BAPSY Cognitive Psychology and Processes 2 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: Which concept describes the tendency to seek information that confirms existing beliefs while ignoring contradictory evidence?
- Hindsight bias
- Confirmation bias (Correct answer)
- Availability heuristic
- Anchoring bias
Correct answer: Confirmation bias
Confirmation bias is the tendency to favor information that supports one's preexisting beliefs and to discount evidence that contradicts them.
Question 2: In Baddeley's model of working memory, which component is responsible for coordinating the other subsystems?
- Phonological loop
- Visuospatial sketchpad
- Central executive (Correct answer)
- Episodic buffer
Correct answer: Central executive
The central executive serves as the supervisory attentional system in Baddeley's model, controlling and coordinating the other slave systems.
Question 3: Which phenomenon occurs when learning new information interferes with the recall of previously learned information?
- Proactive interference
- Retroactive interference (Correct answer)
- Decay theory
- Encoding specificity
Correct answer: Retroactive interference
Retroactive interference occurs when newly acquired information disrupts the retrieval of older, previously stored memories.
Question 4: A patient can recognize objects visually but cannot name them, despite having intact language. This condition is called:
- Prosopagnosia
- Visual object agnosia (Correct answer)
- Simultanagnosia
- Apperceptive agnosia
Correct answer: Visual object agnosia
Visual object agnosia is the inability to name or recognize objects visually despite intact basic visual processing and language ability.
Question 5: The 'magic number 7, plus or minus 2' proposed by George Miller refers to the capacity of:
- Long-term memory
- Implicit memory
- Short-term memory (Correct answer)
- Procedural memory
Correct answer: Short-term memory
Miller's (1956) classic paper established that short-term memory can hold approximately 7 ± 2 chunks of information at one time.
Question 6: Which type of thinking involves generating multiple creative solutions to a problem, rather than converging on a single correct answer?
- Convergent thinking
- Analogical reasoning
- Divergent thinking (Correct answer)
- Deductive reasoning
Correct answer: Divergent thinking
Divergent thinking involves generating many possible solutions or ideas, and is considered a hallmark of creative cognition.
Question 7: The tip-of-the-tongue (TOT) phenomenon is best explained as a failure of:
- Encoding
- Storage consolidation
- Retrieval (Correct answer)
- Sensory registration
Correct answer: Retrieval
The TOT state occurs when a memory is stored but temporarily inaccessible, reflecting a retrieval failure rather than a storage or encoding problem.
BAPSY Cognitive Psychology and Processes 2
Which concept describes the tendency to seek information that confirms existing beliefs while ignoring contradictory evidence?