Cognition Quiz questions

Which of the following disciplines does cognitive science consider? Select all that apply.

• anthropology

• philosophy

• neuroscience

• linguistics

Cognitive psychology has often used WEIRD populations, an acronym that stands for:

• Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, Democratic

The technological revolution of the mid-20th century influenced cognitive psychology by providing

• models for understanding human information processing.

According to the forgetting curve, the greatest amount of forgetting occurs

• rapidly in the initial time period after learning.

Classify each of the following explanations as either behaviorist or cognitive.

A pianist performs a complex piece through a chain of finger movements triggered by musical stimuli.	Behaviorist
Learning occurs when stimuli become associated with responses through reinforcement.	Behaviorist
Students understand new concepts by building mental models that connect to existing knowledge.	Cognitive
A child learns to speak by imitating sounds that receive positive reinforcement from parents.	Behaviorist
People create novel sentences using internalized grammatical rules.	Cognitive

Classify the following assumptions as belonging to either the Information-Processing Model or Neural Network Models.

Processing occurs in distributed networks throughout the brain.	Neural Network Models
Humans are symbol manipulators who encode, store, retrieve, and manipulate data.	Information-Processing Model
Networks operate largely in parallel rather than serially.	Neural Network Models
Thinking is a step-by-step process where products of one stage serve as input for the next.	Information-Processing Model
Humans are active information scanners, not passive responders.	Information-Processing Model

Bartlett's discovery that people reconstructed rather than reproduced stories supports which of the following?

• Memory is an active process influenced by existing knowledge structures.

Structuralists suggested that our complex experiences of events can be broken down into basic elements and classified into three categories: sensations, feelings, and images.

Consider the experience of a watching a sunrise by the ocean. Classify each basic element of such an experience into the appropriate column.

Sensations	Feelings	Images
Warmth of the sun on one’s face Smell of salty air	Amazement Contentment	The glow of light hitting the water The colors of the sky

Which of the following dates did George Miller identify as the birth date of cognitive psychology?

• September 11, 1956

long-term memory

As you prepare for an upcoming exam, you think back to retrieve information about topics you read and learned about in class over the past few weeks.

immediate memory

As your professor explains a topic during lecture, you repeat the professor’s words silently in your head as you write the information in your notes.

memory distortion

While taking an exam, you draw a complete blank on the correct response for a question.

autobiographical memory

At the end of the first day of class very well because it was also the day your met your best friend Alex for the first time.