WGU D570 COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY
ACTUAL EXAM QUESTIONS AND CORRECT
ANSWERS COMPLETE STUDY GUIDE
●● What is mental imagery?
Answer: The ability to recreate sensory information without physical
stimuli
●● What is a component of psychosocial development?
Answer: Personality
●● A child reads the following incorrect sentence: "The car was
traveling down the hills were beautiful." Which cognitive process
illustrates casual inference?
Answer: The child infers that the hills being beautiful are caused by the
motion of the moving car
●● Which conversation between two students demonstrates the process
of entrainment?
Answer: The students both start speaking loudly and gesturing.
●● Which cortex of the frontal lobe is activated when someone
determines whether another person appears to be physically attractive?
,Answer: Frontal Cortex
●● What is the the electrical impulse fired down the axon of a neuron?
Answer: Action Potential
●● Which part of a neuron transports an electrical signal?
Answer: Axon
●● Which types of tasks have revealed cognitive deficits in people with
a substance abuse disorder?
Answer: Working Memory Tests
●● Which example shows how sensory memory results in the
persistence of vision when watching fireworks?
Answer: Fireworks appear as falling trails of light due to iconic
memories lasting fractions of a second.
●● Which explanation shows how multiple forms of memory would
contribute to effective execution of a mental math problem?
Answer: Numbers are held in short-term memory and manipulations are
conducted on the numbers in working memory when solving the math
problem.
,●● Which scenario exemplifies how the articulatory rehearsal process
contributes to a student's short-term memory for course lecture material,
according to Baddeley's model?
Answer: The student repeats silently what their instructor has said before
writing it down.
●● A person is trying to recall the names of a set of seven actors whose
pictures were briefly presented upside down. What explains how the
episodic buffer enhances working memory in this scenario?
Answer: The episodic buffer connects with long-term memory of the
actors' faces and names, bringing content into working memory.
●● How does activity-silent working memory help performance on
mental rotation problems?
Answer: Strengthening of connections between neurons helps
performance on mental rotation problems
●● How is the primacy effect related to attention for a set of words
presented sequentially?
Answer: The first word presented receives the persons full attention.
●● Which example shows Westmacott and Moscovitch's concept of
autobiographically significant semantic memories?
Answer: Person recalls the name of the actor that they saw in the airport
years ago.
, ●● A person is studying a list of types of fish for a wildlife test that will
occur in one week. Which example illustrates the combined long-term
memory encoding strategies of visual imagery and organization?
Answer: The person imagines each fish on a tree structure corresponding
to categories of fish types.
●● A person is studying a list of names of pastries for their new job at a
bakery. Which example shows the interaction between the deep
processing strategies of generation and self-reference?
Answer: The person creates flashcards for the names of the pastries,
pairing each with an estimate of how appetizing the pastry appears.
●● A person surprises themself in recalling the name of an artist most
have not heard of. Which process occurs when the person tries to
remember how they learned that fact?
Answer: Source monitoring
●● Researchers Robert Nash and Kimberley Wade ran an experiment in
which participants played a gambling game on a computer and were
later shown a modified video of themselves cheating. What did this
experiment reveal about false confessions?
Answer: Participants confessed to cheating after being shown the
modified video, even though they did not recall cheating indicating the
power of suggestive questioning and tactics
ACTUAL EXAM QUESTIONS AND CORRECT
ANSWERS COMPLETE STUDY GUIDE
●● What is mental imagery?
Answer: The ability to recreate sensory information without physical
stimuli
●● What is a component of psychosocial development?
Answer: Personality
●● A child reads the following incorrect sentence: "The car was
traveling down the hills were beautiful." Which cognitive process
illustrates casual inference?
Answer: The child infers that the hills being beautiful are caused by the
motion of the moving car
●● Which conversation between two students demonstrates the process
of entrainment?
Answer: The students both start speaking loudly and gesturing.
●● Which cortex of the frontal lobe is activated when someone
determines whether another person appears to be physically attractive?
,Answer: Frontal Cortex
●● What is the the electrical impulse fired down the axon of a neuron?
Answer: Action Potential
●● Which part of a neuron transports an electrical signal?
Answer: Axon
●● Which types of tasks have revealed cognitive deficits in people with
a substance abuse disorder?
Answer: Working Memory Tests
●● Which example shows how sensory memory results in the
persistence of vision when watching fireworks?
Answer: Fireworks appear as falling trails of light due to iconic
memories lasting fractions of a second.
●● Which explanation shows how multiple forms of memory would
contribute to effective execution of a mental math problem?
Answer: Numbers are held in short-term memory and manipulations are
conducted on the numbers in working memory when solving the math
problem.
,●● Which scenario exemplifies how the articulatory rehearsal process
contributes to a student's short-term memory for course lecture material,
according to Baddeley's model?
Answer: The student repeats silently what their instructor has said before
writing it down.
●● A person is trying to recall the names of a set of seven actors whose
pictures were briefly presented upside down. What explains how the
episodic buffer enhances working memory in this scenario?
Answer: The episodic buffer connects with long-term memory of the
actors' faces and names, bringing content into working memory.
●● How does activity-silent working memory help performance on
mental rotation problems?
Answer: Strengthening of connections between neurons helps
performance on mental rotation problems
●● How is the primacy effect related to attention for a set of words
presented sequentially?
Answer: The first word presented receives the persons full attention.
●● Which example shows Westmacott and Moscovitch's concept of
autobiographically significant semantic memories?
Answer: Person recalls the name of the actor that they saw in the airport
years ago.
, ●● A person is studying a list of types of fish for a wildlife test that will
occur in one week. Which example illustrates the combined long-term
memory encoding strategies of visual imagery and organization?
Answer: The person imagines each fish on a tree structure corresponding
to categories of fish types.
●● A person is studying a list of names of pastries for their new job at a
bakery. Which example shows the interaction between the deep
processing strategies of generation and self-reference?
Answer: The person creates flashcards for the names of the pastries,
pairing each with an estimate of how appetizing the pastry appears.
●● A person surprises themself in recalling the name of an artist most
have not heard of. Which process occurs when the person tries to
remember how they learned that fact?
Answer: Source monitoring
●● Researchers Robert Nash and Kimberley Wade ran an experiment in
which participants played a gambling game on a computer and were
later shown a modified video of themselves cheating. What did this
experiment reveal about false confessions?
Answer: Participants confessed to cheating after being shown the
modified video, even though they did not recall cheating indicating the
power of suggestive questioning and tactics
