Midterm Exam

In the context of the biological and environmental influences on language, which of the following statements is true about language and the brain?

Language processing mainly occurs in the brain's left hemisphere.

________ are chemical substances that are stored in very tiny sacs within the neuron's terminal buttons and involved in transmitting information across a synaptic gap to the next neuron.

Neurotransmitters

________ are frightening dreams that awaken a dreamer from REM sleep. ________ involve sudden arousal from sleep and an intense physiological fear reaction (e.g., screaming, heavy breathing, and perspiration).

Nightmares; Night terrors

________ is most often regarded the "founding father" of modern psychology.

Willhelm Wundt

The smallest intensity of a stimulus that you can detect 50 percent of the time is known as the

absolute threshold.

A(n) ________ is a strategy that guarantees a solution to a problem.

algorithm

Which of the following components are essential to the definition of consciousness?

awareness and arousal

Recognizing problems involves

being aware of and open to experiences.

Psychologists who adopt a(n) ________ approach examine behavior and mental processes by focusing on the body, especially the brain and nervous system.

biological

The most widely used stimulants in the world are ________ and ________.

caffeine; nicotine

Which of the following types of energy reception is most activated when a person is tasting food that is extremely salty?

chemoreception

________ are mental categories that are used to group objects, events, and characteristics.

concepts

________ involves reasoning from a general case that we know to be true to a specific instance.

deductive reasoning

Which of the following is defined as the ability to perceive objects three-dimensionally?

depth perception

________ in classical conditioning is the process of learning to respond to certain stimuli and not others.

discrimination

In a ________, neither the experimenter administering the treatment nor the participants are aware of which participants are in the experimental group and which are in the control group until the results are calculated.

double-blind experiment

Which of the following methods of studying the brain involves recording the brain's electrical activity by placing electrodes on the scalp to detect brain-wave activity?

electroencephalograph (EEG)

Which of the following is the second step in the scientific method?

formulating hypotheses and predictions

Which of the following essential body functions are under the control of the autonomic nervous system?

functions of heart rate, breathing, and digestion

Which of the following types of energy reception is most activated when a person is listening to a song?

mechanoreception

A ________ is a layer of fat cells that insulates most axons and speeds up the transmission of nerve impulses.

myelin sheath

Falling asleep all of a sudden while talking to a friend is most likely an example of

narcolepsy

The field that studies the nervous system is called

neuroscience

Endorphins are

neurotransmitters that function as natural opiates in producing pleasure and pain.

Organisms learn the association between a behavior and a consequence in

operant conditioning.

The placebo effect is an example of a(n)

participant bias.

Which of the following types of energy reception is most activated when a person is watching a silent movie?

photoreception

The process by which a stimulus or an event following a particular behavior increases the probability that the behavior will happen again is called

reinforcement

A ________ reinforcer acquires its positive value through an organism's experience.

secondary

________ is the process of receiving stimulus energies from the external environment and transforming those energies into neural energy.

sensation

In operant conditioning, ________ refers to rewarding successive approximations of a desired behavior.

shaping

Sleepwalking occurs during ________ of the sleep cycle.

stage 3 and stage 4

Wilhelm Wundt's approach to discovering the basic elements of mental processes is called

structuralism

Which of the following refers to the detection of information below the level of conscious awareness?

subliminal perception

In operant conditioning,

the consequences of behavior produce change in the probability of the behavior's occurrence.

A population is

the entire group about which investigators want to draw conclusions.

The axon is

the part of the neuron that carries information away from the cell body toward other cells.

Mindfulness means

the state of being alert and mentally present for one's everyday activities.

Flexibility, inner motivation, and willingness to face risk are characteristics of people who

think creatively.

________ refers to the soundness of the conclusions that a researcher draws from an experiment.

validity