ap psychology unit 2: the brain, AP test questions

Dr. Kovacs is conducting a study of how the brain responds to reading. He records subjects' brain activity using electroencephalography (EEG) while they read sentences. He is looking for the N400 signal, a negative EEG spike that occurs 400 milliseconds after someone processes something semantically surprising. There are two conditions in the study. The two figures below show average EEG activity for the subjects in the two conditions (Condition A on the left; Condition B on the right). The ×-axis indicates time in milliseconds; time O indicates when the subjects first read the last word in each sentence. Which of the following pairs of conditions would produce results such as the ones Dr. Kovacs found?

Condition A included sentences such as "Strawberries is sweet" and Condition B included sentences such as "Strawberries are sweet." (Is, are)

Which hormone is released when a person is under stress?

Cortisol

A person whose body is not producing enough testosterone is most likely to exhibit

Fatigue

Which of the following best describes a major role of the thalamus?

It relays most sensory signals to the cortex.

Madeline has previously been diagnosed with major depressive disorder. She has an identical twin sister, Josephine, and a nonidentical sister, Abigail. Neither of Madeline's sisters have previously been diagnosed with major depressive disorder. Which of the following statements is true of Madeline's sisters?

Josephine is more likely to be diagnosed with major depressive disorder than Abigail in response to a stressful or traumatic event.

In a study mimicking Roger Sperry's work, Dr. Kornhauser compared the responses of split-brain patients against a control group of neurotypical participants. In his study, participants focused on a dot in the center of a computer screen and objects are presented in either the left or right visual field. After seeing the object, the participants named the object. The results of the experiment are presented below. What is the most appropriate conclusion Dr. Kornhauser can draw from the results?

Split-brain patients have a much faster reaction time to objects in the right visual field due to having a more direct connection between the visual cortex and their lanquage center. (Faster reaction in right due to connection of visuals and language.)

Which of the following describes what happens when a neuron sends a signal?

The neuron goes from being negatively charged to briefly being positively charged, and finally returns to being negatively charged again. The magnitude of the positive charge varies depending on the strength of the input signal it receives (negative, positive, negative)

If a body does not have enough potassium, how might that affect neuronal firing?

The neurons will struggle to fire because there will not be enough positively charged ions to trigger the firing of the neuron.

At a synapse, neurotransmitters released by the sending neuron do which of the following?

They bind to receptors at the receiving neuron, which opens ion channels.

What effect do agonists have?

They decrease the likelihood that a postsynaptic neuron will fire

The idea that there is a part of the mind that is not directly accessible to awareness but still drives a person's thinking and behavior is most directly attributable to

William James

An adult with a healthy sleep cycle is most likely to enter REM sleep

after cycling through the NREM sleep stages

A neuron sends a signal along its

axon

Carl Wernicke discovered the region of the brain that is responsible for

lanquage comprehension

A drug that is used to treat seizures functions by preventing inhibitory neurotransmitters from returning to the presynaptic neuron. This slows the rate of neurons firing by increasing the amount of the inhibitory neurotransmitter in the synapse. The drug is most likely to be classified as a

beta blocker

Antagonists function by

blocking receptors to prevent other neurotransmitters from binding to the neural receptors

The medulla oblongata is a part of the

brain stem

Michael Gazzaniga is best known for

conditioning Little Albert to be fearful of rats

The psychodynamic theory of dreaming would postulate that

dreams fulfill unconscious wishes

The hormone most associated with the fight or flight response is

epinephrine

Researchers trained monkeys to perform two tasks: an object-matching task and a location task. In the object-matching task, the monkeys are given an object and must choose a matching object from two objects placed in front of them. In the location task, an object is placed near one of two locations, and the monkeys must reach toward the location the object is closest to. Separating the monkeys into two groups, researchers created a lesion in one area of the brains of the monkeys in one group and a lesion in a different area of the brains of the monkeys in the second group. The researchers then tested the monkeys' performance on the two tasks. The figures below show the monkeys' accuracy on the two tasks. The lesions were most likely performed in the

frontal lobe for Group 1 and the occipital lobe for Group 2

Johnny often hits his brother even though his brother does not do anything to antagonize him. Johnny's aggression is most likely due to a combination of

his genetic makeup, the environment he grew up in, and the fact that aggression can be evolutionarily adaptive (genetics, environment, aggression)

The phenomenon of declining physiological effects of taking a drug after sustained use is referred to as

long-term potentiation

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

more likelv to be similar to one another than are Vince's and Frankie's personalities

The fatty casing that helps speed up the neural transmissions of a neuron is called the

myelin sheath

The parietal lobe is most involved in

processing sensory information

Waking up frequently, loud snoring, silent pauses in breathing, and sleepiness during the day are symptoms of

sleep apnea