Chapter08: General Knowledge
1. Semantic-memory models focus mainly on:
a) the working memory versus long-term memory distinction.
b) organized knowledge about the world.
c) personal memories of specific experiences.
d) the role of the prefrontal cortex in semantic memory.
Ans: b
Feedback: See page 250
2. A category is
a) a group of objects that belong together.
b) a place to store information.
c) a description of how to do a series of actions.
d) a cognitive map.
Ans: a
Feedback: See page 251
3. Which of the following is a model to explain how categories are established and identified?
a) prototype approach
b) exemplar approach
c) network approach
d) All are models of categorization.
Ans: d
Feedback: See page 252
4. You can recognize the name of the state New Hampshire faster if it is preceded by the name Vermont instead of the name Iraq. This effect is called a:
a) regularity effect.
b) prototype effect.
c) priming effect.
d) demand characteristic.
Ans: c
Feedback: See page 255
5. Semantic priming refers to the finding that accessing the meaning of a word is faster if:
a) it is preceded by another word that is related to it in meaning.
b) it has been used in a mnemonic technique recently.
c) a mental image contains related information about the word.
d) the demand characteristics of the experiment suggest that it should be accessed faster.
Ans: a
Feedback: See page 255
6. Research on prototypes reveals that they:
a) judged or supplied as good examples of a category.
b) facilitated more by semantic priming than are other examples of a category.
c) share many attributes in a family resemblance category.
d) All of the above are correct.
Ans: d
Feedback: See pages 253 - 258
7. Prototypes are
a) examples of a category.
b) judged more rapidly than nonprototypes after semantic priming.
c) likely to share common attributes with other members of the category.
d) All of the above are correct.
Ans: d
Feedback: See pages 255 - 256
8. According to most network models of semantic memory (e.g., Collins & Loftus, 1975):
a) presenting a familiar word activates a search of memory that takes considerable attention.
b) each word is stored in semantic memory as a prototype (averaged member of a category).
c) presenting the name of a concept activates a node representing that concept.
d) each word stored in memory is accessed only after a precise definition has been activated.
Ans: c
Feedback: See page 264
9. According to most network models of semantic memory (e.g., Collins & Loftus, 1975):
a) when a node is activated by presented information, activation spreads to other nodes to which it is connected.
b) prototypical information about categories is stored in special components of the working memory system.
c) when people listen to a story, they construct inferences about events that must have occurred.
d) presenting a common word initiates a serial search through a person's mental dictionary.
Ans: a
Feedback: See page 264
10. According to the ACT-R model (Anderson and his colleagues, 2004):
a) linguistic information is decomposed into its analog constituents.
b) network representations of declarative information are fundamentally incomplete.
c) propositional information is stored in imaginal memory codes.
d) the meaning of a sentence is represented by a propositional network.
Ans: d
Feedback: See pages264 - 265
11. A model that assumes massive interconnections between simple, neuron-like processing units and provides an alternative to semantic-memory models such as ACT-R is called:
a) parallel distributed processing.
b) constructional linguistics.
c) the schema model.
d) the prototype model.
Ans: a
Feedback: See page 266
12. A script is
a) well-integrated knowledge about a situation or event.
b) a well-structured sequence of events in a specific order.
c) a way of predicting future dialog in a conversation.
d) a form of payment in a psychology study.
Ans: b
Feedback: See pages 273 – 274
13. It is least-likely that a typical college student would have a script for
a) going on a date.
b) going to class.
c) performing successful brain surgery to remove a tumor.
d) going to a dining hall for dinner.
Ans: c
Feedback: See pages 274 - 275
14. Which of the following statements best defines or describes what a schema is?
a) A schema contains detailed information about each event that a person has experienced.
b) A schema is a representation of procedural knowledge, not episodic or semantic knowledge.
c) A schema contains an organized set of generalized information about something that a person knows.
d) A schema is an idea that is not usually accessed in the process of generating or understanding extended discourse.
Ans: c
Feedback: See pages273 - 274
15. Generalized knowledge about a situation or a type of event (what Bartlett called "an active organization of past reactions or past experiences") is thought to be stored in a semantic memory structure known as a:
a) percept.
b) schema.
c) prototype.
d) mnemonic.
Ans: b
Feedback: See pages 273 - 276
16. If you are buying tickets at a box-office or eating at a restaurant, you expect certain events to occur in a certain order. This sequence of events is known as:
a) a script.
b) a metaphor.
c) a boundary extension.
d) an inference.
Ans: a
Feedback: See pages275 - 276
17. In a typical study about schemas or scripts, people view a common scene, such as a professor's office or a doctor’s office. When they were subsequently asked to recall objects that they had seen in the office:
a) they often incorrectly remembered seeing objects that are typically found in offices but were not in the viewed office.
b) they were able to recall about 50 to 100 objects, such as a pencil, a computer, a desk, and a coffee cup.
c) their memory accuracy was greatly improved if they had been hypnotized before trying to recall the objects.
d) All of the above are correct.
Ans: a
Feedback: See page 276
18. In a study supporting a constructive model of memory, people heard a series of sentences about the same theme (e.g., "The girl next door broke the window on the porch"). This study revealed that:
a) people integrate related information in order to construct larger ideas.
b) earlier notions that memory schemas are important were seriously incorrect.
c) working memory can actually hold only 3 ± 2 chunks of information.
d) people do not make inferences from presented information.
Ans: a
Feedback: See page 283
19. Bartlett's (1932) classic study, which led to an understanding of the role of schemas in remembering a story, revealed that people:
a) usually thought that a story seemed very familiar to them, even though they had never heard it before.
b) remembered much more about a story if they had seen it on a videotape than if they had heard it.
c) often added information to a story, remembering inferences that were not actually stated in the story.
d) were usually very overconfident in their ability to remember all of the details of a story.
Ans: c
Feedback: See page 286
20. The Implicit Association Test (IAT), which has been used to measure attitudes and stereotypes, is based on the principle that people can:
a) usually perform better on a recognition memory task than they can on a recall memory task.
b) retrieve much more information when tested with an explicit memory task than with an implicit memory task.
c) mentally pair related words much more easily and quickly than they can pair unrelated words.
d) be influenced by semantic priming effects much more if two words are unrelated than if they are related.
Ans: c
Feedback: See page 288