Introduction To Cognitive Psychology Ch1 Full Test Bank - College Algebra 10e | Test Bank by Robert J. Sternberg. DOCX document preview.
Chapter 1
Introduction to Cognitive Psychology
Test Bank
Multiple Choice
1. A cognitive psychologist is LEAST LIKELY to study whether ____.
a. people can pay attention to multiple stimuli at once without losing accuracy
b. advertising using animation is more memorable than advertising using no animation
c. a group of people present affect how much is given to charity
d. the reading speed of college graduates differs from that of high school graduates
REF: Cognitive Psychology Defined KEY: Bloom’s: Apply
2. The combination of rational with empirical methods so as to get the “best of both worlds” represents, in dialectical terms, a(n) ____.
a. thesis
b. antithesis
c. synthesis
d. antisynthesis
REF: Cognitive Psychology Defined KEY: Bloom’s: Remember
3. Part of dialectic thinking includes a(n) ____, where a statement of belief is proposed.
a. antithesis
b. synthesis
c. thesis
d. pragmatics
REF: Cognitive Psychology Defined KEY: Bloom’s: Remember
4. Part of dialectic thinking includes a(n) ____, where a counterstatement to previous beliefs emerges.
a. antithesis
b. synthesis
c. thesis
d. pragmatics
REF: Cognitive Psychology Defined KEY: Bloom’s: Remember
5. The philosopher who believed that the route to knowledge is through thinking and logical analysis was ____.
a. Plato
b. Locke
c. Wundt
d. Aristotle
REF: Philosophical Origins of Psychology: Rationalism versus Empiricism
KEY: Bloom’s: Remember
6. A rationalist ____.
a. uses logical analysis to understand the world and people’s relations to it
b. is a follower of Aristotle’s empiricist philosophy
c. supports the idea of monism over dualism
d. believes that knowledge is acquired through experience and observation
REF: Philosophical Origins of Psychology: Rationalism versus Empiricism
KEY: Bloom’s: Remember
7. Rationalism is to ____ as empiricism is to ____.
a. observable evidence; theory
b. theory; observable evidence
c. manipulation; measure
d. hypothesis; theory
REF: Philosophical Origins of Psychology: Rationalism versus Empiricism
KEY: Bloom’s: Understand
8. Which approach emphasizes logical analysis as the means to acquiring new knowledge?
a. tabula rasa
b. synthesis
c. rationalism
d. empiricism
REF: Philosophical Origins of Psychology: Rationalism versus Empiricism
KEY: Bloom’s: Remember
9. An empiricist ____.
a. believes that knowledge is acquired through experience and observation.
b. is a follower of Plato’s rationalist philosophy about the source of knowledge
c. supports the idea of mind-body dualism
d. believes that the mind and the body are separate entities
REF: Philosophical Origins of Psychology: Rationalism versus Empiricism
KEY: Bloom’s: Remember
10. Which approach emphasizes observable evidence as the means to acquiring new knowledge?
a. rationalism
b. monism
c. empiricism
d. nativism
REF: Philosophical Origins of Psychology: Rationalism versus Empiricism
KEY: Bloom’s: Remember
11. Theresa, the assistant principal of a middle school, often finds herself dealing with accusations of wrongdoing made by one student against another. When she does so, she will not accept circumstantial evidence. Instead, Theresa allows only evidence that she can see, or “hard,” observational evidence, to be used in deciding whether a student has violated rules. Theresa could be referred to as a(n) ____.
a. monist
b. empiricist
c. rationalist
d. nativist
REF: Philosophical Origins of Psychology: Rationalism versus Empiricism
KEY: Bloom’s: Apply
12. Elma, an automobile factory worker, learns how to install a car air conditioner by watching a fellow worker install the part. The knowledge Elma has just acquired is ____ acquired knowledge.
a. experimentally
b. reductively
c. innately
d. empirically
REF: Philosophical Origins of Psychology: Rationalism versus Empiricism
KEY: Bloom’s: Apply
13. Psychology is sometimes viewed as a merging of ____.
a. philosophy and monism
b. rationalism and physiology
c. physiology and empiricism
d. philosophy and physiology
REF: Philosophical Origins of Psychology: Rationalism versus Empiricism
KEY: Bloom’s: Remember
14. Descartes is best described as having been a(n) ____.
a. functionalist
b. behaviorist
c. empiricist
d. rationalist
REF: Philosophical Origins of Psychology: Rationalism versus Empiricism
KEY: Bloom’s: Remember
15. A philosopher who largely rejected acquisition of knowledge by empirical means was ____.
a. John Locke
b. Aristotle
c. David Hume
d. René Descartes
REF: Philosophical Origins of Psychology: Rationalism versus Empiricism
KEY: Bloom’s: Remember
16. Which individual supported the rationalist view and largely rejected the pure empirical view?
a. Kant
b. Aristotle
c. Descartes
d. Locke
REF: Philosophical Origins of Psychology: Rationalism versus Empiricism
KEY: Bloom’s: Remember
17. Locke believed that all knowledge is gained empirically, beginning at birth, when our minds are a blank slate, or ____.
a. de dato
b. quae non
c. hic et nunc
d. tabula rasa
REF: Philosophical Origins of Psychology: Rationalism versus Empiricism
KEY: Bloom’s: Remember
18. Immanuel Kant ____.
a. believed in an integration of rationalism and empiricism
b. completely rejected all forms of rationalism and empiricism
c. believed only in rationalism
d. believed only in empiricism
REF: Philosophical Origins of Psychology: Rationalism versus Empiricism KEY: Bloom’s: Understand
19. The goal of structuralism was to understand the “content” of the mind by ____.
a. synthesizing constituent parts of perceptions
b. analyzing perceptions into their constituent parts
c. observing responses to various stimuli
d. creating a cognitive framework for new ideas
REF: Psychological Origins of Cognitive Psychology KEY: Bloom’s: Remember
20. Wilhelm Wundt’s idea of ____ involved looking inward at the contents of one’s consciousness.
a. projection
b. introversion
c. repression
d. introspection
REF: Psychological Origins of Cognitive Psychology KEY: Bloom’s: Remember
21. Bill, an interior designer, believes that it is not enough to just place furniture in a room to create an aesthetically-pleasing tableau. He wants to know how the people who will live in the room will use the room and the furniture and objects in it and why they will use it the way they do. Bill’s approach seems most similar to the way ____ view understanding the mind.
a. Gestaltists
b. structuralists
c. neo-Freudians
d. functionalists
REF: Psychological Origins of Cognitive Psychology KEY: Bloom’s: Understand
22. Which example is most analogous to the goal of structuralism?
a. Scientists study an entire assembled jigsaw puzzle in order to understand each of the pieces.
b. Scientists look at how the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle fit together in order to understand the assembling process.
c. Scientists look at each piece of a jigsaw puzzle in order to understand the whole puzzle as assembled.
d. Scientists study the different ways a jigsaw puzzle can be assembled to form different images.
REF: Psychological Origins of Cognitive Psychology KEY: Bloom’s: Understand
23. The school of thought that focuses on answering the question of “What do people do and why do they do it?” is called ____.
a. Gestaltism
b. structuralism
c. psychoanalysis
d. functionalism
REF: Psychological Origins of Cognitive Psychology KEY: Bloom’s: Apply
24. Which of the following is LEAST consistent with the purpose of functionalism?
a. the study of an organism independent of its environment
b. the study of mental processes
c. the study and uses of consciousness
d. the study of the relationship between the organism and its environment
REF: Psychological Origins of Cognitive Psychology KEY: Bloom’s: Understand
25. Lorraine is conducting an experiment in which she eats an apple and attempts to analyze her experience. What technique is she using?
a. vivisection
b. introspection
c. behaviorism
d. naturalism
REF: Psychological Origins of Cognitive Psychology KEY: Bloom’s: Apply
26. A leader in guiding functionalism toward pragmatism was ____, whose chief functional contribution to the field of psychology was his landmark book, Principles of Psychology.
a. John Dewey
b. William James
c. Edward Lee Thorndike
d. Hermann Ebbinghaus
REF: Psychological Origins of Cognitive Psychology KEY: Bloom’s: Remember
27. Pragmatism concerns itself most directly with the ____.
a. methods of acquiring knowledge
b. degree to which knowledge is empirical
c. philosophical implications of knowledge
d. usefulness of knowledge
REF: Psychological Origins of Cognitive Psychology KEY: Bloom’s: Remember
28. Of the following, a pragmatist would most likely support the study of knowledge that ____.
a. exists for its own sake
b. can be used to help people become better educated
c. enables us to speculate further on the relationship between body and mind
d. has no specific use, but is highly interesting from a psychological perspective
REF: Psychological Origins of Cognitive Psychology KEY: Bloom’s: Apply
29. Associationism is a school of psychology that examines ____.
a. how elements of the mind become linked to each other to result in learning
b. how people come to evaluate the accuracy of their own memory and cognitions
c. the process of forming mental images of real objects and the relationships between them
d. the positive or negative evaluations of objects and events and how they develop
REF: Psychological Origins of Cognitive Psychology KEY: Bloom’s: Remember
30. Which researcher examined the impact of rehearsal on memory using himself as a subject?
a. Tolman
b. Dewey
c. Kant
d. Ebbinghaus
REF: Psychological Origins of Cognitive Psychology KEY: Bloom’s: Remember
31. The “law of effect” states that a stimulus will tend to produce a certain response over time if the ____.
a. stimulus is conditioned
b. organism is repeatedly rewarded for that response
c. organism is repeatedly punished for that response
d. stimulus and the response are both unconditioned
REF: Psychological Origins of Cognitive Psychology KEY: Bloom’s: Remember
32. The landmark experiment in which dogs salivate at the sight of the person who feeds them provides an example of ____.
a. classically conditioned learning
b. instrumental learning
c. social learning
d. physiological psychology
REF: Psychological Origins of Cognitive Psychology KEY: Bloom’s: Remember
33. Skinner’s argument included the idea of operant conditioning, which refers to his belief that ____.
a. the strengthening or weakening of behavior, depending upon the presence or absence of reinforcement or punishment, explains all human behavior
b. all human behavior can be explained by operant conditioning, involving the strengthening or weakening of behavior, depending only on the presence of punishment
c. human behavior is highly unpredictable and, as a result, only some human behavior can be explained in terms of reinforcement-punishment relationships
d. human behavior cannot be understood without taking into account the purpose of the behavior
REF: Psychological Origins of Cognitive Psychology KEY: Bloom’s: Understand
34. John Watson, the founder of radical behaviorism, was an American psychologist who ____.
a. rejected all aspects of functionalism
b. supported the functionalist movement and was one of its most ardent supporters
c. rejected some aspects of functionalism, but at the same time drew heavily from the functionalists
d. altered the course of functionalism and later renamed the movement “behaviorism”
REF: Psychological Origins of Cognitive Psychology KEY: Bloom’s: Remember
35. Which of the following is a legitimate criticism of behaviorism?
a. The behavioristic principles did not explain language learning well.
b. The law of effect did not generalize to humans.
c. Classical conditioning only works on animals.
d. All of the above are legitimate criticisms.
REF: Psychological Origins of Cognitive Psychology KEY: Bloom’s: Remember
36. Gestalt psychology has most greatly influenced, specifically, the study of ____.
a. emotion
b. insight
c. behavior
d. linguistics
REF: Psychological Origins of Cognitive Psychology KEY: Bloom’s: Remember
37. Which behaviorist was willing to look inside the “black box?”
a. Tolman for his work with mazes
b. Pavlov for his work with dogs.
c. Skinner for his work with rats.
d. Watson for his work with Little Albert.
REF: Psychological Origins of Cognitive Psychology KEY: Bloom’s: Understand
38. Karl Lashley’s work in biological psychology led him to work with which key issue that deals with the location of individual cognitive processes in the brain?
a. Monistic localization in brain function
b. Prosopagnosia
c. The brain as an organizer of behavior
d. Hysteresis
REF: Emergence of Cognitive Psychology KEY: Bloom’s: Understand
39. When developing a ____ computer system, the goal is to have a system that demonstrates intelligent processing of information.
a. artificial intelligence (AI)
b. engineered intelligence (EI)
c. technologically engineered intelligence (TEI)
d. information processing approach
REF: Emergence of Cognitive Psychology KEY: Bloom’s: Remember
40. Who is known for the development of the concept “modularity of the mind”?
a. B.F. Skinner
b. Jerry Fodor
c. Albert Bandura
d. Donald Broadbent
REF: Emergence of Cognitive Psychology KEY: Bloom’s: Remember
41. ____ is the belief that most human behavior explains how people think.
a. Associationism
b. Behaviorism
c. Cognitivism
d. Gestantism
REF: Emergence of Cognitive Psychology KEY: Definition
42. The idea of the modularity of the mind was also stated, albeit in different terms, by Franz Joseph Gall, a(n) ____.
a. Freudian
b. phrenologist
c. associationist
d. behaviorist
REF: Emergence of Cognitive Psychology KEY: Bloom’s: Remember
43. Christia is in the process of developing a research idea. She currently is reviewing various ____, which consists of explanatory principles for the phenomenon of interest.
a. correlational studies
b. dependent variables
c. hypotheses
d. theories
REF: Research Methods in Cognitive Psychology KEY: Bloom’s: Apply
44. After conducting an experiment, the means for the two groups are not identical which may suggest a difference between the two groups. However, in order to be sure, you need to analyze the experimental results in terms of the likelihood that the result simply occurred by chance. This is called ____.
a. statistical significance
b. practical significance
c. descriptive statistics
d. meta-analysis
REF: Research Methods in Cognitive Psychology KEY: Bloom’s: Understand
45. Dorothy conducted an experiment in which there was a 20 point difference between the experimental and control group. The statistical test suggests that this result did not occur simply by chance. Dorothy’s results are said to have (found) ____.
a. statistical significance
b. practical significance
c. descriptive statistics
d. meta-analysis
REF: Research Methods in Cognitive Psychology KEY: Bloom’s: Apply
46. In an experimental design, what is often the variable of interest that is being manipulated?
a. extraneous variable
b. independent variable
c. dependent variable
d. confounding variable
REF: Research Methods in Cognitive Psychology KEY: Bloom’s: Remember
47. In an experimental design, what is often the outcome or the variable that is being measured (e.g., score on a test)?
a. extraneous variable
b. independent variable
c. dependent variable
d. confounding variable
REF: Research Methods in Cognitive Psychology KEY: Bloom’s: Remember
48. Erica is conducting experimental research in which she is looking at the effect of type of music on intellectual development. What is the independent variable in this example?
a. type of music
b. intellectual development
c. the control group
d. the experimental group
REF: Research Methods in Cognitive Psychology KEY: Bloom’s: Apply
49. Erica is conducting experimental research in which she is looking at the effect of type of music on intellectual development. What is the dependent variable in this example?
a. type of music
b. intellectual development
c. the control group
d. the experimental group
REF: Research Methods in Cognitive Psychology KEY: Bloom’s: Apply
50. When compared to the population, a ____ does a good job of reflecting many of the characteristics of the population.
a. systematic sampling
b. cross-sectional design
c. random sample
d. representative sample
REF: Research Methods in Cognitive Psychology KEY: Bloom’s: Remember
51. James was interested in a new study technique and whether it would have an impact on the retention of information when compared to a traditional study method. James had the experimental group, with the new study technique, study psychology, while the other group, with the old technique, studied Greek. In this example, the type of material (psychology versus Greek) would be an example of (a) ____.
a. antithesis
b. confounding variable
c. random sample
d. representative sample
REF: Research Methods in Cognitive Psychology KEY: Bloom’s: Apply
52. A(n) ____ is left uncontrolled in an experiment. Such a variable could contribute to difference in performance making it difficult to interpret the results of the experiment.
a. independent variable
b. confounding variable
c. dependent variable
d. controlled variable
REF: Research Methods in Cognitive Psychology KEY: Bloom’s: Apply
53. In a ____, every individual in the population of interest has an equal chance of being selected for an experiment.
a. representative sample
b. single-subject design
c. random sample
d. systematic sampling
REF: Research Methods in Cognitive Psychology KEY: Bloom’s: Remember
54. Which type of study simply looks for a statistical relationship between two or more variables without manipulating the variables of interest?
a. quasi-experimental design
b. multivariate statistics
c. correlation
d. experimental design
REF: Research Methods in Cognitive Psychology KEY: Bloom’s: Remember
55. Brian was playing a game of three truths and a lie with some of his friends. The goal of the group is to identify the lie. Brian observed that the bigger the lie, the more the person would scratch his/her face. He thought that if he plotted amount of scratching by severity of lie that there would be a relation. Brian is thinking of what type of study?
a. quasi-experimental design
b. multivariate statistics
c. correlation
d. experimental design
REF: Research Methods in Cognitive Psychology KEY: Bloom’s: Remember
56. Which type of research is interested in identifying which parts of the brain and what specific brain activity are associated with particular cognitive tasks?
a. psychobiological research
b. cerebral relational analysis
c. structural relational analysis
d. biological research
REF: Research Methods in Cognitive Psychology KEY: Bloom’s: Remember
57. Which technique for studying the brain occurs after the death of the individual, and relates function prior to death to observable brain features after death?
a. postmortem
b. in vivo
c. aspiration lesions
d. cryogenic blockade
REF: Research Methods in Cognitive Psychology KEY: Bloom’s: Remember
58. Which technique for studying the brain occurs while the individual is alive, and specific cerebral damage is conducted to see the effects on function?
a. postmortem
b. cryogenic blockade
c. extracellular unit recording
d. in vivo
REF: Research Methods in Cognitive Psychology KEY: Bloom’s: Remember
59. Yaun participates in an experiment in which he sees various stimuli on a computer screen. After the experiment, Yaun is to provide feedback about what he thought was going on cognitively. This is an example of ____.
a. naturalistic observation
b. individual observation
c. case study
d. self-report
REF: Research Methods in Cognitive Psychology KEY: Bloom’s: Apply
60. Lequoia decides to conduct a study at the mall. She watches people at the mall for very specific behavior and simply keeps track of the number of times the behavior occurred for various groups. This is be an example of ____.
a. naturalistic observation
b. structuralism
c. case study
d. self-report
REF: Research Methods in Cognitive Psychology KEY: Bloom’s: Apply
61. With _____, researchers program computers to imitate a given human function or process, or to solve a problem in the same way a human would.
a. computer simulations
b. ecological programming
c. social cognition
d. naturalistic observation
REF: Research Methods in Cognitive Psychology KEY: Bloom’s: Remember
62. Karpicke (2009) developed a task in which participants had to learn and recall Swahili-English word pairs. After subjects first recalled the meaning of a word, that pair was either dropped, presented twice more in a study period, or presented twice more in text periods. Subjects took a final recall test one week later. Which research method was used here?
a. artificial intelligence
b. controlled laboratory experiment
c. neuroscientific research
d. self-report
REF: Research Methods in Cognitive Psychology KEY: Bloom’s: Remember
63. Ecological validity refers to the degree to which lab data hold true when altered to account for ____.
a. ecological differences between the lab and the outside environment
b. the degree to which data gathered in a lab will apply outside the lab, given the influences of the environment on cognitive activity
c. the accuracy of predictions of how test subjects will react when placed in an environment with different ecological relationships
d. the effect ecological changes have on the behavior of organisms in the particular environment
REF: Research Methods in Cognitive Psychology KEY: Bloom’s: Understand
64. Mrs. M has difficulties with managing relationships. She is paranoid about anything that is said and often interprets comments as an attack on her or her family. These symptoms and others are studied by a therapist for years and then written up to help others understand her particular constellation of symptoms. This is an example of a ____.
a. naturalistic observation
b. psychobiological research
c. case study
d. self-report
REF: Research Methods in Cognitive Psychology KEY: Bloom’s: Apply
65. Which theme of cognitive psychology relates to the relative contributions of our genetic inheritances and our surrounding environments?
a. structures versus processes
b. nature versus nurture
c. biological versus behavioral methods
d. rationalism versus empiricism
REF: Fundamental Ideas in Cognitive Psychology KEY: Bloom’s: Understand
66. Which theme of cognitive psychology relates to how we discover truth about ourselves and the world, through the use of reason and logic or through observing and testing what we can sense?
a. rationalism versus empiricism
b. biological versus behavioral methods
c. structures versus processes
d. nature versus nurture
REF: Fundamental Ideas in Cognitive Psychology KEY: Bloom’s: Understand
67. _____ is a cross-disciplinary approach that uses ideas and methods from cognitive psychology, cognitive neuroscience, AI, philosophy, linguistics, and anthropology.
a. Mind-brain studies
b. Cognitivism
c. Cognitive science
d. Biobehavioral psychology
REF: Research Methods in Cognitive Psychology KEY: Bloom’s: Remember
68. The ____ theme of cognitive psychology relates to whether we should focus on the content of the human mind or should focus on the processes of human thinking.
a. rationalism versus empiricism
b. domain generality versus domain specificity
c. structures versus processes
d. nature versus nurture
REF: Fundamental Ideas in Cognitive Psychology KEY: Bloom’s: Understand
69. The ____ theme of cognitive psychology relates to whether one should use carefully controlled experiments or use natural observations.
a. structures versus processes
b. validity of inferences versus ecological validity
c. nature versus nurture
d. domain generality versus domain specificity
REF: Fundamental Ideas in Cognitive Psychology KEY: Bloom’s: Understand
70. Which major theme of cognitive psychology looks at the extent we use highly controlled experiments versus naturalistic techniques?
a. biological versus behavioral methods
b. validity of inferences versus ecological validity
c. rationalism versus empiricism
d. structures versus processes
REF: Fundamental Ideas in Cognitive Psychology KEY: Bloom’s: Understand
71. Which major theme for cognitive psychology relates to whether research should focus on fundamental cognitive processes or focus on practical uses for the knowledge that results from the experiment?
a. domain generality versus domain specificity
b. structures versus processes
c. applied versus basic research
d. rationalism versus empiricism
REF: Fundamental Ideas in Cognitive Psychology KEY: Bloom’s: Understand
72. Which major theme of cognitive psychology relates to whether the brain should be studied through methods like sophisticated imaging techniques or should focus on measurable performance like how many items from a list can be recalled?
a. biological versus behavioral methods
b. validity of inferences versus ecological validity
c. nature versus nurture
d. rationalism versus empiricism
REF: Fundamental Ideas in Cognitive Psychology KEY: Bloom’s: Understand
73. Santiago says that in order to understand cognitive processes, we need to look directly at the brain to see how it functions. Ayami disagrees and says that we need to look at how people perform on various cognitive tasks. This disagreement is an example of the theme of ____.
a. biological versus behavioral methods
b. validity of inferences versus ecological validity
c. nature versus nurture
d. rationalism versus empiricism
REF: Fundamental Ideas in Cognitive Psychology KEY: Bloom’s: Apply
74. Dr. Rubiosa studies the formation of internal representations of abstract ideas while Dr. Collingswood focuses on how internal representations interact and affect each other and how they affect cognition. Which major theme does this illustrate?
a. nature versus nurture
b. rationalism versus empiricism
c. structure versus processes
d. applied versus basic research
REF: Fundamental Ideas in Cognitive Psychology KEY: Bloom’s: Apply
75. Santiago and Ayami disagree on the direction of their research lab. Santiago is simply interested in a particular phenomenon and wants to study it for the pure sake of knowledge; Ayami, however, wants to be able to take what is learned and use it in practical settings. Their disagreement is an example of ____.
a. nature versus nurture
b. rationalism versus empiricism
c. structure versus processes
d. applied versus basic research
REF: Fundamental Ideas in Cognitive Psychology KEY: Bloom’s: Apply
Essay
1. Briefly summarize each of the antecedents to cognitive psychology; include the paradigms’ founders and main tenets or beliefs in your discussion.
APPROACH | FOUNDER | MAIN TENETS |
Functionalism | James | Seeks to understand what people do and why they do it. This principal question about processes was in contrast to that of the structuralists, who had asked what the elementary contents (structures) of the human mind are. Functionalists held that the key to understanding the human mind and behavior was to study the processes of how and why the mind works as it does, rather than to study the structural contents and elements of the mind. |
Structuralism | Wundt Titchener | Seeks to understand the structure (configuration of elements) of the mind and its perceptions by analyzing those perceptions into their constituent components (affection, attention, memory, and sensation). |
Pragmatism | Dewey | Pragmatists believe that knowledge is validated by its usefulness: What can you do with it? Pragmatists are concerned not only with knowing what people do; they also want to know what we can do with our knowledge of what people do. |
Synthesis: Associationism | Ebbinghaus Thorndike | Associationism examines how elements of the mind, such as events or ideas, can become associated with one another to result in a form of learning. |
Behaviorism (extreme form of associationism) | Pavlov Watson Skinner | Behaviorism focuses only on the relation between observable behavior and environmental events or stimuli. The idea was to make physical whatever others might have called “mental.” Behaviorism may be considered an extreme version of associationism. It focuses entirely on the association between the environment and an observable behavior. According to strict, extreme (“radical”) behaviorists, any hypotheses about internal thoughts and ways of thinking are nothing more than speculation |
Gestalt psychology | Koehler Wertheimer | Gestalt psychology states that we best understand psychological phenomena when we view them as organized, structured wholes. According to this view, we cannot fully understand behavior when we only break phenomena down into smaller parts. |
Synthesis: Cognitivism | Miller Simon Neisser | Cognitivism is the belief that most human behavior explains how people think. It rejects the behavioristic notion that psychologists should avoid studying mental processes just because they are unobservable. Cognitivism is, in part, a synthesis of earlier forms of analysis, such as behaviorism and Gestaltism. Like behaviorism, it adopts precise quantitative analysis to study how people learn and think; like Gestaltism, it emphasizes internal mental processes. |
REF: Psychological Origins of Cognitive Psychology | Emergence of Cognitive Psychology KEY: Bloom’s: Understand
2. Briefly summarize the seven major themes for cognitive psychology.
REF: Fundamental Ideas in Cognitive Psychology KEY: Bloom’s: Understand
3. Define the rationalist and empiricist positions.
REF: Philosophical Origins of Psychology: Rationalism versus Empiricism KEY: Bloom’s: Understand
4. Explain the terms dialectic, thesis, and antithesis and how they relate to each other.
REF: Cognitive Psychology Defined KEY: Bloom’s: Understand
5. Describe the basic premise behind behaviorism and point out what weaknesses led
to the cognitive revolution.
REF: Psychological Origins of Cognitive Psychology KEY: Bloom’s: Analyze
6. Briefly explain the differences in Plato and Aristotle’s approaches to acquiring knowledge and how they find their ways into contemporary cognitive psychology.
REF: Philosophical Origins of Psychology: Rationalism versus Empiricism KEY: Bloom’s: Analyze
7. Briefly describe a correlational study and an experiment and then compare and contrast the two types of designs.
REF: Research Methods in Cognitive Psychology KEY: Bloom’s: Analyze
8. Both artificial intelligence programs and humans can be seen as processors of information. How has computer science influenced cognitive science?
REF: Research Methods in Cognitive Psychology KEY: Bloom’s: Analyze
9. List three of the different research methods used by psychologists, as mentioned in the chapter, and describe how they differ from one another.
CONTROLLED LABORATORY EXPERIMENTS | NEUROSCIENTIFIC RESEARCH | SELF-REPORTS | |
Random assignment of subjects | Usually | Not usually | Not applicable |
Experimental control of independent variables | Usually | Varies widely, depending on the particular technique | Probably not |
Sample size | May be any size | Often small | Probably small |
Sample representativeness | May be representative | Often not representative | May be representative |
Ecological validity | Not unlikely; depends on the task and the context to which it is being applied | Unlikely under some circumstances | Maybe |
Information about individual differences | Usually deemphasized | Yes | Yes |
Strengths |
|
|
|
Weaknesses |
|
|
|
CASE STUDIES | NATURALISTIC OBSERVATIONS | COMPUTER SIMULATIONS AND ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE | |
Random assignment of subjects | Highly unlikely | Not applicable | Not applicable |
Experimental control of independent variables | Highly unlikely | No | Full control of variables of interest |
Sample size | Almost certain to be small | Probably small | Not applicable |
Sample representativeness | Not likely to be representative | May be representative | Not applicable |
Ecological validity | High ecological validity for individual cases; lower generalizability to others | Yes | Not applicable |
Information about individual differences | Yes; richly detailed information regarding individuals | Possible, but emphasis is on environmental distinctions, not on individual differences | Not applicable |
Strengths |
|
|
|
Weaknesses |
|
|
|
REF: Research Methods in Cognitive Psychology KEY: Bloom’s: Analyze
10. Cognition is generally adaptive. Explain this ability to adapt using forgetting as an example.
REF: Fundamental Ideas in Cognitive Psychology KEY: Bloom’s: Apply
11. Describe how René Descartes and John Locke applied rationalism and empiricism to understanding the human mind.
REF: Philosophical Origins of Psychology: Rationalism versus Empiricism KEY: Bloom’s: Evaluate
12. Choose one of the research designs addressed in the text and describe it. Then outline a cognitive-psychological experiment to illustrate your chosen design.
CONTROLLED LABORATORY EXPERIMENTS | NEUROSCIENTIFIC RESEARCH | SELF-REPORTS | |
Random assignment of subjects | Usually | Not usually | Not applicable |
Experimental control of independent variables | Usually | Varies widely, depending on the particular technique | Probably not |
Sample size | May be any size | Often small | Probably small |
Sample representativeness | May be representative | Often not representative | May be representative |
Ecological validity | Not unlikely; depends on the task and the context to which it is being applied | Unlikely under some circumstances | Maybe |
Information about individual differences | Usually deemphasized | Yes | Yes |
Strengths |
|
|
|
Weaknesses |
|
|
|
CASE STUDIES | NATURALISTIC OBSERVATIONS | COMPUTER SIMULATIONS AND ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE | |
Random assignment of subjects | Highly unlikely | Not applicable | Not applicable |
Experimental control of independent variables | Highly unlikely | No | Full control of variables of interest |
Sample size | Almost certain to be small | Probably small | Not applicable |
Sample representativeness | Not likely to be representative | May be representative | Not applicable |
Ecological validity | High ecological validity for individual cases; lower generalizability to others | Yes | Not applicable |
Information about individual differences | Yes; richly detailed information regarding individuals | Possible, but emphasis is on environmental distinctions, not on individual differences | Not applicable |
Strengths |
|
|
|
Weaknesses |
|
|
|
REF: Research Methods in Cognitive Psychology KEY: Bloom’s: Apply
13. Design an experiment looking at study habits. Make sure to include the following terms: hypothesis, control group, experimental group, independent variable, dependent variable, and control and confounding variables.
REF: Research Methods in Cognitive Psychology KEY: Bloom’s: Create
14. Identify some behavior of interest. Come up with a number of different hypotheses that might explain the behavior. For each hypothesis, include evidence that would support and evidence that would not support each hypothesis.
REF: Research Methods in Cognitive Psychology KEY: Bloom’s: Create
15. What if cognitive processes did not interact with each other? Provide some examples of how our (cognitive) lives would be different—what would be the implications?
REF: Fundamental Ideas in Cognitive Psychology KEY: Bloom’s: Apply
16. Give an example from your own life in which you were classically conditioned.
REF: Psychological Origins of Cognitive Psychology KEY: Bloom’s: Apply
17. Explain how Ebbinghaus’s idea of rehearsal aids in learning in a classroom.
REF: Psychological Origins of Cognitive Psychology KEY: Bloom’s: Understand
18. How might research that is “basic” in the short run become practical and applied in the long run? Give an example.
REF: Fundamental Ideas in Cognitive Psychology KEY: Bloom’s: Apply
19. You are working for a company developing a new customer response system. Explain what the advantages and disadvantages would be in terms of using a program based on artificial intelligence versus a computer simulation.
REF: Research Methods in Cognitive Psychology KEY: Bloom’s: Apply
20. Explain the advantages that both applied and basic research have for society.
REF: Fundamental Ideas in Cognitive Psychology KEY: Bloom’s: Apply