WGU D570 COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY
OBJECTIVE ASSESSMENT COMPLETE
QUESTIONS AND VERIFIED SOLUTIONS
●● Cognition
Answer: the mental processes involved in perception, attention, memory,
language, problem-solving, reasoning, and decision-making
●● Cognitive Psychology
Answer: the scientific study of mind and cognition, and includes
determining characteristics and properties of the mind and how it
operates
●● Franciscus Donders
Answer: a Dutch physiologist who, in 1868, conducted one of the first
cognitive psychology experiments, 11 years before the founding of
scientific psychology labs; experimented on how long it takes for a
person to make a decision
●● Reaction Time
Answer: the time it takes to react to a stimulus; determined by
measuring the time between the presentation of a stimulus and the
response to the stimulus (ex: seeing a button and pushing it)
,●● Simple Reaction Time
Answer: reacting to the presence or absence of a single stimulus
(Example A)
●● Choice Reaction Time
Answer: time to respond to one of 2 or more stimuli (Example B)
●● Wilhelm Wundt
Answer: founded the first scientific psychology lab in 1879 at the
University of Leipzig in Germany and studied structuralism; wanted to
create a 'periodic table of the mind' that included all of the basic
sensations involved in creating experiences
●● Structuralism
Answer: an approach to psychology that explained perception as the
adding up of small elementary units called sensations
●● Analytic Introspection
Answer: a procedure used by Wundt & other early psychologists in
which trained participants described their experiences and thought
processes in response to stimuli
●● Hermann Ebbinghaus
,Answer: German psychologist that was interested in determining the
nature of memory and forgetting, specifically how rapidly information
that is learned is lost over time
●● Savings
Answer: quantitative measure used by Ebbinghaus to determine the
magnitude of learning left from initial learning; higher savings = greater
memory; savings = (original time to learn) - (time to relearn after delay)
●● Example of Savings
Answer: 1000 secs to learn - 400 secs to relearn = 600 secs/savings
●● Savings Curve
Answer: plot of savings vs.
●● William James
Answer: An early American psychologist that taught Harvard's first
psychology course and made significant observations about the mind in
his textbook, Principles of Psychology (1890).
●● John Watson
Answer: Graduate student who graduated with a Ph.D in psychology
from the University of Chicago in 1904; founder of behaviorism.
, ●● Behaviorism
Answer: An approach to psychology that states that observable behavior
provides the only valid data for psychology; rejects the idea that
consciousness and unobservable mental processes can be studied.
●● Watson's "Little Albert" experiment
Answer: Conducted by Watson & Rosalie Rayner in 1920, associated
with classical conditioning.
●● Classical Conditioning
Answer: A procedure in which pairing a neutral stimulus with a
responsive stimulus causes the neutral stimulus to elicit that response.
●● Operant Conditioning
Answer: A type of conditioning that focuses on how behavior is
strengthened by presentation of positive reinforcers or withdrawal of
negative reinforcers.
●● Edward Chase Tolman
Answer: Behaviorist/early cognitive psychologist at the University of
California at Berkeley who used behavior to infer mental processes.
●● Cognitive Map
Answer: A mental conception of a spatial layout.
OBJECTIVE ASSESSMENT COMPLETE
QUESTIONS AND VERIFIED SOLUTIONS
●● Cognition
Answer: the mental processes involved in perception, attention, memory,
language, problem-solving, reasoning, and decision-making
●● Cognitive Psychology
Answer: the scientific study of mind and cognition, and includes
determining characteristics and properties of the mind and how it
operates
●● Franciscus Donders
Answer: a Dutch physiologist who, in 1868, conducted one of the first
cognitive psychology experiments, 11 years before the founding of
scientific psychology labs; experimented on how long it takes for a
person to make a decision
●● Reaction Time
Answer: the time it takes to react to a stimulus; determined by
measuring the time between the presentation of a stimulus and the
response to the stimulus (ex: seeing a button and pushing it)
,●● Simple Reaction Time
Answer: reacting to the presence or absence of a single stimulus
(Example A)
●● Choice Reaction Time
Answer: time to respond to one of 2 or more stimuli (Example B)
●● Wilhelm Wundt
Answer: founded the first scientific psychology lab in 1879 at the
University of Leipzig in Germany and studied structuralism; wanted to
create a 'periodic table of the mind' that included all of the basic
sensations involved in creating experiences
●● Structuralism
Answer: an approach to psychology that explained perception as the
adding up of small elementary units called sensations
●● Analytic Introspection
Answer: a procedure used by Wundt & other early psychologists in
which trained participants described their experiences and thought
processes in response to stimuli
●● Hermann Ebbinghaus
,Answer: German psychologist that was interested in determining the
nature of memory and forgetting, specifically how rapidly information
that is learned is lost over time
●● Savings
Answer: quantitative measure used by Ebbinghaus to determine the
magnitude of learning left from initial learning; higher savings = greater
memory; savings = (original time to learn) - (time to relearn after delay)
●● Example of Savings
Answer: 1000 secs to learn - 400 secs to relearn = 600 secs/savings
●● Savings Curve
Answer: plot of savings vs.
●● William James
Answer: An early American psychologist that taught Harvard's first
psychology course and made significant observations about the mind in
his textbook, Principles of Psychology (1890).
●● John Watson
Answer: Graduate student who graduated with a Ph.D in psychology
from the University of Chicago in 1904; founder of behaviorism.
, ●● Behaviorism
Answer: An approach to psychology that states that observable behavior
provides the only valid data for psychology; rejects the idea that
consciousness and unobservable mental processes can be studied.
●● Watson's "Little Albert" experiment
Answer: Conducted by Watson & Rosalie Rayner in 1920, associated
with classical conditioning.
●● Classical Conditioning
Answer: A procedure in which pairing a neutral stimulus with a
responsive stimulus causes the neutral stimulus to elicit that response.
●● Operant Conditioning
Answer: A type of conditioning that focuses on how behavior is
strengthened by presentation of positive reinforcers or withdrawal of
negative reinforcers.
●● Edward Chase Tolman
Answer: Behaviorist/early cognitive psychologist at the University of
California at Berkeley who used behavior to infer mental processes.
●● Cognitive Map
Answer: A mental conception of a spatial layout.
