Website Questions

by David Holtzman
to accompany

Principles of Cognitive Neuroscience, Second Edition

Purves Cabeza Huettel LaBar Platt Woldorff Brannon

Chapter 1: Cognitive Neuroscience: Definitions, Themes, and Approaches

1. Behaviorism
a. involves highly controlled experiments.
b. rejects subjective work on mental functions.
c. matches objective external stimuli to measurable behavior.
d. led to the discovery of operant conditioning.
e. All of the above
Answer: e
Textbook Reference: Cognition
2. According to Millers view of memory, which of the following is true?
a. Perceptual judgments can represent up to 20 bits of memory.
b. Memory processes recode complex stimuli into smaller units for cognitive processing.
c. Memory is a passive representation of sensory stimuli.
d. Behavior based on memory does not have to be explained in terms of underlying processes.
e. Rewards make it more likely that subjects will better remember the behavior just prior to receiving the
reward.
Answer: b
Textbook Reference: Cognition
3. Who used human language as an argument that behaviorism could never explain the structural and
generative properties of mental phenomena?
a. B. F. Skinner
b. George Miller
c. Noam Chomsky
d. John Watson
e. William James
Answer: c
Textbook Reference: Cognition
4. Cognitive models
a. explain brain-behavior relationships based strictly on input-output relationships.
b. unify research on mental processes based on specific experimental approaches.
c. differ from stimulus-response models by predicting that sensory input leads to some behavioral output.
d. suggest that psychological processes and internal states are based on factors extrinsic to a specific
experiment.
e. suggest that internal mechanisms are not necessary for understanding behavior.
Answer: d
Textbook Reference: Cognition

5. Psychological constructs
a. help explain diverse phenomena without reference to their ultimate causes in the brain.
b. are elements of cognitive models.
c. can spark new and unexpected research directions..
d. can lead to progress with gradual refinement and careful experimentation.
e. All of the above
Answer: e
Textbook Reference: Cognition
6. Neuroscience is concerned with
a. the organization and function of animal and human nervous systems.
b. only the nervous systems of simple animal models.
c. proving phrenology correct.
d. dismissing the localization of function in the brain.
e. the psychic spirits hypothesized by Descartes.
Answer: a
Textbook Reference: Neuroscience
7. Which of the following turned out to be a correct idea from phrenology?
a. The cerebral cortex can be mapped by bumps on the skull.
b. Skull measurements have direct relationships to underlying brain structure and function.
c. Different parts of the brain contribute to different sorts of information processing.
d. Phrenology is accepted as a medical practice today.
e. The function of the cerebral cortex coincides with the relative size of skull contours.
Answer: c
Textbook Reference: Neuroscience
8. Neural signals are
a. transmitted from the neuronal cell body to other neurons via dendrites.
b. received by dendrites from other neurons.
c. conducted from the axon to the neuronal cell body.
d. electrical signals that are only found in dendrites.
e. neurotransmitters that diffuse down axons and continue as electrical synapses across synapses.
Answer: b
Textbook Reference: Neuroscience
9. Action potentials are
a. neurotransmitters that cross the synapse.
b. used mostly to transmit information between neurons.
c. signals that normally travel from the cell body to the dendrites.
d. signals transmitted long distances along neuronal axons.
e. electrical signals that are too small to measure.
Answer: d
Textbook Reference: Neuroscience
10. Which of the following is true about synapses?
a. Neurotransmitters cross the synaptic cleft of synapses.
b. The terminals of neuronal axons release neurotransmitters at synapses.
c. Neurotransmitters bind to receptor molecules on target neurons.

d. Synapses form inputs onto the dendrites of neurons.

e. All of the above
Answer: e
Textbook Reference: Neuroscience
11. Which is true of the somatosensory cortex?
a. Each part of the body is equally represented across its surface.
b. Penfield used weak electrical currents on its surface to elucidate a sensory map of the body.
c. Stimulation of its surface results in movement of a specific part of the body.
d. Sherrington was the first to map the somatosensory cortex.
e. A motor homunculus is represented on the somatosensory cortex.
Answer: b
Textbook Reference: Neuroscience
12. Cognitive neuroscience
a. is driven primarily by the search for neuronal correlates of cognition.
b. is studied mostly by using an MRI scanner to understand cognitive functions.
c. attempts to create biologically grounded models of cognitive function.
d. closely resembles behaviorism in its approach to understanding behavior and cognition.
e. relies mostly on the study of brain anatomy.
Answer: c
Textbook Reference: Cognitive Neuroscience: The Neurobiological Approach to Cognition
13. The approach of combining results from multiple experimental paradigms to understand a single
theoretical concept is called
a. convergence.
b. complementarity.
c. social cognition.
d. electroencephalography.
e. phrenology.
Answer: a
Textbook Reference: Methods: Convergence and Complementarity
14. Cognitive neuroscientists benefit from
a. using different experimental methods to arrive at the same conclusion.
b. different techniques for understanding brain function.
c. meta-analysis techniques.
d. using human and animal subjects.
e. All of the above
Answer: e
Textbook Reference: Methods: Convergence and Complementarity
15. Which technique demonstrates the most spatial resolution for studying brain function?
a. Single neuron (unit) recording
b. Event-related potentials (ERPs)
c. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI)
d. Electroencephalography (EEG)
e. Positron emission tomography (PET)
Answer: a

Textbook Reference: Methods: Convergence and Complementarity

16. Which technique provides information about blood metabolism?
a. Event-related potentials (ERPs)
b. Positron emission tomography (PET)
c. Electroencephalography (EEG)
d. Single neuron (unit) recording
e. Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS)
Answer: b
Textbook Reference: Methods: Convergence and Complementarity
17. Which technique can be used to alter brain function to understand how a specific brain region may be
involved with a specific cognitive process?
a. Single neuron (unit) recording
b. Positron emission tomography (PET
c. Event-related potentials (ERPs)
d. Drug administration
e. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI)
Answer: d
Textbook Reference: Methods: Convergence and Complementarity
18. Which of the following is an important part of meta-analysis?
a. It uses one study with many research subjects.
b. It combines data across multiple studies to effectively increase the sample size.
c. It relies on the use of small samples sizes from a single study.
d. It forces researchers to use the same technique.
e. Physiological data are usually a key component.
Answer: b
Textbook Reference: Methods: Convergence and Complementarity
19. Which of the following identifies a comprehensive set of studies on the same cognitive function and
then looks for similarities among their results?
a. Quantitative meta-analysis
b. Activation likelihood estimation
c. Qualitative meta-analysis
d. Semantic meta-analysis
e. Scientometrics
Answer: c
Textbook Reference: Methods: Convergence and Complementarity
20. Which of the following combines studies according to similarity in their underlying concepts?
a. Quantitative meta-analysis
b. Activation likelihood estimation
c. Qualitative meta-analysis
d. Semantic meta-analysis
e. Fourier analysis
Answer: d
Textbook Reference: Methods: Convergence and Complementarity