AP Psychology Final SG (NOTE: there is a part 2!!!!)
Raj, a four-year-old child, learned to open the door to a classroom by pulling on the handle. Now whenever he approaches any door he pulls on the handle and is confused when that does not work. This is best explained by Raj's having developed which of the following for door opening?
A mental set
Which of the following scenarios best demonstrates the role of context effects in memory?
Amy studied for a vocabulary test in the same classroom and at the same time of day as the normal class, and she performed better on the test than students who studied in different classrooms under different conditions.
What type of research study did Dr. Schmidt conduct? (refer to card 42 for passage)
An experiment
Xander can no longer stomach the taste of sushi after he vomited from eating a spoiled serving of it. However, the appearance of sushi does not make him sick. Which of the following best accounts for why Xander becomes sick upon tasting sushi but not seeing sushi?
Biological predisposition, because this example illustrates taste aversion.
Audra is working on a puzzle book and comes across the following figure. Which of the following Gestalt laws would best explain Audra's perception of the image?
Closure
Which of the following ethical procedures did the researcher neglect when they published the research with Arjun? (refer to card 24 for passage)
Confidentiality
Darnayia has been seeing a lot of social media ads about an exciting new sports simulation game. While several of her friends say that the game is their ideal example of a video game, others who have played the game complain that it was too expensive and not as fun as they expected. Darnayia buys the game. When her mother asks her why she chose that game, Darnayia only mentions the advice she heard about the game was the best one they've ever played. Which of the following cognitive processes explains why Darnayia can justify her purchase of the expensive game and ignore her concerns over the cost?
Confirmation bias
In an effort to demonstrate that phobias were the result of environmental conditioning rather than mental processes, a researcher conditioned an 8-month-old child named Albert to have an intense fear of a white fluffy rat. While the result supported the researcher's behaviorist viewpoint, which of the following reasons explains why this research would not be allowed today?
It created too much stress for the participant, which violates the code of ethics for psychological research.
Which of the following best describes a major role of the thalamus?
It relays most sensory signals to the cortex.
Which of the following activities most directly relies on the hippocampus?
Memorizing the layout of a neighborhood
By age six months, infants from different countries in the world will distinguish hearing a change in small units of sound. For example, in one study, when six-month old babies hear the RRR sound change to an LLL sound, they sucked faster on a special pacifier that measured their rate of sucking. By twelve months, however, Japanese children no longer distinguish these sounds since culturally, they are not exposed to them.
Phoneme
Company executives want to test whether customers who have already used Model A will be able to learn more quickly to skateboard using Model B as compared to those who have no experience. The company's research team recruits 50 participants for their study and randomly assigns them to two groups. Group 1 is given 3 weeks of skateboarding lessons using the Model A skateboard. Group B does not have lessons on how to use a skateboard. At the end of the 3-week period, both groups are given skateboarding lessons using the Model B skateboard. The research team collects data on how long it takes individuals in each group to become proficient at skateboarding on Model B. They find that it takes Group 1 participants significantly longer to become proficient on Model B, as compared to Group 2. What cognitive process helps explain the results found by the Cory's Skateboards team?
Proactive interference
An institutional review board (IRB) rejected a proposal for research where participants requesting to lesion Wernicke's Area in otherwise healthy individuals to study the resulting speech comprehension issues. Which of the following is the most likely ethical consideration for rejecting the study?
Protection from Harm
Dalton developed a phobia of dogs after watching his older cousin act fearfully when he interacted with dogs in their neighborhood. Which of the following best explains why Dalton developed his phobia of dogs?
Social learning theory, because Dalton learned from observing his cousin's behavior toward dogs.
Which of the following is a testable hypothesis using operational definitions about people who have undergone split-brain surgery to help control severe epilepsy?
Split-brain patients will not be able to name an object placed in their left visual field.
Using the information presented in the graph, what is most likely the reason for the fall in the strength of the conditioned response in trials 16-20?
The CS and US are no longer being paired together.
What was the independent variable in this research study?
The heaviness of the weights
A 40-year-old man and his 7-year-old son move to a country where they have to learn a new language. Compared with his son, the 40-year-old man will
have more difficulty learning to produce phonemes that do not exist in his native language
A basic assumption underlying short-term memory is that it is
limited in capacity
Short-term memory is best described in which of the following ways?
memory that can hold only a small amount of information
Waking up frequently, loud snoring, silent pauses in breathing, and sleepiness during the day are symptoms of which of the following disorders?
sleep apnea
A prototype is best defined as
the hypothetical "most typical" instance of a category
To remember a list of words, Jerry tries walking through his bedroom and making associations between words on the list and various areas he visits in his bedroom. Jerry is trying to improve his memory encoding by using which of the following memory concepts?
the method of loci
After Doug witnessed two cars involved in a car accident, a police officer asked Doug how fast the cars were going when the accident happened. According to research by Elizabeth Loftus, which of the following questions could the officer ask that would make Doug most susceptible to the misinformation effect?
How fast were the cars going when they smashed into each other?
Hyrum is at a concert when a flute player hits a very high note at the end of a song. Which of the following best explains why the pitch of the note sounds so high?
It has a short wavelength and high frequency.
A group of 25 American college students who were taking introductory psychology during the spring semester participated in a study about cognition. Participants were first asked to read a story about a Russian battle from the 19th century. Later, participants were asked to write down as many details as they could remember from the story. Twenty-two out of 25 of the students changed some of the details of the story, such as referring to a "house" instead of using the Russian word "dacha" that was used in the story. Which of the following best describes the type of sample used in this study?
It was a study that involved convenience sampling.
In homes where parents do not use correct grammar, their children tend to make more grammatical errors. Which of the following concepts identifies a type of error children might make?
Overgeneralization
Autonomic Nervous Part A Pupils are dilated Heartbeat Accelerates Digestion Stops Relaxes bladder Autonomic Nervous Part B Pupils contract Heartbeat slows Digestion continues Bladder Contracts Which branch of the autonomic nervous system is described by the functions listed in Part B of the table above?
Parasympathetic nervous system
Professor DuVall teaches two classes of psychology. For Class Y, their first quiz consisted of multiple-choice questions. Class Z's first quiz covered the same material, but the questions required that students write a short answer for each question. Professor DuVall compared the scores for Class Y and Class Z and found that the mean score for Class Y was 76%, while the mean score for Class Z was 89%. In terms of memory retrieval processes, which of the following is consistent with this outcome?
Recall led to higher scores than recognition on this quiz.
Tamara's coach reminds the team not to eat for several hours before the basketball game because the digestive process will be slowed down due to the intense activity. Which of the following aspects of the peripheral nervous system is directly responsible for slowing down digestive processes during the game?
Sympathetic nervous system
Researchers conducted an experiment on baboons by inserting a wire into the reticular activating system (RAS) that produced a mild electrical current. The researchers stimulated the RAS while the baboons were performing different tasks. Which of the following operational definitions would be most easily replicated by other researchers trying to duplicate the experiment?
The baboons' heart rates were measured by a monitor attached to their chest before and after the RAS was stimulated.
What is the operational definition of neural activity in the rats?
The color presented in the MRI images.
What is the operational definition of neural activity in the rats? (refer to card 58 for passage)
The color presented in the MRI images.
A group of researchers are investigating how different studying strategies impact how much participants remember on a test. They recruit 50 participants and have half of the participants study by just reading a passage over and over for 10 minutes. The other half of the participants spend five minutes reading the passage one time and then answering a series of multiple-choice questions on the material for another five minutes. Finally, the participants write down as many facts from the reading passage as they can in three minutes. Which of the following is the dependent variable of the study?
The number of facts the participants remember during the test phase
If this study were to run as an experiment, which of the following would be necessary?
The participants must be randomly assigned to a control or experimental condition.
The graph below depicts which of the following?
The process of neural transmission
Which psychological principle is represented in the area circled in the graph below?
The refractory period of the neural transmission process.
Researchers conducted a correlational study during the winter season, which has shorter days and longer nights. The researcher asked about people's experiences with depression-like symptoms, including feelings of tiredness and reduction in energy output. The researcher found that there was a positive correlation between the amount of daylight and depression-like symptoms. Which of the following statements best reflects how to interpret this correlational finding?
The relationship between daylight and depressive symptoms may also be linked to a third variable.
Julia is practicing her trumpet and produces a loud sound. Which of the following is the best explanation for the loudness of the sound?
The sound has a high-amplitude sound wave.
Dr. Ravi wants to conduct a study to investigate the effect of sleep deprivation on problem-solving abilities. Her procedure involves randomly assigning participants to groups and depriving one group of sleep for a period of five consecutive days. She then had each of them take a test that measures their ability to solve various problems. Which of the following is most problematic about Dr. Ravi's research design?
The study raises ethical concerns because the amount of sleep deprivation could be harmful to participants in the study.
Which of the following aspects of classical conditioning is demonstrated by Quadrant 1 in the figure?
Unconditioned response to an unconditioned stimulus.
Which of the following best describes the primacy effect?
When people have better recall of things that occur at the beginning of a sequence
Which of the following operant conditioning concepts is an example of positive punishment?
While driving through the state of Mississippi, Lance was stopped for speeding and had to pay an expensive speeding ticket. As a result, he no longer goes over the speed limit when driving in Mississippi.
Based on its effects on the central nervous system, alcohol can be classified as which of the following concepts?
a depressant
The explanation that holds that dreams are merely the brain's attempt to make sense of meaningless patterns of brain activity during sleep is best identified as which of the following theories?
activation-synthesis theory
An adult with a healthy sleep cycle is most likely to enter REM sleep in which of the following ways?
after cycling through the NREM sleep stages
Ruth and Debbie are identical twins who were raised by the same family. Vince and Frankie are identical twins who were separated at birth and raised by different families. According to research on the heritability of personality traits, Ruth's and Debbie's personalities are statistically..
likely to be as similar and dissimilar to one another as are Vince's and Frankie's personalities
Sebastian wants to earn an "A" in his biology course but finds it difficult to stay motivated to study every night. His teacher recommends that he surround himself with peers who study regularly to increase his studying behavior. Sebastian's teacher made her recommendation based on the learning concept of
modeling
A researcher discovered a chemical compound that seems to slow down the heart rate of monkeys by targeting an area of the medulla. The researcher believes that the compound could help reduce the symptoms associated with panic disorder. Which of the following is the appropriate next step for the researcher to take after developing the compound into a new drug?
Apply to an institutional review board (IRB) to begin animal trials for the drug.
Researchers recruited student volunteers for a study about memory. Each student given a long story to read about someone experiencing a "health emergency" and then given a quiz on the details of the story a week later. In Group 1, the participants had to read the study each night for a week. In Group 2, the participants were told to read the story 5 times the night before the quiz. After the study was over, the student participants were told the real reason for the study before they left. The data collected are presented in the table.
Distributed practice
Dr. Fredericks is interested in studying how quickly people forget what they learn in class. He teaches a class on biological psychology on a Monday. On Tuesday, he gives the class a quiz asking the students about details from the previous class. Which of the following procedures should Dr. Fredericks have followed to avoid the confounding variable of experimenter bias?
Double-blind
In a research study, participants were randomly assigned to two conditions. One group of participants received a drug once per day for four weeks. The drug increases the speed of communication between neurons. Other participants did not receive the drug. Researchers found that those who took the drug demonstrated an increased memory recall. What type of research design was conducted in this scenario?
Experiment
Researchers randomly assigned 50 elementary school children to place a plug on their nose to limit their sense of smell. The children were then presented with a series of different foods and asked to rate the taste, texture, and intensity on a scale from 1 to 5. Another 50 children were randomly placed in a group with no nose plug and asked to rate the same food using the same scale. Using random assignment in this study can help with which of the following?
Random assignment to groups would allow researchers to understand if the differences between groups was due to the independent variable (the nose plug).
Which of the following is the best operational definition of superior autobiographical memory?
Recalling information about life events with over 90% accuracy.
Ten students were expected to learn about the geography of the major rivers, mountains, and cities of the US state of Arizona. Half of the students were given an unlabeled map and expected to fill in the information they learned from memory. The other half was given the same unlabeled map but had a word bank of terms to choose from. The students' scores are represented in the table. What conclusion can you make based on the data?
Recognition is easier than recall.
Based on the data presented in the table, which consequence was used by the training staff for dog #2?
Reinforcement
Professor Jovan randomly assigns each student in her psychology class to one of three groups. Group X is required to post a journal entry each week in which they discuss some aspect of psychology in daily life. Group Y is required to take an online quiz about the material each week. Group Z was not instructed to do any additional activities. At the end of the class, Professor Jovan compares the final comprehensive exam scores for Groups X, Y, and Z. The results are shown in the figure. Which of the following psychological principles are best supported by the data in the figure?
Repeated testing can improve learning and memory.
Which of the following is a prediction that could be made about the activity of the rats' brains when exposed to the stimulant? (refer to card 58 for passage)
The MRI should show more oranges and reds when exposed to the stimulant.
Researchers were interested in whether the rods or the cones in the retina were more sensitive to detecting the movement and the color of objects in the environment. Research participants were asked to stare at a focus point while the researcher, starting at 0 degrees, moved a red-colored object slowly around the edge of the arc apparatus. The degree of the angle when the participants first observed movement and color were documented. The mean degrees for each are presented in the table. Which of the following conclusions is best supported by this data?
The average angle the participant first notices movement will be larger than the average angle for first noticing the color.
A psychological study to determine the harmful effects of sleep disruption asked a company to start an overnight shift without notice. Many of the employees began to have accidents while on the job. The researchers conclude that a sudden change in circadian rhythm causes an effect on job performance. What ethical concern may be present in this study?
The employees did not provide informed consent and were not given the option to withdraw from the study.
Volunteers were asked to rate the taste of foods during allergy season on a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 meaning low intensity of flavor and 10 meaning high intensity of flavor. The researchers also asked participants to rate their level of nasal congestion on a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 meaning no nasal congestion and 10 meaning complete blockage of airways with congestion. Which of the following is an appropriate conclusion to draw from the data presented in the scatterplot?
The experience of flavor is negatively correlated with levels of nasal congestion.
Participants anonymously consented to an experiment where they would be classically conditioned to have a positive emotional response to advertisements for various products. In reality, the experimenter was attempting to see if subliminal messages in an advertisement influenced participant views on the product being advertised. Which of the following ethical guidelines might be of concern to an institutional review board (IRB) concerning this research?
The identities of the participants could be leaked to the public.
Much of the research regarding the function of brain areas has been gathered from case studies of individuals with brain injury or disease. Which of the following identifies a reason for this?
The independent variable in an experiment would inflict brain injury, which is unethical.
In an experiment evaluating encoding strategies, a researcher taught participants 15 new psychological concepts. One group took notes to help learn the concepts while the other group was asked to create a mnemonic device for each concept. In this experiment, what is the independent variable?
The method used to learn the concepts.
Amehd, a fifth grader, is passing a note to his friend in class while his teacher is teaching a new type of math problem. When he is later tested on the material, he is unable to recall how to solve a similar problem. Which of the following theories best explains Amehd's difficulty in recalling how to do this type of problem?
The multi-store model, because it focuses on encoding and retrieving information
Researchers conducted a correlational study during the winter season, which has shorter days and longer nights. The researcher asked about people's experiences with depression-like symptoms, including feelings of tiredness and reduction in energy output. The researcher found that there was a positive correlation between the amount of daylight and depression-like symptoms. Which of the following statements best reflects how to interpret this correlational finding?
The relationship between daylight and depressive symptoms may also be linked to a third variable.
A researcher is studying the accuracy of people's memories when they use mnemonic devices. After studying the first 10 people, the data showed that memories using mnemonic devices were more accurate than the average's person's memories. Which of the following explains why the researcher should not draw any conclusions about the accuracy of memories using mnemonic devices yet?
The researcher should expect that the more data she collects, the more likely the results will regress to the mean.
A researcher wants to examine how much information from waking life ends up in dreams. The researcher recruits 40 volunteers from a local community college to record the details of their daily activities. The participants will be given a sleep monitor that gently wakes them each time they end an REM cycle, after which they will complete a detailed dream diary. The study is planned to last for two weeks. Why would an institutional review board be hesitant to approve this study?
The researchers are disrupting sleep for an extended period, which may cause harm.
The graph is an illustration of which of the following?
The testing effect
A high school instructor wanted to see if implementing encoding strategies would help students master concepts in AP Psychology. They conduct a double-blind study in which students are randomly assigned to either the encoding strategy group or the group that continued to study as they had before. The data for each group is presented in the table. Which of the following best represents the results of this investigation?
The variation of scores for the encoding strategies group was smaller.
A high school instructor wanted to see if implementing encoding strategies would help students master concepts in AP Psychology. They conduct a double-blind study in which students are randomly assigned to either the encoding strategy group or the group that continued to study as they had before. The data for each group is presented in the table above. Which of the following best represents the results of this investigation?
The variation of scores for the encoding strategies group was smaller.
A researcher wants to determine which studying technique would be more effective: massed practice or distributed practice. The researcher randomly assigns 30 students to two groups and gives them a list of vocabulary words to remember. One of the groups uses a massed practice technique. The other uses a distributed practice technique. The researcher gives the students a quiz four days later to see how well they remembered their list of words. He compared the scores for both groups. What is the dependent variable in this study?
The vocabulary quiz scores
Dr. Handler conducted research to explore the extent to which hearing acuity changes with age. She tested the absolute threshold for hearing in 10 subjects of various ages. The results are presented in the table. Which of the following is an appropriate conclusion based on the data presented in the table?
As age increases, the ability to detect higher pitched sounds tends to decrease
Dr. Handler conducted research to explore the extent to which hearing acuity changes with age. She tested the absolute threshold for hearing in 10 subjects of various ages. The results are presented in the table. Which of the following is an appropriate conclusion based on the data presented in the table?
As age increases, the ability to detect higher pitched sounds tends to decrease.
Students in Dr. Milne's Introduction to Psychology class met three times a week in a large, windowless lecture hall. Students had the option of taking their final comprehensive exam in the same lecture hall, or in smaller classroom on the other side of campus. The results from the final exam are depicted in the table. Which of the following memory processes could help explain the differences between these two groups?
Context-dependent memory
Dr. Adele is trying to measure the capacity of her students' short-term memories. She shows them a long series of numbers on a display for several seconds, and then has them write down as many numbers as they can remember in order. Dr. Adele has the students complete a survey in which she asks them "On a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being highly effective, how well did you remember the numbers?" She concludes that her students have exceptionally good memories, as most of her students rated themselves as "highly effective." Which of the following best explains Dr. Adele's inaccurate conclusion?
Dr. Adele's survey led to self-report bias.
At the end of each class period, Professor Dodgson asks each student to write on a notecard which concepts from the class period they understood, which ones they didn't understand, and a plan for how they will approach learning any confusing concepts. This is not a required activity, but Professor Dodgson collects the cards and records which students complete them. The figure depicts student scores on the most recent test, along with how many notecards (out of 20) each student completed. Which of the following is the most accurate interpretation of the data depicted in the graph?
There is a positive relationship between the use of metacognitive practices and score on the test.
The graph provides evidence for which of the following aspects of language acquisition?
There may be a critical period in learning a second language for the learner to achieve fluency.
Dr. Schmidt was interested in the relationship between sensation of a stimulus and the sensation of change in a stimulus. She tested this using sensation of weight. Participants were blindfolded and given two equal weights to hold one in each hand. With each trial, she added a slightly heavier weight to one hand than the other. The participant was asked to notify her if or when one felt heavier. She found that it was more difficult for the participants to determine the difference in the weights when the equal weights from the first trial were heavy. Dr. Schmidt's findings best support which of the following psychological concepts?
Weber's law
Getting a headache from not having a morning coffee after substantial daily coffee consumption for several months is most likely due to which of the following concepts?
withdrawal
Which of the following scenarios most clearly describes the effects of a strong kinesthetic sense?
Being able to tell exact bodily position without looking at the body
Which of the following parts of the brain allowed Arjun to speak the names of the items flashed to his right visual field? (refer to card 24 for passage)
Broca's Area
Arjun was diagnosed with epilepsy and struggled with seizures regularly. His neurologist recommended surgery that severed the connections between the two hemispheres of the brain. Arjun agreed to the surgery. After surgery, Arjun experienced changes that were noticed during special testing in a laboratory setting by a researcher. In the laboratory, psychologists flashed different images or words to his left and right visual fields. Arjun could easily speak the names of items that were flashed to his right visual field. He could not easily speak the names of items that were flashed to this left visual field. Arjun was studied by a researcher for many years, and his experiences went unchanged. The researcher published the research with Arjun where he shared Arjun's experience and his first and last name. Which of the following parts of the brain was severed to address Arjun's epileptic seizures?
Corpus Callosum
Researchers repeatedly presented a picture of a goat along with other animals and asked participants to rank how closely the picture of the goat matched their prototype of a "mammal." Participants used a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 meaning "not at all like my prototype of a mammal" to 5 meaning "exactly like my prototype of a mammal." The graph depicts the rankings of each participant based on the number of exposures. What type of research has been conducted?
Correlational Study
Dr. Felder is studying whether the color of a drink impacts how a person experiences the taste of the drink. She has an orange-flavored liquid that she dyes either orange, purple, or blue, and gives it to participants to drink. She then asks them to describe the taste. Which of the following would best help her evaluate the impact of vision on taste?
Create an additional control condition in which participants wear blindfolds while they taste the drink.
Dr. Rudolph's class has a big test coming up next week. Which of the following students is using a studying strategy that is most likely to lead to memory consolidation?
Elizabeth studies for a half hour before she goes to bed each night the week before the exam.
The operant conditioning concept of negative reinforcement is illustrated in which of the following scenarios?
Ervin always buckles his seat belt to stop the beeping sound his car makes when the seat belt is unbuckled.
Researchers measured changes in neural firing in the frontal lobes for ten rats that were exposed to stimulants. The researchers used an MRI that indicates brain activity with colors. Normal brain activity is indicated by greens and yellows. High brain activity is indicated by reds and oranges. Low brain activity is indicated by grays and blues. All the rat's brains showed normal activity prior to being exposed to the stimulant. What type of study was being conducted by the researcher?
Experiment
Which of the following monocular depth cues is most represented in the image?
Linear perspective
A researcher evaluated over 300 studies where algorithms were used to predict the future of the stock market. This study determined that Algorithms accurately predicted the stock market within three percentage points on average. These findings were later provided to individuals who follow the market to inform them about when to sell or buy stocks. Which of the following research techniques best represents the research described?
Meta-analysis
Kara thinks she sees a spider on the floor of her bathroom. She is extremely afraid of spiders. Upon further inspection, though, she realizes the "spider" is only a ball of hair. Which of the following nervous systems would be responsible for calming her down after she realizes the ball of hair is not a spider?
Parasympathetic nervous system
One night, Noel went to a new restaurant. While waiting for her meal, she could not ignore the slurping sound the other diners made while eating. She was so focused on that sound that she could not even enjoy her meal. Which of the following concepts explains Noel's experience?
Selective attention
Ms. Harrison asks students in her psychology class to record how many hours of sleep they get every night and what they eat for breakfast. When the class looks at the data, they find that the fewer hours of sleep they get, the more they eat for breakfast. Which of the following is a limitation of self-report research?
Self-report data is subject to the social desirability bias
Which of the following scenarios involves using cued recall?
Steven studies a list of word pairs and is later given the first word of each pair and asked to recall the second word in the pair.
If various cultures expect students to master more than one language in school, which of the following courses of action are supported by the evidence presented in the graph?
Students should be introduced to the second language as soon as they start going to school.
Dr. Wilson, who teaches engineering classes, is interested in learning about how lack of sleep affects performance. What would be the best way to ensure that her findings are generalizable to all the students at her university?
Surveying every tenth student listed in the university directory about their sleep habits
Which of the following is the lobe most likely represented by the activity in "Lobe C"?
Temporal Lobe
