online assignments before exam 1

The scientific approach represented a shift toward seeking ____ instead of ____.

immediate causes...final causes

A psychologist offers people three pairs of shoes and investigates whether their choices are predictable. The results are likely to be relevant to which of these issues?

free will versus determinism

Someone who believes that all behaviors have a physical cause is an adherent of which philosophical position?

determinism

A specialist in the psychological condition of students is known as a(n)

school psychologist

Titchener is known for his studies of

the structures of the mind.

The first psychological laboratory was set up by

Wilhelm Wundt in 1879

What evidence did Oskar Pfungst present to indicate that Clever Hans was not doing mathematical calculations?

Hans could answer a question correctly only if the questioner knew the correct answer.

To illustrate a point, I describe an isolated experience I once had. What kind of evidence is this?

anecdote

A researcher believes that men are more likely than women to commit an act of unprovoked aggression. Several experiments have been done, but in each case, the results fall a bit short of statistical significance. The researcher then combines all of the studies into a single analysis as if they were all one very large study. This procedure

is called a meta-analysis

In both science and a criminal trial, who has the "burden of proof"--that is, the obligation to demonstrate that their claims are correct?

the side that should be able to produce good evidence, if they are right

The theories of Sigmund Freud have

sharply decreased in their influence.

Today, women receive ____ of the doctorate degrees awarded in psychology in both North American and Europe.

more than half

A health psychologist would be likely to study a question such as

"How does smoking and drinking affect a person's health?"

Light A is exactly twice as intense as Light B. Compared to Light B, Light A will appear to be

brighter, but less than twice as bright.

Galton's studies of eminent men and their sons led him to the conclusion that intelligence is

inherited.

Animal studies are most likely to be used by a psychologist who takes a ____ approach.

behavioral

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

The need for therapy grew rapidly.

Galton's studies of eminent men and their sons led him to the conclusion that intelligence is

inherited

A researcher reported that in general, highly creative people tend to sleep more hours per night than less creative people. What conclusion, if any, follows from this result?

We cannot draw any of these conclusions.

A psychologist observes many children behaving in an aggressive way after playing a particular video game. The psychologist uses these observations to develop a more general theory of behavior. This psychologist is using what reasoning process?

induction

Student experimenters were told that a special diet makes rats learn faster. They also knew that the rats in Group A had the special diet and the rats in Group B had a regular diet. The students tested all the rats in a maze, counting how many errors they made. In fact, the scores showed that the rats in Group A had fewer errors than the rats in Group B. Which of the following problems is most likely to have influenced the results?

experimenter bias

Naturalistic observation refers to the observation of

people or animals in their natural setting.

If the correlation between variable A and variable B is +1, then

we can say nothing about causation from this information.

It has been reported that people who trust other people are generally happier than people who do not trust others. This conclusion is probably based on the results of a

correlational study.

Animal research is responsible for much of what we know about all the following areas EXCEPT

the stages of cognitive development.

The main advantage of an experimental study, in contrast to a correlational study, is that an experiment is

more likely to demonstrate cause-and-effect.

To test the effect of an informal atmosphere on class performance, Professor Hall dresses in shorts and bare feet for his morning class and in conventional clothing for his afternoon class. He then counts the number of "intelligent questions" in each class and reports more in the class for which he wore shorts. What are the two things wrong with this experiment?

lack of random assignment and lack of blind observations

On the first test the mean was 70, the standard deviation was 5, and your score was 80. On the second test the mean was 70, the standard deviation was 10, and your score was 90. On the third test the mean was 50, the standard deviation was 15, and your score was 80. On which test did you do best, relative to other students?

You did equally well on all three tests.

Which type of sample is one of the most difficult to obtain, but is best-suited for generalizing to the whole population?

random sample

An experimenter kept students in a hot, neutral, or cold room and then tested their ability to memorize poetry. What was the dependent variable in this experiment?

the students' success in memorizing the poetry

A class of seven students received the following grades on a test: 65, 78, 90, 89, 64, 78, 60. Which is true?

The mode is 78.

An investigator conducts a statistical test to determine whether the difference between the experimental group and the control group was statistically significant. Other things being equal, the difference is most likely to be significant if

the mean of one group was much larger than the mean of the other group.

Which of the following could be an operational definition of "anxiety"?

the amount of adrenal gland secretions in the blood

An instructor gives weekly tests in one class and just one midterm exam to a second class and then compares performances of students in the two classes when they all take the same final exam. What is the dependent variable in this experiment?

the students' scores on the final exam

A study was conducted to test a new hay fever drug. Patients were randomly assigned to experimental and control groups. For 6 weeks, experimental patients took the drug daily and control patients took nothing. Each patient recorded hay fever attacks. The drug users had fewer and less severe attacks. What would best improve the design of this study?

use a placebo rather than a "nothing" group

If the correlation between variable A and variable B is negative, then

increases in A are associated with decreases in B.

In a normal distribution, most scores cluster around the

mean.

Adding all the scores together in a set of scores and dividing by the number of scores would give you the

mean.

You apply for a job selling diet marshmallows because an ad says that the average company employee earns $50,000 a year. Later you discover that the company has a president, a sales manager, and 30 salespeople; you also learn that each salesperson earns $14,000 a year. How can the company's claim be correct?

The mean is $50,000 because of high salaries for the president and sales manager.

Insulin is a hormone that increases the storage of food as fats. In what way is insulin better suited for this purpose than a neurotransmitter would be?

Insulin affects a larger number of cells for a longer time.

The primary motor cortex is important for the control of

fine movements.

After damage to the occipital lobe of the cerebral cortex, what is impaired?

vision

The primary somatosensory cortex is

organized with a larger area devoted to more sensitive parts of the body.

The main distinction between the functions of the left and right hemispheres of the brain is that the left hemisphere controls ____ and the right hemisphere controls ____.

the right side of the body...the left side of the body

The "split brain" condition occurs after surgery that is undertaken to control

epilepsy

The "binding problem" is most related to which problem in psychology?

mind-brain problem

Al seems to have lost his motor skills. He can still move each muscle, but he cannot organize his muscle movements into a smooth, rapid sequence. Which part of his nervous system is probably damaged?

cerebellum

The brain structure that is most important in performing behaviors that require precise timing is called the

cerebellum.

If you cover your right eye, what happens to the visual information that reaches the two hemispheres of the cerebral cortex?

Each hemisphere receives half as much visual information as usual.

Compared to the electroencephalograph (EEG) , the positron-emission tomography (PET) provides

more precise information about where the brain is active.

The nerves that carry information from the sense organs to the spinal cord and brain, and from the spinal cord and brain to the glands and muscles, are collectively known as the

peripheral nervous system.

The nerves that carry information from the sense organs to the spinal cord and brain, and from the spinal cord and brain to the glands and muscles, are collectively known as the

peripheral nervous system.

A split-brain patient is simultaneously shown the words CAT on the left half of a screen and NAP on the right half. When asked what he or she saw, the person will probably say ____ , but will point to ____ with the left hand.

NAP...CAT

A researcher reported that in general, highly creative people tend to sleep more hours per night than less creative people. What conclusion, if any, follows from this result?

We cannot draw any of these conclusions.

A psychologist observes many children behaving in an aggressive way after playing a particular video game. The psychologist uses these observations to develop a more general theory of behavior. This psychologist is using what reasoning process?

induction

One of the main reasons psychologists are insistent on replicability in the area of ESP is because

the history of ESP contains many flawed procedures, weak evidence, and nonreplicated results.

After damage to the cerebral cortex, a person has an impairment in body perception (touch, pressure, pain, etc.). Where is the damage probably located?

parietal lobe

A person who has suffered damage to the temporal lobe of the cerebral cortex would probably experience impairment of

hearing

A person who has suffered damage to the cerebral cortex has impaired vision. Which part of the cortex is probably damaged?

occipital lobe

The brain structure that is most important in performing behaviors that require precise timing is called the

cerebellum

One study examined whether subjects could accurately identify who was telling the truth and who was telling a lie. Which group subjects were the most accurate?

people with damage to their left hemispheres were most accurate

Hormones differ from neurotransmitters in that

hormones are released into the bloodstream; neurotransmitters are released adjacent to the cell they are to excite or inhibit.

Which of the following is true regarding glia cells?

They are smaller than neurons.

A single neuron can have many

dendrites.

Which of the following is the correct order of how information is processed in a neuron?

dendrite, cell body, axon

Parkinson's disease is thought to be caused by a deficiency in the activity of the neurotransmitter

dopamine.

A mouse and a giraffe are pinched on the toes at precisely the same time. Which animal would respond faster, and why?

mouse, because the action potentials have a shorter distance to travel

Undifferentiated cells that have the ability to develop into additional neurons are known as

stem cells

When an axon is at rest, positively charged sodium ions are

more concentrated outside the axon than inside.

Because each receptor type controls somewhat different aspects of behavior

drugs can affect one behavior without major effects on all behaviors.

As an action potential travels along an axon from a sensory receptor toward the spinal cord,

its intensity remains constant.

In the great majority of cases, transmission of information at a synapse depends on

chemicals.

An instructor gives weekly tests in one class and just one midterm exam to a second class and then compares performances of students in the two classes when they all take the same final exam. What is the dependent variable in this experiment?

the students' scores on the final exam

A study was conducted to test a new hay fever drug. Patients were randomly assigned to experimental and control groups. For 6 weeks, experimental patients took the drug daily and control patients took nothing. Each patient recorded hay fever attacks. The drug users had fewer and less severe attacks. What would best improve the design of this study?

use a placebo rather than a "nothing" group

An experimenter flashes an array of nine numbers or letters on a screen for a split second and asks a person to recall them. Most people can recall only about four items. Why can't they recall the others?

Their memory of the others fades while they name the first four.

Which of the following is an example of proactive interference?

You have changed your telephone number three times this year. As a result, you keep forgetting your new number.

The hindsight bias refers to people's tendency to

overestimate their own predictions of an event after the event occurs.

The central executive, phonological loop, and visuospatial sketchpad are all components of what has been called ____ memory.

working

John needed to remember the last 10 presidents of the United States. He generated an image of each of the presidents located somewhere in his house. John used

the method of loci.

When you remember how a clock works, what type of memory is that?

semantic

____ is a way that we improve memory by thinking about the meaning of a word and forming as many associations as possible.

Increasing depth of processing

After you have recently read a list of words including CHAIRMAN, you are likely to fill in the missing letters in __HA__R__ __N correctly--even if you do not remember that it was on the list. This is an example of which method of testing memory?

implicit

Researchers gave participants four paragraphs describing childhood events. Three of the stories were true (provided by the participants' parents) and the fourth was false, but plausible (being lost on a family outing). When asked to provide further details,

some of the participants remembered the suggested (false) event in some detail.

An undergraduate student at Carnegie-Mellon University practiced memorizing digits three to five hours per week for a year and a half. The results of this study suggest that

with practice, people can greatly increase the amount of information remembered through the use of chunking.

Your memory will be more reliable if you use the same cue when you try to retrieve a memory that you used when you stored it. This is a statement of which of the following?

encoding specificity principle

You don't have a telephone directory and you are trying to remember the phone number of the local pizza parlor. You must rely on

free recall.

The teachers at Bart Simpson elementary school always call the roll of students in alphabetical order. Which names do they probably learn most slowly?

those near the middle of the list

You have a psychology test in four days, and you will spend a total of ten hours studying. Because you paid attention while reading the memory chapter, you know that the best strategy for studying is to

distribute the 10 hours in shorter study sessions across the four days

Which of the following is NOT true of Parkinson's disease?

It has a strong hereditary basis.

Suppose a neuron is receiving a mixture of excitatory and inhibitory synaptic messages and producing a few action potentials. What will happen if someone injects a drug that blocks the inhibitory synapses?

The neuron will produce more action potentials than before.

If you remember the events of moving into your current home, what type of memory is that?

episodic

Our short term memory store

can hold about seven items.

Remembering how to play the piano is an example of ____ memory.

procedural

Studying as close as possible in time to the beginning of a test, under conditions as similar as possible to the test situation,

decreases the effects of retroactive interference.

The saying "Thirty days hath September..." is an example of a/an

mnemonic device.

If you stare at a brightly lit picture for a minute and then look away, you see a negative afterimage. Sometimes that afterimage seems to move. What makes it move?

voluntary movements of the eyes

A condition occurring mostly in old age that is characterized by increasingly severe memory loss, as well as confusion, depression, and disordered thinking is known as

Alzheimer's disease.

The retinex theory of color vision attempts to account for the fact that

people can recognize all the colors even while wearing green-tinted lenses.

Which lobe of the brain contains the primary area of the cortex for visual processing?

occipital

Which part of the human retina has the best color vision?

the fovea

What happens during vision?

Energy goes from the object to your eyes

According to the trichromatic (Young-Helmholtz) theory, we perceive white when

all three types of cones are equally active.

The patient H. M. experienced significant memory problems. H. M. symptoms suggested

he was suffering from anterograde amnesia.

Which type of memory was least impaired in patient H.M.?

procedural

Suppose a new species of animal has been discovered that has a retina composed entirely of rods. What is probably true of its vision?

It is color-blind.

A psychologist offers people three pairs of shoes and investigates whether their choices are predictable. The results are likely to be relevant to which of these issues?

free will versus determinism

When reconstructing a memory for a story that they were asked to recall, people are most likely to leave out

unexpected or confusing events.

When people try to recall a long and complicated story, they remember some parts of it correctly and ____ the rest of it.

reconstruct

Korsakoff's syndrome is most common in

chronic alcoholics.

What memory problem is characteristic of people with Korsakoff's syndrome or prefrontal cortex damage?

They fill in the gaps in their memory with a mixture of old information and wild guesses.

The optic nerve is composed of axons from

ganglion cells.

If you are trying to see an extremely faint star, what would make it easier to see?

Look slightly to the side of the star.

Which of the following is NOT true of the rods in the retina?

important for color vision

The blind spot of the retina is the point where

axons from the ganglion cells leave the retina.

Because of dark adaptation, the absolute sensory threshold for vision

decreases as a person stays in a dimly lit room.

One reversible figure can be seen either as a vase or as two profiles looking toward each other. This example illustrates the Gestalt principle of

figure and ground.

Which sensory system is most impaired in astronauts who are experiencing weightlessness in space?

vestibular sensation

Many optical illusions can be explained in terms of an observer's

over- or under-estimating the distance to some objects.

Moving objects capture our attention for a good reason, it is more likely to require our immediate attention than something stationary. People are particularly adept at perceiving ____--that is, a body in motion.

biological motion

The receptor cells along the basilar membrane, which give rise to hearing, are known as

hair cells.

According to the "feature detector" approach to vision, your ability to see a line (or anyother pattern) depends on a particular kind of

neuron.

Some people have claimed that messages recorded backward on rock music are perverting the minds of American youth. Which of the following is the best-supported evidence against that claim?

People cannot understand backward speech and do not respond to it.

When people try to judge whether a stimulus is present or absent, they make correct judgments, misses, and false alarms. The study of their answers is known as

signal-detection theory.

What is one way in which endorphins relieve pain?

They inhibit the release of substance P from other neurons.

according to the adherents of determinism, why is it sometimes impossible to predict peoples behavior accurately?

sometimes the causes are so complex that it is not possible to predict certain behaviors

wundt collected data by?

asking people to report on their subjective experiences

the founder of american psychology

william james

the field of psychology broke away from philosophy when psychologists began to

collect and evaluate evidence scientifically

if the correlation between variables A and B is -1 then

increases in A are perfectly associated with decreases in B

internal validity is an experiment is achieved if

you controlled for alternative explanations

online assignments before exam 1

Psychology 101 with Brill at Rutgers University - New Brunswick/Piscataway

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