PSYC 2150 EXAM 1 QUESTIONS WITH VERIFIED
ANSWERS
What is the main object of study in cognitive psychology? - Answers - *view cognitive
tasks and try to figure out which processes are absolutely necessary to getting the task
accomplished
* science of mental processes
abstract constructs - Answers - hypothetical representations and processes that operate
on those representations that are useful in explaining some data
Henry Molaison - Answers - * epilepsy
* lost ability to form new memories
Wilhelm Wundt - Answers - * 1879
* assumption: the consciousness is formed by different elements and can be analyzed
in terms of its structure (structuralism)
* method: introspectionism (people tried to follow their own thought processes while
performing simple tasks)
William James - Answers - * brought the scientific study of the mind to USA
* started to apply the introspectionism in his lab
* interested only in the structure of consciousness, but its functioning (functionalism)
problems with training in introspectionism? - Answers - * subjective method
* participant's responses contaminated with previous training
* not reliable and valid approach to study the mind
events that led to the Cognitive Revolution in the 1950s-60s? - Answers - * people
doubted behaviorism could do what it had promised (behaviorists conducted almost all
their experiments on animals not humans)
* eliminating any discussion about the mind was hurting more than helping
* did not incorporate the contributions of genetic factors to explain the behavior (sources
of behavior: environment and experience)
* attempt to remodel behaviorism with Skinner (languages)
Konrad Lorenz's Experiment - Answers - * proved the hypothesis that there is a critical
period during which chicks learn who their mother is
Skinner's experiment - Answers - * claimed child learns languages through imitation and
reward from environment
Noam Chomsky (1959) - Answers - * critical period to learn language
, * specific window of time which is ideal for learning a new language
Weston Bousfield (1953) - Answers - * people used to remember the list of words,
grouping by categories
* used a "mnemonic strategy"
Psychological construct - Answers - * field called psychometric (how mental processes
can be objectively measured)
* attention, memory, and reasoning
* cannot prove physical existence, but can infer existence through observable behaviors
observable behaviors - Answers - behavior to respond to cognitive tasks or the
individual's responses to a task
working memory - Answers - * a cognitive system with a limited capacity that can
temporarily hold information while manipulating it to be used by other cognitive systems
* cruical for our reasoning and decision making process
Automatic thoughts - Answers - * thoughts that are instantaneous, habitual, and
nonconscious
* they affect a person's mood and actions
John B. Watson (1913) - Answers - * founded behaviorism
* "Behaviorist Manifesto"
* need to drop introspectionism as a method and measure behavior
* needs an experimental design
New Principles of Behaviorism - Answers - * should only focus on that which is
observable (objective measures)
* should explain behavior, not thought or consciousness
* theories should be simple as possible
* goal: to break down behavior into irreducible constructs
Reflexes - Answers - * innate
* learned reflexes (conditioned reflexes, classical conditioning)
Pavlov's Experiment - Answers - classical conditioning experiment, making a dog
associate the sound of a ringing bell (conditioned stimulus) to that of food
(unconditioned stimulus) - making the dog salivate at the sound
what is temporal contiguity, how is it analyzed, and how it impacts recall? - Answers - *
episodic memory's essence lies in temporal contiguity, enabling the reconstruction and
placement of past events on one's autobiographical timeline (Healey and Kahana, 2016)
* memory is influenced by the information we receive
* analyzed with lag conditional analysis (lag. = distance between the word recalled and
the word position)
ANSWERS
What is the main object of study in cognitive psychology? - Answers - *view cognitive
tasks and try to figure out which processes are absolutely necessary to getting the task
accomplished
* science of mental processes
abstract constructs - Answers - hypothetical representations and processes that operate
on those representations that are useful in explaining some data
Henry Molaison - Answers - * epilepsy
* lost ability to form new memories
Wilhelm Wundt - Answers - * 1879
* assumption: the consciousness is formed by different elements and can be analyzed
in terms of its structure (structuralism)
* method: introspectionism (people tried to follow their own thought processes while
performing simple tasks)
William James - Answers - * brought the scientific study of the mind to USA
* started to apply the introspectionism in his lab
* interested only in the structure of consciousness, but its functioning (functionalism)
problems with training in introspectionism? - Answers - * subjective method
* participant's responses contaminated with previous training
* not reliable and valid approach to study the mind
events that led to the Cognitive Revolution in the 1950s-60s? - Answers - * people
doubted behaviorism could do what it had promised (behaviorists conducted almost all
their experiments on animals not humans)
* eliminating any discussion about the mind was hurting more than helping
* did not incorporate the contributions of genetic factors to explain the behavior (sources
of behavior: environment and experience)
* attempt to remodel behaviorism with Skinner (languages)
Konrad Lorenz's Experiment - Answers - * proved the hypothesis that there is a critical
period during which chicks learn who their mother is
Skinner's experiment - Answers - * claimed child learns languages through imitation and
reward from environment
Noam Chomsky (1959) - Answers - * critical period to learn language
, * specific window of time which is ideal for learning a new language
Weston Bousfield (1953) - Answers - * people used to remember the list of words,
grouping by categories
* used a "mnemonic strategy"
Psychological construct - Answers - * field called psychometric (how mental processes
can be objectively measured)
* attention, memory, and reasoning
* cannot prove physical existence, but can infer existence through observable behaviors
observable behaviors - Answers - behavior to respond to cognitive tasks or the
individual's responses to a task
working memory - Answers - * a cognitive system with a limited capacity that can
temporarily hold information while manipulating it to be used by other cognitive systems
* cruical for our reasoning and decision making process
Automatic thoughts - Answers - * thoughts that are instantaneous, habitual, and
nonconscious
* they affect a person's mood and actions
John B. Watson (1913) - Answers - * founded behaviorism
* "Behaviorist Manifesto"
* need to drop introspectionism as a method and measure behavior
* needs an experimental design
New Principles of Behaviorism - Answers - * should only focus on that which is
observable (objective measures)
* should explain behavior, not thought or consciousness
* theories should be simple as possible
* goal: to break down behavior into irreducible constructs
Reflexes - Answers - * innate
* learned reflexes (conditioned reflexes, classical conditioning)
Pavlov's Experiment - Answers - classical conditioning experiment, making a dog
associate the sound of a ringing bell (conditioned stimulus) to that of food
(unconditioned stimulus) - making the dog salivate at the sound
what is temporal contiguity, how is it analyzed, and how it impacts recall? - Answers - *
episodic memory's essence lies in temporal contiguity, enabling the reconstruction and
placement of past events on one's autobiographical timeline (Healey and Kahana, 2016)
* memory is influenced by the information we receive
* analyzed with lag conditional analysis (lag. = distance between the word recalled and
the word position)
