Deck 7: Cognitive Views of Learning

Question 1

Research has shown that the capacity of the working memory is limited to about how many chunks?

A) Two to four
B) Five to nine
C) 11 to 12
D) 13 to 15

Answer 1

Five to nine

Question 2

Top-down processing is distinguished by its reliance on a(n)

A) assembly of elements into a meaningful pattern.
B) downward scanning of the eyes.
C) search for familiar features or elements.
D) understanding of the context of a situation.

Answer 2

understanding of the context of a situation.

Question 3

A photographer shoots a flashbulb directly into your eyes. For the next few seconds, all you can see are big blue dots everywhere you look. What type of memory is most directly involved in this phenomenon?

A) Long-term
B) Semantic
C) Sensory
D) Working

Answer 3

Sensory

Question 4

Bottom-up processing refers to the way people examine a new stimulus for

A) contextual cues.
B) contrasting details.
C) perceptual closure.
D) recognizable features.

Question 5

Which one of the following statements is consistent with the cognitive approach to learning?

A) Feedback serves as a consequence of a person's actions.
B) Learning is independent of elicited responses.
C) Learning is independent of external circumstances.
D) The same event means different things to different people.

Question 6

In the cognitive approach to learning, learning

A) depends a great deal on individual perception.
B) is dependent on elicited responses.
C) is determined by acquired traits.
D) is primarily a consequence of other people's actions.

Question 7

The basic purpose of chunking as a memory strategy is to

A) increase the capacity of information in all of the sensory registers.
B) increase the amount of information to be stored in the long-term memory.
C) reduce the amount of information to be stored in the working memory.
D) reduce the amount of time for processing information in long-term memory.

Question 8

Alec still remembers how to touch-type, even though it has been three years since he has practiced. The memory system most directly involved here is

A) episodic.
B) procedural.
C) semantic.
D) short-term.

Question 9

Items can typically be stored in working memory for approximately how long?

A) About 20 seconds
B) A day
C) One minute
D) One week

Question 10

Mr. Kawicki is teaching his sixth-grade science students about the scientific method. Students are instructed about each component of the method first in order to understand the whole process. This instructional strategy is based on what concept?

A) Bottom-up processing
B) Memory strength
C) Propositional network
D) Top-down processing

Question 11

While Mr. Lindsey was explaining the social studies assignment, Missy was finishing homework due for her next class. When the class began the assignment, Missy did not know what to do. According to the information processing model of cognitive learning, Missy was lost because

A) her perception of the activity was different from that of other students.
B) she did not pay attention to the instructions that were given.
C) the instructions for the assignment were out of context.
D) the instructions were not transferred from working to long-term memory.

Question 12

One of the educational implications of sensory memory is that

A) attention is necessary if children are to remember information.
B) children can take in and comprehend almost a limitless amount of information.
C) information seen is brought into consciousness almost immediately.
D) reinforcement is a requirement if children are to retain information.

Question 13

Cliff is good at solving math problems, but has difficulty solving problems in his computer class. His problem-solving ability in math represents what type of knowledge?

A) Conditional
B) Declarative
C) Domain-specific
D) Procedural

Question 14

Our ability to conserve something in working memory is most directly affected by the

A) executive control processes.
B) perceptual factors that we apply to the stimulus.
C) reinforcement of information.
D) strength and intensity of the initial stimulus.

Question 15

A jogger is startled by the feeling of a moving object on his right side. It could have been a ferocious dog, but it turns out to be a newspaper page blown by the wind. What memory component was most directly involved?

A) Episodic
B) Schematic
C) Sensory memory
D) Working memory

Question 16

Maria has excellent study habits. She seems to know just what to review and how long to spend on each part of every course. Maria is applying what type of knowledge?

A) Conditional
B) Declarative
C) Domain-specific
D) Procedural

Question 17

Megan tries to remember the address, 10 Anchor Street, by imagining a ten-dollar bill attached to the anchor of a ship. She is using a memory strategy called

A) chunking.
B) elaborative rehearsal.
C) maintenance rehearsal.
D) part learning.

Question 18

Which one of the following persons most clearly illustrates the concept of elaboration?

A) Alicia asks the teacher to define percentages in a different way than how they were defined in the text.
B) Bart calculates percentages for the homework problems assigned by the teacher.
C) John recognizes that he can use percentages in calculating his team's batting average.
D) Mary rehearses the steps for computing the statistics needed to describe the school population.

Question 19

What you are thinking about right now is being held in what type of memory?

A) Long-term
B) Schematic
C) Sensory
D) Working

Question 20

Compared to the behaviouristic orientation, the cognitive perspective recognizes people as what type of learners?

A) Active
B) Egocentric
C) Passive
D) Social

Question 21

Noah counted the legs on a bug and came up with eight. He then decided the bug was an arachnid (spider) because an arachnid has eight legs. His decision was based upon what aspect of concept learning?

A) Algorithm
B) Defining attribute
C) Heuristic
D) Prototype

Question 22

Propositional networks are defined most accurately as

A) a process by which verbal information reaches short-term memory.
B) a technique used to increase the capacity of short-term memory.
C) the organization of information according to its meaning.
D) the process by means of which information reaches the sensory register.

Question 23

In order to understand the large amounts of information inherent in complex concepts, people must develop structures or patterns called

A) levels.
B) mnemonics.
C) propositions.
D) schemas.

Question 24

Based on studies of context, in what location would a student be likely to perform best on an educational psychology test?

A) In a familiar room such as a dorm room
B) In a small comfortable room with soft music playing
C) In a very quiet area, such as a library
D) In an educational psychology classroom

Question 25

When we intentionally try to learn something new, we are involving what type of long-term memory?

A) Crystallized memory
B) Episodic memory
C) Working memory
D) Explicit memory

Question 26

Little Billy was accustomed to seeing Officer Sam O'Reilly walking around the block, but then one day he met Officer Sally Murdock. Billy gave her a suspicious look and said, "You can't be an officer, you're a lady." Billy's concept of a police officer was probably

A) based on a male prototype.
B) derived primarily from defining attributes.
C) refined from a complex schema.
D) verbal rather than intellectual.

Question 27

According to the levels of processing theory, the length of time information is remembered is determined by

A) how completely the initial learning was accomplished.
B) when we first encountered the information.
C) where it is stored in our memory.
D) why we have chosen to attend to the information.

Question 28

A script is viewed by cognitive theorists as useful

A) as a note-taking strategy in lecture classes.
B) in directing everyday activities in different situations.
C) in formalizing interactions between students.
D) in outlining the main ideas of a story.

Question 29

Mark can answer the physics problem because of patterns of knowledge stored in his long-term memory, which he did not intentionally try to learn. This situation involves Mark using his

A) explicit memory.
B) implicit memory.
C) short-term memory.
D) episodic memory.

Question 30

Which one of the following behaviors is a defining attribute for the concept "bird"?

A) Building nests
B) Eating insects
C) Growing feathers
D) Vocalizing its territorial boundaries

Question 31

Long-term memory for how to do things is called

A) elaboration.
B) episodic memory.
C) procedural memory.
D) productions.

Question 32

Traditional views of concept learning suggest that we recognize examples of a concept by

A) deductive reasoning.
B) identifying defining features or attributes.
C) imaging prototypes.
D) top-down processing.

Question 33

In discussing the concept "fruit," the teacher says "...and fruits come in practically all colors." The teacher is identifying a(n)

A) defining attribute.
B) irrelevant attribute.
C) nonexample.
D) prototype.

Question 34

Ms. Gentry took her tenth-grade biology students to the Horticulture Garden. The students were able to observe and classify a wide variety of exotic plants. Students in her class are likely to remember the names and characteristics of those plants because of

A) automaticity.
B) context.
C) meta-components.
D) retrieval.

Question 35

When you mention "dogs," both Bethany and Ashley would picture collies. In relation to the concept "dog," what would the image of a collie be?

A) Algorithm
B) Attribute
C) Heuristic
D) Prototype

Question 36

Because memories are organized in propositional networks, recall of one bit of information often

A) blocks the recall of other information.
B) leads to recall of another bit of information.
C) leads to the integration of organized patterns.
D) requires specific, external memory cues.

Question 37

You are given a math problem to solve. As you try to remember the formula involved, what memory system is being searched?

A) Long-term semantic
B) Schematic
C) Sensory register
D) Working procedural

Question 38

Marc starts talking to Joyce about the field trip to the zoo, which reminds him of the book he read on tigers last week. He concludes by telling Joyce that the new library is very easy to use. This phenomenon illustrates the concept of

A) construction of the working memory.
B) deactivation of the active memory.
C) reconstruction of the working memory.
D) spread of activation.

Question 39

Long-term memory that is memory for meaning is called

A) episodic.
B) procedural.
C) semantic.
D) working.

Question 40

According to current cognitive theories, information may be lost from long-term memory in all of the following ways EXCEPT by

A) interference.
B) lack of use.
C) substitution.
D) time decay.

Question 41

In order to avoid confusing entomology (the study of insects) with etymology (the study of the history of words), Vicky associates the sound "en" of entomology with the sound "in" of insects. What specific type of mnemonic is she using?

A) Acronym
B) Chain
C) Keyword
D) Peg-type

Question 42

Current cognitive psychologists view learning more as the construction of knowledge than as the acquisition of knowledge.

Question 43

The first step in peg-type mnemonics is to

A) associate new material with a familiar place or location.
B) memorize a random list of places, words, or facts.
C) organize the new material into meaningful patterns.
D) visualize each element of the new material.

Question 44

Consuela is a fourth-grade student who is studying geography. Tomorrow, she has a quiz over the Great Lakes. She creates a mnemonic device, HOMES (Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie, Superior), to help her remember the names of the lakes. What type of mnemonic device is she using?

A) Acronym
B) Chain
C) Keyword
D) Peg-type

Question 45

Based on the serial-position effect, what group of letters of the alphabet should be the most difficult to remember for someone who is first learning the alphabet?

A) ABC
B) MNO
C) XYZ
D) All of the above groups should be of equal difficulty.

Question 46

Recognizing stimuli by feature analysis is a form of bottom-up processing.

Question 47

You are asked to learn 100 world cities, so you divide the cities into their continents and set about your task. You are more likely to succeed than someone who begins to learn the states at random, because your system

A) capitalizes on the serial-position effect by fragmenting the task.
B) employs cues to organize your transfer from sensory memory.
C) helps you encode the names of the cities at the time of recall.
D) minimizes proactive interference through the 'blocking' effect.

Question 48

What type of knowledge do experts have that involves an understanding of how to perform various cognitive activities?

A) Conditional
B) Declarative
C) Organizational
D) Procedural

Question 49

"I before E except after C" is an example of the use of what memory method?

A) Chain
B) Loci
C) Keyword
D) Peg-type

Question 50

Dr. Beach used to be a typical 'absent minded professor.' However, she found that she could remember the things her husband asked her to pick up at the grocery store by imagining the items she needed placed on her desk, bookshelf, and file cabinet. The mnemonic device that she used is

A) an acronym.
B) chunking.
C) the keyword method.
D) the loci method.

Question 51

Forgetting due to the serial-position effect can be reduced through the use of

A) massed practice.
B) part learning.
C) relearning.
D) rote memorization.

Question 52

A student provides an explanation of why water evaporates, but his description leaves out some of the details the teacher provided, while including some new information. Cognitive theorists would attribute this to

A) elaboration.
B) reconstruction.
C) repression.
D) time decay.

Question 53

While taking his final exam, Jerry recalled one item of information that caused him to remember another piece of information related to the question. What phenomenon has he just experienced?

A) Distributed recall
B) Massed practice
C) Serial-position effect
D) Spread of activation

Question 54

Claire, a three-year-old, has difficulty remembering her street address. According to research on short-term memory use, what is a likely cause of Claire's problem?

A) Both limited memory capacity and ineffective strategy use
B) Ineffective strategy use, but not limited memory capacity
C) Limited memory capacity, but not ineffective strategy use
D) Neither limited memory capacity nor effective strategy use

Question 55

The use of imagery techniques of learning, such as the keyword method, seems most appropriate for what age group?

A) Early elementary school
B) Kindergarten
C) Late elementary school and older
D) Preschool

Question 56

Stacey is trying to learn the abbreviations and names for the chemical elements, such as Au (gold). He connects the Au with a mental picture of Auric Goldfinger, the villain in a James Bond novel. This is an example of using what learning strategy?

A) Chaining
B) Keyword
C) Loci
D) Metacognitive

Question 57

Josh's history teacher wants Josh to learn important events that occurred during World War I. What type of knowledge would be most directly involved in this learning?

A) Conditional declarative
B) Domain-specific declarative
C) General declarative
D) Procedural declarative

Question 58

What can teachers do to help their students develop an automated basic skill?

A) Ensure that students have the necessary prerequisite knowledge and provide practice with feedback.
B) Focus on executive control processes in order to guide the flow of information through students' information processing systems.
C) Teach domain-specific strategies for solving problems and control processes for guiding knowledge.
D) Train students to use a variety of strategies for retrieving knowledge from long-term memory.

Question 59

According to Woolfolk, the basic purpose of mnemonic aids is to

A) increase students' motivation to learn material requiring rote memorization.
B) make connections between the information to be memorized.
C) rehearse old information in order to implant it in the working memory.
D) set up a system of rewards for remembering items that are not connected.

Question 60

An educational application designed to reduce the impact of the serial-position effect is to

A) begin teaching important materials at the beginning of class and deal with administrative tasks later.
B) break down the lesson into small parts that can be handled quite easily.
C) provide a preview of the next period at the end of class rather than a review of what was covered today.
D) start a class with seatwork, teach new information, and end the class with seatwork whenever possible.

Question 61

The "spread of activation" phenomenon is basically a short-term memory process.

Question 62

The primary difference between implicit and explicit memories is in the amount of information that can be stored in the different types of memories.

Question 63

Older cognitive views of learning emphasized the acquisition of knowledge, although newer approaches stress ________ of knowledge.

Question 64

Stimuli from the environment are theorized to first enter working memory.

Question 65

A story grammar is a type of schema for text.

Question 66

All members of a concept category have clearly identifiable defining attributes.

Question 67

The keyword method involves memorizing a standard list of words as a basis for forming associations with new items.

Question 68

Long-term memory holds information that is currently activated.

Question 69

The key to maintaining information in long-term memory is rehearsal.

Question 70

A prototype is a false instance of a concept.

Question 71

If a student tries very hard to remember the name of a book author, he or she is searching knowledge stored as an explicit memory.

Question 72

Schemas provide the structures or guides that enable people to understand an event.

Question 73

Consciously applied skills of organizing thoughts and actions to reach a learning goal are called domain-specific strategies.

Question 74

The serial-position effect suggests that forgetting the middle of a list is more likely than forgetting the beginning or end of a list.

Question 75

"I before e except after c" is an example of the chain-method approach to memorization.

Question 76

"Memory for meaning" is semantic memory.

Question 77

The element of processing that influences the physical and emotional environment in which learning takes place is elaboration.

Question 78

Only about 14 items may be stored in short-term memory at any given time.

Question 79

It appears that the capacity of long-term memory is unlimited.

Question 80

"Reconstructed memory" means "accurate memory."