Psychology and Life 20Th Edition Gerrig Test Bank Full Chapter PDF

Psychology And Life 20th Edition
Gerrig Test Bank

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ASSESSMENT Chapter 8
GUIDE Cognitive Processes
Topic Factual Conceptual Applied

Studying Cognition Multiple Choice 1, 3 2, 7-8 4-6, 9
True/False 1 2-3
Fill-Ins 1
Essay 1 2 2
Language Use Multiple Choice 12, 17, 21-22, 26, 28- 13, 19, 31 10-11, 14-16, 18, 20,
29 23-25, 27, 30
True/False 5-6 4
Fill-Ins 2-4 5
Essay 3
Visual Cognition Multiple Choice 32-36
True/False
Fill-Ins
Essay
Problem Solving and Multiple Choice 37-38, 40, 42, 48, 53 47, 51-52, 54 39, 41, 43-46, 49-50,
Reasoning 55-59
True/False 9-10 7, 11, 13 8, 12
Fill-Ins 6-7 10 8-9
Essay 4
Judgment and Decision Multiple Choice 60, 64-65, 69, 71-75, 67-68 61-63, 66, 70, 76,78
Making 77
True/False 14-15, 17-18 16, 19-20
Fill-Ins
Essay
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Copyright © 2013 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved .
Chapter 8: Cognitive Processes
Multiple Choice Questions
8.1-1. Imagine that the year is 1868 and you are working in the laboratory of F. C. Donders, a
Dutch physiologist. Assisting him in his studies of mental processes, you are most likely to
observe him
a. asking participants to use introspection and reflect on their own thought processes.
b. measuring how long it takes participants to perform a series of experimental tasks.
c. requiring participants to talk out loud as they attempt to solve mental problems.
d. trying to determine what participants are thinking by using his extrasensory abilities.
Difficulty: 3
Page Ref: 208
Topic: Studying Cognition
Skill: Factual
Answer: b. measuring how long it takes participants to perform a series of experimental tasks.
8.1-2. The fundamental premise upon which F. C. Donders based his method for studying
mental processes was that
a. there are individual differences in the procedures people use to solve mental problems.
b. extra mental steps will result in more time to perform a task.
Correct: Researchers still follow Donders’s basic logic, which suggests that extra mental steps
will result in more time needed to perform a task. If task one requires one stimulus
categorization step and task two requires that you do everything you did for task one, plus more,
task two should take more time. Cognitive research today uses reaction time, the amount of time
it takes to carry out particular tasks, as a way of testing how cognitive processes are carried out.
c. the mental processes of children are qualitatively different from the mental processes of
adults.
Incorrect: This was not the crux of Donders’s research, as described in your chapter.
d. participants can be made aware of their own mental processes.
Difficulty: 2
Page Ref: 208
Skill: Conceptual
Answer: b. extra mental steps will result in more time to perform a task.
8.1-3. F. C. Donders developed his technique for studying mental processes more than 130
years ago. Which statement best describes the role his methodology plays in the research of
cognitive psychologists today?
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a. Donders’s methods are only used in research with animals today.
b. Donders’s basic premise, that mental steps require time, is believed to be incorrect.
c. Researchers still follow Donders’s basic logic.
d. Researchers use Donders’s methodology for stimulus categorization, but not for response
selection.
Difficulty: 2
Page Ref: 208
Skill: Factual
Answer: c. Researchers still follow Donders’s basic logic.
8.1-4. In her laboratory, a researcher records how long it takes a volunteer to press a button after
a light is turned on. Technically, this measure is known as
a. mental speed.
Incorrect: Mental speed is an important component of reaction time, but mental speed is not the
best answer to the question.
b. the subtraction method.
c. event-related potential.
d. reaction time.
Correct: Reaction time is the amount of time it takes research participants to perform a task.
Difficulty: 2
Page Ref: 208
Skill: Applied
Answer: d. reaction time.
8.1-5. A child is practicing scales on his piano. His mother can’t wait until he learns some
chords so that she can hear several notes together, rather than one note at a time. In
psychological terms, the scales are comparable to ________ processes and the chords are
comparable to ________ processes.
a. serial; parallel
Correct: Serial processes take place one after the other. Parallel processes overlap in time.
b. parallel; serial
Incorrect: This is the opposite of the correct answer.
c. stimulus categorization; response selection
d. response selection; stimulus categorization
Difficulty: 1
Page Ref: 208
3
Skill: Applied
Answer: a. serial; parallel
8.1-6. Normally, a person who is driving a car has no difficulty listening to music and
simultaneously carrying on a conversation. If bad weather hits, however, the driver may turn off
the music and ask passengers to be quiet in order to concentrate. It is most likely that the poor
driving conditions
a. bring about a decrease in reaction time.

b. place additional demands on mental resources.
Correct: Now the driver’s navigation processes require extra resources for planning, and the
language processes are temporarily squeezed out.
c. eliminate the use of controlled processes.
Incorrect: When the driver has to focus more on his driving because of the rain, he is actually
activating more of his controlled processes.
d. eliminate the need for response selection.
Difficulty: 2
Page Ref: 209
Skill: Applied
Answer: b. place additional demands on mental resources.
8.1-7. A key assumption made by researchers who are studying mental processes is that
a. serial processing is a type of parallel processing.

Incorrect: Serial processing and parallel processing are two very different types of mental
activities. One is not a “type” of the other.
b. the absolute time that mental processing takes is independent of the details of different tasks.
c. requiring additional mental tasks effectively reduces total reaction time.
d. individuals have limited resources that must be spread over different mental tasks.
Correct: Our attentional processes are responsible for distributing the resources. The question is,
“Which mental processes will be selected to get the processing resources that we need?”
Difficulty: 2
Page Ref: 209
Skill: Conceptual
Answer: d. individuals have limited resources that must be spread over different mental tasks.
8.1-8. In a demonstration that is described in the textbook, people are asked to determine
whether pairs of numbers are physically different. It is typically more difficult for people to
4
make these judgments when the numbers are conceptually ________ because of ________
processes that interfere.
a. far apart; automatic

b. far apart; controlled
Incorrect: Both parts of this answer are incorrect. The judgment is more difficult when numbers
are conceptually close together because of automatic processes that interfere.
c. close together; controlled
d. close together; automatic
Correct: You assess the meaning of the numbers without difficulty because as an adult the
association between numbers and the quantities they represent has become automatic; you are
unable to completely shut off this association, making those close together more difficult to
differentiate from one another.
Difficulty: 3
Page Ref: 209-210
Skill: Conceptual
Answer: d. close together; automatic
8.1-9. In which situation are attentional processes most likely controlled?
a. a person signs her name to a traveler’s check

Incorrect: Because signing your name is such a habitual, familiar activity, it is more automatic
than controlled.
b. a youngster takes his first lesson on the proper golf swing
Correct: Controlled processes require attention, as is true most of the time when we are learning
something new.
c. an adult hops in his car and drives down the road
d. a waitress listens to customers as she pours their morning coffee
Difficulty: 2
Page Ref: 209-210
Skill: Applied
Answer: b. a youngster takes his first lesson on the proper golf swing
8.1-10. The person next to you asks you a question that can have two different meanings.
Psychologists who study language would say that in order to respond, you need more
information about the
a. sentence meaning.
Incorrect: Because the sentence can have two different meanings (as noted in the question) you
need to know more about what the speaker intends in his/her query.
5
b. speaker’s meaning.
Correct: Speakers can communicate an unlimited number of meanings by speaking the same
words. To understand a speaker, you need to know what he or she intended by using particular
words on a particular occasion.
c. audience design and sentence meaning.
d. person who is asking you the question.
Difficulty: 2
Page Ref: 211
Topic: Language Use
Skill: Applied
Answer: b. speaker’s meaning.
8.1-11. A fellow student making a classroom presentation says, “Language production only
concerns what people say verbally and how they say it.” You know this statement is incorrect
because language production also includes
a. what people think about what they say.

b. what people feel when they say something.
Incorrect: The emotion and/or affect that underlies a person’s linguistic utterance is not
something that can be directly communicated separately from their verbalization.
c. writing and signing.
Correct: Language users do not need to produce language out loud. Language also includes
signing and writing.
d. verbal language.
Difficulty: 2
Page Ref: 211
Topic: Language Use
Skill: Applied
Answer: c. writing and signing.
8.1-12. First proposed by the philosopher H. Paul Grice, ________ is an overarching rule of
audience design.
a. the cooperative principle

b. belief-bias
c. linguistic determinism
d. maximizing structural ambiguity
Difficulty: 3
Page Ref: 211
Topic: Language Use
Skill: Factual
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Answer: a. the cooperative principle
8.1-13. Sharing common ground with a conversational partner
a. tends to increase the occurrence of spoonerisms.

b. violates the cooperative principle.
c. facilitates communication.
Correct: Many expectations come from the type of information you have in common ground.
For example, past experiences with an individual named Alex will allow you to refer to “Alex”
in conversation.
d. typically results in miscommunication.
Incorrect: On the contrary, common ground enhances communication.
Difficulty: 1
Page Ref: 211-212
Topic: Language Use
Skill: Conceptual
Answer: c. facilitates communication.
8.1-14. When you enter the classroom, you notice the teacher has written the words “quantity,”
“quality,” “relation,” and “manner” on the blackboard. You should realize that the lecture topic
is most likely
a. spoonerisms.
Incorrect: A spoonerism is a specific type of linguistic error involving stem inversion. It is
unrelated to quantity, quality, relation, and manner. These are parts of Grice’s maxims.
b. Grice’s maxims.
Correct: Quantity refers to making your contribution to an exchange as informative as required,
not more so. Quality refers to making your contribution one that is true, not false or without
evidence. Relation means making what you are saying relevant to what you said before. Manner
means speaking in as clear a manner as possible.
c. spatial mental models.
d. functional fixedness.
Difficulty: 2
Page Ref: 212
Topic: Language Use
Skill: Applied
Answer: b. Grice’s maxims.
8.1-15. You know someone who likes to impress others with her knowledge of everything,
although she has confessed to you that many times she makes up “facts” to win an argument.
Now you should be aware that she violates Grice’s maxim of
7
a. quantity.
b. manner.
Incorrect: This maxim requires speaking in as clear a manner as possible, avoiding ambiguity,
and being brief and orderly.
c. relation.
d. quality.
Correct: This maxim states that you should try to make what you say something that is true,
rather than something that is false or based on no evidence.
Difficulty: 2
Page Ref: 212
Topic: Language Use
Skill: Applied
Answer: d. quality.
8.1-16. A coworker always tries to dominate discussions by talking constantly. Unfortunately,

most of the time he rambles, peppers his discussion with double meanings, and uses obscure
language that requires a dictionary to understand. Your coworker seems to be violating the
maxim that Grice called
a. manner.
Correct: This maxim requires speaking in as clear a manner as possible, avoiding ambiguity,
and being brief and orderly.
b. quantity.
c. quality.
Incorrect: This maxim states that you should try to make what you say something that is true,
rather than something that is false or based on no evidence.
d. relation.
Difficulty: 2
Page Ref: 212
Topic: Language Use
Skill: Applied
Answer: a. manner.
8.1-17. A spoonerism is
a. a brief verbal exchange indicating love or affection.

b. the belief that one has had an experience previously, though the exact context cannot be
recalled.
c. the feeling that a word is on the “tip of one’s tongue.”
d. an exchange of the initial sounds of two or more words in a phrase or sentence.
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Difficulty: 1
Page Ref: 212
Topic: Language Use
Skill: Factual
Answer: d. an exchange of the initial sounds of two or more words in a phrase or sentence.
8.1-18. The distinguished gentleman whispered to the equally distinguished lady, “Madam, your
ship is slowing.” This statement illustrates
a. a spoonerism.
Correct: Spoonerisms are speech errors in which initial sounds of two or more words are
exchanged. They make sense, given the structure of spoken English; they do not violate the rules
of the language, even though they are errors.
b. what Herbert Clark and Catherine Marshall would call “common knowledge.”
c. Grice’s maxim.
Incorrect: Grice’s maxim refers to the quality, quantity, manner, and relation of language.
d. inductive reasoning.
Difficulty: 1
Page Ref: 212
Topic: Language Use
Skill: Applied
Answer: a. a spoonerism.
8.1-19. A major value of speech errors is that they
a. provide evidence that memory is typically a reconstructive process.

b. suggest that attention is a highly selective process.
Incorrect: This is not a benefit of linguistic errors noted by your textbook.
c. show the importance of the law of effect in controlling behavior.
d. provide insight into both the processes and representations that underlie fluent speech
production.
Correct: They give researchers insight into the planning that goes on as a speaker produces
language. They give evidence for each of the several types of planning that we do.
Difficulty: 2
Page Ref: 213
Topic: Language Use
Skill: Conceptual
Answer: d. provide insight into both the processes and representations that underlie fluent speech
production.
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8.1-20. Your assignment is to use the SLIP technique on a classmate to encourage the
production of spoonerisms. If you follow this procedure, you will have your classmate
a. try to repeat a tongue twister as quickly as possible.

Incorrect: While this might be amusing to observe, it is not a part of the SLIP technique.
b. try to recognize words that are briefly presented on a screen.
c. silently read pairs of words and later say word pairs out loud.
Correct: SLIP stands for “spoonerisms of laboratory-induced predisposition.” With this
technique, researchers can study the factors that affect the likelihood that speakers will produce
errors.
d. view lists of words and later recall the lists on which words appeared.
Difficulty: 2
Page Ref: 213
Topic: Language Use
Skill: Applied
Answer: c. silently read pairs of words and later say word pairs out loud.
8.1-21. Studies of speech errors in the laboratory have led researchers to the conclusion that
a. the planning process in language production tends to stay one word ahead of the spoken
utterance.
b. there may be mental processes that detect and edit potential speech errors.
c. errors involving blends of words are unlikely to occur.
d. spoonerisms are less likely when the error will result in a real word.
Difficulty: 2
Page Ref: 213
Topic: Language Use
Skill: Factual
Answer: b. there may be mental processes that detect and edit potential speech errors.
8.1-22. In one procedure designed to produce spoonerisms, participants are asked to silently
read lists of word pairs that are models for the sound structure of target spoonerisms, then
pronounce word pairs out loud. Such studies have found that
a. spoonerisms with idioms are almost impossible to produce.

b. spoonerisms are more likely when the error still results in real words.
c. errors in blending idioms are more common when the idioms do not share the same
underlying meaning.
d. there is no relationship between errors and production of real words.
Difficulty: 2
Page Ref: 213
10
Topic: Language Use
Skill: Factual
Answer: b. spoonerisms are more likely when the error still results in real words.
8.1-23. A reader comes across the ambiguous word “bark” when reading a sentence, yet she has
absolutely no difficulty understanding its intended meaning. Based on the research on lexical
ambiguity, her ability to disambiguate the word most likely resulted from
a. the degree of emotional reactivity she experienced when she heard the word.
b. the frequency with which she has used the word in the past week.
Incorrect: The repetition of the word will not help deconstruct the lexical ambiguity that is
probed in this question.
c. contextual information, which is used to determine which definition is appropriate.
Correct: The term “lexical” is related to the word “lexicon,” which is a synonym for
“dictionary.” Lexical ambiguity means that there is more than one meaning for the word. Use of
context to broaden the meaning allows us to disambiguate or differentiate the meanings of the
word. People use information from the surrounding context to determine which meaning of a
word is appropriate in a particular instance of use.
d. the pattern of eye movements that she makes.
Difficulty: 2
Page Ref: 214-216
Topic: Language Use
Skill: Applied
Answer: c. contextual information, which is used to determine which definition is appropriate.
8.1-24. The sentence, “Visiting relatives can be a nuisance,” best illustrates ________
ambiguity.
a. lexical
b. constant
c. pseudo
Incorrect: There is nothing called pseudo ambiguity noted in your textbook.
d. structural
Correct: At first, there seems to be just one meaning, but a close analysis shows two noun
phrases and two possible meanings. The sentence may refer to relatives who we are visiting; in
this case the meaning is that we find a making a visit to the relatives a nuisance. The sentence
may also mean that the relatives are visiting us, in which case the sentence is a statement that
relatives who visit us are a nuisance.
Difficulty: 3
Page Ref: 214-216
Topic: Language Use
Skill: Applied
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Answer: d. structural
8.1-25. Glancing over the shoulder of a man on the bus who is reading a newspaper, you see the
headline “Shooting of Hunters Terrible.” Your ability to disambiguate the meaning of the
utterance depends primarily on
a. the presence of contextual information.

Correct: We have some cognitive processes that allow us to use surrounding context to
eliminate the ambiguity (to disambiguate). Broader context enables us to choose between the
possible meanings.
b. your ability to visually represent the meaning.
Incorrect: The ability to create a mental representation of the headline is not essential to
disambiguation of its meaning.
c. your memory for similar accidents.
d. the isolation of propositions.
Difficulty: 2
Page Ref: 214-216
Topic: Language Use
Skill: Applied
Answer: a. the presence of contextual information.
8.1-26. In the context of language understanding, a proposition is
a. a type of inference.
b. a sarcastic request.
c. the single most important idea contained in an utterance.
d. a main idea in an utterance.
Difficulty: 2
Page Ref: 216
Topic: Language Use
Skill: Factual
Answer: d. a main idea in an utterance.
8.1-27. Imagine that you have just read the sentence, “The man in the back row has green hair.”
Based on research on propositional representation in memory, will the words “man” and “hair”
be represented in memory together?
a. Yes, because these words belong to the same proposition.

Correct: If two words belong to the same preposition, they will be represented together in
memory even if they are not close together in the sentence.
b. Yes, because these words have strong meaningful associations.
12
c. No, because they are separated by many other words in the actual sentence.
d. It is impossible to say because research cannot be done on propositional representations.
Incorrect: This is incorrect, as your authors have provided several different examples of such
research.
Difficulty: 3
Page Ref: 216
Topic: Language Use
Skill: Applied
Answer: a. Yes, because these words belong to the same proposition.
8.1-28. One of the findings from Sue Savage-Rumbaugh’s work with the apes Kanzi and Mulika
is that they
a. can communicate through spoken language.

b. acquire the meaning for certain symbols spontaneously by observing others.
c. communicate only with each other and exclude other apes and humans.
d. cannot acquire the meaning of spoken words.
Difficulty: 2
Page Ref: 217
Topic: Language Use
Skill: Factual
Answer: b. acquire the meaning for certain symbols spontaneously by observing others.
8.1-29. The results of the early experiments in which researchers attempted to teach language to
chimpanzees
a. showed that chimps can be taught to communicate like humans.

b. led to agreement that humans were cueing the chimps to make appropriate linguistic
responses.
c. determined that chimps could not acquire any linguistic abilities.
d. led to controversy as to whether the chimps’ linguistic abilities actually constituted
meaningful language use.
Difficulty: 1
Page Ref: 217-218
Topic: Language Use
Skill: Factual
Answer: d. led to controversy as to whether the chimps’ linguistic abilities actually constituted
meaningful language use.
13
8.1-30. A woman attends a lecture on the relationship between language and thought given by
Edward Sapir and Benjamin Lee Whorf. She would most likely hear them express the hypothesis
that
a. there are cross-linguistic differences in thought.

Correct: They concluded that differences in language create differences in thought. “…the
language habits of our community predispose certain choices of interpretation” (Sapir, 1940).
b. language and thought are not related.
Incorrect: The linguistic relativity hypothesis of Sapir and Whorf suggest the opposite; that is,
that thought and language are intimately connected to each other.
c. language processes are primarily learned, while thought processes are primarily inborn.
d. each member of a language community thinks very differently from every other member of
that same community.
Difficulty: 2
Page Ref: 218
Topic: Language Use
Skill: Applied
Answer: a. there are cross-linguistic differences in thought.
8.1-31. Which statement best characterizes the results of research on the claim of linguistic
relativity?
a. Language may, in some circumstances, have an impact on thought.

Correct: The structure of the language an individual speaks may have an impact on the way in
which that individual thinks about the world.
b. Despite years of research, no study has yet been conducted that shows differences in thought
that can be connected to differences in language.
Incorrect: While research has failed to fully support the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, there have
been findings that support the idea that language and thought are, in some arenas, highly
connected.
c. It is clear that language differences affect differences in thought processes more than
language differences affect differences in culture.
d. To date, researchers have been unable to discover a methodology that will permit any testing
of the hypothesis of linguistic relativity.
Difficulty: 2
Page Ref: 218-219
Topic: Language Use
Skill: Conceptual
Answer: a. Language may, in some circumstances, have an impact on thought.
8.1-32. A study that reviewed literature on the content of lies reported that, when compared to
people who tell the truth, liars
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a. provide fewer details in their accounts.
b. provide exact details in their accounts.
c. provide more details in their accounts.
d. resort to confabulation.
Difficulty: 2
Page Ref: 219
Topic: Psychology in Your Life: Why and How Do People Lie?
Skill: Factual
Answer: a. provide fewer details in their accounts.
8.1-33. What did Frederich Kekulé, who discovered the chemical structure of benzene; Michael
Faraday, who discovered many properties of magnetism; and Albert Einstein, the brilliant
physicist, have in common?
a. They were all assisted in their work by their use of mental imagery.
b. They were all incapable of forming mental images.
c. They all used verbal mental representations exclusively.
d. They were all troubled by a unique form of dyslexia.
Difficulty: 1
Page Ref: 220
Topic: Visual Cognition
Skill: Factual
Answer: a. They were all assisted in their work by their use of mental imagery.
8.1-34. In a study that is described in the textbook, participants had to decide whether rotated
letters were normal or mirror images of themselves. An analysis of participant reaction times
indicated that
a. decision times were proportional to the degree to which each letter had to be mentally
rotated.
b. the farther a letter was from normal, the faster it was mentally rotated by the participant.
c. the task proved impossible for most participants to perform.
d. there was little relationship between the degree to which each letter had to be mentally
rotated and reaction times.
Difficulty: 2
Page Ref: 220
Skill: Factual
Answer: a. decision times were proportional to the degree to which each letter had to be mentally
rotated.
15
8.1-35. In a study described in the textbook, people read passages that put them in the middle of
scenes with objects spread around them. They read, for example, “Directly behind you at eye
level is an ornate lamp attached to the balcony wall.” When asked to recall the details of the
scenes, participants
a. took more time to say what objects were in front of them.

b. took more time to say what objects were behind them.
c. showed no differences in responses based on spatial position.
d. could not recall any objects that were behind them.
Difficulty: 2
Page Ref: 221
Skill: Factual
Answer: b. took more time to say what objects were behind them.
8.1-36. Researchers studying spatial mental models have asked participants to develop mental
representations of settings based on text material. When the participants then are asked to use
these mental models to answer questions about objects in the setting,
a. performance is affected by the order in which the objects are presented.

b. where the objects are located in the participants’ mental models affects their speed of access
to the information.
c. participants are faster to locate objects that are not in view in their mental models.
d. few participants are able to respond correctly, suggesting that only some participants form
mental models.
Difficulty: 3
Page Ref: 221-222
Skill: Factual
Answer: b. where the objects are in the participants’ mental models affects speed of access to the
information.
8.1-37. In problem solving, the ________ refers to the incomplete information or unsatisfactory
conditions you start with, and the ________ refers to the information or state of the world you
hope to obtain.
a. set of operations; goal state

b. initial state; goal state
c. goal state; set of operations
d. set of operations; initial state
16
Difficulty: 1
Page Ref: 224
Topic: Problem Solving and Reasoning
Skill: Factual
Answer: b. initial state; goal state
8.1-38. In problem-solving terminology, the steps you may take to move from an initial state to
a goal state are known as
a. rules.
b. laws.
c. principles.
d. operations.
Difficulty: 2
Page Ref: 224
Skill: Factual
Answer: d. operations.
8.1-39. In an experimental psychology class, the students watch a rat run from the start box to a
goal box in a maze that has been set up to allow only left-hand turns. The rat’s behavior reminds
the students of problem solving. In this context, the maze would be equivalent to the
a. problem space.
Correct: The rat takes a series of turns (the set of operations) to get from the beginning of the
maze (the initial state) to the end (the goal state). The combination of states and operations is the
problem space.
b. initial state.
Incorrect: The initial state is where you are at the start of a problem. The overall problem-
solving mechanism is called the problem space.
c. set of operations.
d. goal state.
Difficulty: 2
Page Ref: 224
Skill: Applied
Answer: a. problem space.
8.1-40. Problems in which the initial state, the goal state, and the operations are all clearly
specified are technically referred to as
17
a. well defined.
b. frames.
c. mental sets.
d. lower level.
Difficulty: 2
Page Ref: 224
Skill: Factual
Answer: a. well defined.
8.1-41. Social problems such as homelessness, poverty, lack of education, and violence are best
described as
a. inductive.
b. deductive.
c. well defined.
Incorrect: Because these are problems that have no single, clear cut solution, they are ill-defined
problems.
d. ill defined.
Correct: In these cases, the problem solver has to define the problem, define the goal, identify
possible means to achieve the goal, and then figure out where to start.
Difficulty: 2
Page Ref: 224
Skill: Applied
Answer: d. ill defined.
8.1-42. A(n) ________ is a step-by-step procedure that always provides the right answer for a
particular type of problem.
a. heuristic
b. mental block
c. algorithm
d. rule of thumb
Difficulty: 2
Page Ref: 224
Skill: Factual
Answer: c. algorithm
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8.1-43. If you were playing a game of chess, you might try to analyze all of the possible moves
and then pick the best one, but once you realize that there are just too many, you will probably
use a strategy such as “protect the king.” Such “rules of thumb” are known as
a. algorithms.
Incorrect: Algorithms are not “rules of thumb,” but rather are solution strategies that guarantee
successful outcomes.
b. mental blocks.
c. analogies.
d. heuristics.
Correct: Heuristics are used when algorithms are unavailable. Heuristics are more likely to be
used for ill-defined problems than are algorithms.
Difficulty: 2
Page Ref: 225
Skill: Applied
Answer: d. heuristics.
% correct 70 a= 13 b= 0 c= 17 d= 70 r = .75
8.1-44. Herb is a participant in a study of problem solving. To help understand the steps Herb is
going through to solve the problem, the researcher has asked him to verbalize his ongoing
thoughts. Researchers studying problem solving call these verbalizations
a. think-aloud protocols.
Correct: Researchers use think-aloud protocols to understand the way people apply both
algorithms and heuristics to make their way through the problem space. To do this, researchers
ask participants to verbalize their ongoing thoughts.
b. moment-by-moment introspections.
c. verbatim verbalizations.
d. auditory thoughts.
Incorrect: This sounds like a correct answer, but it is really just a made-up option. Were you
fooled?
Difficulty: 2
Page Ref: 225
Skill: Applied
Answer: a. think-aloud protocols.
% correct 91 a= 91 b= 6 c= 0 d= 2 r = .23
8.1-45. Suppose you are learning a complex dance routine but find all of the details
overwhelming. If you want to use research on problem solving to improve your performance,
you should
19
a. ignore the technical instruction and respond instinctively.
b. only practice what is easiest to perform.
Incorrect: This makes no sense, because often it is the most difficult aspects of a problem that
require the most practice of a successful solution is to be achieved.
c. practice each behavior separately until each component of the routine requires fewer
resources.
Correct: Research on problem solving has led to the conclusion that what often makes a
problem difficult to solve is that mental requirements for solving a particular problem
overwhelm processing resources. If the series of operations is too complex, you may not be able
to see your way through from the initial state to the goal state. A useful procedure is to practice
each separate component of the procedure so that, over time, each component requires fewer
resources.
d. use think-aloud protocols to give yourself insight into the task demands.
Difficulty: 3
Page Ref: 225
Skill: Applied
Answer: c. practice each behavior separately until each component of the routine requires fewer
resources.
8.1-46. An executive’s chair has begun to wobble because a screw has gotten a little loose, so he
calls the maintenance department. His inability to realize that a dime from his pocket could also
be used as a screwdriver is an example of
a. the availability heuristic.

Incorrect: This is a problem-solving strategy that suggests that the more easily a thought or
event is brought to mind, the higher our judgment of the likelihood of that event will be.
b. functional fixedness.
Correct: This is a mental block that keeps us from perceiving a new function (as a screwdriver)
for an object usually used otherwise (the dime). This fixedness inhibits problems solving.
c. inductive reasoning.
d. the belief-bias effect.
Difficulty: 2
Page Ref: 225
Skill: Applied
Answer: b. functional fixedness.
% correct 67 a= 46 b= 67 c= 17 d= 3 r = .71
8.1-47. The “hiker puzzle,” which is presented in the textbook, illustrates the point that
a. functional fixedness adversely affects problem solving.
20
b. the way a problem is represented will affect its difficulty.
Correct: Sometimes we need to find a whole new way of thinking about something. The word
“proof” may lead us in the wrong direction. If we can visualize two hikers making this journey in
different directions and then replace the two with one, we will make the problem easier.
Thinking mathematically or verbally confuses us. Thinking visually helps.
c. people tend to judge as valid those conclusions with which they agree.
d. a mental set can increase the speed of problem solving.
Incorrect: The hiker problem does not really involve a mental set, which refers to a habitual
way of solving problems.
Difficulty: 2
Page Ref: 225-226
Skill: Conceptual
Answer: b. the way a problem is represented will affect its difficulty.
8.1-48. The form of deductive reasoning introduced by the Greek philosopher Aristotle over
2,000 years ago is called
a. the algorithm.
b. the heuristic.
c. the syllogism.
Difficulty: 1
Page Ref: 227
Skill: Factual
Answer: c. the syllogism.
8.1-49. You enter the classroom just as the prior class is leaving. You notice several sentences
on the blackboard: “All teachers work hard. I am a teacher. I work hard.” You immediately
recognize this as
a. inductive reasoning.
b. a heuristic.
Incorrect: A heuristic is a “rule of thumb” or general guiding principle for solving a problem.
The “formula” described in this question is a syllogism.
c. a syllogism.
Correct: You see that it is defining logical relationships between the statements and that it will
lead to a valid conclusion.
d. linguistic copresence.
Difficulty: 2
21
Page Ref: 227
Skill: Applied
Answer: c. a syllogism.
8.1-50. As a man skims over the instructions on the application for the Senior Soccer
League, he reads the statement, “Anyone who is 40 years old or older and who is in good health
may apply.” Since he is over 40 years old and in good health, he assumes that he can apply. The
man has just engaged in what psychologists refer to as ________ reasoning.
a. valid
b. deductive
Correct: Deductive reasoning involves the correct application of logical rules. We may have a
general or abstract sense of formal logic, but we also bring to logical situations the knowledge
we possess about the world as well as representational resources.
c. logical
Incorrect: Both deductive and inductive reasoning are logical. This is not the best answer to this
question.
d. formal
Difficulty: 3
Page Ref: 227
Skill: Applied
Answer: b. deductive
% correct 77 a= 3 b= 77 c= 13 d= 7 r = .62
8.1-51. A review of the research on the ability of people to engage in deductive reasoning would
lead you to the conclusion that
a. people are generally incapable of engaging in deductive reasoning.

Incorrect: As your textbook denotes, people are capable of both deductive and inductive
reasoning.
b. people do not have a general, abstract sense of formal logic.
c. the use of formal logic is the same as real-world deductive reasoning.
d. the use of deductive reasoning is affected by one’s specific knowledge and representational
resources.
Correct: We have a general sense of abstract formal logic, but our knowledge of the world, our
biases about it, and other mental representations will affect the resources we use for reasoning.
Difficulty: 2
Page Ref: 227
Skill: Conceptual
22
Answer: d. the use of deductive reasoning is affected by one’s specific knowledge and
representational resources.
8.1-52. Research suggests that belief bias exists
a. when there is a conflict between two types of mental processes used in deductive reasoning.
Correct: People tend to judge as valid those conclusions they find believable and judge as
invalid those conclusions they find unbelievable. One set of processes in deductive reasoning
uses past experiences to provide rapid, automatic responses to problems. The other set of
processes allows for slower, conscious applications of formal logic.
b. when a real-world model cannot be used to validate conclusions.
c. if a person has had no personal experience with the logical elements in the syllogism.
Incorrect: The belief bias is not directly related to the problem formula called a syllogism.
d. if the individual making the judgment has committed logical errors in the past.
Difficulty: 3
Page Ref: 228
Skill: Conceptual
Answer: a. when there is a conflict between two types of mental processes used in deductive
reasoning.
8.1-53. Suppose you are working on the Wason selection task. You are shown four cards and are
testing a rule. Research suggests that you will do much better on this task if you
a. choose the cards that are the least obvious.

b. try to make your mind as blank as possible.
c. can apply your real-world knowledge.
d. are given a rule with which you are not familiar.
Difficulty: 2
Page Ref: 229
Skill: Factual
Answer: c. can apply your real-world knowledge.
8.1-54. When using inductive reasoning,
a. the two premises are assumed to be correct.

Incorrect: This is a detail of a syllogism, not a problem using inductive reasoning.
b. conclusions may be likely, but not certain.
Correct: Conclusions are based on probabilities drawn from available evidence, rather than on
logical certainties.
23
c. the task is to determine whether a conclusion that is given is valid.
d. conclusions follow necessarily from the premises.
Difficulty: 2
Page Ref: 229
Skill: Conceptual
Answer: b. conclusions may be likely, but not certain.
8.1-55. Imagine driving on the Fourth of July to a city that you have never visited. There is no
place to park and the traffic seems very heavy. As you look for a parking place, you see streams
of people heading toward the main street and you see that it has been blocked off to traffic. Not
certain of what to make of all this, you think a few seconds and determine that a parade is
imminent. The process that you are using to come to your conclusion sounds most like
a. analogical problem solving.

b. the availability heuristic.
c. deductive reasoning.
Incorrect: The specific details of this question are not directly related to deductive reasoning,
but rather to inductive reasoning.
Correct: We use past information stored as schemas to generate expectations about the past or
future. In this case, your past experiences with crowds and blocked traffic on this holiday lead
you to surmise that a parade is coming.
Difficulty: 2
Page Ref: 229
Skill: Applied
Answer: d. inductive reasoning.
8.1-56. In the past when you have gotten lost while driving, you have been more likely to stop
and ask for directions than to look at a map. Now you are lost again, so you decide to stop by a
convenience store to ask for directions. Your behavior best illustrates
a. inductive reasoning.
Incorrect: We use past information stored as schemas to generate expectations about the past or
future. In this case, the better answer is analogical problem solving, as there is a direct
relationship between a past and present problem and their solutions.
b. logical problem solving.
c. the belief-bias effect.
d. analogical problem solving.
24
Correct: You have faced this problem in the past and can draw an analogy between the past and
the present. The past is informing the present. In this case, if you continue with the same
behavior, the expectation is that it will work and you won’t stay lost.
Difficulty: 2
Page Ref: 229
Skill: Applied
Answer: d. analogical problem solving.
8.1-57. Your teacher is trying to get the class to use analogical problem solving. When he gives
you a problem to solve by analogical reasoning, you will increase your chances of being
successful by
a. ignoring hints or clues that might have been provided.

b. using past experiences with similar problems.
Correct: This allows you to find similarities between the past situations and the current problem.
You are using inductive reasoning to access tried-and-true methods that speed current problem
solving.
c. making any analogies as abstract as possible.
Incorrect: In fact, analogical reasoning works most effectively when the analogies are made as
tangible as possible.
d. not being distracted by the common underlying structure in problems.
Difficulty: 2
Page Ref: 229
Skill: Applied
Answer: b. using past experiences with similar problems.
8.1-58. After using the same mathematical formula to solve the first nine problems of her
homework assignment, a student automatically starts problem number ten using the same
solution strategy. The student is demonstrating
a. a mental set.
Correct: A mental set is a preexisting state of mind, habit, or attitude that can enhance the
quality and speed of perceiving and problem solving (as it did for the first nine problems). It can
also inhibit or distort mental activities when old ways of thinking or acting don’t work in a new
situation.
b. syllogistic thinking.
c. a pragmatic reasoning schema.
Incorrect: There is nothing in this problem that suggests that the student is failing to see creative
uses of common items or objects.
25
Difficulty: 1
Page Ref: 230
Skill: Applied
Answer: a. a mental set.
8.1-59. Mental sets can enhance problem solving under some conditions. However, they
generally are not a good idea when
a. one has to solve a problem quickly.

b. the problem-solving situation changes.
Correct: When the situation changes, we may hamper problem solving by trying to fit old
solutions to new problems. We need to consider a broader spectrum of past solutions and
situations to find productive ways of managing new situations.
c. it is necessary to rely on what has worked in the past.
d. one is solving mathematics problems.
Incorrect: In fact, mental sets can often be an impedement to solving math problems, as
formulas can be difficult to apply differently to different problems.
Difficulty: 1
Page Ref: 230
Skill: Applied
Answer: b. the problem-solving situation changes.
8.1-60. The process by which you form opinions, reach conclusions, and make critical
evaluations of events and people is known as ________; the process of selecting and rejecting
options is known as ________.
a. problem solving; framing

b. framing; problem solving
c. decision making; judgment
d. judgment; decision making
Difficulty: 3
Page Ref: 230
Topic: Judgment and Decision Making
Skill: Factual
Answer: d. judgment; decision making
8.1-61. Which of the following is an example of judgment?
26
a. He chose chemistry as his major.
Incorrect: This is an example of decision making, which is the process of choosing between
alternatives, that is, selecting and rejecting available options.
b. She bought the less expensive dress, even though she liked the other one better.
c. She didn’t think their marriage would work.
Correct: A judgment is an opinion, conclusion, or critical evaluation of events or people.
d. He took the afternoon flight because it was nonstop.
Difficulty: 3
Page Ref: 230
Skill: Applied
Answer: c. She didn’t think their marriage would work.
8.1-62. Which of the following is an example of decision making?
a. She chose the job that paid less but offered more opportunities for advancement.
Correct: Decision making is the process of choosing between alternatives, that is, selecting and
rejecting available options.
b. He felt the teacher was pompous, arrogant, and self-centered, just like himself.
Incorrect: This is an example of a judgment, which is an opinion, conclusion, or critical
evaluation of events or people.
c. She loves the taste of fresh fruit on her morning cereal.
d. Though it wasn’t true, he told people that the reason he didn’t go to graduate school was
because he couldn’t afford it.
Difficulty: 1
Page Ref: 230
Skill: Applied
Answer: a. She chose the job that paid less but offered more opportunities for advancement.
8.1-63. After the opera, your companion asks you about your response to the performance.
According to Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman, if you are like most people, you will
a. develop a mental chart listing the pros and cons of the performance.
b. rely on heuristics to derive an opinion about the performance.
Correct: We don’t have resources or time to use a formal method of analysis to answer. Instead,
we use a repertoire of fast and frugal heuristics that yield judgments that are most often correct.
Heuristics reduce the complexity of making judgments.
c. ask your friend what he thought before you make a judgment.
Incorrect: While your friend’s opinion may be important, this was not what Kahneman and
Tversky found in their research.
d. use a formal deductive reasoning procedure.
27
Difficulty: 2
Page Ref: 231
Skill: Applied
Answer: b. rely on heuristics to derive an opinion about the performance.
8.1-64. A description of the nature of heuristics is LEAST likely to say that they
a. use informal rules of thumb.

b. provide shortcuts to solving problems.
c. reduce the complexity of making judgments.
d. eliminate the possibility of making errors.
Difficulty: 2
Page Ref: 231
Skill: Factual
Answer: d. eliminate the possibility of making errors.
8.1-65. Basing judgments on how easily information comes to mind defines
a. the availability heuristic.

b. the representativeness heuristic.
c. an anchoring bias.
d. deductive reasoning.
Difficulty: 2
Page Ref: 231
Skill: Factual
Answer: a. the availability heuristic.
8.1-66. People are likely to overestimate the absolute number of minority individuals who are
involved in criminal activity because the mass media typically overrepresents the number of
minority individuals engaged in criminal behavior. This is most clearly an example of
a. anchoring bias.
Incorrect: The anchoring bias occurs when we use an anchor and adjust up or down to find the
answer we are seeking.
b. the availability heuristic.
Correct: We base our judgments on what is most readily available in memory.
c. a frame.
28
d. decision aversion.
Difficulty: 2
Page Ref: 231
Skill: Applied
Answer: b. the availability heuristic.
8.1-67. Since they began watching the news nightly on television, a couple has developed a fear
of flying. They are convinced that many more people die in plane crashes than in automobile
accidents. Their beliefs are most consistent with what would be predicted by
a. the representativeness heuristic.

b. an anchoring bias.
c. the availability heuristic.
Correct: A plane crash is more likely to make the evening news than is an automobile crash.
Because of the content of the evening news memories of plane crashes are more available than
memories of automobile accidents. The relative availability of those memories influences the
couple’s judgments.
Difficulty: 2
Page Ref: 231
Skill: Conceptual
Answer: c. the availability heuristic.
% correct 30 a= 47 b= 17 c= 30 d= 3 r = .31
8.1-68. Which of the following could be attributed to the availability heuristic?
a. People overestimate the wealth of a person after hearing a ridiculously high estimate.
Incorrect: This would be an example of an anchoring bias.
b. People are more likely to overestimate the age of males who have beards.
c. Whales are falsely thought to be fish because they look like fish.
d. Students who live on college campuses underestimate the average age of the general
population.
Correct: Students live among other students; therefore, the most easily retrieved information
about population has to do with youth, a concept overrepresented in the students’ memories.
Difficulty: 3
Page Ref: 231
Skill: Conceptual
29
Answer: d. Students who live on college campuses underestimate the average age of the general
population.
8.1-69. The availability heuristic tells us that if we wanted to impress people with the
seriousness of the problem of homelessness in the world, we should
a. use metaphors to illustrate the number of homeless people.

b. dramatize the plight of a single family.
c. show pictures of shelters where the homeless go for help.
d. ask people to imagine themselves in the situation of a homeless person.
Difficulty: 3
Page Ref: 231
Skill: Factual
Answer: b. dramatize the plight of a single family.
8.1-70. Although she has never been snowboarding, a girl feels she will not enjoy the sport
because she does not like cross-country skiing. She is using the ________ heuristic.
a. availability
b. anchoring
c. representativeness
Correct: You assume that if something has characteristics of a category, it must, in fact, be a
member of that category.
d. framing
Difficulty: 2
Page Ref: 232
Skill: Applied
Answer: c. representativeness
% correct 37 a= 33 b= 20 c= 37 d= 10 r = .31
8.1-71. A problem one faces when one uses the representativeness heuristic is that
a. it is counter to the use of inductive reasoning.

b. one is not using past information that may be useful.
c. judgments along the lines of similarity are generally unreasonable.
d. it may cause one to ignore other types of relevant information.
Difficulty: 3
30
Page Ref: 232
Skill: Factual
Answer: d. it may cause one to ignore other types of relevant information.
8.1-72. A bias based on the anchoring heuristic results when
a. the recollection of past events in one’s life causes depression.

b. one does not see other potential uses for an object.
c. judgments are unduly influenced by initial estimates.
d. judgments are based on typical members of a category.
Difficulty: 3
Page Ref: 233
Skill: Factual
Answer: c. judgments are unduly influenced by initial estimates.
8.1-73. Participants in an experiment were asked to estimate the duration of Mars’s orbit around
the sun. On average, they estimated the duration of the orbit to be
a. shorter than it actually is.

b. much longer than it actually is.
c. almost exactly what it really is.
d. the same duration as the Earth’s orbit.
Difficulty: 2
Page Ref: 233
Skill: Factual
Answer: a. shorter than it actually is.
8.1-74. Studies of decision making demonstrate that
a. people behave as “rational” actors.”

b. participants have a strong tendency to look on situations positively.
c. as long as informational content is kept constant, the wording of a scenario is irrelevant.
d. the way in which a question is phrased can influence one’s decision.
Difficulty: 2
Page Ref: 234
Skill: Factual
31
Answer: d. the way in which a question is phrased can influence one’s decision.
8.1-75. In the context of decision making, a “frame” is
a. a particular description of a choice.

b. a false alternative or lure.
c. the blame for a poor decision placed on another.
d. a relevant memory.
Difficulty: 2
Page Ref: 234
Skill: Factual
Answer: a. a particular description of a choice.
8.1-76. Two students are taking a physics test. The optimistic student expects to get an A, while
the pessimistic student would be happy with a C. When the test results are determined, it happens
that they both received Bs. It is most likely that
a. the optimistic student will be happy with her grade.

Incorrect: The optimistic student will see their B as a loss (coming in below expectations) and
so is unlikely to be happy with her grade.
b. the pessimistic student will be happy with her grade.
Correct: The optimistic student will likely feel very unhappy. What seems like a gain or loss
will be partly determined by expectations, even though objectively both students have exactly the
same grade.
c. both students will be equally happy with their grades.
d. the pessimistic student will be disappointed because she will feel as though she could have
received an A.
Difficulty: 2
Page Ref: 234
Skill: Applied
Answer: b. the pessimistic student will be happy with her grade.
8.1-77. When decisions turn out badly, one is likely to experience regret. Studies suggest that
the categories in which people express the greatest regrets involve their decisions with respect to
their ________ and ________.
a. dating life; marriage

b. vacations; restaurant choices
c. home life; routine chores
32
d. education; career
Difficulty: 2
Page Ref: 235
Skill: Factual
Answer: d. education; career
8.1-78. One Saturday night, you and a friend go to the video store to rent a DVD. You browse
the DVDs until you find one that strikes you as interesting. Your friend browses all the DVDs
until she has convinced herself that she has found exactly the best one. In terms of decision
making, you are a _____________and she is a(n) ______________.
a. satisficer; maximizer
Correct: Not all decision makers are the same. Research has demonstrated that there are both
maximizers and satisficers in the world. Maximizers typically are content when they find an item
that is above some threshold. Satisficers keep trying to find the very best item.
b. decision-maker; procrastinator
c. maximizer; satisficer
Incorrect: This is the opposite of the correct answer.
d. decisive person; indecisive person
Difficulty: 3
Page Ref: 235
Skill: Applied
Answer: a. satisficer; maximizer
True/False Questions
8.2-1. Despite the pioneering efforts of F. C. Donders, researchers today rarely use reaction time
as a way of testing how some cognitive processes are carried out.
a. true
b. false
Difficulty: 1
Page Ref: 208
Skill: Factual
Answer: b. false
8.2-2. Processes are serial when they overlap in time; processes are parallel when they take
place one after the other.
33
a. true
b. false
Difficulty: 2
Page Ref: 208
Skill: Conceptual
Answer: b. false
8.2-3. Controlled processes require attention; it is often difficult to carry out more than one
controlled process at a time.
a. true
b. false
Difficulty: 2
Page Ref: 209
Skill: Conceptual
Answer: a. true
8.2-4. According to H. Paul Grice, the cooperative principle is an overarching rule of audience
design. Specifically, speakers should produce utterances appropriate to the setting and meaning
of the ongoing conversation.
a. true
b. false
Difficulty: 2
Page Ref: 211
Topic: Language Use
Skill: Conceptual
Answer: a. true
8.2-5. With respect to language understanding, structural ambiguity refers to a situation in

which a word has two meanings.
a. true
b. false
Difficulty: 3
Page Ref: 214-216
34
Topic: Language Use
Skill: Factual
Answer: b. false
8.2-6. According to the linguistic relativity hypothesis of Sapir and Whorf, the structure of the
language an individual speaks has an impact on the way in which that individual thinks about the
world.
a. true
b. false
Difficulty: 2
Page Ref: 218
Topic: Language Use
Skill: Factual
Answer: a. true
8.2-7. In problem solving, the initial state and goal state make up the problem space.
a. true
b. false
Difficulty: 2
Page Ref: 224
Skill: Conceptual
Answer: b. false
8.2-8. The task of balancing a checkbook is a good example of a well-defined problem.
a. true
b. false
Difficulty: 2
Page Ref: 224
Skill: Applied
Answer: a. true
8.2-9. Heuristics are cognitive strategies that always provide the right answer for a particular
problem.
35
a. true
b. false
Difficulty: 2
Page Ref: 224
Skill: Factual
Answer: b. false
8.2-10. “Functional fixedness” is the term used to refer to the inability to think of a new use for
an object previously associated with some other purpose.
a. true
b. false
Difficulty: 1
Page Ref: 225
Skill: Factual
Answer: a. true
8.2-11. A test of reasoning ability includes a number of problems in which two or more
statements or premises are presented and it is the task of the test-taker to draw a conclusion. This
type of problem is an example of inductive reasoning.
a. true
b. false
Difficulty: 3
Page Ref: 229
Skill: Conceptual
Answer: b. false
8.2-12. People engaged in analogical problem solving will try to remember similar problems
they have experienced in the past and solutions that were successful.
a. true
b. false
Difficulty: 2
Page Ref: 229
36
Skill: Applied
Answer: a. true
8.2-13. When solving problems, there are times when a “mental set” may be helpful to
performance, and other times when it may be harmful to performance.
a. true
b. false
Difficulty: 2
Page Ref: 255
Skill: Conceptual
Answer: a. true
8.2-14. Processes of judgment and decision making do not allow us to deal efficiently with
uncertainty.
a. true
b. false
Difficulty: 3
Page Ref: 257
Skill: Conceptual
Answer: b. false
8.2-15. Participants in a research study judged that the letter k is found more often at the
beginning of words than in the third position, based on information that was readily available in
memory. This error is judgment is an example of the representativeness heuristic.
a. true
b. false
Difficulty: 2
Page Ref: 231
Skill: Conceptual
Answer: b. false
8.2-16. A woman has six children—three boys (B) and three girls (G). According to the
representativeness heuristic, you are more likely to believe that she had these children in the G-
37
B-G-B-B-G order than in the B-B-B-G-G-G order because your past experience with birth orders
allows you to assume this.
a. true
b. false
Difficulty: 2
Page Ref: 232
Skill: Applied
Answer: a. true
8.2-17. Reference points are important in decision making.
a. true
b. false
Difficulty: 3
Page Ref: 234
Skill: Conceptual
Answer: a. true
8.2-18. Research on the way decisions are framed suggests that framing in terms of gains leads
to better decision making than framing in terms of losses.
a. true
b. false
Difficulty: 3
Page Ref: 234-235
Skill: Conceptual
Answer: b. false
8.2-19. Of all the decisions we make in our lives, we are most likely to express the greatest
regret regarding our education and career choices because there are few alternatives from which
to choose.
a. true
b. false
Difficulty: 2
38
Page Ref: 235
Skill: Applied
Answer: b. false
8.2-20. If you are trying to decide which person to ask to go to see a movie with you, and you
opt for the person who is “cute enough” for your own preferences, you would be described as a
satisficer.
a. true
b. false
Difficulty: 1
Page Ref: 235
Skill: Applied
Answer: a. true
Fill in the Blank Questions
8.3-1. The domain of ________ occupies the intersection of several different areas of focus in
psychology, including perception, attention, language, and intelligence, among others.
Difficulty: 2
Page Ref: 207
Skill: Conceptual
Answer: cognitive science
8.3-2. Regarding language production, quantity, quality, relation, and manner are maxims of
________.
Difficulty: 2
Page Ref: 211-212
Topic: Language Use
Skill: Factual
Answer: Grice’s cooperative principle.
8.3-3. A(n) ________ is a speech error in which there is an exchange of the initial sounds of
two or more words in a phrase or sentence.
Difficulty: 2
39
Page Ref: 212
Topic: Language Use
Skill: Factual
Answer: spoonerism
8.3-4. Research has suggested that meaning representation begins with basic units called
________, which are the main ideas of utterances.
Difficulty: 3
Page Ref: 216
Topic: Language Use
Skill: Factual
Answer: propositions
8.3-5. In our conversations with others, missing information is often filled in on the basis of a
sample of evidence or on the basis of prior beliefs and theories. These logical assumptions are
called ________.
Difficulty: 2
Page Ref: 216
Topic: Language Use
Skill: Conceptual
Answer: inferences
8.3-6. In the formal definition of a problem, ________ are the steps you may take to move from
an initial state to a goal state.
Difficulty: 2
Page Ref: 224
Skill: Factual
Answer: operations
8.3-7. A(n) _______ is a step-by-step procedure that always provides the right answer for a
particular type of problem.
Difficulty: 2
Page Ref: 224
Skill: Factual
Answer: algorithm
40
8.3-8. A participant in a study of problem solving is asked to verbalize his ongoing thoughts
while working on a task. The researcher is using a procedure referred to as a(n) ________.
Difficulty: 2
Page Ref: 225
Skill: Applied
Answer: think-aloud protocol
8.3-9. People tend to judge as valid those conclusions for which they can construct a real-world
model, and judge as invalid those for which they cannot. If your prior knowledge, attitudes, or
values distort your reasoning process by influencing you to accept invalid arguments, you have
fallen victim to the ________ effect.
Difficulty: 2
Page Ref: 228
Skill: Applied
Answer: belief-bias
8.3-10. A(n) _______ is similar to a textbook problem in which initial state, goal state, and
operations are all clearly specified, whereas a(n) ________ may not have a clear intial state, goal
state, or clearly defined operations.
Difficulty: 2
Page Ref: 224
Skill: Conceptual
Answer: well-defined problem; ill-defined problem
Essay Questions
8.4-1. More than 125 years ago, the Dutch physiologist F. C. Donders devised a new method to
study the “speed of mental processes.” Describe the rationale on which this method was based,
then compare the use of this method to the techniques that psychologists are currently using to
study mental processes, including the use of reaction time and mental processes.
Difficulty: 3
Page Ref: 208-210
Skill: Factual
41
Answer: Donders invented a series of mental tasks he thought were different from one another in
terms of mental steps involved. His fundamental assumption that more mental steps take more
time is still assumed in much of cognitive research today. Include an example of this technique,
an explanation of reaction time and an example of its use, and the use of mental processes and
resources in current research.
8.4-2. Describe how cognitive psychologists break down processes such as problem solving or
language use into their component processes. Use serial and parallel processes, controlled
processes, and automatic processes to help explain how complex mental processes are carried
out.
Difficulty: 3
Page Ref: 208-210
Skill: Conceptual/Applied
Answer: Refer to “Mental Processes and Mental Resources” for the answer. Cognitive
psychologists build one block of understanding at a time to see how each block is composed and
to see how they fit together. A brief description of controlled and automatic processes as well as
reaction time is suggested. Examples from problem solving or language production specifically
may be used but are not required.
8.4-3. Language users both produce and understand language. How do speakers design their
utterances to suit particular audiences? Describe and give examples of Grice’s four maxims that
cooperative speakers live by and explain the concept of common ground.
Difficulty: 3
Page Ref: 210-213
Topic: Language Use
Skill: Conceptual
Answer: Include and explain briefly Grice’s maxims—quantity, quality, relation, and manner.
An accurate speaker has knowledge of the listener and will match what he says to the accurate
knowledge of what the listener is likely to know and understand. Include Herbert Clark’s ideas of
listeners and their expectations of common ground. Talk about community membership,
copresence for actions, and perceptual copresence.
8.4-4. A friend of yours has a problem. His teacher has assigned him to make a presentation on
problem solving and reasoning, but he doesn’t know where to begin. You suggest that he might
start with how problems are defined, how researchers might study problem solving, and why
people have difficulty solving problems. Then, he might compare and contrast deductive and
inductive reasoning, and show how people use heuristics when making judgments and decisions.
Summarize what your friend’s presentation might look like.
Difficulty: 3
42
Page Ref: 223-236
Skill: Conceptual
Answer: Define problem solving in terms of problem spaces and processes. Define algorithms
and think-aloud protocols. Include the idea that we can more easily find new solutions if we are
very aware of the old ones and do not have to use many resources remembering the well-used
approaches. Include definitions of inductive and deductive reasoning and how they complement
one another.
43
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accustomed or not to such a scene; their eyes were swollen with the
last night’s frequent flood of grief, and still weeping genuine tears of
regret; the upper part of their cheeks perfectly black, and swollen so
that they could hardly see, with the constant blows they had inflicted
on themselves with their fists.
Among the chiefs and matabooles who were seated on the marly,
all those who were particularly attached to the late king or to his
cause evinced their sorrow by a conduct usual indeed among these
people at the death of a relation, or of a great chief (unless it be that
of Tooitonga, or any of his family), but which to us may well appear
barbarous in the extreme; that is to say, the custom of cutting and
wounding themselves with clubs, stones, knives, or sharp shells; one
at a time, or two or three together, running into the middle of the
circle formed by the spectators to give these proofs of their extreme
sorrow for the death, and great respect for the memory of their
departed friend.
The sentiments expressed by these victims of popular superstition
were to the following purpose. “Finow, I know well your mind; you
have departed to Bolotoo, and left your people under suspicion that I
or some of those about you are unfaithful; but where is the proof of
infidelity? where is a single instance of disrespect?” Then inflicting
violent blows and deep cuts in the head with a club, stone, or knife,
would again exclaim at intervals, “Is this not a proof of my fidelity?
does this not evince loyalty and attachment to the memory of the
departed warrior?” Then perhaps two or three would run on and
endeavour to seize the same club, saying with a furious tone of
voice, “Behold the land is torn with strife, it is smitten to pieces, it is
split by revolts; how my blood boils; let us haste and die! I no longer
wish to live: your death, Finow, shall be mine. But why did I wish
hitherto to live? it was for you alone; it was in your service and
defence only that I wished to breathe; but now, alas! the country is
ruined. Peace and happiness are at an end; your death has insured
ours: henceforth war and destruction alone can prosper.” These
speeches were accompanied with a wild and frantic agitation of the
body, whilst the parties cut and bruised their heads every two or
three words with the knife or club they held in their hands. Others,
somewhat more calm and moderate in their grief, would parade up
and down with rather a wild and agitated step, spinning and whirling
the club about, striking themselves with the edge of it two or three
times violently upon the top or back of the head, and then suddenly
stopping and looking stedfastly at the instrument spattered with
blood, exclaim, “Alas! my club, who could have said that you would
have done this kind office for me, and have enabled me thus to
evince a testimony of my respect for Finow? Never, no never, can
you again tear open the brains of his enemies. Alas! what a great
and mighty warrior has fallen! Oh, Finow, cease to suspect my
loyalty; be convinced of my fidelity! But what absurdity am I talking! if
I had appeared treacherous in your sight, I should have met the fate
of those numerous warriors who have fallen victims to your just
revenge. But do not think, Finow, that I reproach you; no, I wish only
to convince you of my innocence, for who that has thoughts of
harming his chiefs shall grow white headed like me (an expression
used by some of the old men). O cruel gods to deprive us of our
father, of our only hope, for whom alone we wished to live. We have
indeed other chiefs, but they are only chiefs in rank, and not like you,
alas! great and mighty in war.”
Such were their sentiments and conduct on this mournful
occasion. Some, more violent than others, cut their heads to the
skull with such strong and frequent blows, that they caused
themselves to reel, producing afterwards a temporary loss of reason.
It is difficult to say to what length this extravagance would have been
carried, particularly by one old man, if the prince had not ordered Mr.
Mariner to go up and take away the club from him, as well as two
others that were engaged at the same time. It is customary on such
occasions, when a man takes a club from another, to use it himself in
the same way about his own head; but Mr. Mariner, being a
foreigner, was not expected to do this; he therefore went up and,
after some hesitation and struggle, secured the clubs one after
another, and returned with them to his seat, when, after a while, they
were taken by others, who used them in like manner.
After these savage expressions of sorrow had been continued for
nearly three hours, the prince gave orders that the body of his father
should be taken to Felletoa to be buried. In the first place, a bale of
gnatoo was put on a kind of hurdle, and the body laid on the bale;
the prince then ordered that, as his father was the first who
introduced guns in the wars of Tonga, the two carronades should be
loaded and fired twice before the procession set out, and twice after
it had passed out of the marly; he gave directions also that the body
of Finow’s daughter, lately deceased, should be taken out in the
model of a canoe, and carried after the body of her father; that
during his life, as he wished always to have her body in his
neighbourhood, she might now at length be buried with him.
Matters being thus arranged, Mr. Mariner loaded the guns and
fired four times with blank cartridge. The procession then went
forward, and in the course of two hours arrived at Felletoa, where the
body was laid in a house on the marly at some distance from the
grave, till another and smaller house could be brought close to it;
and this was done in course of an hour. The post being taken up, the
four pieces which compose the building (a kind of shed in a
pyramidal form, the eaves reaching within four feet of the ground)
were brought by a sufficient number of men, and put together at the
place where it was wanted. This being done, the body was brought
on the same hurdle or hand-barrow to the newly-erected building (if it
may be so termed); and then being taken off the hurdle, it was laid
within, on the bale of gnatoo, and the house was hung round with
black gnatoo, reaching from the eaves to the ground.
The women, who were all assembled and seated round the body,
began a most dismal lamentation. In the mean time a number of
people, whose business it is to prepare graves, were digging the
place of interment under the direction of a mataboole, whose office is
to superintend such affairs. Having dug about ten feet, they came to
the large stone covering a vault; a rope was fastened double round
one end of the stone, which always remains a little raised for the
purpose, and was raised by the main strength of 150 or 200 men,
pulling at the two ends of the rope towards the opposite edge of the
grave till it was brought up on end. The body being oiled with sandal-
wood oil, and then wrapped in mats, was handed down on a large
bale of gnatoo into the grave; the bale of gnatoo was then, as is
customary, taken by the before-mentioned mataboole as his
perquisite. Next, the body of his daughter, in the model of a canoe,
was let down in like manner, and placed by his side. The great stone
was then lowered down with a loud shout. Immediately certain
matabooles and warriors ran like men frantic round about the place
of sepulture, exclaiming, “Alas! how great is our loss! Finow, you are
departed: witness this proof of our love and loyalty!” At the same
time they cut and bruised their own heads with clubs, knives, axes,
etc.
The whole company now formed themselves into a single line, the
women first, and afterwards the men, but without any particular order
as to rank, and proceeded towards the back of the island for the
purpose of getting a quantity of sand in small baskets.
They sang loudly the whole way, as a signal to all who might be in
the road or adjacent fields to hide themselves as quickly as possible,
for it is sacrilegious for any body to be seen abroad by the
procession during this part of the ceremony; and if any man had
unfortunately made his appearance, he would undoubtedly have
been pursued by one of the party, and soon dispatched with the club.
So strictly is this attended to, that nobody in Mr. Mariner’s time
recollected a breach of a law so well known. Even if a common man
was to be buried, and Finow himself was to be upon the road, or in
the neighbourhood of the procession whilst going to get sand at the
back of the island, he would immediately hide himself; not that they
would knock out the king’s brains on such an occasion, but it would
be thought sacrilegious and unlucky, the gods of Bolotoo being
supposed to be present at the time. The chiefs are particularly
careful not to infringe upon sacred laws, lest they should set an
example of disobedience to the people. The song on this occasion,
which is very short, is sung first by the men and then by the women,
and so on alternately; and intimates (though Mr. Mariner has
forgotten the exact words) that the fala (which is the name of this
part of the ceremony) is coming, and that every body must get out of
the way.
When they arrived at the back of the island, where anybody may
be present, they proceeded to make a small basket of the leaves of
the cocoa-nut tree, holding about two quarts, and to fill it with sand;
this being done, each of the men carried two upon a stick across the
shoulder, one at each end: while the women only carried one,
pressed in general against the left hip, or rather upon it, by the hand
of the same side, and supported by the hand of the opposite side,
brought backwards across the loins, which they consider the easiest
mode for women to carry small burdens; they then proceeded back
the same way, and with ceremony, to the grave. By this time the
grave above the vault was nearly filled with the earth lately dug out,
the remaining small space being left to be filled by the sand, which is
always more than enough for the purpose. It is considered a great
embellishment to a grave to have it thus covered, and is thought to
appear very well from a distance, where the mound of clean sand
may be seen; besides which it is the custom, and nobody can
explain the reason why—which is the case with several of their
customs. This being done, all the baskets in which the sand was
brought, as well as the remaining quantity of earth not used in filling
up the grave, are thrown into the hole out of which the earth was
originally dug. During the whole of this time the company was
seated, still clothed in mats, and their necks strung with the leaves of
the ifi tree; after this they arose and went to their respective
habitations, where they shaved their heads, and burnt their cheeks
with a small lighted roll of tápa, by applying it once upon each cheek
bone; after which, the place was rubbed with the astringent berry of
the matchi, which occasioned it to bleed, and with the blood they
smeared about the wound in a circular form, to about two inches in
diameter, giving themselves a very unseemly appearance.
They repeat this friction with the berry every day, making the
wound bleed afresh; and the men in the meantime neglect to shave
and to oil themselves during the day: they do it, however, at night, for
the comfort which this operation affords. After having, in the first
place, burnt their cheeks and shaved their heads, they built for
themselves small temporary huts for their own accommodation
during the time of mourning, which lasts twenty days. Early in the
morning of the twentieth day, all the relations of the deceased chief,
together with those who formed his household, and also the women
who were tabooed by having touched his dead body whilst oiling and
preparing it, went to the back of the island (without any particular
order or ceremony) to procure a number of flat pebbles, principally
white, but a few black, for which they made baskets on the spot to
carry them in, as before mentioned, when they went to procure sand.
With these they returned to the grave, strewed inside of the house
with the white ones, as also the outside, as a decoration to it; the
black pebbles they strewed only upon the white ones which covered
the ground directly over the body. After this the house over the tomb
was closed up at both ends with a reed fencing, reaching from the
eaves to the ground; and at the front and back with a sort of basket-
work made of the young branches of the cocoa-nut tree, split and
interwoven in a very curious and ornamental way, which remains till
the next burial, when they are taken down, and after the conclusion
of the ceremony new ones are put up in like manner. A large quantity
of provisions was now sent to the marly by the chiefs of the different
districts of the island, ready prepared and cooked, as also a
considerable quantity prepared by Finow’s own household: among
these provisions was a good supply of cava root. After the chiefs,
matabooles, and others were assembled, the provisions and cava
were served out in the usual way. During this time no speech was
made, nor did any particular occurrence take place. The company
afterwards repaired each to his respective house, and got ready for a
grand wrestling-match and entertainment of dancing the Mée too
Buggi (literally, “the dance, standing up with paddles”).
Funeral Obsequies of King Finow.
During the intervals of the dances, several matabooles, warriors,
and others, indulged in bruising and cutting their heads with clubs,
axes, etc., as proofs of their fidelity to the late chief; among them two
boys, one about twelve, the other about fourteen years of age (sons
of matabooles), made themselves very conspicuous in this kind of
self-infliction; the youngest in particular, whose father was killed in
the service of the late chief, dining the great revolution at Tonga,
after having given his head two or three hard knocks, ran up to the
grave in a fit of enthusiasm, and dashing his club with all his force to
the ground, exclaimed, “Finow! why should I attempt thus to express
my love and fidelity towards you? My wish is that the gods of Bolotoo
permit me to live long enough to prove my fidelity to your son.” He
then again raised his club, and running about bruised and cut his
little head in so many places, that he was covered with streams of
blood. This demonstration on the part of the young hero was thought
very highly of by every one present, though, according to custom,
nothing at that time was said in his praise; agreeable to their maxim,
that praise raises a man’s opinions of his own merit too high, and fills
him with self-conceit. The late Finow’s fishermen now advanced
forward to show their love for their deceased master in the usual
way, though instead of a club or axe, each bore the paddle of a
canoe, with which they beat and bruised their heads at intervals,
making similar exclamations to those so often related. In one
respect, however, they were somewhat singular, that is, in having
three arrows stuck through each cheek in a slanting direction, so that
while their points came quite through the cheek into the mouth, the
other ends went over their shoulders, and were kept in that situation
by another arrow, the point of which was tied to the ends of the
arrows passing over one shoulder, and the other end to those of the
arrows passing over the other shoulder, so as to form a triangle; and
with this horrible equipment they walked round the grave, beating
their heads and faces as before stated with the paddles, or pinching
up the skin of the breast and sticking a spear quite through: all this to
show their love and affection for the deceased chief.
After these exhibitions of cruelty were over, this day’s ceremony
(which altogether lasted about six hours) was finished by a grand
wrestling match, which being ended, every one retired to his
respective house or occupation; and thus terminated the ceremony
of burying the King of the Tonga Islands.
The Sandwich Islanders observe a number of singular
ceremonies on the death of their kings and chiefs, and have been till
very recently accustomed to make these events occasions for the
practice of almost every enormity and vice.
“The people here,” writes Mr. Mariner, “had followed only one
fashion in cutting their hair, but we have seen it polled in every
imaginable form; sometimes a small round place only is made bald
just on the crown, which causes them to look like Romish priests; at
other times the whole head is shaved or cropped close, except round
the edge, where, for about half an inch in breadth, the hair hangs
down its usual length. Some make their heads bald on one side, and
leave the hair twelve or eighteen inches long on the other.
Occasionally they cut out a patch in the shape of a horse*-shoe,
either behind or above the forehead; and sometimes we have seen a
number of curved furrows cut from ear to ear, or from the forehead to
the neck. When a chief who had lost a relative or friend had his own
hair cut after any particular pattern, his followers and dependants
usually imitated it in cutting theirs. Not to cut or shave off the hair
indicates want of respect towards the deceased and the surviving
friends; but to have it cut close in any form is enough. Each one
usually follows his own taste, which produces the endless variety in
which this ornamental appendage of the head is worn by the natives
during a season of mourning.
“Another custom, almost as universal on these occasions, was
that of knocking out some of the front teeth, practised by both sexes,
though perhaps most extensively by the men. When a chief died,
those most anxious to show their respect for him or his family, would
be the first to knock out with a stone one of their front teeth. The
chiefs related to the deceased, or on terms of friendship with him,
were expected thus to exhibit their attachment; and when they had
done so, their attendants and tenants felt themselves, by the
influence of custom, obliged to follow their example. Sometimes a
man broke out his own tooth with a stone; more frequently, however,
it was done by another, who fixed one end of a piece of stick or hard
wood against the tooth, and struck the other end with a stone till it
was broken off. When any of the men deferred this operation, the
women often performed it for them while they were asleep. More
than one tooth was seldom destroyed at one time; but the mutilation
being repeated on the decease of every chief of rank or authority,
there are few men to be seen who had arrived at maturity before the
introduction of Christianity to the islands with an entire set of teeth;
and many by this custom have lost the front teeth on both the upper
and lower jaw, which, aside from other inconveniences, causes a
great defect in their speech. Some, however, have dared to be
singular, and though they must have seen many deaths, have parted
with but few of their teeth.
“Cutting one or both ears was formerly practised on these
occasions, but as we never saw more than one or two old men thus
disfigured, the custom appears to have been discontinued.
“Another badge of mourning, assumed principally by the chiefs, is
that of tatooing a black spot or line on the tongue, in the same
manner as other parts of their bodies are tatooed.
“The Sandwich islanders have also another custom almost
peculiar to themselves, viz., singing at the death of their chiefs,
something in the manner of the ancient Peruvians. I have been
peculiarly affected more than once on witnessing this ceremony.
“A day or two after the decease of Keeaumoku, governor of Maui,
and the elder brother of Kuakina, governor of Hawaii, I was sitting
with the surviving relatives, who were weeping around the couch on
which the corpse was lying, when a middle-aged woman came in at
the other end of the large house, and, having proceeded about half
way towards the spot where the body lay, began to sing in a plaintive
tone, accompanying her song with affecting gesticulations, such as
wringing her hands, grasping her hair, and beating her breasts. I
wrote down her monody as she repeated it. She described in a
feeling manner the benevolence of the deceased, and her own
consequent loss. One passage was as follows:—
“‘Alas! alas! dead is my chief!
Dead is my lord and my friend!
My friend in the season of famine,
My friend in the time of drought,
My friend in my poverty,
My friend in the rain and the wind,
My friend in the heat and the sun,
My friend in the cold from the mountain,
My friend in the storm,
My friend in the calm,
My friend in the eight seas.
Alas! alas! gone is my friend,
And no more will return!’
“Other exhibitions of a similar kind I witnessed at Mani. After the

death of Keopuolani we frequently saw the inhabitants of a whole
district that had belonged to her coming to weep on account of her
death. They walked in profound silence, either in single file or two or
three abreast, the old people leading the van and the children
bringing up the rear. They were not covered with ashes, but almost
literally clothed in sackcloth. No ornament, or even decent piece of
cloth, was seen on any one. Dressed only in old fishing nets, dirty
and torn pieces of matting, or tattered garments, and these
sometimes tied on their bodies with pieces of old canoe ropes, they
appeared the most abject and wretched of human beings I ever saw.
When they were within a few hundred yards of the house where the
corpse was lying they began to lament and wail. The crowds of
mourners around the house opened a passage for them to approach
it, and then one or two of their number came forward and, standing a
little before the rest, began a song or recitation, showing her birth,
rank, honours, and virtues, brandishing a staff or piece of sugar-
cane, and accompanying their recitation with attitudes and gestures,
expressive of the most frantic grief. When they had finished they sat
down and mingled with the thronging multitudes in their loud and
ceaseless wailing.”
Though these ceremonies were so popular, and almost universal,
on the decease of their chiefs, they do not appear to have been
practised by the common people among themselves. The wife did
not knock out her teeth on the death of her husband, nor the son his
when he lost his father or mother, neither did parents thus express
their grief when bereaved of an only child. Sometimes they cut their
hair, but in general only indulged in lamentations and weeping for
several days.
Ellis, the Polynesian traveller, makes mention of a singular
building seen by him in Hawaii, called the Hare o Keave (the House
of Keave), a sacred depository of the bones of departed kings and
princes, probably erected for the reception of the bones of the king
whose name it bears, and who reigned in Hawaii about eight
generations back. It is, or was when Mr. Ellis saw it, a compact
building, twenty-four feet by sixteen, constructed with the most
durable timber, and thatched with ti leaves, standing on a bed of lava
that runs out a considerable distance into the sea. It is surrounded
by a strong fence or paling, leaving an area in the front and at each
end about twenty-four feet wide. The pavement is of smooth
fragments of lava, laid down with considerable skill. Several rudely-
carved male and female images of wood were placed on the outside
of the enclosure, some on low pedestals under the shade of an
adjacent tree, others on high posts on the jutting rocks that hung
over the edge of the water. “A number stood on the fence at unequal
distances all round; but the principal assemblage of these frightful
representatives of their former deities was at the south-east end of
the enclosed space, where, forming a semi-circle, twelve of them
stood in grim array, as if perpetual guardians of the mighty dead
reposing in his house adjoining. A pile of stones was neatly laid up in
the form of a crescent, about three feet wide and two feet higher
than the pavement, and in this pile the images were fixed. They
stood on small pedestals three or four feet high, though some were
placed on pillars eight or ten feet in height, and curiously carved. The
principal idol stood in the centre, the others on either hand, the most
powerful being placed nearest to him; he was not so large as some
of the others, but distinguished by the variety and superior carvings
of his body, and especially of his head. Once they had evidently
been clothed, but now they appeared in the most indigent
nakedness. A few tattered shreds round the neck of one that stood
on the left hand side of the door, rotted by the rain and bleached by
the sun, were all that remained of numerous and gaudy garments
with which their votaries had formerly arrayed them. A large pile of
broken calabashes and cocoa-nut shells lay in the centre, and a
considerable heap of dried and partly rotten wreaths of flowers,
branches and shrubs, and bushes and fragments of tapa (the
accumulated offerings of former days), formed an unsightly mound
immediately before each of the images. The horrid stare of these
idols, the tattered garments upon some of them, and the heaps of
rotting offerings before them, seemed to us no improper emblems of
the system they were designed to support, distinguished alike by its
cruelty, folly, and wretchedness.”
Mr. Ellis endeavoured to gain admission to the inside of the
house, but was told it was tabu roa (strictly prohibited), and that
nothing but a direct order from the king or high priest could open the
door. However, by pushing one of the boards across the doorway a
little on one side, he looked in, and saw many large images, some of
wood very much carved, and others of red feathers, with distended
mouths, large rows of sharks’ teeth, and pearl-shell eyes. He also
saw several bundles, apparently of human bones, cleaned carefully,
tied up with cinet made of cocoa-nut fibres, and placed in different
parts of the house, together with some rich shawls and other
valuable articles, probably worn by those to whom the bones
belonged, as the wearing apparel and other personal property of the
chiefs is generally buried with them. When he had gratified his
curiosity, and had taken a drawing of the building and some of its
appendages, he proceeded to examine other remarkable objects of
the place.
Adjoining the Hare o Keave to the southward, he found a Pahio
tabu (sacred enclosure) of considerable extent, and was informed by
his guide that it was one of the Pohonuas of Hawaii, of which he had
often heard the chiefs and others speak. There are only two on the
island—the one which he was then examining, and another at
Waipio on the north-east part of the island, in the district of Kohala.
These Pohonuas were the Hawaiian cities of refuge, and afforded
an inviolable sanctuary to the guilty fugitive, who, when flying from
the avenging spear, was so favoured as to enter their precincts.
They had several wide entrances, some on the side next the sea, the
others facing the mountains. Hither the manslayer, the man who had
broken a tabu, or failed in the observance of its rigid requirements,
the thief, and even the murderer, fled from his incensed pursuers,
and was secure. To whomsoever he belonged, and from whatever
part he came, he was equally certain of admittance, though liable to
be pursued even to the gates of the enclosure. Happily for him,
those gates were perpetually open; and, as soon as the fugitive had
entered, he repaired to the presence of the idol, and made a short
ejaculatory address, expressive of his obligations to him in reaching
the place with security. Whenever war was proclaimed, and during
the period of actual hostilities, a white flag was unfurled on the top of
a tall spear at each end of the enclosure; and until the conclusion of
peace waved the symbol of hope to those who, vanquished in fight,
might flee thither for protection. It was fixed a short distance from the
walls on the outside, and to the spot on which this banner was
unfurled the victorious warrior might chase his routed foes, but here
he must himself fall back; beyond it he must not advance one step,
on pain of forfeiting his life; the priests and their adherents would
immediately put to death any one who should have the temerity to
follow or molest those who were once within the pale of the pahio
tabu, and, as they expressed it, under the shade or protection of the
spirit of Keave, the tutelar deity of the place.
In one part of the enclosure, houses were formerly erected for the
priests, and others for the refugees, who, after a certain period, or at
the cessation of war, were dismissed by the priests, and returned
unmolested to their dwellings and families, no one venturing to injure
those who, when they fled to the gods, had been by them protected.
Mr. Ellis could not learn the length of time it was necessary for them
to remain in the Pohonuas, but it did not appear to be more than two
or three days. After that they either attached themselves to the
service of the priests, or returned to their homes.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
A Samoan inquest—Carrying a body about—Embalming in Samoa—

Samoan grave fires—Catching a spirit—New Zealand burial
customs—The Sexton in Borneo—Dayak funerals—Funeral
customs of the Sea Dayaks—Tombs in the air—Exorcising the
evil spirit—Cruel treatment of widows—The “village of the
dead”—The place of skulls—Praying to the dead—Ojibbeway
mourners—Disposing of the property of the dead—A Chippewa
ghost story—An invisible presence—A spirited ghost—Veneration
for the dead—A royal funeral—The death dance—The last of the
“Stung Serpent.”
n Samoa, another of the Polynesian islands, it is considered a
disgrace to the family of an aged chief if he is not buried
alive· “When an old man feels sick and infirm,” says the
missionary Turner, “and thinks he is dying, he deliberately
tells his children and friends to get all ready and bury him.
They yield to his wishes, dig a round deep pit, wind a number of fine
mats round his body, and lower down the poor old heathen into his
grave in a sitting posture. Live pigs are then brought and tied, each
with a separate cord, the one end of the cord to the pig and the other
to the arm of the old man. The cords are then cut in the middle,
leaving the one half hanging at the arm of the old man, and off the
pigs are taken to be killed and baked for the burial feast. The old
man, however, is still supposed to take the pigs with him to the world
of spirits. The greater the chief the more numerous the pigs, and the
more numerous the pigs the better the reception in their Hades of
heathenism. The poor old man thus wound up, furnished with his pig
strings, and covered over with some more mats, is all ready. His
grave is then filled up, and his dying groans are drowned amid the
weeping and the wailing of the living.
“This revolting custom of burying alive is, as I have noted, not
confined to infants and the aged. If a person in sickness shows signs
of delirium, his grave is dug, and he is buried forthwith, to prevent
the disease spreading to other members of the family. A young man
in the prime of life was thus buried lately. He burst up the grave and
escaped. He was caught and forced into the grave again. A second
time he struggled to the surface, and they led him to the bush,
lashed him fast to a tree, and left him there to die.
“Whenever the eye is fixed in death the house becomes a scene
of indescribable lamentation and wailing. ‘Oh! my father, why did you
not let me die, and you live here still?’ ‘Oh! my brother, why have you
run away and left your only brother to be trampled upon?’ ‘Oh! my
child, had I known you were going to die! Of what use is it for me to
survive you?’ These and other doleful cries may be heard two
hundred yards from the house; and as you go near you find that they
are accompanied by the most frantic expressions of grief, such as
rending garments, tearing the hair, thumping the face and eyes,
burning the body with small piercing firebrands, beating the head
with stones till the blood runs; and this they called an ”offering of
blood for the dead.” Every one acquainted with the historical parts of
the Bible will here observe remarkable coincidences. After an hour or
so, the more boisterous wailing subsides, and, as in that climate the
corpse must be buried in a few hours, preparations are made without
delay. The body is laid out on a mat oiled with scented oil, and, to
modify the cadaverous look, they tinge the oil for the face with a little
turmeric. The body is then wound up with several folds of native
cloth, the chin propped up with a little bundle of the same material,
and the face and head left uncovered, while for some hours longer
the body is surrounded by weeping relatives. If the person has died
of a complaint which has carried off some other members of the
family, they will probably open the body to search for the disease.
Any inflamed substance they happen to find they take away and
burn, thinking that this will prevent any other members of the family
being affected with the same disease. This is done when the body is
laid in the grave.
“While a dead body is in the house no food is taken under the
same roof. The family have their meals outside, or in another house.
Those who attended the deceased were formerly most careful not to
handle food, and for days were fed by others as if they were helpless
infants. Baldness and the loss of teeth were supposed to be the
punishment inflicted by the household, if they violated the rule.
Fasting was common at such times, and they who did so, ate
nothing during the day, but had a meal at night, reminding us of what
David said when mourning the death of Abner: ‘So do God to me
and more also, if I taste bread or aught else till the sun be down.’
The fifth day was a day of purification. They bathed the face and
hands with hot water, and then they were clean, and resumed the
usual time and mode of eating.
“The death of a chief of high rank was attended with great
excitement and display: all work was suspended in the settlement;
no stranger dared to pass through the place. For days they kept the
body unburied, until all the different parties connected with that
particular clan assembled from various parts of the island, and until
each party had in turn paraded the body, shoulder high, through the
village, singing at the same time some mournful dirge. The body, too,
was wrapped up in the best robe, viz., the most valuable fine mat
clothing which the deceased possessed. Great respect is still shown
to chiefs on these occasions, and there was a recent instance of
something like a thirty days’ mourning; but the body is seldom
paraded about the settlements now-a-days.
“The burial generally takes place the day after death. As many
friends as can be present in time attend. Every one brings a present;
and the day after the funeral, these presents are all so distributed
again as that every one goes away with something in return for what
he brought. Formerly, the body was buried without a coffin, except in
the cases of chiefs; but now it is quite common to cut off the ends of
some canoe belonging to the family, and make a coffin of it. The
body being put into this rude encasement, all is done up again in
some other folds of native cloth, and carried on the shoulders of four
or five men to the grave. The friends follow, but in no particular order;
and at the grave again there was often further wailing, and
exclamations such as, “Alas! I looked to you for protection, but you
have gone away! why did you die! would that I had died for you!”
Since the introduction of Christianity, all is generally quiet at the
grave. The missionary, or some native teacher appointed by him,
attends, reads a portion of Scripture, delivers an address, and
engages in prayer, that the living may consider and prepare for the
time to die. The grave is called the last resting place; and in the case
of chiefs the house is thatched with the leaves of sandal wood,
alluding to the custom of planting some tree with pretty foliage near
the grave. Attempts have been made to get a place set apart as the
village burying-ground, but it is difficult to carry it out. All prefer laying
their dead among the ashes of their ancestors, on their own
particular ground. As the bones of Joseph were carried from Egypt to
Canaan, so did the Samoans carry the skulls of their dead from a
land where they had been residing during war, back to the graves of
their fathers as soon as possible after peace was proclaimed. The
grave is often dug close by the house. They make it about four feet
deep; and, after spreading it with mats like a comfortable bed, there
they place the body, with the head to the rising of the sun and the
feet to the west. With the body they deposit several things which
may have been used to answer the purpose of a pickaxe in digging
the grave; not that they think these things of any use to the dead, but
it is supposed that if they are left and handled by others, further
disease and death will be the consequence. Other mats are spread
over the body, on these a layer of white sand from the beach, and
then they fill up the grave.
A Samoan Sepulchre.
“The spot is marked by a little heap of stones a foot or two high.
The grave of a chief is nearly built up in an oblong slanting form,
about three feet high at the foot and four at the head. White stones
or shells are intermixed with the top layer; and if he has been a
noted warrior, his grave may be surrounded with spears, or his gun
laid loosely on the top.”
Embalming, the same authority informs us, is known and
practised with surprising skill in one particular family of Samoan
chiefs. Unlike the Egyptian method, as described by Herodotus, it is
performed in Samoa exclusively by women. The viscera being
removed and buried, they day after day anoint the body with a
mixture of oil and aromatic juices, and they continue to puncture the
body all over with fine needles. In about two months the process of
desiccation is completed. The hair, which had been cut off and laid
aside at the commencement of the operation, is now glued carefully
on to the scalp by a resin from the bush. The abdomen is filled up
with folds of native cloth, the body is wrapped up with the same
material, and laid out on a mat, leaving the hands, face, and head
exposed.
A house is built for the purpose, and there the body is placed with
a sheet of native cloth loosely thrown over it. Now and then the face
is oiled with a mixture of scented oil and turmeric, and passing
strangers are freely admitted to see the remains of the departed. At
present there are four bodies laid out in this way in a house
belonging to the family to which we refer—viz., a chief, his wife, and
two sons. They are laid on a platform, raised on a double canoe. It
must be upwards of thirty years since some of them were embalmed,
and although thus exposed they are in a remarkable state of
preservation. They assign no particular reason for this embalming,
further than that it is the expression of their affection to keep the
bodies of the departed still with them as if they were alive.
On the evening of the burial of any important chief, his friends
kindled a number of fires at a distance of some twenty feet from
each other, near the grave, and there they sat and kept them burning
till morning light. This was continued sometimes for ten days after
the funeral; it was also done before the burial. In the house where
the body lay, or out in front of it, fires were kept burning all night by
the immediate relatives of the departed. The common people had a
similar custom. After burial they kept a fire blazing in the house all
night, and had the space between the house and the grave so
cleared as that a stream of light went forth all night from the fire to
the grave. Whether this had its origin in any custom of burning the
dead body, like the ancient Greeks, it is impossible now to ascertain.
The probability, however, is that it had not. The account the
Samoans give of it, is, that it was merely a light-burning in honour of
the departed, and a mark of tender regard: just as we may suppose
the Jews did after the death of Asa, when it is said they made a very
great burning for him. Those commentators who hold that this and
one or two other passages refer to a Jewish mark of respect, and not

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Psychology And Life 20th Edition

Gerrig Test Bank

Topic Factual Conceptual Applied

a. bring about a decrease in reaction time.

a. serial processing is a type of parallel processing.

a. far apart; automatic

8.1-9. In which situation are attentional processes most likely controlled?

a. a person signs her name to a traveler’s check

a. what people think about what they say.

a. the cooperative principle

8.1-13. Sharing common ground with a conversational partner

a. tends to increase the occurrence of spoonerisms.

8.1-16. A coworker always tries to dominate discussions by talking constantly. Unfortunately,

a. a brief verbal exchange indicating love or affection.

8.1-19. A major value of speech errors is that they

a. provide evidence that memory is typically a reconstructive process.

a. try to repeat a tongue twister as quickly as possible.

a. spoonerisms with idioms are almost impossible to produce.

a. the presence of contextual information.

8.1-26. In the context of language understanding, a proposition is

a. Yes, because these words belong to the same proposition.

a. can communicate through spoken language.

a. showed that chimps can be taught to communicate like humans.

a. there are cross-linguistic differences in thought.

a. Language may, in some circumstances, have an impact on thought.

a. took more time to say what objects were in front of them.

a. performance is affected by the order in which the objects are presented.

a. set of operations; goal state

a. the availability heuristic.

a. functional fixedness adversely affects problem solving.

a. people are generally incapable of engaging in deductive reasoning.

8.1-52. Research suggests that belief bias exists

a. choose the cards that are the least obvious.

8.1-54. When using inductive reasoning,

a. the two premises are assumed to be correct.

a. analogical problem solving.

a. ignoring hints or clues that might have been provided.

a. one has to solve a problem quickly.

a. problem solving; framing

8.1-61. Which of the following is an example of judgment?

8.1-62. Which of the following is an example of decision making?

a. use informal rules of thumb.

8.1-65. Basing judgments on how easily information comes to mind defines

a. the availability heuristic.

a. the representativeness heuristic.

8.1-68. Which of the following could be attributed to the availability heuristic?

a. use metaphors to illustrate the number of homeless people.

a. it is counter to the use of inductive reasoning.

8.1-72. A bias based on the anchoring heuristic results when

a. the recollection of past events in one’s life causes depression.

a. shorter than it actually is.

8.1-74. Studies of decision making demonstrate that

a. people behave as “rational” actors.”

8.1-75. In the context of decision making, a “frame” is

a. a particular description of a choice.

a. the optimistic student will be happy with her grade.

a. dating life; marriage

8.2-5. With respect to language understanding, structural ambiguity refers to a situation in

8.2-8. The task of balancing a checkbook is a good example of a well-defined problem.

8.2-17. Reference points are important in decision making.

Fill in the Blank Questions

“Other exhibitions of a similar kind I witnessed at Mani. After the

A Samoan inquest—Carrying a body about—Embalming in Samoa—