Kate has lost her teddy bear several times in the last month. She always finds it behind the couch. While being babysat by her grandmother, Kate leaves her teddy bear under the kitchen table after playing. Kate's grandmother watches as Kate realizes she has lost her stuffed animal and immediately looks behind the couch to retrieve it. Kate is engaging in:

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In this scenario, Kate consistently finds the teddy behind the couch. When the teddy goes missing, she relies on a familiar pattern rather than updating the strategy to the new situation. This points to a reliance on existing schemas to interpret events, which fits the idea of assimilation: integrating new information into an established mental framework or expectation.

Option A: a capture error. This would occur if Kate’s automatic action is triggered by a routine cue, causing her to perform the familiar behavior (looking behind the couch) even when the goal has changed (the bear might be somewhere else). While capture errors involve habitual slips, this example emphasizes Kate applying prior knowledge to a situation rather than an unintended automatic cue taking over the action.

Option B: assimilation. This is the reasoning that Kate uses her established rule—on where the teddy is typically found—to guide her behavior in the current episode. She doesn’t reevaluate the new location (under the kitchen table) but instead falls back on the familiar pattern of searching the couch, which reflects assimilation of new events into an existing cognitive scheme.

Option C: motor perseveration. This would be persisting with a motor response even when it’s no longer appropriate. The scenario centers on where she searches, not on repeating a motor action after completion. There isn’t evidence here of a stuck repetitive movement beyond her use of a familiar search location.

Option D: a categorical error. This would involve misclassifying objects or events into an incorrect category (e.g., calling a teddy a different kind of object). The situation doesn’t demonstrate mislabeling of the teddy or its location; it shows reliance on a habitual search pattern rather than miscategorization.

Overall, the key idea is that Kate’s behavior reflects applying an existing cognitive framework (where the teddy is usually found) to a new moment, which aligns with assimilation rather than the other error types described.

PSYC-312-02 Quiz Chapter 5

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