AP Psychology Midterm Practice

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

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

Dr. Naum is studying the function of the temporal lobe of the brain by examining the case study of J.S., an individual who incurred damage in this area during a motor vehicle accident. Dr. Naum administers a battery of tasks multiple times over the course of several weeks to assess J.S.'s cognitive abilities. The graph below shows J.S.'s performance on three different tasks. The bar on the left shows his accuracy forming new memories in a lab context, the middle bar shows his accuracy on a driving course, and the bar on the right shows his accuracy on a third task.

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. 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.

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

The sympathetic nervous system controls the fight-or-flight response, which occurs in response to a perceived threat.

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. Their sample size is only two and results cannot be generalized to the larger population.

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. This part of the nervous system helps calm the body and instigates digestion of food

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?

The amygdala regulates emotional reactions.

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. The results are positively correlated.