Psychology 101 Midterm

How long can information be stored in short-term memory without being rehearsed?

30 seconds

The spinal cord is part of the ________ nervous system.

Central

Which of the following terms refers to the waking state?

Conscious

Kendra loves spicy curry, but her husband prefers a mild curry. Starting with a mild curry, Kendra increases the spiciness every time she cooks. One day her husband complains that the curry is too spicy. After that, Kendra always makes the curry as spicy as the last time before her husband complained. With this exercise, Kendra assessed her husband's

Difference threshold

Which of the following has been shown to help people manage pain?

Distraction

According to Freud, which of the following statements is true of dreams?

Dreams express impulses we would censor during the day.

A link to some some optical (also called visual) illusions was posted. Which of the following statements is most accurate regarding these illusions?

Illusions help reveal normal perceptual processes.

The variable that a researcher varies or changes in an experiment is called the

Independent variable

What is true about anterograde amnesia?

It is the failure to remember the events that occurred after a physical trauma.

Which of the following best defines the term preconscious?

It refers to material that is not in awareness but can be brought into awareness by focusing one's attention.

The human body's nervous system is built from billions of nerve cells, which are called

Neurons

Jane Goodall is very famous for her studies on chimpanzees. She systematically watched and recorded the behavior of the chimpanzees in their natural environment. She was conducting ____

Observational studies

A young woman gets a severe blow to the head from an accident. Although her eyes are still fully functional, she can no longer see. Based on this information, her doctor determines that the brain area most likely damaged in the accident is the ________ lobes.

Occipital

Informed consent means that

Participants must be told about the research study and allowed to choose whether they would like to participate

Which of the following statements is true of sleep?

People need more sleep when they are under stress.

__________ is the memory to perform an act in the future, as at a certain time or when a certain event occurs.

Prospective memory

A student is reading her psychology textbook. The light reflects off the words on the page and falls on the sensory receptors in her retina, which results in ________. Then her brain interprets the stimuli as particular words, which is called ________.

Sensation; perception

The person who is most closely associated with the study of the unconscious is

Sigmund Freud

Which of the following characteristics is NOT a basic quality of taste?

Spicy

The minimum intensity of sensory stimulation required before a sensation is detected 50 percent of the time is called

The absolute threshold

Which of the following is the best definition of psychology?

The study of mental activity and behavior

It seems like every day you experience a decrease in your mental alertness around 2 or 3 o'clock each afternoon. This daily occurrence in your mental alertness is an example of:

a circadian rhythm.

Episodic memory is also referred to as ________.

autobiographical memory

People withdrawing from chronic alcohol use may experience __________ with heavy sweating, restlessness, disorientation, and frightening hallucinations.

delirium tremens

__________ is the first stage of information processing.

encoding

The occurrence of a learned response to stimuli that are similar to the original stimulus is called stimulus _____.

generalization

In order to form new memories, you must have a fully functioning _________.

hippocampus

The brain structure that is associated with the formation of memories is the

hippocampus

Dana always hears stories about how extravagantly her first birthday was celebrated, but she is unable to recall the events of that day. Dana's inability to recall the events of her first birthday is known as _________.

infantile amnesia

Continuous reinforcement is "better" when it comes to _____; partial reinforcement is "better" when it comes to _____.

initial learning of a behavior; resistance to extinction

A myelin sheath is a fatty layer that protects the axon, so it is most like the

insulation around a pipe

__________ is the agent that creates physiological dependence on tobacco products.

nicotine

Although Crystal had practiced her presentation several times before class, she struggled in the middle part of the speech when she gave it in class. This pattern of forgetting illustrates __________.

the serial-position effect

_____ is the habituation to a drug, with the result that increasingly higher doses of the drug are needed to achieve similar effects.

tolerance

Any stimulus that elicits an unconditioned response without previous conditioning is an _____

unconditioned stimulus

The sense that allows you to determine the location of your body and limbs in space is called

Kinesthetic

After a single presentation, Megan can recall her friend's long-distance telephone number and five-digit extension even though the sequence contains 15 digits. One reason for her ease of recall is that she split the digits into smaller groups of three each. This process is called ________.

chunking

As she was listening to her psychology professor discuss ways to improve memory, Ebony thought of different ways she could apply the suggestions to herself. Later that day she was trying to recall the different techniques, but she could only recall the first couple. This reflects ___________.

clustering

__________ generally act by slowing the activity of the central nervous system.

depressant drugs

The knowledge of one's own thoughts, feelings, and memories without the use of sensory organs is known as _____.

direct inner awareness

In memory theory, the term __________ means to cause information to be lost from short-term memory by adding new information.

displace

To remember the names of all the countries in Asia, Jennifer is mentally repeating all the names several times. This scenario illustrates __________.

elaborative rehearsal

In the context of memory and forgetting, the view that one may forget stored material because other learning overlaps with it is known as __________.

interference theory

_________ is the process by which information is encoded, stored, and retrieved.

memory

The idea that the brain is extremely malleable and is continuously changing as a result of injury, experiences, or substances is known as

plasticity

A consequence that increases the probability that a response will be repeated is called _____.

reinforcement

The________ is a thin inner surface behind the eyeball and it contains the sensory receptors rods and cones.

retina

Jenny is preparing for an English test, and her brother is playing music loudly in the next room. She focuses on reading her English text books and ignores the music. In this scenario, Jenny is using _____.

selective attention

Christopher knows a lot of facts about the earth. He knows that the circumference of Earth is 40,030 km even though he did not personally measure the circumference of the Earth. This knowledge is referred to as __________.

semantic memory

The __________ is the tendency to recall more accurately the first and last items in a series.

serial-position effect

When someone reinforces a series of successive approximations of the desired response, they are engaged in _____ a behavior.

shaping

This set of symbols +++++///// would typically be perceived as two separate groups of characters. The Gestalt principle that explains this perception is

similarity

A sleep disorder in which the person repeatedly stops breathing during sleep is called _______.

sleep apnea

In the context of altering consciousness through drugs, __________ is a problem characterized by loss of control over consumption, social impairment, risky use, and tolerance and withdrawal symptoms.

substance use disorder

The site where communication occurs between neurons is called the

synapse

Before researchers can begin a research project at their school or medical center, they must receive approval from the

American Psychological Association

Physicians frequently prescribe stimulants in an effort to help hyperactive children control their behavior. True or false

False

In the nature/nurture debate, the term nurture refers to the questions of how __________________ factors affect the mind, brain and behavior.

Environmental

In the context of memory and forgetting, one of the cognitive explanations for infantile amnesia states that:

infants do not make reliable use of language to symbolize or classify events.

Learning in which voluntary responses are controlled by their consequences is called _____.

operant conditioning

After cautiously walking home and arriving safely from her late-night class, Selma notices that both her heart rate and breathing slow down. This automatic return to a normal state is due to the activity of her ________ nervous system.

parasympathetic

Adam, a sleep researcher, noticed that his sleeping patient had a high level of neurological arousal. The patient is most likely in _______ sleep.

rapid eye movement

There are many perspectives, or schools of thought, in psychology. Which of the following questions do behaviorists attempt to answer?

How do consequences of behavior influence the occurance of the behavior?

The capacity of short-term memory is approximately:

about 7 items at one time.

Which of the following substances is a stimulant?

cocaine

The brain structure that connects the two hemispheres of the cerebral cortex is called the

corpus callosum

A conditioned emotional response, such as Little Albert's fear, is an emotion that is _____.

elicited by a previously neutral stimulus

The average amount of time it takes to complete each cycle through the stages of NREM sleep and REM sleep lasts about:

90 minutes

In an elementary school, the children whose parents read to them every day do better on reading tests. This illustrates

A positive correlation

According to ________ we perceive a car as a whole unit rather than perceiving it as a group of distinct entities (such as metal, tires, glass, door handles, hubcaps, and fenders).

Gesalt psychology

Which of the following is an example of a negative punishment?

Losing telephone privileges for breaking curfew

_____ refers to a sleep attack in which a person falls asleep suddenly and irresistibly.

Narcolepsy

A child learns that whenever he eats all of his dinner he gets a cookie for dessert. This type of learning is best explained by

Operant conditioning

A man is sitting outside, looking at his beautiful garden. As the sun goes down, the colors become dull and finally the colors become shades of gray. This change happens because the

Rods are taking over for the cones

A professor would like to find out whether her study guide helps students perform better on exams. She randomly assigns students to one of two groups: Group 1 receives her study guide and Group 2 receives no study guide. Then, after three weeks, the performance of each student is measured on an exam. What is the dependent variable in this study?

Student's performance on the exam

In a study by Elizabeth Loftus, subjects watched a film of an automobile accident, then answered a series of questions, including one asking them to estimate the speed of the cars. What factor affected the subjects' estimate of how fast the cars in the film were traveling?

Whether the words used in the question suggested greater speeds (e.g. contacted vs. smashed) .

Bandura's observational learning studies focused on how ____.

children learn aggressive behaviors by observing aggressive models

Lisa has problems sleeping, so she goes to a sleep clinic. At the clinic the researchers measure her brain's electrical activity as she sleeps by using the technique of

electroencephalograph (EEG)

_____ is an altered state of consciousness in which people are highly suggestible and behave as though they are in a trance.

hypnosis

According to your text, older adults sleep less because

physical discomfort

When Angelica studies for her college classes, she actively thinks about the new information, thinks about its applications, and tries to generate her own examples based on her experiences. Using levels of processing terminology, Angelica is:

processing the information at a "deep" level so that it is more likely to be encoded into long-term memory.

Brad has experienced a relatively severe left hemisphere stroke. As a result, we expect that he will have trouble moving which side of his body?

right