AP practice MCQ 1.4-1.6 Myers

Practice multiple choice questions from the myers textvbook

Researchers wanted to determine the brain waves present when individuals were sleeping. They placed electrodes on the scalps of 100 volunteers, and then asked the volunteers to sleep in the laboratory each night for one week. The researchers obtained recordings of the electrical activity across the volunteers’ brain surfaces. Which of the following represents the operational definition of the dependent variable for this study?

EEG readings

Dr. Ultrone uses a technique to measure glucose consumption as an indivator of brain activity. What is the name of this technique?

PET

Zoey did a report on the brain’s ability to change in response to both experience and damage. What was her report about?

Neuroplasticity

When Amita is in a car accident, her neurologist, Dr. Lang, suspects she has sustained an injury to the back of her head. “Can you check with an EEG?” asks Amita’s brother. Dr. Lang explains that an EEG is not the best method for assessing this injury, because

an EEG only provides images of brain-wave activity

Dr. Translucent measures the brain’s electrical activity via magnetic fields, using a(n)

MEG

Dr. Ludwikowski was interested in study effects of stress on the brain. She randomly assigned 10 middle-aged participant to experience stress by placing them in a room with a loud, unpleasant noise. The other 10 middle-aged participants were placed in a room with no noise. She then used an fMRI to compare participants’ brain activity.

In this study, what was Dr. Ludwikowski’s operational definition of her dependent variable?

fMRI results

Dr. Ludwikowski was interested in study effects of stress on the brain. She randomly assigned 10 middle-aged participant to experience stress by placing them in a room with a loud, unpleasant noise. The other 10 middle-aged participants were placed in a room with no noise. She then used an fMRI to compare participants’ brain activity.

In Dr. Ludwikowski’s study, the participants in the room with no noise served as the

control group

Damage to which of the following puts a person’s life in the most danger because it may cause breathing to stop?

medulla

A gymnast falls and hits her head on the floor. She attempts to continue practicing but has trouble maintaining balance. What part of her brain has probably been affected?

cerebellum

stimulation of the anygdala is most likely to have which of the following effects?

Aggression

Brennan feels hungry. Which brain area is most responsible for his hunger?

Hypothalamus

Damage to which of the following brain structures would affect the processing of new explicit memories?

Hippocampus

After being late to work for the fifth time, Hester declared “My occipital loves must not be working optimally! I have a hard time planning my day to be here on time!” If you were Hester’s boss, what might you say to her to modify her claim to make ir more accurate?

“Hester, it’s your temporal lobes that are not working optimally.”

Stimulation of which of the following may cause a person to involuntarily move their arm?

Motor cortex

Nan was in a car accident, which resulted in brain damage. However, some of her brain areas took over the function of the damaged area, thanks to the role of

Neuroplasticity

Dr. Cantor studies neurogensis, to understand how

the brain creates new neurons

A patient who has undergone split-brain surgery has a picture of a dog flashed to his right hemisphere and a cat to his left hemisphere.

In this example, the patient will be able to identify the 

cat using his right hand 

A patient who has undergone split-brain surgery has a picture of a dog flashed to his right hemisphere and a cat to his left hemisphere

In this example, which of the following will the patient be able to verbalize?

That he saw a cat

One of your friends received the following results after she took an online quiz: “You are left-brained! Your left brain is exceptionally strong, which make you very good with language.” Which of the following statements explains nuances associated with this claim?

“People have only one brain, which has left and right hemispheres.”

Doctors in the 1960s severed a brain region to attempt to stop eplieptic seizures. Which of the following was the independent variable in their investigations?

The corpus callosum

As Doreen is reading her Psychology textbook, which statement is she most likely to encounter about concsiousness?

It is an important way of studying our two-track minds

Which statement should Mason say to his friend to discuss the dual-processing model most accurately?

Incoming information is processed by both conscious and unconscious tracks

In her chemistry class, Teresa was aware that she was writing down her teacher’s words. Which psychological concept best describes Teresa’s experience?

Teresa was consciously aware of her experience

What do hallucinating, dreaming, and meditating have in common?

They are all states of consciousness

Dr. James collected EEG data on 100 participiants as they were daydreaming to determine which brain-wave patterns were present during this activity. Which of the following best depicts the independent variable in this example?

Daydreaming, a state of consciousness

Which of the following psychological concepts refers to a student’s biological clock’s sleep-wake pattern that follows a 24-hour cycle?

Circadian Rhythm

Dr. Liza conducted a sleep study in which half of the volunteers were randomly assigned to scroll through their friends’ photos on social media right before bedtime. The other half of the volunteers were told to avoid screens at bedtime. Dr. Liza measured the length of time it took for the volunteers to fall asleep once they got into their beds.

Which brain area is the likely focus of Dr.Liza’s research?

Suprachiasmatic nucleus

Dr. Liza conducted a sleep study in which half of the volunteers were randomly assigned to scroll through their friends’ photos on social media right before bedtime. The other half of the volunteers were told to avoid screens at bedtime. Dr. Liza measured the length of time it took for the volunteers to fall asleep once they got into their beds.

Which body chemical is most implicated in Dr. Liza’s research?

Melatonin

Dr. Liza conducted a sleep study in which half of the volunteers were randomly assigned to scroll through their friends’ photos on social media right before bedtime. The other half of the volunteers were told to avoid screens at bedtime. Dr. Liza measured the length of time it took for the volunteers to fall asleep once they got into their beds.

If Dr. Liza finds that the group who scrolled through their friend’s photos on social media took longer to fall asleep than the other group, what conclusion can she draw?

Scrolling through friends’ photos on social media caused the volunteers to take longer to fall asleep.

Dr. Liza conducted a sleep study in which half of the volunteers were randomly assigned to scroll through their friends’ photos on social media right before bedtime. The other half of the volunteers were told to avoid screens at bedtime. Dr. Liza measured the length of time it took for the volunteers to fall asleep once they got into their beds.

Based on Dr. Liza’s study, a journalist writes a magazine article claiming that everyone should avoid scrolling through friends’ photos on social media priot to bedtime, because it will then take them longer to fall asleep. Which of the following describes the journalist’s error?

The journalist cannot generalize these research findings to the general population, because Dr. Liza did no use random selection.

Dr. Hedge replicated past EEG research by showing that alpha waves were present

when people are awake

Andrity has not been getting enough sleep the last few months. He has gained weight and has been getting sick often. What other effect of sleep deprivation with Andrity likely experience?

Depression

Shortly after falling asleep, and hundred of times during the nigh, Paola wakes up after a loud gasp because she has stopped breathing. With which sleep disorder would she most likely be diagnosed?

Sleep Apnea

Bohdana believes that she dreams to help her remember what happened during the day. Which dream theory aligns with her view?

Information processing

After two nights without sleep, which of the following can be expected?

REM rebound

When she sees a photo of a face, Juana is able to recognize it as the face of her mother. Which of the following explains why?

Top-down processing

As jeff reads his psychology testbook, he is able to convert the light waves into signals that his brain can interpret due to

Transduction

Natalia is washing her hands, and she adjusts the faucet handle until the water feels just slightly hotter than it did before. Natalia’s adjustment until she feels the change in temperature is an example of

a difference threshold

Tyshane went swimming with friends who did not want to get into the pool because the water felt cold. Tyshane jumpedin and after a few minutes declared “It was cold when I first got in, but now it’s fine. Come on in!” Tyshane’s body became accustomed to the water temperature due to 

sensory adaptation

Which of the following structures helps you most in deteting the color of your friend’s shirt

Cones

Your bestfriend decides to paint her room an extremely bright electric blue. Which of the following best describes the physical properties of the color’s light waves?

Short wavelength; large amplitude.

If you scratch your eye, which structure are you most likely to damage?

Cornea

Your friend is playing the low notes on her tuba quite loudly. Which of the following best explains the phsyical properties of the sound waves?

Long wavelength; large amplitude.

After being exposed to loud music for manu years, which of the following types of hearing loss is more likely in a musician

Sensorineual

Nicholas can tell the difference betweem different pitches because his cochlea’s basilar membrane is stimulated in different areas. Nicholas’ experience aligns with which theory

Place theory

When Yaroslav listens to music the sound waves causes which of the following to vibrate first?

eardrum

Dr. Seesmay wants to conduct a study in which she examines sensorineural hearing loss. Which of the following would be an appropriate operational defintion for her variable of interest?

The number of hair cells damaged in the cochlea among individuals with hearing loss.

Dr. Hessler asked a group of participants with damage to their sensory systems to touch their noses with their eyes closed 10 times. He asked a group of participants without sensory system damage to engage in the same action. The median number of times the group with sensory system damage touched their nose was 5, while the median number of timesthe group without sensory system damage touched their noses was 10. Which of the following is the likely variable of interest in Dr. Hessler’s study?

Kinesthesis

Jaymie felt intense pain when she broke her finger. According to gate-control theory, where are the “gates” located to enable Jaymie’s brain to receive pain messages from her finger?

Spinal cord

which of the following is the best example of sensory interaction?

Finding that food tastes bland when you have a bad cold

Austin damage the hair-like receptors in his semicircular canals. Which sensation will be most impacted?

Hearing

Which research method might be best for conducting research on phantom limb sensations?

Case study

Researchers conducted a correlational study during the winter season, which has shorter days and longer nights. The researcher asked about people’s experiences with depression-like symptoms, including feelings of tiredness and reduction in energy output. The researcher found that there was a positive correlation between the amount of daylight and depression-like symptoms. Which of the following statements best reflects how to interpret this correlational finding?

The relationship between daylight and depressive symptoms may also be linked to a third variable

A researcher wants to examine how much information from waking life ends up in dreams. The researcher recruits 40 volunteers from a local community college to record the details of their daily activities. The participants will be given a sleep monitor that gently wakes them each time they end an REM cycle, after which they will complete a detailed dream diary. The study is planned to last for two weeks. Why would an institutional review board be hesitant to approve this study?

The researchers are disrupting sleep for an extended period, which may cause harm.

Ms. Harrison asks students in her psychology class to record how many hours of sleep they get every night and what they eat for breakfast. When the class looks at the data, they find that the fewer hours of sleep they get, the more they eat for breakfast. Which of the following is a limitation of self-report research?

Self-report data is subject to the social desirability bias

A psychological study to determine the harmful effects of sleep disruption asked a company to start an overnight shift without notice. Many of the employees began to have accidents while on the job. The researchers conclude that a sudden change in circadian rhythm causes an effect on job performance. What ethical concern may be present in this study?

The employees did not provide informed consent and were not given the option to withdraw from the study.

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

An adult with a healthy sleep cycle is most likely to enter REM sleep in which of the following ways?

after cycling through the NREM sleep stages

Dr. Ravi wants to conduct a study to investigate the effect of sleep deprivation on problem-solving abilities. Her procedure involves randomly assigning participants to groups and depriving one group of sleep for a period of five consecutive days. She then had each of them take a test that measures their ability to solve various problems. Which of the following is most problematic about Dr. Ravi’s research design?

The study raises ethical concerns because the amount of sleep deprivation could be harmful to participants in the study.

Waking up frequently, loud snoring, silent pauses in breathing, and sleepiness during the day are symptoms of which of the following disorders?

sleep apnea

The explanation that holds that dreams are merely the brain’s attempt to make sense of meaningless patterns of brain activity during sleep is best identified as which of the following theories?

activation-synthesis theory

Dr. Handler conducted research to explore the extent to which hearing acuity changes with age. She tested the absolute threshold for hearing in 10 subjects of various ages. The results are presented in the table.

Which of the following is an appropriate conclusion based on the data presented in the table?

Responses

As age increases, the ability to detect higher pitched sounds tends to decrease

Dr. Felder is studying whether the color of a drink impacts how a person experiences the taste of the drink. She has an orange-flavored liquid that she dyes either orange, purple, or blue, and gives it to participants to drink. She then asks them to describe the taste. Which of the following would best help her evaluate the impact of vision on taste?

Create an additional control condition in which participants wear blindfolds while they taste the drink.

Researchers randomly assigned 50 elementary school children to place a plug on their nose to limit their sense of smell. The children were then presented with a series of different foods and asked to rate the taste, texture, and intensity on a scale from 1 to 5. Another 50 children were randomly placed in a group with no nose plug and asked to rate the same food using the same scale. Using random assignment in this study can help with which of the following?

Random assignment to groups would allow researchers to understand if the differences between groups was due to the independent variable (the nose plug)

In an experiment, participants sat at a computer and were told to focus on an X on the screen for 50 milliseconds. After this, a horizontal or vertical line was presented for 100 milliseconds. Participants were instructed to press a button every time a horizontal line appeared. Participants in the Reward condition received ten cents for each time they correctly pressed the button when the horizontal line appeared, while participants in the Punishment condition started the experiment with $10 and lost ten cents every time they incorrectly pressed the button when there was no horizontal line. The results are given in the table.

Which of the following is the best conclusion based the data in the table?

Participants in the Reward condition are more likely to report seeing a horizontal line even when there isn’t one

Which of the following scenarios most clearly describes the effects of a strong kinesthetic sense?

Being able to tell exact bodily position without looking at the body

The table shows players’ ratings of the level of pain they experienced while using their heads to make goals with a soccer ball. Measures were first taken during practice without an audience and later in front of a crowd during warmups prior to a game.

What is the average level of pain experienced by the players during practice without an audience?

6

Hyrum is at a concert when a flute player hits a very high note at the end of a song. Which of the following best explains why the pitch of the note sounds so high?

It has a short wavelength and high frequency.

Julia is practicing her trumpet and produces a loud sound. Which of the following is the best explanation for the loudness of the sound?

The sound has a high-amplitude sound wave.

Dr. Schmidt was interested in the relationship between sensation of a stimulus and the sensation of change in a stimulus. She tested this using sensation of weight. Participants were blindfolded and given two equal weights to hold one in each hand. With each trial, she added a slightly heavier weight to one hand than the other. The participant was asked to notify her if or when one felt heavier. She found that it was more difficult for the participants to determine the difference in the weights when the equal weights from the first trial were heavy.

Dr. Schmidt’s findings best support which of the following psychological concepts?

Weber’s law

Dr. Schmidt was interested in the relationship between sensation of a stimulus and the sensation of change in a stimulus. She tested this using sensation of weight. Participants were blindfolded and given two equal weights to hold one in each hand. With each trial, she added a slightly heavier weight to one hand than the other. The participant was asked to notify her if or when one felt heavier. She found that it was more difficult for the participants to determine the difference in the weights when the equal weights from the first trial were heavy.

What type of research study did Dr. Schmidt conduct?

An experiment

Dr. Schmidt was interested in the relationship between sensation of a stimulus and the sensation of change in a stimulus. She tested this using sensation of weight. Participants were blindfolded and given two equal weights to hold one in each hand. With each trial, she added a slightly heavier weight to one hand than the other. The participant was asked to notify her if or when one felt heavier. She found that it was more difficult for the participants to determine the difference in the weights when the equal weights from the first trial were heavy.

What was the independent variable in this research study?

The heaviness of the weights

Researchers were interested in whether the rods or the cones in the retina were more sensitive to detecting the movement and the color of objects in the environment. Research participants were asked to stare at a focus point while the researcher, starting at 0º, moved a red-colored object slowly around the edge of the arc apparatus. The degree of the angle when the participants first observed movement and color were documented. The mean degrees for each are presented in the table. Which of the following conclusions is best supported by this data?

The average angle the participant first notices movement will be larger than the average angle for first noticing the color.

Volunteers were asked to rate the taste of foods during allergy season on a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 meaning low intensity of flavor and 10 meaning high intensity of flavor. The researchers also asked participants to rate their level of nasal congestion on a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 meaning no nasal congestion and 10 meaning complete blockage of airways with congestion. Which of the following is an appropriate conclusion to draw from the data presented in the scatterplot?

The experience of flavor is negatively correlated with levels of nasal congestion.

Below is a transcript of a case study about an individual named Arjun.

Arjun was diagnosed with epilepsy and struggled with seizures regularly. After trying multiple unsuccessful treatments, his neurologist recommended surgery that severed the connections between the two hemispheres of the brain. Arjun agreed to the surgery.

After surgery, Arjun experienced changes that were noticed during special testing in a laboratory setting by a researcher. In the laboratory, psychologists flashed different images or words to his left and right visual fields. Arjun could easily speak the names of items that were flashed to his right visual field. He could not easily speak the names of items that were flashed to this left visual field. Arjun was studied by a researcher for many years, and his experiences went unchanged. The researcher published the research with Arjun where he shared Arjun’s experience and his first and last name.

Which of the following parts of the brain was severed to address Arjun’s epileptic seizures?

Corpus Callosum

Below is a transcript of a case study about an individual named Arjun.

Arjun was diagnosed with epilepsy and struggled with seizures regularly. After trying multiple unsuccessful treatments, his neurologist recommended surgery that severed the connections between the two hemispheres of the brain. Arjun agreed to the surgery.

After surgery, Arjun experienced changes that were noticed during special testing in a laboratory setting by a researcher. In the laboratory, psychologists flashed different images or words to his left and right visual fields. Arjun could easily speak the names of items that were flashed to his right visual field. He could not easily speak the names of items that were flashed to this left visual field. Arjun was studied by a researcher for many years, and his experiences went unchanged. The researcher published the research with Arjun where he shared Arjun’s experience and his first and last name.

Which of the following parts of the brain allowed Arjun to speak the names of the items flashed to his right visual field?

Broca’s Area

Below is a transcript of a case study about an individual named Arjun.

Arjun was diagnosed with epilepsy and struggled with seizures regularly. After trying multiple unsuccessful treatments, his neurologist recommended surgery that severed the connections between the two hemispheres of the brain. Arjun agreed to the surgery.

After surgery, Arjun experienced changes that were noticed during special testing in a laboratory setting by a researcher. In the laboratory, psychologists flashed different images or words to his left and right visual fields. Arjun could easily speak the names of items that were flashed to his right visual field. He could not easily speak the names of items that were flashed to this left visual field. Arjun was studied by a researcher for many years, and his experiences went unchanged. The researcher published the research with Arjun where he shared Arjun’s experience and his first and last name.

Which of the following ethical procedures did the researcher neglect when they published the research with Arjun?

Confidentiality

Much of the research regarding the function of brain areas has been gathered from case studies of individuals with brain injury or disease. Which of the following identifies a reason for this?

The independent variable in an experiment would inflict brain injury, which is unethical.

Which of the following activities most directly relies on the hippocampus?

Memorizing the layout of a neighborhood

Professor Janeja is studying which brain regions are involved in learning to correctly navigate a maze task. She randomly assigns half of a group of mice to get a lesion in one area of the brain. The other half does not get a lesion. Based on the following graph, where in the brain is the most likely site of the lesion?

The hippocampus

Researchers asked subjects to complete various activities and documented the lobe of the cerebral cortex activated for each one. The results are stated in the table.

Which of the following is the lobe most likely represented by the activity in “Lobe C”?

Temporal Lobe

Which of the following best describes a major role of the thalamus?

It relays most sensory signals to the cortex.

A researcher discovered a chemical compound that seems to slow down the heart rate of monkeys by targeting an area of the medulla. The researcher believes that the compound could help reduce the symptoms associated with panic disorder. Which of the following is the appropriate next step for the researcher to take after developing the compound into a new drug?

Apply to an institutional review board (IRB) to begin animal trials for the drug.

The parietal lobe is most involved in which of the following processes?

processing sensory information

Researchers conducted an experiment on baboons by inserting a wire into the reticular activating system (RAS) that produced a mild electrical current. The researchers stimulated the RAS while the baboons were performing different tasks. Which of the following operational definitions would be most easily replicated by other researchers trying to duplicate the experiment?

The baboons’ heart rates were measured by a monitor attached to their chest before and after the RAS was stimulated.

Which of the following is a testable hypothesis using operational definitions about people who have undergone split-brain surgery to help control severe epilepsy?

Split-brain patients will not be able to name an object placed in their left visual field.

An institutional review board (IRB) rejected a proposal for research where participants requesting to lesion Wernicke’s Area in otherwise healthy individuals to study the resulting speech comprehension issues. Which of the following is the most likely ethical consideration for rejecting the study?

Protection from Harm