Attention, Perception, Learning and Memory Questions and Answers

Answer: D

All three statements are true, so the answer is 1, 2 and 3. Skinner studied operant conditioning with hungry rats and, in other work, hungry pigeons, placed alone one at a time in the soundproof experimental chamber known as the Skinner box, where pressing a lever (or pecking a key) produced food. Options that leave out any one statement are incomplete.

Skinner's chamber was first built for rats, and later he used pigeons that pecked a key for grain, with one animal in the box at a time so that its behaviour could be recorded alone.

Answer: A

The idea that rats form a cognitive map is a feature of latent learning, from Tolman's maze experiments. Rats that explored a maze without reward later ran it quickly once food appeared, showing that they had built a mental map earlier. Insight learning concerns a sudden solution, discrimination learning is learning to respond differently to different stimuli, and verbal learning concerns words and associations.

Tolman's cognitive map idea says the animal stores a mental picture of the maze, not a chain of turns, and uses it when it is rewarded.

Answer: C

Top-down processing places the emphasis on the perceiver: what we already know, expect and want affects how the stimulus is interpreted. Emphasis on the features of the stimulus and recognition built up from its parts describe bottom-up processing. 'Perception as a process of mental construction' describes the constructivist view in general terms, not the top-down label the key gives.

In top-down processing, perception begins with higher-level knowledge and expectations that guide what the senses pick up, as when a word is read in context despite a missing letter.

Answer: C

The key is Only 3, concentration: the focusing of awareness on certain specific objects while excluding others for the moment. Attention is the broader process of selecting stimuli for processing, and alertness is a readiness to deal with stimuli that come. Neither is the name for exclusive focusing, so options that include 1 or 2 are wrong.

Answer: B

The key is Only 1 and 2, episodic and semantic. Remembering that the teacher is a good teacher, as Arjuna remembered Krishna, draws on facts and meanings (semantic memory) and on personal experiences with the teacher (episodic memory). Both are declarative memories. Non-declarative memory covers skills and conditioned responses that cannot be put into words, so options including 3 are wrong.

Semantic memory holds general knowledge, such as who a teacher is, while episodic memory holds dated personal events, such as being taught by that teacher.

Answer: A

The key is Only 1 and 2. Paired-associates learning, in which a person learns to give a response word when shown a stimulus word, resembles S-S conditioning (association between two stimuli) and S-R learning (a stimulus linked to a response). R-R conditioning links two responses and has no counterpart in a task that pairs a stimulus word with a response word, so options including 3 are wrong.

In paired-associates learning the first word acts as the stimulus and the second is the response the learner has to produce, which is a stimulus-response link.

Answer: B

The arrowhead formation is explained by proximity, the Gestalt principle that elements close to one another are perceived as belonging together and forming a group. The birds are the same kind, so similarity would not separate any, and similarity is not what makes the shape. Symmetry concerns balanced halves, and 'closer' is not a Gestalt principle, though 'closure' is.

Proximity says that things near each other are grouped together, and the birds flying close to each other are seen as one shape, the arrowhead.

Answer: A

The stage model is the model of memory based on the information processing approach. It treats memory as information moving through stages, from sensory memory to short-term memory to long-term memory (Atkinson and Shiffrin). 'Progression model', 'information model' and 'process model' are not standard names for the stage view of memory, and the levels of processing theory is the model usually called the process view.

Atkinson and Shiffrin's model of 1968 has three stores, the sensory register, short-term store and long-term store, through which information passes in stages.

Answer: C

The central executive is the component of Baddeley's working memory that allocates attentional resources to the information needed for a cognitive operation and monitors, plans and controls behaviour. The cerebellum is a brain structure for movement and balance, and working memory is the whole system of which the central executive is only one part, so it is too broad to be the answer. 'Memory station' is not a Baddeley component.

The phonological loop and visuospatial sketchpad are the two slave systems that the central executive supervises.

Answer: A

The key gives Only 1 and 2, semantic and acoustic coding. Information in long-term memory is coded mainly by meaning (semantically), and acoustic coding is also found there, though less. Chunks are a way of grouping items in short-term memory and not a form of coding, so options that include 3 are wrong. Procedural memory is a kind of long-term memory, but the key does not count it as a form of coding.

Long-term memory is mainly coded semantically, which is by meaning, but an acoustic trace is also found, so these two make up the key.