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*For All Comprehensive Exam Sections, DO NOT Attempt Answering a Question Unless You Really Know the Answer *For all comprehensive exam sections, DO NOT attempt answering a question unless you really know the answer. You will be much less likely to pass if you provide information that does not actually address a question (even if the information you provide is technically accurate, and could be used to answer another question). Also, most questions (except Statistics) will require you to cite original sources to support your arguments, but please do not cite a textbook. Cognition and Learning Section This exam is tied most directly to PSY 620 and 621. You are not allowed to attempt this exam until you have passed both of these courses. You will see questions covering such topics as (in no particular order of importance): perception, attention, working memory, episodic versus semantic versus procedural long- term memory, implicit versus explicit memory, automatic versus controlled processing, categorization, social cognition, metacognition, theories of learning and behavior, eyewitness memory, language, decision-making and problem-solving, expertise, and developmental/age issues concerning memory. By far the most important thing to study is an undergraduate textbook in cognitive psychology (e.g., Goldstein; Reisberg; Robinson-Riegler; Sternberg), as well as notes and materials from PSY 620. Below is an example question (no longer used) with a good student response. It will give you an idea of the level of detail needed for a good response, and how to cite original sources to support your statements. You are an eyewitness to a crime in which a man robs a liquor store. He does so in under 5 minutes while pointing a gun at the clerk, is not wearing a mask or anything else to hide his face, and he quickly runs away after the robbery. A few days later the police present you with a lineup from which your goal is to identify the perpetrator. Utilizing your knowledge of attention and memory, describe what is involved in your ability (or inability) to make an accurate identification from the lineup. The first factor that might come into play in determining my ability to identify the perpetrator in this robbery would be the presence of a gun. The weapon focus effect (WFE; e.g., Pickel, 1999; see review by Fawcett et al., 2013) predicts that the presence of the gun would turn the gun into the central focus of my attention, and the face of the perpetrator would fall into the periphery of my attention. The WFE also predicts that the context of the situation will determine the strength of the effect. In this case, the gun was in a threatening context where the perpetrator was pointing the gun at the clerk, so the WFE is more likely to occur. In contrast, if the gun would have been in a non-threatening context, such as at a gun range, then the WFE would not be expected to occur. Essentially, the gun would dominate my attentional field, hindering my ability to identify the perpetrator. The second factor that might determine my ability to identify the perpetrator is the presence and influence of misinformation. Misinformation involves a perceiver receiving information contrary to the details of the original event, and that information either replaces or alters the perceiver’s memory for the details of the original event. Loftus and Palmer (1974) conducted a study where participants viewed a video depicting a car accident, and then received misinformation-filled written description about that car accident. In a later recall task, the participant’s recall displayed the infiltration of misinformation and confusion as to whether certain details came from the video or the written description (source misattribution). In the present robbery situation, misinformation could have plenty of opportunity to infiltrate my memory over the course of the “few days” that were in-between the witnessing event and the lineup task. Misinformation could come in the form of co-witness discussion, media coverage, etc. By discussing the robbery events with my co-witnesses, their recall for the event could influence my recall for the event; essentially turning several individual viewpoints for witnessing the crime into one collective memory for how the event occurred or even what the perpetrator looked like. Media coverage of the crime could have the same influence as co-witness information; contaminating my memory with details reported on the news. The infiltration of misinformation could skew my memory for the events and the perpetrator, ultimately hurting my ability to identify the perpetrator in a lineup. The third factor that could influence my ability to identify the perpetrator is the presence and influence of post-identification feedback. Post-identification feedback (PIF) refers to information received by an eyewitness from a line-up administrator that serves to influence the eyewitness’ lineup choice and/or confidence in that choice. Wells and Brewer (1998) were one of the first researchers to conduct an investigation into PIF. In their study, participants viewed a mock-crime, completed a lineup identification task that was either accompanied by positive feedback from the lineup administrator or no feedback, and then completed a survey indicating their confidence in their lineup choice. Participants who received feedback from the administrator were more confident in their lineup choice than those who did not receive feedback even though all of the lineups were target-absent (none of the lineups contained the suspect). This false inflation of confidence could lead an innocent to be arrested and possibly convicted of crime they did not commit. In the current robbery situation, PIF could come into play when the police present me with a lineup task. I could possibly choose someone and be confident in my choice even if my choice is not accurate. Essentially, the police could influence my lineup choice and confidence, which could potentially put an innocent individual at risk. The final factor that could influence my ability to identify the perpetrator is whether or not the perpetrator and I were of the same race. The other-race effect (see review by Meissner & Brigham, 2001) could come into play if the perpetrator and I were of different races. The other-race effect refers to a phenomenon where recognition for individuals of one’s own race is better than recognition for individuals of another race. This recognition preference comes about as a result of more experience with members of one’s own race, and can be seen to take place starting as early as our infancy years. Ultimately, if the perpetrator is of a different race than I may have a more difficult time of picking them out of a lineup just because they are of another race. Cognition and Instruction Section This exam is tied to PSY 625. You are not allowed to take it until you have completed this course. In addition to the PSY 625 materials, you should be aware of the following literature: Bransford, J. D., Brown, A. L., & Cocking, R. R. (2004). How people learn: brain, mind, experience, and school. Washington, D.C: National Academy Press. Duckworth, A.L., Gendler, T.S., & Gross, J.J. (2014). Self-control in school-age children. Educational Psychologist, 49(3), 199-217. Mayer, R. E. (2011). Applying the science of learning to undergraduate science education. Paper commissioned for the committee on the status, contributions, and future directions of discipline-based education research of the National Academies Board of Science Education. Fyfe, E. R., McNeil, N. M., Son, J. Y., & Goldstone, R. L. (2014). Concreteness fading in mathematic and science instruction: A systematic review. Educational Psychology Review, 26, 9-25. Graham, M. J. Frederick, J., Byars-Winston, A., Hunter, A-B., & Handelsman, J. (2013) Increasing persistence of college students in STEM. Science, 341, 1455-56. Pashler, H., McDaniel, M., Rohrer, D., & Bjork, R. (2009). Learning styles. Psychological Science in Public Interest, 9, 105-119. Diamond, A., & Lee, K. (2011). Interventions shown to aid executive function development in children 4 to 12 years old. Science, 333, 959-964. Snow, C. (2002). Defining comprehension. (Chap 2). Rand National Reading Panel. McNamara, D. S., Kintsch, E., Songer, N. B., & Kintsch, W. (1996). Are good texts always better? Interactions of text coherence, background knowledge, and levels of understanding in learning from text. Cognition and Instruction, 14, 1-43. Mayer, R. E., Hegarty, M., Mayer, S., & Campbell, J. (2005). When static media promote active learning: Annotated illustrations versus narrated animations in multimedia learning. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, 11, 256-265. Mayer, R. E., Griffith, E., Jurkowitz, I. T., & Rothman, D. (2008) Increased interestingness of extraneous details in a multimedia science presentation leads to decreased learning. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, 14, 329-339. Goldin-Meadow, S., Nusbaum, H., Kelly, S. D., & Wagner, S. (2001). Explaining math: gesturing lightens the load. Psychological Science, 12, 516-522. History, Ethics, and Educational Psychology Section This exam is tied to PSY 509 and ethics training you receive with the CITI modules required by the university IRB. Do not attempt this exam until both of these are done. Review a fairly scholarly, fairly comprehensive, textbook on the History of Psychology. Hilgard would be best, but the Hergenhahn or the Thorne & Henley books would suffice. Also, review a “high level” Intro text. It need not even be new. Suggested authors would be Gleitman or Baron. Be sure and know the contributions of the obvious “big names” in American Psychology that are relevant to either Cognition or Learning or “Education.” This would include (minimally) James, Dewey, Baldwin, Hull, Lashley, Watson, Skinner, Tolman, Darwin, Cajal, Festinger, Kohler, Whorf, Gibson, as well as the “founders” of cognitive science -- George Miller, Roger Brown, Ulric Neisser, Noam Chomsky, Jerome Bruner, etc. Understand the differences (in both theory and method) between the various “schools” of psychology: Structuralism, Functionalism, Behaviorism, and Gestalt Psychology, as well as modern Cognitive Science.
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