Balbharti Maharashtra State Board Class 12 Psychology Important Questions Chapter 4 Cognitive Processes Important Questions and Answers.
Maharashtra State Board 12th Psychology Important Questions Chapter 4 Cognitive Processes
Choose the correct option and complete the following statements.
Question 1.
Stimuli that are near to each other are perceived as a unit, this refers to the law of……………
(a) proximity
(b) continuity
(c) similarity
Answer:
(a) proximity
Question 2.
The learning process by forming associations or connections is called ………………
(a) assimilation
(b) classical conditioning
(c) operant conditioning
Answer:
(b) classical conditioning
Question 3.
…………… is the mental manipulation of information.
(a) Creativity
(b) Learning
(c) Thinking
Answer:
(c) Thinking
Match the pairs.
Question 1.
| Group A | Group B |
| 1. Albert Bandura | (a) Learning by assimilation and accommodation |
| 2. B.F. Skinner | (b) Learning by classical conditioning |
| 3. Max Wertheimer | (c) Learning by observation |
| 4. Edward Tolman | (d) Learning by operant conditioning |
| 5. Jean Piaget | (e) Learning by use of cognitive processes |
| (f) Laws of perception grouping |
Answer:
| Group A | Group B |
| 1. Albert Bandura | (c) Learning by observation |
| 2. B.F. Skinner | (d) Learning by operant conditioning |
| 3. Max Wertheimer | (f) Laws of perception grouping |
| 4. Edward Tolman | (e) Learning by use of cognitive processes |
| 5. Jean Piaget | (a) Learning by assimilation and accommodation |
State whether the following statements are true or false.
Question 1.
Size and intensity of the stimulus influences attention.
Answer:
True
Question 2.
It is very easy to divide our attention to two tasks simultaneously.
Answer:
False
Question 3.
Awareness of the stimuli around us is called perception.
Answer:
False
Question 4.
Top-down processing is influenced by the context in which the information occurs.
Answer:
True
Question 5.
The tendency to fill in gaps in an incomplete stimulus so as to perceive it as a meaningful figure refers to the law of closure.
Answer:
True
Question 6.
All changes in behaviour can be attributed to learning.
Answer:
False
Answer the following in one sentence each.
Question 1.
What are cognitive process?
Answer:
Cognitive processes are those processes by which we become aware of and understand the world around us such as sensation, attention, perception, learning, memory, thinking, reasoning, problem solving, etc.
Question 2.
What is attention?
Answer:
Attention is the mental process of bringing few stimuli into the centre of awareness out of the many stimuli present.
Question 3.
What is fluctuation of attention?
Answer:
Our attention shifts from the original stimulus to another stimulus for a fraction of time and then comes back to the original stimulus.
Question 4.
What is perception?
Answer:
Perception is defined as the process of assigning meaning to information received about the environment based on the past experiences.
Question 5.
What is the perceptual law of similarity?
Answer:
Stimuli that are similar to each other are perceived together compared to stimuli that are distinct from each other.
Question 6.
What is thinking?
Answer:
Thinking is the mental activity that uses various cognitive elements and processes that involves the manipulation of information.
Question 7.
Explain the meaning of schema.
Answer:
Schema is an internal representation that organizes knowledge about related concepts and relationships among them.
Question 8.
What is learning?
Answer:
Learning is a relatively permanent change in behaviour that occurs due to experience or practice.
Question 9.
According to B.F. Skinner, how does learning take place?
Answer:
According to B. F. Skinner, learning takes place to gain positive consequences or to avoid negative consequences.
Question 10.
What is Jean Piaget’s view about the learning process?
Answer:
Jean Piaget explains that we learn by forming and refining our concepts on the basis of similarities and differences between the new and existing information.
Explain the concepts in 25 – 30 words each.
Question 1.
Attention
Answer:
Attention is the selective process by which we focus on only a few stimuli from among the various stimuli that are present in our environment. According to Norman Munn, “Attention is the mental process of bringing few stimuli into the centre of awareness out of the many stimuli present”. Attention is influenced by objective factors such as intensity, size, movement, repetition of the stimuli as well as subjective factors like interest, mind-set, experiences of the individual.
Question 2.
Distraction of attention
Answer:
Distraction of attention refers to the drifting of attention from a specific stimulus to another stimulus. This is due to external factors such as intensity, novelty, movement, colour, repetition, etc., of stimuli or internal factors like physical state, lack of interest, mental set of the individual.
Question 3.
Learning
Answer:
Learning is defined as “a relatively permanent change in behaviour that occurs due to experience or practice”. The characteristics of learning are:
- It involves some relatively permanent change in behaviour.
- The change in behaviour is due to experience or practice.
- Change in behaviour may be in knowledge or in skill or in muscular movements.
- Learning is an inferred process. The main processes by which learning occurs is by Classical Conditioning,
- Operant Conditioning, Observation, Cognitive processes, etc.
Question 4.
Learning by cognitive processes
Answer:
Learning is a relatively permanent change in behaviour as a result of past experience or practice. According to Edward Tolman, learning may take place using cognitive processes like problem solving, reasoning, concept formation, etc. and not only due to the forming of connections (classical conditioning) or due to consequences of behaviour (operant conditioning).
Answer the following questions in 35 – 40 words each.
Question 1.
What does ‘span of attention’ refer to?
Answer:
Attention is the mental process of bringing few stimuli into the centre of awareness out of the many stimuli present.
It is the total number of stimuli that we can become clearly aware of in a single glance. Span of attention refers to the total number of stimuli that we can become clearly aware of in a single . glance. Span of attention is limited i.e., it is about 7 to 8 items only. Factors like age, intelligence, motivation, practice, etc., of the person affect the span of attention.
Question 2.
Explain division of attention.
Answer:
Attention is the mental process of bringing few stimuli into the centre of awareness out of the many stimuli present.
It is not possible to divide attention to two tasks simultaneously. We can perform two tasks at the same time only if both of them are too simple or mechanical. If we try to pay attention to two tasks at the same time it may result in decreased efficiency and more confusion. Example: if a person has to read a passage from a book and thread a needle simultaneously, it wouldn’t be possible.
Answer the following question 80 – 100 words each.
Question 1.
Types of perceptual processing.
Points:
(i) Top-down processing
(ii) Bottom-up processing
Answer:
Perception is defined as the process of assigning meaning to information received about the environment based on the past experiences.
The two types of processing and Top-down processing and Bottom-up processing.
(i) Top-down processing – If we pay attention to each of our senses all the time, our senses would be overwhelmed. Therefore, many times, our brain uses the context in which it appears or existing knowledge about it while perceiving a particular stimulus. This process is called as top-down processing. When we utilize top-down processing, our ability to understand information is influenced by cognition and context.
Our brain applies what it knows or expects to perceive to understand the stimulus. Top-down processing happens when we work from the general to the specific. It helps us to quickly make sense of the environment. However, perceptual set (our fixed way of viewing stimuli based on past experience/expectations) can hinder our ability to be creative/open-minded.
(ii) Bottom-up processing – Many times our perceptual experience is based entirely on the sensory stimuli and is not influenced by the context in which it appears. In such situations, we take in energy from the environment and convert it to neural signals (sensation) and then try to interpret it (perception). This process is called as bottom-up processing. Bottom-up processing is a process that starts with an incoming stimulus and works upwards until a representation of the object is formed in our brain. Our perceptual experience is based entirely on the sensory stimuli that we piece together. It is only data based i.e., takes place as it happens and requires no previous knowledge or learning.
For e.g.,
13 may be viewed as letter B or the number 13.
This is bottom-up processing-
- 11, 12, 13, 14 – It is perceived as 13 in the number sequence.
- ‘I enjoyed the film A13CD’. It is perceived as letter B.
Question 2.
Explain the processes of learning.
Points:
(i) learning by classical conditioning
(ii) learning by operant conditioning
(iii) learning by observation
(iv) learning by assimilation and accommodation
Answer:
Learning is defined as a relatively permanent change in behaviour that occurs due to past experience or practice.
The characteristics of learning are:
- It involves some relatively permanent change in behaviour,
- The change in behaviour is due to experience or practice,
- Change in behaviour may be in knowledge, e.g. learning a new formula, or in skill, e.g. learning to ride a cycle, or in muscular movements.
- Learning is an inferred process.
The processes of learning are:
(i) Learning by classical conditioning – Classical conditioning was first explained by Ivan Pavlov. It is learning by forming associations and by stimulus substitution. In daily life, we learn many things this way. Example: a child is given an injection by the doctor and begins to cry in pain. He soon makes the connection between ‘doctor’, ‘injection’ and ‘pain’ and begins crying as soon as he is taken to a doctor. Many of our fears, phobias and superstitions are learnt by classical conditioning.
(ii) Learning by operant conditioning – Learning by operant conditioning was first explained by B. F. Skinner. He said that learning takes place to gain positive consequences or to avoid negative consequences. Example: in Skinner’s experiment a rat was put in a special box that had a lever. When the rat pressed the lever, it received a food pellet. Gradually it learnt to press the lever to receive the pellet of food. In daily life, we tend to learn some behaviour either because we are rewarded for it or because we are not punished for it.
(iii) Learning by observation – According to Albert Bandura, we learn by observation and imitation of the of behaviour of others, etc. Both desirable behaviour and for e.g., empathy, and undesirable behaviour for e.g., bullying, can be learned this way. This occurs, in respect to skills, for e.g., eating with a fork/spoon as well as in our thinking, decision making, etc.
(iv) Learning by assimilation and accommodation – Jean Piaget explains that we learn by forming and refining our concepts on the basis of similarities and differences between new and existing information. Example: A child forms a concept of cow by extracting some characteristics of the cow. When the child encounters a buffalo he/she notices the differences between cow and buffalo and forms a new concept of buffalo.