Deck 9: Thinking, Language, and Intelligence

Question 1

The idea that the mind was designed to process and manipulate information is known as the

A) computer metaphor
B) information-processing approach
C) computational theory of mind
D) cognitive theory of mind

Answer 1

C

Question 2

This interdisciplinary science that studies the collecting, processing, storing, retrieving, and manipulating of information is called

A) cognitive neuroscience
B) cognitive science
C) behavioral computation
D) computational cognition

Answer 2

B

Question 3

Which of the following statements is most consistent with Fodor's computational theory of mind?

A) The mind is designed exactly like a PC or MAC.
B) People tend to think and act the same as a robot.
C) Computers are better than humans at detecting patterns.
D) The mind operates according to universal rules of processing.

Answer 3

D

Question 4

Dr. Plant uses laboratory methods to study thinking, learning and memory, language, and intelligence. Thus, Dr. Plant focuses his study on

A) cognition
B) behavior
C) mental illness
D) adaptation

Question 5

Thought can be described as the active process of mentally manipulating information, and is comprised of two primary components:

A)neurons and glia
B) mental images and concepts
C) concepts and schemas
D) mental images and mental logic

Question 6

When research participants engage in tasks that require the construction of this type of mental representation, they utilize parts of their occipital lobes.

A) schema
B) mental image
C) script
D) concept

Question 7

Which mental representation would we need to utilize to think about abstract words like time, ambivalence, and fatigue?

A) schema
B) script
C) concept
D) mental image

Question 8

Which of the following concepts most likely has fuzzy boundaries?

A) triangle
B) oxygen
C) life
D) water

Question 9

One conclusion that can be drawn from the debate about when life begins-with conception or with birth-is that the concept of life has

A) clear boundaries
B) fuzzy boundaries
C) strict rules for inclusion
D) specific starting and ending points

Question 10

Which of the following is probably not a "natural concept"?

A) play
B) emotion
C) animal
D) speed

Question 11

Natural concepts have few features that formally define them. Instead, people recognize something belonging to a natural concept by examining

A)specific features of the object
B) the geons that make up the object
C) the "family resemblance" among concept members
D) the degree of separation between concept units

Question 12

A person is more likely to see the "family resemblance" between an item and other members of a concept if the item matches this representative member of the concept.

A) geon
B) prototype
C) exemplar
D) instance

Question 13

According to Daniel Kahneman, this system of thought is rapid, intuitive, effortless, and automatic.

A) System 1
B) System 2
C) consciousness
D) System B

Question 14

According to Daniel Kahneman, this system of thought is slow, effortful, and requires attention to work properly.

A) System 1
B) System 2
C) consciousness
D) System A

Question 15

One way to measure the extent to which a person is utilizing System 2 on any mental task is to observe

A) the accuracy of their answers
B) the time it takes for a person to finish the task
C) a change in the galvanic skin response
D) a change in pupil dilation

Question 16

Which of the following presents the most valid conclusion regarding the existence of Systems 1 and 2?

A) The gorilla suit experiment demonstrates that System 1 and 2 exist in the frontal lobes.
B)Systems 1 and 2 do not physically exist in separate brain areas but are convenient metaphors for complex attention processes.
C) Experiments using the Müller-Lyer illusion demonstrate that System 1 is a part of the occipital lobe.
D) Most cognitive psychologists believe that System 2 is not a part of the function of the frontal lobe.

Question 17

This thought process is characterized by the movement from a situation that exists to a situation that is desired by removing obstacles.

A)decision making
B) problem solving
C) mental representation
D) concept formation

Question 18

If you forgot the combination to your locker, you might fiddle with it for a while hoping eventually to hit upon the right numbers. This is an example of which basic problem- solving strategy?

A) trial and error
B) insight
C) algorithm
D) heuristic

Question 19

This problem-solving procedure always remains the same, and will work as long as you input information in the appropriate manner.

A) heuristic
B) algorithm
C) means-end
D) trial and error

Question 20

All of the following problems are easy for an artificial intelligence computer to solve, EXCEPT:

A) recognize a human voice
B) play a game such as chess
C) find the capital of Illinois
D) recognize a familiar human face

Question 21

This aspect of thinking is a mental shortcut designed to help us make judgments and decisions when all the facts are not known.

A) algorithm
B) concept
C) heuristic
D) mental image

Question 22

This heuristic works by biasing us toward mental information, memories, or images that are more easily "accessible" to our consciousness.

A)availability heuristic
B) representativeness heuristic
C) base rate heuristic
D) probability heuristic

Question 23

When people fear boarding a plane because of a recent terrorist attack, while ignoring the fact that the likelihood of experiencing a terrorist attack while aboard a plane is extremely small, this heuristic is at work.

A) availability heuristic
B) representativeness heuristic
C) base rate heuristic
D) probability heuristic

Question 24

Using this heuristic involves making instantaneous comparisons of the new person or thing with prototypes of various categories until a "match" is found.

A)availability heuristic
B) representativeness heuristic
C) base rate heuristic
D) probability heuristic

Question 25

Michael Simmons is 5′ 7″ tall, quite slim and not particularly muscular. He likes to read mid-19th-century British poetry and diaries of the authors of literature classics like Jane Austen and Charles Dickens. This heuristic will lead you to believe that Michael is more likely to be an Ivy League literature professor than a truck driver.

A)availability heuristic
B) representativeness heuristic
C) base rate heuristic
D) probability heuristic

Question 26

Most errors in judgment that people make due to the use of heuristics stem from the tendency to ignore

A) base rates
B) distinctive features
C) prior experience
D) System 2

Question 27

To say that the base rate of Americans with depression is 5 percent, whereas the base rate of having the first name "John" is 20 percent, it means that

A) it is more likely for an American to be depressed than to be named John
B)it is less likely for an American to be depressed than to be named John
C) the likelihood of meeting a depressed person named John is about one in five
D) the probability that John and Kate are both depressed is very high

Question 28

This problem-solving phenomenon begins with an impasse, and is often accompanied by feelings of pleasure and confidence that one has truly solved the problem.

A)availability heuristic
B) mental logic
C) insight
D) creativity

Question 29

Problem solvers who experience insight must have first experienced an obstacle that seemed to not be passable, called a(n)

A) impasse
B) road block
C) heuristic
D) algorithm

Question 30

One reason that people reach impasses in problem solving is that prior experience results in being "stuck" in a specific way of mentally representing a problem. This is known as

A) functional fixedness
B) cognitive bias
C) fixation
D) rapid encoding

Question 31

Which of the following best describes the conclusions drawn from neuroscientific studies of insight conducted by Jung-Beeman and his colleagues?

A) The insight experience is not evident in any areas of the brain related to thought.
B) The insight experience is characterized by two separate brain waves in EEG data.
C) Insight cannot be prepared by thinking with one's left brain.
D) The right inferior temporal gyrus is involved in solving most insight problems.

Question 32

Which of the following is NOT an aspect of creativity as defined by psychologists?

A) originality
B) utility
C) flexibility
D) fixation

Question 33

Systematic distortions in thinking, memory, and perception are referred to as

A) heuristics
B) cognitive biases
C) algorithms
D) mental hops

Question 34

This term refers to the tendency to pay more attention and accord more weight to evidence that is consistent with what we already believe.

A)experimenter bias
B) availability heuristic
C) confirmation bias
D) satisficing

Question 35

Many people believe that their horoscopes are accurate because they pay more attention to events that are consistent with the prediction while ignoring other events. This is an example of

A) belief persistence
B) availability heuristic
C) satisficing
D) confirmation bias

Question 36

When faced with a member of a disliked group who does not display the supposed negative characteristics of that group, someone may say, "Oh, well, he/she is one of the good ones." This is an example of

A) belief persistence
B) availability heuristic
C) satisficing
D) confirmation bias

Question 37

As much as it feels as though the odds are stronger with each new toss of heads that the next toss will be tails, this is an illusion, known as the

A)consistency bias
B) confirmation bias
C) gambler's fallacy
D) evidence fallacy

Question 38

The gambler's fallacy is most related to which of the following cognitive biases?

A) representativeness heuristic
B) availability heuristic
C) confirmation bias
D) fixation

Question 39

This area of language research is most interested in characterizing human language according to the properties of generativity, recursion, and displacement.

A)cultural psychology
B) cognitive science
C) symbiotics
D) linguistics

Question 40

The quality of language that allows a person to use the relatively small number of words and grammatical structures of a language to compose a theoretically infinite number of sentences is called

A) generativity
B) recursion
C) displacement
D) fixation

Question 41

Which of the following demonstrates the generativity of language?

A) Honeybees use a dance-like system to alert each other about the location of food.
B) Macaques use vocalizations to lure members of the opposite sex.
C) There are over one hundred ways for English speakers to talk about money.
D) Birds use several birdsongs to signal each other during mating, and to avoid danger.

Question 42

In linguistics, this term refers to the fact that any sentence can be extended indefinitely by embedding clauses or phrases within or following it.

A) generativity
B) recursion
C) displacement
D) fixation

Question 43

Humans are relatively unique because we are able to use language to converse about things that do not exist, are abstract, or have yet to occur. This is called

A) generativity
B) recursion
C) displacement
D) fixation

Question 44

According to Noam Chomsky and other linguists, humans inherit partly specialized neural circuitry ("hard wiring") in the brain and cognitive structures of the mind designed to acquire language, called the

A) inferior temporal system
B) internal language faculty
C) mirror neuron system
D) specialized grammar faculty

Question 45

In linguistic theory, children can assimilate the language of their parents and community, by automatically applying the rules of

A) the internal language faculty
B) universal grammar
C) specific grammar
D) functional syntax

Question 46

Universal grammar is considered by its advocates to be

A)acquired through experience with one's native language
B) an innate capacity that drives language learning in humans
C) a shared aspect of all social animal communication systems
D) a universal property of English language grammar

Question 47

The tragic case of "Genie," a girl who was subjected to physical abuse and prohibited from speaking for the first 13 years of her life, supports the idea that

A)there is a critical period for language development
B) physical abuse can lead to profound developmental delays
C) language is relative to the environment in which one is raised
D) the development of language is marked by several sensitive periods

Question 48

According to Noam Chomsky, what is most puzzling about the ease with which children acquire language?

A) Children born in any place in the world learn the language of that place.
B) Children imitate the speech of their adult caregivers exactly.
C) Children learn language despite the impoverished nature of the stimulus.
D) Children tend to make the same mistakes in grammar that are made by their caregivers.

Question 49

Why is it so interesting to linguists that children say things like "taked" instead of "took" or "badder" instead of "worse"?

A) because children only make these mistakes early in their language acquisition period
B)because children are explicitly taught the rules of universal grammar
C) because children persist in making these grammatically logical mistakes even after being corrected
D) because it is evidence of the influence of direct instruction on speaking by caregivers

Question 50

This theory denies the existence of the language faculty and instead asserts that the mechanisms of the mind are "plastic" in the sense of being highly flexible and adaptable.

A)Sapir-Whorf hypothesis
B) connectionism
C) constructivism
D) linguistic relativity

Question 51

The grammar that one learns in school, which reflects standards in ways of speaking, is called

A) universal grammar
B) specific grammar
C) prescriptive grammar
D) standardized grammar

Question 52

Which of the following was NOT among the insights about fixed rules for prescriptive grammar outlined by John McWhorter?

A) A language is always on its way to changing into a new one.
B) Any language is actually a bundle of dialects.
C) No language changes in a way that contradicts basic logic.
D) Languages are becoming less grammatical as time passes.

Question 53

The view that the specific grammar of a language determines the way in which native speakers construct their realities is called the

A)linguistic relativity hypothesis
B) Sapir-Whorf hypothesis
C) critical period hypothesis
D) universal grammar hypothesis

Question 54

The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis began to lose favor in psychology throughout the 1970s because

A) the original research results were largely faked
B) evidence to dispute the claims was steadily mounting
C) Benjamin Whorf conceded that he had misheard the Hopi speakers
D) the Inuit languages actually had many more words for snow than there are in English

Question 55

Susan Hespos and Elizabeth Spelke (2004) observed that the Korean language, but not the English language, uses entirely different verbs to describe whether an object fits loosely or tightly inside or on top of another. This is an example of the

A)linguistic relativity hypothesis
B) Sapir-Whorf hypothesis
C) critical period hypothesis
D) universal grammar hypothesis

Question 56

In 1998, this gorilla, trained in American Sign Language, became the first nonhuman to conduct a live Internet chat session.

A) Nim
B) Koko
C) Kanzi
D) Matata

Question 57

Most animals can communicate, but unlike humans, their referential forms of communication are

A) open-ended
B) sequential
C) generative
D) closed-ended

Question 58

Most psycholinguistic research focusing on language in nonhuman animals involves training animals to

A) communicate with other species the way that they would communicate with their own species
B) communicate using human language
C) learn to understand the speech of human beings
D) improve their intra-species communication skills

Question 59

One reason that American Sign Language (ASL) is often taught to primates in nonhuman language research is that

A) sign language is built upon gestures that the animals already understand
B)primates have trouble signing in languages besides ASL
C) the anatomy of the nonhuman primates' larynx makes it difficult for the animals to speak
D) attempts to train the animals to communicate using operant conditioning were originally unsuccessful

Question 60

Studies of language learning with primates like Kanzi, Nim, and Washoe demonstrated that primates are able to communicate with human language

A) by representing most of their emotional experiences
B)about as well as a human toddler
C) to tell their own species-specific stories
D) in novel ways that defy scientific explanation

Question 61

Pollick & de Waal found that the arm and hand gestures in different species of nonhuman primates were flexible in their content. That result provides evidence in favor of the hypothesis that language evolved from

A) facial signals
B) vocalizations
C) gestures
D) signs

Question 62

This is the technical term for "street smarts," or the ability to come up with efficient solutions to the problems of everyday life, at home or on the job.

A)practical intelligence
B) crystalized intelligence
C) general intelligence
D) domain-specific intelligence

Question 63

Involving much more than "book smarts," this term describes a person's underlying general capacity to process complex information.

A)practical intelligence
B) crystalized intelligence
C) general intelligence
D) domain-specific intelligence

Question 64

A person's score on virtually any of the tests Spearman administered could be used to predict that person's score on any of the other tests; this fact was termed by Spearman the

A)factor analysis
B) g-factor
C) fundamental theorem of intelligence
D) theorem of the indifference of the indicator

Question 65

The psychometric tradition of intelligence testing relies on this means of measuring intelligence.

A) survey analysis
B) experimental observation
C) standardized testing
D) behavior analysis

Question 66

The most commonly accepted statistic describing intelligence is

A) CQ
B) WAIS
C) IQ
D) EQ

Question 67

In order to develop a standardized test, the test must be administered to large groups of people so that future scores can be interpreted. The scores produced by large groups are called

A) functions
B) norms
C) IQs
D) trends

Question 68

The statistics pattern called the normal distribution is often referred to by this popular term.

A) the Pearson scale
B) the correlation
C) the bell curve
D) the learning curve

Question 69

Nintey-six percent of people's IQ scores fall between these two scores.

A) 80 and 100
B) 70 and 150
C) 85 and 115
D) 70 and 130

Question 70

An IQ score between about 50 and 70 may reflect mild mental retardation, if the person also demonstrates

A) behavioral difficulties
B) physical abnormalities
C) dyslexia
D) poor language skills

Question 71

All of the following aspects of life can be predicted reasonably well using a person's IQ score, EXCEPT:

A) academic performance
B) health and longevity
C) job performance
D) choice of career

Question 72

Which of the following uses of IQ scores represents the least biased and most reliable use?

A) using IQ as a measure of innate intelligence
B) using IQ to predict academic delinquency and truancy
C) using IQ to predict race and socioeconomic status
D) using IQ to predict academic performance and achievement

Question 73

In Howard Gardner's view, the entire notion of intelligence needs to be stretched to include talents that are socially valued. Gardner's view is called the theory of

A)multiple factors
B) triarchic intelligences
C) multiple intelligences
D) social intelligences

Question 74

According to Robert Sternberg, the original notion of g only underlies mental abilities that include solving problems through

A) practical reasoning
B) analogical reasoning
C) fluid reasoning
D) analytic reasoning

Question 75

Problems that require analytic reasoning can be defined by all of the following, EXCEPT:

A) They involve application of practical skills.
B) They have a single correct answer.
C) They come with all the information necessary to solve them.
D) They are detached from ordinary experience.

Question 76

Which of the following would NOT qualify as practical problems in Sternberg's triarchic theory of intelligence?

A) How can I best organize my schedule to balance work and socializing?
B) How can I best solve this anagram?
C) How can I save up to buy myself a car?
D) How can I manage my studying time to get an A?

Question 77

All of the following are valid criticisms of the triarchic theory of intelligence, EXCEPT:

A) It is very difficult to devise tests of practical and creative intelligence.
B) The theory is built on philosophically false assumptions about intelligence.
C) The three intelligences are correlated with each other.
D) The three intelligences are correlated with measures of general intelligence.

Question 78

This theory represents a compromise between theories of multiple intelligences and the theory of general intelligence.

A) triarchic theory of intelligence
B) three-strata theory of cognitive abilities
C) five-factor model of personal ability
D) fluid theory of intelligence

Question 79

According to Horn and Cattell, _________________ intelligence is a largely innate ability characterized by analytic and abstract reasoning, while ________________ intelligence describes skills and knowledge one acquires over time as a result of exposure to education and culture.

A) fluid; crystalized
B) abstract; concrete
C) crystalized; fluid
D) concrete; abstract

Question 80

In Carrol's three-stratum theory of intelligence, general intelligence is equivalent to

A) Stratum I
B) Stratum II
C) Stratum III
D) Stratum general