Attention, Perception, Learning and Memory Questions and Answers

Answer: D

Disruption of memory by information that comes afterwards is retroactive interference.

In retroactive interference, new learning works backwards to impair recall of older material: after learning list A and then list B, recall of list A suffers. Proactive interference is the reverse, where earlier learning disrupts recall of later material.

Positive, negative and zero transfer describe the effect of earlier learning on the learning of a new task (helping, hindering or having no effect), not the forgetting of earlier material caused by later learning.

Answer: C

The correct match is P-4, Q-1, R-3, S-2.

• Pacinian corpuscles, layered and fast-adapting, respond best to vibration.
• Ruffini endings, slow-adapting, respond to sustained pressure and skin stretch.
• Merkel endings (discs) signal light touch and fine detail.
• Free nerve endings carry pain and temperature.

Pairing free nerve endings with pain and temperature and Pacinian corpuscles with vibration is the standard textbook account, and only option C does both.

Answer: B

Divided attention tasks require the subject to attend to multiple stimuli.

In divided attention the person must share attention between two or more sources or tasks at the same time, such as listening to two messages or driving while talking. Performance depends on how similar the tasks are, how difficult they are and how much practice has made them automatic.

Responding quickly to one stimulus among many is selective attention (or a choice reaction), searching for a missing or particular feature is visual search, and concentrating on one task is sustained or focused attention.

Answer: D

The capacity of short-term memory is 7 ± 2 items.

George Miller's 1956 paper 'The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two' showed that people can hold about five to nine chunks of information in immediate memory, a limit that chunking can stretch by packing more information into each unit. (Later research, such as Cowan's, puts the core capacity nearer four chunks.)

10 ± 2, 5 ± 2 and 6 ± 2 are not the classic estimate.

Answer: C

Theories of direct perception are ecological approaches.

J. J. Gibson's ecological approach holds that the environment contains rich, structured information (the optic array, texture gradients, optic flow and affordances) that the perceiver picks up directly, without needing inference or stored knowledge to construct a percept.

Constructivist approaches (Helmholtz, Gregory) argue the opposite, that perception is built by inference from incomplete sensory data. Computational approaches (Marr) model perception as stages of information processing, and feature analysis explains recognition by detecting component features. None involves direct reception.

Answer: A

Reinforcement contingent on the number of responses is given by (2) and (3) only, the fixed ratio and variable ratio schedules.

Ratio schedules deliver reinforcement after a number of responses: a fixed number in a fixed ratio schedule (every tenth response) and an average number that varies in a variable ratio schedule (as in a slot machine).

Interval schedules depend on time instead: in fixed interval and variable interval schedules the first response after a fixed or varying period is reinforced, however many responses came before. So any option including (1) or (4) is wrong.

Answer: B

Information in long-term memory is stored mainly in semantic form.

Long-term memory is organised largely by meaning. Studies such as Baddeley's (1966) found that long-term recall is disrupted by similarity of meaning, while short-term recall is disrupted by similarity of sound. People typically remember the gist of what they heard or read rather than the exact words.

Sensory form belongs to the brief sensory registers, and acoustic coding is characteristic of short-term memory. Tactile and acoustic information can be stored long-term, but they are not the primary code.

Answer: A

A stimulus similar to the original CS producing a similar response is generalization.

In stimulus generalization a conditioned response spreads to stimuli that resemble the conditioned stimulus, and the response is stronger the closer the resemblance (the generalization gradient). Watson's Little Albert, conditioned to fear a white rat, also showed fear of other furry objects.

Discrimination is the opposite: learning to respond to the CS but not to similar stimuli. Shaping is reinforcing successive approximations in operant learning, and substitution refers to the old view of the CS standing in for the US.

Answer: D

All four follow from Gibson's theory: (1), (2), (3) and (4).

Gibson argued that perception evolved to help animals adapt to their environment and to guide action, so (1) and (2) hold. As the observer moves, the optic array changes in lawful ways (optic flow), and this change is itself the information perceived, which is (3). He also treated the senses as active perceptual systems that seek out information, the title idea of his 1966 book The Senses Considered as Perceptual Systems, which is (4).

Leaving any statement out makes the option incomplete.

Answer: C

Building a response by successive approximation is shaping.

In shaping, the trainer reinforces responses that come closer and closer to the target behaviour, raising the standard step by step. Skinner used it to teach pigeons and rats behaviours they would never emit by chance, such as turning in a full circle.

Higher-order conditioning is a classical procedure in which a CS is used to condition a new stimulus. Reinforcement is the general process of strengthening a response, not this specific method, and generalization is the spread of a response to similar stimuli.