Psych Midterm

The first psychological laboratory was set up by

If competent researchers consistently get similar results whenever they follow a particular procedure, then the results are

An investigator analyzes the results of an experiment and determines that p <.05. Why does the investigator want to know the value of p?

Brain researchers would probably be most comfortable with which of the following statements?

In one study, what had the biggest effect on whether Japanese exchange students felt homesick?

Juanita takes a drug one night to eliminate her headache. The next morning her headache is gone. What conclusion, if any, can we draw, and why?

What kind of group has the same percentage of young and old, male and female, and educated and uneducated people as the population as a whole?

Which of the following correctly states how a particular type of psychologist would study behavioral differences between boys and girls?

Can psychoanalysts prescribe drugs?

Modern-day research on animal intelligence focuses most strongly on which of these questions?

In what situation is the median better than the mean for representing most scores?

Investigators are most likely to use the case history method when they study

It is found that children with many friends are generally happier than children with fewer friends. What kind of research design was probably used in this study?

Teachers seeking help in coping with students with special needs would consult which of these?

In the field of psychology, what happened just after WWII?

A testable prediction of what will happen under a specific set of conditions is known as a/an

In 1905, who developed the first useful intelligence test?

If we want to describe the "average" person, the mean and median give similar results UNLESS

The field of ergonomics is also known as

Do people learn the facial expression to use for various emotions, or are the expressions part of human nature: Which of these would investigate that question?

Dr. Rodentz deprives rats of food for different lengths of time and then records how long each rat takes to reach food at the end of a maze. The length of food deprivation is the

A researcher measures people's blood type and tests whether those with different blood types have different personalities. What kind of research is this?

Early psychologists, eager to develop a scientific psychology, concentrated on

What do we call the process of looking within yourself to describe sensations and experiences?

"In a universe composed of matter and energy, why is there such a thing as consciousness?" This question related most closely to the philosophical issue of

In one word, why did most scientists resist the belief that Clever Hans could do complex mathematics, even before they had a good explanation of what he was actually doing?

An investigator decides to consider the results of an experiment to be statically significant if p <.05. An analysis of the result indicated that p=.09. What conclusion, if any, can the investigator draw?

In which way would a cognitive psychologist be most likely to try to help a slow-learning child?

Jane Goodall spent years observing chimpanzees in the wild. her technique was

A psychologist who attempts to test the assumptions of determinism is most likely to investigate.

If the standard deviation is small, then

A psychotherapist with a medical degree is a __ and on with a Ph.D is a __.

One problem with using anecdotes as evidence for ESP (or for anything else) is that anecdotes are

If everyone has the same chance of being in the experimental group, then the experiment has

The correlation between A and B is +60; the correlation between C and D is -.75. What do we know about causation based on this information?

Health psychologists would be MOST interested in which of these?

An evolutionary psychologist is most likely to consider which of these questions?

Damage to the adrenal gland can lead to an increased need for which dietary substance?

We should be more impressed with a result if the p value is __ and the 95% confidence interval is __

What is the advantage of the experimental method as opposed to correlational studies?

A survey asks, "Do you support the current laws on abortion?" Ninety- four percent of the respondents answer "no". What, if anything, can we conclude?

People who expect someone to succeed treat that person differently and thereby cause the success they expected. Which type of psychologist studies processes like this?

Toddlers eat anything that tastes good, but older children refuses many foods. Which type of psychologist is most likely to study this change over age?

From around 1920 to 1970 research in psychology focused primarily on the study of

What is a placebo?

What did Francis Galton cite as evident for the importance of heredity in intelligence?

Research to answer a theoretical question is called __ research, whereas research to solve a practical problem is called __ research.

Under what circumstances is psychological research with animals legally permissible?

If you become
skillful at basketball because your friends encourage you to play and you have
practiced a lot, your behavior is influenced primarily by ___. If you
are good at basketball mainly because you are very tall, as have been all of
the members of your family for generations, your behavior is influenced
primarily by ____.

A correlation
coefficient is a mathematical value that ranges between

The brain area controlling heart rate and breathing has many receptors for ____ and few receptors for ____.

At the point where the optic nerve exits from the retina, we perceive

The cause of phantom sensations (such as with phantom limbs) lies in the

In what way do hurt feelings resemble physical pain, if at all?

As you watch a car drive toward you, you do not perceive it as growing larger, even though its image on your retina grows larger. The name for this phenomenon is

How can psychologists determine what the world looks like to a red-green color-blind person?

Conduction deafness is caused by damage to the

Damage or immaturity of which brain area is linked to impulsive decisions?

Clyde Tombaugh was able to discover the dwarf planet Pluto in 1930 by using his

In several studies, people heard subliminal audiotapes that contained messages different from what they were told to expect. For example, the tapes might be about self-esteem, when people thought the tapes suggested better memory. What is the usual outcome of such studies?

A person is completely deaf in the left ear but has normal hearing in the right ear. Which aspect of hearing is most likely to be impaired in this person?

After you stare at a pattern of narrow lines long enough to fatigue certain feature detectors, you now stare at slightly wider lines. How will your perception of those lines differ from your usual perception of them?

By what means do we perceive the pitch of a low-frequency sound, such as 30 Hz?

A split-brain patient (with damage to the corpus callosum) feels something with the left hand. In which way, if any, can this person tell us what he/she felt?

If a stimulus is slightly weaker than the absolute sensory threshold, how often would we expect a person to be able to identify its presence?

An action potential takes place by the movement of __________ ions across the membrane.

A feature detector is a kind of

A magician has two people concealed in a long wooden box, one whose head and arms stick out of the box, and the other whose legs stick out. When the magician saws between the two people the audience thinks the magician is sawing one person in half. This trick is based primarily on the Gestalt principle of

In older people, the lens of each eye becomes less flexible. How does that change their vision?

According to gate theory, how does distraction relieve pain?

How does cocaine affect the nervous system?

In addition to sweet, sour, salty, and bitter, what other taste do our receptors detect?

A one-eyed person can detect depth in many ways, but is unable to use these two ways:

If we want to predict people’s attitudes toward use of police and military power, which of the following would be best to measure?

According to Hubel and Wiesel’s research on the visual cortex of cats and monkeys, each feature detector neuron responds to the sight of a particular

Flunitrazepam (Rohypnol), the so-called "date rape" drug, is what type of drug?

Endorphins stimulate the same receptors as which of these drugs?

After damage to the cerebral cortex, a person has an impairment in body perception (touch, etc.) and impaired perception of object locations. Where is the damage probably located?

For what medical purpose have surgeons sometimes cut the corpus callosum?

If someone has “blindsight,” what can this person do?

Anxiolytic drugs, also called tranquilizers, exert many of their behavioral effects by doing what?

PKU (phenylketonuria) is an inherited condition that leads to mental retardation. However, a family can prevent the mental retardation by controlling which of these?

A visual sensation is brief, whereas a taste lasts longer and hunger lasts still longer. How does the nervous system produce effects with such variation in time course?

How does L-DOPA affect someone with Parkinson’s disease?

Psychologists define the absolute sensory threshold as the intensity of a stimulus that someone can detect ____ of the time.

How does functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) measure brain activity?

A neuron is receiving excitatory and inhibitory synaptic messages and producing a few action potentials. What happens if someone injects a drug that blocks the inhibitory synapses?

According to the trichromatic theory (Young-Helmholtz theory), how do we perceive color?

Brain researchers would probably be most comfortable with which of the following statements?

If a drug prevents the inhibitory neurotransmitter GABA from attaching to its receptors, what happens to the postsynaptic cell?

Biological psychologists explain Parkinson's disease in terms of what?

Capsaicin, the chemical that makes jalapeño peppers taste hot, is sometimes used for what?

A gene that influences lactose metabolism varies among human populations. What behavior does the gene influence?

If someone insists that Tuesday is blue, what condition does the person evidently have?

An application of capsaicin to the skin or muscles causes first a burning sensation and then a prolonged decrease in pain sensations. Why?

During danger, the ___ system is more active. When danger passes, the ___ system is more active.

A brain scan records the activity of various brain areas during a memory task. Before we can draw conclusions about those brain areas, what other information do we need?

For the great majority of people, the ability to speak depends mainly on the __________ hemisphere, which controls muscles on the __________ side of the body.

An X-linked recessive gene has greater effects on whom?

Compared to the periphery of the eye, the fovea has better perception of

Drug tolerance has been interpreted as an example of classical conditioning. In this interpretation, the conditioned stimulus is ___ and the conditioned response is ___.

A tone is followed by a puff of air to the eyes. After several repetitions, subjects blink their eyes when they hear the tone. In this experiment blinking is

"Authoritative" parents who set high standards and communicate sympathetically tend to have well-behaved children. What conclusion, if any, can we draw from these data?

An experimenter places a colored spot on a child’s nose, lets the child look in the mirror, and observes whether the child touches his/her own nose. What concept is being tested?

If children less than one year old get earlier than normal experience of locomotion, such as by crawling, what do they develop earlier than average?

Contrary to Piaget, later research found that infants do show object permanence, if they are tested in a different way. What did the later research measure?

A psychologist might evaluate a child's ability to answer abstract and hypothetical questions to determine whether the child is in the ______ or the ______ stage of cognitive development.

After several repetitions of a sound, it produces less arousal. A slightly changed sound may produce more arousal. What do we call the original decrease and the later increase?

A dog has been trained to salivate whenever it sees a large white square. Now it salivates somewhat at the sight of a large gray square. The dog is displaying

A nursing mother puts her baby to her breast whenever she hears it cry. After a few days, her milk starts to flow as soon as she hears the baby. In terms of classical conditioning, what is the conditioned stimulus?

An investigator measures the moral reasoning of a group of 12-year-olds, and four years later measures their moral reasoning again. This study follows which design?

An investigator presents a conditioned stimulus followed by an unconditioned stimulus until an animal is classically conditioned. Then she exposes the animal to an extinction procedure. If she waits a while and then tests the animal again, what happens?

"Tragedy will never strike me...." "I will succeed in all my ambitions...." "Everyone notices how I look." According to David Elkind, these beliefs are part of the adolescent's

In an experiment on classical conditioning, the training may go through three steps. If so, the only possible order of those steps is:

After a subject has developed a classically conditioned response, an investigator begins presenting the conditioned stimulus by itself. Which of the following is likely to occur?

Hilary's parents have paid her every time she cleans up her room. Sue's parents have sometimes paid her for cleaning her room, but usually not. Now both sets of parents stop paying. Which girl will probably continue cleaning her room the longest, and why?

Children who are frequently spanked tend to be ill-behaved. What conclusion (if any) can we draw from this result?

If you want to determine whether some example of learning qualifies as classical conditioning or operant conditioning, which question should you ask?

A researcher studies children of several ages, and then studies the same children five and ten years later. What research design is this?

In an experiment by Bandura, Ross, and Ross, one group of children watched a film in which someone violently attacked an inflated doll. Another group watched a film in which no one attacked the doll. At the end of the film, both groups were put in a room with an inflated doll. Who (if anyone) attacked the doll?

In Piaget's terminology, what is it that sometimes gets assimilated and sometimes gets accommodated?

If a child lacks “theory of mind,” what does the child fail to understand?

According to Thorndike, reinforcement is an event that

Many cancer patients lose their appetite by associating many foods with radiation-induced nausea. What is one good way to preserve their appetite?

A "cohort effect" occurs when an investigator compares groups of people who

According to the social-learning approach, a large percentage of what people do is based on

Birth cohorts differ from one another because the older generation is in many ways similar to

According to Terror Management Theory, even a casual reference to death tends to

Someone who learns to avoid a poisonous mushroom also avoids a similar looking, but harmless mushroom. This behavior is an example of

At which stage of operant conditioning does an experimenter make use of shaping?

A researcher demonstrates that most children display a temperament at age 7 that is similar to their temperament at age 2. The study that led to this must have followed which kind of design?

How does an investigator produce extinction in classical conditioning?

An experimenter who wants to train a rat to pull a string to raise a flag begins by training it to stand up. This procedure is known as

During the Korean War, captured U.S. soldiers were persuaded to cooperate with their captors one small step at a time, with reinforcements for each step. This procedure resembles which principle of operant conditioning?

A tone is followed by food until the dog consistently salivates to the tone. Then, the tone plus a light (at the same time) occur before food for additional trials. In later test trials, the dog shows strong conditioned response to

After many repetitions of the sound “ba,” an infant habituates (that is, decreases responses). When the experimenter substitutes the sound “pa,” the infant increases responses. What conclusion do psychologists draw?

An infant who hears a novel sound increases its sucking rate. After several presentations of the same sound, the sucking rate declines. This decrease in responding is called

How does alcohol lead to the problems associated with fetal alcohol syndrome?

First Maxi saw chocolate in the blue cupboard. While he was absent, his mother moved it to the green cupboard. What does it mean if a child says Maxi will return and look in the blue cupboard?

On the first floor of your dormitory are two vending machines. The one on the left always works; the one on the right is usually broken. You therefore put your money only in the machine on the left. This illustrates which aspect of operant conditioning?

Lev Vygotsky would most strongly disagree with which of these statements?

Mary Ainsworth devised a test of attachment in which the mother and an infant enter a room with toys, a stranger enters, the mother and stranger leave, the stranger returns, and finally the mother returns. What is this procedure called?

According to Piaget, a child who has mastered the principle of conservation but who has limitations on abstract thought is in which stage of cognitive development?

An educational system in which students are taught one small step at a time, with frequent tests and positive reinforcements for correct answers, is probably an application of the principles of

In order to reduce risky behavior of children on a playground, a safety officer offered small rewards to the entire class if everyone played more safely. This procedure is an example of

An investigator compares the drawings of children ranging in age from 5 to 10 (measured the same time) and reports trends as a function of age. What kind of study is this?

A 2 1/2-year old child sees a toy hidden in a tiny room, and then looks for a larger version of the toy in a full-sized room. Under what circumstances can the child find the toy quickly?

A professor gives unannounced quizzes at unpredictable times. Therefore students must study equally every night. Which type of schedule of reinforcement is this?

If a child clings tightly to the mother and cries furiously when she leaves, which attachment style does the child show?

Classical conditioning applies primarily to _______ responses; operant conditioning applies primarily to ______ responses.