, 1. If one has to study for an exam, what are the three things one can do that will help
improve one's memory for the material?
2. How would Aristotle's three principles of association explain how people come to
associate dog and cat?
3. People raised in different cultures often exhibit different behaviors (e.g., perceptual,
social, motivational, etc.) How would an empiricist account for such differences across
cultures? How would a nativist account for the differences?
4. Many people have had the experience of déjà vu, in which, on encountering a particular
situation, they have a strong feeling that it has happened to them before. How might
such a feeling be accounted for by William James's model of association?
5. How can Charles Darwin's theory of natural selection be applied to human learning and
memory?
6. Describe the methods Hermann Ebbinghaus used for studying memory.
7. Suppose a dog is classically conditioned to salivate in response to a metronome ticking
at 90 beats per minute. One can then measure the amount of salivation produced when
presented with a metronome ticking at 80 beats per minute, and 100 beats per minute. In
this example, what is the independent variable? What is the dependent variable?
8. An experimenter is interested in determining whether drug X will improve people's
memories. The experimenter administers drug X to one group and nothing to another
group, and then measures how well each group can recall a passage of text. Explain how
experimenter bias and subject bias could be problems in this study. How could each
problem be overcome?
9. Describe how Ivan Pavlov used classical conditioning to study salivation in dogs.
10. Give an example of how a parent might make use of the law of effect to get a child to
clean up her room.
11. Explain why B. F. Skinner's form of behaviorism is called radical behaviorism.
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,12. As one reads a textbook, one does not consciously try to keep track of where all of the
information is located. Yet, when there is a need to look something up, often one has a
good sense of where it can be found in the textbook. What is latent learning, and how is
it demonstrated by this example?
13. Explain why Edward Tolman was considered a neo-behaviorist.
14. How would a behaviorist approach to studying language differ from a cognitive
approach to studying language?
15. Someone who is highly trained in distinguishing different faces might still make
occasional mistakes when presented with a particular face. How might this be explained
by stimulus sampling theory?
16. How would a distributed representation account for why it is natural to consider an
office chair and a kitchen chair as types within the more general category of "chair"?
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, Answer Key
1. Grading criteria: Answer should discuss three of the "Top Ten Tips for a Better
Memory."
2. Grading criteria: 1) Contiguity—people see dogs and cats together or hear stories that
include both dogs and cats; 2) frequency—people experience both words or concepts
together many times; and 3) similarity—dogs and cats are both furry, pets, animals, and
so forth.
3. Grading criteria: Convey understanding that empiricists emphasize that the differences
are learned from the environment, while nativists emphasize that the differences are
inborn.
4. Grading criteria: Convey the idea that the current situation being encountered shares
many elements in common with another situation that a person has experienced
previously; because those common elements are activated, a "memory" or feeling of
familiarity is evoked.
5. Grading criteria: Convey main ideas that behavioral traits, as well as physical ones, are
subject to evolutionary pressures, and that the ability to learn and remember is adaptive.
Ideally, give examples of how these are adaptive qualities.
6. Grading criteria: Include descriptions of relearning, variation of delay between study
and test, and measuring outcomes in terms of time savings.
7. Grading criteria: IV—tick rate, DV—amount of salivation.
8. Grading criteria: Experimenter bias—if the experimenter knows which group received
the drug, the passage might be read more slowly/clearly and/or their answers evaluated
more leniently. Subject bias—if participants know the purpose of the study, they might
act accordingly (e.g., those who receive the drug may try harder). A blind design will
overcome the subject bias problem, and a double-blind design will overcome both
problems.
9. Grading criteria: Include description of bell-followed-by-food stimulus and
measurement of increased salivation in response to the bell alone.
10. Grading criteria: Must describe either positive consequences for cleaning up (e.g., a
food reward, money, praise), or negative consequences for not cleaning up (e.g.,
grounding, taking away TV privileges).
11. Grading criteria: Convey the notion that Skinner believed all behavior was a result of
learned responses—e.g., even things like emotion and language involve simply making
a learned response to a stimulus.
12. Grading criteria: Define latent learning (learning that takes place, even when there is no
specific training to obtain or consequence to avoid); in the example, there is no intent to
learn and no need to demonstrate learning of where information is located; it is only
when the information is needed that one shows that one has learned where it is.
13. Grading criteria: He believed in the importance of both internal representations and
rigorous experimental control.
14. Grading criteria: Behaviorism focuses only on explicitly observable behavior and
stimuli—in the case of language, a behaviorist would focus on the physical aspects of
the words and sounds presented (e.g., tone, frequency, etc.), the types of responses made
(what words are spoken), and the presence or absence of rewards and punishments for
saying the correct words.
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