psych100 exam 1

pyschology is most accurately defined as the

scientific study of thought and behavior

a psychologist conducts research on ways to improve employee satisfaction in the workplace. which type of psychologist are they most likely to be?

an industrial-organizational psychologist

which of the following would be considered a social factor within the biopsychosocial model that might contribute to our understanding of a person’s behavior

peer influences

____ is the view that using logic and reason is the way to understand how the world works

rationalism

ava makes a prediction that if she stops exposing the rats in her study to artificial light that they will then adopt a reliable sleep/wake cycle of exactly 24 hours. Ava’s prediction is more generally referred to as a(n)

hypothesis

what type of correlation relationship does this graph depict?

strong positive correlation between variable x and variable y

a student is interested in conducting a research study in which they want to measure intelligence. to get an intelligence score for each participant hey planned to wrap a tape measure around each participants’ score, and the measurement, in inches, would be that person’s intelligence. the student’s advisors tells them that this is a bad idea because _____.

head circumference is not a valid measure of intelligence

we should conduct research studies to understand the world around us rather than solely rely on our observations. which of the following is a reason why we need to be cautious when relying on our observations to draw more broad based conclusions?

our observations are based on a limited sample and might not reflect the broader population

the _____ is the only kind of research study in which the researcher can infer that a causal relationship exists between the variables being studies

experiment

a(n) ___ is a small segment of DNA that contains information for producing protein(s)

gene

which of the following statements is true about epigenetics?

Epigenetics involves the expression of a gene being influenced by experiences and/or environmental factors

___ are the neurons that pick up on information received from the outside world - for example, from your tongue and ears

sensory neuron

chemical x has a similar molecular structure to neurotransmitter Y, so it binds to neurotransmitter Y’s receptor sites. chemical x is so much like neurotransmitter Y that it even takes over its functioning. chemical x would be classified as a(n):

agonist

___ are the chemical messengers that travel from one neuron to the next to tell it to fire.

neurotransmitters

the ___ of a neuron is the part of the cell that is responsible for receiving the chemical messengers that are released by nearby neurons

dendrite

the brain and spinal cord are part of the ___

central nervous system

dimitri wants to raise his hand to answer a question in class. which portion of the nervous system would likely be connected to the muscles in his arm to control this movement?

somatic nervous system

in this diagram, which brain structure would be responsible for higher order executive functions like problem solving, impulse control, and decision-making

part a

the part of your brain that is responsible for controlling your heart rate, blood pressure, and respiration rate ___

medulla

the part of your brain that is responsible for regulating your sleep-wake cycles is the 

reticular formation

if researchers lesion (cut or destroy) the amygdala of a cat, what would be the likely result?

the cat will show no fear

all of the following about the parts of the brain that we described as the “older” brain structures are true EXCEPT:

they are the first to deteriorate in old age

the ___ is the part of your brain that would detect if your blood pH were out of range and send a signal to the ___ in order to regulate it

hypothalamus; pituitary gland

the cells that are responsible for making the blood-brain barrier as well as nourishing, and supporting the neurons are the:

glial cells

the brain is plastic, meaning that it has the ability to reorganize and change itself. one way in which it can potentially do this by forming new dendrites. this process is known as

arborization

our awareness of ourselves and environment is referred to as: 

consciousness 

studies in the field of cognitive neuroscience have demonstrated which of the following in a patient who was minimally conscious?

the areas of the brain that an uncommunicative person uses to imagine doing a task are the same as the brain areas a conscious person uses to imagine those same tasks

according to the global workspace theory, which of the following statements about consciousness is true?

it states that consciousness is an all-or-none phenomenon and that a person will be fully conscious of whatever they are attending to

according to threaded cognition theory, attending to more than one thing at a time will be difficult if

when tasks use the same mental resources and compete for access to the workspaces of consciousness

which of the following statements best described the phenomenon of a flow state?

the sense of losing track of time being engrosses in an activity

your cousin is attending a get-together where she has to struggle to listen to a conversation with her colleague due to a lot of background noise. however, her ears prick up as soon as she hears her name being mentioned by someone in another part of the room and, consequently, she loses the thread of conversation with her colleague. which of the following terms best described the experience your cousin has?

the cocktail party effect

you are visually scanning a crowd, trying to find your friend wearing green and orange striped shirt. while you are doing that, a robber runs through the crowd with police chasing after, but you don’t see this happen. you have just experienced

inattentional blindness 

which of the following best describes the results of studies that have been conducted using continuous performance tasks?

all participants start to show degraded performance after about 5-7 minutes of performing the task and performance is very poor after about 15 minutes

an organism becomes referred to as an embryo when

it becomes attached to the uterine wall

the sense that is least well developed in the rectus is

vision

according to piaget, children come to understand that the volume of a substance remains constants despite changes in its shape during the ___ stage.

concrete operational

studies of monkeys raised with artificial mothers suggest that mother-infant emotional bonds result primarily from mothers providing infants with

body contact

__ is a reflex in which infants will turn their head in search of food when they feel something brush up against their cheek

rooting

according to the strange-situation experiment conducted by Mary Ainsworth, ___ infants often show little to no distress in separation episodes, and when the mother returns, the infants tend to ignore and avoid her, focusing instead on something else in the room

insecure-avoidant

researchers have discovered that the midlife transition between early and middle adulthood is characterized by unusually high levels of

anxiety and emotional instability

according to erik erikson’s theory of social development adolescents who experience ___ are unsure of who they are and want to be

role confusion

aerobic exercise programs during late adulthood stimulate improvement in

memory