemic restoration effect
d. The lexical decision task

Syntax is

a. the rules for combining words into sentences.
b. the meanings of words.
c. the way people pronounce words in conversational speech.
d. the mental grouping of words in a sentence into phrases.

When the front part of a sentence can be interpreted more than one way, but the end of the sentence clarifies which meaning is correct, we say that the sentence is an example of

a. parsing.
b. temporary ambiguity.
c. speech segmentation.
d. lexical priming.

Consider the sentence, "Because he always jogs a mile seems like a short distance to him."
The principle of late closure states that this sentence would first be parsed into which of the following phrases?

a. "Because he always jogs"
b. "Because he always jogs a mile"
c. "he always jogs"
d. "a mile seems"

Which of the following is the best example of a garden path sentence?

a. Before the police stopped the Toyota disappeared into the night.
b. The man was not surprised when he found several spiders, roaches, and other bugs in the corner of the room.
c. The cats won't bake.
d. The Eskimos were frightened by the walrus.

The principle of late closure can be described as a(n) _____ since it provides a best guess about the unfolding meaning of a sentence.

a. analogy
b. algorithm
c. heuristic
d. insight

The interactionist approach to parsing states that

a. semantics is activated only at the end of a sentence.
b. semantics is activated as a sentence is being read.
c. the grammatical structure of a sentence determines the initial parsing.
d. semantics is only activated to clear up ambiguity.

The crucial question in comparing syntax-first and interactionist approaches to parsing is ____ is involved.

a. whether semantics
b. whether syntax
c. when semantics
d. when syntax

Consider the following sentences: "Captain Ahab wanted to kill the whale. He cursed at it." These two sentences taken together provide an example of a(n)

a. instrument inference.
b. garden path sequence.
c. global connection.
d. anaphoric inference.

Boxing champion George Foreman recently described his family vacations with the statement, "At our ranch in Marshall, Texas, there are lots of ponds and I take the kids out and we fish. And then of course, we grill them." That a reader understands "them" appropriately (George grills fish, not his kids!) is the result of a(n) _____ inference.

a. narrative
b. instrument
c. analogic
d. anaphoric

Chaz is listening to his grandma reminisce about the first time she danced with his grandpa 60 years ago. When his grandma says, "It seemed like the song would play forever," Chaz understands that it is more likely his grandma was listening to a radio playing and not a CD. This understanding requires Chaz use a(n)

a. garden path model.
b. given-new contract.
c. instrument inference.
d. age-appropriate principle.

Imagine you are interpreting a pair of sentences such as "The sidewalk was covered with ice" and "Ramona fell down." The kind of inference we use to link these sentences together would most likely be a(n) _____ inference.

a. causal
b. coherent
c. anaphoric
d. instrument

The ____ states that the nature of a culture's language can affect the way people think.

a. interactionist approach
b. Sapir-Whorf hypothesis
c. given-new contract
d. cooperative principle

A psycholinguist conducts an experiment with a group of participants from a small village in Asia and another from a small village in South America. She asked the groups to describe the bands of color they saw in a rainbow and found they reported the same number of bands as their language possessed primary color words. These results

a. support the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis.
b. contradict the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis.
c. support the word frequency effect.
d. contradict the word frequency effect.