Psychology 145.

Exam information, review list of topics that might be on the exam;

sample questions.

Exam information
There will be two sections to the midterm exam.

Section I: Multiple Choice

The first section will be a section of multiple choice questions. There will be between
15 and 20 questions. This section is designed to take no more than 20-30 minutes.
Please bring a PINK PARSCORE form (larger version) for the multiple choice section

Section II: Short (semi-structured) essay questions

The second section will comprise short semi structure essay answer questions. You will
be required to answer 3 questions from those provided. The questions do not require
extremely detailed answers -- you should be able to get all the points for a question in
no more than7-12 minutes... a sentence or two for each point. Please use a separate
page of the blue book for each question, and please do not exceed one side of one
page on your blue book for each answer -- if you are writing more than that much you
are providing too much information.
Each question will be divided into parts and the number of points available for each part
The number of points available for each part will be shown, so you will have a sense of
how to divide your time in each question.
Please answer 3 questions from the available questions (there will be between 6-8
total). This should take you between 20-35 minutes.
You have the entire 75 minutes of class time to finish the test (which should give you
enough thinking/planning time).
Please bring a BLUE BOOK in which to write your short essay answers.
Topics on which questions might appear

01 Definitions of supernatural concepts

Laws of sympathetic magic (contagion, similarity)?

Supernatural concepts as concepts for which there is no natural science evidence

Three kinds of explanation for human supernatural concepts:

~ process reasons (cognitive biases, failure to understand randomness etc, e.g. the 'hot
hand')
~content reasons (reasons derived from the organization of core knowledge in humans
(e.g. extensions of inferences from one domain to another)
~context reasons (reasons derived from how certain concepts spread through cultures,
are supported by cultural institutions (e.g. belief in gods religions) or not (e.g. belief in
ghosts)

04 Cognitive processes/biases

The human mind as a device for detecting causal relationships. Idea that decisions
often (always) need to be reached under uncertainty, therefore shortcuts/biases often
employed.

Biases in detecting relationships from random sequences: streak shooting, how we are
poor at judging random sequences (head/tail sequence generation), estimating
probabilities (to evaluate coincidences; birthday example).

Negativity bias: we overestimate probabilities/frequencies of negative events.

Hindsight bias (once you know something it's hard to imagine not ever having known it,
or that other people would not know it)... example in class with the fish embedded in a
noisy image.

Confirmation bias ... we tend to seek evidence confirming out hypotheses/beliefs rather
than evidence that would falsify them, and this leads to biased consideration of the
available data.

Motivated belief... we tend to be more likely to believe things we want to be true (e.g. we
are all better than average drivers) and assume that other people believe things that are
consistent with what we believe (Example of different interpretations of Stephen
Colbert's true beliefs in conservative vs liberal viewers).
03 Foundations in core knowledge:

Objects: 4 laws of object motion; cohesion, continuity, solidity, contact. methods

demonstrating existence of each in infancy. Which does not apply to animate agents?

Agents: properties that distinguish animate agents from objects;

Types of motion (indicative of internal source of energy/force); changes in velocity,

direction, orientation

Other properties of the motion: reactive to environment, 'rational' given environment

(small ball approaching larger ball studies), goal directed (hand reaching for object
studies), contingent; morphological (e.g. body parts; rotating blob experiments) cues to
agency (faces, eyes, effectors).

Living things: Notion of design based reasoning extended beyond

04 Hyperactive agency detection

Agency detection as familiarity based versus cue based; 'positive' and 'negative' cues;
the uncanny valley. Evidence for brain responses to uncanny valley ... change in brain
response when still images of human, android and robot begin to move.

Error management explanation for hyperactivity of agency detection; kinds of errors that
can be made and relative costs of them;

Relationship between hyperactive detection of animate agents and seeing certain kinds
of patterns in ambiguous stimuli... evidence from brain imaging (EEG) of similar initial
response to doll and real faces (first 150 msec), but sustained activity only for humans
later on (>400msec).

Relationship between hyperactive agency detection and anthropomorphism ... seeing

minds behind faces; relationship between hyperactive detection of agents and seeing
events in the world as signs from invisible agents(from required reading: Scientific
American link).

Factors that affect anthropomorphism (having/lacking control); individual variation in

anthropomorphism and it's correlates (moral concerns for animals, environment,
attribution of certain emotions to non human entities).

05 Dualism:

Descartes argument for the separation of the mind from the body. Root of the phrase
Cogito Ergo Sum; how did Descartes get from there to Dualism?
Everyday consideration of dualistic intuitions. We occupy our bodies (we are not
identical to them; Homer's soul, Bloom reading).

Dualism in the real world: Priming of dualism and health related attitudes and behaviors.

Importance of dualism to many supernatural beliefs ... ghosts, disembodied spirits, the
afterlife. religious beliefs often name use of dualism to support beliefs in divine spirits,
continued existence after destruction of the body.

Idea that dualism might be a primitive default assumption in human cognition stemming
from the separation of object knowledge and agent knowledge; evidence from infants
withholding the law of continuity when reasoning about people .

Dualism in preschoolers: evidence from attribution of properties to a copied hamster in

the duplicating box experiment. How is the copying of animates and machines
(cameras) different?

Dualism as applied to afterlife situations: Preschoolers judgments of the cessation or

continuation of mental versus physical properties at the end of life.

Sample short answer essay questions

Sample 1. Name the two laws of sympathetic magic (2pt). Briefly describe what
each law says (2pts). Describe two supernatural beliefs/practices that stem from
each law (2 points each = 4pts). [8 points max]
Answer to sample 1.
The law of similarity (1), that superficially similar things affect one another (1), the law of
contagion (1), that things that have been in proximity continue to act on one another (1).
Supernatural belief/practice stemming from similarity: Any of ... voodoo dolls/witchcraft,
homeopathic medicine, reluctance to burn an effigy, etc (1 each, max 2 points);
Supernatural belief/practice stemming from contagion: reluctance to wear Osama Bin
Laden's sweater, selling of celebrity items on ebay, reluctance to eat soup from cleaned
flyswatter, etc (1 each, max 2 points).

Sample 2. Briefly describe the four principles governing object

motions/interactions (2 points). For two of these four, briefly describe (using
simple diagrams if you wish) the pattern of infant looking that shows they
understand the principle (2 points each = 4pts). Which law is withheld from
animate agents by adults only (1 point). Which law is also withheld from animate
agents by 6 month old infants (1 point). [8 points total]
Answer to sample 2.
Cohesion; objects move as bounded wholes
Continuity; objects move on one continuous path
Solidity; objects don't pass through one another
Contact; objects only move when contacted by other objects
(1/2 point each, round down).

Any two of (small diagrams are allowed and will help here, max 4 points) :
~ Infants look longer if a hand lifts an object and it comes apart than if it moves as a
whole (2 points)
~ Infants seeing a display where an object goes behind one screen, and another
appears from behind a second, where no object appears in the gap between screens
expect two objects when the screens fall -- they expect 2 objects and look longer if
only one object is present (2 points).
~Infants look longer if an object rolls behind a screen and appears on the far side of an
obstacle (and therefore must have rolled through it) than if it appears on the near side
of an obstacle (consistent with solidity) (2 points).
~Infants seeing an object roll behind a screen and a second object on the other side of
the screen start moving shortly afterwards assume that the first object contacted the
second object; they look longer at a display with the screen down where the object
moves with no contact than they do where the objects collide (2 points)

Adults and infants withhold the principle of contact from animate agents (1 point)
infants also withhold the law of continuity from animate agents (1 point)