Psychology Exam 2

framing

A $100 coat marked down from $150 can seem like a better deal than the same coat priced regularly at $100. This best illustrates the importance of _________

conditioned response

A child's learned fear at the sight of a hypodermic needle is a(n) __________.

infantile amnesia

A lack of conscious memories of your first three years of life best illustrates ____________.

the availability heuristic.

A single, memorable case of welfare fraud can have a greater impact on people's estimates of welfare abuse than do statistics showing that this case is actually the exception to the rule. This illustrates that judgments are influenced by ___________________.

genetic predispositions

A traumatic experience may trigger a lasting phobia in a child with a sensitive, high-strung temperament. The same experience, however, may have no long-term impact on a child with a more relaxed temperament. This best illustrates the role of ______________ in the development of phobias.

anorexia nervosa

About eight months ago, 14-year-old Shelley went on a drastic weight-loss diet that caused her to drop from 110 to 80 pounds. Although she is now dangerously underweight and under-nourished, she continues to think she looks fat. Her frustrated father recently forced her to ear a peanut butter sandwich, but Shelley immediately went to the bathroom and threw it all up. Shelley most clearly suffers from ____________.

learning

Acquiring new habits best illustrates the process of ________.

biasing power of diagnostic labels.

After George learned that Mrs. Merila suffered from schizophrenia, he mistakenly concluded that her tendencies to laugh easily and smile frequently were symptoms of her disorder. This best illustrates the ___________________________.

spontaneous recovery

After a fear-provoking biking accident, Alex extinguished his conditioned fear of bikes by cycling on a safe biking trail every day for a week. The reappearance of his previously extinguished fear when Alex rode a bike on the same trail two weeks later best illustrates ____________.

source amnesia

After attending group therapy sessions for adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse, Karen mistakenly remembered details from others' traumatic life stories as part of her own life history. This best illustrates the dangers of _____________.

sensory adaptation

After listening to your high-volume car stereo for 15 minutes, you fail to realize how loudly the music is blasting. This best illustrates_______________.

insight

After spending two hours trying to solve an engineering problem, Amira finally gave up. As she was trying to fall asleep that night, a solution to the problem popped into her head. Amira's experience best illustrates _________.

preventing her from functioning effectively.

Alexis is socially withdrawn and has few close friends. This behavior is most likely to be diagnosed as a symptom of psychological disorder if it is ____________________________.

catatonia

Although Mrs. Petrides, sometimes repetitiously shakes her head or waves her arms, she usually sits passively in a motionless stupor. She most likely suffers from _________.

successive approximations

An animal trainer is teaching a miniature poodle to balance on a ball. Initially, he gives the poodle a treat for approaching the ball, then only for placing its front paws on the ball, and finally only for climbing on the ball. The trainer is using the method of __________________.

social phobia

An incapacitating and highly distressing fear about being embarrassed in the presence of others is most characteristic of __________.

positive reinforcer

Any stimulus that, when presented after a response, strengthens the response is called a(n) _______________.

negative reinforcer

Any stimulus that, when removed after a response, strengthens the response is called a(n) _______________.

future performance; current competence

Aptitude tests are to _________ as achievement tests are to _________.

cochlea

As a rock musician who has experienced prolonged exposure to high-amplitude sounds, Rodney is beginning to lose his hearing. It is most likely that this hearing loss involves problems in the ________.

one-word

At the age of 15 months, Anita repeatedly cries "hoy" when she wants her mother to hold her. Anita is most likely in the _________ stage of language development.

confirmation bias.

Because she believes that boys are naughtier than girls, Mrs. Zumpano, a second-grade teacher, watches boys more closely than she watches girls for any signs of misbehavior. Mrs. Zumpano's surveillance strategy best illustrates ______________.

low; high

Boys outnumber girls at extremely ______ levels of verbal fluency and at extremely ______ levels of mathematical problem-solving ability.

implicit

Cheri doesn't remember that she got sick after eating oatmeal on several occasions in early childhood. However, whenever she smells oatmeal she experiences a classically conditioned feeling of nausea. Cheri's conditioned reaction indicates that she retains a(n) ______ memory.

role playing

College students were asked to pretend that they were accused murderers. Under hynosis, they typically expressed a second personality when prompted to do so by the examining psychiatrist. This most strongly suggests that dissociative identity disorder may involve ___________.

objects are perceived to be the same color even if the light they reflect changes

Color constancy refers to the fact that ____________________________.

effortful processing

Consciously repeating the name of a new classmate you want to remember illustrates ___________.

the names of newly introduced people

Damage to the hippocampus would most likely interfere with a person's ability to learn _______________________.

observational learning

Dan and Joel, both 4-year-olds, have been watching reruns of "Superman" on television. Joel's mother recently found the boys standing on the garage roof, ready to try flying. What best accounts for the boys' behavior?

generalized anxiety disorder

Dankert, a college student, complains that he feels apprehensive and fearful most of the time but doesn't know why. Without warning, his heart begins to pound, his hands get icy, and he breaks out in a cold sweat. Dankert most likely suffers from_________________.

the violence-viewing effect

Desensitization and imitating are two factors that contribute to ________________.

agoraphobia

Devorah is so fearful of being overwhelmed by anxiety that she rarely steps outside her apartment. The thought of going shopping and getting lost in the crowd terrifies her, so she has her groceries delivered. Because of her fear, she earns her living as a freelance writer, working at home. Devorah's behavior is most characteristic of ___________.

sensory interaction

During the months when there is a large amount of pollen in the air, your hay fever severely affects your sense of smell. At the same time your food all seems to taste the same. This illustrates that your normal ability to savor tastes depends on ___________.

gestalt

Early in the twentieth-century, a group of German psychologists noticed that people tend to organize a cluster of sensations into a ______.

a pessimistic explanatory style.

Emily attributes her failure to qualify for her college soccer team to factors that are stable, global, and internal. She best illustrates _________________________.

prototype

Eva had difficulty recognizing that a sea horse was a fish because it did not closely resemble her fish

the Young-Helmholtz theory

Evidence that some cones are especially sensitive to red light, others to green light, and still others to blue light is most directly supportive of ______________.

mental ability to learn from experience.

Experts would most likely agree that intelligence is a(n) _____________________________.

echoic

For a moment after hearing his dog's high-pitched bark, Mr. Silvers has a vivid auditory impression of the dog's yelp. His experience most clearly illustrates _______ memory.

bipolar disorder

George Frideric Handel composed his Messiah during three weeks of inense, creative energy. Many believe Handel suffered a mild form of _____________.

attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder.

Gunars has difficulty organizing his daily schedule of work responsibilities. He often makes careless mistakes or fails to complete his work because he is easily distracted. Gunars' behavior is most characteristic of ____________________.

intuition

If a stranger looks like someone who previously harmed or threatened us in some way, we may-without consciously recalling the earlier experience-react warily. This illustrates that our reactions to others may be influenced by ________.

reinforcement

If bears find insects after they move decaying logs, they more frequently move decaying logs. This most clearly indicates that finding insects is a __________.

unconditioned stimulus

In Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, infants develop fear of books after books are repeatedly presented with a loud noise. In this fictional example, the loud noise is a(n) ___________.

more intense and less prolonged.

In comparison to generalized anxiety disorder, panic disorder is characterized by periods of distress that are ___________________.

operant conditioning

In which form of learning is behavior influenced by its consequences?

retrieval failure

Incest survivors who lack conscious memories of their sexual abuse may be told they are repressing the memory. This explanation for their lack of abuse memories emphasizes _____________.

refused to cross over onto the glass over the cliff to their mothers

Infants who were exposed to the visual cliff ____________________________.

helped limit reliance on educators' personal opinions regarding students' academic potential.

Intelligence tests have effectively reduced discrimination in the sense that they have ______________________________________________________.

changeable over time.

Interventions that promote intelligence teach early teens that the brain is like a muscle that strengthens with use. This idea is designed to encourage the teens to view intelligence as __________________.

generate all sorts of sentences they have never heard before.

It is difficult to explain language acquisition solely in terms of imitation and reinforcement because children __________________________________.

flashbulb

Joshua vividly recalls his feelings and what he was doing at the exact moment when he heard of his grandfather's unexpected death. This best illustrates _________ memory.

retrieval

Judy is embarrassed because she momentarily fails to remember a good friend's name. Judy's poor memory most likely results from a failure in _________.

classical conditioning

Last year, Dr. Moritano cleaned Natacha's skin with rubbing alcohol prior to administering each of a series of painful rabies vaccination shots. Which of the following processes accounts for the fact that Natacha currently becomes fearful ever time she smells rubbing alcohol?

Schizophrenia

Low birth weight and maternal diabetes are known risk factors for ___________.

CR

Male Japanese quail became sexually arouse by a red light that was repeatedly associated with the presentation of a female quail. The sexual arousal triggered by the red light was a ____.

generalization

Monica's psychotherapist reminds her so much of her own father that she has many of the same mixed emotional reactions to him that she has to her own dad. Her reactions to her therapist best illustrate the importance of ___________.

delusions

Mr. Hunt believes that he is the president of the United States and that he will soon become the "King of the Universe." Mr. Hunt is most clearly suffering from __________.

study of phenomena such as ESP and psychokinesis

Parapsychology refers to the _____________________.

short-term

Passing an electric current through the brain during electroconvulsive therapy is most likely to disrupt ___________ memory.

interference

People should avoid back-to-back study times for learning Spanish and French vocabulary in order to minimize __________.

the opponent-process theory

People with color-deficient vision for red and green may still see yellow. This is most easily explained by _______________.

they are capable of processing information without any conscious awareness of doing so.

People's response to subliminal priming indicates that_________________________________.

aversive; pleasant

Positive punishment is the introduction of a(n) _______ stimulus following a behavior and negative punishment is the withdrawal of a(n) ________ stimulus following a behavior.

presence; absence

Positive symptoms of schizophrenia are the ________ of inappropriate behaviors, and negative symptoms are the ________ of appropriate behaviors.

mirror neurons

Psychologists are currently debating whether our physical capacity for mentally simulating the observed behavior of others is due to specialized ____________.

have inadequate neural connections in her visual cortex

Rebecca was born with cataracts that were not surgically removed until she was 3 years old. As a result, Rebecca is most likely to _______________________.

implicit

Remembering how to solve a puzzel without any conscious recollection that you can do so best illustrates _______ memory.

obsession; compulsion

Repeatedly thinking about your own death is to ________ as repeatedly washing your hands is to ________.

conditioning.

Roni is fearful of men and refuses to go out on dates. Her therapist suggests that she is fearful because she was sexually abused by her father when she was young. The therapist's suggestion most clearly highlights the impact of ___________.

it develops slowly.

Schizophrenia is said to be chronic when ______________.

acute

Schizophrenia that develops rapidly, seemingly as a reaction to stress, is called ______ schizophrenia.

rules by which we derive meaning from sounds.

Semantics refers to the ________________________________.

detection; interpretation

Sensation is to _________ as perception is to _________.

chunking

Sherry easily remembers the telephone reservation number for Holiday Inn by using the mnemonic 1-800-HOLIDAY. She is using a memory aid known as ________.

retrieval failure

Sigmund Freud emphasized that the forgetting of painful experiences is caused by a process that involves ___________.

limbic system

Some people are more vulnerable to PTSD because they have a sensitive __________, which floods the body with stress hormones.

higher; higher

Suicide rates in the United States are _______ among Whites than Blacks and ________ among men than women.

parallel processing

The ability to simultaneously process the pitch, loudness, melody, and meaning of a song best illustrates __________.

dissociative

The experience of a "fugue state" is indicative of a(n) _________ disorder.

developed; young adults

The highest rates of depression occur in _______ countries among ________.

teens and young adults.

The incidence of OCD is greatest among _________________.

the biopsychosocial approach.

The interaction of genetic predispositions, mental processes, and cultural circumstances is most clearly emphasized by _________________.

Broca's area.

The part of the cerebral cortex that directs the muscle movements involved in speech is known as ___________.

cognitive processes

The predictability rather than the frequency of CS-US associations appears to be crucial for classical conditioning. This highlights the importance of ____________ in conditioning.

retrieval

The process of getting information out of memory is called ________.

audition

The process of transducing air pressure waves into neural messages that the brain interprets as meaningful sound is known as _________.

begin to rebound from their depression.

The risk of suicide is greatest when people __________________________.

meaty

The taste of umami is a ________ taste.

someone with savant syndrome.

Twenty-five-year-old Alexandra has an intellectual disability and can neither read nor write. However, after hearing lengthy, unfamiliar, and complex musical selections just once, she can reproduce them precisely on the piano. It is likely that Alexandra is __________________________.

purge or fast

Unlike those with bulimia nervosa, those with binge-eating disorders are not likely to __________ following binge eating.

language comprehension

Wernicke's area is a region of the brain involved in _______________.

context effect

When Rick learned that many students had received a failing grade on the midterm exam, he was no longer disappointed by his C grade. His experience best illustrates the importance of __________.

emotional intelligence

When professor McGuire asks her students to answer questions in class, she can quickly tell from their facial expressions whether they are happy to participate. Professor McGuire's perceptual skill best illustrates __________________.

mood-congruent memory

Whenever he feels sexually jealous, David is flooded with painful memories of instances when he thought his girlfriend was flirting with other men. David's experience best illustrates _______________.

perceived control

Which of the following best accounts for people's greater fear of commercial air flights than of driving an automobile?

semicircular canals

Which of the following play the biggest role in our feeling dizzy and unbalanced after a thrilling roller coaster ride?

dilation of the pupil

Which process allows more light to reach the periphery of the retina?

recall

Which test of memory typically provides the fewest retrieval cues?

hallucinations

Wilma is extremely agitated because she hears voices that tell her to sexually seduce the male nurses in her hospital ward. Wilma is most clearly suffering from ____________.