Exam: Chapters 1, 2, 5, 6, 7

Question 1

How can critical thinking help you evaluate claims in the media, even if you’re not a scientific expert on the issue?

Answer 1

Critical thinking is smart thinking. When evaluating media claims (even about topics you might not know much about), look for scientific evidence. Ask the following questions in your analysis: Are the claims based on scientific findings? Have several studies replicated the findings and confirmed them? Are any experts cited? If so, are they from a credible institution? Have they conducted or written about scientific research? What agenda might they have? What alternative explanations are possible?

Question 2

(mc) As scientists, psychologists

Answer 2

are willing to ask questions and to reject claims that cannot be verified by research.

Question 3

In 1879, in psychology’s first experiment, _______ and his students measured the time lag between hearing a ball hit a platform and pressing a key.

Answer 3

Wilhelm Wundt

Question 4

(mc) William James would be considered a(n) ____.

Wilhelm Wundt would be considered a(n) _____.

Answer 4

functionalist

structuralist

Question 5

(mc) In the early twentieth century, _____ redefined psychology as “the scientific study of observable behaviour.”

Answer 5

John B. Watson

Question 6

(mc) Nature is to nurture as

Answer 6

biology is to experience.

Question 7

(mc) Which of the following is true regarding gender differences and similarities?
a) Differences between the genders outweigh any similarities.
b) Despite some gender differences, the underlying processes of human behaviour are the same.
c) Both similarities and differences between the genders depend more on biology than on environment.
d) Gender differences are so numerous that it is difficult to make meaningful comparisons.

Answer 7

b

Question 8

_____ _____ is the principle that our mind processes information on two tracks at the same time - one with our full awareness and the other outside of our awareness.

Answer 8

Dual processing

Question 9

(mc) A psychologist treating emotionally troubled adolescents at a local mental health agency is most likely to be a(n)

Answer 9

clinical psychologist

Question 10

A mental health professional with a medical degree who can prescribe medication is a _______.

Answer 10

psychiatrist

Question 11

Martin Seligman and other researchers who explore various aspects of human flourishing refer to their filed of study as _____ _____.

Answer 11

positive psychology

Question 12

_____ _____ refers to our tendency to perceive events as predictable and obvious after the fact.

Answer 12

Hindsight bias

Question 13

A theory-based predication is called a(n) _____.

Answer 13

hypothesis

Question 14

(mc) Which of the following is NOT one of the descriptive methods psychologists use to observe and describe behaviour?
a) A case study.
b) Naturalistic observation.
c) Correlational research.
d) A phone survey.

Answer 14

c

Question 15

For your survey, you need to establish a group of people who represent the country’s entire adult population. To do this, you will need to question a _____ sample of the population.

Answer 15

random (representative)

Question 16

A study finds that the more childbirth training classes women attend, the less pain medication they require during childbirth. This finding can be stated as a _____ (positive/negative) correlation.

Answer 16

negative

Question 17

(mc) Knowing that two events are correlated provides

Answer 17

a basis for prediction.

Question 18

To explain behaviours and clarify cause and effect, psychologists use _____.

Answer 18

experiments

Question 19

To test the effect of a new drug on depression, we randomly assign people to control and experimental groups. Those in the control group take a pill that contains no medication. This pill is a _____.

Answer 19

placebo

Question 20

(mc) In a double-blind procedure,

Answer 20

neither the participants nor the researchers know who is in the experimental group or the control group.

Question 21

A researcher wants to know whether noise level affects workers’ blood pressure. In one group, she varies the level of noise in the environment and records participants’ blood pressure. In this experiment, the level of noise is the _____ _____.

Answer 21

independent variable

Question 22

(mc) The laboratory environment is designed to

Answer 22

re-create psychological forces under controlled conditions.

Question 23

(mc) In defending their experimental research with animals, psychologists have noted that

Answer 23

• animals’ biology and behaviour can tell us much about our own.
• animal experimentation sometimes helps animals as well as humans.
• animals are fascinating creatures and worthy of study.

Question 24

The neuron fiber that passes messages through its branches to other neurons or to muscles and glands is the _____.

Answer 24

axon

Question 25

(mc) The tiny space between the axon of one neuron and the dendrite or cell body of another is called the

Answer 25

synaptic gap.

Question 26

(mc) Regarding a neuron's response to stimulation, the intensity of the stimulus determines

Answer 26

whether or not an impulse is generated.

Question 27

In a sending neuron, when an action potential reaches an axon terminal, the impulse triggers the release of chemical messengers called _____.

Answer 27

neurotransmitters

Question 28

(mc) Endorphins are released in the brain in response to

Answer 28

pain or vigorous exercise.

Question 29

(mc) The automatic nervous system

Answer 29

controls the glands and the muscles of our internal organs.

Question 30

The sympathetic nervous system arouses us for action and the parasympathetic nervous system calms us down. Together, the two systems make up the _____ nervous system.

Answer 30

autonomic

Question 31

The neurons of the spinal cord are part of the _____ nervous system.

Answer 31

central

Question 32

(mc) The most influential endocrine gland, known as the "master gland," is the

Answer 32

pituitary

Question 33

The _____ _____ secrete(s) epinephrine and norepinephrine, helping to arouse the body during times of stress.

Answer 33

adrenal glands

Question 34

(mc) The part of the brainstem that controls heartbeat and breathing is the

Answer 34

medulla.

Question 35

(mc) The thalamus functions as a

Answer 35

sensory control center.

Question 36

(mc) The lower brain structure that governs arousal is the

Answer 36

reticular formation.

Question 37

The part of the brain that coordinates voluntary movement and enables nonverbal learning and memory is the _____.

Answer 37

cerebellum

Question 38

(mc) Two parts of the limbic system are the amygdala and the

Answer 38

hippocampus.

Question 39

A cat's ferocious response to electrical brain stimulation would lead you to suppose the electrode had touched the _____.

Answer 39

amygdala

Question 40

(mc) The neural structure that most directly regulates eating, drinking, and body temperature is the

Answer 40

hypothalamus.

Question 41

The initial reward center discovered by Olds and Milner was located in the _____.

Answer 41

hypothalamus

Question 42

(mc) If a neurosurgeon stimulated your right motor cortex, you would most likely

Answer 42

move your left leg.

Question 43

(mc) Which of the following body regions has the greatest representation in the somatosensory cortex? a) Upper arm. b) Toes. c) Lips. d) All regions are equally represented.

Answer 43

c

Question 44

The "uncommitted" areas that make up about three-fourths of the cerebral cortex are called _____ _____.

Answer 44

association areas

Question 45

Judging and planning are enabled by the _____ lobes.

Answer 45

frontal

Question 46

(mc) The flexible brain's ability to respond to damage is especially evident in the brains of

Answer 46

young children

Question 47

An experimenter flashes the word HERON across the visual field of a man whose corpus callosum has been severed. HER is transmitted to his right hemisphere and ON to his left hemisphere. When asked to indicate what he saw, the man says he saw _____ but his left hand points to _____.

Answer 47

ON | HER

Question 48

(mc) Studies of people with split brains and brain scans of those with undivided brains indicate that the left hemisphere excels in

Answer 48

processing language.

Question 49

(mc) Damage to the brain's right hemisphere is most likely to reduce a person's ability to

Answer 49

make inferences.

Question 50

Failure to see visible objects because our attention is occupied elsewhere is called _____ _____.

Answer 50

inattentional blindness

Question 51

Inattentional blindness is a product of our _____ attention.

Answer 51

selective

Question 52

(mc) Sensation is to _____ as perception is to _____.

Answer 52

bottom-up processing | top-down processing

Question 53

The process by which we organize and interpret sensory information is called _____.

Answer 53

perception

Question 54

(mc) Subliminal stimuli are

Answer 54

below our absolute threshold for conscious awareness.

Question 55

Another term for difference threshold is the _____ _____ _____.

Answer 55

just noticeable difference

Question 56

(mc) Weber's law states that for a difference to be perceived, two stimuli must differ by

Answer 56

a constant minimum percentage.

Question 57

(mc) Sensory adaption helps us focus on

Answer 57

important changes in the environment.

Question 58

(mc) Our perceptual set influences what we perceive. This mental tendency reflects our

Answer 58

experiences, assumptions, and expectations.

Question 59

The characteristic of light that determines the colour we experience, such as blue or green, is _____.

Answer 59

wavelength

Question 60

The amplitude of a light wave determines our perception of _____.

Answer 60

brightness

Question 61

(mc) The blind spot in your retina is located where

Answer 61

the optic nerve leaves the eye.

Question 62

(mc) Cones are the eye's receptor cells that are especially sensitive to _____ light and are responsible for our _____ vision.

Answer 62

bright | colour

Question 63

(mc) Two theories together account for colour vision. The Young-Helmholtz trichromatic theory shows that the eye contains _____, and Hering's theory accounts for the nervous system's having _____.

Answer 63

three types of colour receptors | opponent-process cells

Question 64

The cells in the visual cortex that respond to certain lines, edges, and angles are called _____ _____.

Answer 64

feature detectors

Question 65

The brain's ability to process many aspects of an object or a problem simultaneously is called _____ _____.

Answer 65

parallel processing

Question 66

(mc) In listening to a concert, you attend to the solo instrument and perceive the orchestra as accompaniment. This illustrates the organizing principle of

Answer 66

figure-ground.

Question 67

(mc) Our tendencies to fill in the gaps and to perceive a pattern as continuous are two different examples of the organizing principle called

Answer 67

grouping.

Question 68

(mc) The visual cliff experiments suggest that

Answer 68

crawling human infants and very young animals perceive depth.

Question 69

(mc) Depth perception underlines our ability to

Answer 69

judge distances.

Question 70

Two examples of _____ depth cues are interposition and linear perspective.

Answer 70

monocular

Question 71

(mc) Perceiving a tomato as consistently red, despite lighting shifts, is an example of

Answer 71

perceptual constancy.

Question 72

(mc) After surgery to restore vision, adults who had been blind from birth had difficulty

Answer 72

recognizing objects by sight.

Question 73

In experiments, people have worn glasses that turned their visual fields upside down. After a period of adjustment, they learned to function quite well. This ability is called _____ _____.

Answer 73

perceptual adaption

Question 74

The snail-shaped tube in the inner ear, where sound waves are converted into neural activity, is called the _____.

Answer 74

cochlea

Question 75

(mc) The gate-control theory of pain proposes that

Answer 75

small spinal cord nerve fibers conduct most pain signals, but large-fiber activity can close access to those pain signals.

Question 76

_____ is your sense of body position and movement. Your _____ _____ specifically monitors your head's movement, with sensors in the inner ear.

Answer 76

Kinesthesia | vestibular sense

Question 77

(mc) Which of the following types of ESP claims is supported by solid, replicable science evidence? a) Telepathy. b) Clairvoyance. c) Precognition. d) None of these claims.

Answer 77

d

Question 78

(mc) Two forms of associative learning are classical-conditioning, in which we associate _____, and operant conditioning in which we associate _____.

Answer 78

two or more stimuli | a response and its consequence

Question 79

(mc) Two forms of associative learning are classical-conditioning, in which we associate _____, and operant conditioning in which we associate _____.

Answer 79

two or more stimuli | a response and its consequence

Question 80

In Pavlov's experiments, the tone started as a neutral stimulus, and then became a(n) _____ stimulus.

Answer 80

conditioned

Question 81

Dogs have been taught to salivate to a circle but not to a square. This process is an example of _____.

Answer 81

discrimination

Question 82

(mc) After Watson and Rayner classically conditioned Little Albert to fear a white rat, the child later showed fear in response to a rabbit, a dog, and a furry coat. This illustrates

Answer 82

generalization

Question 83

Thorndike's law of effect was the basis for _____'s work on operant conditioning and behaviour control.

Answer 83

Skinner

Question 84

One way to change behaviour is to reward natural behaviours in small steps, as they get closer and closer to a desired behaviour. This process is called _____.

Answer 84

shaping

Question 85

Reinforcing a desired response only some of the times it occurs is called _____ reinforcement.

Answer 85

partial

Question 86

(mc) A restaurant is running a special deal. After you buy four meals at full price, you will get a free appetizer. This is an example of a ____-_____ schedule of reinforcement.

Answer 86

fixed-ratio

Question 87

The partial reinforcement schedule that reinforces a response after unpredictable time periods is a _____-_____ schedule.

Answer 87

variable-interval

Question 88

(mc) Which research showed that conditioning can occur even when the unconditioned stimulus does not immediately follow the neutral stimulus?

Answer 88

Garcia and Koelling's taste-aversion studies.

Question 89

(mc) Taste-aversion research has shown that some animals develop aversions to certain tastes but not to sights or sounds. This finding supports

Answer 89

Darwin's principle that natural selection favors traits that aid survival.

Question 90

Evidence that cognitive processes play an important role in learning comes in part from studies in which rats running a maze develop a _____ _____ of the maze.

Answer 90

cognitive map

Question 91

Rats that explored a maze without any reward were later able to run the maze as well as other rats that received food rewards for running the maze. The rats that had learned without reinforcement demonstrated _____ _____.

Answer 91

latent learning

Question 92

Children learn many social behaviours by imitating parents and other models. This type of learning is called _____ _____.

Answer 92

observational learning

Question 93

According to Bandura, we learn by watching models because we experience _____ reinforcement or _____ punishment.

Answer 93

vicarious | vicarious

Question 94

(mc) Parents are most effective in getting their children to imitate them if

Answer 94

their words and actions are consistent.

Question 95

Some scientists believe that the brain has _____ neurons that enable observation and imitation.

Answer 95

mirror

Question 96

(mc) Most experts agree that repeated viewing of media violence

Answer 96

is a risk factor for viewers' increased aggression.

Question 97

(mc) Most experts agree that repeated viewing of media violence

Answer 97

is a risk factor for viewers' increased aggression.

Question 98

The psychological terms for taking in information, retaining it, and later getting it back our are _____, _____, and _____.

Answer 98

encoding storage retrival

Question 99

(mc) The concept of working memory

Answer 99

clarifies the idea of short-term memory by focusing on the active processing that occurs in this stage.

Question 100

Sensory memory may be visual (_____ memory) or auditory (_____ memory).

Answer 100

iconic | echoic

Question 101

Our short-term memory for new information is limited to about _____ bits of information.

Answer 101

seven

Question 102

Memory aids that use visual imagery or other organizational devices are called _____.

Answer 102

mnemonics

Question 103

(mc) The hippocampus seems to function as a

Answer 103

temporary processing site for explicit memories.

Question 104

Hippocampus damage typically leaves people unable to learn new facts or recall recent events. However, they may be able to learn new skills, such as riding a bicycle, which is an _____ (explicit/implicit) memory.

Answer 104

implicit

Question 105

(mc) Long-term potentiation refers to

Answer 105

an increase in a cell's firing potential.

Question 106

A psychologist who asks you to write down as many objects as you can remember having seen a few minutes earlier is testing your _____.

Answer 106

recall

Question 107

Specific odors, visual images, emotions, or other associations that help us access a memory are examples of _____ _____.

Answer 107

retrieval cues

Question 108

(mc) When tested immediately after viewing a list of words, people tend to recall the first and last items more readily than those in the middle. When retested after a delay, they are most likely to recall

Answer 108

the first items on the list.

Question 109

(mc) When forgetting is due to encoding failure, information has not been transferred from

Answer 109

short-term memory into long0term memory.

Question 110

(mc) Ebbinghaus' forgetting curve shows that after an initial decline, memory for novel information tends to

Answer 110

level off.

Question 111

Freud proposed that painful or unacceptable memories are blocked from consciousness through a mechanism called _____.

Answer 111

repression

Question 112

(mc) One reason false memories form is our tendency to fill in memory gaps with our reasonable guesses and assumptions, sometimes based on misleading information. This tendency is an example of

Answer 112

the misinformation effect

Question 113

We may recognize a face at a social gathering but be unable to remember how we know that person. This is an example of _____ ____.

Answer 113

source amnesia

Question 114

When a situation triggers the feeling that "I've been here before," you are experiencing _____ ____.

Answer 114

déja vu

Question 115

(mc) Children can be accurate eyewitnesses if

Answer 115

a neutral person asks nonleading questions soon after the event.

Question 116

(mc) Memory researchers involved in the study of memories of abuse tend to disagree with some therapists about which of the following statements? a) Memories of events that happened before age 4 are not reliable. b) We tend to repress extremely upsetting memories. c) Memories can be emotionally upsetting. d) Sexual abuse happens.

Answer 116

b