EXP 3604 FALL 2004

EXAM #4 FORM B       (N = 32)

1. According to Kahneman and Tversky, we judge the coin-toss sequence HHHHTTTT as less likely than HTTHTHTT because
(a) it is indeed statistically less likely
(b) it looks more typical of a “random” sequence (31)
(c) it is less common for frequent than the second one
(d) we have a hard time actually calculating the different probabilities

2. Utility theory maintains that the optimum decision is the one that
(a) has the best outcome
(b) has the best average or “expected” outcome (25)
(c) minimizes the risk
(d) gives the biggest ratio of gains to losses

3. If you erroneously accept as valid the following syllogism: All A are B | All C are B : All A are C, you have likely made what kind of error?
(a) affirming the consequent
(b) functional fixation
(c) modus ponens
(d) illicit conversion (22)

4. We contrasted deductive and inductive reasoning problems, stressing that the biggest difference from a psychological perspective is that inductive problems are
(a) much harder, because it’s hard to reason about probabilities
(b) much more open-ended, involving given and new real-world knowledge (19)
(c) more likely to be misencoded with inappropriate premises
(d) unlikely to map on to appropriate real-world schemas

5. In his book, “Up to your Armpits in Alligators,” Gainesville resident John Paling attempts to provide the general public with a way to
(a) understand and think about various everyday risks (15)
(b) apply the representativeness heuristic appropriately
(c) combine the likelihoods and “uitilities” of different risky choices (1 pt)
(d) protect oneself against unavoidable risks
The subtitle to Paling's book is, "How to decide what risks are worth worrying about," and the logarithmic Paling Scale is designed to do (a) above. A point for (c) since you knew it had something to do with risks and likelihoods, though (c) describes the normative calculations of Utility Theory to choose the "optimal" decision

6. The “rather modest” correlations between Guilford’s “divergent production” tests of creative potential, and actual creative achievements, is unlikely to be due to
(a) an inappropriate mental set in his tests (2 pts)
(b) lack of control over opportunities for creative work (2 pts)
(c) emphasis on sheer productivity, rather than novelty (2 pts)
(d) vagueness of defining “creative” achievements at work (12)

When we talked about this work in class, I mentioned a, b and c as possible limiting factors, but didn't explicitly exclude (d). The evaluations of creativity are ultimately going to be subjective (we talked of peer ratings as most typical) and "vague," but in this case, you could argue that such face validity is the bottom line. And, since I spoke of all three as factors, some of you might've reasoned that no single one is likely to the THE cause of the low correlations. All told, a tougher question than intended, so I've minimized the costs.

7. Stereotypes can arise when we ignore
(a) racial diversity
(b) the law of large numbers (6)
(c) the prior probabilities in evaluating new evidence (3 pts)
(d) the “evidence” of individual cases (3 pts)
Apparently, (b) was pretty subtle - when we take a person or small number of people from a group to be representative of the population, we're ignoring the fact that a small sample is not likely to be representative of a diverse population (e.g., weight of natives, vs. conductivity of metals). Since I could imagine sterotypy occurring with (c) and (d), full credit though (b) remains the best, most general answer here

8. Problem solving can be thought of as consisting of three distinct stages,
(a) encoding, storage and retrieval
(b) comprehension, elaboration and closure
(c) warmup, processing, and solution
(d) preparation, production, and evaluation (28)

9. The “belief bias” in deductive reasoning occurs when
(a) real-world knowledge affects judgments of validity (26)
(b) knowledge of logical rules misleads people on real-world problems
(c) people who believe they’re not capable of solving such problems, fail
(d) categorical problems are mistakenly treated as conditional ones

10. In his study of decision-making over time, Alba (1992) found that after a two-day delay,
(a) the quality of the arguments loomed larger
(b) the number of arguments loomed larger (19)
(c) people were less confident about their decisions and choices
(d) arguments were increasingly associated with the wrong issues

11. In order for an argument to be deductively valid, the conclusion must follow from the premises with
(a) better than 50% probability
(b) better than 95% probability
(c) flair
(d) certainty (26)

12. When we talk about “heuristics” of problem solving like analogy or means-end analysis, we’re essentially talking ways of
(a) understanding the problem better
(b) keeping up our energy level during solving
(c) constraining or reducing the “problem space” (27)
(d) finding better ways of evaluating our progress toward the goal

13. In Luchins’ “water jug” problems, solving prior problems with similar solutions (i.e., A – 2C – B) led to
(a) a “mental set” that hindered performance with problems with different solution sequences (29)
(b) better performance with a wide range of other versions of the problem
(c) better performance on a wide range of other problems
(d) no transfer at all to other versions or problems

14. When reasoning about conditional problems, people are typically most accurate when the second premise
(a) affirms the antecedent (28)
(b) affirms the consequent
(c) denies the antecedent
(d) denies the consequent

15. Setting aside a problem (like the necklace problem) often leads to better later performance than “working straight through.” In class, we concluded that the most likely explanation of such effects was
(a) unconscious but detailed work on the problem during rest
(b) covert “sneaking in” of work on the problem during rest
(c) dissipation of inappropriate “mental set” (29)
(d) dissipation of fatigue and boredom

16. Misencoding a conditional rule (if P, then Q) as a “biconditional” (Q if and only if P) would lead to making what kind of logical error?
(a) affirming the consequent (29)
(b) denying the consequent
(c) affirming the denial
(d) accentuating the positive

17. By definition, circumstantial evidence
(a) is weaker than direct evidence
(b) must be given less weight than direct (e.g., eyewitness or physical) evidence
(c) involves reasoning from known facts to inferred or implied facts (20)
(d) involves inductive, rather than deductive, reasoning
The stress here is on "by definition;" in class, we made the analogy between how circumstantial evidence is defined in the courts, and how we defined reasoning.

18. In contrast to algorithms for solving problem, heuristics are
(a) not guaranteed to lead to a solution
(b) ways of constraining the search for solutions
(c) “seat-of-the-pants” strategies that may apply to a large range of problems
(d) all the above (32)

19. One source of errors that is greater for categorical problems of logic than condition problems, as we’ve described them, is
(a) misencoding of the premises
(b) get confused or biased by real-world knowledge
(c) fall asleep while trying to earn psychology credits
(d) failure to fully consider all possible combinations of the premises (21)

20. In the text, Ashcraft describes a study by Metcalfe and Weibe (1986) comparing how well people could predict later success on algebra, versus “insight” problems, with “feelings of warmth.” They found that such predictions increased as they got close to actually solving the problems for ____ problems
(a) both algebra and insight
(b) insight, but not algebra
(c) algebra, but not insight (25)
(d) neither kind of these

21. The impressive results of Nisbett’s study about estimating proportions of natives that are obese, shreeble birds that are red, etc., is that their subjects
(a) were unable to recognize that small samples are not representatitive
(b) went overboard in denying that even large samples could be representative
(c) recognized conditions when the law of large numbers applied, or did not (22)
(d) all wanted tickets to Oceana

22. Other things being equal, people will tend to be more willing to choose a more risky option when the choices ire framed in terms of
(a) comparative gains
(b) comparative losses (14)
(c) self-relevant considerations
(d) large gains and losses
A bit counterintuitive, but as we demonstrated in class with the betting choice ($20 or a .5 chance at $40), and as the Disease-control program (A or B) shows (risky choices when frames as "lives lost"), we do tend to be risk-aversive with relative gains.

23. What famous psychologist recently won the Nobel prize – for economics?
(a) Ira Fischler, for his work on how to pay off his mortgage
(b) John Guilford, for his work on creativity in the workplace
(c) Dan Kahneman, for his work on the psychology of decision-making (23)
(d) Mark Ashcraft, for his marketing of a very popular textbook
Thanks to the one person who chose me, but the mortgage isn't paid off yet

24. The “beer drinking” version of Wason’s card selection task (Griggs & Cox, 1982) showed that
(a) if the problem were framed in an appropriate schema, accuracy could be quite good (17)
(b) putting the problem in concrete terms made it much easier
(c) the real-world context did little to improve performance
(d) Florida students did much better if they knew that beer was the reward for accuracy
Ashcraft stressed "concreteness" in the envelope version of the problem, but the Rips & Marcu study (if the chair is green, the light goes on) shows that concreteness alone isnt' enough;; and we mentioned in class that American students don't do nearly as well with the envelope problem as British student do - the scenario isn't familiar.

25. We suggested that cases of “illusory correlation” (like the Popeye illusion) might be caused by what heuristic of statistical reasoning?
(a) availability (23)
(b) representativeness
(c) working backwards
(d) means-end analysis

26. Knowing that there are 70% lawyers in a candidate sample, and then hearing a “nondiagnostic” description of a job candidate, people often will now judge the probability of the candidate being a lawyer as
(a) 70%
(b) 50% (28)
(c) 100%
(d) 30%

27. A student in the class told me she solved the problem of a missing rolling pin by using a glass jar to roll the dough for some cookies (they were great, thanks!). She was thus able to overcome
(a) mental set
(b) proactive interference
(c) functional fixedness (30)
(d) lack of coherence in problem representation

28. The “problem space” refers to
(a) how much working memory can be devoted to problem solving
(b) the physical environment in which one works on a problem
(c) the various states and operations relevant to a problem (31)
(d) an online chatroom where people can work on problems together