Psych 101 WVU exam 1

The value of random assignment is that it:

Ensures the equivalence of the experimental and control groups

For Lindsey's dissertation, she has e-mails sent out to people 4 times a day for 4 weeks. In these e-mails, she asks about current emotional experiences and activities. What method is she using?

Experience sampling

It is difficult to study the specialized abilities of the left and right cerebral hemispheres in the brains of normal individuals because:

The two hemispheres share information quickly and completely

Transfer-appropriate processing is likely to occur if:

The type of encoding matches the type of retrieval task

The study on master chess players showed that master chess players are better than average players in recalling the location of pieces on a chess board because:

They can chunk the pieces better into familiar groups

An article headline claimed that "Drugs Cause Homelessness" due to a positive relationship found between homeless populations and drug use. Educated psychologists thought this might be flawed, because they thought unemployment was influencing both drug use and homelessness. This is an example of:

Third variable

What is one reason why scientific psychologists follow a specific set of guidelines to help them make discoveries when doing research?

To ensure they protect research participants from potentiol harm

The main focus of clinical psychology is on which aspect of human behavior:

Understanding and treating psychological disorders

Students who have problems with anxiety so that it affects their learning, can be helped if they:

Write about their anxiety

A brain surgeon who needs to see which areas of the brain is functioning normally and those that are not would likely rely on:

fMRI scans

The autonomic nervous system is especially important for:

successfully resolving emergencies

What does "working memory capacity" refer to

the amount of information that an individual can store for a limited amount of time

What is a good example of a working memory task?

Calculating a multiplication problem in your head

What is the part of the brain that links together the two hemispheres, and is sometimes severed for people called split-brain patients

Corpus Callosum

Children's behavior on a playground is observed and later parents complete a questionnaire regarding home behavior of these same children. This method would best be described as a:

Correlation design

Dr. Morabian is conducting research that was inspired by studies published 10 years before he got his doctorate. He reads those studies, thinks about how they can be improved, and designs research that will extend their findings. Dr. Morabian's work demonstrates that science is:

Cumulative

Betty took part in a study where she was told the purpose was to further examine perceptual cognitive processes. Once the study was over, however, the researcher explained to her that the study's real purpose was to assess automaticity of stereotypes. This study is an example of research that used _________ in their methods to hide the true nature of the study. And we see that as a result, the researchers fully _________ participants afterwards.

Deception; Debriefed

Dr. Sharma wants to study the extent to which stress is related to suicidal ideation in people who suffer from depression. She gathers information about the level of stress, depressive symptoms, and suicidal thoughts a set of participants experience the day after they attend the funeral of a loved one. Because this study is assessing people under conditions that are not typical of everyday life, it is lacking in __________ validity.

Ecological

The ability to arrive at broad conclusions based on smaller ones is known as __________. It requires that the sample under investigation be representative of the larger population from which it was drawn.

Generalizability

It is important to design research experiments that are associated with real-world situations in order to _______ findings to a larger population

Generalize

Looking for the best ways to help people monitor and control their blood pressure through behavioral changes would be the concern of psychologists within which subfield?

Health

Dr. Hart is interested in the role of relationships in preventing heart disease. As her patients come into her office in Bluebell, Alabama, she asks them two questions: Are you a in a relationship? Have you experienced any heart problems in the last 8 years? Based on her findings, she concludes that relationships cause cardiovascular (heart) problems. One issue with her methodology is that the results are not generalizable. What does this mean?

Her results may not be true for the entire population

_______ refers to the degree to which casual inferences can be made in the study; _______ refers to the degree that study's finds can be applied to the larger population.

Internal Validity; External Validity

A negative correlation between two variables suggests that:

High scores on one variable relate to low scores on the other

the body's ability to regulate balance in temperature and nutrition is related to the:

Hypothalamus

The hypothesis in a research study is defined as the:

Idea, or prediction, that can be tested

Taylor walked into the psychology lab and was welcomed by the researcher. The first document given to him by the researcher described the research experiment and what it was to entail, which also required his signature. What was this ethical document?

Informed Consent

The degree to which a study allows unambiguous casual inferences has ______.

Internal Validity

Dru is reading about the different types of research. If he reads, "This type of research has the primary advantage of allowing a scientist to determine cause and effect relationships," what kind of research method is he studying?

Laboratory experiment

What type of research highlights causality, allowing the cause to be separated from the effect?

Labratory experiments

The _____ jointly controls a variety of basic functions including emotions and self-preservation

Limbic System

Operational definitions are encouraged in research in order to:

Make terms used in a study as explicit as possible

How does forgetting facilitate learning?

Material that is partly forgotten and then re-learned is retained longer than material that is learned quickly and easily.

If you were to spend some time watching people in the checkout line of a local discount store to see how many read the tabloid newspapers displayed next to the register, you have chosen the __________ research method to answer your question.

Naturalistic Observation

The primary weakness of the case study method is:

Nongeneralizability

A hypothesis must be stated in a way that allows it to be tested through measurable and observable procedures. the restatement is often called a:

Operation Definition

Personal experience is associated with ____, whereas, scientific method is associated with ____

Opinion; Fact

This module argues that forgetting may be an important part of learning. what is a good example of this argument?

Our minds would become cluttered with irrelevant information. In order to learn more information we must be able to forget information that is correct.

When a neuron is not conducting an electrical message, it has a charge of -70mV known as its:

Resting membrane potential

When your instructor finishes reviewing a new topic in lecture, she often gives a clicker quiz. Clicker quizzes can serve the purpose of:

Retrieval Practice

Science is described as a cumulative process. This means that:

Science builds on prior discoveries

The definition of psychology is generally considered to be the:

Scientific study of behavior and mental processes

As soon as class is over, Karen goes to the Mountainlair, gets a cup of coffee and reviews the material from class, asking herself what she remembers, and then checking to see if she is correct from her e-text. Karen is utilizing _____ to enhance her learning.

Self testing

The development of _______ has provided a new level of advantage for gathering information from research participants at specific times, often randomly selected, throughout a given day

Smartphones

The three major parts of the neuron are the dendrites, axon, and _____.

Soma

Reading this question and selecting the correct answer reflects the operation of the _____ division.

Somatic

The ______ is a relay station in the brain handling information about the senses.

Thalamus

How does a researcher know what method she should use to test her hypothesis in psychological research?

The best method depends on the question being asked as well as the resources available to the reseacher

In an experiment on the effect of light on reading speed, which of the following is the dependent variable

The measured reading speed

The term metacognition refers to

our thoughts and knowledge about how our learning and memory work.