Deck 1: Cognitive Psychology: History, methods, and Paradigms

Question 1

Historians date the founding of scientific psychology to the 1879 laboratory of ______.

A)Williams James
B)Wilhelm Wundt
C)Edward Titchener
D)Edward Thorndike

Answer 1

Wilhelm Wundt

Question 2

The earliest theories about cognitive abilities date back to ______.

A)Aristotle and Plato
B)John Locke
C)Sigmund Freud
D)Williams James

Answer 2

Aristotle and Plato

Question 3

Even rats have goals and expectations and can form mental representations of mazes,according to ______.

A)Watson
B)Skinner
C)Tolman
D)Galton

Answer 3

Tolman

Question 4

The belief that most of our abilities and tendencies are with us from birth is known as ______.

A)nativism
B)empiricism
C)associationism
D)behaviorism

Question 5

All of the following statements are central to empiricism EXCEPT ______.

A)Knowledge comes from an individual's experience.
B)Learning takes place through the mental association of two ideas.
C)Environment plays a powerful role in determining intellectual ability.
D)Important structures of the human mind are present at birth.

Question 6

One difference between functionalism and structuralism was that ______.

A)functionalists emphasized laboratory experimentation more than structuralists
B)functionalists wanted to study whole organisms in real-life tasks
C)structuralists were more interested in habit formation
D)functionalists wanted to study only observable behaviors

Question 7

Which of the following is NOT one of the four properties that Wundt proposed as the basis for any conscious thought or idea?

A)mode
B)quantity
C)intensity
D)duration

Question 8

Wilhelm Wundt and his students used a technique known as ______ to study mental states.

A)behaviorism
B)intensity measurement
C)componentialism
D)introspection

Question 9

A traditional "school" within psychology that had as its goal the identification of the simplest possible units of the mind is ______.

A)functionalism
B)structuralism
C)behaviorism
D)the Gestalt school

Question 10

The school of psychology known as functionalism,which emphasized the purposes of the mind's operations,was founded by ______.

A)Wilhelm Wundt
B)John Watson
C)William James
D)Edward Titchener

Question 11

A traditional "school" within psychology that emphasized the adaptation of the organism to its environment and focused on questions such as what role a particular system served for an organism is called ______.

A)functionalism
B)structuralism
C)behaviorism
D)connectionism

Question 12

The belief that psychological phenomena cannot be reduced to simple elements but must be studied in their entirety is central to the school known as ______.

A)structuralism
B)Gestalt psychology
C)behaviorism
D)connectionism

Question 13

______ emphasizes the role of constitutional factors over the role of learning in the acquisition of abilities and tendencies.

A)Behaviorism
B)Empiricism
C)Nativism
D)Functionalism

Question 14

Which of the following is true regarding Watson's behaviorism?

A)It is sometimes regarded as a branch of structuralism.
B)It relies heavily on the technique of introspection.
C)It rejected references to unobservable mental states such as consciousness.
D)It had a large positive impact on the development of cognitive psychology.

Question 15

Which of the following is NOT an example of a cognitive process?

A)attention
B)perception
C)reflex
D)problem solving

Question 16

Which "school" of psychology emphasized objectivity of research methods and measurement?

A)connectionism
B)functionalism
C)structuralism
D)behaviorism

Question 17

Skinner objected to hypothesizing the existence of ______,which he took to be internal copies of external stimuli.

A)reinforcers
B)instincts
C)motivators
D)mental representations

Question 18

That guest star on your favorite television show looks familiar.You are sure that you have seen him before,but you are unable to think of his name.The fact that you know you have seen the face before,however,illustrates the cognitive process of ______.

A)perception
B)attention
C)recognition
D)problem solving

Question 19

Which of the following is a central tenet of the Gestalt school of psychology?

A)The goal of psychology is to break down and identify the simplest mental elements that make up conscious experience.
B)The most important function of the mind is to allow the individual to adapt to his or her environment.
C)Psychological phenomena cannot be reduced to simple elements,but must be studied in their entirety.
D)The intellectual structures of a child differ qualitatively from those of a mature adult.

Question 20

The philosopher John Locke was a strong believer in ______,which rests on the assumption that knowledge comes from an individual's own experience.

A)nativism
B)empiricism
C)behaviorism
D)structuralism

Question 21

______ allow(s)the researcher to observe behavior unobtrusively,but still retain some control over the setting in which observations are conducted or the conditions that participants will experience.

A)Controlled observation
B)Brain imaging
C)Laboratory experiments
D)Clinical interviews

Question 22

Different people participate in different experimental conditions in a(n)______.

A)introspective procedure
B)clinical interview
C)controlled observation
D)between-subjects design

Question 23

The term ______ refers to the claim that neural structures supporting a particular cognitive process reside in a particular brain region.

A)limited capacity processors
B)synaptic transmission
C)brain plasticity
D)localization of function

Question 24

Which of the following has the highest ecological validity?

A)experiment
B)introspection
C)naturalistic observation
D)clinical interview

Question 25

Which of the following allows us to support claims about cause-and-effect relationships?

A)experiment
B)naturalistic observation
C)controlled observation
D)case study

Question 26

The major disadvantage of naturalistic observation is the lack of ______.

A)experimental control
B)ecological validity
C)training given to the participants
D)findings to analyze

Question 27

Noam Chomsky believed all of the following EXCEPT ______.

A)Children learn grammar through the reinforcement and punishment of their utterances by parents and other adults.
B)An implicit system of rules underlies our language abilities.
C)Generative rules allow speakers to construct all "legal" grammatical sentences in their language.
D)People routinely process enormously complex information.

Question 28

Which of the following is NOT associated with the work of Francis Galton?

A)the inheritability of intellectual abilities
B)the development of cognitive ability from childhood through old age
C)the measurement of individual differences
D)the study of mental imagery

Question 29

Gestalt psychologists would likely say that members of other cognitive schools of thinking ______.

A)offered incomplete accounts of psychological processes
B)ignored individuals' personal cognitive experience
C)should focus more on how the mind imposes order on the outside world
D)all of these

Question 30

The ______ was a rejection of the prevailing assumption that mental events were beyond the realm of scientific study.

A)cognitive revolution
B)behaviorist rebellion
C)human factors movement
D)psychodynamic theory

Question 31

The term ______ refers to the relevance of the research to the "real world."

A)internal validity
B)evolutionary validity
C)ecological validity
D)natural validity

Question 32

When the same experimental subjects participate in two different experimental conditions,the design is called a ______ design.

A)between-subjects
B)case study
C)within-subjects
D)clinical interview

Question 33

Noam Chomsky revolutionized the field of ______ and showed how behaviorism could not adequately explain language.

A)neuroscience
B)computer science
C)human factors
D)linguistics

Question 34

The interdisciplinary field of cognitive science brings together all of the following fields EXCEPT ______.

A)philosophy
B)linguistics
C)computer science
D)psychoanalysis

Question 35

Gardner believed that cognitive theories must focus on events "between input and output"-in other words,that cognition must be analyzed at the level of ______.

A)behavior
B)representation
C)neurons
D)culture

Question 36

Clinical interviews are to introspection as ______ are to ______.

A)naturalistic observations;experiments
B)naturalistic observations;quasi-experiments
C)controlled observations;naturalistic observations
D)controlled observations;experiments

Question 37

Ecological validity refers to the extent to which ______.

A)one can study things that occur in the real world
B)one can isolate the causes of behaviors or reactions
C)one can explain the phenomena that are observed
D)one can predict new phenomena based on current results

Question 38

The invention of which of the following might be most closely associated with the cognitive revolution?

A)lightbulb
B)telephone
C)computer
D)satellite

Question 39

The term "limited capacity processors" suggests that ______.

A)computers have limited memory storage
B)human beings can only do so many things at once
C)neurons can only fire at a certain rate
D)processing in the brain occurs in parallel

Question 40

The field of ______ developed during World War II to study such practical questions as how to design aircraft that were safer for human beings to operate.

A)psycholinguistics
B)human factors engineering
C)Gestalt psychology
D)structural modeling

Question 41

Since the 1970s,various techniques of ______ have allowed us to construct pictures of the anatomy and functioning of intact brains.

A)brain imaging
B)neurosurgery
C)brain lesioning
D)single-cell recording

Question 42

The notion that technology should be built with the cognitive capabilities of humans in mind is referred to as the ______.

A)motor-mind problem
B)system-cognition interface
C)constrained-systems model
D)person-machine system

Question 43

A paradigm in psychology answers all of the following questions EXCEPT ______.

A)what assumptions may be made in studying a phenomenon
B)what types of training and degrees are needed by researchers
C)what sorts of questions should be studied
D)what sorts of analogies and metaphors are appropriate

Question 44

The idea of natural selection is central to which paradigm?

A)information processing
B)connectionist
C)evolutionary
D)ecological

Question 45

The field most concerned with ensuring that we succesfully interact with and operate technology is ______.

A)connectionist modeling
B)human factors engineering
C)evolutionary survival
D)brain imaging

Question 46

A Gestalt psychologist would most likely endorse which of the following ideas?

A)We can only study the behaviors that we can observe.
B)We sometimes create shapes out of particular star constellations.
C)The most important thing is understanding the purpose of the mind.
D)Constructing our mental representations requires many small,simple elements.

Question 47

The Adult Math Project is rooted in which paradigm?

A)information processing
B)evolutionary
C)ecological
D)connectionist

Question 48

All of the following are basic assumptions of the traditional information processing approach to cognition EXCEPT ______.

A)serial processing
B)people are general-purpose symbol manipulators
C)the function of consciousness
D)information is processed in stages

Question 49

Processes that occur simultaneously rather than one at a time are known as ______ processes.

A)serial
B)parallel
C)central
D)sequential

Question 50

Connectionist models share the assumption that ______.

A)processing occurs serially
B)knowledge is stored in various storehouses
C)a central processor directs the flow of information
D)processing occurs in parallel

Question 51

Which of the following is NOT a characteristic of the ecological approach?

A)It has its roots in psychology and anthropology.
B)It emphasizes larger cultural contexts for cognition.
C)It emphasizes realistic,"everyday" contexts.
D)It emphasizes carefully controlled,laboratory experimentation.

Question 52

Which of the following independent variables would be indicative of a quasi-experiment?

A)dosage levels of a drug
B)gender of a participant
C)time given to complete a task
D)types of stimuli presented

Question 53

Which approach is most consistent with the way the brain functions?

A)information processing
B)evolutionary
C)ecological
D)connectionist

Question 54

Of the following,which research design might be considered to be the best compromise between ecological validity and experimental control?

A)the study of human behavior following a once-in-a-generation natural disaster
B)a study to determine the optimal dosage of a new memory-enhancing drug
C)a study to determine the efficacy of programs to improve workplace efficiency
D)a study to catalogue the range of behaviors of non-human primates in zoos

Question 55

Which of the following is a basic assumption of the connectionist approach?

A)multiple stores and a central processor
B)multiple stores where information is kept throughout processing
C)networks of connections among simple processing units
D)a central processor that directs the flow of information

Question 56

A body of knowledge structured according to what its proponents consider important,which guides research topics and research methods,is called a ______.

A)paradigm
B)hypothesis
C)methodology
D)metaphor

Question 57

Which of the following paradigms might suggest that the most important part of cognition is how we interact with the environment and objects in it even without mental representations?

A)evolutionary approach
B)connectionist approach
C)embodied cognition
D)cognitive neuroscience

Question 58

The ecological approach overlaps most with the ______ approach.

A)information processing
B)evolutionary
C)experimental
D)connectionist

Question 59

Williams James is to ______ as Wilhelm Wundt is to ______.

A)connectionism;empiricism
B)Gestalts;nativism
C)representationist;behaviorist
D)functionalism;structuralism

Question 60

Which of the following paradigms most closely compares the human mind to a computer?

A)information processing approach
B)connectionist approach
C)ecological approach
D)evolutionary approach

Question 61

Prior to the creation of modern brain imaging techniques,what was the main way to study the human brain?

A)photographs
B)autopsy
C)intentional trauma
D)through the use of chemicals

Question 62

You have one friend who claims that he absolutely can never remember anyone's facial features.You decide to work closely with them in order to learn as much as you can about how we view and remember faces.This would be what kind of research design?

A)quasi-experiment
B)clinical interview
C)experiment
D)naturalistic observation

Question 63

Which of the following might be a valid criticism of Wundt and Tichener's introspection technique?

A)There were no interesting questions to study with introspection.
B)Individuals do not have the ability to self-reflect on their own mind.
C)It is difficult to verify someone's reported introspective experience.
D)People cannot distinguish the experience of one cognitive ability from another.

Question 64

Theories about cognition date back to the days of Aristotle and Plato.

Question 65

Of the following,which would be considered the most difficult aspect of research in cognitive psychology?

A)Creating tasks that measure everyday cognition in the laboratory.
B)There is no way to accurately study the human mind.
C)There are too many complex cognitive processes to study.
D)We can only accurately study the brains of animals.

Question 66

Early research on cognition made its greatest strides during the behaviorist period.

Question 67

If you want to learn about cause and effect,you must use the experimental method.

Question 68

Experiments are to ______ as naturalistic observations are to ______.

A)experimental control;ecological validity
B)ecological validity;experimental control
C)uninformative;informative
D)informative;uninformative

Question 69

William James modeled the functionalist school of psychology on the science of chemistry.

Question 70

In our everyday lives,our general lived experience is that our cognitive processes are ______.

A)slow and difficult
B)slow and complicated
C)quick and inaccurate
D)quick and effortless

Question 71

Which paradigm involves mental representation through the activation of nodes?

A)connectionist
B)evolutionary
C)ecological
D)information processing

Question 72

Which of the following would NOT be considered a cognitive process?

A)problem-solving
B)personality
C)memory
D)pattern recognition

Question 73

Of the paradigms of cognitive psychology,which would be least likely to argue that mental representations and processes are only internally generated?

A)information-processing approach
B)connectionist approach
C)evolutionary approach
D)ecological approach

Question 74

A researcher observes that children who grow up with access to certain kinds of toys like building blocks and video games have higher than average spatial ability scores.This would be an example of ______.

A)behaviorism
B)introspection
C)Gestalt principles
D)individual differences

Question 75

When participants in an experiment all receive multiple different experimental conditions,it is called a between-subjects design.

Question 76

Sam is very outgoing,while his friend Lawrence is very quiet.An empiricist would say that the difference in their personalities is probably due to biologically endowed personality traits.

Question 77

Psychologists from which of the following historical schools would be most likely to reject the idea that we have mental representations?

A)structuralism
B)functionalism
C)Gestalt psychology
D)behaviorism

Question 78

As a cognitive researcher,you determine that,just like us,primates quickly recognize certain classes of threats in their environment and can act quickly and accordingly.This kind of finding would be most in line with which cognitive paradigm?

A)information-processing
B)connectionist
C)ecological
D)evolutionary

Question 79

Which of the following was a benefit of introspection?

A)It only focused on cognitive processes that were accessible.
B)It used only the most highly trained observers to come to its conclusions.
C)It allowed researchers to begin understanding how some cognitive processes might work.
D)It was unable to determine the real-world function of cognitive processes.

Question 80

The biggest advantage of the experimental method is its high ecological validity.