Deck 14: Individual Differences in Cognition

Question 1

The individual difference of "induction" involves the ability to ______.

A)suggest ways to solve problems
B)draw conclusions from premises
C)indicate a principle of relations
D)find solutions to algebraic problems

Answer 1

indicate a principle of relations

Question 2

Relative to younger adults,older adults (in their 60s and above)show all of the following characteristics EXCEPT ______.

A)decreased performance on divided attention tasks
B)the inability to improve in algorithm use,even with practice
C)shorter working memory spans
D)declining speed of cognitive operations

Answer 2

the inability to improve in algorithm use,even with practice

Question 3

Field-independent people ______.

A)find it easy to identify embedded figures in a larger picture
B)find it difficult to identify embedded figures in a larger picture
C)rely primarily on external referents in processing information
D)rely upon others in ambiguous social situations

Answer 3

find it easy to identify embedded figures in a larger picture

Question 4

Research by Keating and Bobbitt has shown that reaction time in memory scanning tasks is a function of ______.

A)ability,not age
B)ability for adults;children show few ability differences
C)ability for children;adults show few ability differences
D)both age and ability

Question 5

Research has suggested that experts are more likely than novices to ______.

A)perceive subtle distinctions between stimuli
B)categorize stimuli based on perceptual similarities
C)chunk information into meaningful configurations
D)perceive subtle distinctions and chunk information into meaningful configurations

Question 6

Which of the following is NOT one of Gardner's multiple intelligences?

A)linguistic
B)logical-mathematical
C)musical
D)artistic

Question 7

A person who likes to rely on others' opinions,especially in ambiguous situations,is likely to have the cognitive style known as ______.

A)field independence
B)field dependence
C)reflectiveness
D)impulsiveness

Question 8

Which of the following conclusions was NOT asserted in the controversial book The Bell Curve?

A)There is such a thing as a general factor of cognitive ability on which human beings differ.
B)IQ tests measure this general factor most accurately.
C)IQ scores are subject to change over a person's life span.
D)Properly administered IQ tests are not biased against different racial groups.

Question 9

The ability to immediately recall a set of elements after one presentation is an individual difference known as ______.

A)number facility
B)span memory
C)induction
D)visualization

Question 10

People with an impulsive style ______.

A)respond quickly
B)respond slowly
C)make many errors
D)respond quickly and make many errors

Question 11

Someone with a low need for cognition would be more likely than someone with a high need for cognition to ______.

A)enjoy Sudoku puzzles
B)seek out intellectual challenges
C)prefer Jeopardy to Wheel of Fortune
D)drop out of college

Question 12

A cognitive style that emphasizes slow and accurate responding is known as ______.

A)field dependence
B)field independence
C)reflectiveness
D)impulsiveness

Question 13

The ability to compute arithmetic operations is known as ______.

A)syllogistic reasoning
B)general reasoning
C)number facility
D)spontaneous flexibility

Question 14

Gardner's concept of ______ intelligence represents the ability to understand one's own emotions,motivations,intentions,and desires and to use this information for self-regulation.

A)spatial
B)intrapersonal
C)interpersonal
D)existential

Question 15

Someone who enjoys endeavors that involve thinking,problem solving,and reasoning may be described as having a high ______.

A)need for cognition
B)field dependence
C)reflectiveness
D)impulsivity

Question 16

The ability to understand words,sentences,and paragraphs is known as ______.

A)verbal comprehension
B)expressional fluency
C)induction
D)associative memory

Question 17

Keating and Bobbitt's memory scanning studies showed that the fastest reaction times were produced by ______.

A)high-ability 9-year-olds
B)average-ability 13-year-olds
C)high-ability 13-years-olds
D)high-ability 17-year-olds

Question 18

The ability to produce different ways of saying the same thing is an individual difference known as ______.

A)verbal comprehension
B)span memory
C)associational fluency
D)expressional fluency

Question 19

Habitual and preferred means of approaching cognitive tasks are called ______.

A)habits of thinking
B)learning styles
C)cognitive styles
D)strategic intelligences

Question 20

Highly verbal subjects,as opposed to less verbal subjects,perform ______.

A)significantly better on all types of perceptual matching tasks
B)better on "name" matching but not on physical matching
C)better on physical matching but not on "name" matching
D)better on "name" matching but worse on physical matching

Question 21

Fields like mathematics and science,with an emphasis on rigor and proof,might be more appealing to a person with a ______ "way of knowing."

A)field-dependent
B)reflective
C)connected
D)separate

Question 22

Maccoby and Jacklin's 1974 review of gender differences in verbal abilities concluded that ______.

A)females outperform males on a variety of verbal tasks from the age of 5 on
B)females outperform males on a variety of verbal tasks from the age of 11 on
C)females exhibit larger vocabularies than males from the age of 8 on
D)the female advantage in verbal abilities ends in high school

Question 23

Early studies of mathematical abilities showed that ______.

A)young boys and girls have equivalent math skills,but beginning at age 12 or 13,boys begin to outperform girls
B)junior high-aged females score about 30 points higher on the SAT math section than males do
C)13 times as many girls as boys have scores above 700 on the math section of the SAT
D)gender differences are smaller for algebra than for geometry or arithmetic

Question 24

A style of understanding involving discovery of personal connections between individuals and things,involving appreciation and acceptance of an object on its own terms,is called ______.

A)separate knowing
B)connected knowing
C)feminist knowing
D)field dependence

Question 25

The term "effect size" refers to the ______.

A)statistical significance of a finding
B)use of double-blind techniques in experimentation
C)average standard deviation of all groups in an experiment
D)difference in mean scores,divided by the average standard deviation

Question 26

Adult feedback may have different effects on boys and girls because ______.

A)boys adopt a more "mastery-oriented" approach to problems
B)boys adopt a more "helpless" pattern when faced with failure
C)adult positive feedback is more likely to relate to intellectual quality of work for boys than it is for girls
D)boys adopt a more "mastery-oriented" approach,and adults are more likely to give positive feedback for the intellectual quality of boys' work

Question 27

Scientific journals are more likely to report studies in which ______.

A)men perform significantly better than women
B)women perform significantly better than men
C)one gender outperforms the other by a statistically significant margin
D)gender is studied experimentally

Question 28

An effect size of ______ would be considered "large."

A).20
B).50
C).80
D)1.25

Question 29

A general decline in ______ occurs with increasing age.

A)accuracy of processing
B)strength of long-term memories
C)speed of processing
D)reasoning ability

Question 30

The male advantage on spatial tasks is more pronounced in children of ______.

A)lower SES
B)higher SES
C)younger age
D)older age

Question 31

Which of the following verbal tasks shows reliable female superiority?

A)vocabulary size
B)reading speed
C)anagram solving
D)rhyming words

Question 32

A style of knowing that strives for objectivity and rigor,for the learner to stand apart from the concepts being learned,is called ______.

A)separate knowing
B)connected knowing
C)feminist knowing
D)field dependence

Question 33

Studies suggest that when given negative feedback by teachers,girls tend to attribute their failure to ______,whereas boys attribute their failure to ______.

A)lack of ability;fussy grading or lack of effort
B)lack of effort;lack of ability
C)fussy grading;lack of effort
D)fussy grading;lack of ability

Question 34

The most powerful technique for combining results from several studies is the ______.

A)narrative review
B)vote counting method
C)meta-analysis
D)cognitive review

Question 35

Knowing whether someone is male or female can improve your guess regarding their mathematical and spatial abilities by about ______.

A)1-5%
B)10-20%
C)30-40%
D)50-60%

Question 36

In general,females have cerebral hemispheres that are ______ as compared to males.

A)smaller
B)larger
C)less lateralized
D)more lateralized

Question 37

Studies of spatial abilities show that the greatest gender differences occur when ______.

A)rapid processing is required
B)mental images must be maintained in memory
C)mental images must be manipulated
D)mental images must be scanned

Question 38

Recent reviews using meta-analysis have suggested that ______.

A)females reliably outscore males on almost all verbal abilities
B)males outscore females on anagrams and speech production tasks
C)female superiority on verbal tasks tends to disappear in adulthood
D)effect sizes in studies of verbal ability differences are so small as to be virtually meaningless

Question 39

Research on ways of knowing has established that ______.

A)connected knowing is consistently more prominent in women than men
B)a person's "way of knowing" can shift with the context in which a person is interacting
C)ways of knowing are stable characteristics
D)ways of knowing predict different kinds of performance on cognitive tasks

Question 40

Males reliably perform better than females on ______ tasks.

A)reading comprehension
B)mental rotation
C)arithmetic skills
D)general intelligence

Question 41

Based on Pashler,McDaniel,Roher,and Bjork (2009),there appears to be evidence for what types of learning styles?

A)verbal learning
B)visual learning
C)audiovisual learning
D)there is little evidence to support the existence of learning styles

Question 42

Which of the following best describes the evidence for learning styles?

A)There is concrete evidence that both visual and verbal learning styles exist.
B)There is little good evidence that learning styles actually exist.
C)There is good evidence for visual but not verbal learning styles.
D)There is good evidence for verbal but not visual learning styles.

Question 43

Of the following,which results woud NOT be indicative of individual differences?

A)Participants from a higher SES household outperformed those from lower SES households on math measures.
B)Participants who had taken a memory enhancing drug for a month outperformed those who had taken a placebo on a working memory task.
C)Male participants tend to outperform femal participants on Raven's matrices on IQ measurement tests.
D)Older adults tend to have more difficulty remembering newly presented information than younger adults.

Question 44

Work by Chase and Simon (1973)showed that when chess pieces were arranged randomly across the board,experts had ______ memory compared to novices.

A)better
B)equal
C)worse
D)untestable

Question 45

Which of the following did NOT influence Gardner's concept of multiple intelligences?

A)case studies of individuals with brain damage
B)studies of prodigies or gifted individuals
C)comparative cognition studies between humans and primates
D)studies of experts

Question 46

Work by Chase and Simon (1973)showed that when chess pieces were arranged similar to a game in progress,experts had ______ memory compared to novices.

A)better
B)equal
C)worse
D)untestable

Question 47

Individual differences generally fall into two types: differences in ______ which address cognitive capacities and ______ which address how one appraoches a task.

A)abilities;style
B)style;abilities
C)strucutre;action
D)action;structure

Question 48

Compared to younger adults,older adults show ______ performance on divided attention tasks.

A)bettter
B)equal
C)worse
D)untestable

Question 49

Experts can be characterized as ______.

A)having increased knowledge compared to novices
B)making more nuanced inferences compared to novices
C)being willing to use diverse reasoning strategies
D)all of these

Question 50

A study conducted by Rollock predicted that field-independent participants would favor a(n)______,while field-dependent participants would favor a(n)______.

A)studying alone;studying in groups
B)studying in groups;studying alone
C)audiotaped lecture;interactive lecture
D)interactive lecture;audiotaped lecture

Question 51

Of the following,which most accurately describes why psychologists are interested in individual differences?

A)Identifying and understanding systematic variation in cognitive processes adds to our understanding of those processes.
B)To overgeneralize a cognitive process into a single unified theory that only works in one way often ignores the nuances of human diversity.
C)In any experimental task there are always individuals who do better and individuals who do worse which is often left unexplained by broader theories.
D)all of these

Question 52

Campbell and Charness (1990)showed that on a mental arithmetic test,older adults showed ______ performance after practice and performed ______ compared to younger adults.

A)improved;worse
B)improved;better
C)decreased;worse
D)decrease;better

Question 53

Those with a reflective cognitive style might respond in what way on a cognitive task?

A)respond slowly with few errors
B)cognitive processes will stop functioning
C)be unable to complete the task
D)respond very quickly and make many errors

Question 54

The book The Bell Curve asserted which of the following?

A)IQ and cognitive abilities are environmentally determined.
B)IQ tests accurately measure what we colloquially call "intelligence."
C)Measurements of intelligence can be biased depending on who constructed them.
D)Measurements such as SAT scores and GPA are equally good measurements of intelligence as IQ.

Question 55

Which of the following would be considered a statistical result that we might call "a gender difference"?

A)The members of one gender outperform all other members of another gender on a task.
B)The mean of one gender greatly outperforms the mean of another gender on a task.
C)The mean of one gender usually outperforms the mean of another gender on a task.
D)all of these

Question 56

Chase and Simon's (1973)work on expert and novice chess players showed that when chess configurations ______.

A)did not match a chess game,neither group had good memories
B)did not match a chess game,novices' memories outperformed that of experts
C)matched a chess game,epxerts' memory outperformed novices
D)matched a chess game,both groups had good memories

Question 57

______ are stable patterns of performance that differ qualitatively or quantitatively across individuals.

A)Individual differences
B)Group differences
C)Conceptual differences
D)Uniform differences

Question 58

Which of the following is NOT a type of cognitive style?

A)field dependence/independence
B)need for cognition
C)reflectivity/impulsivity
D)active/inactive

Question 59

According to Salthouse and Babcock (1991)found that compared to younger adults,older adults underperformed on which of the following measurements of working memory?

A)digit span
B)sentence comprehension
C)mental arithmetic
D)all of these

Question 60

The core principle of invidual differences could best be described as ______.

A)there is no way to theoretically describe any cognitive process in a unifying way
B)there are no noticable differences among humans when it comes to cognitive processes
C)different people may approach the same task in different ways or with different types of abilities
D)correcting psychological research to account for past studies never examining individual differences

Question 61

According to Belensky and colleagues,males are more likely to engage in ______ knowing and females are more likely to engage in ______ knowing.

A)separate;separate
B)separate;connected
C)connected;connected
D)connected;separate

Question 62

According to early reviews by Maccoby and Jacklin,you'd expect the largest differences in quantitative abilities betwen men and women at what age?

A)at birth
B)at age 5
C)at age 10
D)at age 15

Question 63

The "file-drawer problem" refers to ______.

A)difficulty coding gendered responses in a task
B)studies without significant results not being published
C)incorrectly calculating responses to experimental stimuli
D)a failure of experimental equipment that must be thrown away

Question 64

In Dweck and colleagues' study on achievement motivation,when given feedback by peers,girls were most likely to show a ______-oriented response,and when given feedback by adults girls were most likely to show a ______-oriented response.

A)helpless;helpless
B)helpless;mastery
C)mastery;mastery
D)mastery;helpless

Question 65

Individual differences are assumed to represent stable patterns of performance.

Question 66

An impulsive person will perform cognitive tasks quickly and make relatively many errors.

Question 67

Of the following,which methodological technique would most clearly identify possible gender differences in existing literature?

A)literature review
B)vote counting
C)meta-analysis
D)journal scanning

Question 68

Which of the following would be most accurate with respect to Hyde and Linn's (1988)meta-analysis of gender differences in verbal ability?

A)There is little evidence for an enduring difference in verbal ability between men and women.
B)Only a small portion of studies show a perference for women over men in verbal ability.
C)Studies today show just as strong of verbal ability differences as those noted by Maccoby and Jacklin.
D)All studies show clear differences in verbal ability wherein women outperform men.

Question 69

Memory declines among the elderly are mostly due to decreases in accuracy rather than speed.

Question 70

Those with a(n)______ orientation would most likely set goals to challenge themselves and increase understanding.

A)impulsive
B)helpless
C)mastery
D)controlled

Question 71

Effects of motivation on cognitive performance suggests that ______.

A)gender differences are found in most cognitive tasks
B)gender differences are less about fundamental differences between men and women but more about how cognitive resources are applied
C)motivation has little effect on cognitive task performance suggesting that most gender differences are biologically based
D)there are no gender differences between men and women on cognitive tasks

Question 72

Benbow and Stanley's (1980)investigations of gender differences on SAT scores found that ______.

A)males outperformed females on the mathematical section and there was no difference in perofrmance on the verbal section
B)gender performance was equal on both verbal and mathematical sections of the SAT
C)males outperformed females on the mathematical section while females outperformed males on the verbal section
D)males outperformed females on all sections of the test

Question 73

Studies of mental rotation differences and SES suggest that ______.

A)there is no difference between men and women or individuals from different SES background on mental rotation tasks
B)environmental influences such as SES background can influence mental rotation performance
C)SES has no affect on mental rotation performance but there are biological effects on mental rotation performance
D)individuals from lower SES households show the greatest differences in mental rotation performance but the difference disappears at higher SES

Question 74

Feminist critiques by Belensky and others suggest that male-dominated psychological tasks are biased toward ______ compared to other ways of understanding.

A)rationality
B)physicaility
C)popularity
D)mentality

Question 75

Even when performance was equally good in men and women,Loring-Meier and Halpern (1999)still showed that ______ on a variety of mental rotation tasks.

A)men were more likely to become frustrated than women
B)women were more likely to become frustrated than men
C)men completed the tasks faster than women
D)women completed the tasks faster than men

Question 76

A field-dependent person finds it easy to identify parts of a figure.

Question 77

Based on work by Maccoby and Jacklin,you would expect females to outperform males on measurements of verbal ability when?

A)at birth
B)at age 5
C)at age 10
D)at age 15

Question 78

Which of the following can be an impediment to testing gender differences?

A)Gender differences may not exist.
B)A task may be designed to not show any group differences.
C)Experimenters must recruit appropriately sized samples of men and women.
D)all of these

Question 79

The most powerful tool for synthesizing the results of many studies on a topic is the meta-analysis.

Question 80

Of the following,which gender difference has shown the most reliably large effect size?

A)mental rotation differences
B)quantitative ability differences
C)verbal ability differences
D)no consistent gender differences