AP PSYCH MID TERM

kms

What term describes the after-image effect and how we cannot simultaneously detect opposing colors such as red and green, blue and yellow, or black and white?

Opponent-process theory

What term describes feeling discomfort over getting close to others and using evading strategies to maintain distance?

Insecure avoidant attachment

What process requires ten times the brainpower devoted to hearing and uses 30% of the cortex?

Facial recognition

Respectively, what term describes the bushy, branching extensions of a neuron that receive messages and conduct impulses toward the cell body and what term describes an extension of a neuron, ending in branching terminal fibers, through which messages pass to other neurons or to muscles?

Dendrite, axon

As the years pass, what type of memory begins to decline, especially for meaningless information, but what type of memory remains strong?

Recall, recognition

Approximately how many times larger is a woman's mature egg than that of one of the 200 million sperm released by a male?

85,000

What term describes people's ideas about their own and other's feelings, perceptions, and thoughts and the behaviors these might predict?

Theory of mind

Long pauses, fast talking, hesitations, few examples, rise in voice, answering a question with a question, and lack of eye contact are all indicators of what?

lies

Most of today's psychologists view what is neither willfully chosen nor willfully changed, is not environmentally influenced, and is our enduring sexual attraction toward members of our own sex, the other sex, or both sexes?

Sexual orientation

Jean Piaget, who revolutionized our understanding of children's minds and believed our minds develop through a series of stages, assigned what term to the idea that our mind develops by the building of concepts that organize and interpret information?

Schema

What we see as visible light is just a thin slice of the whole spectrum of what type of energy, ranging from short gamma waves to long radio transmission waves?

Electromagnetic

Respectively, what term describes an 8 month-old child's emerging ability to evaluate people as unfamiliar and possibly threatening and what term describes a 12 month-old child's powerful survival impulse that keeps them close to their caregivers?

Stranger anxiety, attachment

Short of abstinence, what is the surest strategy for preventing pregnancy and greatly decreasing bacterial STIs and HIV?

Condoms

As a child's brain develops, what grows more numerous and complex?

Neural connections

In what two respective stages of Piaget's stages of cognitive development do children represent things with words but lack logical reasoning, while in another stage they can think logically about concrete things?

Preoperational, concrete operational

What term describes the process by which our sensory receptors and nervous system receive stimulus energies from our environment?

Sensation

What system comprises our peripheral nervous system?

Somatic nervous system and autonomic nervous system

What term describes nerve cells in the brain that respond to specific features of the stimulus, such as shape, angle or movement

Feature detectors

Which disease progresses faster with stress and has become the world's fourth leading cause of death?

Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS)

What term describes a cognitive process that does not blindly accept arguments and conclusions?

Critical thinking

What term describes a period of life that starts at the beginning of sexual maturity and ends with the social achievement of independent adult status?

Adolsecence

Children tend to adopt the cultural styles, accents, slang, and attitudes from whom?

Peers

Respectively, what term describes a procedure where the participant as well as the research assistant collecting data does not know who is receiving treatment and what term describes the effect a participant might have on a study if they have symptom relief because they think they are receiving treatment?

Double-blind, placebo effect

What term is also known as the "I knew it all along phenomenon"?

Hindsight bias

What affects cancer growth by weakening the body's natural defenses against a few proliferating, malignant cells?

Stress

What do researchers aim to test by intentionally creating controlled, artificial environments in the lab?

Theoretical principles

For those with individual brains, when a person performs a perceptual task, activity increases in which hemisphere of the brain?

Right

What term describes the brain's ability to change especially during childhood by reorganizing after damage or by building new pathways based on experience?

Plasticity

What term describes the process of organizing and interpreting sensory information, enabling recognition of meaningful events?

Perception

What term describes our ability to perceive an object as having a constant lightness even when the light cast upon it changes?

Brightness constancy

The overriding principle that "everything \__________ is simultaneously biological" leads us to further explore the significance of the biological revolution.

Psychological

You see with what as much as you see with your eyes?

Brain

Of these two monocular descriptions, what term describes parallel lines that appear to converge with the distance and what term describes that nearby objects reflect more light to our eyes?

Linear perspective, light and shadow

What is the starting point of any science?

Description

The knowledge of physiological and psychological processes of what gives researchers a better understanding of the similar biological processes of humans?

Mice and dogs

When adolescents achieve the intellectual summit Jean Piaget called what, they apply abstract reasoning tools to the world around them and may think about what is ideally possible and compare it to their imperfect reality?

Formal operational

What term describes the acquisition of a traditional masculine or feminine role?

Gender typing

What term describes science that aims to increase the scientific knowledge base?

Basic research

Once we have formed a wrong perception about reality, we then have more difficulty seeing what?

Reality, truth

While men are attracted to women with youthful appearances, women are attracted to men who seem mature, dominant, bold, and affluent because it connotes a capacity to be a good dad and to do what?

Support and protect

What term describes a resting period after orgasm, during which a man cannot achieve another orgasm?

Refractory period

What term describes a person's sense of being male or female?

Gender identity

What term enables us to estimate an object's distance from us and also see an object in three dimensions even though the image that strikes the retina is in two dimensions?

Depth perception

What is a motive in the reading that reveals the interplay between a physiological "push" (nature) and a cognitive or cultural "pull" (nurture)?

All answers are correct

What is the most persistent issue of modern psychology?

Nature verses nurture

What triggers a pruning process, in which unused pathways weaken and heavily used ones strengthen?

Experiences

What term states that for an average person to perceive a difference, two stimuli must differ by a constant minimum percentage, not a constant minimum amount?

Weber's law

Respectively, what organ's response to hunger is to secrete insulin which opens cell doors and lets glucose (blood sugar) in where the cells then convert it into energy to use right then or store it to use later and what part of the brain performs various body maintenance functions due to blood vessels allowing it to respond to our current blood chemistry?

Pancreas, hypothalamus

What term describes a scientific study that aims to solve practical problems?

Applied research

What is one of the oldest research methods and hopes to reveal universal principles, but can mislead us with atypical people?

Case study

What seems mostly to have strengthened our connections with people we already know but can also decrease neighborliness and be a gigantic time- and attention-sucking diversion?

Social networking

What is the emotional control center shortcut that bypasses the cortex and enables our lightning quick emotional response and makes it easier for our feelings to overrule our thinking?

Amygdala

What type of siblings are the most behaviorally similar in their outgoingness and emotional instability?

Identical twins (monozygotic)

What term does not describe how you feel about who you are, but does describe the understanding of who you are and answers the question, "who am I?"

Self-concept

There is no major impact of maternal employment on children's development as long as what is consistent with warm relationships and based on trust?

Childcare

What term describes the study of how psychological, neural, and endocrine processes together affect the immune system and resulting health?

Psychoneuroimmunology

What is less a set of findings than a way of asking and answering questions?

Psychology

Our flawed intuition and after-the-fact common sense makes things seem so obvious that we become very what?

Overconfident

Most people incorrectly presume that what declines in late adulthood despite evidence showing older adults have enhanced emotional control, are more attentive to positive news, have fewer problematic social relationships, and experience less anger, stress, and worry?

Happiness

What term describes high-level mental processes that construct perceptions by filtering information through our experience and expectations?

Top-down processing

The brain's wrinkled cerebral cortex and underlying cerebrum, which together encompass 85% of the brain's weight, would be roughly the size of what if flattened?

A large pizza

What term describes that the right and left hemisphere of the brain regulate different functions?

Lateralization

What pragmatic Harvard professor admitted Mary Calkins in 1890 into his class which caused all the other students to drop?

William James

What is the approximate size of mature egg released by a woman's ovary?

A period

What term describes an automatic inborn response to a sensory stimulus but is not a spontaneous response?

Reflex

What is the female sex hormone that directs physical development during puberty and slightly increases sexual drive during ovulation?

Estrogen

What type of wavelength would describe bluish colors or high-pitched sounds?

Short wavelength

Respectively, what is your body's way of telling you that something has gone wrong and what is an especially effective way to activate pain-inhibiting circuits and increase your tolerance of physical suffering?

Pain, distraction

What term describes a person who provides psychotherapy and can prescribe drugs to treat psychological disorders?

Psychiatrists

Psychiatrists

Aggression

What term describes the idea that we learn social behaviors by observing and imitating and by being rewarded and punished?

Social learning theory

What is a predictor of teens who delay the initiation of sex?

All answers are correct

Respectively, what transfers nutrients, oxygen, and harmful agents from the mother to the fetus and what term describes chemicals and viruses that can reach the fetus during prenatal development and cause harm?

Placenta, teratogens

What term describes the developing human organism from two weeks after fertilization through the 2nd month?

Embryo

Including the adjustment period and the time when he was comfortable in his surroundings, how long did psychologist Stratton wear optical headgear that made him the first to experience right side up retinal images?

8 days

What term describes a statement of exact procedures used in a research study?

Operational definitions

Respectively, what term describes the distance from one wave peak to the next wave peak and determines the hue (color) we experience and what term describes the number of complete wavelengths that can pass a point in a given time?

Wavelength, frequency

What principle describes the relationship between arousal and performance and suggested that moderate arousal leads to optimal performance?

Yerkes-Dodson law

Which Greek philosopher foreshadowed later thinkers who believed nurture shapes us more than nature?

Aristotle

Researcher Hall discerned that women generally surpass men at reading what?

Emotional cues

Short-lived stressors can motivate us to conquer problems and have other positive effects if they are perceived as what?

Challenge

Respectively, what division of the autonomic nervous system arouses us for action and is also measured by a lie detector and what division of the autonomic nervous system calms the body and conserves its energy?

Sympathetic nervous system, parasympathetic nervous system

Name in the following order the three functions of the cerebral cortex that controls voluntary movements, registers body sensations, and is involved in higher mental functions?

Motor cortex, somatosensory cortex, association areas

Researcher Vaillant's conclusion after longitudinally studying 238 men for over 70 years was, "the only thing that really matters in life is your \______________."

Relationships

Of these two monocular descriptions, what term describes that we perceive objects higher in our field of vision as farther away and what term describes that as we move, objects that are actually stationary may appear to move?

Relative height, relative motion

What term would explain why fMRI scans show that teen drivers talking or texting on cell phones have a 37% decrease in brain activity in areas vital to driving?

Selective attention

Despite the reality that the level of arousal for optimal performance varies for different tasks, we usually perform best when we experience what level of arousal?

Moderate

What neuroimaging technique reveals blood flow and, therefore, brain function?

functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI)

What comprises the central nervous system?

Brain, spinal cord

What term describes the gap between the lowest and the highest scores?

range

What term describes the processing of several aspects of a problem simultaneously and contrasts with the step-by-step processing of most computers and of conscious problem solving?

Parallel processing

What type of wavelength and amplitude would describe dull reddish colors or low-pitched soft sounds?

Long wavelength, small amplitude

Respectively, what term describes stimuli below one's absolute threshold for conscious awareness and what type of an effect does subliminal sensation have on our behavior?

Subliminal, subtle

The retina is actually a piece of what that migrates to the eye during early fetal development?

Brain

In what two respective stages of Piaget's stages of cognitive development do children experience the world through the senses and experience stranger anxiety while in the other stage they can be abstract?

Sensorimotor, formal operational

What term describes a set of mental tendencies and assumptions that greatly affects (top-down) what we perceive and can influence what we hear, taste, feel, and see?

Perceptual set

What term describes our diminished sensitivity to an unchanging stimulus?

Sensory adaptation

Several studies have confirmed that sensitive mothers and fathers tend to have children who display what type of attachment?

Secure attachment

Selye's General Adaptation Syndrome (GAS) is the body's adaptive response to stress and is comprised of what three stages?

Alarm, resistance, exhaustion

The quote, "knowledge has modified attitudes, and through them, behavior" illustrates that psychology can transform modern what?

Culture