GRE PSYCHOLOGY SUBJECT TEST QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS
Herman Ebbinghaus (1850-1909) - (ANSWER)Studied memory using nonsense syllables and the method
of savings; developed the forgetting curve
Edward Titchener (1867-1927) - (ANSWER)Structuralism, introspection
Structuralism - (ANSWER)break consciousness down into elements, or specific mental structures; used
intorspection
Wundt - (ANSWER)father of psychology, introspection, structuralism
Functionalism (William James) - (ANSWER)Thoughts and behaviors arise because of their functional role
in adaptation to environment. humans first experience, then feel emotion.
Behaviorism - (ANSWER)the science of behavior that focuses on observable behavior only; Watson and
Skinner
Gestalt Psychology - (ANSWER)a psychological approach that emphasizes that we often perceive the
whole rather than the sum of the parts. This is opposite of structuralism
Noam Chomsky - (ANSWER)language development; disagreed with Skinner about language acquisition,
stated there is an infinite # of sentences in a language, humans have an inborn native ability to develop
language; distinguished between the surface structure and the deep structure of a sentence; studied
transformational rules that could be used to transform one sentence into another
Research Methods in Cognitive Psychology - (ANSWER)Reaction time- Elapsed time between stimulus
presentation and the subject's response to it (Mental chronometry).
Eye movements- An "on-line" measure of information processing; reading and language comprehension
Brain imaging- used associate various cognitive processes with various parts of the brain.
, GRE PSYCHOLOGY SUBJECT TEST QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS
Method of Savings (Ebbinghaus) - (ANSWER)a measure of retention in which the difference between the
number of repetitions originally required to learn a list and the number of repetitions required to
relearn the list after a certain amount of time has elapsed is calculated
Forgetting Curve (Ebbinghaus) - (ANSWER)graphs retention and forgetting over time
Mental Processes Involved in Memory - (ANSWER)Encoding- putting information into memory
Storage- retaining information in memory
Retrieval- recovering the information from memory
Recall - (ANSWER)A measure of memory in which the person must retrieve information learned earlier,
as on a fill-in-the-blank test
-- this has to do with memory retrieval
Recognition - (ANSWER)A measure of memory in which the person need only identify items previously
learned, as on a multiple-choice test -- this has to do with memory retrieval
Generation-recognition model - (ANSWER)Model that proposes that recall tasks tap the same basic
process of accessing information in memory as recognition tasks, but also requires an additional
processing step.
Receny effect - (ANSWER)tendency to remember words at the end of a list especially well
Primary effect - (ANSWER)tendency to recall the first terms of list
Clustering - (ANSWER)organizing items into related groups during recall from long-term memory
Stage Theory of Memory includes: - (ANSWER)sensory memory, short-term memory, long-term
memory; memories enter the various systems in specific order
Herman Ebbinghaus (1850-1909) - (ANSWER)Studied memory using nonsense syllables and the method
of savings; developed the forgetting curve
Edward Titchener (1867-1927) - (ANSWER)Structuralism, introspection
Structuralism - (ANSWER)break consciousness down into elements, or specific mental structures; used
intorspection
Wundt - (ANSWER)father of psychology, introspection, structuralism
Functionalism (William James) - (ANSWER)Thoughts and behaviors arise because of their functional role
in adaptation to environment. humans first experience, then feel emotion.
Behaviorism - (ANSWER)the science of behavior that focuses on observable behavior only; Watson and
Skinner
Gestalt Psychology - (ANSWER)a psychological approach that emphasizes that we often perceive the
whole rather than the sum of the parts. This is opposite of structuralism
Noam Chomsky - (ANSWER)language development; disagreed with Skinner about language acquisition,
stated there is an infinite # of sentences in a language, humans have an inborn native ability to develop
language; distinguished between the surface structure and the deep structure of a sentence; studied
transformational rules that could be used to transform one sentence into another
Research Methods in Cognitive Psychology - (ANSWER)Reaction time- Elapsed time between stimulus
presentation and the subject's response to it (Mental chronometry).
Eye movements- An "on-line" measure of information processing; reading and language comprehension
Brain imaging- used associate various cognitive processes with various parts of the brain.
, GRE PSYCHOLOGY SUBJECT TEST QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS
Method of Savings (Ebbinghaus) - (ANSWER)a measure of retention in which the difference between the
number of repetitions originally required to learn a list and the number of repetitions required to
relearn the list after a certain amount of time has elapsed is calculated
Forgetting Curve (Ebbinghaus) - (ANSWER)graphs retention and forgetting over time
Mental Processes Involved in Memory - (ANSWER)Encoding- putting information into memory
Storage- retaining information in memory
Retrieval- recovering the information from memory
Recall - (ANSWER)A measure of memory in which the person must retrieve information learned earlier,
as on a fill-in-the-blank test
-- this has to do with memory retrieval
Recognition - (ANSWER)A measure of memory in which the person need only identify items previously
learned, as on a multiple-choice test -- this has to do with memory retrieval
Generation-recognition model - (ANSWER)Model that proposes that recall tasks tap the same basic
process of accessing information in memory as recognition tasks, but also requires an additional
processing step.
Receny effect - (ANSWER)tendency to remember words at the end of a list especially well
Primary effect - (ANSWER)tendency to recall the first terms of list
Clustering - (ANSWER)organizing items into related groups during recall from long-term memory
Stage Theory of Memory includes: - (ANSWER)sensory memory, short-term memory, long-term
memory; memories enter the various systems in specific order
