Psychology Exam 2

In the __________ stage in Jean Piaget's theory of development, children develop the ability to perform mental operations on physical events but do not yet think abstractly or hypothetically.

concrete operational

Jean Piaget proposed several stages of cognitive development in children. Which stage did he argue occurred between the ages of 7 and 11 years?

concrete operations

A popular learning method that suggests students can figure out important principles on their own by trying out experimental materials is called __________.

discovery learning

What does the popular (but scientifically mythical) term "midlife crisis" refer to?

A period of emotional distress regarding the aging process and an attempt to regain one's youth.

Early reports of the success of sleep-assisted learning fail to consider an important rival hypothesis: namely, that the recordings might have __________.

awakened the subjects

According to the principles of latent learning, there is a crucial distinction to be made between __________.

competence and performance

The idea that we are predisposed by evolution to fear some stimuli more than others, even when we have had no bad experiences with those stimuli in real life, is referred to as __________.

preparedness

When we have encountered a stimulus before, we are able to identify it more quickly and easily. The term for this subtype of implicit memory is __________.

priming

Our memory for how to do things is called __________.

procedural memory

Psychologists measure people's memory abilities by assessing three capacities: __________.

recall, recognition, and relearning

Which phenomenon may explain why marketers are not always successful in establishing a connection for their target audience between a particular product and the celebrity who is endorsing it?

latent inhibition

Which principle asserts that rewards will be more likely to promote repeated responses to a stimulus?

law of effect

Lev Vygotsky developed a comprehensive theory of cognitive development that included __________, the notion that parents provide structure to help their children learn, then gradually remove structure when the children can manage the task on their own.

scaffolding

Although using __________ can sometimes lead to mistakes, they provide us with a frame of reference for interpreting new situations.

schemas

Praise, money, good grades, compliments, and applause are all examples of __________.

secondary reinforcers

ZAK, BOL, GID, YAF, and other nonsense syllables were used in some of the earliest studies of memory, conducted by __________.

Hermann Ebbinghaus

In Elizabeth Loftus's "lost in the mall" study, approximately what percentage of people distinctly remembered being lost in a shopping mall after being told that this had happened to them, even though it did not really happen?

25 percent

__________ allows you to remember auditory stimuli for up to 5 or 10 seconds.

Echoic memory

Which of the following statements is true?

It is easier to implant a false memory that is plausible than one that is implausible.

What is the general progression of memory loss for patients with Alzheimer's disease?

Memory for recent events fades first, with distant memories usually being the last to go.

Which of the following situations is an example of a bidirectional influence in developmental psychology?

Parents influence their children's behavior, but the children's behavior also influences their parents' reactions.

That frustrating feeling of knowing you know something but cannot pull it out of your brain at the moment you want it is known as the TOT phenomenon, because __________.

TOT stands for "tip-of-the-tongue"

The Strange Situation refers to __________.

an experimental procedure for investigating attachment

Jerome Kagan identified a temperament style called __________ for infants who are frightened by new or unexpected stimuli such as unfamiliar faces, loud noises, or moving toys.

behavioral inhibition

Signs of sexual maturity in girls are the onset of menstruation and the development of __________. Signs of sexual maturity in boys are the growth of body hair and an increase in __________.

breasts; muscle strength

Pavlov discovered that if he repeatedly paired a neutral stimulus, such as the sound of a metronome, with a stimulus that provided an automatic response, eventually the neutral stimulus alone would produce a(n) __________.

conditioned response

There are various techniques available to help people improve their ability to recall material. For example, when you remember something new by connecting it mentally to something you already know, you are using __________.

elaborative rehearsal

Which term refers to the classical conditioning phenomenon in which a new CR "writes over" an existing CR?

extinction

Although it is presented as the most common kind of memory loss in the popular media, with depictions of someone losing all memory of his or her past, __________ is not actually the most common kind of amnesia.

generalized amnesia

The termination of menstruation in women is called __________.

menopause

Over time, children develop greater knowledge of their own memory abilities and limitations. The term used to describe this is __________.

meta-memory

Because __________ activity seems to play a central role in empathy, some psychologists speculate that defects in this area may be associated with infantile autism.

mirror neuron

Wolfgang Köhler's studies with chimpanzees demonstrated the animals were using insight to solve a problem. Unfortunately, flaws in the study's design mean that we cannot rule out the possibilities that the chimps were learning by trial and error or by __________.

observational learning

Spectators often marvel at shows that feature animals doing amazing stunts and complicated maneuvers. Animal trainers use __________ to accomplish this, by reinforcing behaviors that are progressively closer to the target behavior until the target behavior is achieved.

shaping

The major milestones of motor development in children include (in this order) sitting up, crawling, __________, and walking.

standing unsupported

Bridgette feeds her cat canned food every night. The ritual is always the same: Bridgette takes out the electric can opener, whirs the can around the blade to open it, scoops the food into a bowl, and presents it to Zorro. Bridgette has noticed, however, that Zorro will run into the kitchen in eager anticipation as soon as she hears the sound of the cabinet door open and hears the whir of the can opener in motion. According to the principles of classical conditioning, the sound of the can opener is the __________.

CS

Which of the following examples of "popular psychology wisdom" turns out to actually be true?

Children grow in spurts rather than at a constant, steady rate.

The majority of parenting research indicates that as long as parents provide __________, in which they meet their children's basic needs for affection and appropriate discipline, most kids will turn out just fine.

an average expectable environment

Which of the following describes the term "schema"?

an organized knowledge structure or mental model that we have stored in memory

Jean Piaget referred to the process of absorbing new experience into current knowledge structures by the term __________.

assimilation

One problem that can arise with longitudinal research designs is that participants may drop out of the study for a variety of reasons or even die. This term for this problem is __________.

attrition

Which parenting style combines the best features of authoritarian and permissive approaches?

authoritative

A "soft" approach to parenting is described as __________, whereas a "hard" approach to parenting is described as __________.

child-centered; parent-centered

Without even noticing that you are doing it, what memory technique do you use to remember larger quantities of information, even though your short-term memory capacity only holds about nine bits of information?

chunking

As we become accustomed to a particular place, we develop a representation in our minds of how that physical space is organized. This is known as developing a __________.

cognitive map

Most classically conditioned reactions require repeated pairings of the conditioned stimulus with the unconditioned stimulus in order to develop a relationship in the mind of the subject. Which of the following is an example of a situation in which only one pairing is necessary?

conditioned taste aversion

Reggie likes to eat chicken fingers dipped in honey mustard sauce. One night, just after eating at Chester's Chicken Shack, he becomes painfully ill with stomach cramps and nausea due to the flu virus that had been percolating in his body the past few days. When his friends invite him back to Chester's in a month, Reggie swiftly declines. What principle of classical conditioning is at work in Reggie's reaction?

conditioned taste aversion

Jerry sees a bicycle sitting unattended in an alleyway. His first impulse is to take it; he would have a new bike, and that would be pretty cool. However, he reasons to himself that taking the bicycle is against the law, and laws are laws; they are there for a reason. According to Larry Kohlberg's model of moral reasoning, what stage of morality has Jerry achieved?

conventional

Unintentional plagiarism has been attributed to __________, which occurs when someone says they forgot having been exposed to the plagiarized material earlier and thought they had created it themselves.

cryptomnesia

The two primary reasons why short-term memories fade are __________ and __________.

decay; interference

More than 300 convicted prisoners to date have been released because DNA evidence showed they were innocent, despite confident testimony from __________.

eyewitnesses

What part of the brain does not mature until late adolescence or early adulthood and is responsible for planning, decision making, and impulse control?

frontal lobes

Chronological age is one way to measure how aging will affect us, especially as we grow older. Which of the following is another way of conceptualizing age?

functional age

A few studies have demonstrated a correlation between low production of the enzyme monoamine oxidase and heightened risk for criminally violent behavior in cases when (and only when) the person also has a history of mistreatment. This is an example of __________.

gene-environment interaction

Alastair has used classical conditioning to train his dog to salivate every time Ingo whistles a C#. After the dog has mastered this association, Alastair then pairs a flashing light with the sound of a whistled C#, and finds that over time, his dog now salivates to the flashing light. Which principle of classical conditioning is at work here?

higher-order conditioning

One reason preparedness might lead to phobias is that we develop __________ between fear-provoking stimuli and negative consequences.

illusory correlations

Negative reinforcement __________ the rate of behavior, whereas punishment __________ the rate of behavior.

increases; decreases

A crucial ingredient of social development is self-control, or the ability to __________.

inhibit impulses

Another term for operant conditioning is __________ conditioning.

instrumental

Although some educational psychologists have claimed to boost learning by matching different instructional methods to different types of students, the theory of __________ has yet to be proven because tests have lacked reliability.

learning styles

The connections among neurons gradually strengthen over time, and do so by means of repetitive stimulation. This process is known as __________.

long-term potentiation

A memory that is actually false but "feels real" and can be triggered by, for example, looking at a list of associated words, is called a(n) __________.

memory illusion

Dee Dee has to remember 4 items that he needs at the corner market, so he visualizes the path he will take to get there. He imagines a bar of soap hanging from a large tree, envisions a roll of paper towels next to a stoplight, "sees" a packet of gum on the newspaper rack, and imagines the fire hydrant spurting out soda. Which memory strategy is Dee Dee relying on?

method of loci

Jean Piaget concluded that children did not grasp __________ until between eight and 12 months of age but other researchers demonstrated that children as young as five months (and possibly younger) could do it.

object permanence

Which of the following is one of the three processes of memory?

retrieval

Zhenya remembers that St. Paul is the capital of Minnesota. Alina remembers that she lived in St. Paul when she was 12 years old. Zhenya is demonstrating __________ memory, whereas Alina is demonstrating __________ memory.

semantic; episodic

Which term refers to a situation in which an organism responds more strongly to a stimulus over time?

sensitization

George Sperling's partial report method studies from the 1960's demonstrated that when a display of 12 letters was viewed, participants retained all of the letters in __________ but not all of them could be transferred to short-term memory.

sensory memory

When we are not sure where a memory really came from ("Did it actually happen? Or was it all a dream?") we can use cues such as how vivid and detailed the memory is to determine the answer. This process is called __________.

source monitoring

Marjoe had trained his dog that whenever it saw a photo of the cat next door, it would receive a treat. Through multiple pairings of the photo and the treat, the dog came to salivate when the photo alone was presented. Marjoe then extinguished the salivation behavior by presenting the photo but withholding the treat. He was surprised to find that, a week later, when he happened to hold up the photo of the cat, his dog started to salivate. What is going on here?

spontaneous recovery

When a conditioned response appears to be extinct, it can sometimes come back, but will often be weaker than it was originally. This return of the CR is called __________.

spontaneous recovery

An environmental factor—such as alcohol, cigarettes, and certain drugs—that has a negative effect on the development of a baby in utero is called a __________.

teratogen

Having the ability to reason about what other people know or believe, we are said to have a capacity called __________.

theory of mind

Which of the following reinforcement schedules typically yields the highest rate of responding from an organism?

variable ratio

Which of the following sequences summarizes the correct order of prenatal development?

zygote - blastocyst - embryo - fetus