Explanations to Discrete Practice Questions

  1. A
    After a while, the participant became habituated to the sound of the buzzer. Introducing a new stimulus, such as the banging pans, should dishabituate (resensitize) the original stimulus, causing a temporary increase in response to the sound of the buzzer.
  2. C
    The sound of a can opener would not normally produce a response on its own, making it a stimulus that must have been conditioned by association with food.
  3. B
    Generalization is the process by which similar stimuli can produce the same conditioned response. Here, the response to the taste and smell of oranges has generalized to that of all citrus.
  4. D
    Avoidance learning is a type of negative reinforcement in which a behavior is increased to prevent an unpleasant future consequence. Extinction, (A), is a decreased response to a conditioned stimulus when it is no longer paired with an unconditioned stimulus. Punishment, (B) and (C), lead to decreased behaviors in operant conditioning.
  5. C
    Because the credit card company wishes to decrease the behavior of late bill payment, this is a punishment, so we can eliminate (A) and (B). The company is adding something unpleasant by adding an additional fee, and is hoping to reduce the occurrence of late payments (the target behavior), making (C) a match. The person is now having to pay additional money, making (D) an opposite answer.
  6. C
    In a fixed-interval schedule, the desired behavior is rewarded the first time it is exhibited after the fixed interval has elapsed. Both fixed-interval and fixed-ratio schedules tend to show this phenomenon: almost no response immediately after the reward is given, but the behavior increases as the rat gets close to receiving the reward.
  7. A
    Complicated, multistage behaviors are typically taught through shaping, so statement III must not be part of the correct answer. Reinforcers do not necessarily need to be food-based, and instinctive drift can interfere with learning of complicated behaviors; therefore, only statement I is accurate.
  8. C
    This is the definition of controlled processing and is the only answer choice that is necessarily true of controlled processing. Effortful processing is used to create long-term memories, and—with practice—can become automatic, invalidating (A) and (B). Most of our day-to-day activities are processed automatically, making (D) incorrect.
  9. A
    Semantic encoding, or encoding based on the meaning of the information, is the strongest of the methods of encoding. Visual encoding, (B), is the weakest, and acoustic encoding, (D), is intermediate between the two. Iconic memory, (C), is a type of sensory memory.
  10. C
    The self-reference effect indicates that information that is most meaningful to an individual is the most likely to be memorized. (C) is the most personally relevant to the individual memorizing the list.
  11. D
    The association of words on a list to a preconstructed set of ideas is common to both the method-of-loci and peg-word mnemonics. Method-of-loci systems, (B), associate items with locations, while peg-word systems use images associated with numbers.
  12. A
    Partial-report procedures, in which the individual is asked to recall a specific portion of the stimulus, are incredibly accurate, but only for a very brief time. This is a method of studying sensory (specifically, iconic) memory. Both the serial position effect, (B), and the 7 ± 2 rule, (C), are characteristics of short-term memory.
  13. B
    Semantic memory is the category of long-term memory that refers to recall of facts, rather than experiences or skills. Be careful not to confuse semantic memory with semantic networks, (D), which are the associations of similar concepts in the mind to aid in their retrieval.
  14. C
    State-dependent recall is concerned with the internal rather than external states of the individual. As such, both statements II and III are examples of state-dependent circumstances, while statement I might cause a context effect instead.
  15. B
    Elderly individuals have the most trouble with time-based prospective memory, which is remembering to do an activity at a particular time. Other forms of memory are generally preserved, or may decline slightly but less significantly than time-based prospective memory.