Exam 2 FORM 1 NAME________________________________

Spring 2000
Erwin Segal
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Circle in your Name and Student Number (at Identification Number; start at left and leave no spaces) on the Answer Sheet. Circle in the 1 for Form 1 under "Grade or Education." Also write your name on this booklet. There is one best answer per question. If you don't know the answer, it is better to guess than to leave it blank, as your grade is based on the total number correct.

1. Suppose a person working on a complex metal sculpture cannot find a tool to accomplish an essential part of the project. The person develops a tool just to handle that part of the project. In this case, the person has used what aspect of means-ends analysis?

A) repeat-state avoidance                  C) operator subgoaling
B) problem decomposition                 D) working backward
2. Kohler described the behavior of chickens that would not go around a fence to get to food. What basic method of problem solving were the chickens using that limited their solution space?

A) imitation                              C) difference reduction
B) means-ends analysis         D) working backward
3. When Ross taught subjects how to solve probability problems, the subjects:

A) were often mislead by superficial similarities between the problems and could not get the correct solution.
B) were able to generalize solutions across a wide range of probability problems.
C) could solve the problem even when the prior example did not illustrate the same principle.
D) were able to recognize that operators used in a prior problem were not appropriate even
though the problems looked similar.
4. In the hobbits and orcs problem, subjects have serious difficulty with the step that requires moving two creatures to the wrong side of the river. This is probably due to the fact that:

A) they have made a fundamental operator search error in working backwards from the solution
to the current state.
B) most people prefer to use a means-ends analysis strategy than a repeat-state avoidance strategy.
C) most people prefer to use an analogy strategy than a repeat state avoidance strategy.
D) they are prone to press for similarity or difference reduction and avoid regressing to a state
dissimilar from the goal.
5. Sometimes we leave a mathematics problem we have not been able to solve in an hour, we return to it later, and within ten minutes see how to solve it. How might Anderson explain this effect?

A) Inappropriate operators dissipate in strength. We are able to bring to bear more appropriate
operators on the problem solution.
B) It is just a fluke. Had we continued our original problem solving ten more minutes, we would
have seen how to solve it.
C) We were continuing the problem solving subconsciously.
D) We forgot our place in the original solution.
6. How one represents a problem is important to its solution. Which of the following does NOT illustrate this principle?

A) Subjects have a hard time recognizing that a box of tacks can serve as a support for a candle.
B) The mutilated checkerboard problem is easier if one thinks in terms of parity of black and red squares.
C) Subjects think of pliers as a tool and not a weight for a pendulum.
D) One can represent the search space for the eight-tile puzzle by a search tree.
7. Some data seem to suggest that the process of handling complex subgoals is performed by the:

A) cerebellum.              C) prefrontal cortex.
B) Broca's area.            D) auditory cortex.
8. Based on the Reed and Bolstad study comparing abstract instruction with examples, which statement is NOT true of the outcome?

A) Subjects benefited least from abstract instruction.
B) Abstract instruction provided the most gains and did not improve when combined with examples.
C) Subjects benefited most from examples, solving nearly twice as many problems.
D) Combining abstract instruction and examples lead to the best overall performance.
9. Which of the following is NOT among the basic principles of developing expertise?

A) Developing expertise in specialized areas (chess or science) is very different from developing
expertise in general areas (language or driving a car).
B) It may take years to develop expertise in certain areas.
C) Differences between experts and novices become more pronounced as problem difficulty increases.
D) Development of expertise requires extensive practice.
10. The power law of practice means that:

A) improvement at a skill slows down as it is practiced.
B) a skill becomes powerful as it is practiced.
C) there is a linear relationship between speed and practice.
D) complex skills can be decomposed into simple skills.
11. If you are learning a complex skill such as justification for geometry proofs, it is likely that:

A) the cognitive limits of the skill will be reached very early in practice.
B) the benefit bestowed by practice will take quite some time to level off after which continued
practice provides no more benefit.
C) although the amount of benefit will decrease with practice, continued practice will still bestow
some benefit.
D) the benefits bestowed by practice will be just as great late in practice as early in practice.
12. Which statement best defines proceduralization? Proceduralization is the process of:

A) the switch from use of explicit declarative to direct application of procedural knowledge.
B) encoding factual information about a problem domain.
C) making explicit the verbal descriptions of the solution sequence.
D) switching the problem representation from an abstract to a concrete representation.
13. Which is the best way to summarize the basis of development of expertise in a domain?

A) People switch from forward search to backward search.
B) People come to depend more on tactical and less on strategic aspects of problem solving.
C) People switch from breadth-first search to depth-first search.
D) People do many things by instant recognition that they once did by search.
14. Which of the following is a difference between expert and novice problem solvers in a specific domain?

A) Experts engage in a deeper search of the problem space.
B) Experts more logically work backwards from their goal to the givens of the problem.
C) Experts have learned many correlations between problem features and problem solutions.
D) Experts have a better set of general problem-solving skills.
15. Imagine that you are asked to develop a computer program as part of an introductory course in computer programming. As a novice programmer which comparisons of your performance to that of an expert programmer is apt?

A) Very much the same, since a top-down method would be used by both novice and expert.
B) Very different, because the expert would use a more abstract representation and work forward
while the novice would work backward.
C) Very much the same, since both would work forward on this type of problem.
D) Very different, because the expert would work backward with subgoals but the novice would
try to work forward.
16. Which statement is true of the autonomous stage of skill learning?

A) Performance procedures become increasingly automated.
B) Speed of performance tends to increase but not accuracy.
C) Practice is only important in the autonomous stage.
D) Procedural knowledge wipes out declarative knowledge.
17. In regard to problem perception, which statement describes the novice's approach?

A) Novices always tend to see a problem in terms of a certain set of subgoals.
B) Novices often treat problems as similar if the superficial surface features are similar.
C) Novices often look for an abstract representation of a problem when much simpler principles
will provide a solution.
D) Novices typically tend to see a problem in terms of a sequence of steps working backward from
the goal.
18. Which statement best describes the expert's ability in regard to problem perception?

A) Experts generally are able to apply analogies more quickly to the current problem, thus aiding
in representation.
B) The expert is able to map surface features to underlying principles.
C) Experts can more quickly decompose a problem into the subgoals and work backward to a solution.
D) Experts tend to represent the problem in terms of a much broader search space.
19. What happens if chess masters are presented with random configurations of a chess board?

A) They recall the locations of no more chess pieces than the novice does.
B) They recall about 4 to 5 times as many locations of chess pieces as the novice does.
C) Although they recall the locations of a few more pieces than the novice, the time it requires to
recall increases drastically.
D) They actually recall many fewer locations than novices.
20. Simon and Gilmartin estimate that chess masters have stored approximately _____ chess patterns in memory.

A) 10              C) 1,000
B) 100            D) 50,000
21. How are chess masters different from chess novices?

A) They have better problem-solving abilities in general.
B) They have larger short-term memories.
C) They engage in more search of the problem space.
D) They have stored responses to many familiar chess configurations.
22. In the Hyde-Jenkins paradigm, some subjects were told that they would be tested for recall while other subjects were not informed about this aspect of the study. This experiment is an example of:

A) deep vs. shallow processing.                       C) intentional vs. incidental learning.
B) exhaustive vs. self-terminating search.       D) parallel vs. serial processing.
23. Carraher, Carraher, and Scheemann tested Brazilian school children on mathematics problems in the classroom and the market. They found that the children were:

A) better in the classroom than the market.
B) better in the market than in the classroom.
C) better on different problems in the two contexts.
D) as good in the classroom and the market.
24. Which statement is an accurate reflection of research on transfer of skill in problem solving?

A) Positive transfer is virtually unlimited.
B) Negative transfer is almost non-existent in skill learning.
C) Positive transfer occurs only within extremely narrow boundaries.
D) Negative transfer occurs consistently when similar elements are involved in the solution.
25. Which of the following statements is NOT a finding from Kolers's study of reading inverted text?

A) After extended practice, subjects learned to read inverted text nearly as quickly as normal text.
B) After a year of disuse, subjects could read inverted text no better than they had the previous
year without training.
C) After nearly a year of disuse, subjects read inverted text more slowly than at the end of the prior training
but much more rapidly than before training.
D) After nearly a year of disuse, subjects reacquired the skill in about 25% of the time required previously.
26. What measure did Ebbinghaus use to assess his learning of syllable lists?

A) percent savings          C) recognition
B) recall                             D) reaction time
27. Assume that you have to learn a list of vocabulary words for a test in Russian language class tomorrow. From Ebbinghaus's early work on memory, what change in memory could you expect from overlearning?

A) Perhaps a drop in memory because of interference effects.
B) No change in memory at all after learning to criterion.
C) A slight but not meaningful improvement with overlearning.
D) Perhaps as much as twice the retention rate with sufficient overlearning.
28. If you carried out a simple memory span experiment, you would find that you could typically remember about:

A) 3 to 4 items at the most.
B) 7 to 8 items at the most.
C) 12 to 14 items at the most.
D) as many items as you can visually attend to in several seconds.
29. In Craik and Lockhart's levels of processing view, the crucial issue in better memory is:

A) to create a novel image of what you want to remember.
B) processing material in a deep and meaningful way.
C) to rehearse material long enough in short-term memory to get it to transfer to long-term memory.
D) attending because the attending process determines what gets from sensory to short-term memory.
30. According to Baddeley's articulatory loop theory, what controls the length of memory span?

A) the speed at which we can rehearse information
B) the amount of activation that spreads from to-be-remembered items to related concepts
C) the strength of encoding of stimuli
D) the number of slots available in working memory
31. Which of the following is NOT evidence for the role of the frontal cortex in working memory?

A) Human infants are unable to perform a delayed match-to-sample task until their frontal cortices develop.
B) Neurons in the frontal cortex appear to fire only during the delay period.
C) Removal of small amounts of frontal lobe tissue interferes with image formation in the visual-spatial
sketchpad.
D) Damage to the frontal cortex interferes with the monkey's ability to perform the delayed match-to-sample
task.
32. In Goldman-Rakic's work with monkeys, she suggested that:

A) the prefrontal cortex may be divided into small sections responsible for retaining different types
of information.
B) the frontal cortex appears to deal primarily with abstract information, not visuo-spatial
information.
C) areas of the frontal cortex may correspond closely to the phonological loop, the visual-spatial
sketchpad, and the central executive.
D) the prefrontal cortex is primarily a personality center not involved in memory.
33. Read the following sentences and select the statement that best represents the situation:

(1) The nurse read the patient's chart and gave her a shot.
(2) The mother flew a job but no ship appeared in the woods.
A) Since the length of words and sentences were approximately equal, there should be no difference
in speed of reading.
B) The second sentence should be easier to recall since it is novel and it is easier to form a mental
image of meaning.
C) Since there will be less strain on working memory, the second sentence should require less time to read.
D) Because of the associations between words and meaningful content, the first sentence should be
read more rapidly and easier than the second.
34. Which claim accurately describes the effect of practice on memory?

A) Highly practiced material will show no interference effects.
B) Practice has large effects on retrieval from short-term memory as well as retrieval from long-term memory.
C) The more we practice material, the less we will forget of that material.
D) Each additional time we practice an item leads to an approximately equal decrease in the time to retrieve it.
35. In Penfield's brain mapping procedures, he found that:

A) the frontal lobe had to be intact before the person could retrieve memories.
B) the hippocampus was the primary locus of long-term memory.
C) people could report memories with stimulation of the temporal lobe that they could not recall under normal
conditions.
D) stimulation of the parietal lobe evoked only auditory memories while stimulation of the occipital lobe
evoked only visual memories.
36. Nelson asked subjects to relearn paired associates after failing to recall them. What was the logic behind changing some of the paired associates but not others?

A) If there was no memory for the failed items, there should be no difference between the changed
and the unchanged items.
B) If there was some memory for the failed items, it should transfer to the changed items.
C) If there was still some memory for the failed items, there should be no difference between the
changed and the unchanged items.
D) None of these provides the logic behind the procedure.
37. In Bahrick's study of Spanish-English vocabulary retention, what were the general outcomes?

A) The practice effect was minimal between 1 and 5 courses, but retention still fit a power function.
B) The majority of the material was lost in the first year, and the power function for retention was not
confirmed.
C) The curve was essentially flat from about 3 to 25 years, but drop off in memory to 49 years was
more rapid than predicted by the power function.
D) Loss of material was essentially linear to 30 years, and the power function for retention was not
supported.
38. Which of the following statements is NOT an implication of Blackburn's research on extended practice with addition problems?

A) Strength of the memory trace continues to grow even with sustained practice.
B) Although speed of retrieval may increase with sustained practice, accuracy of performance
reaches an asymptote early.
C) Strength of the memory trace may not reach an asymptote as early as some research suggested.
D) Continued practice beyond the point of rapid and accurate performance may still provide small
gains in strength of the memory trace.
39. Which of the following is NOT an appropriate interpretation of the Stein and Bransford study of self-generated elaborations?

A) Externally supplied precise elaborations are more helpful than self-generated imprecise elaborations.
B) Externally generated elaborations to aid memory generally work much better than self-generated
elaborations.
C) The issue is not self- vs. other-generated elaborations, but the precision of the elaborations.
D) Recall will be inferior if the elaborations are imprecise.
40. Which of the following did NOT produce the improvement in working memory span noticed by Chase and Ericsson?

A) use of mnemonics              C) development of a retrieval structure in long-term memory
B) increased rehearsal            D) hours of practice
41. Someone asks you to teach them how to drive a stick-shift car, but although you are a good stick-shift driver, you find it hard to tell them exactly what to do at certain points. This is because your knowledge of driving is:

A) procedural.                C) semantic.
B) episodic.                    D) declarative.
42. Which of the following are Korsakoff amnesiacs most likely to learn and remember?

A) the names of new television programs
B) what happened on recent game shows
C) what was reported on recent news programs
D) how to operate a new television
43. When Sulin and Dooling substituted Helen Keller for Carol Harris in the title of the text to be read by their subjects, they found that:

A) nearly 80% of subjects recalled the text with high accuracy because they were more familiar with the name.
B) subjects were no more accurate with the Helen Keller title than they were with the Carol Harris title.
C) most subjects were unable to recall the facts of the story because their prior knowledge of Helen
Keller interfered with accurate recall.
D) 50% of the subjects recalled facts about Keller that had not been included in the original text.
44. In Anderson's study of memory activation, which statement most accurately describes the outcomes?

A) The more study and the longer the delay, the more accurate the recall.
B) Practice had the most powerful effect and delay had only a very weak effect.
C) The more study and the shorter the delay, the faster the recognition.
D) Delay had the most powerful effect, and practice did not influence the outcome at either short
or long delay.
45. In the Brown-Peterson task Wickens successively gave subjects words to remember that belonged to a single category and then changed the category

A) Recall suffered when the category was changed.
B) There was no influence of changing the category on recall
C) Changing the category improved recall.
D) Only changing the physical characteristics of the category improved recall.
46. A goal object is hidden in full view of an organism and he is inhibited from approaching the object for a period of time.

A) This task seems to require brain structures found only in humans after the first year of life.
B) Delayed response is found quite well-developed even in mammals such as the rat.
C) Studies show that although young infants have trouble with this task, mature rats and other
mammals do it quite easily.
D) Some studies show that some monkeys and apes can do some delayed response tasks as well as
many humans.
47. According to Vygotsky's Zone of Proximal Development:

A) A child has to be at a certain maturational level before s/he can advance to the next level of expertise.
B) one should get a clear overview of a problem before learning the different steps.
C) each step of a problem should be well-learned before the next is attempted.
D) developing expertise is greatly enhanced by receiving direction and feedback at each step of the process.
48. Chi's comparison of chess playing children and novice and expert adults showed:

A) Children under eight years old could not learn meaningful chess strategy.
B) Children under 11 years old did not have the formal intelligence required for expert chess strategy.
C) Knowledgeable children performed more like novice adults than expert adults
D) Knowledgeable children performed more like expert adults than novice adults.
49. Gestalt Psychology and standard Cognitive Psychology differ in their approaches to problem solving in that

A) Gestalt sees problem solving more like selection whereas Cognitive sees it more like perception.
B) Gestalt emphasizes structural reorganization whereas Cognitive emphasizes algorithms.
C) Gestalt focuses on brain processes whereas Cognitive focuses on behavior.
D) Gestalt relies on experiment whereas Cognitive relies on computer modeling.
50. The role of experience with a domain in the Gestalt study of problem solving is:

A) it's required for the learning of the problem structures.
B) it often leads to bad habits that have to be overcome for insight to occur.
C) it allows the solver to identify the components of a problem so that insight can occur.
D) it lets a person gradually develop the skills necessary to solve the problem.