C81COG
Cognitive Psychology
REVISION LECTURE
(2008-2009)
Lecturers:
Peter Chapman
Alastair Smith
Jonathan Stirk
Richard Tunney
Geoff Underwood
Structure of lectures
 Semester





1
Intro to cognition
Perception/Illusions
Pattern recognition/vision
Imagery
Attention
Structure of lectures
 Semester





2
Psychology of language
Word recognition/reading
Memory- sensory/categorical
Thinking/Problem solving
Deduction/Reasoning
Breakdown of assessment
 20
credit module
 Assessment by exam & coursework
 Exam: 75%
 Coursework (tutorial essay): 25%
Structure of exam
 Number
of questions: 120
 5-7 questions per lecture
 Type of questions: ALL Multiple
choice

BRING A PENCIL AND ERASER!
 Length
of exam: 2 hours
What to do when
you sit in your
seat
Read the
instructions
 Fill in the details
on the
ANSWER
SHEET
 Fill in the
candidate slip

What to do
•READ INSTRUCTIONS
CAREFULLY!
•FILL IN REQUIRED
INFORMATION
•REMEMBER TO USE THE
GRID ON THE TOP RIGHT TO
MARK OUT YOUR
CANDIDATE NUMBER (WITH
A PENCIL)
•FILL IN THE ANSWER GRID
WITH A PENCIL MAKING ONE
THICK PENCIL LINE ONLY
PER QUESTION
•REMOVE ANY INCORRECT
OR ADDITIONAL MARKS
WITH AN ERASER
What not to do!


Tips for answering MCQ’s

Read the directions carefully


The directions usually indicate that some alternatives
may be partly correct or correct statements in
themselves, but not when joined to the stem.
You are required to answer 120 multiple choice
questions in 2 hours or less. This means you
may have less than a minute, on average, to
spend on each question. Some questions, of
course, will take you only a few seconds, while
others will require more time for thought.
Tips for answering MCQ’s

Plan to progress through the exam in three
ways:



Read every question carefully but quickly, answering
only those of which you are 100% certain. Put a "?"
on those that need more thought.
Then, examine/study the questions not yet answered.
Answer those you are reasonably sure of without
pondering too long on each. Erase the "?"
Finally, study read the remaining unanswered
questions. If you cannot come to a decision by
reasoning or if you run out of time, guess. Erase the
"?". A guess is better than a blank.
Tips for answering MCQ’s

Use the process of elimination procedure.
Eliminate the obviously incorrect alternatives.
 Read all of the stem and every alternative


Read the stem with each alternative to take
advantage of the correct sound or flow that the correct
answer often produces. Also, you can eliminate any
alternatives that do not agree grammatically with the
stem.
Consider "all of the above" and "none of the
above."

Examine the "above" alternatives to see if all of them
or none of them apply totally. If even one does not
apply totally, do not consider "all of the above" or
"none of the above" as the correct answer. Make sure
that a statement applies to the question since it can
be true, but not be relevant to the question at hand!
Tips for answering MCQ’s

Note negatives


Note superlatives


If a negative such as "none", "not", "never", or
"neither" occurs in the stem, know that the correct
alternative must be a fact or absolute and that the
other alternatives could be true statements, but not
the correct answer.
Words such as "every", "all", "none", "always", and
"only" are superlatives that indicate the correct
answer must be an undisputed fact. In the social
sciences, absolutes are rare.
Note qualifying words

"Usually", "often", "generally", "may", and "seldom"
are qualifiers that could indicate a true statement.
Tips for answering MCQ’s

Study Qualifications


Break the stem down into grammatical parts. Pull out
the bare subject and verb (if it is in the stem), and
then examine all the modifiers (qualifiers) to the
subject and verb. This process ensures that you will
examine every part of the stem.
Changing Answers

Research has shown that changing answers on a
multiple choice or true-false exam is neither good nor
bad: if you have a good reason for changing your
answer, change it.
Example MCQ Questions
 Cognitive




a.
b.
c.
d.
psychology assumes that:
information processing is unlimited
perception is guided only by incoming data
perception is guided only by knowledge
none of the above
Example MCQ Questions
 The
Müller-Lyer illusion can be explained
in terms of:




a. misapplied size constancy
b. interpreting the figure as showing lines in
depth
c. integration of the lines into the objects at
the ends
d. all of the above
Example MCQ Questions
 In




Shepard & Metzler's (1971) experiment:
a. rotation of images was much easier in 2-D
than 3-D
b. time to answer was a linear function of the
angular rotation required
c. the results did not accord with the
participants' introspections
d. people had to physically rotate complex
block figures
Example MCQ Questions
 The




Stroop Task illustrates that:
a. people can name words printed in coloured
ink
b. words and colours are easily confused
c. some colours are so similar that we have to
give them the same names
d. printed words can unavoidably interfere
with attended processes
Example MCQ Questions
 In
Broadbent's (1958) theory, preattentive
analysis is accomplished by:




a. the perceptual system
b. the template-matching system
c. the sensory system
d. none of these
Example MCQ Questions
 Which
of the following is true of Anne
Treisman’s theory of selective attention:




a. unattended information is attenuated
b. unattended information is processed
semantically
c. attended information is filtered
d. both a and b above
Example MCQ Questions
 Phrase
Structure Grammar (PSG) allows
us to:




a. produce both meaningful and meaningless
sentences
b. produce only meaningful sentences
c. map from the deep structure to the surface
structure of a sentence
d. produce grammatically incorrect sentences
Example MCQ Questions
 The
smallest unit of meaning in language
is called:




a. a morpheme
b. a phoneme
c. a grapheme
d. a syllable
Example MCQ Questions
 Craik
& Tulving’s (1975) classic study
showed that as depth of processing
increases:




a. latencies decrease
b. latencies increase
c. recognition accuracy decreases
d. recognition remains constant
Example MCQ Questions
 Kleiman’s
(1975) experiments showed
that:




a. graphemic decisions are not affected by
articulatory suppression
b. phonemic decisions are not affected by
articulatory suppression
c. semantic decisions are not affected by
articulatory suppression
d. none of the above
Example MCQ Questions
 In
which of the following problems are
people’s feelings of warmth good
predictors of how close they are to
success?




a.
b.
c.
d.
the Tower of Hanoi task
the cheap necklace problem
the reversing triangle task
the nine dots task
Example MCQ Questions
 “If
P then Q. Not-Q. Therefore not-P.” is an
example of:




a.
b.
c.
d.
modus ponens
modus tollens
affirmation of the consequent
denial of the antecedent
Example MCQ Questions
 “If
P then Q. Not-Q. Therefore not-P.” is an
example of:






a.
b.
c.
d.
modus ponens
modus tollens
affirmation of the consequent
denial of the antecedent
Denial of the consequent
“If I am happy, then I smile. I am not smiling, therefore
I am not happy.”
Example MCQ Questions
 Kahneman
and Tversky attributed base
rate neglect in the Taxi Cab problem to:




a.
b.
c.
d.
hindsight bias
representativeness heuristic
divided attention
prospect theory
And Finally……
ANSWERS
 The
correct answers for the example
questions are in order below:
d d b d c d a a b d a b b