Cognition Practice MCQ Set 2

The brain scans of people with amnesia are most likely to show damage to the

• hippocampus.

• hypothalamus.

• medulla.

• cerebellum.

Elena wanted to see if taller students were more likely do better on achievement tests. Elana recorded the height of all of her classmates and calculated the standard deviation. If everything else stayed the same, what change to the data would make the standard deviation increase?

• If the tallest person were taller

• If the shortest person were taller

• If everyone in the class were one inch taller

• If the tallest and shortest person were removed from the data set

When 90-year-old Mrs. Glass socializes at her senior activity center, she gravitates toward activities that she can still perform well, which also demonstrates that her crystallized intelligence is functioning. Which of the following activities will most likely appeal to Mrs. Glass?

• A class teaching her how to use the latest computer technology

• A trivia game featuring current movies

• A “name that song” game featuring songs from her childhood

• A new video game in which aliens fly a spaceship

The graphs depict the distribution of intelligence test scores for two groups of students at a middle school. Which of the following statements is true of the graphs?

• The mean and standard deviation are identical for both distributions.

• The mean is identical for both distributions; the standard deviation is larger for distribution B.

• The mean is identical for both distributions; the standard deviation is larger for distribution A.

• The standard deviation is identical for both distributions; the mean is larger for distribution B.

A teacher has to learn 170 new student names every year and finds it difficult to remember the names of former students. The teacher’s memory problem most likely results from

• proactive interference

• retroactive interference

• retroactive amnesia

• anterograde amnesia

Dr. Sosa administers the first exam to all his introductory psychology students, which amounts to 250 students total. The mean for the first exam was 75%. The grades for Dr. Sosa’s classes are distributed as shown here. Dr. Sosa concludes the students in his class are achieving appropriate mastery of the material. Why is this conclusion invalid?

• Dr. Sosa should have evaluated each of his classes separately.

• The distribution is positively skewed.

• The distribution is negatively skewed.

• Dr. Sosa did not evaluate enough students.

Dr. Amie conducts an experiment in which participants are asked to observe a recorded lecture and either take notes as they watch in real time or take notes when they pause the lecture every minute. She then gives them a test to evaluate their knowledge about the information presented. To reduce the likelihood of confounding variables influencing the experiment, Dr. Amie should do which of the following?

• Ensure that all participants watch the same recorded lecture

• Be sure that participants are placed into the group they believe will be most beneficial based on their approach to learning

• Receive informed consent from each participant prior to starting the study

• Ensure that participants are drawn randomly from the population

To help himself remember the name of his new colleague, Hope, Jose thinks about the meaning of her name—the feeling of hopefulness. Which of the following concepts best corresponds to Jose’s strategy?

• Chunking

• Semantic encoding

• Self-reference

• Imaging

A test author most interested in ensuring that individuals receive similar scores on a personality test every time they take it is attempting to increase which of the following?

• Validity

• Reliability

• Experimenter-expectancy effects

• Standardization

Martine needs a hammer but cannot find one. As she looks around her apartment, her gaze passes over a metal paperweight and some other objects that could potentially serve as a makeshift hammer. However, she is so focused on these objects' typical uses that she does not think to use any of them as a hammer. Martine is experiencing which of the following?

• Confirmation bias

• Encoding failure

• Context-dependent memory

• Functional fixedness