Exit Exam

Which of the following titles would most likely be found in a research journal for social psychology?

"How the presence of other people affects helping behavior in public situations"

Which of the following is NOT a possible correlation coefficient?

+1.72

In response to cutting up an onion, airborne irritants released by the onion body will cause your eyes to tear. Using Pavlov's terminology, the tears would be termed a(n):

. unconditioned response (UCR)

Which statement best characterizes the evolutionary perspective of psychology?

A given psychological process exists in the form it does because the process solved a specific problem of individual survival or reproduction that repeatedly occurred over the course of human history

Which famous Greek philosopher wrote extensively about such psychological topics as sleep and dreaming, the senses, memory, and learning?

Aristotle

During the war in Iraq, some U.S. troops carried atropine injection kits as an antidote to nerve gas. How does the drug atropine counteract nerve gas?

Atropine blocks acetylcholine receptor sites.

Which of the following statements best captures the basic idea of operant conditioning?

Behavior is shaped and maintained by its consequences.

How do glasses correct visual problems?

By intercepting and bending incoming light waves so that they are focused properly on the retina

Which of the following people emphasized conscious experiences and each person's unique potential for psychological growth and self-direction?

Carl Rogers

Professor Lewis studies the history of psychology. She would most likely agree with which of the following statements about psychology's early history?

Early psychologists disagreed about which methods psychologists should use and what kinds of behavior psychologists should study

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.

Who discovered the basic process of classical conditioning?

Ivan Pavlov

Brandy is fond of attending allnight raves at a dance club near her home. Some of the raves are drugfree, but at one rave she saw a friend who was sweating profusely, chewing ice and a plastic pacifier, drinking large quantities of water, and hugging everyone in reach as he proclaimed his love for all humanity. Brandy suspected that her friend was probably high on _____.

MDMA (ecstasy)

Kenyon was picked up by police after he became extremely violent and aggressive at a street party. After he attacked two of the police officers, they put handcuffs on him but he seemed invulnerable to pain. Even after he was put in the back of the squad car, he was completely disoriented and seemed to have no idea where he was. Kenyon was probably under the influence of which of the following drugs?

PCP (phencyclidine)

How did physiology contribute to the emergence of psychology as a separate scientific discipline?

Physiologists demonstrated that scientific method would be applied to understanding human behavior and mental processes

Dreaming usually takes place during _____ sleep and is typically accompanied by _____.

REM; physiological arousal, brain activity, and rapid movement of the eyes

Helen always drives down Sheridan Avenue to go to the college campus. One morning Helen discovers that Sheridan Avenue is closed at 23rd Street because of flooding. Helen immediately takes a different route to the campus. How would psychologist Edward Tolman explain Helen's behavior?

She has formed a cognitive map of the area.

Who would have been most likely to say: "Why you behave the way you do is because of unconscious reasons, not reasons in your consciousness."?

Sigmund Freud

According to the Critical Thinking Box, "Is Hypnosis a Special State of Consciousness?", studies of hypnosis using brainimaging techniques tend to support which view of hypnosis?

That hypnosis is a distinct mental state, and not merely roleplaying.

What happens in the brain of a person who is physically addicted to an addictive drug, such as cocaine, heroin, or nicotine?

The number of dopamine receptors in the brain's reward system decreases.

Which of the following best defines a neurotransmitter?

a chemical messenger that crosses the synaptic gap between neurons

If you are like most people, you experience a daily slump in your mental alertness around 3 o'clock each afternoon. This daily fluctuation in mental alertness is an example of:

a circadian rhythm

Sixyearold Blair liked going to school right up until her first grade teacher, Ms. Hanemayer, took maternity leave. The substitute teacher, old Mrs. Snarly, was strict and scolded Blair on several occasions, making her cry. On one Saturday morning as Blair was helping her father with grocery shopping, she rounded the corner and came face to face with old Mrs. Snarly. Blair instantly burst into tears. Blair's crying at just the sight of Mrs. Snarly is an example of:

a conditioned response

To produce a learned response in classical conditioning, what two elements are repeatedly paired?

a neutral stimulus and a stimulus that naturally elicits a response

Psychologists formally define learning as:

a relatively permanent change in behavior or knowledge that is due to past experience

A hypothesis is

a tentative statement that describes the relationship between two or more variables

Which of the following neurotransmitters is implicated in Alzheimer's disease?

acetylcholine

In contrast to sensation, the term perception is formally defined as the:

active mental process of integrating, organizing, and interpreting sensory data

Positive reinforcement is to negative reinforcement as:

addition of a reinforcing stimulus is to removal of an aversive stimulus.

Which of the following is NOT a step in the scientific method?

apply the finding to solve human problems

The fundamental laws of learning are a focus of the _____________ perspective of psychology

behavioral

The development of medications that helped control the symptoms of severe psychological disorders and development of techniques to study the human brain contributed to the importance of __________ psychology in recent decades

biological

The rhythmic electrical patterns of the brain are called:

brain waves.

The most widely used psychoactive drug in the world is:

caffeine.

A particular neurotransmitter:

can have different effects, depending upon the receptor site to which it attaches.

In combination, the brain and spinal cord make up the:

central nervous system.

After too many drinks at a party, your friend awkwardly stumbles into a table, almost knocking it over. Your friend's coordination for simple actions, such as walking between two tables, is reduced because the alcohol has affected his:

cerebellum.

A _____ reinforcer is one that has acquired reinforcing value by being associated with a _____ reinforcer.

conditioned; primary

The process of learning associations between environmental events and behavioral responses is called:

conditioning.

As you glance at the person sitting next to you in class, light reflected from the person's shirt first passes through which three structures of your eye?

cornea, pupil, lens

Juanita participated in a psychology research project that involved answering a number of arithmetic problems. During the experiment, she was informed that her answers were incorrect. After the experiment was completed, a research assistant explained the purpose of the experiment. He told Juanita that she had actually answered all the items correctly, and then explained why the experiment required that she be told that her answers were wrong. This stage of the research represents:

debriefing

In operant conditioning, reinforcement is:

defined by the effect that it produces—increasing or strengthening behavior.

Which part of the neuron receives messages from other neurons?

dendrite

Which of the following best represents psychology's basic goals?

describe, explain, predict, and influence behavior

Longterm methamphetamine use can produce damage to the brain's

dopamine system, which is associated with memory and motor skill problems

Classical conditioning is to operant conditioning as:

elicited behaviors are to emitted behaviors.

Animals:

experience sleep cycles in which REM sleep alternates with slowwave NREM sleep

Anthony is studying for his final exam the next day, but a friend calls and invites him to a party. Anthony really wants to go to the party, but he also needs a good grade on his final in order to maintain his standing on the Dean's Honor Roll and increase his chances of getting into medical school. Instead of thinking about how much fun the party will be, Anthony instead visualizes himself as a doctor, treating patients and performing surgery. What selfcontrol strategy is Anthony using?

focusing on the delayed reinforcer

Humanistic psychology emphasized:

free will, self-determination, psychological growth, and human potential

Even though the dentist had deadened the area around the tooth, Gail still felt moments of pain. To reduce her perception of pain, Gail began thinking about the flowers she wanted to plant in front of her house and visualizing in her mind how she wanted to arrange them. Gail was using the technique of _____ to help reduce her perception of pain.

imagery

Information is transmitted along the axon:

in the form of a brief electrical impulse.

The primary function of the myelin sheath is to:

insulate the axon and increase the speed at which neurons convey their message

Every Friday, Dr. Cruz would give a quiz in his psychology class. Students quickly learned to be nervous on Friday mornings, just before each quiz. Halfway through the semester, Dr. Cruz stopped giving quizzes on Fridays and the students' anxiety began to diminish with each passing week in which there was no quiz. The decrease in the students' anxiety may be attributed to the process of:

latent learning.

Rods are to cones as _____ is(are) to _____.

less specific visual information; more specific visual information

Which of the following techniques has NOT been shown to be effective in reducing pain?

magnets

A group of techniques that induce an altered state of focused attention and heightened awareness is a definition of:

meditation

As you play a Star Trek video game, you track all of the Romulan war ships as they fly across the screen, attacking your ship, the U.S.S. Enterprise. In visually tracking the movements on the screen, the _____ plays an important role.

midbrain

The stimulus threshold of the neuron refers to the:

minimum level of stimulation required to activate a particular neuron

Many brain functions involve the activation of _____ that link different brain regions

neural pathways

REM sleep is also called:

paradoxical sleep.

The expectations and predispositions that tend to influence perceptual interpretations are referred to as:

perceptual set

The famous Bobo doll studies showed that:

performance of a behavior was affected by the cognitive expectation of reinforcement or punishment.

The term ___________ is used to describe the condition in which a person has adapted to a drug and must continue to take it regularly in order to avoid withdrawal symptoms.

physical dependence

The outer ear consists of the:

pinna, ear canal, and eardrum

Which of the following represents the correct sequence of events in hearing?

pinna, ear canal, eardrum, hammer, anvil, stirrup, oval window, cochlea, basilar membrane, hair cells, auditory nerve

When Mena visited the Marine recruiter's office, he gave her a computer mouse pad with a Marine slogan on it, which read: "Pain is weakness leaving the body." If Mena used this slogan during the grueling workouts in boot camp, what pain strategy would she be using?

positive selftalk.

Which of the following techniques or instruments generates colorcoded images of the brain's activity?

positron emission tomography (PET)

In recent decades, psychologists have again focused on the study of consciousness. One reason this has occurred is because:

psychologists have devised more objective ways to study conscious experience

According to psychologists, the formal meaning of the term drug abuse is:

recurrent drug use that results in disrupted academic, social, or occupational functioning, or in legal or psychological problems

Which behavior is a reflex, meaning that it is governed by the nervous system and occurs automatically?

salivating shivering in response to cold

Jill runs a hot bath. She starts to get into the tub but the water feels extremely hot. She stands in the hot water for a few moments, then slowly sits down, easing the rest of her body into the water. After a few minutes, she feels quite comfortable; the water no longer feels too hot to her. Jill has experienced:

sensory adaptation.

Information from specialized cells in the sense organs is conveyed to the brain by:

sensory neurons

The three basic types of neurons are:

sensory neurons, motor neurons, and interneurons.

What makes sensation possible?

sensory receptors

When Andrew had his hearing tested, some sounds were too soft for him to detect. These sounds were below his _____ for hearing.

sensory threshold

Moderate or heavy use of MDMA (ecstasy) can lead to irreversible damage to the brain's _____ system.

serotonin

Mrs. Wilkinson notices that her middleaged husband stops breathing in his sleep, awakens slightly to gulp in air, then goes back to sleep. This happens several times a night. Mr. Wilkinson is displaying which of the following sleep disorders?

sleep apnea

The two main subdivisions of the peripheral nervous system are the _____ nervous system and the _____ nervous system

somatic; autonomic

You can easily distinguish between a tuna fish salad sandwich and a chicken salad sandwich by their smell, because airborne molecules from tuna salad and chicken salad:

stimulate two different patterns of odor receptors in the nasal cavity

Jake is a recovering alcoholic. He has not had a drink of alcohol in over 6 months. One of the strategies that Jake has used to remain abstinent has been to stay away from bars, avoid parties in which alcohol is served, and even find new friends who do not drink alcohol. Jake is overcoming the shortterm reinforcement he associated with alcohol use by using which strategy?

stimulus control

The point of communication between two neurons is called the

synapse.

Taste is to _____ as pressure is to _____ and as body position is to _____.

taste bud; Pacinian corpuscle; proprioceptor

To identify which brain areas are most active when a person suffering from schizophrenia has hallucinations, researchers could use _____ to track the use of glucose throughout the brain.

the PET scan

Terry wants his teenage daughter, Lauren, to help him with the housework, so he tells her that she can play "The Sims" on his computer as soon as she finishes doing the dinner dishes and putting away the clean laundry. Which strategy is Terry using?

the Premack principle

Of the following brain structures, which is associated with the emotional responses of fear, disgust, and anger?

the amygdala

The olfactory nerve is made up of:

the bundled axons of the olfactory receptor cells, the olfactory neurons

The inner ear includes which of the following structures?

the cochlea, basilar membrane, and hair cells

Multiple sclerosis is a disease that involves:

the degeneration of the myelin sheath, slowing or interrupting the transmission of neural messages.

Dr. Repetti is a sleep researcher who wishes to record the rhythmic electrical patterns of the brain. He is most likely to use which of the following methods?

the electroencephalograph

The cognitive perspective of psychology focuses on

the important role of mental processes in how people process information, develop language, solve problems, and think

Caleb had a wonderful time on his first date with Shauna. Because of this, he asked Shauna to go out on a second date. What best explains Caleb's behavior of asking Shauna for another date?

the law of effect

In psychology, the term sensation formally refers to:

the process of detecting a physical stimulus

Behaviorism was characterized by

the rejection of consciousness as a topic in psychology and a focus upon observable behavior

From the cognitive perspective, classical conditioning involves learning:

the relationship between events.

Dr. Hazlett used statistics and determined that the result of her experiment was statistically significant. Dr. Hazlett would then conclude that:

the results of the experiment were not likely to have occurred by chance

When researchers create questions to investigate, generate evidence, and draw conclusions, they are guided by a set of assumptions, attitudes, and procedures that are called

the scientific method

PET scans of former methamphetamine users showed that even after months of abstinence:

they had an abnormally low number of dopamine receptors and transporters

As you enter the locker room at the gym, you notice the distinctive smell of chlorine from the adjacent swimming pool. The process by which the stimulation of special receptors in your nose is converted into neural signals that your brain interprets as the smell of chlorine is called:

transduction.

You catch the whiff of freshly popped popcorn as you enter the movie theater. The process by which the odor of popcorn is converted into neural signals that your brain can interpret as the smell of popcorn is called:

transduction.

The factors in a hypothesis that can vary or change are called the

variables