Question 1

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

Accepted Answer

Heuristics are mental shortcuts that allow people to solve problems and make judgments quickly and efficiently without needing all the facts. These rules-of-thumb strategies shorten decision-making time and allow people to function without constantly stopping to think about their next course of action.

Question 2

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

Accepted Answer

The availability heuristic operates on the principle that if something can be recalled easily, it must be important or at least more relevant than alternative solutions which are not as readily recalled. This leads to a bias towards using information that comes to mind quickly when making decisions.

Question 3

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.

Accepted Answer

The availability heuristic is at work here, as people are overestimating the likelihood of a terrorist attack on a plane based on the ease with which a recent example comes to mind, rather than on statistical probability.

Question 4

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

Accepted Answer

The representativeness heuristic involves comparing new information with existing prototypes or categories in our minds until we find a match. This process is used to quickly make judgments or decisions based on how well the new information fits with our existing categories.

Question 5

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.

Accepted Answer

The representativeness heuristic is at play here because the decision is based on how well Michael fits the stereotype of an Ivy League literature professor versus a truck driver, rather than considering statistical probabilities or more relevant information.

Question 6

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

Accepted Answer

Most errors in judgment from the use of heuristics occur because people tend to ignore base rates, which are the actual statistical probabilities of events or characteristics within a given population. This oversight can lead to overestimating the likelihood of rare events or underestimating common occurrences.

Question 7

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

Accepted Answer

The base rate of Americans with depression (5%) is lower than the base rate of having the first name "John" (20%), indicating it is less likely for an American to be depressed than to be named John.

Question 8

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.

Accepted Answer

Insight is the correct answer because it describes the phenomenon where a solution to a problem suddenly comes to one's mind after a period of contemplation, often leading to a feeling of satisfaction and confidence in the solution.

Question 9

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

Accepted Answer

An impasse refers to a situation in which progress is impossible, especially because of a problem that seems insurmountable, fitting the description of an obstacle that seemed not to be passable before an insight occurs.

Question 10

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

Accepted Answer

Fixation refers to the inability to see a problem from a new perspective, often due to being stuck in a specific mental representation based on prior experience.

Question 11

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

Accepted Answer

The insight experience is characterized by two separate brain waves in EEG data.

Question 12

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

Accepted Answer

Fixation is not considered an aspect of creativity. Instead, creativity is often characterized by originality (the ability to come up with new and unique ideas), utility (the usefulness of the creative ideas), and flexibility (the ability to see different aspects of issues and come up with multiple solutions). Fixation, on the other hand, refers to an inability to see a problem from a new perspective, which is contrary to the concept of creativity.

Question 13

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

Accepted Answer

Cognitive biases are systematic patterns of deviation from norm or rationality in judgment, where individuals create their own "subjective reality" from their perception of the input. These biases are often a result of the brain's attempt to simplify information processing and are different from logical or factual errors, affecting decisions, beliefs, and behaviors.

Question 14

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

Accepted Answer

Confirmation bias is the psychological tendency to pay more attention to and give more weight to evidence that confirms what we already believe, while often ignoring or undervaluing evidence that could disprove our beliefs.

Question 15

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

Accepted Answer

This is an example of confirmation bias, where individuals favor information or interpret events in a way that confirms their pre-existing beliefs or hypotheses, in this case, the accuracy of their horoscopes.

Question 16

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

Accepted Answer

Belief persistence is when individuals cling to their initial beliefs even when faced with new evidence that contradicts those beliefs. In this scenario, the person maintains their negative stereotype of the group despite encountering a member who does not fit that stereotype, and rather than updating their belief about the group, they make an exception for the individual. This is a classic example of belief persistence, where the original belief (the negative stereotype) persists despite contradictory evidence.

Question 17

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

Accepted Answer

The gambler's fallacy is the mistaken belief that if something happens more frequently than normal during a given period, it will happen less frequently in the future, or vice versa, in situations where the events are truly independent of each other, such as coin tosses.

Question 18

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

Accepted Answer

The gambler's fallacy is closely related to the representativeness heuristic, as it involves the mistaken belief that future probabilities are altered by past events, which is a misapplication of how people judge the likelihood of events based on how representative those events are of what they believe is a typical outcome.

Question 19

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

Accepted Answer

Linguistics is the field of study that focuses on human language, including its structure, use, and the properties of generativity, recursion, and displacement. These properties are key in understanding how language functions and evolves, making linguistics the correct answer.

Question 20

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

Accepted Answer

Generativity refers to the capacity of a language's finite set of grammatical rules and vocabulary to produce an infinite number of sentences, allowing for the expression of new ideas and concepts.

Quiz 9: Thinking, Language, and Intelligence