Unit 1 Progress Check

Researchers at a local veteran's hospital wanted to explore the impact of traumatic brain injuries on veteran's ability to sleep. Which of the following would the researchers use if they wanted to see the brain activity in a particular area of the brain as the veteran's were sleeping?

fMRI

When do individuals typically dream?

D, refers to REM sleep, which is when people have dreams.

A school collected data on student absences during stressful final exam periods when their sympathetic nervous systems would be activated. They graphed the data at the end of the academic term. Based on the graph, what is the most likely standard deviation for the number of days students missed classes?

2.0

If these data were plotted on a graph, what percent of the scores for the difference in perceived quality of the chocolate bar are within 2.29 and 3.71?

68

A research study seeks to examine the influence of REM sleep disruption on memory and attention. To investigate this, researchers gather a representative sample of healthy participants ages 18 to 40 years old with no prior history of sleep disorders or psychiatric conditions. They give each participant a baseline cognitive functioning test. The participants are housed in a sleep research lab for the duration of the study where they have their REM sleep disrupted multiple times each night. Following a three-week period of REM sleep disruption, participants will repeat the initial cognitive assessments to evaluate changes in performance. Which of the following research methods is being used in this study?

An experiment

Which of the following should the researchers in this study do out of a concern for ethical data collection?

Make sure the chemical does not affect the participants' olfactory systems long-term.

Dr. Copeland is interested in studying how diet impacts the nervous system activity of professional dancers. She randomly assigns a group of professional ballet dancers to either a protein-rich diet or a carbohydrate-rich diet. After three weeks on each food plan, she measures the function of specific parts of the brain and nervous systems while they are dancing. Dr. Copeland found that ballet dancers on a carbohydrate-rich diet had greater activity levels in the somatic nervous system. Which is a prediction that can be made from these findings?

The nervous system activation for any other type of dancers on carbohydrate-rich diets would be similar.

In this scenario, which of the following best describes the finding that the results were statistically significant?

The perceived quality of the chocolate bar went up after being exposed to the chemical, and this was not due to chance.

Which of the following biological systems is most likely responsible for an increase in heart rate while experiencing anxiety?

The sympathetic nervous system

A sample of pregnant women is given a high dose of caffeine daily to determine if their babies are born with an addiction to caffeine. Which of the following is an ethical issue in this study?

There is possible long-term harm to the babies.

Which of the following studies is from an evolutionary perspective?

A study to see if women were more attracted to men who liked children than men who did not like children

Researchers presented a picture of four stimuli to a group of college students and measured their heart rate by counting how many beats occurred in one minute. Which of the following brain structures would be most responsible for the emotional reaction as measured by heart rate after seeing the spider and the snake?

Amygdala

Dr. Copeland is interested in studying how diet impacts the nervous system activity of professional dancers. She randomly assigns a group of professional ballet dancers to either a protein-rich diet or a carbohydrate-rich diet. After three weeks on each food plan, she measures the function of specific parts of the brain and nervous systems while they are dancing. Which of the following is true about Dr. Copeland's study?

Dr. Copeland is conducting an experiment.

Dr. Jones conducted a study in which he surveyed participants and compared their reported levels of physical activity to their measures of brain plasticity. Dr. Jones concludes that higher levels of physical activity cause a greater degree of neuroplastic changes in the brain. He plans to publish his findings. What mistake is Dr. Jones making in his research conclusion?

Dr. Jones's study was correlational, so it cannot generate a causal conclusion.

Dr. Popoca studied the characteristics of individuals experiencing red-green and yellow-blue color vision deficiency. They recruited one individual with each type of color vision deficiency and assessed each person three times per week for a period of three months. They found that all of the participants in their study were left-handed. Following their research, Dr. Popoca concludes that all individuals who experience dichromatism are left-handed. Why is their conclusion inappropriate based on their research strategy?

Dr. Popoca has conducted a case study, which cannot be generalized to the population.

A manager of a company that makes self-driving cars is interested in showing that self-driving cars cause fewer accidents than traditional cars. She recruited 30 people for her study. After keeping her participants awake for 24 hours straight, she randomly assigned them to either drive a traditional car or a self-driving car. Which of the following is the most significant ethical factor that might influence the approval of this study? Responses

Protection from harm

Two researchers are interested in the social skills by people with synesthesia to perceive color. Researcher A interviews people with this disorder, and Researcher B creates a survey with a dozen questions that the participants answer using a numeric scale. Which of the following is true about this research scenario?

Researcher B is using a quantitative measure.

Dr. Gomez conducts research looking at similarities in identical twins. In one study, she is interested in looking at athletic ability. What do the results in the graph indicate?

When one twin demonstrates high athletic ability, so does the other twin.

Samantha experienced a traumatic brain injury and afterward began to exhibit bizarre symptoms that no one had ever documented before. The best research method to study Samantha would be

a case study

A group of researchers collected the data displayed in the graph. Which of the following psychological concepts is most likely the focus of the research?

The interaction of "nature" and "nurture"

Based on the scores on the three tasks, Task 3 most likely involves

remembering events that occurred shortly before his accident

Dr. Copeland is interested in studying how diet impacts the nervous system activity of professional dancers. She randomly assigns a group of professional ballet dancers to either a protein-rich diet or a carbohydrate-rich diet. After three weeks on each food plan, she measures the function of specific parts of the brain and nervous systems while they are dancing. Which of the following is most relevant to digesting carbohydrate-rich meals and resting after dance practice?

Parasympathetic nervous system

Neurologists trying to find a treatment for Alzheimer's disease selected 100 individuals with moderate to severe symptoms of Alzheimer's disease. Fifty participants were randomly placed into either an experimental condition that received a new medication that acted as an agonist for acetylcholine or the control condition which continued to receive same care as before. The study lasted for ten weeks at which time members of both groups took a cognitive assessment to determine their level of functioning. Which of the following best explains the operational definition of the dependent variable in this study?

The score on the cognitive assessment.

A researcher is interested in measuring adrenaline levels in male subjects and then comparing those levels to each participant's corresponding level of aggression. The researcher takes blood samples from each male participant to identify their adrenaline levels, and then gives each participant a survey that measures aggression. The results of the study indicate that higher levels of adrenaline were associated with higher rates of aggression. Which of the following best describes why the researcher cannot report a causal relationship in this study?

There was no manipulation of an independent variable.

Which study is a researcher who wants to draw correct cause-and-effect conclusions about the sense of smell likely to conduct?

A study in which the researcher randomly assigns 50 people to a group that is exposed to a strong smell of roses and 50 people to a group that experiences an odor-free environment to see whether the group exposed to the strong smell of roses reports experiencing more memories.