Exam 7: Cognition and Mental Abilities

Reliability refers to the dependability and consistency of the scores yielded by a given test.

Define performance tests and culture-fair tests. Discuss why such tests are needed, where they are useful, and what advantages and disadvantages they provide.

Current research has found that males have advantages, on average, over females in ________ abilities.

Thurstone believed that ________.

The two main components of grammar are ________.

An image is a mental representation of a sensory experience.

After problem interpretation, the next step in problem solving is ________.

Meg has severe mental retardation, but can play any musical piece on the piano after hearing it only once. Her behavior is an example of ________ performance.

Barbara always seems to excel at whatever she does. While she was only an average student and did poorly on most aptitude and IQ tests, she has an ability to find jobs and challenges that allow her to use her strengths and avoid her weaknesses. When necessary, she excels at finding ways of shaping her job duties to better fit her abilities. Her intellectual strengths appear to be ________.

Which of the following is not one of the seven distinct mental abilities proposed by Thurstone?

Many people fail to solve the "pieces of chain" problem discussed in the text because they ________.

The technique that encourages people to generate a list of potential ideas without evaluating the ideas until all of the ideas have been collected is called ________.

The Remote Associates Test asks subjects to ________.

Language is a flexible system of ________ that enables us to communicate our ideas, thoughts, and feelings.

Syntax is the system of rules that governs how we combine words to form grammatical sentences.

Heuristics are rules of thumb that guarantee a solution if properly carried out.

"Sue will have the apple." "Sue will halve the apple." These two sentences exhibit similar ________.

A school psychologist has written a test to predict success in algebra. She administers the test on Monday to ten students. Wednesday she administers the same test again to the same ten students. She is attempting to ________.

Belinda sits down to take a psychology test and finds that it is a multiple-choice test. What type of thinking will be necessary for her to do well on the test?

Margo can't close the window in her office, and a strong wind has come up. She complains to John that her papers are blowing and she can't find a paperweight. John takes the empty heavy coffee mug from her bookshelf and puts it on top of her papers to anchor them. Margo has been suffering from ________.