Psych Test 1

According to the law of__________, there is a tendency to perceive a series of points or lines as having unity.

Continuity

According to the biological perspective of psychology, __________ interact with inherited factors to determine specific behavior and mental processes.

Environmental Factors

______ are specialized cells of the nervous system that receive and transmit messages.

Neurons

Which of the following statements is true of the scientific method?

Psychologists are guided by principles of critical thinking as they try to draw conclusions from research evidence collected through the scientific method.

_______ are particularly concerned with issues such as anxiety, aggression, and gender roles.

Personality Psychologists

The _____ is a thin membrane inside the ear that vibrates in response to sound waves.

eardrum

Brandon is a psychologist who is studying the relationship between heredity and mood disorders. He strongly believes that behavior and mental processes have a connection with the brain, hormones, heredity, and evolution. Brandon's beliefs are most consistent with the _____ perspective.

biological

In the scientific method, a research question may be studied as a question or reworded as a ______.

hypothesis

A participant's agreement to participate in research after receiving information about the purposes of the study and the nature of the treatments is referred to as _______.

informed consent

The ________ adjusts or accommodates to an image by changing its thickness.

lens

The __________ is a group of structures involved in memory, motivation, and emotion that forms a fringe along the inner edge of the cerebrum.

limbic system

The __________ lies below the hypothalamus and is dubbed the "master gland."

pituitary gland

_______ are different from clinical psychologists in that their clients typically have adjustment problems, such as trouble making academic or vocational decisions or making friends in college, but not serious psychological disorders.

Counseling psychologists

______ takes the form of a double helix and contains the genetic code of an organism.

Deoxyribonucleic acid

Which of the following is one of the features of the neurotransmitter gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) that interests psychologists?

GABA is an inhibitory neurotransmitter that may help calm anxiety reactions.

_________is best described as the stimulation of sensory receptors and the transmission of sensory information to the central nervous system.

Sensation

Which of the following is a defining feature of psychoanalysis?

The emphasis on unconscious ideas and impulses that originate in childhood conflicts.

Which of the following statements is true of the experimental method of research?

The experimental method allows psychologists to control the experiences of participants and draw conclusions about cause and effect.

Amy accidentally hit her elbow against the edge of a wall. Amy's mother rushed to her and rubbed the affected elbow. Amy's pain subsided. Which theory would best explain this incident?

The gate theory

Which of the following theories proposed that there are three types of color receptors, but they are not sensitive only to red, green, and blue?

The opponent-process theory

______ is the sense of equilibrium that informs us about our bodies' positions relative to gravity.

The vestibular sense

Which of the following is a new basic taste that was recently added to the primary taste qualities?

Umami

Caroline is a psychologist who studies how stress induces ailments such as heart problems and headaches. Some of her clients are smokers, and she is helping them quit smoking. She also suggests lifestyle changes to her clients to help them reduce and cope with stress. Caroline can best be described as a(n) _____.

health psychologist

A(n) __________ is a stereotyped pattern of behavior that is triggered in a specific situation.

instinct

Once light passes through the iris, it encounters the _____.

lens

On a bright, sunny day, Manny leaves a dimly-lit movie theater and goes out into the street. The _____ in his eyes adjust to the sudden increase in light.

pupils

Each kind of neurotransmitter has a unique chemical structure, and each can fit into a specifically tailored harbor, or __________, on the cell receiving a message.

receptor site

As part of a study in auditory perception, students were made to listen to a low-volume music track. When they first put on their headphones, they almost couldn't hear anything. But as they became more attentive, the sound gradually became clearer. This is an example of _____.

sensitization

Psychologists with a __________ perspective are most likely to investigate the ways we perceive and mentally represent the world, how we learn, remember the past, plan for the future, solve problems, form judgments, make decisions, and use language.

cognitive

A neuron relays its message to another neuron across a junction called a ______.

synapse

Which of the following describes the electrical impulse that provides the basis for the conduction of a neural impulse along an axon of a neuron?

An action potential

What role does the somatic nervous system play?

It transmits messages about sights, sounds, smells, and so on, to the central nervous system.

Which of the following neurotransmitters is involved in emotional arousal and sleep?

Serotonin

Which of the following senses is dominant in human beings?

Vision

______ is credited with establishing the first psychological laboratory in Leipzig, Germany

Wilhelm Wundt

______ was a founder of the school of functionalism.

William James

An association among variables is known as ________.

correlation

Nicotine, alcohol, and many other drugs are pleasurable because they heighten levels of _____.

dopamine

Which of the following is true of behaviorism?

Behaviorists define psychology as the scientific study of behavior, not of behavior and mental processes.

Which of the following is a goal of psychology?

To explain behavior and mental processes.

______ is the fraction of the intensity by which a source of physical energy must be increased or decreased so that a difference in intensity will be perceived.

Webster's Constant

A(n) __________ is the lingering visual impression made by a stimulus that has been removed.

afterimage

Every time a neuron fires, it transmits an impulse of the same strength. This occurrence is known as the _______.

all-or-none principle

A neuron has a(n) _____ that extends like a trunk from the cell body.

axon

The brain and the spinal cord make up the _____, which controls and commands bodily functions.

central nervous system

The colors across from one another on the color wheel are labeled as ________.

complementary colors

The process of adjusting to conditions of lower lighting by increasing the sensitivity of rods and cones is known as _____.

dark adaptation

The loudness of a sound is expressed in _____.

decibels (dB)

The measured results, or outcomes, in an experiment are called ______.

dependent variables

The cones are most densely packed in a small spot at the center of the retina called the __________.

fovea

The _______ perspective is grounded in the work of Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow.

humanistic-existential

Messages from the brain or spinal cord are transmitted to muscles or glands through _____.

motor neurons

The _____ is the branch of the autonomic nervous system that is most active during processes that restore the body's reserves of energy.

parasympathetic division

Some researchers consider the __________ to be the "executive center" of the brain, where decisions are made to keep information in working memory and to solve problems.

prefrontal cortex

According to the American Psychological Association's Handbooks of Ethics in Psychology, psychologists may use deception in their experiments:

when the participants are debriefed afterward.

Which of the following statements is true of rod cells in the retina of the eye?

They are sensitive to only the intensity of light.

The _____ is the body's system of ductless glands that secrete hormones and release them directly into the bloodstream.

endocrine system

The __________ minimizes leakage of the electrical current being carried along the axon, thereby allowing messages to be conducted more efficiently.

myelin sheath

On his first day as a school psychologist, Daniel took a trip to the school ground and quietly sat in the corner watching the children play. He noticed several patterns in the way children behaved with each other, especially when they were playing games. Daniel is most likely using the method of ______.

naturalistic observation

Visual stimuli can be flashed too briefly, below our absolute threshold for conscious perception, to enable us to process them. This is an example of__________.

subliminal stimulation