AP Psych all units Flashcards
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
presenting a participant with an object, such as a can of soda, and having the subject report his or her perceptions or experience of the can
structuralist school of thought
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
What is the primary advantage of conducting a survey rather than using other types of research methods?
Surveys can gather information from a diverse representation of and a large number of people.
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 medications. Which of the following is the control condition in this study?
The group receiving the standard medication
The advantage of an experiment is that it allows a researcher to
infer cause and affect
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
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.
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
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
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
The benefit of using inferential statistics is that it allows a researcher to
make generalizations about a population
Deception can be used in research when
it is appropriate for what is being studied
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
Which of the following is true of the American Psychological Association?
It addresses a number of ethical guidelines for the practice of psychology.
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
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
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 hormone is released when a person is under stress?
Cortisol
A person whose body is not producing enough testosterone is most likely to exhibit
fatigue
The hormone most associated with the fight or flight response is
epinephrine
A neuron sends a signal along its
axon
The medulla oblongata is a part of the
brain stem
The fatty casing that helps speed up the neural transmissions of a neuron is called the
myelin sheath
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.
what happens when a neuron sends a signal
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 positively charged ions to trigger the firing of the neuron.
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.
Antagonists function by
blocking receptors to prevent other neurotransmitters from binding to the neural receptors
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)
What effect do agonists have?
They increase the likelihood that a postsynaptic neuron will fire.
The parietal lobe is most involved in
processing sensory information
Carl Wernicke discovered the region of the brain that is responsible for
language comprehension
Which of the following best describes a major role of the thalamus?
It relays most sensory signals to the cortex.
plays a role in object recognition
temporal lobe
plays a role in spatial processing
parietal lobe
The phenomenon of declining physiological effects of taking a drug after sustained use is referred to as
tolerance
Michael Gazzaniga is best known for
studying split-brain patients
The idea that there is a 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
An adult with a healthy sleep cycle is most likely to enter REM sleep
after cycling through the NREM sleep stages
The psychodynamic theory of dreaming would postulate that
dreams fulfill unconscious wishes
Waking up frequently, loud snoring, silent pauses in breathing, and sleepiness during the day are symptoms of
sleep apnea
Which of the following concepts refers to the diminished sensitivity to a stimulus that occurs due to constant exposure to that stimulus?
Sensory adaptation
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 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 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.
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
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
correct order of the eye-to-brain pathway of vision?
Retina, optic nerve, thalamus, occipital lobe
Kayla sees afterimages of opposing colors when she stares at a poster for a long time.
opponent-process theory of color vision
Which of the following scenarios is the best example of synesthesia?
Anastasia sees swirls of color when she hears music because stimulation of one sensory pathway leads to the experience of another sensation.
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
Because the chair partially obscured his view of the sofa, Brendan perceived the chair as being closer than the sofa.
concept of interposition
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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 supertasters
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.
Human tactile sense is actually a mix of which of the following distinct skin senses?
Pressure, warmth, cold, pain
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
Which of the following anatomical structures is involved in the vestibular sense?
Semicircular canals
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
After Ted got sick from eating sushi from the deli, he became nauseous whenever he thought of eating sushi.
biological predisposition to learning
Sydney starts using the same word choices and vocal inflections as members of the popular group at her school.
social learning
Markus was stung by a wasp, and now he is scared of not only wasps but also bees.
stimulus generalization
Positive reinforcement
Adding something good
Negative reinforcement
Taking away something bad
Positive punishment
Adding something bad
Negative punishment
Taking away something good
Immediately reinforcing correct responses enhances student learning, because immediate reinforcement has shown to be most effective with regard to learning.
operant conditioning to learning
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.
biofeedback
Research shows that __ are most relieved through biofeedback
tension headaches
