COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY WGU TEST BANK
QUESTIONS & ANSWERS
operant conditioning - ANS-(Skinner) How behavior is strengthened by presentation of positive
reinforcers such as food or approval or withdrawal of negative reinforcers.
Edward Chace Tolman - ANS-Tolman, who from 1918 to 1954 was at the University of California at
Berkeley, called himself a behaviorist because his focus was on measuring behavior. But in reality, he
was one of the early cognitive psychologists, because he used behavior to infer mental processes.
cognitive map - ANS-Mental conception of a spatial layout.
Kuhn - ANS-Defined a scientific revolution as a shift from one paradigm to another, where a paradigm is
a system of ideas that dominate science at a particular time.
information-processing approach - ANS-The approach to psychology, developed beginning in the 1950s,
in which the mind is described as processing information through a sequence of stages.
Colin Cherry (1953) - ANS-Presented participants with two auditory messages, one to the left ear and
one to the right ear, and told them to focus their attention on one of the messages (the attended
message) and to ignore the other one (the unattended message).
John McCarthy - ANS-A young professor of mathematics at Dartmouth College, had an idea to program
computers to mimic the operation of the human mind.
artificial intelligence - ANS-The ability of a computer to perform tasks usually associated with human
intelligence.
Ulrich Neisser's Cognitive Psychology - ANS-The purpose of this book, as Neisser states in Chapter 1, is
'to provide a useful and current assessment of the existing state of the art.'
Neuropsychology - ANS-The study of the behavior of people with brain damage, providing insights into
the functioning of different parts of the brain since the 1800s.
Electrophysiology - ANS-Measuring electrical responses of the nervous system, making it possible to
listen to the activity of single neurons.
brain imaging - ANS-Technique such as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) that results in
images of the brain that represent brain activity.
, positron emission tomography (PET) - ANS-Introduced in 1976, it made it possible to see which areas of
the human brain are activated during cognitive activity.
Atkinson and Shiffrin's memory processing model - ANS-Proposed a model with three stages: incoming
information enters a sensory memory store, moves into short-term memory, and is then transferred to
a long-term memory store.
Jean Piaget - ANS-A stage theorist who studied childhood development, focusing on children's cognitive
growth and the distinct stages of cognitive development.
sensorimotor stage - ANS-Piaget's first cognitive developmental stage, lasting from birth to about 2
years old, where children learn about the world using their senses and motor behavior.
preoperational stage - ANS-Piaget's second stage, occurring from approximately 2 to 6 years old, where
children can use symbols to represent words, images, and ideas.
concrete operational stage - ANS-Piaget's third stage, occurring from about 7 to 11 years old, where
children can think logically about real events and start to employ memory strategies.
formal operational stage - ANS-The fourth stage in Piaget's theory, from about age 12 to adulthood,
where children can deal with abstract ideas and hypothetical situations.
Subdomains of Cognitive Psychology - ANS-Includes human perception, attention, learning, memory,
concept formation, reasoning, judgment and decision-making, problem-solving, and language
processing.
Perception - ANS-Those studying perception seek to understand how we construct subjective
interpretations of proximal information from the environment.
Attention - ANS-Solves the problem of information overload in cognitive processing systems by selecting
some information for further processing.
Learning - ANS-Improves an organism's response to the environment; cognitive psychologists study
which new information is acquired and the conditions under which it is acquired.
Memory - ANS-The study of the capacity and fragility of human memory, focusing on how memories are
acquired, stored, and retrieved.
Concept formation - ANS-Refers to the ability to organize the perception and classification of
experiences by the construction of functionally relevant categories.
Judgment and decision - ANS-Human judgment and decision-making is ubiquitous, requiring judgment
and choice based on normative or rational models.
Reasoning - ANS-The process by which logical arguments are evaluated or constructed.
Problem-solving - ANS-The study of how humans pursue goal-directed behavior.
QUESTIONS & ANSWERS
operant conditioning - ANS-(Skinner) How behavior is strengthened by presentation of positive
reinforcers such as food or approval or withdrawal of negative reinforcers.
Edward Chace Tolman - ANS-Tolman, who from 1918 to 1954 was at the University of California at
Berkeley, called himself a behaviorist because his focus was on measuring behavior. But in reality, he
was one of the early cognitive psychologists, because he used behavior to infer mental processes.
cognitive map - ANS-Mental conception of a spatial layout.
Kuhn - ANS-Defined a scientific revolution as a shift from one paradigm to another, where a paradigm is
a system of ideas that dominate science at a particular time.
information-processing approach - ANS-The approach to psychology, developed beginning in the 1950s,
in which the mind is described as processing information through a sequence of stages.
Colin Cherry (1953) - ANS-Presented participants with two auditory messages, one to the left ear and
one to the right ear, and told them to focus their attention on one of the messages (the attended
message) and to ignore the other one (the unattended message).
John McCarthy - ANS-A young professor of mathematics at Dartmouth College, had an idea to program
computers to mimic the operation of the human mind.
artificial intelligence - ANS-The ability of a computer to perform tasks usually associated with human
intelligence.
Ulrich Neisser's Cognitive Psychology - ANS-The purpose of this book, as Neisser states in Chapter 1, is
'to provide a useful and current assessment of the existing state of the art.'
Neuropsychology - ANS-The study of the behavior of people with brain damage, providing insights into
the functioning of different parts of the brain since the 1800s.
Electrophysiology - ANS-Measuring electrical responses of the nervous system, making it possible to
listen to the activity of single neurons.
brain imaging - ANS-Technique such as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) that results in
images of the brain that represent brain activity.
, positron emission tomography (PET) - ANS-Introduced in 1976, it made it possible to see which areas of
the human brain are activated during cognitive activity.
Atkinson and Shiffrin's memory processing model - ANS-Proposed a model with three stages: incoming
information enters a sensory memory store, moves into short-term memory, and is then transferred to
a long-term memory store.
Jean Piaget - ANS-A stage theorist who studied childhood development, focusing on children's cognitive
growth and the distinct stages of cognitive development.
sensorimotor stage - ANS-Piaget's first cognitive developmental stage, lasting from birth to about 2
years old, where children learn about the world using their senses and motor behavior.
preoperational stage - ANS-Piaget's second stage, occurring from approximately 2 to 6 years old, where
children can use symbols to represent words, images, and ideas.
concrete operational stage - ANS-Piaget's third stage, occurring from about 7 to 11 years old, where
children can think logically about real events and start to employ memory strategies.
formal operational stage - ANS-The fourth stage in Piaget's theory, from about age 12 to adulthood,
where children can deal with abstract ideas and hypothetical situations.
Subdomains of Cognitive Psychology - ANS-Includes human perception, attention, learning, memory,
concept formation, reasoning, judgment and decision-making, problem-solving, and language
processing.
Perception - ANS-Those studying perception seek to understand how we construct subjective
interpretations of proximal information from the environment.
Attention - ANS-Solves the problem of information overload in cognitive processing systems by selecting
some information for further processing.
Learning - ANS-Improves an organism's response to the environment; cognitive psychologists study
which new information is acquired and the conditions under which it is acquired.
Memory - ANS-The study of the capacity and fragility of human memory, focusing on how memories are
acquired, stored, and retrieved.
Concept formation - ANS-Refers to the ability to organize the perception and classification of
experiences by the construction of functionally relevant categories.
Judgment and decision - ANS-Human judgment and decision-making is ubiquitous, requiring judgment
and choice based on normative or rational models.
Reasoning - ANS-The process by which logical arguments are evaluated or constructed.
Problem-solving - ANS-The study of how humans pursue goal-directed behavior.
