Question 1

The brains of men and women appear to process language differently. Research shows that men who suffer left-hemisphere strokes are more likely than women to show severe aphasic symptoms, which suggests that

Accepted Answer

This suggests that women's language functions are more distributed between both hemispheres of the brain, allowing them to compensate better for damage to one side, as opposed to men who may rely more heavily on the left hemisphere for language processing.

Question 2

Consider the task of moving to a new city. If you make a list of all the things you have to do (pack, clean your old house, make arrangements to physically move your belongings, etc.), what concept best describes this process?

Accepted Answer

Subgoal analysis involves breaking down a larger task into smaller, more manageable tasks or subgoals, which is what making a list of things to do for moving to a new city entails.

Question 3

Nadalia is a physician who works in the emergency room at a local hospital. In medical school, she learned a variety of schemas that help her decide who needs immediate care, what kinds of sicknesses patients have, and how best to treat them. Her patients rely on her to know what to do to help them. As Nadalia's knowledge of emergency medicine develops, her brain functioning will change to increase her

Accepted Answer

Nadalia's increasing knowledge in emergency medicine will enhance her processing efficiency, allowing her to make quicker and more accurate decisions in the emergency room.

Question 4

What is the term for someone who studies comprehension, production, and/or acquisition, of language?

Accepted Answer

Psycholinguistics is the field that studies the psychological and neurobiological factors that enable humans to acquire, use, comprehend, and produce language.

Question 5

Mathias works for an architectural firm that has been asked to build an office building on a particular lot. The lot is accessible from the road on three sides, and the client is unsure which way the building should face. Since the building has already been designed, Mathias is able to imagine it facing in different directions. By doing so, he can evaluate the pros and cons of each direction. Mathias is using

Accepted Answer

Mathias is using mental rotation, which is the ability to rotate mental representations of two-dimensional and three-dimensional objects. This skill is being applied as he imagines the building facing different directions to evaluate the pros and cons of each orientation.

Question 6

Cheyenne is reading a book on improving her memory skills. The book teaches a variety of mnemonic devices and memory strategies and encourages the reader to think about which approaches she feels will help her most. In other words, the book suggests that the reader use

Accepted Answer

Metamemory refers to an individual's knowledge about their own memory abilities and strategies that can aid memory, as well as the processes involved in memory self-monitoring. This concept fits the description of the book encouraging the reader to reflect on their memory skills and decide which strategies might be most beneficial for them.

Question 7

What is the clinical term for an impairment in producing or comprehending speech?

Accepted Answer

Aphasia is the clinical term for a condition that affects a person's ability to communicate effectively. It can impact speech production, comprehension, reading, and writing, often resulting from damage to the parts of the brain responsible for language.

Question 8

Though chimpanzees and apes seem to be able to use symbolic gestures (i.e., sign language) to convey meaning, some researchers question whether they really understand how to communicate about events and objects that are not physically present; that is, whether they understand

Accepted Answer

Displacement is the ability to communicate about things, actions, and ideas that are not present in the immediate physical environment. This is what the question is referring to when it discusses the ability to communicate about events and objects that are not physically present.

Question 9

While on vacation you remember passing a restaurant earlier in the day about halfway between your current location and your hotel. You visualize a map of the area and imagine 'scanning' from your current location back to your hotel (as is done in mental scanning experiments), and then imagine 'scanning' from your current location to the restaurant. What alternative has been proposed to the idea that these kinds of mental representations are visually-based?

Accepted Answer

The alternative proposed to the idea that mental representations are visually-based is that those representations are actually more linguistic in nature. This suggests that when we think about spatial relationships or navigate through our memories of a place, we might be relying more on descriptions and linguistic information than on visual imagery.

Question 10

Bryson's psychology professor asks his students to think about their personal cognitive abilities, then to guesstimate where they would fall on the intelligence scale. In other words, the professor is asking the students to use

Accepted Answer

Metacognition refers to the awareness and understanding of one's own thought processes. In this scenario, students are being asked to reflect on their own cognitive abilities, which is a form of metacognition.

Question 11

As an elder among the Intuit, Acadia is treated with great respect for her knowledge about human nature and relationships, her appreciation of different people's values, her understanding of lifespan contexts, and her ability to deal with uncertainty. Acadia has what researchers refer to as

Accepted Answer

Acadia's qualities such as understanding human nature, appreciating values, understanding lifespan contexts, and dealing with uncertainty align with the characteristics of wisdom rather than just intelligence, expertise, mental rotation, or tenacity. Wisdom encompasses a deep understanding of people, things, and events, along with a capacity to apply such insights in a practical, judicious manner.

Question 12

'Escape rooms' are games in which players have to interpret clues and solve puzzles to move through, or 'escape' from, a series of rooms. You decide to go to one with some friends. On the way there, one of your friends insists the puzzles will be easy. After completing the game, that same friend references the one puzzle that everyone in your team agreed was easy. However, when you ask them about the other puzzles that you found difficult, they admit they forgot about those. What could explain this phenomenon?

Accepted Answer

Confirmation bias explains this phenomenon because it refers to the tendency to remember or acknowledge information that confirms our pre-existing beliefs or ideas. In this case, the friend's belief that the puzzles would be easy led them to remember the one easy puzzle and forget about the more challenging ones.

Question 13

Which of the following was not specifically identified by your textbook as a stumbling block (i.e. obstacle) to reasoning and problem solving?

Accepted Answer

All of the options listed (framing, distraction by irrelevant information, belief bias, and emotions) are commonly recognized obstacles to effective reasoning and problem solving in cognitive psychology literature, suggesting that they would be identified as such in a comprehensive textbook on the subject.

Question 14

When Thierry goes through a fast-food restaurant drive-thru, he knows that he will pull his car up to a speaker and wait until he is greeted. He also knows that after he places his order he should drive forward and give his money to the person in the window. That person will then give him his food, and he will drive away. In other words, Thierry has a/an _____________ for going through a drive-thru.

Accepted Answer

Thierry has a script for going through a drive-thru, which is a predetermined, stereotyped sequence of actions that defines a well-known situation. It's like a mental blueprint for how to navigate specific social interactions or processes.

Question 15

Nadalia is a physician who works in the emergency room at a local hospital. In medical school, she learned a variety of schemas that help her decide who needs immediate care, what kinds of sicknesses patients have, and how best to treat them. Her patients rely on her to know what to do to help them. Based on this information, we can say that Nadalia has _______________ in emergency medicine.

Accepted Answer

The answer of Nadalia is a physician who works in...

Question 16

'Escape rooms' are games in which players have to interpret clues and solve puzzles to move through, or 'escape' from, a series of rooms. You decide to go to one with some friends. Your team is unable to complete the last puzzle and 'give up', leaving the game without finding out the solution. Later that night, without intending to think about the puzzle, a possible solution occurs to you. What could explain your behaviour?

Accepted Answer

Incubation refers to the process where an idea or a solution to a problem occurs to someone after they have taken a break from consciously thinking about the problem. This can explain why a solution to the escape room puzzle came to mind later, without actively trying to solve it at that moment.

Question 17

Mitch has been asked to develop a new product to serve an unmet need in American culture. He has several ideas, but none of them are quite right. Mitch's friend finally suggests that Mitch "sleep on it." Mitch agrees, and spends the remainder of the weekend thinking about other things. On Monday morning, Mitch looks over his notes and realizes the solution to his problem. The period of time in which Mitch let his subconscious work on the problem is referred to as

Accepted Answer

The period during which Mitch let his subconscious work on the problem, leading to a solution later, is referred to as incubation. This term is used in psychology to describe a process where a problem is set aside for a while, but the brain continues to work on it subconsciously, often leading to insights or solutions later on.

Question 18

Maylin and her friend are reading the same book on American politics and meet weekly to talk about it. The process of combining sentences into paragraphs, chapters, books, conversations, and debates is collectively referred to as

Accepted Answer

Discourse refers to the use of written or spoken communication. In this context, it encompasses the broader process of combining sentences into larger units of communication such as paragraphs, chapters, books, and conversations about those books, fitting the description provided.

Question 19

'Escape rooms' are games in which players have to interpret clues and solve puzzles to move through, or 'escape' from, a series of rooms. You decide to go to one with some friends. Your friend solves the first puzzle, which had nothing to do with a key. You realize that you had expected a key to be involved with the first puzzle, which might account for the fact that you spent most of your time looking places where you thought a key might be hidden. What phenomenon could explain your searching behaviour?

Accepted Answer

Your searching behavior can be explained by "mental set," which is the tendency to approach situations in a certain way because that method worked in the past. Expecting a key to be involved based on previous experiences or common escape room scenarios led you to focus on finding a key, even though it was not necessary for solving the puzzle.

Question 20

While on vacation you remember passing a restaurant earlier in the day about halfway between your current location and your hotel. You visualize a map of the area and imagine 'scanning' from your current location back to your hotel (as is done in mental scanning experiments), and then imagine 'scanning' from your current location to the restaurant. What prediction could be made about your scanning behaviour in this example (based on prior work, i.e. mental scanning experiments)?

Accepted Answer

EMental scanning experiments suggest that the time it takes to mentally scan between two points in a mental image increases with the distance between those points. Since the restaurant is halfway between your current location and the hotel, it will take less time to mentally scan to the restaurant than to the hotel, making both D and E correct.

Quiz 9: Language and Thinking