Deck 7: Thinking, Language, and Intelligence

Question 1

For his independent project in Cooking 101, Henry decides to develop a new dip for raw vegetables, using sour cream and herbs. He tries one combination of ingredients after another, adjusting the seasoning as he goes along. What problem-solving strategy is Henry using?

A) the working backward heuristic
B) the additive model
C) the single-feature algorithm
D) the trial-and-error strategy

Answer 1

the trial-and-error strategy

Question 2

After his imported, top-rated, 15-speed mountain bike is stolen, Jason decides to replace it with the least expensive 10-speed he can find so that he won't have to worry about it. Which decision-making strategy is Jason using?

A) the additive model
B) the elimination by aspects model
C) the single-feature model
D) the availability model

Answer 2

the single-feature model

Question 3

A well-designed psychological test has which of the following characteristics?

A) reliability, validity, and variability
B) verification, standardization, and reliability
C) reliability, standardization, and validity
D) standardization, validity, and variability

Answer 3

reliability, standardization, and validity

Question 4

Several problems have been assigned as part of your physics homework. One problem asks you to determine the relative velocity of a variety of moving objects. To answer the question, you solve a complex mathematical equation. Which problem-solving strategy are you using?

A) a heuristic
B) a trial-and-error strategy
C) insight
D) an algorithm

Question 5

Dividing a person's mental age by chronological age and multiplying the answer by 100 is:

A) Louis Terman's formula for the IQ score as measured by the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale.
B) David Wechsler's formula for the IQ score as measured by the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Test.
C) Robert Sternberg's formula for the Practical Intelligence (PI) score as measured by the Sternberg Triarchic Intelligence Scale.
D) Howard Gardner's formula for the Multiple Intelligences Quotient (MIQ) as measured by his Multiple Intelligences Exam.

Question 6

Erika is asked to generate a list of five different animals that can be kept as pets. She quickly responds, "dogs, cats, goldfish, gerbils, and canaries." Dogs would thus represent Erika's _____ for the _____ concept of pets.

A) defining features or attributes; natural
B) prototype; natural
C) exemplar; formal
D) prototype; formal

Question 7

A new friend asks you to describe the house you grew up in. You pause and think for a moment. You will need to use_____ to answer her question.

A) intuition
B) mental images
C) an exemplar
D) a prototype

Question 8

Emily is planning a trip to northern Canada in January. She decides to buy the warmest coat she can find, no matter what its cost or appearance. Emily is relying upon the _____ to decide which coat to buy.

A) additive model
B) single-feature model
C) elimination by aspects model
D) insight and intuition

Question 9

In which area of psychology are twin studies typically used?

A) to test the linguistic relativity hypothesis
B) to investigate problem-solving strategies
C) to determine the relative contributions of genetic and environmental factors to intelligence and other characteristics
D) to determine the relative contributions of personality factors to IQ scores and intelligence

Question 10

Rick asks you how many stop signs you encounter on your drive home. To answer his question, you probably rely on a:

A) mental image.
B) linguistic concept.
C) map of your city.
D) natural concept.

Question 11

Cissy likes to drive fast, counting on her matronly appearance and southern charm to avoid getting a speeding ticket. She believes that most speeders who get tickets are young males driving high-performance cars, so she is surprised when an officer pulls her over and gives her a $200 speeding ticket, despite the fact that she has three kids in her SUV with soccer balls and uniforms in the back. Cissy was misled by _____ in her belief that she was highly unlikely to get a speeding ticket.

A) the representativeness heuristic
B) the belief-bias effect
C) the confirmation bias
D) the availability heuristic

Question 12

Emma overheard the driver education instructor rant and rave about how the girls in Emma's group were the worst drivers he'd ever had the misfortune to teach in his 30 years of teaching high school students to drive. When it was Emma's turn to practice her driving skills with the instructor, she performed worse than usual, forgetting to use turn signals, turning the wheel the wrong way when backing up, and running over two plastic cones when attempting to parallel park. What is the MOST likely explanation for Emma's poor performance behind the wheel?

A) Emma is relying on the wrong heuristics in her attempts to learn how to drive.
B) Emma is low in bodily-kinesthetic intelligence.
C) Emma's driving skills have deteriorated because of the influence of the prototype threat.
D) Emma's driving skills have deteriorated because of the influence of stereotype threat.

Question 13

In the model of intuition described in your text, which stage involves conscious, analytic thinking?

A) stage 1, the guiding stage
B) stage 2, the integrative stage
C) stage 3, the mental set stage
D) stage 4, the logical-mathematical intelligence stage

Question 14

Psychologist _____ strongly believed that all mental abilities were related to a single common factor called the _____ factor.

A) Louis L. Thurstone; primary mental ability
B) Charles Spearman; general intelligence or g
C) Benjamin Whorf; linguistic relativity
D) Robert Sternberg; successful intelligence

Question 15

_____ is formally defined as the mental activities involved in acquiring, retaining, and using knowledge, including memory and perception.

A) Thinking
B) Motivation
C) Cognition
D) Problem solving

Question 16

"The global capacity to think rationally, act purposefully, and deal effectively with the environment" is:

A) Sternberg's definition of successful problem solving.
B) Wechsler's definition of intelligence.
C) Gardner's definition of logical-mathematical intelligence.
D) Thurstone's definition of intelligence.

Question 17

Your text describes research involving participants who lived in remote Amazon tribes and spoke languages that lacked a counting system or specific words for numbers. What conclusion did the researchers reach?

A) Language has a powerful effect on perception; people who speak different languages have a completely different view of the world.
B) Language categories can affect how individuals think about particular concepts. Without a number concept, the indigenous people were only able to use relative terms like few, some, and many instead of exact numbers to describe quantities.
C) The study showed that even though the languages of the isolated tribes lacked number words, they had sophisticated systems for describing colors.
D) The study showed that without a number concept, the indigenous people were unable to distinguish between few, some, and many.

Question 18

One day Ethan had "a feeling" that he was going to get a phone call from a long-lost friend. That evening, an old high school classmate called, inviting him to attend a class reunion. Now Ethan is telling everyone that he is psychic. According to your textbook, which cognitive bias provides the best explanation for Ethan's belief?

A) the overestimation effect
B) the belief-bias effect
C) confirmation bias
D) the fallacy of positive instances

Question 19

The term heritability refers to the:

A) percentage of variation within a particular population that is due to heredity.
B) percentage of variation between two particular populations or racial or ethnic groups that is due to heredity.
C) percentage of a particular characteristic that is due strictly to hereditary factors.
D) degree to which a particular trait or quality is the result of the biological mother's genes or the biological father's genes.

Question 20

A friend asks you which three books you would take if you knew you were going to be marooned on a desert island for a year. Because language has the characteristic of _____, you are able to have a meaningful conversation about the topic, even though you're not really marooned on a desert island.

A) displacement
B) generativity
C) syntax
D) linguistic relativity

Question 21

The linguistic relativity hypothesis:

A) contends that American Sign Language lacks the formal requirements for language and is relatively impoverished linguistically.
B) is the notion that thoughts and perceptions are influenced by the particular language that is used.
C) proposes that the formal characteristics of a language are relative and not absolute.
D) suggests that the way people think and perceive the world in different linguistic groups influences the formal language that they develop and use.

Question 22

Who translated and revised Binet's intelligence test for use in the United States?

A) David Wechsler
B) Charles Spearman
C) Louis Thurstone
D) Lewis Terman

Question 23

Cross-cultural research on group differences in IQ scores has shown that:

A) stereotype threat is not a cross-cultural phenomenon.
B) standard IQ tests can be translated and used in any cultural setting.
C) minority groups who are discriminated against tend to have lower average IQ scores than the dominant group, whatever their racial or ethnic identity.
D) test-taking behavior does not vary from one culture or society to another.

Question 24

Concepts provide a kind of mental shorthand, economizing the cognitive effort required for thinking and communication.

Question 25

The more closely an item matches our prototype of a natural concept, the more quickly we can classify it as an example of that concept.

Question 26

When people need to make a decision involving a high degree of uncertainty, what techniques do they often use to estimate the probability of an event occurring?

A) the trial-and-error strategy and the additive model
B) the elimination by aspects model and the single-feature model
C) the availability heuristic and the representativeness heuristic
D) insight, intuition, mental sets, and pure guesswork

Question 27

According to the Enhancing Well-Being with Psychology section "A Workshop on Creativity," creativity can be enhanced if you:

A) ignore everyday hassles and focus on the big picture.
B) try to avoid learning too much about the area in which you wish to be creative, so as to guarantee a fresh approach.
C) focus all your efforts on refining a single promising approach, rather than being distracted by too many possibilities.
D) are flexible and persist in the face of obstacles and setbacks.

Question 28

Kosslyn and his colleagues (1978) found that the amount of time it took subjects to scan a mental image of a map of a fictitious island was not affected by the actual distances on the island that they had to scan.

Question 29

Forming a mental image of a face or a place activates a brain area called the fusiform facial area, whereas actually perceiving a face or a place activates a brain area called the parahippocampal place area.

Question 30

Forming a mental image of a face or place involves activity in the same brain areas that are activated when people actually perceive a face or a place.

Question 31

According to psychologist _____, there are multiple, independent forms of intelligence, such as linguistic intelligence, spatial intelligence, or interpersonal intelligence.

A) Charles Spearman
B) David Wechsler
C) Howard Gardner
D) Lewis Terman

Question 32

A formal concept is a mental category that is formed as a result of everyday experience.

Question 33

Cindi and Beth are participants in a research study that involves taking a difficult math test. Cindi is told that scores on the math test usually reflect gender differences, while Beth is told that scores on the math test usually do not reflect gender differences. Cindi and Beth's math scores will be compared to the scores of male students taking the same test. Based on Claude Steele's research, what would you predict about Cindi and Beth's scores on the math test?

A) Because of stereotype threat, Cindi will score lower than the male students, but Beth's score will score about the same as the male students.
B) Because of stereotype lift, Beth will score lower than the male students, but Cindi will score about the same as the male students.
C) Because of stereotype lift, Beth's and Cindi's scores will be about the same as the male students'.
D) Because of stereotype threat, Cindi will score higher than the male students, but Beth will score lower than the male students.

Question 34

A mental representation of objects or events that are not physically present is called a mental image.

Question 35

Scientific research on mental images suggests that we manipulate mental images in much the same way as we manipulate the actual objects that the images represent.

Question 36

When a psychological test is administered to the same group of people on different occasions and it produces very similar scores for each of the participants, it is said to be:

A) reliable.
B) standardized.
C) a culture-free test.
D) valid.

Question 37

Cognition refers to the mental activities involved in acquiring, retaining, and using knowledge.

Question 38

Thinking involves manipulating mental representations of information in order to draw inferences and conclusions.

Question 39

The term _____ refers to the rules for combining words in a particular language.

A) generative
B) displacement
C) syntax
D) exemplar

Question 40

ESP believers and ESP disbelievers participated in a study in which they watched two attempts to demonstrate telepathic communication. Although the participants didn't know it, one attempt was rigged to appear successful, and the other attempt was rigged to fail. Following the demonstration:

A) all of the participants incorrectly remembered both attempts as being unsuccessful.
B) the ESP disbelievers thought that ESP did not occur in either demonstration.
C) only the ESP believers said that ESP had taken place in the unsuccessful attempt, thus demonstrating the belief-bias effect.
D) only the ESP disbelievers said that ESP had taken place in the unsuccessful attempt, thus demonstrating the fallacy of positive instances.

Question 41

Insight is the sudden realization of how a problem can be solved.

Question 42

The availability heuristic is very likely to block insight in areas in which you are already knowledgeable or well trained.

Question 43

One way to determine whether an object is an instance of a natural concept is to compare it to a prototype of that natural concept.

Question 44

The additive model of decision making involves first generating a list of factors that are most important, next using an arbitrary rating scale to rate each alternative on each factor, and finally adding these together for comparison purposes.

Question 45

A mental set is sometimes likely to block insight in areas in which you are already knowledgeable and well trained.

Question 46

The term mental set refers to a particular decision-making strategy that is most often used under conditions of uncertainty.

Question 47

One influential model of intuition involves two stages, the guiding stage and the integrative stage.

Question 48

Breaking a problem into subgoals and working backward from the goal are both useful heuristics that can help people solve complex problems.

Question 49

In the second stage of the two-stage model of intuition, the integrative stage, hypotheses are formed.

Question 50

Exemplars are stored memories of examples of a particular concept.

Question 51

The elimination by aspects model is a decision-making strategy in which the choice among many alternatives is simplified by basing the decision on a single feature.

Question 52

Functional fixedness can hamper attempts to solve problems because it prevents people from seeing the full range of potential uses for a familiar object.

Question 53

Trial and error is a problem-solving strategy that involves attempting different solutions and eliminating those that do not work.

Question 54

An algorithm is a method that always produces the correct solution when it is followed step by step.

Question 55

Functional fixedness is a tendency to view objects as functioning in their usual or customary way.

Question 56

Alyssa goes shopping for bath soap. After looking at all the different choices, Alyssa decides to choose the soap with the most cocoa butter in it. Alyssa is using the single-feature model of decision making.

Question 57

A problem-solving strategy that involves following a specific rule, procedure, or method, that inevitably produces the correct solution, is referred to as a heuristic.

Question 58

The first step in effective problem solving is to consider all possible solutions for a problem.

Question 59

According to the two-stage model of intuition, the fact that the initial stage of intuition is unconscious means that it is also irrational and unlikely to generate accurate results.

Question 60

Unlike formal concepts, natural concepts tend to have fuzzy boundaries.

Question 61

The representativeness heuristic and the availability heuristic are two rule-of-thumb strategies that help us estimate the likelihood of events.

Question 62

According to the linguistic relativity hypothesis, differences among languages cause differences in the thoughts of their speakers.

Question 63

When people accept only evidence that conforms to their belief, rejecting or ignoring any evidence that does not conform, they are demonstrating the belief-bias effect.

Question 64

While evaluating evidence that seems to confirm a hoped-for finding, people may overlook flaws in the research or argument. This is an example of the wishful thinking bias.

Question 65

One important property of language is displacement, meaning that speakers can generate an infinite number of new and different phrases and sentences.

Question 66

State lottery commissions capitalize on the availability heuristic by running many TV commercials showing that lucky person who won the $100 million Powerball. A vivid memory is created, which leads viewers to an inaccurate estimate of the likelihood that the event will happen to them.

Question 67

When we use the availability heuristic, we estimate the likelihood of an event on the basis of how readily available other instances of the event are in our memory.

Question 68

Eleanor Rosch found that even though Dani-speaking people in New Guinea have words for only two colors in their language, they seemed to remember and perceive color in much the same way as English-speaking people from the United States.

Question 69

Research on bilingualism has shown that balanced proficiency in two languages may result in delayed language development, learning problems, and lower intelligence.

Question 70

Every language has a unique syntax, or set of rules for combining words.

Question 71

The representativeness heuristic occurs when a rare event makes a vivid impression on people, and they overestimate the likelihood of it occurring again.

Question 72

Bilingualism is defined as being fluent in two or more languages.

Question 73

Philip is perfectly fluent in English and French. Research has shown that such balanced proficiency in two languages helps build up a cognitive reserve that can protect against cognitive decline in late adulthood.

Question 74

People tend to believe evidence that confirms what they want to believe is true, a bias that is sometimes called the wishful thinking bias.

Question 75

Parents with children in day care may be motivated to embrace research findings that emphasize the benefits of day care for young children and discount findings that emphasize the benefits of home-based care. This is an example of the belief-bias effect.

Question 76

The confirmation bias is the tendency to search for information or evidence that confirms a belief, while making little or no effort to search for information that might disprove the belief.

Question 77

Bilingualism is defined as having fluency in one language.

Question 78

One day Lacey had an intuitive hunch that she would hear from an old grade-school friend, and sure enough, her friend e-mailed her. Lacey is now convinced that she is psychic. This is an example of the fallacy of positive instances.

Question 79

Faced with evidence that seems to contradict a hoped-for finding, people may object to a study's methodology. This is an example of the fallacy of positive instances.

Question 80

Only the Inuit (Eskimo) people of northern Canada have dozens of words for snow, a fact that supports Benjamin Whorf's view that language determines perception.