Unit quiz: Mechanisms and interventions put to the test

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Question 1

A laboratory reports that administering a drug after a reminder cue reduced a conditioned fear response at 24 hours, and concludes that the memory was erased. A colleague argues that the same reduction would appear if the memory were intact but harder to retrieve. Which single addition to the design would most directly address the colleague's alternative?A later test using a different reminder cue or a different response measure, to determine whether the memory can still be expressed when it is accessed by another route.A larger sample, because the disagreement is essentially about whether the observed reduction is statistically reliable enough to support the erasure claim.

Question 2

A study finds that participants who report frequent media multitasking score lower on a measure of distractor filtering, with r = 0.15 in a sample of 60 undergraduates. A commentary calls this a strong demonstration that heavy media use damages attentional control. Which two criticisms from this unit apply most directly?The measure of distractor filtering is invalid because laboratory tasks cannot index real-world attention, and the participants were undergraduates rather than a representative sample.The estimated association is small and estimated imprecisely - r = 0.15 explains about 2 per cent of the variance and a sample of 60 is far too small to estimate an effect this size - and the design cannot establish direction, since the questionnaire measures a self-reported habit and the outcome is measured concurrently.

Question 3

A coach recommends that a player build a new warm-up routine by an if-then plan, and predicts that the routine will become insensitive to whether it actually helps performance. A colleague objects that the routine is clearly changing because the player drops it whenever the team switches to a different schedule. Who is right, and why?The colleague has the better argument: dropping the routine when the schedule changes shows the behaviour still tracks its outcomes and context rather than being cue-triggered in an outcome-insensitive way, so the evidence points to goal-directed control with a well-learned habit of doing it.The coach is right, because any behaviour performed consistently in the same context becomes habitual, and evidence of dropping it is simply a sign that the habit had not formed yet.

Question 4

Two trials test the same memory-training programme in healthy older adults. Trial A gives the programme versus a waiting list, finds a significant improvement on the trained task, and reports that participants reported higher confidence that memory can be improved. Trial B gives the programme versus a similar-form activity matched for time, measures expectations in both arms, and finds no difference on the trained task. What is the most defensible comparison of the two?Trial A is more informative because it found a significant result, whereas Trial B may simply have been underpowered to detect the same improvement.Trial B is the more informative test because it matches contact and expectancy and checks whether that matching succeeded, while Trial A leaves both uncontrolled and reports a confidence difference that is consistent with the expectancy explanation.

Question 5

An advertisement says that the product is supported by a study showing improvements on the tasks it trains, by a ten-year randomised trial in older adults showing lasting effects on measures of daily function, and by the absence of any regulatory action against the company. You must produce a calibrated verdict. Which statement is best?The trained-task improvement is credible and expected as near transfer; the ten-year trial is genuine but its functional measures are tests drawing on several abilities and its claim does not reach disease prevention or everyday performance; and the absence of regulatory action is not evidence of efficacy.The three elements converge, so the advertisement's claim is supported: a randomised trial provides the causal evidence, and the study on trained tasks shows the mechanism by which the benefit arises.

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