General Psychology midterm

One principle of civil engineering is that when you design a highway you should have traffic flow in the same direction and avoid interruptions to that flow as much as possible. Exit ramps tend to be curved so that cars don't have to stop rather than having 90-degree angles that force stops and starts. This is an application of which Gestalt principle?

good continuation

Mescaline is considered a(n) ________ drug because it results in profound alterations in sensory and perceptual experiences.

hallucinogenic

Which of the following is an example of vicarious reinforcement?

Babs saw Martin receive a candy bar for completing his reading list. She is careful to complete her reading list because she saw Martin get a reward for doing it.

What is the main idea of operant conditioning?

Behavior is motivated by the consequences we receive for the behavior: reinforcements and punishments.

What occurs during stage 1 sleep?

Both our respiration and heartbeat slow down.

Which of the following areas is located in the frontal lobe of the brain?

Broca's area

Which psychodynamic theorist proposed the idea of a collective unconscious that is shared by all members of the human species?

Carl Jung

Which of the following is one of the reasons that Gestalt psychology did not become more popular in the United States?

The rise of behaviorism overshadowed Gestalt psychology.

A(n) ________ is the electrical signal that typically moves from the neuron's cell body down the axon to the axon terminals.

action potential

What term describes the continuation of a visual sensation after removal of the stimulus?

afterimage

Melatonin release from the pineal gland is stimulated by ________ and inhibited by ________.

darkness; light

Elaina has been diagnosed with a small brain tumor. She first went to see her doctor after experiencing symptoms such as feeling very cold, almost fainting, a reduced appetite, and reduced sexual desire. Which of the following structures is her tumor most likely affecting?

hypothalamus

Which of the following is a symptom of REM sleep behavior disorder (RBD)?

kicking and punching while asleep

One example of ________ is the differences between hemispheres in the areas underlying language function.

lateralization

In Pavlov's classical conditioning, the term conditioned is approximately synonymous with the word ________.

learned

The empirical method of study is based on ________.

observation of phenomena.

Dymesha watches her older sister do headstands. Dymesha falls over when she attempts to do a headstand herself. She watches her older sister more carefully, and she notices that her sister leans backward slightly to complete her headstand. Dymesha is then able to do headstands herself. Which type of learning is this?

observational

A negative correlation means ________.

one variable decreases as the other increases

People who have their corpus callosum severed for medical reasons would be able to tell you about which images shown to ________.

only the right visual field

Hideki tells a lie and is grounded. He does this several times, finally learning that his behavior (lying) is associated with a consequence (being grounded). Which kind of learning is this?

operant conditioning

The ________ nervous system is responsible for stimulating digestion and causing the bladder to contract.

parasympathetic

In ________ reinforcement, the person or animal is not reinforced every time a desired behavior is performed.

partial

Edmund wants to identify relatively consistent patterns of thought and behavior, measure these traits, and determine how these traits interact in a particular context to determine how a person will behave in any given situation. Edmund wants to conduct research in the area of ________.

personality

Ainsley is participating in a study that aims to determine whether the occipital cortex becomes more active in response to moving versus stationary stimuli. When she arrives at the lab, she ingests a "tracer" and then enters the scanning machine. What type of brain imaging is most likely being conducted in this study?

positron emission tomography (PET)

________ reinforcers have innate reinforcing qualities.

primary

In order to maximize the chances that experimental groups represent the population of interest, researchers should conduct ________ and ________.

random sampling; random group assignment

The ability of a research study or psychological instrument to consistently produce a given result is called ________.

reliability

Stan and Jenny are in a psychology course that requires them to repeat an experiment that researchers have conducted in the past, in order to determine whether they produce the same results. This is called ________.

replication

Which of the following experiments involves the use of operant conditioning?

rewarding a child for finishing his oatmeal mush and counting how many times the child needs to be rewarded before he finishes his oatmeal voluntarily

________ are the most commonly used species for animal research.

rodents

Which of the following choices refers to a broad explanation or group of explanations for some aspect of the natural world that is consistently supported by evidence over time?

scientific theory

What kind of research is Saanvi conducting if she tracks six groups of participants, each group a different age, over several years, assessing them on her variable of interest once every six months?

sequential

Which term best describes rewarding successive approximations of a target behavior?

shaping

Crack is regarded as more addictive than cocaine because it is ________.

smokable, so it reaches the brain more quickly

Susan wants to study prejudice, attraction, how we explain our own behavior versus how we explain the behavior of others, and how we resolve interpersonal conflicts. Susan should conduct research in the area of ________.

social psychology

Sensory and motor neurons of the ________ nervous system are associated with activities traditionally thought of as conscious or voluntary.

somatic

After a hurricane warning came across the television, young Eli became terrified of the alarm sound that signaled a severe weather warning. Over the next few months he heard it several times when the "required monthly tests" came on the television, and his fear faded away. One day the alarm sounded and Eli jumped up and ran out of the room. This return of a previously extinguished response is called ________.

spontaneous recovery

A(n) ________ is conducted in order to determine whether there are meaningful differences between two groups in a study.

statistical analysis

Cocaine is considered a ________ drug because it tends to increase overall levels of neural activity.

stimulant

You begin to salivate when you smell your favorite cake in the oven, but not when you smell the gross scent of a dirty diaper. This is an example of ________.

stimulus discrimination

You are a big fan of your grandmother's chocolate chip cookies. Just the smell of them causes you to feel hungry. One night she is making chocolate chip oatmeal almond cookies, a variation of her usual recipe. You smell the baking cookies and even though it is different than her usual cookie scent, you still suddenly feel hungry for a treat. This demonstrates the classical conditioning principle of ________.

stimulus generalization

The ________ nervous system is responsible for responses such as pupil dilation, increased heart rate, and increased respiration.

sympathetic

The space between two neurons is called the ________.

synapse

Some neurons can only generate action potentials up to a certain speed, and no faster. This fact is a limitation of the ________ theory of pitch perception.

temporal

Professor Devine and her colleagues are interested in assessing whether active versus passive play causes a preference for sweet or salty foods in toddlers. They assign groups of children to either an active play, passive play, or no play group and record their food choices when presented with a variety of sweet and salty foods. In this study, ________ is the independent variable and ________ is the control group.

type of play; no play

Which of the following is an example of research someone might conduct in the area of health psychology?

whether people working at a desk are more likely to be obese

Tabetha has a mental picture of the layout of her house, also called a ________, so when she comes home late at night she can navigate through the rooms without turning on a light.

cognitive map

Gus receives a paycheck at the end of every week. Which reinforcement schedule is this?

fixed interval

Which kind of psychologist would be consulted in jury selection and witness preparation?

forensic

Learning that occurs but is not observable in behavior until there is a reason to demonstrate it is called ________ learning.

latent

Marlowe wakes up from a dream about his teeth falling out. He looks in a dream dictionary and finds losing teeth is usually dream symbolism for anxiety. Marlowe is focused on the ________ content.

latent

What do psychologists call a relatively permanent change in behavior or knowledge that results from experience?

learning

In a person whose eyes work in the usual fashion, the ________ will focus images perfectly on a small indentation in the back of the eye known as the ________.

lens; fovea

A state of ________, as shown by EEG recordings of new practitioners, is not an altered state of consciousness; however, patterns of brain waves exhibited by expert practitioners may represent a unique state of consciousness.

meditation

Kelsey had a CT scan that showed a tumor in the right frontal cortex. Which of the following behavioral symptoms most likely prompted the scan to take place?

motor skill deficits in the left side of her body

Cataplexy is a symptom associated with ________.

narcolepsy

Samek was driving to work when he suddenly felt paralyzed and couldn't resist falling asleep. Samek may have ________.

narcolepsy

Dave's boss told him that he doesn't have to attend the company picnic (which everybody dislikes) if Dave meets his sales quota this month. Dave's boss is using ________.

negative reinforcement

In classical conditioning, the association that is learned is between a ________.

neutral stimulus and an unconditioned stimulus

After Omar falls asleep he feels a sense of panic, screams, and attempts to escape from his room. Which parasomnia does Omar have?

night terrors

Dmitris is in a car accident and his parietal lobe is injured. Which of the following is the most likely behavioral effect of his accident?

no sensation in his legs and feet

What has research shown about processing subliminal messages?

In laboratory settings, people can process and respond to information outside of their awareness.

Which of the following conclusions can be drawn from the case study of Phineas Gage's accident, which led to brain injury?

Injury to the brain causes changes in behavior, and specific brain areas are linked to particular behaviors.

________ (IRB) reviews research that is involves the use of human participants.

Institutional Review Board

How does a cochlear implant enable the deaf to hear?

It receives incoming sound information and directly stimulates the auditory nerve to transmit information to the brain.

Which option is the most valid criticism of Watson and Rayner's work with "little Albert"?

It would be unethical by today's research standards.

According to William James, what was the true purpose of psychology?

Studying the function of behavior in the world

Simplicity of conducting the study is to ________ as ability to test large numbers of participants is to ________.

archival research; surveys

Classical and operant conditioning are forms of ________ learning.

associative

________ is a reduction in the number of research participants as some drop out of the study over time.

attrition

In the study of personality, the ________ model includes different traits that are believed to underlie each individual's basic tendencies.

Five Factor

Henry Gustav Molaison (H. M.) had brain surgery for which of the following reasons?

He had severe seizures.

Psychology refers to the ________.

the scientific study of mind and behavior

Sarit is at a bar full of music, chatter, and laughter. He gets involved in an interesting conversation with a woman named Mona, and he tunes out all the background noise. Sarit's friend, Karen, taps him on the shoulder and asks what song just played on the jukebox. Sarit says he doesn't know, even though he is sitting right next to the jukebox and is familiar with popular music. This illustrates the role that ________ plays in what is sensed versus what is perceived.

attention

An upper-level psychology class is conducting an experiment on racial prejudice that involves having participants rate the likeability of faces in a set of photos. However, they tell participants that the study is about the effects of aging on likeability. When participants are finished, they are thanked for their time and leave the experiment. In this example, the class forgot to ________ in order to resolve the ________ in the study.

debrief participants; deception

Alcohol is considered a ________ because it tends to suppress central nervous system activity.

depressant

Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) are drugs commonly prescribed for ________.

depression

Lucy wants to study changes in physical attributes, cognitive skills, moral reasoning, and social behavior across the lifespan. Lucy should specialize in ________ psychology.

developmental

________theory suggests that when people are hypnotized they have voluntarily divided their conscious: one half aware of reality and the other half tuned in to the hypnotist.

dissociative

Which two neurotransmitters have roles in appetite suppression?

dopamine; norepinephrine

In a ________ study, both the researchers and the participants are unaware of the group assignments.

double-blind

The myelin sheath is made from ________.

glial cells

Within the visible spectrum, our experience of red is associated with ________ waves of light.

longer wavelengths

A group of preschool-age children are enrolled in a study that plans to follow them over time in order to assess behaviors and other characteristics that may predict later development of schizophrenia. This is an example of a(n) ________ design.

longitudinal

Which perspective within psychology that emphasizes the potential for good that is innate to all humans.

Humanism

A(n) ________ is a well-developed set of ideas that proposes an explanation for observed phenomena.

theory

Research shows that people who smoke cigarettes are more likely to get lung cancer than those who do not smoke. This research alone demonstrates that ________.

there is a relationship between smoking and lung cancer

Cognitive psychology focuses on studying ________.

thoughts and their relationship to our experiences and our actions

Tayla smokes marijuana. At first, just a few inhalations were enough to cloud her mind. Over time, she needs to smoke more and more to achieve the same effect. This is an example of ________.

tolerance

Your ears receive sound waves and convert this energy into neural messages that travel to your brain and are processed as sounds. This is an example of ________.

transduction

A particular electrical signal being transmitted to a neuron is sufficient to generate an action potential. If the magnitude of the incoming electrical signal is doubled, the action potential will ________.

undergo no changes in strength, speed, or duration

Individuals undergoing hypnosis ________.

usually have clear memories of the hypnotic experience and are in control of their own behaviors

Gambling at a slot machine is an example of which reinforcement schedule?

variable ratio

Vinnie is standing on one leg with his arms in the air. The ________ sense helps keep him balanced so he has less chance of falling over.

vestibular

What stage of sleep are you most likely experiencing if an EEG of your brain activity showed sleep spindles and K-complexes?

2

Which of the following is a common requirement of a PhD across different schools and/or countries?

A dissertation

Which choice is an accurate definition of a hypothesis?

A tentative explanation

Which of the following exemplifies the unconditional positive regard component of client-centered therapy?

Abby tells her therapist that she tripped a small child who got in her way, and her therapist accepts this information without judgment.

Obstructive sleep apnea occurs when ________.

An individual's airway becomes blocked during sleep.

Although B. F. Skinner and John B. Watson refused to believe that thoughts and expectations play a role in learning, ________ suggested a cognitive aspect to learning.

Edward C. Tolman

Which of the following is an example of vicarious punishment?

Jeong observes his sister Bronwyn getting spanked for spitting out her carrots. Because he does not like getting spanked, he chews and swallows the carrots even though he hates them.

Two lines appear to be a different length, though in reality they are the same length. This is known as the ________ illusion.

Müller-Lyer

What is the main idea of social learning theory?

One can learn new behaviors by observing others.

________ refers to the way that sensory information is interpreted and consciously experienced; ________ refers to what happens when sensory information is detected by a sensory receptor.

Perception; sensation

In developmental psychology, there is an increasing interest in researching cognitive changes that occur later in life. Why?

Populations of developed nations are living longer.

For which concept is Abraham Maslow best known?

Proposing a hierarchy of human needs in motivating behavior

Mohammed is sleeping. His eyelids are quivering because his eyes are darting around. Mohammed is probably experiencing ________ sleep.

REM

What does the place theory of pitch perception suggest?

Receptors on different portions of the basilar membrane are sensitive to sounds of different frequencies.

A(n) ________ , also known as an operant chamber, is an instrument that isolates an animal from the external environment and allows a researcher to control that animal's rewards and punishments

Skinner box

Which individual wrote Principles of Physiological Psychology and is credited with establishing a scientific laboratory of Psychology at the University of Leipzig?

Wilhelm Wundt

When you watch the teacher at the front of the room, you are easily able to distinguish her from the white board (or chalk board) behind her. This demonstrates the Gestalt principle of ________.

a figure-ground relationship

Which word is the most appropriate synonym for the term validity?

accuracy

Which two concepts can be thought of as opposite processes within the classical conditioning model?

acquisition and extinction

If the principles of social learning theory are true, then children may model aggressive behavior ________.

after seeing a television character receive a reward for taking violent action against another character

Stage 1 sleep is characterized by a predominance of ________ wave activity in the brain.

alpha

Which is the main type of chemical messengers secreted by the male gonads?

androgens

Which of the following is an example of instinct?

baby turning its head to suckle when its cheek is stroked

________ disparity refers to the slightly different view of the world that each eye receives, and is a distance cue that allows us to perceive the depth of a given visual stimulus.

binocular

Regular feelings of hunger are an example of a(n) ________ rhythm.

biological

Penelope studies how the structure and function of the nervous system is related to behavior. She is a ________

biopsychologist

Studies that cannot ethically be conducted as experiments with typical human participants ________.

can sometimes be tested with animal studies

Dr. Mattar is interested in knowing more about brain injury to the occipital cortex, and he studies patients individually in order to gain in-depth knowledge about their behaviors. These studies would best be described as ________.

case studies

The two major divisions of the nervous system are the ________ and ________.

central; peripheral nervous systems

Human eggs and sperm each contain 23 ________, which are composed of long strands of ________.

chromosomes; DNA

Bev likes to be up late at night and sleep in; Caleb likes to wake up with the sun and go to bed early. A psychologist would say they have different ________.

chronotypes

Most people are awake during the day and asleep at night because their ________ cycles are aligned with the outside world.

circadian

The scientific process is ________, involving both inductive and deductive reasoning.

circualr

Ashya wants to focus on the diagnosis and treatment of psychological disorders and other problematic patterns of behavior. What area of psychology should she work in?

clinical psychology

When a child works on a "connect the dots" puzzle, she can often see the completed work before she has finished all of the dots. Once there is enough visual information present, she's able to perceive the completed picture even though it is still incomplete. Which Gestalt principle does this demonstrate?

closure

Stanley was diagnosed with lymphoma and had to undergo several months of chemotherapy. During this time he would become very nauseated as a side effect, and unintentionally came to associate that nausea with his favorite grilled cheese sandwich. Now, years later, even thinking about a grilled cheese sandwich makes him sick. In this example, Stanley's nauseous reaction to a grilled cheese sandwich is the ________.

conditioned responce

Sandra strongly believes that attending daycare is detrimental to children's development so she decides to write her psychology term paper on this topic. She does a literature search and finds several sources supporting her opinion, but she finds that the majority of research indicates that children attending daycare experience healthy development. She writes a paper using the sources that find negative associations with daycare attendance. This is an example of ________.

confirmation bias

A(n) ________ variable is a factor that affects both variables of interest in research and may falsely give the impression of a cause-and-effect relationship.

confounding

Ravon is deaf. He was born without the ability to hear, and has never experienced an auditory stimulus. When people write using "sound" type words like "loud," "soft," and "quiet," he sometimes has difficulty understanding what they are trying to convey. Ravon has ________ deafness.

congenital

Ronaldo was born without the ability to experience pain, though he can perceive temperature differences and changes in pressure. What is his condition called?

congenital analgesia

When studying personality traits, someone who is hardworking, dependable, and organized will score high on the ________ trait.

conscientiousness

Ali is aware of his feelings, emotions, and thoughts. He is also aware of his surroundings, the warmth of the sun, and the sound of nearby traffic. Ali is in a state of ________.

consciousness

Jemma wants to teach her son to say thank you. Every time he says thank you, Jemma praises him and gives him a hug. Which reinforcement schedule is this?

continuous

Light waves are first transmitted through the ________ at the front of the eye and enter an opening called the ________ before shining onto the retina.

cornea; pupil

The amplitude of a wave is the height of a wave as measured from the highest point on the wave________ to the lowest point on the wave ________.

crest; trough

What did John B. Watson and Rosalie Rayner demonstrate with their studies of Little Albert?

emotion can be a conditioned response

Which of the following research designs will allow cause-and-effect conclusions?

experimental

Molly attempts to condition her puppy to greet her when she enters the house. She repeatedly pairs her entry to the house with a treat for the puppy. The puppy eventually acquires this ability, and Molly realizes how irritating it is for the puppy to run up to her every time she enters the house. She attempts to make the puppy stop, and eventually the puppy no longer feels motivated to greet her when she enters the house. The puppy no longer greeting her when she enters the house is an example of ________.

extinction

The effects of neurotransmitters tend to be ________, whereas the effects of hormones tend to be ________.

faster; longer lasting

Parsons and her colleagues are doing a study comparing differences in brain activity levels between patients with schizophrenia and controls with no psychological disorders. Their hypothesis requires a high level of detail and good detection of differences over time. Which of the following is the best brain imaging technique to use?

functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI)

Wendy's mother has blue eyes and her father has brown eyes. The allele for brown eye color is dominant (B) to the allele for blue eye color (b), but Wendy has blue eyes. Therefore, Wendy's ________ must be ________ and her father's must be Bb.

genotype; bb

Introspection refers to a process by which someone examines ________ as objectively as possible.

her own conscious experience

________ amplitudes are associated with ________ sounds.

higher; louder

Which term describes the tendency to maintain a balance, or optimal level, within a biological system?

homeostasis

________ is a state of equilibrium, in which biological conditions (such as body temperature) are maintained at optimal levels.

homeostasis

The belief that strange behavior is linked to the occurrence of a full moon is an example of a(n) ________.

illusory correlation

As you are talking to a friend on your cell phone, you might find that you can't hear them because they are speaking very softly. If you ask them to "speak up," from a physical perspective you are asking them to ________ of the sound waves they are producing.

increase the amplitude

A group of researchers investigated the effects of two vocabulary learning strategies on word retention two weeks later. In this example, learning strategy is the ________ variable and word retention is the ________ variable.

independent; dependent

Oona wants to conduct research on personnel management, workplace environment, and what type of environment results in high levels of employee productivity and efficiency. Oona should conduct research in the area of ________ psychology.

industrial-organizational

Mona lives on the east coast of the USA. She takes an overnight flight to the west coast to visit with family for a month; when she arrives she is fatigued, sluggish, and irritable. For the next week or so she has trouble sleeping. Mona is probably suffering from ________.

jet lag

Which of the following is an example of fixed ratio reinforcement schedule?

knowing you will get to play miniature golf as soon as you collect 10 gold stars for your reward chart

A(n) ________ is a description of how the researchers will measure the variables of interest.

operational definition

Which nerve carries visual information from the retina to the brain?

optic

Sleepwalking, night terrors, and restless leg syndrome are all examples of________.

parasomnias

Dr. Singh has just completed her PhD program and is now applying for a year-long program at a nationally-recognized hospital. If accepted, she will greatly advance her knowledge of behavioral neuroscience. Dr. Singh is applying for a(n) ________ training program.

postdoctoral

If you watch a flock of birds flying overhead, each very close to the next one, you may perceive them as all being part of the same group. If they were all spaced very much apart, however, you may see them as individual birds not flying together. This distinction takes advantage of which Gestalt principle?

proximity

Tariq depends on cigarettes to relieve his stress, though he smokes so frequently that he experiences no significant, noticeable physical symptoms when he is not smoking. What does this exemplify?

psychological dependence

Nikki was walking around a department store shopping one day, and did not realize that the shirt she was wearing looked just like the shirts worn by employees. When a stranger asked, "do you work here," she thought it was funny. The other customers' assumption that Nikki was a store employee demonstrates the Gestalt principle of _______.

similarity

Behaviorism focuses on making psychology an objective science by ________.

studying overt behavior and deemphasizing the importance of unobservable mental processes

Jeremy has Parkinson's disease, a progressive neurodegenerative disease that affects motor skills. In addition to motor symptoms, Jeremy has noticed changes in his mood. It is likely that Jeremy's ________ is producing less ________ than it needs to.

substantia nigra; dopamine

Victoria has accumulated a large sleep debt. This means that she ________.

suffers from chronic sleep deprivation

________ is/are often conducted with large numbers of participants and can even be conducted by phone, email, or mail.

surveys

The somatosensory cortex is responsible for processing ________.

temperature, touch, and pain

The auditory cortex, in which sound stimuli are processed for perception, is located in the ________ lobe.

temporal

The ________ of a neuron contain ________ that house neurotransmitters, the chemical messengers of the nervous system.

terminal buttons; synaptic vesicles

The cognitive revolution created an impetus for psychologists to focus their attention on better understanding ________.

the mind and mental processes that underlie behavior

Functionalist psychologists focus on the function of behavior and ________.

the operation of the whole mind rather than the individual parts

Which of the following is an example of a reflex?

the pupil of your eye contracting in the presence of bright light

Psychological knowledge is advanced through a process known as ________, which involves a prescribed series of steps designed to achieve the desired knowledge

the scientific method