Chapter: Chapter 07: Mental Imagery and Cognitive Maps
Multiple Choice
1. The majority of mental imagery used by college students was
a) visual.
b) auditory.
c) tactile.
d) olfactory.
Ans: a
Feedback: See page 209
2. The imagery debate (Kosslyn and his colleagues, 2006) concerns the major, unresolved theoretical
controversy in the field of imagery research--that is, whether people store images:
a) in terms of an analog code or in terms of a propositional code.
b) in terms of a "still photograph" or in terms of a "motion picture."
c) in the cerebral cortex or in the cerebellum.
d) in the left cerebral hemisphere or in the right cerebral hemisphere.
Ans: a
Feedback: See page 212
3. In an early study on mental rotation (Shepard and Metzler, 1971), people judged whether pairs of
figures in different orientations were the same or different. What did this study demonstrate?
a) Reaction time is related to the amount of mental rotation necessary to make same-different judgments.
b) It takes less time to rotate pairs in the picture plane (2-dimensional rotation) than to rotate pairs in
depth (3-dimensional rotation).
c) The propositional-coding view is correct, and the analog view is incorrect.
d) Mental rotation ability was strongly related to several personality characteristics of participants.
Ans: a
Feedback: See pages 213 - 215
4. Which of the following variables greatly influences reaction times in experiments on mental rotation?
a) Brightly colored objects take less time to rotate mentally than black-and-white objects.
b) Less complex objects take more time to rotate mentally than more complex objects.
c) The greater the degrees of physical rotation, the more time is required for mental rotation.
d) Mental rotation in depth requires more time than mental rotation in the picture plane.
Ans: c
Feedback: See pages 213 - 215
5. Research on mental rotation found that time to rotate the mental image
a) was significantly shorter than rotation of physical objects.
b) was the same as that required to rotate equivalent physical objects.
c) did not differ between different images.
d) was significantly shorter than that required to rotate physical objects.
Ans: b
Feedback: See pages 214 - 215
6. Some researchers recently conducted PET scans while people manually rotated some geometrical line
drawings. Then the same people mentally rotated the drawings. The researchers found that:
a) neural activity increased in the primary motor cortex during manual rotation, but there were no
changes in neural activity during mental rotation.
b) there were no changes in neural activity during manual rotation, but neural activity increased in the
primary motor cortex during mental rotation.
c) neural activity increased in the primary motor cortex during manual rotation, but neural activity
increased in the left temporal lobe during mental rotation.
d) during both manual and mental rotation, neural activity increased in the primary motor cortex.
Ans: d
Feedback: See page 216
7. Which of the following statements about imagery and shape is correct?
a) When people judge the similarity of the shapes of two states (e.g., Colorado and Oregon) by using
imagery, their judgments usually bear little or no relationship to reality.
b) Judgments of the similarity of the shapes of two states (e.g., Colorado and Oregon) are comparable
when people are presented the actual shapes of the states or simply the names of the states.
c) Only when people store a mental image in terms of a verbal description are they able to identify
physical figures hidden in it.
d) Nearly all studies conducted so far on imagery and shape have supported the propositional-coding
view of mental imagery.
Ans: b
Feedback: See page 219
8. Various experiments on visual imagery, such as one in which participants compared shapes of states
of the United States, led one researcher (Paivio, 1978) to conclude that imagery coding is:
a) symbolic.
b) propositional.
c) structural.
d) analog.
Ans: d
Feedback: See page 219
9. Which of the following statements about imagery and interference is correct?
a) A verbal task interferes with visual imagery more than it interferes with auditory imagery.
b) A visual imagery task can interfere with visual perception.
c) Mental imagery can interfere with perception, but perception does not interfere with mental imagery.
d) Even when a mental image is vivid, it does not interfere with perception.
Ans: b
Feedback: See page 219
10. Research on mental imagery and ambiguous figures has found that people use
a) an analog code.
b) a propositional code.
c) an imagocentric code.
d) Either an analog or propositional code.
Ans: d
Feedback: See pages 220 - 223
11. Mental imagery uses
a) top-down processing.
b) bottom-up processing.
c) both top-down and bottom-up processing.
d) neither top-down nor bottom-up processing.
Ans: a
Feedback: See page 224
12. Many cognitive psychologists think that imagery representations are stored in an analog code, but
other cognitive psychologists argue that imagery representations are epiphenomenal and are based on an
underlying:
a) procedural code.
b) implicit memory representation.
c) propositional code.
d) prospective memory code.
Ans: c
Feedback: See page 224
13. A recent article that summarized previous meta-analysis (Hyde, 2005) focusing on gender
differences concluded that:
a) men outperform women on imagery tasks that require mental rotation.
b) men and women show little or no difference in verbal ability.
c) men and women show little or no difference in mathematics ability.
d) All of the above are correct.
Ans: d
Feedback: See pages 225 - 226
14. Recent evidence concerning brain areas involved in imagery suggest that:
a) visual imagery and visual perception involve completely different pathways in the brain.
b) visual imagery may activate some of the same pathways that are involved in visual perception.
c) visual imagery activates some of the pathways as those involved in music appreciation.
d) visual imagery and auditory imagery involve the same brain mechanisms.
Ans: b
Feedback: See page 225
15. When a person is engaged in a visual-imagery task, one part of the brain that has been recently
discovered to be activated is the:
a) retina.
b) temporal lobe of the left cerebral hemisphere.
c) parietal lobe of the left cerebral hemisphere.
d) primary visual cortex.
Ans: d
Feedback: See page 225
16. Which of the following have not been studies in research on auditory imagery?
a) pitch
b) timbre
c) memorability
d) loudness
Ans: c
Feedback: See pages 228 - 230
17. A cognitive map is
a) a research study detailing the anatomy of the brain.
b) an anatomic layout of the brain.
c) a mental representation of geographic information.
d) a mental representation of how you remember information.
Ans: c
Feedback: See page 231
18. Recent experimental findings have revealed that:
a) individual differences in spatial-cognition skills are rather large.
b) people’s metacognitions about spatial ability are reasonably correct.
c) people who are better at mental rotation are also more skilled in using maps.
d) All of the above are correct.
Ans: d
Feedback: See page 232
19. Many experimental findings support the view that cognitive maps are:
a) highly detailed and accurate, much like corresponding physical maps.
b) fairly accurate, and errors that they contain tend to be rational.
c) only slightly accurate, since they usually contain random errors.
d) very inaccurate, with little or no resemblance to physical reality.
Ans: b
Feedback: See page 233
20. A systematic distortion seen in cognitive maps is that people tend to construct cognitive maps in
which:
a) angles are aligned at a approximately 30-45° angles instead of at a 90° angle.
b) distances seem longer if the intervening space is empty than if it is filled (e.g., with many cities).
c) figures and curves tend to be remembered as less symmetrical and regular than they are in reality.
d) All of the above are correct.
Ans: b
Feedback: See page 234
21. Research on the rotation heuristic and the alignment heuristic reveals that people tend to make an
error by judging that:
a) Detroit is south of Windsor, Canada.
b) San Diego is west of Reno, Nevada.
c) Rome is south of Philadelphia.
d) All of the above are correct.
Ans: d
Feedback: See pages 237 - 239
22. When people receive a verbal description of a particular environment, such as directions to
someone's house, they create representations to represent relevant features of a scene. These
representations are called:
a) cognitive maps.
b) propositional codes.
c) symbolic codes.
d) mental models.
Ans: a
Feedback: See page 240
23. According to the spatial framework model (Franklin & Tversky, 1990):
a) the vertical (above-below) dimension is especially prominent in thinking and reacting.
b) the horizontal (left-right) dimension is especially prominent in thinking and reacting.
c) the frontal (front-back) dimension is not very prominent in thinking and reacting.
d) three spatial dimensions—vertical, horizontal, and frontal—are about equally prominent in thinking
and reacting.
Ans: a
Feedback: See page 241