Exam 2 Review Questions

What is the most fundamental assumption that all information-processing theories of development share?

• Thinking is information-processing.

• Emotions enable information process to occur.

• Adaptation is necessary for information-processing.

• Formal models best demonstrate how information is processed.

Older children can maintain more information in working memory than younger children because ___.

• the amount of information stored in semantic memory increases with age

• scientific reasoning skills improve with age

• pronunciation speed increases with age

• central conceptual structures become more complex with age

Which of the following is most likely to interfere with your ability to remember a list of words?

• finding a starred location on a map

• swimming 5 laps

• imagining yourself riding a roller coaster

• having a conversation with your friend

Suppose a child is helping her father with the laundry. Her father asks her to sort the clothes into two piles: shirts and pants. After a few minutes of sorting, the child’s father realizes that he made a mistake. He points out the mistake to the child and asks her to start sorting the clothes into two different piles: dark colors and light colors. The child will start being able to perform this switch effectively around age ___.

• two

• four

• six

• eight

Information processing models often depict cognition as having a dual nature. Thus, they focus on both the _________ (parts of the mind) and the __________ (how those parts come together).

• Structures of the mind; processes of the mind

• Processes of the mind; structures of the mind

• Engine; plane

• Plane; engine

Doug, a 1-month-old infant, is presented with picture of a square. Doug’s fixations will be centered at the ___.

• center of the square

• top of the square

• left-hand side of the square

• corners of the square

What is the Flynn effect? (From the learning activity)

• The increase in IQ scores of approximately 10 points for each decade from the 1900s to the 2000s.

• The increase in IQ scores in urban communities compared to agricultural communities.

• The increase in IQ scores in industrialized nations compared to other nations.

• The increase in IQ scores of approximately 3 points for each decade from the 1900s to the 2000s.

In a study by Eimas and colleagues (1971), young infants were presented with an auditory stimulus from the ba/pa continuum over and over again until they decreased the rate at which they sucked on a pacifier. Then, infants were presented with a novel auditory stimulus that differed in voice onset time from the original auditory stimulus by a fixed amount. When the novel stimulus was on a different side of the ba/pa category boundary than the original stimulus, infants’ sucking rate ________, when the novel stimulus was within the same category as the original stimulus, infants’ sucking rate ________.

• increased, decreased

• remained constant, remained constant

• decreased, increased

• increased, remained constant

Which of the following abilities develops in a U-shaped fashion?

• perception of phonemic contrasts

• discrimination of varieties of human motion

• localization of sounds

• vision for fine detail

(In lectures for perception.) The moderate-discrepancy hypothesis states that:

• researchers should examine research questions slightly discrepant from previous research.

• infants prefer looking at objects that are slightly more complex than what they were previously familiar with.

• infants prefer objects that strengthen their visual acuity.

• infants prefer looking at objects that are familiar over novel objects.