Test #1

_____ is to bottom-up processing as _____ is to top-down processing.

Sensation; perception

In an experiment the ______ is manipulated by the researcher and its effects on the _____ are measured.

independent variable/ dependent variable

In John Watson's little Albert experiment, the white rat was the ______ and the loud noise was the ______.

conditioned stimulus / unconditioned stimulus

After Meg eats hamburger for the first time, she gets sick and vomits. The next time someone asks Meg if she wants a hamburger, she feels so nauseated she actually vomits. Meg has a

conditioned taste aversion.

The protective fatty coating(s) that encase(s) the axon and increase(s) the speed of the electrical signal as it travels within a neuron is (are) the

myelin sheath.

When a teenager gets poor grades, his father takes away his cell phone. This consequence is a

negative punishment.

Endorphins are _____.

neurotransmitters that function as natural opiates in producing pleasure and pain

Which lobe of the cerebral cortex responds to visual stimuli?

occipital lobe

Which of the following statements about critical thinking is FALSE?

Critical thinking increases the likelihood that conclusions will be based on unreliable personal beliefs, opinions, and emotions.

____ are chemical substances that carry information across the synaptic gap to the next neuron.

Neurotransmitters

Which of the following statements is correct?

Night terrors occur during non-REM sleep, while nightmares occur during REM sleep.

Which of the following statements is correct?

Classical conditioning focuses on involuntary responses, while operant conditioning focuses on voluntary behaviors.

After seeing dogs catching Frisbees in the park, Lionel decides that he wants to teach his dog Ivan to do it too. He takes Ivan to the park and sits with him, making sure that he watches the other dogs successfully catching Frisbees. What technique is Lionel using on Ivan, and what are the chances for success?

He is using observational learning, and his chances for success are pretty bad, because dogs are not as likely as people to learn in this way.

Slot machines reward an average number of times, but on an unpredictable basis. This is an example of a ______ schedule of reinforcement.

variable-ratio

Positive punishment _____. Negative reinforcement _____.

weakens behaviors / strengthens behaviors

Which of the following is the best example of negative reinforcement?

Abby's dad kept nagging her to clean her room. She eventually complied and did what her father wanted in order get her dad to stop nagging.

Juan developed a fear of dogs after being attacked by one. His counselor helped him to overcome this fear by teaching him to relax in the presence of dogs. Eventually, he was no longer afraid of dogs. Which of the following processes occurred?

counterconditioning

Robert had a serious car accident while Mozart was playing on his stereo. Now, every time Robert hears a Mozart song, he feels frightened and panicked. What is the unconditioned stimulus?

the car accident

Smells can often bring up emotional memories because the neural pathways for smell go through

the limbic system.

The absolute threshold is the level at which someone can detect a stimulus ____ percent of the time.

50

A full sleep cycle lasts about

90 minutes.

Two students are in the same degree program at their college. Alison has a growth mindset, and Marissa has a fixed mindset. Based on this information, which one is more likely to succeed in her studies?

Alison, because will be more likely to take active steps to improve her skills and learn from mistakes.

The cutaneous senses consist of sensory receptors that provide information about _____.

All of these

The ____ establishes ethical guidelines for psychologists. The ____ evaluates the ethical nature of research conducted at colleges and universities.

American Psychological Association (APA) / Institutional Review Board (IRB)

According to Bandura's model of observational learning, what are the four primary processes involved in observational learning?

Attention, retention, motor reproduction, and reinforcement

Why do we tend to pay attention to one thing at a time in our visual field?

Because there is a limit to how much visual information our brain can process.

_______ are the fibers that receive signals from other neurons.

Dendrites

______are secreted by the adrenal glands.

Epinephrine and norepinephrine

Which of the following is the best example of a primary reinforcer?

Food

Which of the following has NOT been proposed as a reason why our bodies require sleep?

From an evolutionary standpoint, sleep increased the fertility of females.

Which neurotransmitter is most affected by alcohol?

GABA

Ella is always hungry, no matter how much she eats. Which part of her brain might be functioning improperly?

Hypothalamus

Why does chronic stress lower immune system functioning?

It keeps the sympathetic nervous system active, thus preventing the parasympathetic nervous system from doing its job.

Which one of the following statements is true about learning?

Learning occurs through experience.

Professor Wong measured the intelligence and temperament of a group of preschoolers. He plans to follow the same group of participants over time and collect similar data when the children are in 3rd grade, 6th grade, and 9th grade. This is an example of which type of research design?

Longitudinal design

Which of the following statements is correct?

Meditation has health benefits.

_____ is the process by which the brain actively organizes and interprets sensory information.

Perception

During ______ sleep, bursts of muscular activity cause an individual's eyeballs to move back and forth beneath his or her eyelids.

REM

The majority of dreaming occurs in which stage of sleep?

REM sleep

_____ involves using introspection to investigate the components of the mind, whereas _____ seeks to understand the purpose of the mind and behavior as it relates to adaptation to the environment.

Structuralism / functionalism

You are walking to school when you encounter a strange barking dog. You tense up and contemplate whether you should run away. Which nervous system is responsible for this "fight or flight" reaction?

Sympathetic

Which of the following statements about research on color blindness is true?

The nature of color blindness depends on which of the three kinds of cones (green, red, and blue) is inoperative.

Six-year-old Angela frequently sleepwalks. Her concerned parents ask her pediatrician about this. What should her pediatrician tell them?

They should probably wake Angela when she sleepwalks, so that she does not injure herself while walking in the dark.

The idea that people fail to see things that are directly in front of them when they are focused on something else is known as

inattentional blindness.

Which part of the brain processes incoming sounds and recognizes them as language?

Wernicke's area

Which of the following theorists used the structuralism approach to studying human behavior?

Wilhelm Wundt

Completing a calculus test would be an example of

a controlled process.

Like 7 percent of the male population, Lionel is red-green color blind. Red-green color blindness is caused by

a deficiency in one of the three types of cones.

A supervisor comes into the workplace to check on her employees every hour and a half. An observer notices that the workers increase their work behavior about 10 minutes before the supervisor arrives and then decrease their work behavior after she leaves. What type of reinforcement schedule are the workers on?

a fixed-interval schedule

Which neurotransmitter is most associated with REM sleep?

acetylcholine

What type of brain waves are present when we are awake?

alpha waves

After several weeks of taking the antidepressant Zoloft, Stefanie begins to feel less depressed. The neural activity responsible for the elevation in Stefanie's mood involves

an increase of neurotransmitters in the synapse after the sending neuron fires.

What level of awareness would be engaged for the average person driving his or her car?

automatic process

Which brain waves are most desynchronous?

beta waves

Psychologists who adopt a _____ approach examine behavior and mental processes through focusing on the body, especially the brain and nervous system.

biological

The amygdala is the brain region that is most often called into action under situations of

both of these.

The term plasticity refers to the____.

brain's special capacity for modification and change

Vince prefers to take classes later in the day and feels he is most productive in the afternoon and evening. His friend Francesca prefers to go to bed early and get up early, and she claims to feel more productive in the morning. Vince and Francesca's preferences may be regulated by biological cycles called

circadian rhythms.

A cat that associates the sound of a can opener with being fed has learned through

classical conditioning.

The ________ approach to psychology views the mind as an active and aware problem-solving system. This view contrasts with the ______ approach to psychology, which portrays behavior as controlled by external environmental forces.

cognitive / behavioral

Some interaction in the brain is lateral via a large bridge of connections called the:

corpus callosum.

Which neurotransmitter has been implicated in addiction?

dopamine

Which neurotransmitter has been shown to be most closely associated with reinforcement of behaviors?

dopamine

You have trained your dog to bark on command by giving her rawhides when she is successful. However, you quit giving her the rawhides when she barks and you find that eventually she will not bark on command. What has occurred?

extinction

Newborns can ______ better than they can ______.

feel touch / see, hear, or taste

Some people believe that their abilities cannot be changed. This is known as a(n)

fixed mindset.

Mark's dog, Gus, sits whenever he says, "Sit." Mark now wants to teach Gus a new trick. He wants to teach him to bark each time he says, "Speak," but whenever Mark says, "Speak," Gus sits. The dog's behavior is an example of ______.

generalization

Robert developed a conditioned response of fear and anxiety to hearing music by Mozart. If he were to have the same response to any classical music, it would be called

generalization.

After studying a psychological concept for some time, Vatana still has not been able to grasp the concept. However, while she is driving to work, she has an "ah-ha!" moment and the concept finally makes complete sense to her. Vatana has experienced

insight learning.

Synaesthesia refers to

one sense inducing an experience in another sense.

Dogs are often used in airports to detect explosives materials and/or narcotics. Their trainers teach them to smell out a certain substance by rewarding them with treats for correctly identifying a substance. In what type of learning are the dogs engaging?

operant conditioning

Which neurotransmitter is most associated with love and bonding?

oxytocin

Janice is trying to teach her dog to heel, so she buys a choke collar. Every time the dog strains on the leash, the collar restricts around his neck. When the dog drops back to walk beside her, the collar loosens up. In theory, this should cause the dog to learn to walk beside Janice. What type of consequence does the dog experience when he strains on the leash?

positive punishment

J. B. Watson and B. F. Skinner believed that _____.

psychology should focus on interactions with the environment that can be seen and measured

What area of the brain is most associated with arousal?

reticular activating system

The process through which the senses detect environmental stimuli and transmit them to the brain is called ____.

sensation

Janelle is trying to find her hat and all her classmates are laughing. Can you guess why they are laughing? It's because the hat is on her head! The term psychologists use to describe what has happened is:

sensory adaptation

Theresa's mother and father have come to visit her for the holidays. Unfortunately, her father snores loudly and he is keeping her awake. She notices that from time to time his breathing stops completely and then restarts. Her father may have

sleep apnea.

The reticular formation is primarily responsible for _____.

stereotyped patterns such as walking, sleeping, or turning to attend to a sudden noise

Houston was found to have both cocaine and marijuana in her system when she died. According to your text, cociane is classifed as a(n) ______, while marijuana is classified as a(n) _____.

stimulant, hallucinogen

Professor Mendez found that the correlation between students' life stress scale score and his or her final grade was -.80. This correlation coefficient indicates a _____ relationship between the two variables.

strong negative

Individuals can be affected by stimuli that are presented to them so quickly that they are not able to consciously perceive the stimuli. This phenomenon is known as

subliminal perception.

Tamara normally feeds her cat canned cat food. She noticed that every time she uses her electric can opener, her cat comes to the kitchen. What is the conditioned stimulus?

the sound of the electric can opener

Stem cells are unique because

they can develop into almost any type of cell.

Zach often goes drinking with friends. Over time, he realizes that he can drink significantly more alcohol than he used to and still not get drunk. His body's decreasing responsiveness to the drug is called

tolerance.