IGCSE Psychology: Cognition and Behaviour — Practice Questions

These are original questions written for Marlbridge, for revision and practice on this content. They are not reproduced past-paper questions, and they do not replicate the exam’s exact structure, question count or mark tariffs — examination boards hold copyright in their own papers. Use these alongside the official past papers available free from your board.

Related: Cognition and Behaviour revision notes

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Section A

1. Define perception and state the difference between sensation and perception. [3]

2. Name two visual illusions and explain what each demonstrates. [4]

Section B

3. Explain the difference between the following, giving an example of each: bottom-up and top-down processing. [4]

4. Explain three factors that affect perception, giving evidence or an example for each. [6]

4a. Describe the working memory model, naming its four components. [4]

4b. Outline how Baddeley and Hitch’s dual-processing (dual-task) studies provided evidence for the working memory model. [4]

5. A psychologist tests recall of a word list under two conditions: with background music and in silence.

(a) Write a suitable null hypothesis and a suitable alternative hypothesis. [2] (b) Identify the independent and dependent variables. [2] (c) Explain two variables that must be controlled and why. [4] (d) Explain why a repeated measures design might be a problem here, and how it could be addressed. [4]

6. Explain the difference between reconstructive memory and accurate recall, referring to the concept of ‘effort after meaning’, and explain one implication for eyewitness testimony. [6]

6a. Name three factors that affect the accuracy of memory. [3]

Section C

7. Describe the multi-store model of memory, stating the capacity and duration of each store. [8]

8. Explain the difference between proactive and retroactive interference as explanations for forgetting. [4]

9. Distinguish between Gibson’s and Gregory’s theories of perception, and explain how visual illusions support Gregory’s theory. [6]

10. Distinguish between monocular and binocular depth cues, giving one example of each. [4]

11. Describe the fight or flight response, referring to the autonomic nervous system and the endocrine system. [4]

12. Explain the process of synaptic transmission, including what is meant by excitation and inhibition. [5]

13. Identify the location and function of Broca’s area and Wernicke’s area. [4]

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Answers

1. Perception is the interpretation of sensory information to make sense of the world [1]. Sensation is the raw detection of a stimulus by the sense organs [1], whereas perception is what the brain does with that information, adding meaning based on expectation and experience [1].

2. Any two, 2 marks each: the Müller-Lyer illusion — two lines of equal length appear different because of the arrowheads, demonstrating that perception uses depth cues learned from a carpentered environment [1] [1]. The Ponzo illusion — converging lines make the upper bar appear longer, showing the influence of linear perspective as a depth cue [1] [1]. The Necker cube — a stable image that flips between two interpretations, showing perception is an active hypothesis rather than a passive reading [1] [1]. The rubin vase — figure–ground ambiguity [1] [1].

3. Bottom-up processing starts with the raw sensory data and builds up to a perception, driven entirely by the stimulus, e.g. reading an unfamiliar word letter by letter [1] [1]. Top-down processing starts with expectations, context and prior knowledge and applies them to interpret the data, e.g. reading a familiar sentence with a misprint in it and not noticing the error [1] [1].

4. Any three, 2 marks each: emotion — Kunst-Wilson and Zajonc showed participants irregular shapes too briefly to be recognised; later they preferred those shapes to new ones even though they could not tell which they had seen, evidence that an emotional response (liking) can be shaped without conscious recognition [1] [1]. Motivation — Gilchrist and Nesberg found that hungrier participants rated pictures of food as brighter than well-fed participants did [1] [1]. Culture — Nisbett and Miyamoto found cultural differences in eye movements and scene recall between participants from different cultural backgrounds; separately, people from non-carpentered environments are less susceptible to the Müller-Lyer illusion, indicating depth cues are learned [1] [1]. Context/expectation — Bruner and Minturn showed the same ambiguous symbol was read as the letter B when shown among letters, and as the number 13 when shown among numbers [1] [1].

4a. The central executive directs attention and coordinates the other components, and has a limited capacity [1]. The phonological loop holds spoken and written material briefly, coded acoustically [1]. The visuo-spatial sketchpad holds visual and spatial information [1]. The episodic buffer integrates information from the other components and links it to long-term memory [1].

4b. Baddeley and Hitch gave participants two tasks to perform at the same time (dual-processing/dual-task studies) [1]. When both tasks drew on the same component (e.g. two visual tasks), performance was disrupted far more than when the two tasks drew on different components (e.g. one visual, one verbal) [1] [1]. This shows that short-term memory is not a single unitary store, but made up of separate components that can be used at the same time as long as they do not compete for the same resource [1].

5. (a) Null hypothesis: “There will be no difference in the number of words recalled between the background music condition and the silence condition.” [1] Alternative hypothesis: “There will be a difference in the number of words recalled between the background music condition and the silence condition.” [1] (b) Independent variable: whether background music is played or not [1]. Dependent variable: the number of words correctly recalled [1]. (c) Any two, 2 marks each: the word lists must be of equal length and difficulty, since an easier list would produce higher recall regardless of the music [1] [1]. The time allowed for learning and for recall must be the same, since more time would improve recall independently of the condition [1] [1]. The volume and type of music, and the level of background noise in the silent condition, must be standardised [1] [1]. (d) In a repeated measures design the same participants do both conditions, so order effects arise — they may improve through practice at the task or become fatigued or bored [1] [1]. They may also guess the aim more easily, producing demand characteristics [1]. This is addressed by counterbalancing — half the participants do the music condition first and half do silence first — and by using different but equivalent word lists [1].

6. Reconstructive memory means that recall is not a faithful playback but an active rebuilding of an event [1], in which gaps are filled using schemas, expectations and information encountered afterwards — the concept of ‘effort after meaning’, where the memory is reshaped to make sense in terms of what is already known [1]. Accurate recall would reproduce the original event unchanged [1]. Implication for eyewitness testimony: a witness’s account can be altered by leading questions and by post-event information without the witness being aware of it [1] [1] — which is why police interviews should use open, non-leading questions and why witnesses should be interviewed separately and promptly [1].

6a. Any three: interference, context, false memories [1] [1] [1].

7. Structure: information flows between three separate stores — the sensory register, short-term memory and long-term memory [1]. Attention transfers information from the sensory register into short-term memory, and rehearsal transfers information from short-term into long-term memory [1]. The sensory store encodes information in a modality-specific form, has a very large capacity, and holds it for under 2 seconds [1] [1]. The short-term store encodes mainly acoustically, has a capacity of around 5–9 items, and holds information for 18–30 seconds [1] [1]. The long-term store encodes mainly semantically, has an unlimited capacity, and can hold information for up to a lifetime [1] [1].

8. Proactive interference occurs when older, previously learned information disrupts the recall of newer information [1] [1]. Retroactive interference occurs when newly learned information disrupts the recall of older information [1] [1].

9. Gibson’s theory is bottom-up: perception is direct, since the visual information available — motion parallax, texture gradient, optic flow — is rich enough on its own for accurate perception without needing inference from past experience [1] [1]. Gregory’s theory is top-down: perception is constructed, a hypothesis built from prior knowledge and expectation rather than read directly from the senses [1] [1]. Illusions such as the Müller-Lyer figure support Gregory’s theory because the brain misapplies depth cues learned from a carpentered environment, producing an inaccurate perception that a purely direct theory could not explain [1] [1].

10. Monocular depth cues require only one eye, e.g. linear perspective, relative size, height in the visual plane, or occlusion (accept any one) [1] [1]. Binocular depth cues require both eyes working together, e.g. retinal disparity or convergence [1] [1].

11. When a threat is perceived, the sympathetic branch of the autonomic nervous system is activated [1]. It stimulates the adrenal glands (part of the endocrine system) to release the hormone adrenaline into the bloodstream [1]. This prepares the body for action, e.g. increased heart rate and breathing rate, dilated pupils, and energy diverted to the muscles (any two effects) [1]. When the threat has passed, the parasympathetic branch returns the body to its resting state [1].

12. An electrical impulse travels along the neuron and reaches the presynaptic terminal [1]. This triggers the release of neurotransmitters from vesicles into the synaptic gap (cleft) [1]. The neurotransmitters cross the gap and bind to receptors on the postsynaptic neuron [1]. Excitation means the neurotransmitter makes the postsynaptic neuron more likely to fire an impulse; inhibition means it makes the neuron less likely to fire [1]. The neurotransmitter is then removed from the gap, mainly by reuptake into the presynaptic neuron, which ends the signal [1].

13. Broca’s area is in the frontal lobe (usually of the left hemisphere) [1] and is responsible for speech production [1]. Wernicke’s area is in the temporal lobe (usually of the left hemisphere) [1] and is responsible for understanding (comprehending) language [1].

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Where marks are usually lost

• Using “perception” and “sensation” interchangeably.
• Writing an alternative hypothesis when a null hypothesis is asked for, or vice versa.
• Naming control variables without saying why they matter.
• Describing reconstructive memory without applying it to eyewitness testimony.
• Stating the capacity and duration of each memory store without describing the model’s structure (the flow between stores, attention as the first transfer mechanism, rehearsal as the second).
• Swapping Broca’s and Wernicke’s areas (production versus comprehension), or describing fight or flight without naming the autonomic nervous system and adrenaline.