Quiz Questions

Which of the following best describes the plasticity of the human brain?

5-year-old Julie is blind but has highly developed senses of hearing and smell

Which of the following provides the best description of a neuron?

A cell that receives information and transmits it to other cells

Which of the following best describes the scientific method?

A succession of five steps toward acquiring scientific knowledge

Which of the following best describes how classical conditioning might be used to treat a fear of heights?

A therapist shows her patient a video of a person standing on the observation deck of a skyscraper while helping him relax

STM Encoding

Acoustic encoding (what you hear) and visual encoding (what you see) using sensory memory

Which of the following best describes the biobehavioral perspective?

An approach to psychological science focused on biological causes for behavior

Experimental Method Example

Assess the hypothesis that children say more words when they hear more words by randomly assigning parents various scripted conversations and recording the child's responses and then counting the words they say in comparison to the number of words they heard

The fact that information must be repeated- known as maintenance rehearsal - in order to remain in short-term memory is evidence that short-term storage is:

Brief

You are helping a stroke victim to rehabilitate and you observe that his ability to produce language is severely impaired. You conclude that this small area between the frontal and temporal lobe has been damaged.

Broca's area

Ken experienced a blow to the back of the head, which result in problems coordinating his balance/sensory input. Which part of Ken's brain has most likely been damaged?

Cerebellum

This outer layer of the cerebrum enables humans to interpret sensory information, solve problems, learn, remember, and use language.

Cerebral Cortex

A behaviorist would say that learning refers to:

Changes in behavior as the result of environmental influence or experience

This memory phenomenon is the reason we can easily remember sentences composed of 20 words, but cannot remember 20 unrelated words in order:

Chunking

Among other things, this field of psychological study examines thinking, learning, memory, and language

Cognitive Psychology

Which mental representation would we need to utilize to think about abstract words like, time, ambivalence, and fatigue

Concept

Because you associated your waitress at a restaurant with food, you may start to salivate when you see her carrying your food over to you. According to classical conditioning, your waitress is a:

Conditioned stimulus

Many people believe their horoscopes are accurate because they pay more attention to events that are consistent with the prediction while ignoring other events. This is an example of:

Confirmation Bias

Dr. Adams found that when people eat high fat diets, they are diagnosed with depression at a higher rate. This is an example of __________ research?

Correlational

Dr. Parker found that SAT scores of his freshman introductory psychology class were good predictors of the final grades of the same students. Dr. Parker is most likely employing this method of research:

Correlational

The neuron has many branch-like extensions called _____ that receive input from other neurons

Dendrites

If your professor ended certain class days by sounding a bullhorn and then offering sweet-smelling cookies to the class, you would start to salivate to the sound of the bullhorn. If on other days, your professor ended class by ringing a bell, and not offering cookies, you would not salivate to the sound of the bell. This aspect of classical conditioning responsible for this is:

Discrimination

Which is not an example of plagiarism?

Dr. Jones included her student as an author on a paper because the student contributed several key ideas to the paper

What is the name for scientists on the nurture side of the nature-nurture debate?

Empiricists

This memory process involves making meaning of our your perceptions

Encoding

This is the only type of research method that can establish cause-and-effect relationships between phenomena:

Experiment

With repeated presentation of the conditioned stimulus without the unconditioned stimulus, the conditioned response becomes weaker until it disappears entierly, a process known as:

Extinction

At his job, Pablo is paid a salary every two weeks to ensure that he reliably shows up for work. This is most like which reinforcement schedule?

Fixed-interval

Horn and Cattell termed innate ability in abstract responding tasks ________ intelligence. They described accumulated knowledge of facts as ______ intelligence.

Fluid; crystalized

The humanistic perspective on psychology is different from the others because of the focus on:

Free will

This lobe integrates information from the rest of the cortex to support problem solving, decision making, and motor function:

Frontal lobe

Contemporary cognitive neuroscientists often employ a technique called _____ which uses multiple radio-frequency images of the brain to detect changes in activity in a particular brain region.

Functional magnetic resonance imaging

This aspect of thinking is a mental shortcut designed to help us make judgements/decisions when all the facts are not known:

Heuristic

The variable that the experimenter manipulates is called the ______ variable, while the variable that is measured to note changes based on the manipulation is called the _______ variable.

Independent; dependent

Psychologists are required to obtain this from participants, ensuring that the participants are aware of any risks and benefits of the study:

Informed consent

Which of the following is not a method used for psychological research?

Intuitive

All of the following memory accounts might qualify as flashbulb memories, except:

Jeremy's memory of his serious car accident only includes details about the route he was driving when his vehicle was struck

Psychologists who come from the behavioral perspective focus on ____________ while cognitive psychologists focus on_______

Learning; Memory

The most commonly used example of this memory phenomenon is what happens when you ask a friend for their phone number, but your phone is upstairs and you have to remember the number until you get upstairs:

Maintenance rehearsal

All of the following are examples of habituation, except:

Mary's last boyfriend was emotionally abusive and now she has trouble trusting possible new boyfriends.

If you are in a memory experiment and you are asked to quickly repeat back to the experimenter a sting of letters like M, K, D, F, L, E, S he is measuring your:

Memory span

Hemispheric Specialization: Visual-Spatial Processing

Men: both hemispheres Women: only right

When research participants engage in tasks that require the construction of this type of mental representation, they utilize parts of their occipital lobes:

Mental image

Which of the following is not one of the three general statements about learning emphasized in the textbook?

Most of the behaviors that we learn are actually innate

What is the name for scientists on the nature side of the nature-nurture debate?

Nativists

Long-standing debate over whether innate biology or environmental experience is the most critical factor in the development of human behavior.

Nature-Nurture

Generally speaking, as number of hours watching TV increases, reading scores decrease. This is an example of a ________ correlation.

Negative

Natalie's mother has found her smoking cigarettes agin and immediately confiscates Natalie's car keys in an effort to deter her from smoking in the future. This is an example of:

Negative punishment

Behaviorists are concerned with studying:

Observable behavior

This type of learning refers to the ways in which an organism might learn by observing the experiences of others, rather than through his or her own experience:

Observational learning

You make up in the hospital and your doctor informs you that you may have problems with your vision for a few days due to head trauma that disrupted functioning in this lobe of the cortex.

Occipital

People sometimes take credit for others' ideas without being aware of doing so, but this is still considered:

Plagiarism

As we age, our brains continue to change according to our environment, a property known as:

Plasticity

In an attempt to get his class to quiet down more quickly, Dr. Johnson continuously sounds a very lout bullhorn until the class stops talking. This is an example of:

Positive Punishment?

Imagine that you have read an article that reported that wight gain increases when people eat high calorie diets. This an an example of a:

Positive correlation

When the frequency or probability of a behavior is increased as a result of the addition/presentation of something following the performance of the behavior, it is called:

Positive reinforcement

If you make a list of items to buy at the grocery store but forget your list at home, you will probably be able to remember the first few items on the list as an example of this serial position:

Primacy Effect

Knowing how to do something, like drive a car/play a sport, is referred to as:

Procedural knowledge

When a discipline relies on bold statements, anecdotes, and testimonials - and reverses the burden of proof from itself to others, it is known as:

Pseudoscience

When a psychologist discusses the effect of unconscious conflicts and motivation on behavior he or she is speaking from this perspective

Psychodynamic

A researcher wanted to determine whether the temperature of a room effected reading ability. She used three different temperatures (cold, warm, hot) with different groups of participants and measured their reading comprehension with multiple choice questions. The dependent variable was:

Reading comprehension

On an essay exam, the professor is usually examining the accuracy of this retrieval process:

Recall

When the consequence of a behavior increases the likelihood that the behavior will be repeated- for example, when a food pellet rolls down the chute after a rat pushes the correct lever - the behavior is said to have been:

Reinforced

Correlational Method Example

Researcher may compare the amount of time a person spends at the gym and the amount of weight people loose during a specific amount of time to see if weight loss and time are correlated.

Descriptive Method Example

Researcher would do a case study in which they record all the words a child says to get a better sense of their language abilities.

Studying by engaging in a series of self-tests helps most with this process of memory

Retrieval

The human storage/retrieval of memories is different from storage of data on a computer in that computers:

Retrieve information that is identical to wha had been initially stored

All of the following are example of proactive interference except:

Samantha lost her new combination lock she used at her gym. She has an old lock but can't use it because she only remembers the combination numbers for the new lock

LTM Encoding

Semantic encoding - storage based on meaning

When information becomes conscious, it has been activated in this stage/store:

Short-term memory

Psychologists that emphasize how society and culture shape human psychology take the:

Sociocultural perspective

Wernicke's Area is critical to ___________, whereas Broca's area allows for __________.

Speech comprehension; speech production

Pavlov found that if he allowed his animals to rest for several hours following the extinction of a behavior, the conditioned responses would spontaneously appear again upon re-presentation of the conditioned stimulus - although in a somewhat weaker form. This is called:

Spontaneous recovery

The retrieval phenomenon works when most and other psychological states, including drug-induced changes in consciousness, act as retrieval cues

State-dependency memory

Which of the following was not among the list of habits known to reduce exam performance

Studying in frequent, manageable sessions

Neurons are not fused to each other so neurotransmitters must pass across the:

Synaptic gap

If one day you are less able to recognize familiar sounds, this lobe of the cortex is probably at fault:

Temporal lobe

If short-term memory can be thought of as what appears on the screen of your computer at any given moment, then long-term memory represents:

The data stored in files for later retrieval

If you believe you have an accurate episodic memory of events prior to your fourth birthday, you are probably basing your belief on:

The existence of pictures/photographs of the event

Which of the following is not true about the hindbrain?

The hindbrain, especially the medulla, is considered the seat of human intelligence

A sport psychologist is studying the effects of drinking a sport drink on athletic performance. She assigned the females to the sports drink group, and the males to the non-sports drink group. Which participants are in the experimental group?

The participants who drank the Gatorade

A sport psychologist is studying the effects of drinking a sport drink on athletic performance. She assigned the females to the sports drink group, and the males to the non-sports drink group. Which participants are in the control group?

The participants who drank the water

Which of the following best captures the essence of the law of effect?

The presence of reward strengthens actions that prove to be successful, while actions that prove to be unsuccessful become less likely to occur

Dr. Akimo designed a study in which she randomly assigned participants to one of two groups to avoid confounding her results. Dr. Akimo is most likely using this method of research:

The scientific method

Jane decided to learn about the five-step, empirical process of knowing in science. She is studying:

The scientific method

Psychology is defined as:

The scientific study of the mind and behavior

Which of the following best describes the junction of two neurons?

The terminal of the first neuron is separated from the second neuron by a small gap called the synapse

A sport psychologist is studying the effects of drinking a sport drink on athletic performance. She assigned the females to the sports drink group, and the males to the non-sports drink group. The researcher recorded the time it took each subject to run the mile. The dependent variable in this study is:

The time it took the subjects to run a mile.

Which of the following provides the best description of hemispheric specialization in the cortex?

The two hemispheres of the cortex are specialized for different functions, especially in the case of language

Which of the following is not one of the four goals of science?

To discriminate against inferior explanations of something

Which of the following describes the most reliable and value use of IQ scores?

To predict academic performance and achievement

If you forget the code to unlock your cell phone, you might try a few different sets of numbers hoping eventually to hit upon the right numbers. This is an example of which basic problem-solving strategy?

Trial and error

A researcher wanted to determine the effect of violent video game content on aggressive behavior in adolescents. To do so, he instructed one set of participants to play a violent video game and another to play a chess match. The experimenter than measured participant's aggression levels. What was the independent variable?

Type of video game.

When a dog has food placed in its mouth, the dog begins to salivate. The salivation behavior is called the:

Unconditioned response

When a dog has food placed in its mouth, the dog begins to salivate. The food is the:

Unconditioned stimulus

This schedule of reinforcement generally produces the lowest rate of responding because reinforcement is delivered at unpredictable time intervals:

Variable-interval

Slot machines players do not typically pause for rest following reinforcement, but rather, they continue to respond at high rates to reach the next pay-off. The schedule of reinforcement in effect here is:

Variable-ratio

The learning phenomenon, which involves observation of rewarding behavior/punishing consequences experienced by others, serves much the same function as being rewarded/punished oneself:

Vicarious Conditioning

A sport psychologist is studying the effects of drinking a sport drink on athletic performance. She assigned the females to the sports drink group, and the males to the non-sports drink group. The independent variable in the study is:

What the subjects had to drink

The "positive" and "negative" terms applied to reinforcement and punishment refer to:

Whether something is added or removed as a consequence

Hemispheric Specialization: Language Processing

Women: both hemispheres Men: left only