CUA CUA Cognitive Psychology & Mental Models

Question 1

What psychological concept describes a user's internal representation of how a system works based on prior experience?

Accepted Answer

Mental model

Answer

Affordance

Answer

Cognitive load

Answer

Chunking

Question 2

Miller's Law ('7 plus or minus 2') refers to which cognitive concept relevant to UX design?

Accepted Answer

Working memory capacity

Answer

The ideal number of navigation items

Answer

Optimal page scroll depth

Answer

Maximum form field count

Question 3

Which term describes the total mental effort required to process information and complete a task in an interface?

Accepted Answer

Cognitive load

Answer

Attentional span

Answer

Perceptual affordance

Answer

Response latency

Question 4

When a user makes errors because they expect a new system to behave like a familiar one, this is known as:

Accepted Answer

Negative transfer

Answer

Confirmation bias

Answer

Cognitive slippage

Answer

Anchoring effect

Question 5

Which Gestalt principle explains why users perceive interface elements placed close together as belonging to the same group?

Accepted Answer

Proximity

Answer

Similarity

Answer

Continuity

Answer

Closure

Question 6

In UX design, 'chunking' is applied to interface content primarily to:

Accepted Answer

Break content into manageable groups to reduce cognitive load

Answer

Increase visual complexity to demonstrate depth

Answer

Measure task completion times more accurately

Answer

Hide secondary features from novice users