psych 202 exam 1
Jason is interested in learning to play a new musical piece on the piano in the least total number of hours possible. Which practice schedule should Jason use to accomplish this goal?
Do one practice session each day; the practice session should last one hour
Darren is interested in whether childhood poverty is associated with a greater probability of mental health issues in adulthood. Darren searched the literature and found every published study that compared mental health issues in individuals who did and did not experience childhood poverty. Darren then aggregated across all of the individual published results. Consistent with his hypothesis, he found that higher levels of childhood poverty were associated with a greater likelihood of developing mental health issues in adulthood. What type of study has Darren conducted?
meta-analysis
You have to study for Psychology exam that will be on 8 different topics (learning, memory, perception, decision-making, intelligence, clinical disorders, language, thought). Research shows that studying the different topics __________ is LESS effective than ___________.
one at a time; interleaving the topics
Which of the following is a top-down cue to perception?
one's knowledge about linguistic structure - in particular what words are likely to follow other words
Diane wants her dog to stop barking when the doorbell rings. As such, anytime that the dog barks at the doorbell, Diane smacks the dog in the head with a rolled up magazine. After several weeks of this, the dog has stopped barking at the doorbell. Diane has used ________ to change her dog's behavior.
positive punishment
Paul recently bought a brand-new car. Paul never wore his seatbelt in his previous car (which was made in the 1970s). He quickly found that, in his new car, if he tried to drive without his seatbelt on, the car would play an annoying sound and would continue to do so until he put his seatbelt on. If we view Paul putting his seatbelt on as taking away something aversive (the warning sound that he hates) and that this in turn served to increase the probability that he would put his seatbelt on, this would be an example of:
positive reinforcement
The classic "levels of processing" experiments showed that individuals recalled words better when they were forced to do __________ processing, as compared to _________ processing.
semantic; auditory
Valentina goes to a college where a large number of students have started taking a new herbal supplement called Beatitudinem. The advertising for the supplement says that it will significantly reduce anxiety and make people feel overall calmer. Valentina recruits 200 students from her college. When the students come to her lab, she first asks them to indicate whether they are taking the supplement and, if so, how much. She then has them fill out a standard measure of anxiety. When she plots her results, she finds a correlation of 0.7 between anxiety levels and Beatitudinem dosage. What can Valentina conclude about the relationship between anxiety and taking Beatitudinem?
that taking higher doses of Beatitudinem is associated with more anxiety, but may not be the direct cause of the higher levels of anxiety
Jessica is a medical student. In her final anatomy exam, she will have to recite a list of all 206 bones in the adult body from memory. How should she use her study time in order to maximize her performance on the exam?
33% of the study time reading the list; 66% of the study time reciting from memory
A slot machine uses what type of reinforcement schedule?
variable ratio
William has 3 hours to memorize the words to a song. How should he spend his 3 hours in order to maximize the chance that he remembers all of the words?
1 hour listening to the song, 2 hours attempting to sing the song
You are trying to learn to play a new musical piece on the piano. Which of the following practice schedules will allow you to learn the musical piece in the FEWEST total hours?
1 training session per day, 1 hour per session
Which of the following would be the LEAST effective schedule if you are attempting to learn to type in the fewest number of total hours?
2 training sessions per day, 5 hours per session
Which of the following describes a case study:
A complete description of the abilities of a single individual, usually an individual who has some unusual ability/disability/brain lesion/etc
Bill and Susan are studying for an online test. Bill studies in the living room with the television on in the background. Susan studies in her bedroom with the television off. After 1 hour of studying, Bill takes the test in his bedroom with the television off. Susan takes the test in the living room with the television on. All other things being equal, who will perform worse on the test?
Bill
Which of these is NOT TRUE of case study methodology?
Case studies can be easily generalized to the wider population
Diana is a neurologist in a major hospital. A patient comes into her office that has suffered a stroke that has severely damaged his frontal lobe. Over the course of several months, Diana intensively studies her patient, giving him many background questionnaires and psychological tests. This would best be described as a:
Case study
Damion suffers a stroke that causes complete bilateral damage to his occipital lobes. Which of the following is the most likely consequence of this damage?
Damion will be unable to see
Karen is a psychologist who is interested in whether consumption of caffeine is related to video game performance. She brings a random sample of 200 undergraduates into her research lab and randomly divides them into 5 different groups. The students in each group are asked to take a pill containing different amounts of caffeine. 30 minutes after the students take their respective caffeine pills, she has the students play one game of the classic video game "Pac-Man" and records their score. What type of study did Karen conduct?
Experimental study
Two groups of students are taken on a campus tour. Group A is taken on the tour at 9 AM. Group B is taken on the tour at 9 PM. Twelve hours later (i.e. Group A will not have slept, Group B will have slept), both groups are asked to describe how to go most directly from the Psychology Building to Memorial Union, which was not the route the tour took. Which group is expected to perform better on this task?
Group B
Chuck studied a list of words 15 times, always in the same seat in the library. Jen also studied the list 15 times, but each time she studied the list in a different building on campus. They then come to a lab in the Psychology Building and are asked to recall as many words as possible. Who is expected to recall more words?
Jen
Bill and Joan were each given a list of 15 common objects. Bill was asked to say aloud the first letter of each word. Joan was asked to indicate whether each object was bigger or smaller than a basketball. They are then brought back an hour later and asked to recall as many words as possible. Who is expected to recall more words?
Joan
Bob studied for an exam in four different places - his dorm room, at the library, at the union, and at a coffee shop. Sarah studied for the same exam in only one location - in one seat in a classroom in psychology. Assuming Sarah and Bob are equal in all ways other than where they have studied the material, which of the following is expected:
Sarah will do better than Bob on the exam if she takes the exam in the exact same seat that she studied in, otherwise Bob will likely do better
Five students all study for their Spanish test for exactly 10 hours, but they do so according to different schedules. Student A) Studies for 30 minutes per day on the 20 days prior to the test Student B) Studies for 1 hour per day on the 10 days prior to the test Student C) Studies for 2 hours per day on the 5 days prior to the test Student D) Studies for 5 hours per day on the 2 days prior to the test Student E) Studies for 10 hours on the 1 day prior to the test All other things being equal, which student would you expect to perform best on the exam?
Student A
A researcher is interested in whether performance on a certain psychological test has a genetic link. He does a large-scale correlational study and finds the following average correlations between pairs of siblings on the test: Monozygotic twins, raised together: 0.5 Monozygotic twins, raised apart: 0.0 Dizygotic twins, raised together: 0.5 Adopted (not biologically related) siblings, raised together: 0.5 Given the data above, which of the following is a CORRECT interpretation?
There is no effect of shared genetics (genetic relatedness)
Your friend Diane tapes herself answering various questions with a mouth full of bubble gum. You know in the first video she is answering the question, "What is your name?" Thus, even though her speech is unclear, you recognize the word she says as "Diane." Your friend watching the same tape has no idea what the question was and thus he hears her saying "Dying." You and your friend have different perceptions because you have different ___________.
Top-down information
Deborah is interested in whether there is a relationship between the number of hours of television that children watch each day and their scores on standardized math tests. Deborah recruits 100 children for her study. For each child, she first measures the average number of hours of television the child watches each day. She then has each child take a standardized math test. She finds that for every additional hour of television a child watches, his/her math scores are 2 points lower. Based on the description, Deborah's data shows:
a negative correlation
Deborah is interested in whether there is a relationship between the number of hours of television that children watch each day and their scores on standardized math tests. Deborah recruits 100 children for her study. For each child, she first measures the average number of hours of television the child watches each day. She then has each child take a standardized math test. She finds that for every additional hour of television a child watches, his/her math scores are 2 points lower. Based on the description, Deborah's data shows:
a negative correlation
Gina programs a new video game. In the first level, after every 10 monsters killed the player gets either a new set of shoes or a new hat - both of which the player enjoys somewhat. In the second level, after every 10 monsters killed the player gets a new sword or a new set of armor - both of which the player really enjoys. In the third level, after every 10 monster killed the player once again gets either a new set of shoes or a new hat. Now the player doesn't like either the shoes or hat at all. This is an example of ________________.
behavioral contrast
Bec is conducting a study on memory. She recruits 500 undergraduate participants. She first asks the participants to indicate how many foreign countries they have visited in their life. She then shows each participant a world map and asks them to label as many countries as they can. Finally, after the participants finish, Bec asks the participants to indicate how many countries they think they labeled correctly. Which type of study did Bec design?
correlational
A new company has been selling a pill that they claim enhances memory abilities in college students. Dave is interested in whether these claims are true. He does two studies to address this question: Study 1: Dave finds 100 college students who have never taken the memory pill before. All of the students are asked to take one pill per day for one week. A random half of the students are given the true memory pill, while the other half are given a sugar pill. At end of the week, Dave measures the memory abilities in all 100 students and compares the abilities of the students who took the memory pill with those who took the sugar pill. Study 2: Dave finds 200 college students who are regular users of the memory pill and 200 college students who have never taken the memory pill. He measures the memory abilities of all of the students and compares the abilities of those students who regularly take the memory pill with those students who have never taken the memory pill. What type of method did Dave use in Study 1?
experimental
Josh wears his favorite blue t-shirt everywhere. When Josh wears the t-shirt inside his house at night (with incandescent bulbs on) the raw wavelengths of light will be more __________ than when he wears the t-shirt outside on a sunny day.
yellow
Mark and Mary both studied for their Psychology exam on the exact same schedule - one hour per day for ten days. Mark did not study in a consistent location. He studied in a different location every day (e.g., his dorm room, a coffee shop, Union South, etc.). Mary did study in a consistent location. She studied in the same exact spot in the library every day. All other things being equal, who would you expect to perform better on the Psychology exam taken in the Psychology building main lecture hall?
Mark
Last year Donna and Kay were students in the same high school psychology class. Both women studied for the class according to the same schedule - 30 minutes per day, every day. They studied in different locations though. Donna always studied in the exact same seat that she sat in during class. Kay studied in a new location almost every day. Now, both women are taking an Introduction to Psychology class in college. All other things being equal, which woman is likely to recall more information from her high school psychology class while in the Brogden Psychology Building and why?
Kay; her studying was more variable in terms of context than Donna's studying
Which learning principle best explains why I insist that you switch seats every lecture?
Learning generalizes best when material is experienced in multiple contexts
Two roommates are enrolled in the same psychology course. They both study by practicing questions from previous years' finals. They have access to 40 practice questions for each of the four different main course topics. They both go through all the available practice questions over the course of the 4 days prior to the exam - completing exactly 40 practice questions per day. However, they do so in different ways. Kai devotes one day to each of the four main topics. Kai's schedule thus looks like this: Day 1: All 40 questions from Topic #1; Day 2: All 40 questions from Topic #2; Day 3: All 40 questions from Topic #3; Day 4: All 40 questions from Topic #4 Luka works on questions from each of the four main topics on each day. Luka's schedule thus looks like this: Day 1: 10 questions each from Topics #1-4 in a random order; Day 2: 10 questions each from Topics #1-4 in a random order; Day 3: 10 questions each from Topics #1-4 in a random order; Day 4: 10 questions each from Topics #1-4 in a random order If their method for studying is the only difference between them, you would predict that ________ performs the best because __________.
Luka; Luka's practice was more interleaved
Allie and Brooke have the same three final exams to study for - Biology, Chemistry, and History. They each study for 3 total hours every night for two weeks before their exams. Each evening Allie studies Biology for one hour straight, then Chemistry for one hour straight, and then History for one hour straight. Brooke uses a slightly different schedule. She studies Biology for twenty minutes, then Chemistry for twenty minutes, then History for twenty minutes. She then repeats that same cycle (Biology for twenty minutes à Chemistry for twenty minutes à History for twenty minutes) two more times each evening (i.e., in the end Allie and Brooke both study for three total hours each night and one hour per topic, they just do this in different ways). All other things being equal, you would expect __________ to perform the best on her exams because her studying was more _______________.
Brooke; interleaved
Two lights that differ in wavelength are likely to be perceived as being different in:
Color
Tina hypothesizes that the more time 12-year-old children spend watching television, the lower their scores will be on a standardized math test. To test this, Tina asks 200 12-year-old children how much television they watch. She then examines how their reported television watching time relates to their performance on the standardized math test. What type of method did Tina use?
Correlational
A chemistry professor wants to know the effect of having previously taken biology classes on performance in her chemistry class. The professor gives all of her students a survey at the beginning of the semester and asks how many biology classes each student has taken in the past. She finds that the class ranges from having taken 0 to 5 biology classes. At the end of the semester the professor calculates the average grade of each student and compares that to the number of biology classes each student has taken. This would best be described as which type of research method:
Correlational study
Bob is interested in whether caffeine affects exam performance. After a psychology exam he asks all of the students to indicate when they last had a caffeinated beverage. He then examines whether students who had a caffeinated beverage within one hour of the exam performed better on the exam than students who didn't have a caffeinated beverage. This is an example of what type of method?
Correlational study
Roberta creates a list of 40 common nouns and randomly chooses font colors for each of the words. She recruits a set of 300 participants and randomly assigns them to one of three groups. Group #1 is told to go through the list as quickly as possible and indicate the color that each word is written in. Group #2 is told to simply read the list of words out loud as quickly as possible. Group #3 is told, for each word, to come up with a sentence that the word fits in. After the participants finish with their respective tasks, Roberta asks the participants to write down as many of the words as they could remember. What is the correct expected ordering of the groups' performance, ranked from BEST (i.e., most words recalled) to WORST (i.e., fewest words recalled)?
Group 3 > Group 2 > Group 1
Haley and Heather have both studied for 14 total hours for their Introduction to Psychology exam. Haley studied one hour per day for the two weeks prior to the exam. Heather studied for 14 straight hours on the day before the exam. All things being equal, you would expect _________ to do better on the exam because her studying was _________.
Haley; more distributed
Harry and Omar are baseball pitchers who go to different high schools. They are both learning to throw three new types of pitch: curveball, slider, and changeup. At each practice, Harry's coach has Harry practice his pitches in order. Harry first throws 40 curveballs, then 40 sliders, and then 40 changeups. At each practice, Omar's coach also has Omar throw 40 of each type of pitch, but he tells Omar to practice the different pitch types in a random order. When the two boys are asked to rate how effective they think their practice has been, _________ will give the highest ratings. When the two boys' performance is actually measured (e.g., by examining their effectiveness in games), ________ will show the best performance because his practice has been more _________.
Harry; Omar; interleaved
Eve hypothesized that hotter outside temperatures lead to more violence. For one year, in 10 different cities throughout the US, she measured both the maximum outside temperature and the number of violent crimes. She found a correlation coefficient of 0.5. What can she conclude?
Higher temperatures are associated with greater amounts of violence
Jane is interested in whether regular aerobic exercise reduces cholesterol levels. To examine this question, Jane performs two studies: Study A) Jane recruits 1000 participants for the study. When the participant arrives at the lab, they fill out a questionnaire indicating how many hours per week of aerobic exercise they do. They then have blood drawn to check their cholesterol levels. Study B) Jane puts up fliers looking for participants who rarely exercise. 100 such individuals sign up for her study. All participants first have blood drawn to check their cholesterol levels. Then, Jane randomly assigns half of the participants to the "Aerobic Exercise" group - where the participants have to do 30 minutes of aerobic exercise, three times per week, for six months. The other half of the participants are assigned to the "Stretching" group - where the participants have to do 30 minutes of stretching without any aerobic activity, three times per week, for six months. Finally, after the six months are up, all participants have their blood drawn again to check their cholesterol. In Study A, Jane finds that there is a correlation of -0.5 between hours of aerobic activity and cholesterol level. From this she can conclude that:
Individuals who exercise more tend to have lower levels of cholesterol
Mark and Jeff want to be professional tennis players when they grow up. There are four different types of tennis courts: hard, clay, carpet, and grass. Mark and Jeff currently only play tennis tournaments on hard courts. But professional tennis plays on different types of courts. Mark only practices on hard courts and Jeff varies his practice between the four different types of courts. All else being equal, _______will likely perform best on the current tournaments and _______ will likely perform better on future tournaments.
Mark, Jeff
Dana and Melissa are both members of the high school basketball team. Each girl takes 100 practice basketball shots each evening. Dana always takes her shots from the exact same location on the same basketball hoop in the gym. Melissa takes her shots from totally random locations and practices on all eight different basketball hoops in the gym. All other things being equal, when Dana and Melissa's team travels to a rival high school for a game, you would expect _________ to perform the best because her practice context was _________.
Melissa; more variable
Heather is a researcher interested in the psychological consequences of high school bullying. She would like to know if students who attend high schools that have an explicit anti-bullying policy have more positive psychological outcomes than students who attend high schools without an explicit anti-bullying policy. Heather does a search and finds that there have already been 30 different published studies that have examined this basic question in slightly different ways. Heather thus aggregates the results across all of these different previously published studies into one analysis. She finds that on average, when combining across studies, students who attend high schools with an explicit anti-bullying policy have more positive psychological outcomes than students who attend high school without such a policy. Heather used what type of research method?
Meta-analysis
Jack's family always has dessert after dinner. One night at dinner though, Jack says something very mean to his younger sister. Jack's mother immediately says to Jack, "You shouldn't say such mean things to your sister. You don't get any dessert tonight!" Jack's mother is attempting to use which of the following in order to change Jack's behavior?
Negative Punishment
Steven is playing a video game where his character has to move through the desert to reach a treasure. Throughout this desert, there are various obstacles like cacti and snakes. Anytime Steven's character touches one of these obstacles, Steven's character is sent all the way back to the start of the level. Through time Steven becomes less likely to have his character touch any of the obstacles. If we view being sent back to the start of the level after touching an obstacle as removing Steven's progress toward the treasure, this would be an example of:
Negative reinforcement
As part of a science project, Jameson places four pieces of paper on the ground outside. Two of the pieces of paper are placed in the direct sunlight, while the other two are placed in the shade. Jameson uses a device to measure the amount of light reflecting off of each piece of paper. His results are as follows: Paper #1 - Direct Sunlight - 20 units of light Paper #2 - Direct Sunlight - 15 units of light Paper #3 - Shade - 20 units of light Paper #4 - Shade - 15 units of light Which of the pieces of paper will Jameson perceive to be the dimmest (darkest)?
Paper #2
Jason is studying under a tree and has five pieces of paper in front of him. Some of the pieces of paper are in the direct sunlight, while some are in the shade. Which of the following pieces of paper will Jason perceive to be the LIGHTEST shade (i.e., whitest)?
Paper E: in the shade, reflecting 60 photons per second
Marie wants to train her cat to not scratch the couch. Thus, whenever Marie sees the catch scratching, she sprays the cat with water from a squirt gun. Eventually, not only does the cat stop scratching, but the cat avoids the entire couch as well as Marie. The use of the squirt gun in this case is an example of:
Positive punishment
A common practice in many elementary school classrooms is to give students a sticker for every time they get a good grade on an assignment to increase their likelihood of continuing to get good grades and to without a sticker when they get a bad grade on an assignment to reduce the likelihood of getting another bad grade. Receiving a sticker for getting a good grade is an example of _______ and not receiving a sticker for a bad grade is an example of _______.
Positive reinforcement, negative punishment
Carol is a tennis instructor. She wants to teach her students to hit two types of serves (kick serves and flat serves). She has ten minutes scheduled for serving practice each day. How should her students spend the time?
Randomly doing kick serves and flat serves (but never more than 3 in a row of any one type)
Professor Morgan recently read a published research article. This paper used a correlational research method to show that children who read more books when they were four years old tended to know more vocabulary words when they were five years old. Which method should Professor Morgan use if she wants to conclude that book reading CAUSES increases in children's vocabulary?
Randomly sample a group of 4-year-old children. Ask half the children to read exactly 2 books each week. Ask the other half of the children to read 5 books each week. Measure differences in vocabulary between children assigned to the two groups when they turn 5-years-old.
Marquis is a piano teacher. On Monday he asked five of his students to practice a brand-new musical piece for 5 total hours over the coming week and to keep a journal of their practice. That Sunday, Marquis collected the student's journals. Marquis noticed that all five students had practiced for exactly 5 hours as he had asked, but they did so in different ways: Student #1: Practiced for 5 hours on Saturday Student #2: Practiced for 2 ½ hours on Tuesday and 2 ½ hours on ThursdayStudent #3: Practiced for 2 hours on Tuesday, 2 hours on Thursday, and 1 hour on SaturdayStudent #4: Practiced for 2 hours on Tuesday, 1 ½ hours on Thursday, and 1 ½ hours on SaturdayStudent #5: Practiced for 1 hour on Tuesday, 1 hour on Wednesday, 1 hour on Thursday, 1 hour on Friday, and 1 hour on Saturday All other things being equal, which student would Marquis expect to have best learned the piece?
Student #5
Sydney frequently forgets to shut off the garage lights when she gets home late. Her parents would like to decrease this behavior. Sydney's parents decide that each time Sydney forgets to turn off the lights, they will take away her privilege to stay out late for 3 days. Over time, there are fewer and fewer nights when Sydney forgets to turn off the lights. Sydney's parents have used ____ to alter her behavior.
negative punishment
A new company has been selling a pill that they claim enhances memory abilities in college students. Dave is interested in whether these claims are true. He does two studies to address this question: Study 1: Dave finds 100 college students who have never taken the memory pill before. All of the students are asked to take one pill per day for one week. A random half of the students are given the true memory pill, while the other half are given a sugar pill. At end of the week, Dave measures the memory abilities in all 100 students and compares the abilities of the students who took the memory pill with those who took the sugar pill. Study 2: Dave finds 200 college students who are regular users of the memory pill and 200 college students who have never taken the memory pill. He measures the memory abilities of all of the students and compares the abilities of those students who regularly take the memory pill with those students who have never taken the memory pill. _______ provides stronger evidence regarding the pill's efficacy because _______.
Study 1; in Study 2 there are many ways the students in the two groups might be different from one another beyond just whether they regularly take the memory pill
Ben has 12 total hours to study for a coming exam. Which of the study schedules below will maximize the amount that Ben learns?
Study for 1 hour per day for each of the twelve days before the exam
Tina finds that four-year-olds who watch Sesame Street have a larger vocabulary than four-year-olds that do not watch Sesame Street. She concludes that Sesame Street causes children to learn more words. What might be a problem with this conclusion?
The fact that correlation does not imply causation
Use the text below to answer the question: Tina hypothesizes that the more time 12-year-old children spend watching television, the lower their scores will be on a standardized math test. To test this, Tina asks 200 12-year-old children how much television they watch. She then examines how their reported television watching time relates to their performance on the standardized math test. Tina finds that in general, the more television a 12-year-old child watches, the poorer his/her performance will be on the standardized math test. Tina thus concludes that watching television causes poorer standardized math test performance in 12-year olds. What is the main problem with this conclusion?
Tina's study methodology did not allow for a causal conclusion to be reached. Other factors (e.g. socio-economic status) that she did not measure might have caused both an increase in television watching and poor standardized math performance.
Trevor and Markus were students in Introduction to Psychology. They both studied for one hour per day every day for the three weeks prior to the final exam. Trevor did all of his studying in the same seat in the Introduction to Psychology lecture hall. Markus studied in a new place pretty much every day. When they went to take their final exam, Trevor sat in the same seat where he had studied every day. Markus sat in a random seat. During the next semester, both Trevor and Markus were interviewed for the same internship in the Business School. As part of their interview they needed to recall information about decision-making biases and methods of persuasion that they had learned in Introduction to Psychology. All other things being equal, based on the description above, you would expect _____ to have done the best on the Introduction to Psychology final exam. You would expect ______ to have been better able to recall Introduction to Psychology material during the business internship interview.
Trevor; Markus
Vanessa and Martha both study for 10 total hours for an upcoming exam. They study in different ways though. Vanessa begins studying twenty days before the exam - each day she studies for 30 minutes. Martha doesn't begin studying until the day before the exam - she studies for 10 hours that day. ____________ would be expected to perform better on the exam because _______________.
Vanessa; her studying was more distributed
Bradley is a neurologist. One day when looking through patients' brain scans, he sees a patient whose hippocampus is twice as large as normal. He brings this patient into his research lab. He has the patient fill out a detailed questionnaire about her background (e.g., places she lived, level of education, etc.). He then has the patient do a large number of cognitive and memory tests and measures her performance. Finally, he asks the patient to fill out a personality index. He finds that the patient is reasonably normal in most regards, but that she does have an unusually good memory. What type of method has Bradley used?
case study
Dr. Gray is interested in understanding how motor skills develop from birth to 2-years of age. Dr. Gray decides to carefully observe his own child's motor skills for the child's first 2-years of life. Every day he writes down detailed notes on his observations. Dr. Gray conducted what type of study?
case study
Dr. Smith is a neurologist. One of Dr. Smith's patients has a rare bilateral brain lesion. Dr. Smith runs a series of tests on this patient and sees how the patient responds under different conditions. For example, Dr. Smith tested whether the patient could read words when the words were presented on a gray background versus when they were presented on a white background. Dr. Smith also took an extremely detailed medical history from the patient and conducted detailed scans of the patient's brain. This would best be described as which type of research method:
case study
Gail is a neurologist. Her newest patient has a very unusual injury. He was shot with an arrow through the head and one very specific part of his temporal lobe was destroyed. Over the course of several months, Gail intensively studies her patient, giving him many background questionnaires and psychological tests to assess the impact of his brain injury. This would best be described as a:
case study
Vicky is a neurologist. One of Vicky's patients recently suffered a stroke that seriously damaged part of his brain. Since the stroke, the patient no longer has the ability to see visual motion. The patient indicates that the world now looks like a series of still photographs being displayed one at a time rather than continuous smooth motion. Vicky recognizes these symptoms as being consistent with a very rare disorder that only a few individuals in history have had. She thus asks the patient to complete a large number of perceptual assessments and questionnaires about his life. The patient also undergoes a series of more comprehensive brain scans to finely map out the brain areas that were damaged by the stroke. Once all this data has been collected, Vicky publishes her findings about this one patient in a peer-reviewed medical journal. Vicky has used what type of research method?
case study
Martin recently bought a chair for his entertainment system with speakers built into the chair. Unfortunately, the chair was defective. Every time one particular frequency of sound was played, the chair gave Martin a shock to his neck. Humans don't like being shocked and will automatically move away from things that shock them. Martin tolerated the chair for about a week before he finally got a replacement. However, Martin found that even though the new chair wasn't shocking him, whenever he heard that one particular frequency of sound, he still jumped up out of the chair. In this example of classical conditioning, Martin jumping out of the new replacement chair whenever he heard the one particular frequency of sound is the __________.
conditioned response
Brandon is an 8-year-old child. He has just started at a new school. Each day he rides the bus into school and as soon as he enters the school, several other children immediately start bullying him. The other children assault him both physically (e.g., pushing) and verbally (e.g., name calling). These actions automatically provoke feelings of fear and anxiety in Brandon. After about two weeks of this, Brandon starts to feel anxious and fearful as soon as he sees the school bus approaching. In this example of classical conditioning, the school bus is the ____________.
conditioned stimulus
Diane is interested in the relation between exposure to lead in drinking water and performance on standardized reading measures amongst 1stgrade students. Diane gathers a group of 300 1st grade students. She goes to each student's home and measures the amount of lead in their drinking water. She then has each student take a standardized measure of reading performance. Diane finds that students who have more lead in their drinking water tend to have lower reading scores, while students who have less lead in their drinking water tend to have higher reading scores. Diane has used what type of research method?
correlational
Nina is interested in whether there is a relationship between the amount of time children spend watching the educational television cartoon "Dora the Explorer" and the number of pro-social behaviors that the children exhibit. To test this, Nina randomly chose a group of 100 children and asked the children how many hours of "Dora the Explorer" they had watched in their lifetime. She then observed and recorded the number of pro-social behaviors those children exhibited at school over the period of one month. What type of study has Nina conducted?
correlational
Rista is a clinical psychologist interested in predictors of schizophrenia. She recruits a random sample of adolescent children whose biological parents were both diagnosed with schizophrenia. She has the children fill out a standardized questionnaire that asks about stresses in the home environment (higher scores = more stressful home life). Two decades later, she recontacts the individuals and asks if they have been diagnosed with schizophrenia. Rista's main finding is that the higher the level of home life stress when the children were adolescents, the more likely they were to have been diagnosed with schizophrenia later in life. Rista has used what type of research method?
correlational
Deborah is interested in whether there is a relationship between the number of hours of television that children watch each day and their scores on standardized math tests. Deborah recruits 100 children for her study. For each child, she first measures the average number of hours of television the child watches each day. She then has each child take a standardized math test. She finds that for every additional hour of television a child watches, his/her math scores are 2 points lower. What type of study is this?
correlational study
June is a researcher who is interested in whether there is a relation between the number of words that parents speak directly to their children and the number of words that the children know by the age of 2. June designs a study where she randomly recruits 100 parents of 2-year-old children. She first gives the children a test to determine the total number of words that they know. She then asks the parents to wear a portable microphone that records every word they speak for one week. At the end of the week, June goes through the recordings and counts the total number of words the parents spoke directly to their children. What type of study did June conduct?
correlational study
Attempting to learn by "cramming for a test" (e.g. not studying at all for the first 4 weeks of class, then studying for 8 hours the day before the first exam) is, to some extent, the opposite of _____________, which is a far more effective learning schedule.
distributed practice
Dana is a media psychologist. He is interested in whether students' learning is different if they read material on a computer screen versus on paper. Dana recruits 100 participants for a study. He randomly assigns 50 participants to read a passage from Wikipedia on Marfan Syndrome (a rare medical condition) on a computer monitor. The remaining 50 participants are asked to read the same passage that has been printed out on paper. After the participants read the passage, they are then asked to take a test on key facts about Marfan Syndrome. Dana finds that the group that read the passage on paper scored 20% higher on the test than the group that read the passage on a computer monitor. What type of method did Dana use for his study?
experimental
Daniel's research has shown that eating foods high in lycopene (an antioxidant) can be beneficial for heart health. Daniel wants to determine the most effective way to convince people to eat more food that contains lycopene. Daniel recruits 300 people from a shopping mall in Wisconsin. He tells them that if they watch a 5-minute video about eating healthy, they'll be paid $20. In general, these individuals aren't particularly interested in heart health or eating better. They also don't have any expertise in food science. Daniel assigns the participants to watch one of two videos: Video #1 is narrated by Daniel. He starts by discussing the fact that lycopene is an antioxidant and it then carefully describes the biochemistry of antioxidants. He then talks about why antioxidants might be important for heart health. Finally, the message ends by saying that eating foods high in lycopene could enhance heart health. At each stage, Daniel logically and fully presents the scientific evidence underlying the claim. Video #2 is narrated by members of the Milwaukee Brewers (the local professional baseball team). The players talk about why being healthy is important for them as successful athletes. They mention that they always eat foods with lots of lycopene to make sure they can play hard and feel healthy. The players don't present any scientific evidence or reasoning for why lycopene might be useful. After each participant watches the video, Daniel has them fill out a survey indicating how likely they are to start eating more foods containing lycopene. In the study described above, Daniel used what type of research method to assess the impact of the two videos (and the two types of persuasion they utilize)?
experimental
Frank is interested in the relationship between intelligence test performance and the amount of sleep that individuals got the night before they took the test. Frank recruits 1000 individuals and randomly assigns them to one of five sleep conditions: 0 hours of sleep, 2 hours of sleep, 4 hours of sleep, 6 hours of sleep, or 8 hours of sleep. The individuals come to Frank's lab the night before they take the intelligence test and Frank's research team makes sure that each individual gets exactly the number of hours of sleep they were assigned (e.g., an individual assigned to the "4 hours" group would be allowed to fall asleep and stay asleep for 4 hours after which they would be woken up and kept awake until the test). The next day, the individuals take an intelligence test and Frank measures their performance. What type of method has Frank used?
experimental
Janice is a researcher interested in predictors of mathematics performance. In particular, she is interested in whether being asked to indicate one's biological sex affects performance on a math exam. Janice randomly recruits 200 participants for a study and divides them into two equal groups. Both groups take exactly the same math exam. The only difference between the groups is in the cover sheet that they fill out before they start taking the exam. The cover sheet for Group #1 asks the students to enter their name and the date. The cover sheet for Group #2 asks the students to enter their name, their biological sex (male or female), and the date. Janice finds that in Group #1 the male and female participants had almost identical scores. In Group #2, the female participants scored much worse than the male participants. In the study described above, Janice used what type of research method?
experimental
Janice is a researcher interested in predictors of mathematics performance. In particular, she is interested in whether being asked to indicate one's biological sex affects performance on a math exam. Janice randomly recruits 200 participants for a study and divides them into two equal groups. Both groups take exactly the same math exam. The only difference between the groups is in the cover sheet that they fill out before they start taking the exam. The cover sheet for Group #1 asks the students to enter their name and the date. The cover sheet for Group #2 asks the students to enter their name, their biological sex (male or female), and the date. Janice finds that in Group #1 the male and female participants had almost identical scores. In Group #2, the female participants scored much worse than the male participants. In the study described above, Janice used what type of research method?
experimental
Javier is a psychologist interested in whether a newly developed drug enhances learning abilities. Javier randomly recruits 200 participants from an Introduction to Psychology class. Half of the participants are randomly assigned to take the new drug (one pill). The other half of the participants are asked to take a visually identical sugar pill. After all the participants have taken their respective pills, Javier then has all the participants read a list of 40 nonsense words five times. An hour later, Javier asks the participants to write down as many of the nonsense words as they can remember. Javier finds that the participants who took the real drug recalled, on average, 24 nonsense words. The participants who took the sugar pill recalled, on average, 12 nonsense words. Javier has used what type of research method?
experimental
A marketing company wants to know whether commercials that show famous celebrities using certain products increases the likelihood that consumers will buy those products. The marketing firm's head researcher randomly assigns participants to view either a commercial showing a famous celebrity using a product or a commercial showing an average (i.e., not famous) person using the same product. The researcher then asks the consumers in both groups how likely they are to buy the product. What type of study has the marketing company conducted?
experimental study
Peter loves to eat Pop-Tart toaster pastries when they are still very hot from the toaster. After starting the toaster, it always takes exactly two minutes for the Pop-Tarts to be finished. Thus, during the first 45 seconds or so Peter doesn't look at the toaster at all. However, as the seconds tick past he starts to look at the toaster more and more often until right before the two-minute mark he is constantly staring right at the toaster. This is an example of a _______ reinforcement schedule.
fixed interval
Diane is interested in the relation between exposure to lead in drinking water and performance on standardized reading measures amongst 1stgrade students. Diane gathers a group of 300 1st grade students. She goes to each student's home and measures the amount of lead in their drinking water. She then has each student take a standardized measure of reading performance. Diane finds that students who have more lead in their drinking water tend to have lower reading scores, while students who have less lead in their drinking water tend to have higher reading scores. Based on the description of Diane's results above, her results indicate a __________ between lead in drinking water and reading scores.
negative correlation
Over the past 30 years, the amount of video games played by teenagers has risen steadily. Over the same amount of time, the amount of violent crimes committed by teenagers has dropped steadily. If one were to plot the amount of video games played by teenagers over the past 30 years against the amount of violent crimes committed by teenagers over the same period time, you would see a:
negative correlation
Dazen always set an alarm with the same special ring tone to remind him that he has to leave for work. Dazen hates his job; even thinking about his job automatically makes him feel tense, angry, and frustrated. On one of his days off, Dazen was at the supermarket and he heard someone's phone go off with that same special ring tone. Immediately, Dazen started feeling tense, angry, and frustrated. The emotions that Dazen feels when he hears the ring tone would be considered _____________.
negative in valence and high in arousa
Alice has two young sons. Every time her sons get into a fight over a toy, Alice permanently takes the toy away. Over time, her sons get into fewer and fewer fights over toys. This is an example of:
negative punishment
Sarah's 14-year old daughter Patti loves to cook. It is her favorite thing in the world to do. However, after she's finished cooking, Patti often leaves all of her pots and pans in the sink rather than cleaning them. Sarah would like to reduce the number of times that Patti leaves the pots and pans in the sink. As such, every time that Patti leaves pots and pans in the sink, Sarah takes away Patti's cooking privileges for one week. Over time, Patti eventually totally stops leaving her pots and pans in the sink. What type of operant conditioning strategy did Sarah use to alter Patti's behavior?
negative punishment
Carol's daughter Kate came home after curfew fifteen times in September. In order to get Kate to start coming home before curfew, Carol decides to remove Kate from the school band. However, it turns out that Kate hated being in the band and she actually misses curfew MORE frequently in October. Removing Kate from the band was thus an example of:
negative reinforcement
Jennifer wants her son to practice the piano regularly. Her son's favorite thing to do is to play video games. Each week he is allowed to play video games for a total of 10 hours. However, whenever he misses a session of piano practice, Jennifer takes away 2 hours of her son's video game time. She finds that this increases the chance that he practices the piano regularly. This is an example of:
negative reinforcement
Santiago oversees a manufacturing facility. Once an hour, the employees are supposed to stop and clean their particular part of the equipment. However, because this is a difficult process, Santiago found that employees were often skipping this step. Santiago thus implemented a system where the employees were given a small bonus payment for completing the cleaning as scheduled. He found that this greatly increased the probability that the employees did the cleaning. In this case, Santiago used __________ to alter his employees' behavior.
positive reinforcement
Sara is trying to train her dog to sit. Whenever Sara says "sit" and her dog sits, Sarah pats her dog on the head in the hopes of encouraging her dog to repeat this behavior in the future. In practice though, her dog does not like being pat on the head and thus becomes less likely to sit when Sara says "sit." In this case Sara thought the head pats would be ___________, but were in fact _________.
positive reinforcement; positive punishment
A shy child works up the courage to answer a question in class. The teacher calls on him and the child delivers an excellent answer. The teacher exclaims, "That is the best answer I've ever heard. Come to the front of the room for a sticker!" Unfortunately, the child found the attention unpleasant and so now no longer answers questions in class. His behavior of answering questions has been:
positively punished
Valentina goes to a college where a large number of students have started taking a new herbal supplement called Beatitudinem. The advertising for the supplement says that it will significantly reduce anxiety and make people feel overall calmer. Valentina recruits 200 students from her college. When the students come to her lab, she first asks them to indicate whether they are taking the supplement and, if so, how much. She then has them fill out a standard measure of anxiety. When she plots her results, she finds a correlation of 0.7 between anxiety levels and Beatitudinem dosage. What can Valentina conclude about the relationship between anxiety and taking Beatitudinem?
that taking higher doses of Beatitudinem is associated with more anxiety, but may not be the direct cause of the higher levels of anxiety
Harold cuts himself while peeling potatoes. Initially, Harold doesn't think the cut hurts very much until he looks down at his cut and sees that it is bleeding very badly. In his experience, cuts that bleed this much usually hurt quite a lot. The bottom-up pain information in this case is _______, while the top-down information is _________. Thus, assuming that the sensation of pain works the same as the other senses we have covered in class, Harold will likely experience that the pain is _________ after he looked at his wound as compared to before he looked at his wound.
the raw pain signal sent from his cut skin; his knowledge of how much a cut that bleeds so badly usually hurts; more intense
Kenna strongly believes that Coca-Cola and Pepsi-Cola taste very different. Specifically, she believes that Pepsi-Cola tastes sweeter than Coca-Cola. A friend decides to play a trick on Kenna. He fills two cups with store brand cola. However, he labels one cup "Coca-Cola" and the other cup "Pepsi-Cola." He asks Kenna to look at the labels and then to drink from both cups and tell him which is sweeter. In this example, the bottom-up information is _________ for the liquid in the two cups. The top-down information is __________ for the liquid in the two cups. In the end, Kenna is most likely to say that the liquids taste _________.
the same; different; different
Walter looked at his new green shirt in three locations: (1) the store dressing room - which was lit by a fluorescent light bulb; (2) in the mall parking lot - which was lit by the sun; and (3) his bedroom - which was lit by an incandescent bulb. In all three locations, Walter perceived the shirt to be the same green color. The bottom-up information related to the color of the shirt was the _____________. This information was _____________ in the three locations.
the total number of photons of different wavelengths reflecting off the shirt; different
Which of the following is a key DISADVANTAGE of all correlational research methods?
they can't show a cause/effect relationship
Gabby is a trained radiologist, while Patty is a novice. When reading a patient's x-ray, Gabby notices a tumor right away, while Patty doesn't see anything abnormal. What likely explains the differences in Gabby and Patty's identification of a tumor?
top-down information
Infants and children will naturally cry when they are in pain. When Debbie takes her child to the doctor's office to get his first vaccination shot, the child shows no response to the doctor's office. After getting the shot though, the child cries. Three months later, when Debbie brings the child back for another vaccination, the child does not respond to the doctor's office, but again, after getting the shot, the child cries. Six months later, as soon as Debbie and her child enter the doctor's office, the child begins to cry. In the scenario above, the child crying in response to the pain from getting a shot would be considered the:
unconditioned response
Pavlov's dog salivated automatically when presented with meat powder. The salivation is an example of a(n):
unconditioned response
A piece of paper placed inside a room lit by an incandescent bulb will tend to reflect a greater percentage of ___________ light, than if it is placed outside on a sunny day.
yellow