AP Psych Study Guide - Unit 1

Which of the following is true of a neuron in the resting state?

(A) The inside of the cell membrane is negative compared to the outside

One-year-old Marcus turns away in disgust if a bitter substance is placed on his tongue. The reason for such a reaction is most likely

(A) an inborn distaste for bitter that protects us from potential poisons in the environment

In their discussions of the process of development, the advocates of nature in the nature-nurture controversy emphasize which of the following?

(C) Maturation

A survey shows that children who have encyclopedias in their home environment earn better grades in school than children whose homes lack encyclopedias. The researcher concludes that having encyclopedias in the home environment improves grades. Which of the following explains why the researcher has reached an erroneous conclusion?

(D) She inferred causation from correlation.

A researcher from which of the following psychological perspectives would most likely be interested in examining this relationship?

(C) Evolutionary

Of the following, an evolutionary psychologist will most likely investigate the

(C) reason why many people have an innate fear of the dark

Which of the following findings provides the strongest evidence for the role of heredity in intellectual performance?

(B) Identical twins reared apart have more similar intelligence test scores than do fraternal twins reared together.

Based on the bar graph above, which of the following conclusions is most accurate?

(D) The more genetically related people are, the more similar their intelligence scores.

Which of the following is the best evidence that environment plays a role in intelligence?

(A) Identical twins reared together are more similar than identical twins reared apart.

Darrin is watching a horror movie. When the evil main character makes a surprise appearance, Darrin jumps out of his seat, his heart rate accelerates, and he screams. Which of the following pathways most directly contributes to his ability to calm down after this startle response?

(D) The parasympathetic nervous system

The division of the nervous system that most directly allows voluntary muscle movement is the

(D) somatic

Nervousness can result in faster and more shallow breathing as well as a racing heart. This is due to activation of the

(C) sympathetic nervous system

Which of the following is a parasympathetic nervous system response?

(C) Increased digestion

A common psychological effect of alcohol intake is

(A) reduced inhibition

Johanna, a high school senior, starts experiencing disruptions in her movement when she cannot contract certain muscles. Which of the following neurotransmitters is most likely involved in this disruption of the muscle contraction?

(A) Acetylcholine

In terms of the effect on the central nervous system, alcohol is most accurately classified as which of the following types of drug?

(A) Depressant

Richard is in a substance abuse treatment center because of his addiction to stimulants. He is experiencing withdrawal symptoms, so he drinks several large caffeinated sodas throughout the day to curb his symptoms. Caffeine is in the same class as which of the following drugs?

(C) Cocaine

Which of the following is the correct sequence of the reflex arc of events set in motion by an environmental stimulus?

(A) Receptors, sensory neurons, interneurons, motor neurons

Curare blocks action at acetylcholine synapses and causes paralysis. This drug is an example of an

(A) antagonist

Mrs. Downing is 80 years old and lives in an assisted living facility. She often stops speaking in the middle of sentences because she can't remember the topic being discussed. She also tries on most days to leave the facility so she can get home to cook dinner for her family. The depletion of which of the following neurotransmitters is most closely associated with the symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease that Mrs. Downing is likely experiencing?

(B) Acetylcholine

Dopamine, norepinephrine, and acetylcholine are all

(D) neurotransmitters that excite or inhibit a neural signal across a synapse

When a person is suffering from severe pain, the type of drug that will best help alleviate that pain is

(A) an opiate

Betty was just diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. Which of the following effects is she most likely to experience?

(D) Neural messages will travel slowly down the axon, leading to motor impairment.

Banya is taking an AP Psychology class where his teacher gives short quizzes for each unit. During the unit on biological bases of behavior, Banya earned the following quiz scores: 2, 3, 17, 10, 2, 3, 8, 2, 7 What is the mode of the set of scores above?

(A) 2

Shao Mae takes medication to relieve depression. The medication increases her neural activity. However, immediately after firing, a neuron is incapable of responding to stimulation for a short time. Which of the following describes the brief time period when the neuron is unable to fire?

(C) the refractory period

Information is relayed to the spinal cord or the brain by which of the following?

(A) sensory neurons

Juana accidentally touched a hot iron. She immediately drew back her hand. Which of the following is true about the withdrawal of her hand?

(B) It was initiated in the spinal cord.

Mary participates in an exercise program because she experiences an increase in energy and feelings of well-being at the end of each exercise session. The best explanation for Mary’s perseverance in the program is that exercise

(D) increases her level of endorphins

When excitatory neurotransmitters stimulate a single neuron, the neuron

(A) becomes more likely to produce an action potential

Which of the following descriptions accurately represents area 2 of the graph?

(D) Depolarization, in which sodium ions enter the axon

Which of the following circumstances would most likely lead to a person experiencing an increased feeling of love?

(D) A sudden increase in levels of oxytocin

Pierce had surgery and was prescribed a painkiller that mimicked endorphins in his body. He experienced some intense, uncomfortable pain for a day or two after he was finished taking his medicine as prescribed. Pierce's painful experience associated with termination of the use of an addictive substance is known as which of the following?

(C) withdrawal

A researcher is exploring the effectiveness of a new drug that works as an agonist to the neurotransmitter acetylcholine. A research design involves two randomly assigned groups of participants. One group receives a onetime treatment, and the other does not. Later, the two groups are compared to see whether the treatment had an effect. Psychologists call this kind of research which of the following?

(B) An experiment

A researcher is studying the effect of caffeinated drinks on the activity level of ten-year-old children. Half of the children in the study drank caffeinated soda, and half drank noncaffeinated soda. Neither the research team nor the children knew which drinks had caffeine and which drinks did not. The researchers were using

(D) a double-blind design

Reuptake of a neurotransmitter refers to

(B) absorption of the neurotransmitter into the terminal buttons of the sending neuron

Which of the following statements best describes the placebo effect

(A) Dr. Kennedy observed that if people expected a treatment to work, it would, even if the patient received a fake treatment.

Dr. Nance studies the effects of psychoactive drugs on memory and decision-making. When conducting research in this area, Dr. Nance must be sure that people's previous experiences with psychoactive drugs are taken into account. Which of the following procedures is intended to control for preexisting differences between the groups of participants in an experiment?

(C) Random assignment

Which of the following neurotransmitters has been most associated with major depressive disorder?

(C) Serotonin

Significant damage to which of the following parts of the brain will most likely cause a person to fall into a deep coma from which the person will be unable to awaken?

(C) Reticular formation

In which lobes of the brain should Dr. Cruickshank expect to see activity when subjects process the sounds of the vocabulary words?

(B) Temporal lobes

At six months of age, Byrne underwent the surgical removal of the entire left hemisphere of her brain. Which of the following concepts explains the recovery of her primary functions following such surgery?

(A) Brain plasticity

A brain tumor that results in obesity would most likely be located in the

(B) area of the hypothalamus

A person with damage to Broca's area would most likely demonstrate which of the following symptoms?

(D) Difficulty with speech production

The area of the brain stem that is important in controlling breathing is the

(C) medulla

Brain damage that leaves a person capable of understanding speech but with an impaired ability to produce speech most likely indicates injury to which of the following?

(C) Broca’s area

A team of investigators discovered that taxi drivers who had memorized all the streets in their city had a larger hippocampus than bus drivers who did not have the streets memorized. This type of difference between these two groups most likely reflects

(A) brain plasticity

While reviewing scores from a test on contralateral hemispheric lateralization, a teacher discovered that the mean score was higher than the median. Which of the following statements is most likely correct?

(D) The distribution of scores for the test is positively skewed.

Damage to which of the following brain structures may cause the inability to detect the emotional significance of facial expressions, especially those demonstrating fear?

(D) Amygdala

Damage to a small part of the occipital lobe would most likely result in a

(B) visual deficit

Damage to Wernicke’s area is most likely to be associated with difficulty in

(C) understanding language

A participant in a study of music perception listens to music with electrodes attached to her scalp while data are collected on the activity of her brain. This technique is called

(A) electroencephalography (EEG)

Research on environmental enrichment and the brain suggests that the environment

(A) influences both brain structure and functioning throughout the life span

In the figure above, a patient has been asked to draw a slash through each circle. The pattern of responses suggests that the patient has most likely experienced damage in which of the following areas?

(D) Right hemisphere

A person with a severe head injury subsequently acts irresponsibly, does not seem to be able to plan effectively, and is easy to anger. Which of the following brain areas is most likely injured?

(D) Frontal lobe

An image projected to the left visual field of a split-brained person will be processed in the

(B) right visual cortex

A research team lesioned the lateral hypothalamus of a rat and then monitored the rat’s activity when it recovered from the surgery. Their hypothesis is likely to be that the rat would do which of the following?

(C) Show reduced eating behavior

If an individual has lost the ability to feel pain in the left arm, there is most likely damage to what area of the brain?

(C) Right parietal lobe

The network of structures involved in emotion, motivation, and memory is the

(A) limbic system

The right occipital lobe receives visual information from the

(D) right half of both retinas

Dr. Wundt gave his students an exam on the functions of different parts of the brain, and the average score was an 85. However, when Dr. Wundt calculated the standard deviation, it was a value of 35.2. This concerns Dr. Wundt because he knows that standard deviation is a measure of how much

(C) scores in a group differ from the mean of that group

Stimulation of portions of the left temporal lobe of the brain during surgery will cause the patient to

(D) hear sounds

The pituitary gland is controlled by the

(D) hypothalamus

After a stroke, Jeff has noticed his memory for past events remains good, but it is very difficult for him to remember new events like what movie he just watched. It is most likely that Jeff suffered damage to which part of the brain?

(D) Hippocampus

For most people, which of the following is an activity based in the right hemisphere of the brain?

(A) Simple spatial reasoning

Darnell is trying to decide which college to attend. Which of the following parts of the brain is most active in decision-making?

(D) Cerebral cortex

What is the independent variable in this study?

(A) The use or nonuse of the CPAP device by participants

Why is it necessary in this study to have at least one experimental condition and one control condition?

(C) The control condition provides a comparison to the experimental condition.

Which of the following psychological perspectives would best support a researcher’s belief that the dreams that occur in REM sleep are a result of random neural firing in the brain stem?

(D) Biological

During the night, Alicia stops breathing repeatedly, frequently gasps for air, and snores loudly at regular intervals. Alicia is most likely suffering from which of the following conditions?

(A) Sleep apnea

When Alexus traveled to another country, she experienced jet lag and had trouble adjusting to the new time zone. Alexus’ experience is most likely linked to which of the following concepts

(A) Circadian rhythm

The biological clock that operates in human beings to adjust their functioning to night-and-day periodicity is referred to as

(C) a circadian rhythm

A research group conducted a study investigating the connection between self-reported number of hours slept in a given week and scores on a happiness measure. Based on the scatterplot above, the group can report that there is

(B) a positive correlation

In adult humans, which of the following is typically true of REM sleep?

(A) It is correlated with dreaming.

Researchers find that there is a significant, positive correlation between the number of hours students sleep and their grades. The researchers would be justified in concluding that

(C) students who earn good grades tend to sleep more than those who do not

Which of the following ethical considerations was most problematic for this study?

(D) Informed consent was not given for the preteens to participate in the study.

REM sleep, generally an “active” state of sleep, is accompanied by which of the following paradoxical characteristics?

(D) Lowered muscle tone

Sally says that her dream about going to a circus is just her brain attempting to make sense of random stimulation from the brain stem. Sally’s explanation is consistent with which of the following theories of dreaming?

(D) Activation-synthesis

The graph depicts the stages of sleep, including REM sleep and NREM sleep (Stages 1, 2, and 3). The data in the graph would most likely be obtained with which of the following instruments?

(B) Electroencephalogram (EEG)

What is the mean reaction time for the group that slept 8 hours?

(A) 3 seconds