Exam 9: Thinking

"I've got it!" your friend exclaims after struggling with a difficult physics problem in her text. Based on your text's discussions of restructuring and insight, what might you conclude regarding your friend's experience of illumination?

Which of the following is an ill-defined problem?

Our social and pragmatic experiences contribute to good performance on some versions of the selection task. Moreover, according to your text, training improves performance on judgment and reasoning tasks. Suppose you examined participants' performance on both the letter/number and beverage/age versions of the selection task before and after a course in formal logic. What might you predict with respect to the potential effect of the course on task performance?

Several students are studying the "Thinking" chapter in their psychology text for an upcoming test. Which of the following students is offering a CORRECT example of one of the concepts in the chapter?

Which of the following statements about restructuring is TRUE?

Your text reports a study by Shafir, Simon, and Tversky (1993) in which participants were asked to consider either Scenario A, involving an attractive offer on a Sony product, or Scenario B, describing attractive offers on both a Sony and an Aiwa product. In each case, participants were asked if they would purchase a product or wait until they learned more about other models. In which condition were participants more likely to say they would wait rather than purchase a product, and why?

A lawyer represents a client who is accused of robbery. The client has been found guilty of assault in three previous crimes. What is the lawyer's judgment most likely to be affected by if he were asked to estimate the man's chances of acquittal for this fourth crime?

Going to class involves walking to the classroom building, finding the correct room, and finding a seat. Finding a seat involves looking around the classroom, seeing which chairs are empty, selecting an empty one that is in the desired part of the room. . . . This problem-solving technique exemplifies __________.

Is utility theory an accurate description of human decision making? If it is not, why not?

Research participants are asked to estimate the distance between a city on the East Coast of the United States and one on the West Coast of the United States, and next a city on the East Coast of the United States and one in the Midwest. What will the results show?

According to your text, which of the following types of thinking is tied most directly to behavior?

In regard to chess masters and chess novices, which of the following is FALSE?

Iyengar and Lepper (2000) offered grocery shoppers free samples from a display of either 6 or 24 varieties of quality jam. Which of the following is reported in your text as one of the results of the study?

You want to decide whether you believe that pretty people are better singers. To answer this question, you recall all the people you've seen and heard sing lately, then judge how well they performed. This strategy is referred to as __________.

What does research on incubation reveal?

What does the Stroop effect illustrate?

Shanice is examining several new flavors of ice cream on display at the supermarket. In considering each flavor, she notes how interesting each one seems, as well as the chances that she might not really like it. To decide which flavor to buy, Shanice is using __________.

The Stroop effect illustrates what, exactly, about problem solving?

Shauna spends $200 on cocaine one night, thinking she'll feel happy and have fun. Instead, she ends up feeling uneasy and let down. Which of the following statements regarding Shauna's decision making is MOST accurate?

Amy enjoys reading murder mysteries because she likes to try to figure out "whodunit" before she gets to the end of the novel. Psychologists who study thought and knowledge would call Amy's attempt to solve the mystery __________.