KSA Exam 2

People are good at multi-tasking.

False

Reinforcement tends to work more efficiently at shaping behavior than punishment. 

True

Neural connections can build with different experiences. 

True

The prefrontal cortex fully develops at age 13. 

False

Negative correlations mean that two variables have no relationship. 

False

Random assignment is necessary to show cause-effect relationships.

True

Placebos only work if people do not know they are taking a placebo. 

False

When would an Institutional Review Board allow researchers to study false memories?

If the benefits of false memory research to society outweigh the risks to participants

A parent is considering implanting a false memory in their child that they all went to Disney World when the child was very young. However, the parent decides not to because they want to foster trust with their child. 

Fidelity and Responsibility

In the past, it was originally thought that people could hold _________numbers in short term memory. This was known as Miller's Magic Number. 

5 to 9

What type of memory is memory for facts, such that your course instructor's name is Dr. Naufel?

Semantic

Which of the following is true about attention?

Attention is limited. People can only focus well on one task at a time. 

Which of the following best describes change blindness?

Not noticing subtle changes in the environment

In psychology or medicine, what is the double-blind (aka the double-masked) procedure?

When both the researcher and participant do not know who is in what condition.

Which neurotransmitter has been associated most closely with Parkinson's disease?

Dopamine

Which part of the brain is the takes input and relays sensory information to the cortexes?

Thalamus

When Neuron X is stimulated, it sends the signal to stop firing. What type of neuron is Neuron X?

Inhibitory

What part of the brain helps the two hemispheres communicate?

Corpus Callosum

Which of the following is paired correctly?

parietal lobe - sensation

When, or if, a research project uses a sample that is not representative of the population of interest, the project would have a(n) ____________.

sampling bias

What is the critical role of the medulla?

Breathing, blood pressure, heartbeat

Which brain structure is primarily responsible for coordinating body movement?

Cerebellum

What is the primary role of the amygdala as described in the text?

Emotions, especially those associated with fear and aggression

Diphenhydramine (Benadryl) is classified as a first-generation antihistamine, but its use is strongly discouraged in older adults, particularly those with existing cognitive issues. This caution is primarily due to its action as an antagonist to which critical neurotransmitter associated with memory?

Acetylcholine

A new drug acts as an agonist to dopamine. What will it likely do?

Increase feelings of reward

What is transduction?

The process of converting physical signals into ones the brain can use.

What type of study was conducted in this scenario? 

Experiment

What is the independent variable in this study?

Type of view (free view or given instructions)

Sympathetic nervous system activation

Hart rate is increasing

Below is a graph of the results. What can be concluded from the study?

Viewing instructions led to more interest than free viewing art

A team of cognitive psychologists uses functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) to measure brain activity in 40 participants while they perform a difficult problem-solving task. The researchers observe a strong, significant negative correlation between the speed with which participants complete the task and the overall activity measured in the prefrontal cortex (PFC).

What is the most accurate conclusion the researchers can draw from this finding?

There is a relationship between task speed and PFC activity, but causation cannot be determined from this study.

You read a news article “Eating Chocolate Improves Mood.” After reading the article, you conclude that eating chocolate caused mood to improve. This article must have discussed how scientists __________.

Randomly assigned people to either eat chocolate or not, and then measured their mood.

Which of the following statements most accurately reflects the methodological strengths and limitations of the case study regarding H. M.?

The use of a case study makes the findings highly detailed but difficult to generalize to the broader population.

If a person took nicotine, a drug that was an agonist for acetylcholine, what would happen?

Memory would likely improve (temporarily).

Antidepressants known as Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors prevent serotonin from being pumped back into the terminal button. Does this make SSRIs an antagonist or agonist to serotonin?

Agonist

A scientist reviews the article, and notices that the double masked procedure was not used. The scientist wonders if the experimenter interacted with the parents that cued them how to respond. The scientist is concerned about _____.

Agonist

An employee has a phone ringtone that sounds like a duck quack. The employee's boss only calls to yell at the employee. Over time, the employee develops a fear and sympathetic nervous system response (e.g., increased heart rate, anxiety) not only to the phone but also to the sound of real ducks quacking.
In this scenario, what is the conditional stimulus (CS)?

The duck quack phone ring.

In this scenario, what is the conditional stimulus (CR)?

The feeling of fear and sympathetic nervous system activation to ducks quacking.

In this scenario, what is the unconditional stimulus (CR)?

The employee's boss yelling.

The employee's sympathetic nervous system also goes off when he hears real ducks quack, even though the employee was not conditioned to fear the real ducks. What is this phenomenon called?

Stimulus generalization

What is the most direct method, based on classical conditioning principles, to get the employee to stop being scared of the duck quack?

Repeatedly present the duck quack (CS) without the boss yelling (UCS).

magine that the size of structures within people's brains grow as skills are developed. What part of the brain would a gymnast, who uses balance and coordination, be unusually large?

Cerebellum

A construction foreperson wants their workers to wear hard hats for safety. Which of the following reinforcement contingencies would most likely result in workers wearing hard hats?

Praising workers when they wear their hard hats

Suppose that a person took an antagonist for dopamine. What would likely happen?

The feeling of reward would decrease.

Which fictitious drug most likely would be used to treat hallucinations for schizophrenia?

Drug R: Acts as an antagonist to dopamine

Imagine that a person is always rewarded for reading a book. They read a book, get reward. Read a book, get rewarded.  One day, the rewards cease. Then, the person stops reading. What happened?

Extinction

Consider research on neural plasticity (rats growing up in a rich vs. impoverished environments). If you were to apply this research to creating a child development center, which of the following things would you include?

Lots of opportunities for social interaction and thought stimulation

A zombie wants to regain the ability to create new, conscious memories. What should the zombie order?

Hippocampus Cobb Salad

A zombie wants to plan for the future and think about consequences of their actions.   What should the zombie order?

Frontal lobe fish

Which of the following is the BEST example of change blindness?

Amira is watching television. She doesn't notice that the reporter switches his outfit mid report

Which of the following methods is a way help a person be more efficient work?

Reduce distractions

Radiologists and novices are told to look for nodules in X-rays. Hidden within the X-rays is a picture of a gorilla. According to the principles of attention, what is most likely to happen?

The radiologist will be focused on looking for nodules, so they will miss the gorilla.

Dr. Naufel tells students to make flashcards of personal examples of terms (rather than definitions). Which of the following concepts explains why this flashcard strategy helps students learn?

Self-referent effect

According to deep vs. shallow level of processing, which question would lead to the best memory of the word “time”?

Is it something you want more of?

Which of the following treatments is available without a prescription in some states in order to reduce the number of deaths due to opiod overdoses?

Narcan

Some members of the American Bar Association question if it is ethical to try adolescents as adults in court because the brain part in charge of delaying gratification and thinking about consequences of their actions is not fully developed. 

What brain part is this?

Prefrontal cortex

Ethically, people must consent to receiving one of these "sugar pills" in medicine–even though they do not have an effect.  What are these "sugar pills" called?

Placebos

A person considers it unethical to purposefully implant false memories in children so that they eat healthier. They noted that it is a form of lying, and not being honest. 

Which principle is the person considering? Choose the best answer. 

Integrity