AP PSYCH MIDTERM MC
A drug that is used to treat seizures functions by preventing inhibitory neurotransmitters from returning to the presynaptic neuron. This slows the rate of neurons firing by increasing the amount of the inhibitory neurotransmitter in the synapse. The drug is most likely to be classified as a
GABA reuptake inhibitor (GRI)
Helena did not recognize her English teacher when she unexpectedly saw him while traveling in Paris, even though she knew him well back in the classroom. The fact that Helena can recognize her teacher back home more easily than in Paris best demonstrates what concept?
Perceptual set
Which of the following scenarios is best explained by long-term potentiation?
The first time Colleen tries to remember Leo's name it takes her a long time, but over time she remembers it more quickly.
According to the gate control theory of pain, which of the following contains a neurological gate that controls the transmission of pain messages to the brain?
The spinal cord
At a synapse, neurotransmitters released by the sending neuron do which of the following?
They bind to receptors at the receiving neuron, which opens ion channels.
What is the primary advantage of conducting a survey rather than using other types of research methods?
They can gather information from a diverse representation of and a large number of people
What effect do agonists have?
They increase the likelihood that a postsynaptic neuron will fire
An example of state-dependent memory is
Tommy finding it easier to remember the materials on an exam while taking it because he was sad while studying for the exam
When seeking approval to conduct an experiment using participants from her college psychology course, a student researcher should
apply to the institutional review board at the university
Waking up frequently, loud snoring, silent pauses in breathing, and sleepiness during the day are symptoms of
sleep apnea
Mary has an IQ score within one standard deviation above the mean score. This indicates her score was
within the middle 68% of people who took the test
Gayle's teacher wants to increase effective study habits in her students by using negative reinforcement. Gayle's teacher would most likely enforce this by
removing an unpleasant stimulus
A neuron sends a signal along its
axon
2, 2, 2, 4, 6, 8, 9, 10, 12, 14, 16 What is the range of the numbers above?
14
7, 5, 10, 4, 4 What is the median of the numbers above?
5
Which of the following is most likely to be a false memory?
A young child's memory of a day at the beach
The best example of a biological predisposition to learning is which of the following?
After Ted got sick from eating sushi from the deli, he became nauseous whenever he thought of eating sushi.
Professor Gustafson is developing a new intelligence test and wants to ensure the test has good inter-rater reliability. Which of the following strategies will most directly help him achieve this goal?
Allowing only trained researchers to grade the test, as they will have a good understanding of the proper way to score certain things and will be more likely to agree
An example of a failure of source monitoring is
Amir telling Jorge the same story Jorge told him earlier in the week, because Amir forgot Jorge already told him the story
Which of the following scenarios is the best example of synesthesia?
Anastasia sees swirls of color when she hears music because of stimulation of one sensory pathway leads to the experience of another sensation.
Which of the following statements about automatic processing or effortful processing is true?
Automatic processing requires little mental effort.
Dr. Ramen recruited 100 adults to participate in her study. The taste buds of each participant were measured, and the participants tasted a number of foods. She found there was a relationship between the size of a participant's taste buds and the number of foods that a participant could taste. What research method did Dr. Ramen use, and what was she most likely studying?
Correlational; the sensitivity of super tasters
Which hormone is released when a person is under stress
Cortisol
Arthur is helping his friend set up her new phone. Arthur has never used this type of phone, but he uses his knowledge of setting up his own phone to help figure out how to use the new phone. According to Robert Sternberg's triarchic theory of intelligence, Arthur is using which type of intelligence?
Creative intelligence
Kimmie stood on the sidewalk rather than crossing the street because she saw that the approaching car was quite close to her. Which of the following concepts is best illustrated in this example?
Depth perception
Which of the following examples is most consistent with the theory that executive functioning provides the basis for general intelligence?
Geoff is able to easily remember a long list of instructions after hearing them only once and also scores higher than average on intelligence tests.
Which of the following best illustrates the most predictable effect of schemas on perception?
Grant has more difficulty recognizing a penguin as a bird than he does a blue jay.
Which of the following psychologists is best associated with studying the function of memory?
Hermann Ebbinghaus
Which of the following statements is true regarding the application of operant conditioning to learning?
Immediately reinforcing correct responses enhances student learning, because immediate reinforcement has shown to be most effective with regard to learning.
Which of the following is true of the American Psychological Association?
It addresses a number of ethical guidelines for the practice of psychology.
Which of the following best describes a major role of the thalamus?
It relays most sensory signals to the cortex.
Molly is potty training her daughter, Mia. Every time Mia begins to urinate in her diaper, Molly says the word "bathroom" in the hope that Mia will begin to urinate when she hears this word while sitting on the toilet. Molly's efforts most resemble the studies of
Ivan Pavlov, who studied classical conditioning
Madeline has previously been diagnosed with major depressive disorder. She has an identical twin sister, Josephine, and a nonidentical sister, Abigail. Neither of Madeline's sisters have previously been diagnosed with major depressive disorder. Which of the following statements is true of Madeline's sisters?
Josephine is more likely to be diagnosed with major depressive disorder than Abigail in response to a stressful or traumatic event
Which of the following scenarios best illustrates the opponent-process theory of color vision?
Kayla seas afterimages of opposing colors when she stares at a poster for a long time.
Keisha performs well in her geometry course in school, and her classmates often ask her for help with understanding word problems and writing formal proofs. Her friends describe her as very rational and analytical. According to Howard Gardner, which type of intelligence is Keisha most likely to possess?
Logical-mathematical
In which scenario does sunblock serve as a conditioned stimulus?
Lowell feels relaxed when he smells sunblock because it reminds him of his vacations at the beach.
Lynda stayed out past her curfew. As a result, her parents revoked her driving privileges. Which of the following statements is true of Lynda's parents?
Lynda's parents are using negative punishment to decrease her behavior of staying out past curfew.
Which of the following scenarios demonstrates stimulus generalization?
Markus was stung by a wasp, and now he is scared of not only wasps but also bees.
Which of the following describes the concept of schema?
Marsha thinks the waiter asked her whether she wanted water even though he did not, because she thinks waiters ask patrons whether they want water.
In a study on taste, what would researchers need to do to test participants' ability to distinguish umami from similar sensations?
Place disks soaked in MSG on the participants' tongues. Then replace those disks with disks that have been soaked in water. Compare the participants' reactions.
Human tactile sense is actually a mix of which of the following distinct skin senses?
Pressure, warmth, cold, pain
Julie is interested in developing a test to measure achievement levels of middle school students. Which of the following domains of psychology is most applicable to Julie's interest?
Psychometric
Which of the following scenarios best demonstrates the acquisition of a fear of snakes?
Randolph's brother frequently startled Randolph whenever he approached a snake, which caused Randolph to develop an intense fear of them.
An example of divergent thinking is
Reagan brainstorming as many uses of a toothpick as possible in a two-minute period
Which of the following is the correct order of the eye-to-brain pathway of vision?
Retina, optic nerve, thalamus, occipital lobe
An example of using elaborative encoding to improve memory is
Sam remembering which tree is the ginkgo by using the phrase "stinko ginkgo" because the fruit of the ginkgo tree smells bad
David was studying some important historical dates for a test. He noticed that the day and month of one of the dates was the same as his own birthday, and he tried to use that fact to help him remember the date for his test. What is David using to enhance his memory?
Self-reference
Which of the following anatomical structures is involved in the vestibular sense?
Semicircular canals
Which of the following is the process of detecting environmental stimuli and converting them into signals that can be detected by the nervous system?
Sensation
Which of the following concepts refers to the diminished sensitivity to a stimulus that occurs due to constant exposure to that stimulus?
Sensory adaptation
Jeanette is curious to see how many numbers she can hold in her mind at once. She asks her friend to test her on lists of random digits to see how many she can remember. Based on what is known about the average limits of short-term memory capacity, what is the most likely number of digits Jeanette will be able to remember?
Seven
Rodrigo's three-year-old sister says the phrase "We goed to the store" instead of "We went to the store." According to Noam Chomsky, what is the best explanation for her behavior?
She is overregularizing her use of the past tense.
Marlene had an infection that led to deafness in her left ear. Which of the following will be the most likely impact of losing her hearing in her left ear?
She will have trouble locating the source of sounds.
The idea that there is part of the mind that is not directly accessible to awareness but still drives a person's thinking and behavior is most directly attributable to
Sigmund Freud
Denise has damaged her auditory nerve and now has difficulty understanding what people are saying. Which of the following descriptions explains how that damage impairs her hearing?
Sound messages fail to be transmitted directly to the brain.
Which of the following scenarios most accurately describes biofeedback?
Stacy participated in an experiment in which she wore a heart-rate monitor, watched the readout of her heart rate, and received points based on how many beats per minute she reduced her heart rate.
Dr. Wilson, who teaches engineering classes, is interested in learning about how lack of sleep affects performance. What would be the best way to ensure that her findings are generalizable to all the students at her university?
Surveying every tenth student listed in the university directory about their sleep habits
Which of the following illustrates the primacy effect?
Susam left his grocery list at home and can remember only the first two items on the list.
Which of the following is the best example of social learning?
Sydney starts using the same word choices and vocal inflections as members of the popular group at her school.
Rogelio has a number of health problems and would like to avoid medication as much as possible. He is considering biofeedback as an alternative form of treatment. Biofeedback would most benefit which of Rogelio's health problems?
Tension headaches, because Rogelio can use the cues from biofeedback to learn to relax
If Jess has a type of amnesia that affects the formation of explicit memories but not implicit ones, which of the following will she be most likely to remember?
The arm position to throw the ball
Tracey was in pain from an ear infection, which her doctor said was in her inner ear. Which of the following is the most likely location of the infection?
The cochlea
Orville is talking with his friends at a cafeteria table when suddenly he is distracted by hearing his name at a neighboring table. Orville's shift of attention most clearly illustrates which psychological concept?
The cocktail party phenomenon
A researcher was interested in studying the effects of a new medication on depression. One group received the new medication and another group received a standard medication for depression. The researcher asked participants to answer a series of questions rating their mood levels before and after six weeks of taking the medication. Which of the following is the control condition in this study?
The group receiving the standard medication
Which of the following is the best definition for absolute threshold?
The lowest strength of a stimulus that a person can detect 50% of the time
Which of the following describes what happens when a neuron sends a signal
The neuron goes from being negatively charged to briefly being positively charged, and finally returns to being negatively charged again. The magnitude of the negative charge is fixed regardless of the strength of the input signal it receives.
If a body does not have enough potassium, how might that affect neuronal firing?
The neurons will struggle to fire because there will not be enough negatively charged ions to trigger the firing of the neuron.
A researcher wants to study the human sense of taste over a life span. The researcher has a group of participants taste foods that are salty, bitter, sweet, sour, and umami. Which study would best allow the researcher to test the sensation of taste as people age, and what is the likely outcome?
The researcher follows the same group of people over the course of 40 years. The researcher also measures the number of the people's taste buds throughout the 40 years. The researcher finds that as people grow older, their sense of taste diminishes and their number of taste buds decreases.
Bryan perceived a duck instead of other animals when viewing an ambiguous image because he watched a documentary about ducks the previous night. Which of the following best explains why Bryan perceived a duck?
Top-down processing, because his perception of the duck was influenced by past experience.
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
Dr. Rodriguez is interested in finding out if stress levels throughout the year have a relationship with students' grades. The research method she most likely used is
a correlational study
An adult with a healthy sleep cycle is most likely to enter REM sleep
after cycling through the NREM sleep stages
A logical, systematic procedure for solving a problem is known as
an algorithm
The fact that Lori finds herself thinking about dogs and other pets after seeing a cat is evidence that human memory is organized into
an association network
A mental set is
an established way of thinking about or perceiving something
Vandana, a 12-month-old infant, is listening to her father talk to her and suddenly repeats a word that he just said. Her father praises her and gives her a cookie. After she gets the cookie, she repeats the word again. Vandana's behavior can be best explained by using the theory of
behaviorism
For a person planning to hold a party outside, an example of the predictable-world bias would be
believing that nice weather is due this year because it rained a lot the last three years
Antagonists function by
blocking receptors to prevent other neurotransmitters from binding to the neural receptors
Explicit memories are
created in the hippocampus
Patrick believes his basketball coach doesn't like him and subsequently focuses on all the times the coach criticizes his playing and ignores all the times the coach praises his performance. Patrick's behavior is best explained by the concept of
confirmation bias
The psychodynamic theory of dreaming would postulate that
dreams fulfill unconscious wishes
The hormone most associated with the fight or flight response is
epinephrine
A person whose body is not producing enough testosterone is most likely to exhibit
fatigue
Kara works as a dog trainer. She reads a new book that describes some unusual training methods, and she wants to test them out on the dogs she works with. She assigns each dog to one of two groups by picking a number out of a hat. Half the dogs are assigned to one group, and half the dogs are assigned to the other group. For a month, she trains one group using her old methods and the other group using the unusual methods. At the end of the month, Kara records that the dogs that were trained with her old methods obey her 80 percent of the time and those that were trained with the unique methods obey her 90 percent of the time. Kara concludes that the unique methods work better. Kara can best improve her experimental design by
having someone else test the dogs
Johnny often hits his brother even though his brother does not do anything to antagonize him. Johnny's aggression is most likely due to a combination of
his genetic makeup, the environment he grew up in and the fact that aggression can be evolutionarily adaptive
The advantage of an experiment is that it allows a researcher to
infer cause and affect
Deception can be used in research when
it is appropriate for what is being studied
Carl Wernicke discovered the region of the brain that is responsible for
language comprehension
Ruth and Debbie are identical twins who were raised by the same family. Vince and Frankie are identical twins who were separated at birth and raised by different families. According to research on the heritability of personality traits, Ruth's and Debbie's personalities are statistically
likely to be as similar and dissimilar to one another as are Vince's and Frankie's personalities
Consolidation can be described as the process of
long-term memories being formed from short-term memories
A teacher asks Yvonne to go to another classroom to get a student whom Yvonne has never met. As she walks, she repeats the student's name to herself over and over to help her remember. Yvonne is boosting her memory by using
maintenance rehearsal
The benefit of using inferential statistics is that it allows a researcher to
make generalization about a population
Short-term memory is best described as
memory that can hold only a small amount of information
Sebastian wants to earn an "A" in his biology course but finds it difficult to stay motivated to study every night. His teacher recommends that he surround himself with peers who study regularly to increase his studying behavior. Sebastian's teacher made her recommendation based on the learning concept of
modeling
The fatty casing that helps speed up the neural transmissions of a neuron is called the
myeline sheath
The medulla oblongata is a part of the
prefrontal cortex
Dr. Sampson follows the structuralist school of thought. Her techniques would most likely include
presenting a participant with an object such as a can of soda, and having the subject report his or her perception or experience of the can
The parietal lobe is most involved in
processing sensory information
Michael Gazzaniga is best known for
study split-brain patients
A researcher wanted to test the psychometric properties of a new intelligence test for children. She administered the test twice, two months apart, to children in a fourth-grade classroom. On the second administration, she noticed that the children who performed well were not the same children who performed well on the first administration and that there appeared to be no relationship between student performance on the first and second administration of the test. Based on this scenario, the psychological construct missing from this intelligence test is
test-retest reliability, because the researcher is administering the same test twice
John went to the beach for vacation shortly after having watched a documentary film about shark attacks. Overestimating the possibility of encountering a shark in the water, he decided to spend the day sunbathing and reading instead of going for a swim. John's reasoning can be explained through
the availability heuristic
To remember a list of words, Jerry tries walking through his bedroom and making associations between words on the list and various areas he visits in his bedroom. Jerry is trying to improve his memory encoding by using
the method of loci
Sometimes people who speak different languages are in a community together and must develop a way of communicating. Similarly, their offspring must also find a way to communicate. The main difference between the speech of the first generation and the speech of the second generation is
the speech of the second generation tends to have more complex grammar rules
Ms. Li, a principal, is interested in the differences in student behavior between two of the third-grade classrooms at her school. She asks the teachers, Mr. Williams, whose class meets at 9:00, and Ms. Walsh, whose class meets at 1:00, to record over a week the number of times students in their classrooms act out. Mr. Williams' class has 31 students, and Ms. Walsh's class has 32 students. "Acting out" is defined as students speaking without raising their hand or getting out of their seats without being given permission. At the end of the week, Mr. Williams reports that on average, his students acted out 73 times a day, and Ms. Walsh reports that, on average, her students acted out 27 times a day. Ms. Li decides that the students in Ms. Walsh's classroom act out more often than those in Mr. William's class. The results of this study are inconclusive because
the time of day was a confounding variable
The phenomenon of declining physiological effects of taking a drug after sustained use is referred to as
tolerance
Which of the following examples best illustrates the concept of interposition?
Because the chair partially obscured his view of the sofa, Brendan perceived the chair as being closer than the sofa.
Mr. Gregg wants to help his second-grade students improve their reading skills. He tests the students with 20 reading comprehension questions at the beginning of the year. Every week throughout the year he gives the students 30 minutes of reading comprehension tips. He tests the students at the end of the year with 20 reading comprehension questions that are similar in difficulty to those on the original test. He finds that the students' reading comprehension has increased and concludes that his tips worked. Which of the following describes the most significant problem with Mr. Gregg's study?
Mr. Gregg failed to account for changes in the students' maturity.
