Final Exam review

Ginny and Latroya are at the bookstore together, and Ginny is browsing in the "Self-Help" section. Latroya tells her not to bother with the books there, because her psychology textbook pointed out that about __________ percent of those books have never been properly examined using appropriate scientific research methods.

95%

__________ percent of the population has IQ scores between 70 and 130.

95%

Adjusting behavior or thoughts to fit new environmental demands is called _______.

Accomodation

Which term describes a step-by-step process of learned procedures we can use to solve particular problems?

Algorithms

The low-voltage brain waves produced during relaxed wakefulness or the twilight stage between waking and sleeping are called __________ waves.

Alpha

Daydreaming, meditation, intoxication, sleep, and hypnosis are all types of __________.

Altered states of consciousness

Professor Bowden is in the middle of her lecture on marital satisfaction when a student in the back interrupts her and says, "Dr. Phil doesn't agree with that theory!" Soon other students chime in to add fuel to the discussion. Professor Bowden just smiles and asks the original student to produce the research that Dr. Phil carried out to justify his statements. What lesson is Professor Bowden trying to teach?

Always check the source of your information before you believe it.

What is the main difference between an experiment and a correlational study?

An experiment involves the manipulation of variables, while a correlational study does not.

What is an important limitation of anecdotal evidence in developing scientifically sound treatments or procedures?

Anecdotes cannot help to establish cause-effect relationships.

Assuming that something is so simply because a teacher or religious authority said it is so, is an example of the __________.

Appeal to authority fallacy

The strange situation procedure, in which researchers unobtrusively watch an infant in the presence or absence of several combinations of the child, caretaker, and stranger, is used to study _________.

Attachment

__________ research examines how the mind works, then __________ research examines how we can use the former to solve real-world problems.

Basic; applied

Rona believes that women make better elementary school teachers than men because women are more nurturing and less legalistic. When you present her with data that indicate male teachers perform just as well as women at the elementary level, she tries to discredit the information. She even goes as far as to say, "I don't care what those studies show. We all know that women are better teachers!" Rona is a victim of __________.

Belief perseverance

In locating the source of sounds, we tend to rely most heavily on __________ cues.

Binaural

Visual distance and depth cues that require the use of both eyes are called __________ cues.

Binocular

A region of about 20,000 neurons in the hypothalamus makes a person feel sleepy or alert during particular times of day. This area of the brain is more commonly known as the __________.

Biological clock

The study of rare or unusual phenomena is most easily done through the use of the __________ design.

Case study

The __________ nervous system is composed of the brain and the spinal cord.

Central

Most people cannot store the following list of letters in short-term memory. G O T O Y O U R B E D R O O M However, if the letters are grouped meaningfully into words, they fit short-term's memory span: Go to your bedroom. This illustrates _________.

Chuncking

Our sleeping-waking cycle follows a(n) __________ rhythm.

Circadian

Nico is meeting with his academic adviser. He wishes to pursue a career where he'll work to diagnose and treat mental disorders. Nico aspires to be a(n) __________ psychologist.

Clinical

Our awareness of various mental processes such as making decisions, daydreaming, reflecting, and concentrating is called __________.

Consciousness

In an experiment, the __________ group receives no manipulation of an independent variable.

Control

A form of intelligence that refers to how effectively people perceive and understand their own feelings and the feelings of others is __________ intelligence.

Emotinoal

What are the components of the information processing model in order?

Encoding, storage, retrieval

Your memories of personal information such as what you wore to work yesterday, what you ate for breakfast this morning, or who your spouse is, are stored in ______.

Episodic memory

When a psychologist mentions the term scientific theory, he or she is referring to something that __________.

Explains a wide range of observations

As the number of people talking in a room increases, the stimulus intensity needed to detect a change in the number of people talking becomes __________.

Greater

__________ are realistic waking perceptions that take place in the absence of any external stimuli.

Hallucinations

A testable prediction derived from a scientific theory is called a ___________.

Hypothesis

Erikson saw the major challenge of young adulthood as that of __________.

Intimacy versus isolation

Which of the following is a weakness associated with longitudinal research?

It costs a lot in terms of time and money.

Our memories from childhood often involve not only visual information but olfactory information as well. This is because the olfactory cortex is located near the __________.

Limbic system

The part of the brain dedicated to emotion is the __________.

Limbic system

Each of the following is a main theme of one of Kubler-Ross' five stages in accepting one's own death except _______.

Loneliness

A researcher who studies a fixed group of people over a long period of time is, by definition, using the __________ method.

Longitudinal

The Binet and Simon intelligence test measured children on what new concept?

Mental age

Geoffrey has a Stanford-Binet IQ score of 60 and deficits in adaptive behavior. He is likely to be considered to have a __________ intellectual disability.

Mild

Which of the following is a secondary reinforcer?

Money

Prefixes, suffixes, and words are examples of __________.

Morphemes

The smallest meaningful units in a language are __________.

Morphemes

Marta was in an automobile accident and suffered an injury to her brain resulting in paralysis of her left arm. What part of Marta's brain was injured?

Motor Cortex

_________ refers to the belief that we see the world precisely as it is.

Naive realism

A reinforcer that removes something unpleasant from a situation is a __________.

Negative reinforcer

Lucy has been in love with Charlie for a very long time. Every time they are together, she whispers the word love over and over again at a level that is barely audible. Although Charlie never remembers hearing the message, Lucy is convinced that she is getting through to him. Should Lucy be so optimistic?

No; although Charlie may be "hearing" the message subliminally, it is not likely to persuade him one way or the other.

Which type of learning occurs when we observe other people act?

Observational learning

The __________ carries sensory information from the retina to the brain areas where visual perception will occur.

Optic nerve

Which of the following best describes the instinct theory of motivation?

Organisms have inborn patterns of behavior and innate desires to perform in a certain manner.

Which of the following lobes of the cerebral cortex contains the primary sensory cortex?

Parietal

The term __________ refers to the tendency to perceive meaningful connections among unrelated phenomena.

Patternicity

A mechanism by which experts in a field carefully screen the work of their colleagues is known as __________.

Peer review

The basic sound units of any language are called __________.

Phonemes

The sounds of t, th, and sh are __________.

Phonemes

Jack suffered a brain injury as a result of hitting his head while waterskiing. Afterward, Jack could not pronounce certain words correctly for a long period of time until he had extensive speech therapy. Now Jack can speak as he did before his accident. This is an example of the brain's __________, which allowed the structure and function of Jack's brain cells to change to adjust to the trauma.

Plasticity

Reasoning out what one should do in posed moral dilemmas based on abstract principles of right and wrong and justice illustrates the _______ level of moral development.

Postconventional

According to Piaget, the stage of cognitive development between two and seven years of age, in which the individual becomes able to use mental representations and language to describe, remember, and reason about the world, though only in an egocentric fashion, is the __________ stage.

Preoperational

The name given to the sensory system that tells us about the position of our body in space is __________.

Propriceoption

Chemical substances that change moods and perceptions are called __________ drugs.

Psychoactive

What has occurred when there is a decrease in the likelihood or rate of a target response?

Punishment

Stage 5 sleep is more commonly known as __________.

REM sleep

Dr. Riviera measures his students' knowledge on the topic of memory by giving them three different quizzes over the course of 3 weeks (1 per week). He is hoping to show that student scores are largely the same from week to week. He is trying to establish the __________ of his quiz.

Reliability

On Monday, Sal took a test developed to measure levels of sensation seeking and obtained a score of 13; he took the same test one week later and obtained the same score. Based on this information, you can most accurately conclude that the test is likely to be:

Reliable

The step in the memory process that actually makes our memories available to us is:

Retrieval

The system of rules that governs how we assign meaning to the morphemes we use is called __________.

Semantics

__________ involves the detection of energy by sense organs, whereas __________ involves interpreting sensory inputs.

Sensation; perception

Iconic and echoic memory are types of _______ memory.

Sensory

Jayda and Brendon get into the hot tub at the health club after coming in from a cold winter day. When they first get in, the water is so hot they can barely stand it, but after a few minutes they find it to be pleasantly hot without being uncomfortable. This reduction in their perception of the heat is probably due to __________.

Sensory adaptation

Reinforcing behaviors that more closely resemble a final, terminal behavior is called:

Shaping

You looked up a friend's address for a letter you wrote. Suddenly the phone rings—wrong number. Even though you were interrupted for only a few seconds, you've forgotten the address. Which memory system failed you?

Short-term memory

Laboratory experiments suggest that animals have __________.

Some cognitive capacities

Charles Spearman did not believe that g or "general intelligence" explained everything. He posited the existence of another factor that he called "s" for __________, which would govern how well we perform in a particular domain.

Specific intelligence

The deepest stage of sleep is __________ sleep.

Stage 4

When we make a guess as to how likely something is to happen based on how quickly the answer comes to mind we are using __________.

The availability heuristic

Cognition is a synonym for __________.

Thinking

In classical conditioning the stimulus that normally evokes an automatic response even without new learning is called the:

Unconditioned stimulus

Mary suffered a head injury in a car accident last week. Since that time she is able to speak fluently but has difficulty understanding what is being said to her. Mary may be exhibiting problems associated with __________ area.

Wernicke's

Which term refers to unpleasant side effects that happen when someone who is addicted to a drug stops taking it?

Withdrawal

"All or none" is the principle stating that __________.

a neuron either fires or does not fire

The major advantage of self-report measures, like surveys, is that they __________.

are inexpensive and easy to administer

Two variables are said to be correlated when scores on one variable __________.

are related to the scores on the second variable

When you see someone you have a crush on and your heart pounds, your hands get sweaty, and your cheeks feel hot, your __________ is/are active.

autonomic nervous system

Piaget's theory of intellectual development assumes that:

children pass through a series of stages in the same order.

Marissa just finished completing her new employee questionnaire form for a job in sales. Despite being a rather shy, introverted person, Marissa checked all the areas that referred to her as a talkative and outgoing individual. She believes those extraverted characteristics are exactly what her new employer is looking for. Which concept is being illustrated?

demand characteristics

A psychologist spends his entire career studying how and why changes occur in people as they get older. This psychologist is most likely a(n) __________ psychologist.

developmental

Operant conditioning assumes that:

events that follow behavior affect whether the behavior is repeated in the future.

On a fixed-ratio schedule reinforcement is given ________ .

for the next correct response after a fixed number of responses have been made

What number reflects the amount of differences in a population attributable to genetic influences?

heritability

Although many types of studies show that IQ is heritable (that is, it runs in families), there is one situation in which this does not appear to be the case. This is for people, especially children, who __________.

live at or below the poverty line

John has decided to start to learn how to wrestle. On his first day at practice, a seasoned wrestler slams the back of his head to the mat. John was shaken and reported to the trainer that he "saw stars" after he hit his head. As a result of "seeing stars," John's __________ was temporarily affected as a result of the slam.

occipital lobe

A recognition test requires one to:

pick the correct answer from among several possible ones provided.

When new material interferes with memory of old material, ___________ occurs. When old material interferes with memory of new material, ___________ occurs.

proactive interference; retroactive interference

Creativity is the ability to __________.

produce novel or unique ideas or objects

Learning is a process by which experience results in __________.

relatively permanent behavior change

The process of selecting one sensory channel and ignoring or minimizing others is called __________.

selective attention

Why is it important to make sure that different participant groups are roughly equivalent in terms of personal characteristics (e.g., age, gender) before any independent variable is introduced?

so that no major differences between the groups bias the results of the experiment

When you took your college entrance exam, students across the country took the same test at the same time with the same instructions. What characteristic of a good psychological test do these similarities reflect?

standardization

The hippocampus seems to be essential for __________.

the formation of new long-term memories

Memory span is _______ and is associated with _______ memory.

the number of items stored; short-term

What is the function of the myelin sheath?

to speed up the neural transmission

The two basic paths children take to learning how to read are __________ and __________.

whole word recognition; phonetic decomposition