1. What was one of John Wernicke's criticisms of the analytic introspection method?
A. The method was used to study questions of philosophy rather than psychology.
B. The method produced narrow results that were easy to manipulate.
C. The method produced extremely variable results from person to person. Correct
D. The method was used to study questions with no relevance or validity.
Explanation
John Watson, the founder of behaviorism, strongly criticized the introspective method used by structuralists like Titchener. His primary criticism was that introspection produced highly subjective and unreliable data because results varied dramatically from person to person, making it impossible to establish consistent, objective laws of psychology. This variability undermined psychology's claim to be a true science.
2. What is the goal of behaviorism, as defined by John Watson?
A. Predicting and controlling behavior Correct
B. Understanding the causes of behavior
C. Preventing self-defeating behaviors
D. Treating disorders related to behavior
Explanation
Watson defined psychology as the scientific study of observable behavior. The goal of this behaviorist approach was to predict and control behavior through the study of stimuli and responses. This stood in stark contrast to earlier schools of thought that aimed to understand the inner workings of the mind or consciousness, which Watson considered unscientific.
3. What is the goal in the mental rotation task?
A. To judge if a picture could be formed from disconnected lines and dots
B. To judge if two pictured objects are the same image or if they are mirror images Correct
C. To judge whether or not images presented twice are actually two pictures
D. To judge whether or not images created from a third image are actually unique
Explanation
In Shepard and Metzler's classic mental rotation task, participants are shown pairs of 3D objects. The goal is to determine as quickly as possible if the two objects are identical (just rotated in space) or if they are mirror images of each other. The reaction time is proportional to the angular rotation required to align them, demonstrating that people perform a mental analogue of physical rotation.
4. What does 'Seven' in George Miller's paper 'The Magical Number Seven Plus or Minus Two' refer to?
A. Seven seconds to recall a specific event
B. Seven bytes of information in a computer
C. Seven models of short-term memory
D. Seven items on a short-term memory list Correct
Explanation
George Miller's seminal paper argued that the capacity of short-term (or working) memory is limited to about 7 ± 2 'chunks' of information. A chunk can be a single item (like a digit) or a meaningful unit (like a word or phrase). The number 'seven' refers to the average number of items an adult can hold in immediate memory, such as digits in a phone number.
5. Which modern technology did Simon and Newell demonstrate by programming a computer to solve logic problems?
A. Artificial intelligence Correct
B. Cognitive appraisal
C. Mind-body conundrum
D. Inductive reasoning
Explanation
Herbert Simon and Allen Newell's work in the 1950s, including the Logic Theorist program, was foundational for the field of artificial intelligence (AI). They demonstrated that a computer could be programmed to mimic human problem-solving and logical reasoning, a key step in the cognitive revolution that viewed the mind as an information processor.