Psych Final Exam (Exam 3)

Which sentence below best defines the concept of tabula rasa?

An infant comes into the world knowing nothing. The infant then acquires all of his or her knowledge through sensory experiences in the world.

Which of the following statements accurately describes the difference between associative and nonassociative learning?

Associative learning occurs with multiple stimuli, whereas nonassociative learning occurs with only one stimulus.

The ________ model emphasizes that the surprising or unexpected nature of the predictor stimulus is what is responsible for the strength of the US-CS connection.

Rescorla-Wagner

________ states that the more intense the original stimulus, the greater the change in intensity required to produce a just noticeable difference.

Weber's law

For which of the following pairs would it be easiest to discern a difference in weight?

a 1-pound bag of sugar and a 2-pound bag of sugar

A(n) ________ is the minimum intensity of sensory stimulation required before the sensation is detected 50 percent of the time.

absolute threshold

Jason is doing a psychology experiment in which he is seated in an absolutely dark room. An initially undetected point of light in front of him is gradually made more intense. With each increase, he is asked if he can see the light yet. In this experiment, Jason's ________ is being measured.

absolute threshold

The area where the optic nerve leaves the retina is referred to as the:

blind spot.

The point at which the optic nerves meet and then split is termed the optic:

chiasm.

Daniel is standing on the outside platform of the train station. He is looking down the tracks hoping to see his train. As the tracks get farther from him the two sides of the tracks will appear to ________, providing the depth cue of ________.

converge; linear perspective

Dr. Shaw has a patient with a phobia to spiders. The patient enjoys doing puzzles. Dr. Shaw exposes the patient to spiders briefly while having the patient complete a fun puzzle. What technique is Dr. Shaw using?

counterconditioning

Aida eats green vegetables throughout her pregnancy and while she is nursing her baby because she wants her baby to have a preference for these healthy foods. Aida knows that:

culture influences taste preferences.

The neurotransmitter that is most important for reinforcement learning is:

dopamine.

Pavlov was interested in how long salivation would occur once food no longer followed the metronome. What is the name of this behavioral process he studied?

extinction

In research on signal detection theory, incorrectly "detecting" a stimulus that was not presented in a trial is called a:

false alarm.

Prolonged exposure to movement in one direction ________ the motion detectors responsive to that direction. When the movement stops, the baseline firing rate of detectors for the opposite direction of motion will be ________ than the firing rate for the detectors that responded to the prolonged movement, leading to motion aftereffects.

fatigues; higher

The optic nerve is composed of axons of:

ganglion cells.

The first time you pick up your pet hamster it recoils in fear, but after a week of handling, your hamster is not bothered anymore. What change came over your hamster through the simple act of repetitive handling?

habituation

What term is used to describe a decrease in a behavioral response after repeated exposure to nonthreatening stimuli?

habituation

Temperature, pain, and pressure are components of the ________ sense.

haptic

According to the work of Shepard Siegel, an addict's usual large dose is most likely to produce an overdose in which setting?

in a novel setting

The best definition of learning is that learning:

is relatively enduring and results from experience.

Thorndike's rule that actions resulting in good outcomes will be repeated and bad outcomes will NOT be repeated is known as the:

law of effect.

The neural structure responsible for releasing dopamine in response to reinforcement is the:

nucleus accumbens.

Olfactory receptors are embedded in the:

olfactory epithelium.

In smell, ________ are chemicals released by animals that cause physiological and behavioral effects on other members of the same species.

pheromones

The optic nerve projects from the retina through a neural pathway that progresses to the ________, which is located in the ________ lobe.

primary visual cortex; occipital

Positive reinforcement and negative reinforcement are similar in that both:

produce an increase in the probability of a behavior.

After being in a car crash, Yuri has the selective inability to recognize faces. He is most likely suffering from ________ due to damage to his ________.

prosopagnosia; fusiform gyrus

In Pavlov's experiments, what was the conditioned response?

salivation to the metronome

Primary reinforcers:

satisfy biological needs.

In what technique are successive approximations used?

shaping

What is an unconditioned stimulus?

something that elicits an unlearned response

The process by which a sound is transformed into a neural signal involves which of the following sequences of transformations?

sound wave -> eardrum vibration -> pressure wave in fluid

When, after extensive extinction trials, the presentation of the conditioned stimulus briefly produces a conditioned response, this process is known as:

spontaneous recovery.

The primary auditory cortex is located in which brain lobe?

temporal

Trichromatic theory is based upon:

the complementary functioning of three types of cones.

The process by which an individual needs increasing amounts of a drug to achieve the same psychological or physical effects is known as:

tolerance.

When one learns the consequences of an action by watching another person perform the action, this type of learning is called ________ learning.

vicarious

If the ventral stream of your visual cortex were not working temporarily, you would be unable to understand ________ an object is; but if your dorsal stream was still functioning, you could understand ________ an object is.

what; where

Research by Shepard Siegel and colleagues has shown that tolerance to a drug's effects is most likely to be greatest in which setting?

where the drug is most frequently used