Cognitive MCQ PSYCHOLOGY
Cognitive MCQ PSYCHOLOGY
Cognitive MCQ PSYCHOLOGY
Chapter 1: An Introduction to
Cognitive Psychology
1-1. Which of the following statements best captures the scope of cognition?
a. Cognition includes every internal experience that humans have.
b. We use cognition when we acquire, store, transform, and use knowledge.
c. Cognition primarily emphasizes higher mental processes, such as problem solving
and decision making.
d. Cognition is more concerned with visible actions, such as motor activities, than
with activities that cannot be seen by an outside observer.
Ans: b Page(s): 2 Difficulty: Easy
1-4. Suppose that you are writing a paper about cognitive processes in people who are
depressed. Which of the following topics would be most relevant for your paper?
a. Observations of social interactions between people with depression.
b. The effects of vitamin supplements on the activity level of people with depression.
c. The ability to remember people’s names of people with depression.
d. The relationship between childhood experiences and current adjustment in people
with depression.
Ans: c Page(s): 3 Difficulty: Easy
1-5. Suppose that several psychologists want to explore interpersonal interactions during
adulthood. Which of the following topics would be most consistent with the cognitive
approach?
a. "How do early childhood experiences contribute to the development of love
relationships during adulthood?"
b. "Can interpersonal attraction be influenced by classical conditioning?"
c. "When meeting someone for the first time, what attribute does a person perceive
most quickly, gender or ethnicity?"
d. "Do people spend less time with depressed individuals, as opposed to nondepressed
individuals?"
Ans: c Page(s): 3 Difficulty: Moderate
1-6. Which of the following approaches to psychology places the most emphasis on emotions
that are unconscious?
a. the psychodynamic approach
b. the social approach
c. the cognitive approach
d. the behaviorist approach
Ans: a Page(s): 3 Difficulty: Easy
1-7. What does the introductory chapter conclude about the influence of cognitive approaches
on other areas of psychology?
a. Cognitive psychology has had very little influence on areas outside traditional
experimental psychology.
b. Cognitive psychology has influenced experiments in some research-oriented areas
of psychology, but it has not yet had an impact on applied areas.
c. Cognitive psychology has influenced disciplines that are concerned with the
behavior of humans as individuals, but it has not yet influenced the areas of
psychology concerned with social interactions.
d. Cognitive psychology has had an important impact on a variety of areas throughout
psychology.
Ans: d Page(s): 3 Difficulty: Moderate
Matlin Cognition 8e Test Bank Chapter 1 Introduction Page 3 of 21
1-8. Chapter 1 of your Cognition textbook discusses the status of cognitive psychology.
According to this discussion, the cognitive approach
a. primarily emphasizes our unconscious thoughts.
b. can explain a major part of your daily experiences.
c. is prominent within social psychology, but it has not yet been applied to biological
areas of psychology.
d. has had surprisingly little connection with clinical psychology.
Ans: b Page(s): 3 Difficulty: Easy
1-9. According to the introductory chapter in your textbook, the influence of cognitive
psychology
a. has been relatively weak, both within psychology and in other disciplines.
b. has been limited primarily to areas related to education.
c. has not yet reached applied areas of psychology.
d. has extended to other disciplines, such as neurology.
Ans: d Page(s): 3 Difficulty: Moderate
1-10. Imagine that you are attending a lecture by a guest speaker who describes a theory and
then says, "Let's now look at the empirical evidence." Which of the following would
most likely be the speaker's next sentence?
a. "Other psychologists have objected to my approach on the following theoretical
grounds."
b. "We conducted an experiment to test this hypothesis."
c. "The theorists who belonged to the empirical school rejected the behaviorist
tradition, for the following reasons."
d. "By combining both the cognitive approach and the psychodynamic approach, we
can devise a new theoretical approach to the problem."
Ans: b Page(s): 4 Difficulty: Moderate
1-11. Suppose that your professor tells you that you must locate a journal article about
cognitive psychology that presents empirical evidence. You should look for an article
that
a. studies humans, rather than other animals.
b. emphasizes evidence collected in experiments.
c. provides a theoretical explanation for previous research.
d. uses at least two different statistical analyses.
Ans: b Page(s): 4 Difficulty: Moderate
1-14. Your textbook discusses the early history of cognitive psychology. According to this
discussion,
a. Hermann Ebbinghaus opposed cognitive psychology because it did not pay enough
attention to emotions.
b. Mary Whiton Calkins studied people’s introspections about nonsense words.
c. William James suggested that our everyday cognitive processes are passive, rather
than active.
d. Wilhelm Wundt emphasized that introspection could provide useful information, if
participants were well trained.
Ans: d Page(s): 4-5 Difficulty: Difficult
1-15. The primary contribution of Hermann Ebbinghaus to current cognitive psychology was
a. the emphasis on ecological validity.
b. the emphasis on research employing hundreds of subjects in each study.
c. research about factors that might influence human memory.
d. the notion of top-down processing.
Ans: c Page(s): 5 Difficulty: Moderate
1-16. Which of the following women was an early researcher in memory who reported the
recency effect and also became the first female president of the American Psychological
Association?
a. Dorothea Dix
b. Leta Stetter Hollingworth
c. Mary Whiton Calkins
d. Margaret Floy Washburn
Ans: c Page(s): 5 Difficulty: Difficult
1-17. Chris just telephoned Roberta and listed eight items that they need for the afternoon
picnic. Roberta didn't have a pencil, so she couldn't write them down. However, she
remembers the last three items very well because of
a. object permanence.
b. long-term memory.
c. an event-related potential.
d. the recency effect.
Ans: d Page(s): 5 Difficulty: Moderate
Matlin Cognition 8e Test Bank Chapter 1 Introduction Page 5 of 21
1-18. Based on the information in Chapter 1, how would you describe the approach of William
James?
a. He emphasized rigorous experimentation and carefully controlled research.
b. He asked research participants to report their sensations and perceptions as
objectively as possible.
c. He emphasized the kinds of psychological experiences that people encounter in
their everyday lives.
d. He emphasized that we must look for the unconscious forces that underlie cognitive
activities.
Ans: c Page(s): 5-6 Difficulty: Moderate
1-19. William James made his most important contributions to cognitive psychology in his
work on
a. problem-solving strategies.
b. memory in everyday life.
c. complex decision making.
d. cognitive development in children.
Ans: b Page(s): 5-6 Difficulty: Moderate
1-20. In contrast to Hermann Ebbinghaus, William James was more likely to focus on
a. well-controlled experiments.
b. a behavioral approach to memory and language.
c. people’s everyday experiences.
d. clear operational definitions.
Ans: c Page(s): 5-6 Difficulty: Moderate
1-22. Chapter 1 presents some information about the history of cognition. According to this
discussion
a. the issue of how humans acquire knowledge was not considered until about 80
years ago.
b. the birthday of scientific psychology is usually traced to the first studies of John B.
Watson.
c. behaviorism is an approach that relies on objective, observable reactions.
d. behaviorists have been primarily interested in studying images and thought
processes.
Ans: c Page(s): 6-7 Difficulty: Moderate
Matlin Cognition 8e Test Bank Chapter 1 Introduction Page 6 of 21
1-23. According to the discussion in Chapter 1, behaviorism places the most emphasis on
a. interpersonal relationships.
b. observable activities.
c. unconscious emotions.
d. mental processes.
Ans: b Page(s): 6-7 Difficulty: Easy
1-24. Which of the following research topics would be most likely to interest a behaviorist?
a. The effect of parents' marital satisfaction on children's nightmares.
b. The effect of praise on children's running speed.
c. Individual differences in verbal ability.
d. The relationship between the true size of an object and its size as represented in a
mental image.
Ans: b Page(s): 6-7 Difficulty: Easy
1-25. Which of the following students provides the most accurate summary of the behaviorists'
contributions to cognitive psychology?
a. Anton: "The behaviorists refined the introspection technique through the use of
careful interview techniques."
b. Elena: "The most important contributions of the behaviorists were related to
research methodology."
c. Sarah: "Behaviorists clarified the cognitive abilities of infants and children,
especially in their research on object permanence."
d. Jason: "Behaviorists' contributions to cognitive psychology focused on theoretical
models, rather than on empirical results."
Ans: b Page(s): 6-7 Difficulty: Moderate
1-27. Which of the following perspectives was most likely to emphasize the importance of a
precise operational definition?
a. William James’s work on the tip-of-the-tongue effect
b. Wilhelm Wundt’s introspection approach
c. The behaviorists’ research with animals
d. The gestalt approach to perception
Ans: c Page(s): 6-7 Difficulty: Moderate
Matlin Cognition 8e Test Bank Chapter 1 Introduction Page 7 of 21
1-28. Behaviorists and cognitive psychologists are most likely to agree on which of the
following points?
a. Researchers need to have detailed definitions about how a concept will be
measured.
b. Researchers must emphasize the external stimuli in the environment.
c. Theorists must try to explain higher mental processes in terms of mental events.
d. Most thought processes can be explained in terms of people’s observable responses
to stimuli.
Ans: a Page(s): 6-7 Difficulty: Difficult
1-30. Which of the following early approaches to psychology developed the idea of insight
when people solve problems?
a. introspectionism
b. the gestalt approach
c. behaviorism
d. Ebbinghaus and his followers
Ans: b Page(s): 7 Difficulty: Easy
1-31. A psychologist who favors the gestalt approach would be most likely to criticize the fact
that behaviorists
a. ignore the context in which a behavior occurs.
b. overemphasize introspection.
c. are not sufficiently rigorous in designing their psychological research.
d. pay too much attention to insight.
Ans: a Page(s): 7 Difficulty: Moderate
1-32. Which of the following early psychologists would have been most likely to conduct
research on people's memory for a story that was several pages in length?
a. Frederick Bartlett
b. John B. Watson
c. Hermann Ebbinghaus
d. Wilhelm Wundt
Ans: a Page(s): 7-8 Difficulty: Moderate
Matlin Cognition 8e Test Bank Chapter 1 Introduction Page 8 of 21
1-33. Which of the following early psychologists conducted research that could provide the
most information about how people remember complex events in everyday life?
a. Mary Whiton Calkins
b. Frederic C. Bartlett
c. William James
d. Hermann Ebbinghaus
Ans: b Page(s): 7-8 Difficulty: Moderate
1-34. During the 1950s, many psychologists were becoming discouraged with behaviorism, and
cognitive psychology began to emerge. A major reason they were disappointed with
behaviorism is that
a. it considered only psychological processes that are clearly observable.
b. it paid too much attention to individual differences.
c. it failed to develop objective methods of measuring behavior.
d. it focused too much on emotional factors, and not enough on observable behaviors.
Ans: a Page(s): 8 Difficulty: Moderate
1-35. Which of the following students provides the best summary of the decline of behaviorism
and the rising popularity of the cognitive approach?
a. Sarah: "Psychologists began to realize that the behaviorists only emphasized
behavior, and they admired how the cognitive approach emphasized people's
emotional experiences."
b. Harlan: "Many psychologists favored the cognitive approach, because the
behaviorist approach could not account for complex thought processes."
c. Ilia: "Most psychologists thought that the behaviorist approach was too heavily
influenced by its early gestalt principles."
d. Savita: "In general, psychologists realized that the cognitive approach was better
than the behaviorist approach in explaining individual differences.”
Ans: b Page(s): 8 Difficulty: Difficult
1-36. Cognitive psychologists believe that behaviorists cannot explain human language because
a. behaviorists place too much emphasis on genetic explanations.
b. behaviorists cannot provide appropriate explanations because their research rarely
uses operational definitions.
c. language has a complex structure that cannot be explained in terms of stimuli and
responses.
d. language is acquired in humans through adults’ careful teaching of young children.
Ans: c Page(s): 8-9 Difficulty: Difficult
Matlin Cognition 8e Test Bank Chapter 1 Introduction Page 9 of 21
1-37. During the late 1960s, psychologists began to favor the cognitive approach, because they
felt that the behaviorist approach
a. emphasized unobservable cognitive processes.
b. overused Wundt’s technique of introspection.
c. placed too much emphasis on concepts such as reinforcement and observable
responses.
d. devoted too much research to the organization of memory.
Ans: c Page(s): 8-9 Difficulty: Moderate
1-41. A cognitive psychologist who analyzes a cognitive task in terms of a series of stages—
like the way a computer operates—is using which of the following approaches?
a. the information-processing approach
b. the introspection approach
c. the gestalt approach
d. the parallel distributed processing approach
Ans: a Page(s): 9 Difficulty: Easy
Matlin Cognition 8e Test Bank Chapter 1 Introduction Page 10 of 21
1-43. Which of the following students provides the best information about short-term memory
in the Atkinson-Shiffrin model?
a. Albena: “Items in your short-term memory are often lost within 30 seconds.”
b. Martin: “The information in short-term memory is automatically transferred to
long-term memory.”
c. Candace: “Short-term memory serves as a large storage area for all sensory
memories.”
d. Peter: “Short-term memory emphasizes only the visual characteristics of the
stimulus.”
Ans: a Page(s): 10 Difficulty: Moderate
1-46. Which of the following students provides the best summary about the current status of the
information-processing approach?
a. Alena: "The information-processing approach is now more popular than the
parallel distributed processing approach, because most cognitive tasks require serial
processing."
b. Magda: "The information-processing approach has declined in popularity during
recent years, because those models are not complex enough to explain many
cognitive activities."
c. Dave: "The Atkinson-Shiffrin information-processing model is still extremely
popular, and it remains at the cutting edge of cognitive psychology.”
d. Samuel: "The most important model is one in which the information-processing
approach has been blended with the gestalt approach, in order to explain higher
mental processes."
Ans: b Page(s): 11 Difficulty: Difficult
1-47. Why are cognitive psychologists less interested in the information-processing approach
than they were in earlier years?
a. They now realize that the complexity of human thinking requires more
sophisticated models.
b. They acknowledge that behaviorist principles can explain memory more effectively.
c. They argue that the model does not distinguish sufficiently between short-term
memory (working memory) and long-term memory.
d. They point out that the model works only for visual information, rather than for
auditory information.
Ans: a Page(s): 11 Difficulty: Moderate
1-49. If a study has high ecological validity, then the most likely conclusion is that
a. it had a large number of participants.
b. it was conducted with animals, taking proper cautions about their safety.
c. the results could be applied in real-world situations.
d. the study was conducted by researchers with a behaviorist approach.
Ans: c Page(s): 12 Difficulty: Moderate
Matlin Cognition 8e Test Bank Chapter 1 Introduction Page 12 of 21
1-50. Which of the following titles of research projects would have the most ecological
validity?
a. "Planning strategies used in grocery-store shopping"
b. "Recall for nonsense words after varying delay periods"
c. "Children's ability to perform abstract reasoning tasks"
d. "Perception of the loudness of isolated computer-generated tones"
Ans: a Page(s): 12 Difficulty: Easy
1-51. Suppose that you meet a professor who is trying to determine what portions of the brain
are involved in trying to recall a word that is on the tip of your tongue. This person is
likely to use the approach of
a. artificial intelligence.
b. cognitive neuroscience.
c. gestalt psychology
d. behaviorism.
Ans: b Page(s): 13 Difficulty: Easy
1-52. According to the first chapter in your textbook, research in cognitive neuroscience
a. shows that most cognitive processes can be traced to a specific location in the brain.
b. often obtains brain images while people are working on a cognitive task.
c. is currently most likely to explore cognitive processes by using the brain-lesion
method.
d. has declined in its popularity during the past 10 to 15 years.
Ans: b Page(s): 13-14 Difficulty: Moderate
1-53. A research team is studying which parts of the brain are active when a participant looks at
a photograph of a person, and tries to judge how intelligent that person is. This kind of
study is an example of
a. the artificial intelligence approach.
b. the information-processing approach.
c. social cognitive neuroscience.
d. computer simulation
Ans: c Page(s): 13-14 Difficulty: Moderate
1-55. A research team is trying to identify the cognitive deficits of a man who had a stroke that
affected a small portion in the left temporal lobe of his brain. This approach to studying
the brain examines
a. the single-cell recording technique.
b. brain lesions.
c. parallel distributed processing.
d. the event-related potential technique.
Ans: b Page(s): 14 Difficulty: Moderate
1-56. Some cognitive neuroscientists study brain lesions to learn more about brain functions.
However, a major problem with this technique is that
a. the brain damage may extend into several areas of the brain.
b. this technique is low in ecological validity.
c. it requires using a radioactive chemical, which may be dangerous.
d. it cannot be used in studying humans or other primates.
Ans: a Page(s): 14 Difficulty: Moderate
1-59. Which of the following students provides the best understanding of the PET scan
technique?
a. Prinsetta: “PET scans record fluctuations in the brain activity that are completed
within a fraction of a second.”
b. Lisa: “Unfortunately, the PET scan can only be used for someone who has a brain
lesion."
c. Jeff: “A PET scan is basically a very fast version of the event-related potential.”
d. Jamie: “The PET scan creates an image based on a chemical that travels through
the bloodstream.”
Ans: d Page(s): 14 Difficulty: Moderate
Matlin Cognition 8e Test Bank Chapter 1 Introduction Page 14 of 21
1-61. How does the functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging technique (fMRI) compare with
other imaging techniques?
a. It requires more processing time than PET scans, so it is more widely available.
b. It is more effective than the PET scan in measuring brain activity that occurs
rapidly.
c. It does not provide precise information about the timing of various brain activities.
d. It produces images that are roughly comparable to the ERP technique.
Ans: b Page(s): 15-16 Difficulty: Difficult.
1-62. A researcher wants to study how people's attention shifts when they see a visual stimulus
in an unexpected portion of a screen that they are viewing; this attention shift occurs in
just a fraction of a second. Which of the following techniques is this researcher most
likely to use?
a. the neural-network approach
b. a positron emission tomography (PET) scan
c. the functional magnetic resonance imaging technique (fMRI)
d. the event-related potential technique (ERP)
Ans: d Page(s): 16 Difficulty: Difficult
1-63. Suppose that you want to see whether the human brain responds differently when a
person reads a pleasant word, rather than an unpleasant word. Which of the following
neuroscience techniques would provide the most useful information about processing
these two kinds of words?
a. the event-related potential (ERP) technique
b. the connectionist approach
c. the brain-lesion technique
d. a positron emission tomography (PET) scan
Ans: a Page(s): 16 Difficulty: Difficult
1-65. Some researchers believe that the human brain works like a complex, sophisticated
machine. This approach is called
a. the gestalt approach.
b. the analogy approach.
c. the computer metaphor.
d. the lesion approach.
Ans: c Page(s): 18 Difficulty: Easy
1-70. Suppose that several cognitive scientists are trying to program a computer so that it
solves a particular problem in the same way a human does, taking into account that a
human may make a few false starts before successfully solving the problem. This
approach is called
a. the neuroscience approach.
b. behavioral modeling.
c. the "Pure AI" approach.
d. computer simulation.
Ans: d Page(s): 19 Difficulty: Moderate
1-71. Imagine that some researchers are trying to design a computer-simulation model for an
arithmetic task. They would be most likely to
a. begin by using the single-cell recording technique, and then gradually shift to the
fMRI technique.
b. design a system that solves each arithmetic problem as quickly as possible.
c. examine the way people’s strategies change as they become more familiar with the
task.
d. create a system that uses a problem-solving technique that is similar to the way
humans would solve the problem.
Ans: d Page(s): 19 Difficulty: Moderate
1-72. One of the characteristics of the human brain that is especially important in the
connectionist approach is that the brain
a. is divided into several distinct lobes.
b. has two hemispheres that are somewhat similar to each other.
c. has networks that link together many neuron-like units.
d. has a very specific location in which it performs each cognitive activity.
Ans: c Page(s): 19 Difficulty: Moderate
Matlin Cognition 8e Test Bank Chapter 1 Introduction Page 17 of 21
1-74. Suppose that you look up from this exam, and you immediately perceive a scene that
includes students, desks, and classroom walls. In order to perceive it quickly, you are
probably using
a. serial processing.
b. parallel processing.
c. ecological validity.
d. metacognition.
Ans: b Page(s): 21 Difficulty: Easy
1-75. The perspective called the “parallel distributed processing approach” includes the word
“parallel” in its name because:
a. the human brain can process several items simultaneously.
b. both the human brain and the PDP models have parallel weaknesses in terms of
processing speed.
c. an item stored in your brain is registered in just one very small location.
d. the neural network in your brain is arranged in parallel columns.
Ans: a Page(s): 20-21 Difficulty: Moderate
1-76. An important difference between the classical AI approach and the connectionist
approach is that the classical AI approach
a. is designed to resemble the human brain.
b. proceeds one step at a time.
c. is more successful in explaining rapid cognitive processes.
d. emphasizes motivational goals as well as cognitive tasks.
Ans: b Page(s): 21 Difficulty: Difficult
1-79. Which of the following interests is shared by researchers within the discipline of
cognitive science?
a. internal representations of the world
b. individual differences
c. the relationship between emotions and thought
d. an emphasis on problem solving
Ans: a Page(s): 20 Difficulty: Moderate
1-81. According to Chapter 1’s introduction to the chapters in your textbook, perceptual
processes
a. use previous knowledge in order to interpret the stimuli that are registered by our
senses.
b. are primarily concerned with concept formation.
c. include pattern recognition, but not attention.
d. are primarily explained by behaviorist principles.
Ans: a Page(s): 21 Difficulty: Easy
1-84. One component of your general knowledge focuses on semantic memory. Which of the
following would be an example of semantic memory?
a. your ability to create a mental image
b. your ability to add several three-digit numbers together
c. a strategy you use to memorize important material for a test
d. your knowledge that the word “bear” is similar to the word “lion”
Ans: d Page(s): 23 Difficulty: Easy
1-85. Suppose that you hear about a research project in linguistics that is exploring the topic
called discourse. Which of the following would be the most likely topic for this
research?
a. "How do students pronunce individual letters within a word?"
b. "Can students recognize the grammatical category of words?"
c. "Are students aware of the past tense of verbs?"
d. "What are students’ ideas about how a story should end?"
Ans: d Page(s): 22 Difficulty: Moderate
1-86. Which of the following statements is true about cognition, in connection with the themes
of this textbook?
a. Most cognitive processes can be studied in isolation, without reference to other
processes.
b. Although some cognitive processes are active, most are passive.
c. Most cognitive theories propose that humans actively examine the world for
information.
d. Cognitive processes handle neutral information better than positive information.
Ans: c Page(s): 23-24 Difficulty: Moderate
1-89. Suppose that you are accustomed to a certain bus stopping on a specific corner near your
college campus. A bus stops, and you think that it’s your customary bus. You fail to
notice that the side of the bus has a totally different company name. The process that led
to your misidentifying the bus is called
a. serial processing.
b. parallel processing.
c. bottom-up processing.
d. top-down processing.
Ans: d Page(s): 24 Difficulty: Moderate
1-90. The kind of processing that emphasizes how your sensory receptors register information
is called
a. serial processing.
b. parallel processing.
c. bottom-up processing.
d. top-down processing.
Ans: c Page(s): 24 Difficulty: Easy
1-91. Suppose that you attend a lecture on the bottom-up processes involved in speech
perception. The lecturer is likely to emphasize
a. how the listener's auditory system registers and transmits information about the
speech sounds.
b. the listener's familiarity with the language.
c. the listener's knowledge about grammar.
d. the listener's expectations about what the speaker will say.
Ans: a Page(s): 24 Difficulty: Moderate
Matlin Cognition 8e Test Bank Chapter 1 Introduction Page 21 of 21
1-92. One of the themes of your textbook focuses on bottom-up and top-down processing.
According to this theme,
a. the phrase "top-down processing" points out the importance of the information
contained in the stimulus.
b. bottom-up processing is almost always more important than top-down processing.
c. top-down processing is more important in childhood, but bottom-up processing is
more important in adulthood.
d. both top-down processing and bottom-up processing operate at the same time, so
that our cognitive processes can operate efficiently.
Ans: d Page(s): 24 Difficulty: Moderate
1-93. Chapter 1 of your textbook ends with a discussion about the five themes of this book.
According to this discussion,
a. cognition is generally not very accurate.
b. cognition typically emphasizes both top-down and bottom-up processing.
c. children typically emphasize top-down processing, but adults typically emphasize
bottom-up processing.
d. cognition is typically more accurate for negative information than for positive
information.
Ans: b Page(s): 24-26 Difficulty: Moderate
1-94. Which of the following students provides the most accurate interpretation of one of the
themes of the textbook?
a. Daquan: “In general, our cognitive processes may operate quickly, but we make
numerous errors.”
b. Jessica: “In general, our cognitive processes tend to be passive, unless we make a
special effort.”
c. Sam: “We are typically more accurate in processing negative information, rather
than positive information.”
d. Sophie: “Many cognitive processes emphasize both top-down processing and
bottom-up processing.”
Ans: d Page(s): 24 Difficulty: Moderate