The process whereby cognitive psychologists draw conclusions about mental processes from observed behaviour is called what?

• A. Inference
• B. Cognitive neuroscience
• C. Genotype
• D. Evolution

Answer: (A)

This item tests the idea that researchers infer what’s going on in the mind from observable behavior. In cognitive psychology, thoughts and mental processes aren’t directly observable, so psychologists study how people perform tasks, respond, and make errors to draw conclusions about underlying cognitive operations like attention, memory, and problem-solving. This process—using clues from behavior to infer mental processes—is called inference.

The other terms point to different areas: cognitive neuroscience looks at brain mechanisms behind cognition, genotype refers to genetic makeup, and evolution describes how traits change over generations. So inference from behavior is the best fit for describing how mental processes are inferred from what we can observe.