Psych 101 Final Exam Ohlone College

Edward C. Tolman would have most likely made which of the following statements?

''Animals develop a mental representation of the layout of a maze, which allows them to run quickly and accurately through a maze.''

Why did Karl Lashley fail to uncover the area of the rat's brain in which the memory trace of the maze was stored or located?

A rat's memory for maze running is not a single memory but a complex set of interrelated memories involving information from multiple senses and is distributed throughout the brain and not localized in the cortex.

Which of the following statements BEST characterizes the typical course of human development?

Gradually unfolding changes throughout the ages and stages of life characterize human development.

_____ is the branch of science that is concerned with the study of the nervous system, especially the brain.

Neuroscience

Which of the following statements best explains why consciousness has been viewed as a "stream" or "river"?

Even though the contents of consciousness are constantly changing, we subjectively experience consciousness as being continuous and unbroken.

Only humans have the mental ability to develop the cognitive expectation that their behavior will have no effect on the environment. Thus, only humans can develop learned helplessness.

False

The carpentered-world hypothesis states that people who grow up in a noncarpentered world will be just as susceptible to the Müller-Lyer illusion as those who grow up experiencing the straight lines, edges, right angles, and corners typical of industrialized countries.

False

Matilda suffers from a sleep-related eating disorder. She would be classified as suffering from a class of sleep disorder called:

a parasomnia.

Reduced brain levels of the neurotransmitter _____ is most notably involved in the progressive memory loss that characterizes Alzheimer's disease.

acetylcholine

As you go to sleep at night, you realize that you can hear your roommate's wristwatch ticking. Out of curiosity, you keep a record of when you hear the watch ticking and find out that you can hear it about half the time. Your ability to hear your roommate's wristwatch about half the time is an example of:

an absolute threshold.

Men experience a gradual decline in testosterone levels, sometimes called _____, which can cause changes in physical and psychological health.

andropause

Petro is unable to articulate ideas or understand spoken or written language because of brain damage. Petro suffers from:

aphasia

According to _____ theory, the quality of attachment plays an important role in determining an infant's ability to thrive physically and psychologically.

attachment

The _____ style of parenting is associated with a wide variety of long-term psychological and behavioral benefits in the development of children.

authoritative

Pavlov found that a conditioned response would be stronger if the:

Pavlov found that a conditioned response would be stronger if the:

Active sleep is to _____ as quiet sleep is to _____.REM sleep; NREM sleep

REM sleep; NREM sleep

_____ is to how we interpret the meaning of other people's behavior as _____ is to how our behavior is affected by situational factors and other people.

Social cognition; social influence

In psychologist Robert Rescorla's classical conditioning experiment, one group of rats experienced a tone just before each of 20 shocks. A second group of rats experienced the same number of tone-shock pairings plus an additional 20 shocks with no tone. Rescorla found that the rats in the first group showed a much stronger conditioned fear response than the rats in the second group. How did Rescorla explain this finding?

The tone was a more reliable predictor of the shock for the first group of rats.

After a dog has gone through the process of extinction and no longer salivates to the sound of a bell, the conditioned response will spontaneously reappear if the dog is given a period of rest and the sound of the bell is again presented

True

Although research has plainly shown that so-called "flashbulb memories" function in the same way as ordinary memories, people tend to be very confident that their flashbulb memories are highly accurate memories of the details of the particular event.

True

An antagonist is a drug or other chemical that blocks a receptor site and inhibits or prevents a response in the receiving cell.

True

In 1957, James Vicary falsely claimed to have increased the sale of popcorn and Coca-Cola at a New Jersey movie theater when the owner used subliminal messages to flash "Eat popcorn" and "Drink Coke" on the movie screen during the movie.

True

Since there are no photoreceptors in the optic disk, this area is referred to as the blind spot.

True

Sleepwalking or somnambulism is characterized by an episode of walking (or performing other actions) that typically occurs during NREM stage 3 or 4 slow-wave sleep.

True

The human brain contains approximately 100 billion neurons and about ten times as many glial cells.

True

The myelin sheath is a white fatty covering that surrounds the axons of some neurons.

True

Two Skinner boxes are side by side. The rat in the first Skinner box gets a food pellet every time it presses the bar. The rat in the second Skinner box gets a food pellet every ten times it presses the bar. If the food-dispensing mechanism is shut off, the rat in the first Skinner box will quit pressing the bar sooner than the rat in the second Skinner box does.

True

If you shine a bright light directly into a person's eye, the pupil of the eye will reflexively constrict. Using Pavlov's terminology, the bright light would be termed the _____, and the pupil constricting would be termed the _____.

UCS; UCR

Which of the following statements about sensory memory is FALSE?

Visual sensory memory holds information longer than auditory sensory memory.

Ten-year-old Ben helped his 5-year-old sister Hannah learn how to tie her shoelaces. This example illustrates which concept?

Vygotsky's zone of proximal development

Which of the following represents a valid criticism of the ethics of Watson and Rayner's ''Little Albert'' study?

Watson and Rayner intentionally induced a lasting fear in an infant, and they did not attempt to extinguish it when the experiment was over.

Based on a review of more than 30 years of research, the American Psychological Association and other public health organizations stated that viewing entertainment violence

can lead to an increase in aggressive attitudes, values, and behaviors.

Mike suffers from narcolepsy. Sometimes when he is very excited or experiencing intense emotions, he suddenly loses voluntary muscle strength and control and collapses, a phenomenon called:

cataplexy

Biological processes that systematically vary over a 24-hour cycle are called _____ and are regulated by a cluster of neurons called the _____.

circadian rhythms; suprachiasmatic nucleus

The famous Ebbinghaus forgetting curve:

demonstrated that much of what we forget is lost relatively soon after we originally learn the information.

Long-term methamphetamine use can produce damage to the brain's:

dopamine system, which is associated with memory and motor skill problems, and the frontal lobes, which can lead to impairment in cognitive and social skills.

During which stage of development does formal operational thinking typically begin to emerge?

early adolescence

X-rays, radio waves, microwaves, and ultraviolet waves are all forms of _____ that differ in terms of their _____.

electromagnetic energy; wavelength

In MOST cases, the greatest vulnerability to teratogens occurs during the _____ period of prenatal development

embryonic

Dr. Morelli investigates how gene activity is regulated within a cell, including what signals switch genes "on" or "off." In general, she is interested in the mechanisms that control gene expression and its effect on behavior and health. Her area of research is called:

epigenetics.

The primary visual pathway is to _____ as the secondary visual pathway is to _____.

form and color; the location of an object

Research with the sea snail Aplysia has demonstrated that:

forming a new memory involves changes in both the function and structure of neurons.

Cones are concentrated in the _____ and specialized for _____.

fovea; color vision and visual acuity

The _____ lobe primarily control's a person's ability to plan, initiate, and carry out voluntary movements and actions

frontal

Each _____ cell receives information from its receptive field, which _____.

ganglion; is a particular area of the retina

During a seminar discussion, Maxwell said he believed men are more rational, logical, and aggressive than women, and that women are more nurturing, caring, and emotional than men. Maxwell's views of male and female differences illustrate:

gender-role stereotypes.

Because different genotypes react differently to environmental factors, psychologists and other scientists speak of the _____ to develop in a particular way.

genetic predisposition

Samuel suffered damage to his temporal lobe during an operation to remove tumors from his brain. He is likely to have problems with his:

hearing.

According to Erik Erikson's theory, the key psychosocial task facing adolescents is:

identity versus role confusion.

The automatic, nonconscious mental processes that influence perceptions, judgments, decisions, and reasoning are called:

implicit cognition.

The social group to which a person belongs is called the _____, and the social group to which a person does not belong is called the _____.

in-group; out-group

The purpose of the hammer, anvil, and stirrup is to:

increase the amplification of sound and transmit the amplified vibration to the oval window.

Despite the fact that Crystal is doing above average work in fourth grade, her father tells her that her grades are unsatisfactory, and that she is not working hard enough. According to Erikson's theory, Crystal is likely to develop a pervasive sense of:

inferiority.

Marie enters the playroom of the psychology lab with her 1-year-old son, Aaron. Aaron ignores the many attractive toys in the room and clings to his mother. When Marie leaves the room, Aaron begins to cry hysterically. When his mother returns and tries to comfort him, Aaron cries harder, kicks, and resists her efforts to hold him. Aaron would most likely be classified as:

insecurely attached.

The activation of the _____ brain areas reflects the dream's emotional qualities.

limbic system

In the study in which participants sat briefly in a psychology professor's office:

many participants erroneously remembered items that were not actually present in the room but were consistent with the schema of a professor's office.

Randy exercises more than most people and continues to train even when he has a cold or an injury. His friends joke that Randy seems addicted to exercise. Randy's compulsive exercising:

may be due to the involvement of his brain's opioid system and the production of endorphins.

When Madeline is feeling blue or unhappy she is more likely to recall negative or unpleasant memories. This is an encoding specificity phenomenon called:

mood congruence.

Joey and Ross were good friends. Joey was a very handsome guy, and Ross was a homely, nerdy-looking guy. Joey is likely to be perceived by other people as being _____ than Ross.

more intelligent, happier, and better adjusted

The action potential is produced by the:

movement of ions across the membrane of the axon.

Oligodendrocytes and Schwann cells form the _____, which is/are a fatty covering that is/are wrapped around the axons of some neurons.

myelin sheath

Prior to conditioning, a dog does not salivate to the sound of a ringing bell. At this point, the ringing bell is a(n):

neutral stimulus.

According to the activity theory of aging:

older adults will achieve the highest level of life satisfaction if they maintain their previous level of activity.

Marvin, who has been diagnosed with narcolepsy, is very likely to experience:

overwhelming bouts of excessive daytime sleepiness and brief uncontrollable episodes of sleep, which are called microsleeps or sleep attacks.

The terms autonomic and somatic refer to the two main subdivisions of the _____ nervous system.

peripheral

Rods are to cones as _____ are to _____.

peripheral vision and night vision; color vision and visual acuity

A term that refers to the mental processes we use to form judgments and draw conclusions about the characteristics and motives of others is:

person perception.

In Baddeley's model of working memory, one component called the _____ is specialized for verbal material, such as lists of numbers or words.

phonological loop

Your dog jumps up on a visitor and you smack him with a rolled up newspaper. The next time you have a visitor, your dog doesn't jump on them. This is an example of:

positive punishment.

Messages from other neurons or specialized cells and sensory receptors are typically:

received by the dendrites.

In telling the detective everything she could recall about what happened when she went into the bank to make a deposit, Lynn got to the point that she could not recall any more details. At that point, Lynn was probably experiencing:

retrieval cue failure.

An important social psychology concept is your sense of _____, which is an individual's unique sense of identity that has been influenced by social, cultural, and psychological experiences.

self

Which of the following represents the CORRECT order of Piaget's stages of cognitive development?

sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational, formal operational

Which of the following is an example of a parasomnia?

sleep terrors

When Raphael was in the elevator he couldn't help but notice a man and a woman in conversation. He decided that the woman in the suit was probably a college administrator and the gray-haired man in the glasses was probably a professor. Raphael was engaged in a process called:

social categorization

The rules, or expectations, for appropriate behavior in a particular social situation are called

social norms.

As you are being monitored by sleep researchers, almost all of your brain activity comprises delta brain waves. This is a clear sign that you are in:

stage 4 NREM.

When you watch a movie, it appears as if the images on the screen are moving smoothly. In fact, the movie is produced by a series of still photographs that are projected on the screen. You perceive the images as moving smoothly rather than as a jerky series of images because of:

stroboscopic motion.

Cross-cultural research reveals that conformity:

tends to be higher in collectivistic cultures compared with individualistic c

Based on his research, Ebbinghaus found that:

the amount of forgetting eventually levels off, and the memories that remain are stable over time.

"I don't care what kind of lawyer he is! I can't believe that Mia is going to marry a lawyer! They're all just money-grubbing, bloodless leeches. You know what you call an honest lawyer? An impossibility!" Kathy laughed. Kathy's view that all lawyers share the same qualities is an example of:

the out-group homogeneity effect.

When neurotransmitters communicate an excitatory message to the postsynaptic neuron:

the postsynaptic neuron is more likely to generate an action potential

When seven-year-old Grace had to recite the Girl Scout Pledge in front of the other members of her Brownie troop, she had trouble remembering some of the lines in the middle of the pledge. This illustrates:

the serial position effect.

Observing a subject who is in REM sleep, a sleep researcher can conclude that all of the following are true of the subject EXCEPT:

the subject's heart rate and blood pressure reach their lowest levels.

There are two theories of color vision. The _____ theory correctly describes color vision in the retina, while the _____ theory correctly explains color vision in the ganglion cells and visual cortex

trichromatic; opponent-process

Cognitive dissonance occurs when:

two thoughts or perceptions are inconsistent, and an unpleasant psychological tension results.

Pavlov taught a dog to salivate at the sound of a musical tone by repeatedly pairing food with a musical tone. In this example, the food is the _____ and the dog salivating to the food is the _____.

unconditioned stimulus; unconditioned response

When psychologists have tried to produce conditioned fears in young children to such objects as curtains, wooden ducks, or wooden blocks, they were:

unsuccessful.

What is the "lost-in-the-mall" technique?

using family members of a study participant to help induce a false memory for an event that never occurred, such as being lost in an airport as a child

Jonathan frequently plays the slot machines and sometimes comes out slightly ahead in his winnings. Like all gambling behavior, Jonathan's gambling behavior is on a _____ schedule of reinforcement.

variable-ratio

According to the activation-synthesis model of dreaming, what is "synthesized" in dreaming?

various memories and sensations that are internally generated by the brain

Mac has been driving for almost 30 hours straight because he was promised a $1,000 bonus if he delivers his truckload of refrigerated roses by 5:00 A.M. the next morning. As Mac drives through the night and gets progressively more tired, he is likely to experience:

very brief episodes of sleep called microsleeps.

The perceived color of an object is determined by the:

wavelength of light that an object reflects

Which of the following statements about long-term memory is TRUE?

As a subsystem of long-term memory, implicit memories cannot be consciously recalled but still affect your behavior, knowledge, or performance on some tasks.

Which of the following statements is TRUE?

Sound waves are collected in the outer ear, amplified in the middle ear, and transduced into neural messages in the inner ear.

What happened after ''Little Albert'' was classically conditioned to fear a tame white rat?

Stimulus generalization occurred; Albert responded with fear to other furry animals and fuzzy objects.

When information in short-term memory is NOT rehearsed or encoded, what happens to it?

The information fades, or decays, after a very brief period of time, usually within a matter of seconds.

Addictive drugs, such as alcohol, cocaine, heroin, nicotine, and amphetamines share a common effect on the brain. What is that effect?

They all activate dopamine-producing neurons, producing a surge of dopamine

What happens when rods and cones are exposed to light?

They undergo a chemical reaction that results in a neural signal.

Which of the following statements about the effectiveness of retrieval cues is TRUE?

With the right retrieval cue, people can often access stored information that seemed to be inaccessible.