Chapter 3 Quiz: How the Human Mind Processes Information
Instructions: Answer each question to the best of your ability before revealing the answer. This quiz covers all sections of Chapter 3, including dual-process theory, perception and pattern recognition, memory and its malleability, the illusory truth effect, motivated reasoning, fluency effects, and emotional processing.
Section 1: Multiple Choice
Question 1
Which of the following BEST describes System 1 processing according to dual-process theory?
A) Slow, effortful, and logical B) Automatic, fast, and generally below conscious awareness C) Exclusively responsible for emotional responses D) Engaged only when cognitive load is high
Reveal Answer
**Correct Answer: B** System 1 is characterized by automaticity, speed, and minimal conscious effort. It runs continuously and generates intuitions, feelings, and pattern matches without deliberate control. Option A describes System 2. Option C is incorrect because while System 1 does process emotions, it handles many non-emotional tasks (like word recognition). Option D is incorrect—System 1 operates under all cognitive load conditions; if anything, high cognitive load *reduces* System 2 engagement, leaving System 1 more dominant.Question 2
Kahneman and Tversky's "Linda problem" demonstrates which cognitive phenomenon?
A) The illusory truth effect B) The conjunction fallacy C) Source monitoring error D) The availability heuristic
Reveal Answer
**Correct Answer: B** The Linda problem demonstrates the **conjunction fallacy**: the logically impossible judgment that a conjunction of two events (Linda is a bank teller AND a feminist activist) is more probable than one of the events alone (Linda is a bank teller). Participants are led to this error because the description of Linda fits the representativeness stereotype of a feminist activist better than that of a bank teller.Question 3
According to the chapter, which statement about System 2 is most accurate?
A) System 2 automatically scrutinizes all System 1 outputs B) System 2 is always active and cannot be switched off C) System 2 requires deliberate effort and is disrupted by cognitive load, fatigue, and time pressure D) System 2 is responsible for emotional processing
Reveal Answer
**Correct Answer: C** System 2 is effortful, slow, and resource-constrained. It requires deliberate engagement and is disrupted by conditions that deplete cognitive resources (fatigue, time pressure, high cognitive load). It does NOT automatically check System 1's outputs (A is false). System 1 is always on (B describes System 1). System 2 is associated with cold cognition, not emotional processing (D is false).Question 4
The concept of patternicity, as coined by Michael Shermer, refers to:
A) The tendency of experts to recognize valid patterns that novices miss B) The adaptive tendency to find meaningful patterns in both meaningful and meaningless stimuli C) The brain's ability to detect intentional design in natural objects D) A clinical symptom associated with schizophrenia spectrum disorders
Reveal Answer
**Correct Answer: B** Patternicity is Shermer's term for the evolved tendency to perceive patterns in stimuli regardless of whether those patterns reflect real structure in the environment. It is adaptive because in ancestral environments, false positives (seeing a pattern where none exists) were generally less costly than false negatives (missing a real pattern like a predator). Option D describes Conrad's original clinical concept of apophenia, which is related but distinct.Question 5
In Loftus and Palmer's (1974) classic experiment, participants who were asked "How fast were the cars going when they smashed?" compared to those asked about hitting:
A) Remembered the accident as involving a different number of vehicles B) Were more likely to later report having seen broken glass that was not in the film C) Gave lower speed estimates and were more accurate overall D) Showed greater confidence but equal accuracy in their memory reports
Reveal Answer
**Correct Answer: B** Participants asked the "smashed" version of the question not only gave higher speed estimates but were significantly more likely to report having seen broken glass during a follow-up session one week later—even though no broken glass appeared in the film. This demonstrates that post-event linguistic information (the leading question) altered the memory representation itself, not merely the reported answer.Question 6
Source monitoring errors occur when:
A) People cannot remember whether something happened or not B) Memories of content are attributed to incorrect sources, or source information is lost entirely C) Post-event information replaces rather than supplements original memories D) People fail to encode information at all due to inattention
Reveal Answer
**Correct Answer: B** Source monitoring errors involve failures to correctly attribute remembered information to its original source. The content of a memory (the "what") and its source (the "where/from whom") are encoded somewhat independently, and source information is often forgotten before content information. This leads to errors such as remembering a rumor as a verified fact, or a dream as a real experience.Question 7
The illusory truth effect is best explained by which mechanism?
A) Social conformity pressure from observing others believe a claim B) Processing fluency generated by familiarity from repetition, misattributed to truth C) Motivated reasoning that leads people to accept claims consistent with their identity D) Retroactive interference that prevents retrieval of contradicting information
Reveal Answer
**Correct Answer: B** The illusory truth effect arises primarily from **processing fluency**: repeated exposure makes a claim easier to process, producing a feeling of familiarity. Because familiar information is often true (we usually learn things from reliable sources), familiarity is used as a proxy for truth. The misattribution of processing ease to truth value is the core mechanism. Social conformity (A) and motivated reasoning (C) are real phenomena but distinct from the illusory truth effect.Question 8
Skurnik et al. (2005) found a counterintuitive result when correcting myths with older adults. After a delay, older adults who had seen a myth paired with an explicit correction showed:
A) Complete elimination of belief in the myth B) Greater accuracy than a control group who had never seen the myth C) Increased belief in the myth relative to controls who had never seen it D) No measurable change in belief relative to their pre-exposure baseline
Reveal Answer
**Correct Answer: C** Skurnik et al. found that correcting myths by explicitly stating "IT IS NOT TRUE THAT..." could paradoxically increase belief in the myth over time, particularly for older adults. The most likely explanation is that the correction was forgotten (source monitoring error: the "NOT TRUE" tag was lost) while the content of the myth remained accessible and familiar, thus gaining the benefit of the illusory truth effect. This is called the "backfire" or "sleeper" pattern for corrections.Question 9
Ziva Kunda (1990) defined motivated reasoning as reasoning that:
A) Relies on unconscious heuristics to reach quick conclusions B) Is directed toward conclusions that serve emotional, social, or identity-related goals C) Occurs when individuals lack sufficient information to evaluate claims properly D) Produces systematically optimistic assessments of one's own abilities
Reveal Answer
**Correct Answer: B** Kunda defined motivated reasoning as reasoning in the service of reaching a desired conclusion—one that protects self-image, identity, or group membership—rather than reasoning directed at finding the best-evidenced conclusion. Critically, motivated reasoning is an *active* process that can mobilize cognitive effort; it is not the same as simple heuristic processing (A) or information deficiency (C).Question 10
Westen et al.'s (2006) neuroimaging study of political reasoning found that partisan participants evaluating contradictory statements from their preferred candidate showed:
A) Increased activation in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (cold reasoning areas) B) Decreased amygdala activity, suggesting emotional disengagement C) Decreased cold-reasoning activity and increased activation in emotional processing and reward-related regions D) No significant neural differences from neutral reasoning conditions
Reveal Answer
**Correct Answer: C** Westen et al. found that resolving cognitive dissonance (a candidate's contradictory statements) through motivated reasoning involved decreased activation in regions associated with cold, analytical cognition (dorsolateral PFC) and increased activity in regions associated with emotional processing (orbital frontal cortex) and reward (striatal regions). The neural "reward" of reaching an identity-consistent conclusion helps explain why motivated reasoning is self-reinforcing.Section 2: True or False
Question 11
True or False: According to Dan Kahan's research, higher scientific literacy reliably protects against identity-protective cognition on politically contested topics.
Reveal Answer
**FALSE** This is one of the most important and counterintuitive findings in the motivated reasoning literature. Kahan found that on identity-laden topics (like climate change and gun control), higher scientific literacy and numeracy were associated with *stronger* alignment between cultural identity and factual beliefs—not weaker. More analytically sophisticated individuals appear to be better at finding arguments that support their group's position and identifying flaws in opposing arguments. This is sometimes called the "smart idiot" effect.Question 12
True or False: The misinformation effect can produce entirely false memories of events that never occurred.
Reveal Answer
**TRUE** Research by Loftus and Pickrell (1995), among many others, has demonstrated that entirely false memories of events that never occurred can be created through suggestion. Approximately 25% of participants in the "lost in the mall" study developed false memories of being lost as a child after receiving a false narrative embedded among true family memories. Subsequent research has implanted false memories for a range of events, including some that are emotionally significant or even distressing.Question 13
True or False: Processing fluency is exclusively produced by repetition.
Reveal Answer
**FALSE** Processing fluency is influenced by many factors beyond repetition, including: the simplicity and clarity of language, rhyme and rhythmic structure (the rhyme-as-reason effect), font legibility, high image quality, familiar vocabulary, high-contrast visual presentation, and the pronounceability of names. While repetition is an important source of fluency, it is one of many variables that affect the ease of cognitive processing.Question 14
True or False: Antonio Damasio's somatic marker hypothesis argues that emotion is an obstacle to rational decision-making and should be minimized.
Reveal Answer
**FALSE** Damasio's somatic marker hypothesis argues the opposite: that emotional signals (somatic markers) are *essential inputs* to decision-making, not obstacles to it. Patients with ventromedial prefrontal cortex damage—who lost the ability to integrate emotional signals into decisions—showed markedly impaired real-world decision-making despite intact performance on standard cognitive tests. The hypothesis claims that without emotional guidance, deliberate reasoning becomes unmoored and ineffective.Question 15
True or False: The affect heuristic suggests that positive feelings toward an activity lead people to perceive its benefits as high and its risks as low.
Reveal Answer
**TRUE** Slovic and colleagues documented the affect heuristic: when people have positive feelings toward an activity or technology, they judge its risks as relatively low and its benefits as relatively high; when they have negative feelings, the reverse. This means that emotional responses to a topic can directly determine factual judgments about risk, probability, and consequence, making emotional manipulation an effective vector for distorting risk perception.Question 16
True or False: Brady et al. (2017) found that moral-emotional language in social media posts increased sharing by approximately 20% per additional moral-emotional word.
Reveal Answer
**TRUE** Brady and colleagues analyzed Twitter data and found that moral-emotional language—words evoking moral outrage or other morally valenced emotional responses—significantly increased the retweet rate of messages. The approximate effect was a 20% increase in retweet probability for each additional moral-emotional word. This provides empirical evidence for the structural advantage of emotionally charged, morally framed content in social media diffusion, regardless of its truth value.Question 17
True or False: Gerd Gigerenzen agrees with Kahneman and Tversky that heuristics are fundamentally irrational shortcuts.
Reveal Answer
**FALSE** Gigerenzen's position on heuristics is fundamentally different from Kahneman and Tversky's. While Kahneman and Tversky characterized heuristics as producing systematic errors and biases relative to a rational standard, Gigerenzen argues that heuristics are "ecologically rational"—meaning they are well-adapted to the environments in which they evolved and often outperform complex analytical strategies in conditions of uncertainty and incomplete information. The debate concerns whether the appropriate benchmark for rationality is a formal logical standard or the actual performance characteristics of cognitive strategies in real environments.Question 18
True or False: Pareidolia—the perception of faces in ambiguous stimuli—represents a malfunction of an otherwise reliable visual processing system.
Reveal Answer
**FALSE** Pareidolia is better understood as the inevitable consequence of a face-detection system calibrated for high sensitivity rather than high specificity. The face-detection system evolved in a context where the cost of missing a face (potentially a social threat or ally) was higher than the cost of falsely perceiving a face. The high sensitivity that makes the system so effective at detecting actual faces in complex, cluttered visual environments also produces false detections in ambiguous stimuli. Pareidolia is not a malfunction but a byproduct of adaptive calibration.Section 3: Short Answer
Question 19
Explain the sleeper effect and its implications for fact-checking. Why might corrections that explicitly label a claim as false sometimes increase belief in that claim over time?
Reveal Answer
**Model Answer:** The sleeper effect in persuasion research refers to the phenomenon whereby a persuasive message paired with a discounting cue (such as "this came from an unreliable source" or "this claim is FALSE") initially produces reduced acceptance, but over time, the discounting cue is forgotten before the persuasive content, leading to increased acceptance at a delay. Applied to fact-checking: when a correction explicitly states "FALSE: [claim]," both the falseness tag and the claim content are encoded. Over time, the falseness tag (source monitoring information) is often forgotten before the content of the claim, which remains accessible and familiar. The claim then benefits from the illusory truth effect—it processes easily due to familiarity—and may be accepted as true at a later date. Implications for fact-checkers: simply repeating the false claim in corrections should be minimized. Best practice involves leading with the accurate information (the "truth sandwich" approach), using simple and memorable language for the correct information, and limiting the number of repetitions of the false claim. Pre-bunking (inoculation before exposure) may be more effective than post-hoc corrections precisely because it avoids this problem.Question 20
What is identity-protective cognition and how does it differ from ordinary confirmation bias?
Reveal Answer
**Model Answer:** Identity-protective cognition, a concept developed by Dan Kahan, refers to the tendency to evaluate information in ways that protect one's membership in culturally important identity groups and preserve one's status as a member of those groups. It is motivated not by a narrow desire for accurate information but by the social costs of breaking with one's group's beliefs. Ordinary confirmation bias—the tendency to preferentially seek and accept information consistent with existing beliefs—is a general cognitive tendency that operates without strong motivational content and applies equally across all topics. It does not require that a particular topic be identity-laden. Identity-protective cognition is more specific and powerful: it applies particularly to topics that serve as identity markers within cultural groups, it is driven by the social cost of group exclusion that would follow from accepting contradicting information, and it can *increase* with analytical sophistication (since more sophisticated individuals are better at generating rationalizations for their group's position). Ordinary confirmation bias does not show this paradoxical amplification by analytical ability.Question 21
Describe the constructive nature of memory. How does this differ from the folk psychological "recording" model, and what are the consequences for memory accuracy?
Reveal Answer
**Model Answer:** The folk psychological recording model treats memory as analogous to a recording device: experiences are encoded as stable traces, stored intact, and retrieved upon request like playing back a recording. In this model, memory errors arise from failures at one of these stages—encoding failure, storage degradation over time, or retrieval failure—but the trace itself, when successfully encoded and retrieved, is assumed to be accurate. The constructive model, supported by decades of empirical evidence, treats memory very differently. Memory is not a stable trace but a reconstruction: each act of remembering involves reassembling fragmentary stored information with inference, expectation, and context. Memory traces are not stable—they are updated and modified upon each retrieval, incorporating new information available at the time of remembering. Post-event information (questions, conversations, media coverage) can alter the memory itself, not merely the report. Consequences for accuracy: memories can be systematically distorted by post-event information (the misinformation effect); entirely false memories can be created; source monitoring errors cause misattribution of content to incorrect sources; and confidence in a memory does not reliably indicate its accuracy. These properties are not signs of pathology—they reflect the architecture of a memory system that evolved for flexible updating rather than archival accuracy.Question 22
Why does the rhyme-as-reason effect occur, and what does it reveal about the relationship between processing fluency and perceived truth?
Reveal Answer
**Model Answer:** The rhyme-as-reason effect (McGlone & Tofighbakhsh, 2000) is the finding that rhyming statements are rated as more accurate than semantically equivalent non-rhyming versions (e.g., "What sobriety conceals, alcohol reveals" vs. "What sobriety conceals, alcohol unmasks"). The semantic content is identical, so any difference in truth ratings must reflect a non-semantic factor—and that factor is processing fluency. Rhyming statements are cognitively easier to process: the rhythmic structure constrains the phonological pattern, making the end of the statement predictable once the beginning is heard. This ease of processing generates a feeling of familiarity and cognitive comfort. Because the brain uses fluency as a proxy for truth (familiar and easy-to-process things are usually things we have learned from reliable sources), the fluency produced by rhyme is misattributed to greater accuracy. This reveals a general principle: the relationship between processing fluency and perceived truth is a heuristic that works because fluency correlates with truth in many normal conditions, but the correlation is not perfect. Any feature that increases fluency independently of truth—rhyme, clear fonts, simple language, repetition—can increase perceived truth without changing actual truth value. This is the exploitation mechanism underlying many features of effective misinformation.Section 4: Extended Analysis
Question 23
A public health agency is preparing a campaign to counter vaccine hesitancy. Based on the cognitive mechanisms described in Chapter 3, evaluate the following campaign strategy:
"The campaign will run television and social media ads that clearly state the false claim ('Vaccines cause autism') before immediately correcting it with scientific evidence. The claim will be featured prominently to ensure audiences know what misinformation is being addressed. The campaign will run for three months, with each false-claim-then-correction sequence appearing approximately three times per week."
Identify at least three cognitive risks associated with this strategy and propose specific modifications based on the evidence reviewed in the chapter.
Reveal Answer
**Model Answer:** **Cognitive Risk 1: The Illusory Truth Effect** Running the false claim ("Vaccines cause autism") three times per week for three months means exposing audiences to the false claim approximately 36 times. Each exposure increases the fluency of the false claim, generating a stronger feeling of familiarity and truth—independent of the correction that follows it. After three months, the false claim will process very easily, and the familiar-feeling claim may feel more true, not less. *Modification*: Minimize repetitions of the false claim. If the false claim must be named at all, name it once, clearly, and never without immediate and memorable refutation. Consider leading with the accurate information (truth sandwich) rather than the claim. **Cognitive Risk 2: Source Monitoring Error / Sleeper Effect** When the correction is forgotten while the claim content is retained (a predictable source monitoring error), audiences who initially showed reduced belief may show increased belief over time. Explicitly stating the false claim, even in a correction context, creates a memory trace for the false content. Once the "this is FALSE" tag decays, the content remains and gains from illusory truth. *Modification*: Frame the campaign around positive truths about vaccines and vaccination (their safety record, mechanism, historical successes) rather than around corrections of specific false claims. This avoids creating or reinforcing false memory traces. **Cognitive Risk 3: Emotional Framing of the Vaccine-Autism Link** Even framing this as a fear to be dispelled ("vaccines do NOT cause autism") invokes the autism association in emotional processing. For parents of young children—for whom autism is an emotionally charged topic—this activation may increase rather than decrease anxiety. *Modification*: Reframe the emotional content of the campaign. Lead with messages that engage positive emotional associations (protection, community, the health of children) rather than messages that implicate autism, even in negation. **Cognitive Risk 4: Identity-Protective Cognition** For parents who have already adopted vaccine skepticism as part of their identity or community membership, a correction campaign that implicitly challenges their judgment may trigger identity-protective cognition. Analytical engagement with the correction may be deployed in service of rejecting it rather than accepting it. *Modification*: Acknowledge parental concern and affirm the shared value of protecting children's health before presenting factual information. This reduces the perceived identity threat and creates psychological conditions more conducive to information updating.Question 24
Compare and contrast the misinformation effect (Loftus) and the illusory truth effect (Hasher et al.). How are they similar? How do they differ in mechanism, conditions, and implications for information processing?
Reveal Answer
**Model Answer:** **Similarities:** Both effects demonstrate that post-encoding information can alter subjective beliefs and representations. Both show that the subjective experience of familiarity or recognition does not reliably indicate accuracy. Both have been demonstrated in laboratory and applied settings and show robust effects across diverse populations. Both have significant implications for how corrections and retractions should be designed. **Differences:** *Mechanism*: The misinformation effect operates through memory reconsolidation and source monitoring errors—post-event information is integrated into the memory trace of the original event during subsequent encoding or retrieval, altering the representation of what was originally experienced. The illusory truth effect operates through processing fluency—repeated exposure makes information easier to process, and the ease of processing is misattributed to truth. *Conditions*: The misinformation effect requires that the individual originally experienced a specific event (or encountered specific content), and that post-event information about that specific event is subsequently encountered. It is about the alteration of specific episodic memories. The illusory truth effect requires only repeated exposure to a proposition and operates on semantic memory (general beliefs about what is true) rather than episodic memory. It does not require any original experience to alter. *Type of belief affected*: The misinformation effect primarily affects memories of specific past events ("what happened"). The illusory truth effect primarily affects general beliefs about the world ("what is true"). *Implications for correction*: The misinformation effect suggests that corrections should be delivered before source monitoring errors can occur—immediately after the event or exposure, with clear source tagging. The illusory truth effect suggests that corrections should avoid repeating false claims (to avoid further fluency building) and should present accurate information in simple, memorable forms.Question 25
Evaluate the claim: "Because human cognitive biases are products of evolution, they cannot be overcome through education or deliberate effort." Is this claim supported by the cognitive science reviewed in Chapter 3? What is it getting right, and where does it go wrong?