AP PSYCH PRE-EXAM DIAGNOSTIC

endocrine

The ______ system is the body's network of glands that circulate and control levels of hormones.

acetylcholine

The depletion of ______ is most closely associated with the symptoms of Alzheimer's disease.

empirical

The fact that the two cerebral hemispheres are specialized to process different types of cognitive tasks is well supported by ______ evidence.

send

Axon terminals ______ messages to other neurons.

Olfactory

The ______ receptors are located in the epithelium (or tissue) inside the nasal cavity.

postsynaptic,presynaptic

A ______neuron is the neuron in a synapse that receives a message (in the form of neurotransmitters), while a ______neuron is the neuron in a synapse that sends a message (in the form of neurotransmitters).

fertile

A basic assumption underlying the evolutionary approach to sexual attraction is that men seek potential mates who appear ______.

inductive

A dog bit Sam when he was a small child and now Sam believes all dogs bite. Which type of reasoning that Sam is using to come to this conclusion?

medulla

A life-threatening disruption of heartbeat and breathing would likely be a result of an injury to the ______.

cognitive

A mental image of a spatial layout is called a ______ map.

case study

A person displays a set of rare behaviors that psychologists had not known about previously, because nobody had ever shown them before. The best strategy to investigate the nature of those behaviors is a ______.

Wernicke's area (understanding) Broca's area (talking)

A person will most likely develop aphasia as a result of damage to which parts of the brain?

independent variable

A psychological researcher designs a study to determine whether positive feedback affects self- esteem. The researcher requires each participant to toss twenty coins into a coffee can that is three feet away. Half of the participants are told that their performance is superior, and the other half are told that their performance is well below average. Although some of the participants want to quit tossing coins after a few attempts, they are told that once they begin the study they have to complete it. After the coin toss, participants take a test measuring self- esteem. Following the test, all participants are debriefed and told that information about their performance was false. Results of the study indicate that participants who are told their performance is well below average report lower levels of self-esteem than do those who are told their performance is superior. The feedback about relative performance in coin tossing is the element of the study that constituted ______.

the right to withdraw

A psychological researcher designs a study to determine whether positive feedback affects self- esteem. The researcher requires each participant to toss twenty coins into a coffee can that is three feet away. Half of the participants are told that their performance is superior, and the other half are told that their performance is well below average. Although some of the participants want to quit tossing coins after a few attempts, they are told that once they begin the study they have to complete it. After the coin toss, participants take a test measuring self- esteem. Following the test, all participants are debriefed and told that information about their performance was false. Results of the study indicate that participants who are told their performance is well below average report lower levels of self-esteem than do those who are told their performance is superior. Which violation of ethical guidelines occurs in the study?

self-serving

A student has just failed a psychology exam. He explained his performance by saying, "I didn't study hard enough." It would seem he lacks a ______ bias.

reliable

A test that produces consistent results is considered to be ______.

mode

A test with normally distributed results was returned to a class of 100 students. Later, the teacher realized an error was made and added 10 points to each student's score. Which measure of central tendency must have changed as a result of the increase in scores?

recessive

A trait that appears in an organism only when both parents possess the gene for that trait is referred to as ______.

electro-encephalograph (EEG)

A(n) ______ is a device that uses electrodes to record information on the electrical activity of the brain.

Language shapes a culture's concepts and thought processes.

According to Benjamin Whorf's linguistic relativity hypothesis, what is the relation between language and cognition?

deep

According to Noam Chomsky, understanding a sentence involves transformations between surface and _____structures.

I, II, III, and IV

According to research on interpersonal perception, the formation of friendships and romantic relationships are associated with which of the following? I. Physical attractiveness II. Physical proximity III. Attributions of similarity IV. Mere exposure

amygdala

After an electrode implanted in a cat's brain stimulates the cat's _____, the cat will most likely withdraw in fear.

anterograde

After having a stroke resulting from a blockage of blood to the medial temporal lobe, Gerald could not remember new information, such as the books he had just read, new songs he had just heard, or the faces of new people he had just met. Gerald was experiencing a ______ amnesia.

increase, Parkison's

An ______ supply of the neurotransmitter dopamine is associated with schizophrenia. While an under supply is associate with ____ disease.

social facilitation

An athlete performing better in a game before a large audience than she does in practice would be an example of ______.

functional fixedness

An individual uses a paper clip to unlock the door to her house because she has misplaced her key. This individual's approach to solving the problem avoids ______ .

left

An individual was admitted to the hospital after experiencing a mild tingling on the right side of the face and a sudden inability to speak. Using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), a doctor would likely find an abnormality in the brain tissue of the ______ hemisphere

self-reference

An individual's recall tends to be better for information that is personally relevant primarily due to the ______ effect

Conformity

Because the most popular students in the high school tend to wear a particular brand of athletic shoe, a new student buys a pair of shoes of the same brand. Such behavior demonstrates the concept of ______.

sympathetic nervous system

Ben was enjoying a walk in the woods on a beautiful Saturday afternoon. As he went around a curve, he noticed a bear walking toward him. Immediately his pupils dilated, he began to perspire, and his heart accelerated. These changes are most closely related to the function of the ______.

foot in the door

Chuck is walking down the street and someone asks him to sign a petition to put clean-air legislation on the next ballot. He decides to sign the petition. Then the person asks whether he would like to give a donation to the associated environmental group. This technique is known as ______.

neural plasticity

Consistent with the concept of ______, neurons in mammals have been found to change the way they function as a result of repeated stimulation by growing new dendritic spines.

occipital

Damage to a small part of the ______lobe would most likely result in a visual deficit.

cerebellum

Difficulty in typing smoothly on a keyboard would most likely result from damage to the ______.

Meta-analysis

Dr. Grayson is interested in studying the relationship between weight loss and mood. To conduct the study, Dr. Grayson analyzes the results of several previous studies on weight loss and emotional state. Which research strategy is Dr. Grayson using?

availability heuristic

During a quiz, a student is asked, "Which is more common in the English language, the letter "k" as the first letter in a word or the letter "k" as the third letter in a word?" He said that "k" is more likely as the first letter of words because those are the first words that come to his mind. The student's response indicated he relied on the _______ to answer the question.

insight

Dylan has difficulty solving a physics problem in class. The next day, he suddenly thinks of a solution to the problem as he is watching a friend play the guitar. The thought process that Dylan experienced is an example of ______ learning

Agression/fear

Electrically stimulating a rat's amygdala would most likely produce _____.

primary, recency

Enhanced memory for words at the beginning of a list is known as ______, while enhanced memory for words at the end of a list is known as ______.

functional fixedness

Gabby uses a coin to tighten a screw on a faucet handle. This action shows that Gabby has overcome ______.

Mere-exposure effect

George sat next to Kiki in biology class every day. They often worked together on assignments. By the end of the semester, George became quite fond of Kiki. Which social psychological term best explains George's attraction to Kiki?

algorithm

Heidi was trying to solve the anagram TORYS by rearranging every letter one at a time until she was able to identify the correct word: STORY. She could have attempted to solve the anagram more quickly by pairing common letters, like ST, but she did not do so. Her approach to solving the anagram involved an _____.

stereotyping

Holding a predetermined belief about a group of people, regardless of the personal qualities of the individual members, is referred to as ______.

right parietal lobe

If an individual has lost the ability to feel pain in the left arm, there is most likely damage to what area of the brain?

they will be unable to learn a maze

If mice lack an enzyme essential to the process of long-term potentiation, what will be the most likely consequence?

refractory period

Immediately after firing, a neuron is incapable of responding to stimulation. This condition is referred to as the ______.

Elizabeth Loftus

In ______ ' study of memory reconstruction in which students viewed films of an automobile accidents, the major influence on recall was the wording of the questions about the accidents.

Philip Zimbardo

In ______'s Stanford prison experiment, young men were assigned roles as either guards or prisoners. The results showed that situations can exert powerful effects on morality and identity.

dependent

In an experiment to test the effects of hunger on aggressive behavior, aggressive behavior would be the ______ variable.

harm

In any psychological research it is important to protect research subjects from physical and mental ______.

diffusion of responsibility

In certain situations, the larger the number of bystanders, the less likely it is that one of them will help someone in trouble. This is due to the ______.

proactive

In elementary school, Lisa learned to speak some Japanese in addition to English. As a sophomore in high school, Lisa took a class in Chinese. She found that some of the new vocabulary was difficult to learn because her earlier Japanese vocabulary was competing with the new Chinese words. This situation best illustrates ______ interference.

epilepsy

In extreme cases, surgically severing the corpus callosum is a treatment for which condition?

right

In right-handed (the majority of) individuals visual and spatial processing is a function of the ______ brain.

priming

In the morning, Jorge watched a cartoon about a sarcastic rabbit. Later, in his psychology class, he viewed an ambiguous image and readily identified it as a rabbit instead of a duck. This is due to ______.

legitimate authority figure

Individuals are most likely to obey when demands are made by a ______.

cognitive dissonance

Joe refused to contribute money for a gift to a coworker. He felt guilt and then did the following things: Volunteered to buy a gift for another coworker for a different occasion, repeated the thought that the coworker makes a good salary and does not need a gift, focused on the thought that the coworker most likely would not contribute money for a gift for another person, and finally made a donation to a charity in the coworker's name. All of these behaviors were attempts by Joe to reduce the experience of _____.

Algorithm

Kathy is learning how to cook. She follows every direction on each recipe step by step to make sure her food tastes good. Which problem-solving approach that Kathy is using?

social facilitation

Marissa is a good racquetball player whose performance seems to improve as the crowd watching her gets larger. Her change in performance is an example of ______.

She never encoded the names in long term memory

Mary is introduced to three new people at a party. Later, however, she cannot remember the names of any of her new acquaintances, even though she remembers what she ate, her old friends who were there, and the address of the host. What may account for Mary's inability to remember these individuals' names?

endorphins

Mary participates in an exercise program because she experiences an increase in energy and feelings of well-being at the end of each exercise session. The best explanation for Mary's perseverance in the program is that exercise increases her level of ______.

procedural

Memories of well-learned skills, such as riding a bicycle, are classified as ______ memory.

social loafing

Michael, who barely works on his group science project because he knows someone else will do the work. This demonstrates the concept of ______.

fundamental attribution error

Morgan made the ______ in explaining her students' poor performance on their geography examination when she said, "The students just do not care enough about their grades."

superordinate goals

One way to reduce intergroup conflict is to establish ______.

foot in the door

People were asked to sign a petition in support of a political candidate. Later, those who signed the petition were asked to donate money to the candidate, and many of them did. This phenomenon is best characterized as ______ phenomenon.

cognitive dissonance

People who find themselves engaging in behavior that is against their principles will most likely experience ______

Method of note-taking

Professor Gonzalez is interested in evaluating the ability of a new method of note-taking to improve student grades. Group A is trained in the new method and group B uses the traditional outline method of taking notes. What is Professor Gonzalez' independent variable?

poor

Research has shown that a major reason for poor performance while multitasking is that while multitasking, people switch their attention rapidly from task to task, so they miss critical information associated with a task that is not receiving their attention.

sampling

Research shows that women who are referred by a physician to participate in a study of eating disorders have more severe problems than women who volunteer on their own to participate in the study. If research on eating disorders regularly involves only women referred by physicians, the results of the studies might be limited because of the presence of ______ bias.

As income increases, the likelihood of dental problems decreases

Researchers have found a negative correlation between income and dental problems. What conclusion can correctly be drawn from this statement?

internal or dispositional

Saying that a student does not care about a class as an explanation most for why that student fell asleep demonstrates a(n) ______ attribution.

increase

Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) ______ the amount of serotonin available at the synapses.

reticular formation

Significant damage to ______ will most likely cause a person to fall into a deep coma from which the person will be unable to awaken?

ethical

Stanley Milgram's studies on obedience in the field of social psychology met with the great criticism because of the ______ issues involved.

sampling bias

Students from a journalism class ask only their friends to participate in a school newspaper survey and neglect to ask the rest of the student body. The journalism students' data may not be generalizable due to ______.

placebo effect

The ______ is brought on by an individual's expectation that a treatment will work.

synaptic cleft

The ______ is the space between two neurons that form a synapse.

tip-of-the-tongue

The ______ phenomenon occurs when you feel that you know someone's name but cannot quite recall it.

dendrites

The function of ______ is to receive information from other neurons .

attribution

The process by which one evaluates the causes of other people's behavior is called ______.

representative

The results of a correlational study involving student volunteers in a psychology laboratory might not apply to the general population because the sample is not randomly chosen and therefore may not be a ______ sample.

Industrial/ organizational

What field of psychology is most appropriate to analyze the efficiency of businesses in their hiring, basic training, and management leadership skills training?

testosterone

What hormone seems to be most closely linked with aggressive behavior?

5

What is the median number in the following sequence? 10, 3, 5, 7, 10, 5, 2

levels of processing

When Sophie reads her history assignments, she goes over them very carefully and tries to memorize each fact. Emma, on the other hand, studies by trying to relate the new information to things she has experienced, been told about by others, or seen in movies and on television. Emma's performance on history tests will probably be better than Sophie's due to differences in ______.

hippocampus

When people consume large amounts of alcohol, they are often unable to recall what they did and said while they were drinking. This occurs because alcohol interferes with the brain's ability to form new memories in the ______.

automatic

When the stimuli in a task occur in highly predictable ways, an individual is often able to attend to both that task and another one at the same time. When this occurs, the processing of the first task is ______.

In-group bias

When watching the Olympics, most people cheer for athletes from their own country. Often, fans believe that athletes from other countries cheat but athletes from their own country would never cheat. This is an example of what psychological concept?

hippocampus

Which area of the brain is not well developed until after three years of age, offering a possible explanation for infantile amnesia?

Inferential

Which statistical approach concerned with forming conclusions about the effect of the independent variable on variations in the dependent variable?

phonemes

Yun was learning English as an adult. She found that she had trouble with some of the sounds in English because those sounds were not part of her native Chinese. The difficulty she was having involved ______.

Operational definitions

______ enable researchers to replicate studies by precisely describing the variables and how they are used.

rehearsal

______ increases the chance that an individual will remember a new cell phone number.

proactive

______ interference occurs when something we learned in the past makes it harder to recall recently learned information.

standard deviation

______ is a measure of how much scores in a group differ from the mean of that group.

serial

______ learning is indicated by the ability to recall a memorized list of unrelated words in reverse order.

groupthink

______ occurs when a group does not encourage dissenting points of view.