8.13: Chapter Exercises
- Page ID
- 95553
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Chapter Exercises
- If a professor is trying to learn the names of their students, which names do you think they’ll find it easiest to learn? Would names at the beginning be easiest? The middle? The end? Why? How would you test a hypothesis about this?
- If you are interviewing for a job, would you like your interview to come near the beginning? The middle? The end? Why? How would you test a hypothesis about this?
- Imagine you meet someone who claims to have a very vivid memory that they heard about Kennedy’s assassination during their lunch break. What might we do to discover whether this is accurate or not?
- Suppose that you were teaching a course in critical reasoning. What would you do to combat the problem of inert knowledge?
- Give a specific, detailed (half a typed page) example of an assignment on the concept of deductive validity that is designed to give students a working (rather than merely inert) grasp of the concept.
- Give a specific, detailed (half a typed page) example of an assignment about some topic in this chapter that is designed to give students a working (rather than merely inert) grasp of the concept.
- Think of a case where you held some belief long after the evidence suggested that you should abandon it. Write a paragraph describing this situation; include a discussion of factors that might have led to the perseverance of this belief.
- One problem in assessing reported memories of childhood traumas is that we usually can’t check a person’s childhood to see whether the reported memory is accurate. But sometimes we might be able to gather evidence that would help us evaluate such a claim in a rational way. Give some examples of ways in which we might be able to do this.
- Give some examples of the collective memory of people in the United States. Clearly some of the issues involving memory distortion in individuals are different from those in distortions in collective memory. But can you think of any similarities?
- Think of a case where you thought that you remembered some event but later learned that the event had occurred rather differently from the way that you first thought. Write a paragraph describing this situation; include a discussion of things that might have led to the mistaken memories.
- Look up the case of Ronald Cotton. Explain how this wrongful conviction happened using the concepts from this chapter.
- Explain the concept of source amnesia (i.e., misattribution of source), and give an example. Then discuss how it could be a danger in some concrete situation.