PSYCH 105 Ch. 8

Which of the following is true about mental images?

They are representations in the mind of an object or event

A prototype is:

the most typical or highly representative example of a concept.

_____ is the process by which information is used to draw conclusions and make decisions.

reasoning

Syllogisms are used to study:

reasoning

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

syllogistic

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

algorithm

Which of the following is true of heuristics?

In cases where algorithms are not available, we may use heuristics.

Which of the following is TRUE of heuristics?

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

The _____ is a rule we apply when we judge people by the degree to which they depict a certain category or group of people.

representativeness heuristic

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

familiarity

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

critical thinking

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

open-mindedness

________ thinking is best when a problem has only one right answer.

convergent

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.

Consider the following syllogism:

(1) All Houstonians are Texans
(2) Some Houstonians attend church
(3) Some Texans attend church

Which of the following alternatives correctly identifies a statement in this syllogism?

Statement 3—conclusion

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

strategy

Which of the following most likely makes use of heuristics?

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

"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

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

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

artificial

An effective way to strategize your organization of subgoals is to

work backward from your planning

You have to study four chapters of information for your next test. If you decide to use the problem-solving strategy of using subgoals, you must

breakdown the topics to be studied and focus on each in an organized sequence.

Ivan has misplaced his keys. If he decides to use an algorithmic approach to find them, he will

start going through each drawer in his house

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 activity probably requires mindfulness?

studying psychology

Who is LEAST likely to exhibit mindfulness as part of their regular job responsibilities?

the usher at a movie theatre

Which of the following is NOT a descriptor of creative thinkers?

externally motivated

_____ 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

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

images; concepts

Which of the following is MOST likely the prototype of the concept "fruit"?

apple

Following the September 11, 2001, Twin Towers attacks, many Americans elected to drive rather than fly. The media coverage of the hijackings caused Americans to overestimate the danger of flying. As it was an event they remember easily they assumed it could occur more frequently. This example illustrates the:

availability heuristic

In everyday situations, finding and framing problems can be difficult because most real-life problems

are vague and ill-defined

Every week during football season, Fred and his friends have fun following the local high school teams. Before the games, Fred never really talks too much about how the games will turn out. On Monday, however, it is a different scenario altogether. Fred is more than happy to share with his friends that the games came out exactly as he thought they would and why. Fred is demonstrating

hindsight 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

When you use the representativeness heuristic, you are:

assuming that something is typical of its class.

Who would benefit the most from making subgoals?

Suki has to read a chapter in her sociology textbook.

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

When people are asked which is more common, death by homicide or death by stroke, they often choose homicide because they simply hear more about murders than they do about strokes. In this instance, people are led astray in their judgments by:

the availability heuristic

When the field of cognitive psychology first became prominent, it was considered a revolutionary development because it was a radical departure from

behaviorism

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

convenience

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

It is silver

Creative thinkers are NOT usually

motivated by the feedback of others

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

availability

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

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

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

insight

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

suddenness

Which of the following impediments to effective problem solving is INCORRECTLY matched with an illustrative problem?

Functional fixedness—water jar problem

_____ is the tendency to seek out and weight more heavily information that supports one’s initial hypothesis and to ignore contradictory information that supports alternative hypotheses or solutions.

confirmation bias

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

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

"You brush your teeth with it"

Traditional intelligence tests tend to assess _____ thinking; tests of creativity tap into _____.

convergent; divergent thinking

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

more than 800

Approximately how many phonemes are found in English?

52

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

Phoneme → syntax → semantics

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 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.

You are creating a language development timeline for a class presentation. Along the top of a display board, you write the following ages in sequence: 6 months → 1 year → 2 years →3 years
How should you label these ages, from youngest to oldest?

Babbling → first words → telegraphic speech → overgeneralization

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.

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

learning-theory

Infinite generativity refers to the ability to

create unlimited numbers of meaningful sentences.

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

syntactically correct but semantically incorrect.

Critics of the work of Benjamin Whorf maintain that

people’s perceptions are independent of the words they know.

According to the text, the most frequently used problem-solving heuristic is:

means-ends analysis

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

mental set

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

As compared to less creative individuals, creative persons:

prefer more complex stimuli

Which of the following is true of creativity?

Cognitive complexity is an important aspect of creativity.

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

phonemes; syntax

Theorists taking an interactionist approach to language acquisition:

agree that the brain is hardwired to acquire language.

Evidence of the role of language in cognitive activities includes the fact that

memory is stored in the form of words

The term universal linguist refers to the idea that

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

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

Kohler; chimpanzees

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

creativity

The _____ hypothesis suggests language leads to thought.

linguistic-relativity

Which figure best approximates the number of Americans for whom English is a second language?

47 million

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

bilingual education; immersion programs

Which of the following is NOT a recommended strategy for how parents should talk to their babies?

Use only words that your infant will be able to understand.

Phonology is the study of:

speech sounds

Dorian is 2 years old; Constance is 2.5. Dorian’s vocabulary probably contains around _____ words; Constance’s, _____ words.

about 50; several hundred

The view that language development is produced through a combination of genetically determined predispositions and environmental circumstances that help teach language is known as the _____ approach.

interactionist

_____ involves repeated tests for differences between the desired outcome and what currently exists.

means-ends analysis

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

Which of the following is true of creativity?

Cognitive complexity is an important aspect of creativity.