Unit 3: Cognitive Psychology

Question 1

What concept refers to acquiring or encoding information, putting infromation into memory

Answer 1

learning

Question 2

what concept refers to holding onto info and getting it back out (or retrieving)

Answer 2

memory

Question 3

What are the three most commonly used types of memory test?

Answer 3

Free recall
cued recall
recognition

Question 4

What type of memory test?

recall as many words as you can from the list you just saw

Answer 4

free recall

Question 5

what type of memory test?

recall the word that started with “m” or recall the word that is a type of animal.

Answer 5

cued recall

Question 6

what type of memory test?

say yes or no as to whether the word appeared in the earlier list.

Tree: yes or no

Food: yes or no

Answer 6

recognition

Question 7

The conceptual difference between short-term memory and long-term memory is not based on time, but based on ________.

Answer 7

status of information

Question 8

In short term memory, is the duration limited or long-lasting?

Answer 8

limited

Question 9

In short term memory, is the capacity limited or high?

Answer 9

limited

Question 10

In short term memory, is the format commonly acoustic (verbal) or semantic (meaning based)?

Answer 10

acoustic

Question 11

In long term memory, is the duration limited or long-lasting?

Answer 11

long-lasting

Question 12

In long term memory, is the capacity limited or high?

Answer 12

high

Question 13

In long term memory, is the format commonly acoustic (verbal) or semantic (meaning based)?

Answer 13

semantic

Question 14

What memory consists of the Content of our current thoughts. in other words, “online memory”

Answer 14

Short term memory

Question 15

what memory consists of stored memory, not in our current thoughts and requires encoding/retrieval.

Answer 15

long-term memory

Question 16

What were the patterns of deficits in patients with damage to the hippocampus?

Answer 16

Intact Short Term memory
Intact Long term memory for information already in place prior to damage.

Deficits include remembering new info for long term memory.

Question 17

Seeing a different pattern for STM vs. LTM.

Answer 17

dissociation.

Question 18

memory from one’s own personal life

Answer 18

autobiographical memory

Question 19

autobiographical memories tied to an event that is especially emotional and/or shocking.

Answer 19

flashbulb memory

Question 20

What did Talarico and Rubin study in terms of the effect of emotion on memory?

Answer 20

Overtime, memory details decreases in accuracy, but confidence and vividness ratings increased.

memories for highly emotional events are not perfectly preserved like a snapshot. Emotion creates strong beliefs about memory, but not especially well-preserved memories.

We don’t just fail to recollect things; our memories can actually change and become distorted.

Question 21

What were the methods, results, and interpreatation of Roedigar and McDermott’s study on false recognition?

Answer 21

They presented lists of related words (bed, rest, awake, tired, dream, snooze) and were later given a recognition test. Some items on the tests didn’t appear in the original lists, but were highly related to the words that did not appear.

related words prime one another and activates in the mind.

Question 22

What influences schemas on memory as supported by research?

Answer 22

schema, or knowledge structure, about what tends to be involved. (e.g. an armed robberies consist of disguises, weapons, and money)

In Holst & Pezdek study, participants recalled schema-consistent elements that were never stated as the recording purposefully left out the schema-consistent elements.

Question 23

What influences post-event information on memory as supported by research?

Answer 23

exposure to:
- info in subsequent questions
-info from subsequent conversations
-info from subsequent media reports.

In Loftus & Palmer study, participants watched a video and were asked to make speed estimate. One week later, The particpants were asked memory questions (e.g. broken glass). Participants that were primed with “smash” were more likely to report the broken glass.

Question 24

What are three potential sources of memory distortion?

Answer 24

1. Activation of Stored Information
2. Exposure to Post-Event Information
3. Thoughts and Imaginations

Question 25

what is meant when we say "memory is dynamic, integrative, reconstuctive, and subjective"?

Answer 25

dynamic: constantly changing integrative: mixing together process reconstructive: piecing together process subjective: based on the individual's knowledge, experiences, thoughts, etc. We often retrieve bits and peices of past events, with gaps in our memory, and we have a tendency to fill in these gaps with elements from other sources.

Question 26

How is "activation of stored information" a potential source of memory distortion?

Answer 26

related words prime one another. We can confuse info activated in our mind.

Question 27

how are "thoughts and imaginations" a source of memory distortion?

Answer 27

when we concoct events in our head, we can come to believe those things happened. This applies to: -trying to piece together past events -imagining events -dreaming of events -creating fictional stories

Question 28

What factors contribute to success in problem solving?

Answer 28

practice and experiences

Question 29

what factors influence the efficiency with which individuals are able to arrive at appropriate solutions?

Answer 29

Acquired knowledge and skills

Question 30

Summarize the role of knowledge and experience in expertise

Answer 30

Allows for a deep understanding of the problem allows us to draw on relevant concepts/principles Allows us to deraw on comparable problems weve encountered in the past Allows for solving by analogy.

Question 31

What is the 10,000 hour rule?

Answer 31

Offered 10,000 hour rule that says if you want to become an expert in an area, 10,000 hours of practice is required

Question 32

Is the 10,000 hour rule true?

Answer 32

10,000 hour rule is an oversimplification. There's not a specific amount of practice/experience that's needed to become an expert. Quality of practice is more important that quantity.

Question 33

What concept is defined as "tendency to keep approaching a problem in a certain way" (often do this because the approach worked in the past)

Answer 33

Mental Set

Question 34

What did Luchins' research on mental set summarize?

Answer 34

Luchins used a set of "water jug" problems. He intentionally set up the problem set so the first several problems involved the same solution. Problem 5 required different thinking, but most participants still used an inefficient solve. Problem 6 couldn't be solved by 64% even though the solution required different thinking and less steps.

Question 35

What concept is defined as "tendency to use an object only in its customary or usual way". (can think of this as a mindset with regard to the use of objects).

Answer 35

Functional Fixedness

Question 36

How do breaks and sleep help us overcome rigidity of thinking, as evident by research?

Answer 36

Problem solving is sometimes hindered by rigidity of thinking, by getting stuck in a mindset. To come up with a good solutions, we often need to break out of our current thinking and adopt a new perspective. With breaks, we're more likely to approach problems in a new way and overcome a mindset. Breaks involving sleep is especially effective to approaching problems in a new way.

Question 37

what is meant by problem solving transfer?

Answer 37

someone who takes what they learned in one context and extends it to a new one to achieve results. research shows that problem solvers show a failure to spontaneously transfer (meaning without a hint).

Question 38

What is a major cause of transfer difficulties?

Answer 38

Not enough focus on attaining a conceptual understanding and learning underlying principles. i.e. too much memorizing and too much focus on surface features of problems.

Question 39

What are two effective ways to overcome transfer difficulties?

Answer 39

Problem solvers need to focus more on a conceptual understanding and on underlying principles. methods that encourage a focus on principles: 1. Prepare for explaining 2. compare and contrast problems.

Question 40

What are two ways in which we are irrational/inconsistent in our decision making?

Answer 40

1. Preference Reversal: Different measures produce different preferences. 2. Framing Effect: principle that our choices are influenced by the way they are framed through different wordings, settings, and situations. i.e. Framed as gains = people tend to avoid risk. Framed as losses = people tend to choose riskier.

Question 41

How do we use availability heuristics when it comes to making decisions?

Answer 41

to judge the likelihood of an event according to the ease with which examples come to mind. things that come to mind more readily are judged as more likely.

Question 42

How does the use of the availability heuristic produce problems and biases?

Answer 42

things that come to mind more readily (and for which examples are more "available") are not necessarily more common or likely. Exposure in the media can skew things. memory factor can cause some examples to come to mind more readily even though they're not more common

Question 43

How do we use representativeness heuristic to make decisions?

Answer 43

to judge the likelihood of an event by how well it matches our prototype or stereotype or preconceived notion of the type of event in question. Events that better match our prototype/stereotype are judged to be more common/likely.

Question 44

How does the use of the representativeness heuristic produce problems and biases?

Answer 44

People misjudge likelyhood of sequences. People expect short sequences (small samples) to be representative of long-run outcomes.

Question 45

What was Tversky & Kahneman's experiment on ignoring base rates and how was representative heuristic involved?

Answer 45

Tversky and Kaneman's experiment presented participants a scenerio with a set of base rates (30/70 engineersand lawyers) and followed up with a second question regarding a single person with a stereotype of an engineer. Participants were asked if the person was a lawyer or engineer. Participants selected engineer based on the stereotype regardless of base rate manipulation. People use the representative heuristic (focusing on stereotypicality) and ignore base rate information.

Question 46

What is known about the base rate effect in clinical decision making (including Heller and Saltzstein's study)?

Answer 46

The more experience the clinician has, the greater insenstivity to base rate. Use of the representativenss heuristic resulted in medical professionals not facoring in base rates enough (base rates effect) cause

Question 47

What effect is defined as achored by initial assessment and don't adjust enough based on new evidence.

Answer 47

anchoring effect

Question 48

what type of bias is defined as seeking confirming evidence, but not disconfirming evidence.

Answer 48

confirmation bias

Question 49

How is the anchoring effect and confirmation bias apply to clinical decision making?

Answer 49

Physicians and clinicians are human and often use heuristics when making judgements, perhaps more often with greater experience. They are not immune to misjudgements, despite education, training, and experience.