PSY 100 - Exam 3

In the 1990s, singer-songwriter Alanis Morissette titled a song, "You Learn." Presumably, Morissette meant that people:

acquire new behaviors through experience

Proposed by _____, _____ theory was the first major account of color vision.

Young and von Helmholtz; trichromatic

When Sanjay recognizes line segments and areas of light and dark as his friend's face at an airport gate, he is demonstrating:

perception

After some practice, Lori was able to read books while holding them upside down. This BEST illustrates _____.

perceptual adaptation

Which is NOT an example of learning?

A woman reflexively pulls back her hand from a hot burner

Victor drinks two to three cups of coffee every morning. Often, Victor experiences an almost immediate sense of alertness when he sips a fresh cup of coffee, even though it takes about 20 minutes for the caffeine in the coffee to reach significant levels in the bloodstream. What is the BEST explanation for this phenomenon?

After being repeatedly paired with the drug caffeine, the smell and taste of coffee have become a conditioned stimulus that elicits the conditioned response of alertness.

Marissa's preterm baby is stimulated with hand massage several times each day. Which result can she expect for her baby?

Her baby will gain weight faster and be able to go home sooner than preterm babies who are not stimulated with hand massage

Events that are forgotten are like books that cannot be found in a library. Which scenario is MOST similar to a retrieval failure?

One cannot remember the author's name or the title of the book, so one cannot look it up.

Damon, who is among the 8 percent of males with colorblindness, suffers from the most common form of color blindness. Which statement BEST illustrates Damon's experience of color?

Red apples on a tree seem to be the same color as the surrounding green leaves.

During a basketball game, Tyree suffered a concussion. Afterward, he could not remember the game or what happened when he was treated in the hospital. Tyree was experiencing:

anterograde amnesia

Tania was running outside and she felt a sensation on her leg and stopped to look. She saw a large red bump that she deduced was caused by getting stung by an insect. This deduction seemed only to increase her anxiety and pain. The influence of the sting itself on Tania's pain is a(n) _____ influence. The influence of her deduction is a(n) _____ influence.

bottom-up; top-down

Psychologists define _____ as the process of acquiring new and enduring behaviors and information through experience.

learning

Loudness is measured in:

decibels

The neurotransmitter that serves as our natural painkiller is:

endorphins

When Lisa earns a perfect score on a(n) _____ test in history, she passes a _____ test of memory.

essay; recall

Lily is riding her bicycle, and after the fortieth mile, she has one last hill to climb on her ride, Lily is likely to perceive this last hill as _______

higher

Two-year-old Jackson's older brother popped a balloon in his face. This caused Jackson to become afraid when he next saw his brother with a balloon. This classically conditioned fear of the balloon is an example of a(n) _____ memory.

implicit

Six-year-old Fiona has no memory of a trip she took to the hospital when she was 2 years old, yet the rest of her family recalls what happened in vivid detail. Her inability to remember this event is known as:

infantile amnesia

Randy is playing the piano. His left hand plays notes that are _____ in _____ than does his right hand.

lower; frequency

Walking past a classroom's open door, Michael overhears an instructor say, "In the next unit, we will explore how information is acquired, stored, and retrieved for later use." Michael realizes that the next unit must be about:

memory

One reads about an accident at a railroad crossing and wonders about the cause. Perhaps the car's driver overestimated the distance of the train because the parallel tracks stimulated the _____ depth cue of linear perspective.

monocular

Afterimages are BEST explained by:

opponent-process theory

At a block party, Cyndi meets nine new neighbors. Moments later, she can only remember the names of the first three and last two neighbors she met. The fact that Cyndi can remember the first few people she met BEST reflects the _____ effect

primacy

A fill-in-the-blank test is a good example of testing retention using:

recall

Which list contains items that all belong together?

skills, implicit memory, cerebellum, basal ganglia

_____ is an auditory phantom limb sensation.

tinnitus

When two friends talk over lunch, the amplitude of their conversation is about _____ decibels.

60

Giulio's bag of marbles is twice as heavy as Jim's. If it takes 5 extra marbles to make Jim's bag feel heavier, it will take 10 extra marbles to make Giulio's bag feel heavier. This BEST illustrates:

Weber's Law

_____ referred to priming as the "wakening of associations."

William James

Short-term memories have a limited life without:

active processing

The minute Mark walks into his mother-in-law's house to visit, he is struck by the strong smell of his mother-in-law's perfume. However, after about 10 minutes Mark no longer notices the smell. This is probably the result of sensory _____.

adaptation

Tomas wakes up early in the morning and his room is fairly dark. He looks over and sees his shirt hanging on a hook. He knows it is his red shirt because he hung it up there before he went to bed, but in the dark he cannot see its color. It looks dark gray to him. Why is that?

In the dim light, the cones in his eyes are ineffectual.

One important reason that sleep is so important in remembering what one has studied is that:

during sleep, the brain organizes and consolidates information for long-term memory.

Edward L. Thorndike's research with cats demonstrated that behavior changes because of its consequences. Favorable consequences lead to the behavior being repeated, while unfavorable consequences make the behavior less likely. Thorndike referred to this as the law of _____.

effect

As opposed to automatic processing, _____ refers to encoding that requires attention and conscious work.

effortful processing

Several days ago, Mitchell fell and hurt his ankle. Although it bothered him a little, he continued to walk on it. When he finally went to the doctor for X-rays, he found out he has a broken bone. It is likely that Mitchell carries a gene that boosts the availability of _____.

endorphins

Recalling a visual scene of last month's party and holding it in working memory would be MOST likely to activate the right _____ lobe.

frontal

The cortical area important for the perception of taste is the border between the _____ lobe and the _____ lobe.

frontal; temporal

Adam was stung by a bee. Now he is frightened not only of bees but of all flying insects. This example illustrates:

generalization

In Laurie's psychology laboratory, Laurie and her lab partner conditioned a rat to press a lever for food when a red light was on, but discovered that the rat would also press the lever when a white light was on. Laurie and her partner reported that the rat had exhibited _____ through _____ conditioning.

generalization; operant

Shaping is a method used by Skinner to:

guide an organism to exhibit a complex behavior using successive approximations.

Although Ron typically smokes two packs of cigarettes each day, he recalls smoking little more than one pack per day. This poor memory BEST illustrates:

motivated forgetting

Macy gave her dog a treat each time she came to Macy when she called her by name. Soon, the dog came every time Macy called the dog by name. This is an example of:

operant conditioning

Nociceptors initiate the sensation of:

pain

Phyllis is doing a handstand in her yoga class. When she looks at the clock she can still tell that the time is 10 o'clock. This is thanks to:

perceptual constancy

Enrico is having trouble telling the difference between the sound of a tuba and the sound of a piccolo. Even though a piccolo produces much briefer, faster sound waves than does a tuba, he has trouble picking out the differences in the _____ of these sounds.

pitch

According to Freud, one reason that people forget is because they are _____ painful memories.

repressing

Jake is describing a chance encounter with an acquaintance. "I couldn't remember her name, yet it was on the tip of my tongue!" he exclaims. Jake is experiencing a failure of a memory process called:

retrieval

Maximizing _____ cues is a good way to improve one's memory of something.

retrieval

Carlos was just touched on his cheek, which is a(n) _____. In order for Carlos to know if he was kissed or slapped, Carlos needs a(n) _____.

sensation; perception

In teaching her son to play basketball, Mrs. Richards initially reinforces him with praise for simply dribbling while standing still, then only for walking while dribbling, and finally only for running while dribbling. She is using a procedure known as:

shaping

Phone companies created seven-digit phone numbers because this amount BEST suits the capacity of one's:

short-term memory

Ralph came home quite drunk from a party on Saturday night. Luckily, he was given a ride home. He threw his apartment keys down somewhere and immediately fell asleep. He may not be able to find his keys again until he is once again drunk because of:

state-dependent memory

The middle ear contains a structure called the:

stirrup

Samantha opens her eyes in the morning to see flowers by her bedside. At that point, her eyes are receiving light energy, which they change into neural messages for the brain to process. This conversion of one form of energy into another is called:

transduction

Roast beef with a rich brown gravy is often described as a savory dish. The basic taste prominent in such a dish is:

umami

Sonya had leukemia as a child and had to undergo numerous bouts of chemotherapy. The chemotherapy always made her nauseous. As she underwent a year of treatment, the waiting room started to make her nauseous. The chemotherapy is the:

unconditioned stimulus

Conditioning seldom occurs when a(n) _____ repeatedly comes before a(n) _____.

unconditioned stimulus; neutral stimulus

Researchers Eleanor Gibson and Richard Walk placed infants on the edge of a safe canyon to determine whether crawling infants and newborn animals can perceive depth. This famous experimental setup is known as the _____ cliff.

visual

As Trent reads a textbook, he actively integrates sentences with the memory representation of earlier sentences that he is maintaining in memory. Trent's active processing is taking place in _____ memory.

working

The practical application of a type of learning called _____is apparent in the common practice of rewarding small steps toward desired behavior in educational, athletic, and workplace settings.

Operant conditioning

Which statement correctly classifies one of the types of learning mentioned in the textbook?

Operant conditioning is a type of associative learning

A police officer stops people to ask them about an automobile accident they may have witnessed the previous day. Since they were in the area at the time of the accident, the police officer asks how fast the cars were going when they "smashed" into each other. Given the research findings of Loftus and Palmer, how might the police officer's wording affect one's recollection of the incident?

People would be more likely to remember a more serious accident than if the police officer had used other wording (for example, "hit" each other).

Ruben is reading the descriptions of some of the psychology courses in his college's course catalog. The description of one course reads in part, "An introduction to the processes whereby new and enduring behavior and information is acquired through experience." This course is MOST likely titled

The Psychology of Learning.

Events that are forgotten are like books that cannot be found in a library. Which scenario is MOST similar to encoding failure?

The book was never purchased

Regarding long-term memory, which statement is MOST accurate?

The capacity of long-term memory is essentially limitless.

Larry has just graduated from college and is going on his first job interview. He has learned that there are 10 other applicants for the job. Because of information on the serial position effect that he learned in his psychology class, Larry asks to be either the first or the last candidate interviewed. Why?

The serial position effect predicts that either the first or the last job applicant interviewed will be remembered better than the applicants interviewed in the middle of the group.

Morrie has had a cold for five days, and his nose is so stuffy that he cannot smell anything. When he sips his coffee, he finds that it is tasteless. What is the MOST likely reason for this?

To savor a taste, we need to breathe the aroma through our nose.

People's environment often influences them by activating their principles through priming. This process is:

Unconscious

Learning to ride a bike is likely to require activation of the _____ rather than the _____.

cerebellum and basal ganglia; hippocampus

One type of extrasensory perception involves the ability to perceive remote events, an ability called:

clairvoyance

When Juan was a child, he was attacked by a swarm of hornets in his backyard. Now, every time he hears the sound of hornets, he immediately becomes frightened. This is an example of:

classical conditioning

While 5-year-old Martha was looking at one of the balloons her mother set out for her birthday, Martha's brother Timmy took a pin and popped the balloon, causing her to flinch and blink quickly. Later, during the party, Martha's mother approached her with a balloon and she blinked and flinched. This is an example of:

classical conditioning

Denise wears an extremely bright safety yellow sweatshirt when she cycles to the gym after dark. The sweatshirt's brightness reflects the _____ of the light it reflects.

high amplitude

Railroad tracks appear to converge in the distance. This provides a cue for depth perception known as:

linear perspective

After being verbally threatened by a person in a passing car, Samantha was asked if she recognized the man who was driving the car. Several hours later, Samantha mistakenly recalled that the driver was male rather than female. Samantha's experience BEST illustrates the _____ effect.

misinformation

Yancy was sitting in the park one day and witnessed a robbery. When asked by a police officer to describe the young criminal, Yancy recalled erroneously that the criminal was a teenager rather than an adult. Yancy's experience BEST illustrates:

misinformation effect

Whenever Mindy experiences intense feelings of fear, she is overwhelmed with childhood memories of her abusive parents. Mindy's experience BEST illustrates _____ memory.

mood-congruent

Joe is happy to hear that the test will be all multiple-choice questions as he feels he has a good chance to pass by using:

recognition

It's evening and Benson is mentally replaying the day's events. He pictures his facial expression as he listened to a friend's tale of woe. Because he was unable to see his expression at the time, his recall necessarily illustrates:

reconsolidation

Hermann Ebbinghaus found that the more times he practiced the nonsense syllables on Day 1, the fewer repetitions he needed to relearn the information on Day 2 because he had increased his _____ time.

rehearsal time

Watson and Rayner taught Little Albert to fear white rats by:

repeatedly pairing a loud noise with the presentation of a white rat.

Mila sees the sound of a drum as a large round shape. Mila's experience BEST exemplifies a condition called _____.

synesthesia

Seeing the numeral 3, for instance, may evoke a particular taste sensation in a condition called _____.

synesthesia

Jess was in a serious car accident and is having trouble recognizing familiar faces. She MOST likely suffered damage to her _____ lobe, just behind her right ear.

temporal

Select the option that correctly completes this sentence: _____ is a type of _____.

Operant conditioning; associative learning

Marina feels a rush of love and nostalgia at the scent of honeysuckle; the fragrant scent is similar to that of the perfume her mother wore when Marina was little. The perfume's fragrance is a(n):

conditioned stimulus

Studying for a psychology test requires _____. It takes attention and conscious work, but pays off with lasting and accessible memories.

effortful processing

Professor Wallace studies memory in people who have had strokes. Professor Hansen studies people who claim to have clear memories of events that happened over three decades ago. Such research on the extremes of memory:

helps one to understand how memory works

If one learns a list of chemistry terms while one is in a great mood, one has a better chance of recalling that list if one is in the same kind of mood when one takes the exam. This is known as:

state-dependent memory

If the functioning of one's cerebellum is impaired, one would have trouble:

tying a knot