Psychology Launch Pad Questions

Jamal has recently noticed that he does not have very much energy. When he goes to the doctor, he is told that his blood sugar, or _____, is low.

glucose

Which of the following is NOT listed as one of the key factors in becoming overweight?

increase in BMR

Without one's bipolar cells, one would not be able to have information from the _____ collected and funneled to the ganglion cells and eventually to the brain.

rods and cones

Margaret was reading a Stephen King novel before falling asleep and then woke, unable to move, having had a dream that she was being burglarized. Margaret very likely has experienced:

sleep paralysis.

It seems as if every time Monica loses the weight she wants, she gains it back in a few months. She has been experiencing the frustration of _____ for several years now.

weight cycling

Driving a car while listening to the radio is an example of:

multi-tasking

_____ is the rate of energy expenditure for maintaining basic body functions when the body is at rest.

Basal metabolic rate (or BMR)

_____ is a hormone secreted by an empty stomach that sends "I'm hungry" signals to the brain.

Ghrelin

Sleep researchers deprive subjects of REM sleep for a number of nights but allow them an otherwise normal sleep. The subjects are likely to experience _____ when next allowed to sleep uninterrupted.

REM rebound

The _____ naturally tends toward a 24.2-hour day.

SCN

Which of the following can be concluded about dream interpretation?

Speculating about dream sequences may reveal more about the interpreter than about the dream itself.

The American psychologist and philosopher who proposed that the subjective experience of con-sciousness is an ongoing stream of mental activity was:

William James

According to the information presented in the text, which of the following statements is TRUE?

There are over 100 bodily processes that systematically vary over the course of each day.

The size of the difference threshold is greater for heavier objects than for lighter ones. This best illustrates:

Weber's law

The release of growth hormones is synchronized to occur only when a person is asleep. This is an example of:

a circadian rhythm

The theory of sleep that suggests that the sleep patterns of different animals have evolved over time to help promote survival and environmental adaptation is called the _____ theory of sleep.

adaptive

The reason people gain weight if their calorie intake exceeds the energy they are expending is that the size and number of body fat cells making up the _____ increase.

adipose tissue

Psychologists have identified a number of characteristics of attention, including:

attention is selective.

Why do we have a blind spot?

because there are no photoreceptors on the optic nerve

As a result of the absence of photoreceptors in the optic disk, we have a tiny hole, known as a _____, in our field of vision.

blind spot

Tom recently visited a nutritionist who, after examining his weight and height, informed him that his _____ is 28. Because in his case it is not due to muscle or bone, Tom is considered to be overweight.

body mass index (or BMI)

The _____ effect refers to the tendency to eat more when a wide variety of palatable foods is available.

cafeteria diet

You meet your friend to study at a coffee shop and do not notice that he has just shaved off his beard. This is an example of _____ blindness.

change

Our bodies synchronize with the 24-hour cycle of day and night through this biological clock called the _____.

circadian rhythm

The body naturally tends to follow a cycle of sleeping and waking that corresponds to a:

circadian rhythm of a 24-hour cycle.

Which receptor cells MOST directly enable us to distinguish different wavelengths of light?

cones

Curtis has been blind since birth. Like many blind people, he may experience _____ circadian cycles because he is unable to detect the light that normally sets the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN).

desynchronized circadian rhythms

After years of trying to manipulate her calorie intake and body weight, Laurel noticed over time that she experienced _____, such that her body weight remained stable as the number of calories she consumed began to match the number of calories she expended for energy.

energy balance

Which of the following regulatory processes, along with a healthy diet and exercise, help you maintain your baseline body weight?

energy homeostasis

Henry is having a memory of the time that his mother used to tie his shoes as a child. According to the text, this type of memory is called:

episodic

Mary has been sleeping only about 4 hours per night for a few nights. According to the research on sleep deprivation, Mary is MOST likely to:

experience disruptions in mood, mental abilities, reaction time, and perceptual skills.

Derald has significant trouble with seeing fine details after recent damage to his _____.

fovea

The retina's central focal point is the _____, which contains only cones, no rods.

fovea

The design and evolution of the human body make it easier to _____ weight and harder to _____ weight.

gain, lose

The principle of perception could BEST be characterized as:

how the brain actively organizes and interprets the signals sent from our sensory receptors.

When your blood glucose level drops, your _____ increases.

hunger

Where are feature detectors located?

in the visual cortex

After studying all morning for her midterm, Anna sits down to relax and eat lunch. Because her body is preparing for her meal, it is MOST likely that her body temperature will _____ and her metabolism will _____.

increase; decrease

When Julius returns from getting a drink of water, he resumes lifting a 150-pound free weight and doesn't notice that someone has added a five-pound ring to each end. For Julius, the additional 10 pounds:

is not a just noticeable difference (jnd).

The following can be said about consciousness EXCEPT:

it lacks continuity.

As a result of the type of work Mike does for a living, he finds that on returning home after a long project, he experiences irritability, tiredness, inability to sleep, and difficulty concentrating. It is likely that as a result of traveling for his work, Mike is experiencing _____.

jet lag

Two dimmer lights are being turned on, but one isn't as strong as the other, so it stops getting brighter at a certain point. The point at which you can tell that one light is brighter than the other would be described as the:

just noticeable difference (jnd).

Brianna, who has a very warm, loving relationship with her husband, dreamed that she had an intense, emotional argument with him in which she shouted and screamed and called him horrible names. Her psychoanalyst suggested that Brianna must have some deeply repressed anger and frustration toward her father that is expressed symbolically in the dream about her husband. Brianna's account of the dream represents the manifest content, and her therapist's account represents the _____.

latent content

During periods of negative energy balance and weight loss, decreased _____ and _____ levels promote the secretion of neuropeptide Y by the hypothalamus.

leptin; insulin

Which of the following does sleep restriction NOT produce?

less volatile moods

The hormone manufactured by the pineal gland that is responsible for producing sleepiness is called _____.

melatonin

The hormone manufactured by the pineal gland that is responsible for producing sleepiness is called:

melatonin

When we diet, our bodies respond by decreasing our:

metabolism

Maria is reading a popular book on how to lose weight. She is surprised to learn that there are physiological reasons for why it is easier to gain weight than to lose weight. She learns that as caloric intake is reduced and fat cells begin to shrink, a person's body actively defends against weight loss by decreasing _____ rate and _____.

metabolism; energy level

Joseph has been staying up night after night to prepare for his final papers and exams. After a long period of sleep deprivation, he starts to experience episodes of sleep lasting only a few seconds, which occur during wakefulness. Joseph is experiencing _____.

microsleeps

Angel is trying to lose weight. He goes to the gym after work, eats salads for lunch, and does not eat any food after 6 PM. Slowly but surely, he starts to see weight come off. This is because _____ balance is being achieved; that is, his caloric intake falls short of the calories he expends for energy.

negative energy

Most people who are _____ have a BMI of 30 or greater and an abnormally high proportion of body fat.

obese

Bart was struck by a 2 x 4 on the back of his head. He is having severe difficulties with his vision because the injury he sustained was to which lobe?

occipital

While strolling through the garden, Jamal suddenly notices the beautiful scent of roses. Jamal is using his _____ sense, and the process by which the odor is converted into neural signals that his brain can understand is called _____.

olfactory; transduction

Harry has been asleep for about an hour or so, and his heart begins to beat faster, his breathing be-comes irregular, his voluntary muscle activity is suppressed, and his closed eyes move rapidly back and forth. It is MOST probable that Harry is in REM sleep and is therefore experiencing _____ sleep.

paradoxical (or REM)

Also known as _____, this term for REM sleep involves heightened physiological and brain activity, while voluntary muscle activity is temporarily suppressed or paralyzed.

paradoxical sleep

Jan, who has recently had a baby, notices that she is eating more than usual and so is gaining weight instead of losing it. Her doctor explains that because her caloric intake is exceeding the amount of calories expended for energy, she is experiencing a(n) _____ energy balance.

positive

Jan, who has recently had a baby, notices that she is eating more than usual and so is gaining weight instead of losing it. Her doctor explains that because her caloric intake is exceeding the amount of calories expended for energy, she is experiencing a(n) _____ balance.

positive energy

When Josie gets back on a bike for the first time in 12 years, she immediately knows how to ride it. This is an example of a(n) _____ memory, according to the text.

procedural

You are trying to better understand the relationship between leptin and weight. You know that most obese people have high blood levels of leptin. You learn that as a result of leptin _____, the normal mechanisms by which leptin regulates body weight and energy balance are disrupted.

resistance

Michelle has just completed nursing school and is working as a nurse resident during the "graveyard shift" (at night). Given the type of work she does with patients, it is important she is able to sleep during the day. To do this, she uses earplugs and an eye mask. If she does NOT "trick" her body into thinking it is night, then the sunlight will reset her:

sleep spindles

Despite our day-to-day variability in eating behavior, our body weight, including our stores of body fat, tends to:

stay relatively constant.

Zena is full after eating her lunch, likely because of _____ receptors in her stomach and the hormone called _____ secreted by her small intestine, which communicate information to her brainstem that she is satiated.

stretch; cholecystokin (CCK)

The cluster of neurons in the brain's hypothalamus governing the timing of circadian rhythms is/are called the _____.

suprachiasmatic nucleus

Matthew is drinking a glass of lemonade at a dinner party one night. Given his sensitivity to artificial sugar, he is immediately able to detect it in the drink. This is an example of which type of absolute threshold?

taste

After passing through the optic chiasm, most of the optic nerve axons project to the brain structure called the _____.

thalamus

The minimal intensity needed to just barely detect a stimulus is referred to as:

the absolute threshold

According to the Science versus Pseudoscience box, titled "Subliminal Perception" in your textbook, if advertisers were to expose moviegoers to the subliminally flashed words EAT POPCORN and DRINK COKE during a movie, then:

the subliminal messages are not likely to have any discernible effect on the sale of popcorn and Coke.

A group of protesters went on a hunger strike and drastically lowered their caloric intake. It is likely that in response to this semi-starvation:

their basal metabolic rate dropped, and they lost weight

Ellie recently visited a nutritionist who, after examining her weight and height, informed her that her body mass index is 17. Ellie is _____.

underweight

When multi-tasking, tasks that are _____ are less likely to interfere with each other.

very different, simple, and well-rehearsed

Feature detectors are located in the _____ cortex.

visual

During her therapy session, Clara told her famous psychoanalyst, Dr. Sigmund Freud, that she had a recurring dream in which she was fishing on a boat and struggling to reel in a huge swordfish. Freud eventually explained to Clara that boards, sticks, brooms, arrows, wands, and other elongated objects:

were phallic symbols, representing the penis

The activation-synthesis model proposes that dreams are:

what the mind creates to make sense of the random neural activity associated with sleep