Samenvatting WPO Cognitieve psychologie EXAM with
Questions and Answers/Plus a Rationale Updated 2026
A+/Instant Download PDF
EXAM COVERAGE
1. Methodological Foundations and Experimental Design in Cognitive Psychology
2. Attention, Selection Models, and Capacity Theories
3. Working Memory, Short-Term Storage, and Executive Control Architectures
4. Long-Term Memory Encoding, Consolidation, and Retrieval Dynamics
5. Semantic Memory, Categorization, and Conceptual Organization
6. Visual Perception, Object Recognition, and Attentional Binding
7. Language Comprehension, Syntactic Processing, and Lexical Access
8. Judgment, Decision Making, Heuristics, and Biases
9. Reasoning, Problem Solving, and Expertise Acquisition
10. Cognitive Neuropsychology, Neuroimaging Methods, and Executive Functioning
1. A cognitive psychologist is designing a dual-task experiment to investigate whether central
executive resources are shared across visual and auditory modalities. Participants perform a
primary tracking task while simultaneously responding to secondary stimuli. Performance
degrades significantly across modalities even when sensory inputs do not overlap. Which
theoretical framework of attention best accounts for this pattern of central capacity interference?
A. Early selection filter model positing an immutable bottleneck prior to semantic processing.
, B. Central capacity sharing and bottleneck models postulating a limited-capacity processor
that schedules serial operations for demanding tasks.
C. Purely peripheral sensory modality-specific interference accounts.
D. Automatic processing theories with unlimited resource allocation.
CORRECT ANSWER : B
Rationale: Central capacity and bottleneck models explain cross-modal dual-task interference by
demonstrating that abstract executive processing draws upon a shared, limited-capacity
resource pool rather than purely sensory pathways. Options A, C, and D fail to account for
generalized structural interference across distinct sensory modalities.
2. A researcher is investigating visual attention using a Posner spatial cuing paradigm. Participants
are presented with an endogenous (symbolic) arrow pointing left or right, followed by a target
stimulus that appears at the indicated location (valid trial) or the opposite location (invalid trial).
Reaction times are significantly faster on valid trials. What cognitive mechanism drives this
endogenous cuing effect?
A. Involuntary, stimulus-driven bottom-up capture of spatial attention by peripheral luminance
transients.
B. Voluntary, goal-directed top-down allocation of attentional spotlight driven by conscious
interpretation of the symbolic cue.
C. Complete absence of attentional orienting coupled with random guessing behavior.
D. Retinal adaptation and peripheral motor slowing.
CORRECT ANSWER : B
Rationale: Endogenous cuing paradigms utilize central symbolic cues that require voluntary,
top-down processing to direct attention, contrasting with exogenous reflexive orienting. Options
A, C, and D mischaracterize endogenous cue processing mechanisms.
3. In a study examining short-term memory maintenance, participants are given a verbal span task
while simultaneously engaging in articulatory suppression (repeating the word "the"
continuously). Recall for visually presented verbal items drops significantly, whereas recall for
auditorily presented items under specific conditions shows distinct patterns. According to
Baddeley's working memory model, what component is directly disrupted by articulatory
suppression during visual presentation?
A. The visuospatial sketchpad responsible for spatial imagery manipulation.
, B. The phonological loop, specifically preventing visual verbal stimuli from gaining direct
access to the phonological store through subvocal rehearsal.
C. The episodic buffer integrating multimodal episodic chunks.
D. The central executive's long-term memory retrieval circuits.
CORRECT ANSWER : B
Rationale: Articulatory suppression occupies the articulatory control process, blocking visually
presented items from being recoded phonologically and entered into the phonological store.
Options A, C, and D target incorrect subcomponents of the multi-component working memory
model.
4. A cognitive neuropsychologist evaluates a patient with bilateral medial temporal lobe damage.
The patient is tested on free recall, cued recall, and recognition memory tasks for word lists,
alongside mirror-tracing skill acquisition tests across multiple days. What dissociation is
classically observed in this patient profile?
A. Impaired procedural skill learning combined with intact declarative episodic recall.
B. Profound anterograde amnesia for episodic and semantic declarative memory alongside
preserved implicit learning and motor skill acquisition.
C. Total loss of all cognitive functions with no residual learning capacity.
D. Intact episodic memory coupled with severe inability to form motor habits.
CORRECT ANSWER : B
Rationale: Medial temporal lobe damage selectively impairs explicit/declarative memory
systems while leaving implicit/non-declarative procedural learning intact. Options A, C, and D
contradict established neuropsychological dissociations.
5. A researcher studies semantic memory organization using a semantic priming lexical decision
task. Participants are faster to recognize the word "butter" when it is preceded by the prime word
"bread" compared to an unrelated word. Which theoretical model of semantic memory best
explains automatic spreading activation accounting for this priming effect?
A. Strict serial hierarchical network models with zero semantic distance flexibility.
B. Semantic network models featuring nodes connected by pathways of varying lengths,
where activation spreads automatically along associative links to related concepts.
C. Purely acoustic frequency-based frequency matching algorithms.
, D. Behavioral conditioning reinforcement schedules.
CORRECT ANSWER : B
Rationale: Semantic priming is explained by spreading activation models where activation flows
across associative links in a semantic network, lowering recognition thresholds for related
concepts. Options A, C, and D misrepresent semantic network architecture.
6. In a visual search experiment, participants look for a target letter "T" embedded among distractor
letters "L". When the target differs from distractors by a single unique feature (e.g., color or
orientation), reaction time is independent of set size (pop-out effect). According to Treisman's
Feature Integration Theory, how is this efficient search executed?
A. Serial, item-by-item focal attention scanning across the entire visual field.
B. Parallel preattentive processing across feature maps prior to the requirement of focal
attention for feature binding.
C. Controlled semantic categorization of every individual distractor item.
D. Complete reliance on long-term episodic retrieval.
CORRECT ANSWER : B
Rationale: Feature search involves parallel preattentive processing across independent feature
maps, yielding flat search slopes (pop-out). Options A, C, and D describe serial conjunctive
search mechanisms.
7. A psycholinguist investigates sentence processing ambiguity using eye-tracking during reading.
Participants read sentences containing temporary syntactic ambiguities, such as "The horse raced
past the barn fell." Garden-path model predictions state that readers initially commit to a specific
syntactic structure based on parsing heuristics. Which heuristic dictates attaching incoming
constituents to the current phrase structure being parsed?
A. Principle of Late Closure.
B. Minimal Attachment and Late Closure parsing strategies favoring the simplest syntactic
tree structure without unnecessary nodes.
C. Semantic plausibility override without syntactic analysis.
D. Random guessing without grammatical rules.
CORRECT ANSWER : B
Questions and Answers/Plus a Rationale Updated 2026
A+/Instant Download PDF
EXAM COVERAGE
1. Methodological Foundations and Experimental Design in Cognitive Psychology
2. Attention, Selection Models, and Capacity Theories
3. Working Memory, Short-Term Storage, and Executive Control Architectures
4. Long-Term Memory Encoding, Consolidation, and Retrieval Dynamics
5. Semantic Memory, Categorization, and Conceptual Organization
6. Visual Perception, Object Recognition, and Attentional Binding
7. Language Comprehension, Syntactic Processing, and Lexical Access
8. Judgment, Decision Making, Heuristics, and Biases
9. Reasoning, Problem Solving, and Expertise Acquisition
10. Cognitive Neuropsychology, Neuroimaging Methods, and Executive Functioning
1. A cognitive psychologist is designing a dual-task experiment to investigate whether central
executive resources are shared across visual and auditory modalities. Participants perform a
primary tracking task while simultaneously responding to secondary stimuli. Performance
degrades significantly across modalities even when sensory inputs do not overlap. Which
theoretical framework of attention best accounts for this pattern of central capacity interference?
A. Early selection filter model positing an immutable bottleneck prior to semantic processing.
, B. Central capacity sharing and bottleneck models postulating a limited-capacity processor
that schedules serial operations for demanding tasks.
C. Purely peripheral sensory modality-specific interference accounts.
D. Automatic processing theories with unlimited resource allocation.
CORRECT ANSWER : B
Rationale: Central capacity and bottleneck models explain cross-modal dual-task interference by
demonstrating that abstract executive processing draws upon a shared, limited-capacity
resource pool rather than purely sensory pathways. Options A, C, and D fail to account for
generalized structural interference across distinct sensory modalities.
2. A researcher is investigating visual attention using a Posner spatial cuing paradigm. Participants
are presented with an endogenous (symbolic) arrow pointing left or right, followed by a target
stimulus that appears at the indicated location (valid trial) or the opposite location (invalid trial).
Reaction times are significantly faster on valid trials. What cognitive mechanism drives this
endogenous cuing effect?
A. Involuntary, stimulus-driven bottom-up capture of spatial attention by peripheral luminance
transients.
B. Voluntary, goal-directed top-down allocation of attentional spotlight driven by conscious
interpretation of the symbolic cue.
C. Complete absence of attentional orienting coupled with random guessing behavior.
D. Retinal adaptation and peripheral motor slowing.
CORRECT ANSWER : B
Rationale: Endogenous cuing paradigms utilize central symbolic cues that require voluntary,
top-down processing to direct attention, contrasting with exogenous reflexive orienting. Options
A, C, and D mischaracterize endogenous cue processing mechanisms.
3. In a study examining short-term memory maintenance, participants are given a verbal span task
while simultaneously engaging in articulatory suppression (repeating the word "the"
continuously). Recall for visually presented verbal items drops significantly, whereas recall for
auditorily presented items under specific conditions shows distinct patterns. According to
Baddeley's working memory model, what component is directly disrupted by articulatory
suppression during visual presentation?
A. The visuospatial sketchpad responsible for spatial imagery manipulation.
, B. The phonological loop, specifically preventing visual verbal stimuli from gaining direct
access to the phonological store through subvocal rehearsal.
C. The episodic buffer integrating multimodal episodic chunks.
D. The central executive's long-term memory retrieval circuits.
CORRECT ANSWER : B
Rationale: Articulatory suppression occupies the articulatory control process, blocking visually
presented items from being recoded phonologically and entered into the phonological store.
Options A, C, and D target incorrect subcomponents of the multi-component working memory
model.
4. A cognitive neuropsychologist evaluates a patient with bilateral medial temporal lobe damage.
The patient is tested on free recall, cued recall, and recognition memory tasks for word lists,
alongside mirror-tracing skill acquisition tests across multiple days. What dissociation is
classically observed in this patient profile?
A. Impaired procedural skill learning combined with intact declarative episodic recall.
B. Profound anterograde amnesia for episodic and semantic declarative memory alongside
preserved implicit learning and motor skill acquisition.
C. Total loss of all cognitive functions with no residual learning capacity.
D. Intact episodic memory coupled with severe inability to form motor habits.
CORRECT ANSWER : B
Rationale: Medial temporal lobe damage selectively impairs explicit/declarative memory
systems while leaving implicit/non-declarative procedural learning intact. Options A, C, and D
contradict established neuropsychological dissociations.
5. A researcher studies semantic memory organization using a semantic priming lexical decision
task. Participants are faster to recognize the word "butter" when it is preceded by the prime word
"bread" compared to an unrelated word. Which theoretical model of semantic memory best
explains automatic spreading activation accounting for this priming effect?
A. Strict serial hierarchical network models with zero semantic distance flexibility.
B. Semantic network models featuring nodes connected by pathways of varying lengths,
where activation spreads automatically along associative links to related concepts.
C. Purely acoustic frequency-based frequency matching algorithms.
, D. Behavioral conditioning reinforcement schedules.
CORRECT ANSWER : B
Rationale: Semantic priming is explained by spreading activation models where activation flows
across associative links in a semantic network, lowering recognition thresholds for related
concepts. Options A, C, and D misrepresent semantic network architecture.
6. In a visual search experiment, participants look for a target letter "T" embedded among distractor
letters "L". When the target differs from distractors by a single unique feature (e.g., color or
orientation), reaction time is independent of set size (pop-out effect). According to Treisman's
Feature Integration Theory, how is this efficient search executed?
A. Serial, item-by-item focal attention scanning across the entire visual field.
B. Parallel preattentive processing across feature maps prior to the requirement of focal
attention for feature binding.
C. Controlled semantic categorization of every individual distractor item.
D. Complete reliance on long-term episodic retrieval.
CORRECT ANSWER : B
Rationale: Feature search involves parallel preattentive processing across independent feature
maps, yielding flat search slopes (pop-out). Options A, C, and D describe serial conjunctive
search mechanisms.
7. A psycholinguist investigates sentence processing ambiguity using eye-tracking during reading.
Participants read sentences containing temporary syntactic ambiguities, such as "The horse raced
past the barn fell." Garden-path model predictions state that readers initially commit to a specific
syntactic structure based on parsing heuristics. Which heuristic dictates attaching incoming
constituents to the current phrase structure being parsed?
A. Principle of Late Closure.
B. Minimal Attachment and Late Closure parsing strategies favoring the simplest syntactic
tree structure without unnecessary nodes.
C. Semantic plausibility override without syntactic analysis.
D. Random guessing without grammatical rules.
CORRECT ANSWER : B
