Cognitive psychology worksheet with answers

Free printable Cognitive psychology worksheet: 8 problems from easy to exam level, with an answer key. Print it or save it as a PDF.

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Name: ____________________   Date: ____________

1.Easy

Selective attention is best illustrated by:

  1. ARecognising a face you have seen before
  2. BFollowing one conversation at a noisy party
  3. CSolving an arithmetic problem
  4. DRemembering a phone number for a few seconds
2.Easy

Functional fixedness is the tendency to:

  1. ASee an object only in terms of its usual use
  2. BRemember objects better than words
  3. CSolve every problem with the same algorithm
  4. DForget the purpose of an object after a delay
3.Easy

The smallest unit of language that carries meaning is a:

  1. APhoneme
  2. BPhrase
  3. CLexicon
  4. DMorpheme
4.Medium

In Collins and Quillian's hierarchical network model, why does "A canary is an animal" take longer to verify than "A canary is a bird"?

  1. ACanaries are rated as untypical members of "animal"
  2. BThe sentence contains more letters to read
  3. C"Animal" is a longer and less frequent word than "bird"
  4. DMore levels must be travelled to reach "animal"
5.Medium

A strategy that breaks a problem into subgoals, each reducing the difference between the current state and the goal, is called:

  1. AMeans–end analysis
  2. BTrial and error
  3. CIncubation
  4. DInsight
6.Medium

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

Warren replaced one speech sound in a sentence with a cough. Listeners reported hearing the sentence intact and could not locate the cough correctly. This is evidence for:

  1. ADamage to Broca's area
  2. BTop-down influences in speech perception
  3. CPurely bottom-up speech perception
  4. DEchoic memory lasting for several minutes
8.Hard

Readers stumble on "The horse raced past the barn fell" before understanding it. What does this show about sentence processing?

  1. APeople wait until the end of a sentence before interpreting it
  2. BShort sentences are always harder than long ones
  3. CGrammar plays no role in understanding
  4. DPeople build an interpretation word by word and must revise it when it fails

Answer key

  1. 1. B · Following one conversation at a noisy party
  2. 2. A · See an object only in terms of its usual use
  3. 3. D · Morpheme
  4. 4. D · More levels must be travelled to reach "animal"
  5. 5. A · Means–end analysis
  6. 6. C · Short words take less time to rehearse in the phonological loop
  7. 7. B · Top-down influences in speech perception
  8. 8. D · People build an interpretation word by word and must revise it when it fails

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