Cognitive psychology worksheet with answers

Damage to Broca's area typically causes difficulty with:

1. AForming new memories
2. BUnderstanding spoken words
3. CRecognising faces
4. DProducing fluent speech

About how many items can a person hold in short-term memory, according to George Miller's classic estimate?

1. A3 ± 1
2. B7 ± 2
3. C12 ± 3
4. D20 ± 5

A multiple-choice exam mainly tests which kind of retrieval?

1. ARecognition
2. BFree recall
3. CSerial recall
4. DRelearning

In Duncker's candle problem, participants must fix a candle to a wall using a box of tacks and matches. The solution is hard to find because people:

1. ASpend too long trying to melt wax with the matches
2. BAssume the tacks are too short to hold the candle
3. CDo not realise the candle has to be lit first
4. DSee the box only as a container, not as a shelf

Encoding specificity means that recall is best when:

1. AThe material is learned in a noisy room
2. BInformation is learned in one long session
3. CLearning happens just before sleep only
4. DThe context at retrieval matches the context at learning

People recall more words from a list of short words (e.g. "cat, sun") than from a list of long words. The usual explanation is that:

1. ALong words cause retroactive interference with earlier items
2. BShort words are held in iconic memory as well as acoustically
3. CShort words take less time to rehearse in the phonological loop
4. DLong words are processed more deeply and so crowd each other out

A patient with a long history of heavy alcohol use cannot form new memories and fills gaps with invented stories that he believes. This is typical of:

1. AWernicke's aphasia
2. BKorsakoff's syndrome
3. CRetrograde amnesia only
4. DDissociative amnesia

Linda is described as outspoken and concerned with social justice. Many people judge "Linda is a bank teller and a feminist" more likely than "Linda is a bank teller". What is the error?

1. AAnchoring: the first description fixes the later estimate
2. BThe conjunction fallacy: A and B cannot be likelier than A
3. CThe gambler's fallacy: past events change the future odds
4. DCorrect base-rate use: feminists are common among bank tellers