Untitled Flashcards Set

At its resting state, the inside of a neuron is more ______________ than the outside.

negatively charged

An action potential occurs when: the inside of the cell becomes ____________ and reaches its threshold, which causes a(n) ______________ reaction.

depolarized; electrical

An action potential becomes a(n) ______________ event once the _______________ is/are released into the synapse.

chemical; neurotransmitter

Muhammad Ali had trouble controlling his motor movements in the last decades of his life. He had tremors in his muscles, which made it difficult for him to walk and talk. He was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease, which means he had low levels of which neurotransmitter?

Dopamine

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The cell body that contains the nucleus, which includes DNA and other structures that support the neuron, is called the ___________.

soma

The structures that extend out from the axon and release chemicals into the space between neurons are called ___________.

terminal buttons

The neuron that secretes neurotransmitters into the synapse is called the _________, and the neuron that receives the signal is called the ________.

presynaptic neuron; postsynaptic neuron

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An antagonist can be described as a:

chemical that blocks the effects of a substance or neurotransmitter.

A study with London taxi cab drivers found that the hippocampus of their brains had greater volume, which was presumed to mean more neural connections, as a result of learning and driving new routes around the city. This finding demonstrates the concept of _________________.

synaptic plasticity

Sensory neurons carry information ________________ the central nervous system, and motor neurons carry information ______________ the central nervous system.

toward; away from

As Makelah does squats and lunges to warm her body up to play basketball, she realizes she is using which part of her peripheral nervous system?

Somatic nervous system

Keisha was brought to the ER with a bump on her head. The doctor ordered a test that consists of a series of x-rays from many different perspectives that will display a two-dimensional image of her brain. This test is called ___________.

computed tomography (CT)

This type of brain scan provides a functional assessment of the brain.

Positron emission tomography (PET)

Brett was up to bat and the pitcher threw a wild pitch hitting Brett in the back of the head. Luckily, Brett's batting helmet covered his neck protecting his ______________, which controls breathing and heartbeat.

medulla

The only lobes of the brain that touch all other lobes are the __________ lobes.

parietal

We hear with our ears, but which lobe of our brain is used to understand language?

Temporal lobe

Which structure of the limbic system is considered the center of our emotions?

Amygdala

Manny is a 15-year-old boy who has been begging his parents to let him try out for his high school football team. Manny's parents are concerned about the risk of a ________ if he plays football.

concussion

Phineas Gage became a famous case study demonstrating how damage to the ________________ can lead to significant personality changes.

prefrontal cortex

Ava has had her corpus callosum severed and is referred to as a "split brain patient." When her doctor presents an apple in her left visual field she claims she doesn't see anything. Why is this?

The left visual field is processed by the right side of the brain, which is not associated with language.

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Which part of the brain is important for forming new memories?

Hippocampus

The "split-brain" procedure involved severing the:

corpus callosum

Which of the following functions has scientific research shown to be clearly lateralized to the left hemisphere?

Language

Which of the following was an independent variable in this study?

The location of the letter string, either left or right.

Which of the following was a dependent variable in this study?

How quickly you responded to the word.

What might be a reason that a person might not see an advantage for her or his left hemisphere in this experiment?

The task was so easy that neither response time nor accuracy varied between the conditions.

Which part of the neuron improves the speed of the neural impulse?

Myelin sheath

What is the brief electrial impulse that travels down the axon called?

Action potential

At its resting state, the outside of a neuron is more ______________ than the inside of the neuron.

Positively charged

An action potential occurs when the inside of a cell becomes more __________ charged and the ___________ charge moves down the axon.

Positively; electrical

In the process of neurotransmission, the action potential causes neurotransmitters to be released from the ______________ into the _______________.

synaptic vesicles; synapse

A drug like nicotine that mimics (produces a similar biological response at the synapse) in the brain is called a(n) ______________.

agonist

When you touch a hot stove and immediately withdraw your hand, it is called a ________ and is the result of interneurons within the __________.

reflex; spinal cord

Clayton incurred a spinal cord injury, and the doctors wanted to enroll him in a clinical trial that used stem cells in the treatment. Stem cells are special because they can ______________________________.

turn into other specialized cells in the body

Tomas has been playing the piano since age 5. Throughout his adolescence, he also taught himself to play guitar, bass, and the drums. Due to his practice with musical instruments, Tomas's brain would show improved ________.

synaptic plasticity

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A doctor wants detailed pictures of the structures in a patient's brain but doesn't want to expose the patient to any radiation. What would be the best method of assessment for the doctor to use?

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)

Samson is a client in a sleep lab and is going to have his brain wave activity measured while sleeping. He will have electrodes placed all over his skull so that the test can measure his brain activity. This type of test is called ______.

electroencephalogram (EEG)

What part of the brain allows us to detect danger even below the level of conscious awareness?

Amygdala

The cerebral cortex is divided into ___________ lobes with the ____________ lobe at the back of the head.

four; occipital

Sophie has entered her first spelling bee. In addition to studying from a long list of words, she spends time planning how to psyche out her competitors on the big day. Which lobe of her brain would she primarily be using during these activities?

Frontal

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Which structure in the back of the brain is responsible for voluntary movement and coordination?

Cerebellum

Andre suffered brain damage from an accident at work. Since his accident, he seems to be unaware of his own body parts and at times unable to feel pain. Which lobe of his brain is likely to have incurred damage?

Parietal

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Yuna loves to play soccer and is an aggressive player who will head the ball as often as she can. Her parents have noticed that she has been forgetting to turn in assignments and forgetting when she is supposed to hang out with friends. They are concerned because ________________.

recent research has suggested that heading the ball can lead to memory problems.

What is the name for the band of axons that connects the right hemisphere of the brain to the left hemisphere?

Corpus callosum

For most people, language is processed in which hemisphere of the brain?

Left

What percentage of dreams occur during REM sleep?

90%

How many stages of sleep are there?

5

During N1 sleep, we often experience __________.

hypnic jerks or muscle movements

Random bursts of electrical activity during N2 sleep are known as ________.

sleep spindles

The largest, slowest waves, known as delta waves, occur during which stage of sleep?

N3

The _________________________ refers to the least amount of a stimulus that can be detected at least 50 percent of the time.

absolute threshold

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The absolute threshold refers to:

the smallest amount of a stimulus necessary for a person to detect it at least 50% of the time

Karen is asked to look at two spots of light and judge which one gets brighter over time. Both spots start out at 100 units of brightness. She notices that the right spot is brighter when it is 110 units. If she is presented with two new spots of light both starting at 300 units, how much brighter will one have to get before she will be able to reliably detect the difference?

30 units

Joey participated in a marketing study where he watched pictures flashed on a screen. In between each of the random pictures, a message saying "Eat Granola Bars" flashed so quickly that he was not consciously aware that he saw it. The researchers offered a variety of snacks at the end of the study and were interested to see which snack(s) Joey picked. Joey chose to eat a granola bar. In this study, __________ represents subliminal perception and _____________ represents subliminal persuasion.

unconsciously processing the message "Eat Granola Bars"; choosing to eat a granola bar

The process by which we detect physical energy from our environment and send the information to our brain is called __________.

sensation

Julius gets up in the middle of the night and turns on the bathroom light to get a drink of water. The process by which his receptor cells take the light from the environment and convert it into electrical signals is referred to as ___________.

transduction

What is the term for the minimum amount of energy needed for a person to detect a stimulus 50 percent of the time?

Absolute threshold

Most parents can pick up their own baby's cry out of a large, noisy group such as a room full of children. This is an example of ____________.

signal detection theory

A person may not detect the smell of their house because their olfactory receptors have adapted to the stimuli. This is called ____________.

sensory adaptation

Which structure of the eye first makes contact with light?

Cornea

When a person drives on a dark road at night, which receptor cells in the retina help detect the low levels of light to navigate the road?

Rods

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Jamal stared at a green screen for a long time and then looked at a white piece of paper. The __________________ theory of color vision would predict that Jamal would see the color ___________ when he looked at the white paper.

opponent process; red

Which theory of color vision states that we have three different cone receptors that are sensitive to varying wavelengths of light?

Trichromatic theory of color vision

Which characteristic of a soundwave represents its volume?

Amplitude

What are the names of the three small bones in the middle ear?

Hammer, anvil, and stirrup

Place theory suggests that people hear differing high-pitched sounds by the activation of different sets of _________ along the cochlea's ___________.

hair cells; basilar membrane

Harper was born with severe hearing loss. She received a cochlear implant just after her first birthday and was able to hear clearly for the first time. The cochlear implant helped Harper to hear by ___________________.

directly stimulating her auditory nerve

You are at a party and are taking in all of the sounds around you. You hear music playing and people talking, and then hear someone mention your name. This is an example of primarily:

bottom-up processing

Suppose you're driving on a two-lane road on a very snowy night where the divider can't be seen. However, in your mind, you're able to reconstruct where the divider should be. This example illustrates:

top-down processing

Joe went to the doctor and left with a prescription for some medicine. He looked at the hand-written prescription and couldn't read a word of the scrawled print. When he handed it to the pharmacist, he looked at it quickly, and came back with Joe's medicine. Which aspect(s) of perception is at work for the pharmacist in this example?

Both bottom-up and top-down processing

A person who steps outside first thing in the morning to smell the air, feel the breeze on their face, and see the rays of light as the sun rises would be doing which type of processing?

Bottom-up processing

Processing that relies heavily on previous knowledge and is influenced by our beliefs, expectations, and experiences is called __________.

top-down processing

As Gina's boyfriend Omar walks toward her, the image on Gina's retina will change the closer he gets. However, Gina's perception of Omar's size does not change. She does not perceive him as growing bigger or taller because of _____________.

size constancy

When viewing an ambiguous picture, we will tend to see an image that is consistent with our own culture and experience. This phenomenon is called __________.

perceptual set

A group of preschoolers are taken on a field trip and given matching hats to wear. The teacher is making use of what Gestalt principle to easily identify the children?

Similarity

The ability to see in 3D comes from the brain, which receives two slightly different images from each ____________ and puts those together with cues from the ___________ to construct the world in three dimensions.

eye; environment

The inward movement of our eyes when we look at something close up is called __________.

convergence

Which perceptual illusion has been shown to vary across cultures and as a result is one of the most well-known and extensively researched perceptual illusions?

The Müller-Lyer illusions

Strong bright lights will cause sensory neurons to ______ fire while dim low lights will cause sensory neurons to ___________ fire.

rapidly; slowly

Which part of the ear carries the message to the brain?

Auditory nerve

What is the function of the outer ear?

To funnel sound waves to the ear drum

The interpretation of raw stimuli from our senses into meaningful information is called ____________.

perception

Leander was really hungry before being interviewed about his study habits. Researchers whispered "taco truck" several times during his interview although he didn't hear the words. He was then given the opportunity to eat food from a taco truck or from the cafeteria. Leander would most likely choose the taco truck. He was subjected to what researchers call ____________.

subliminal priming

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Weber's law states that detectable differences between stimuli involve the ______ difference between them.

percentage

List the three layers of cells in the correct order that transmit neural signals from the retina to the optic nerve.

Mixing objects (such as paint) is referred to as _____________ color mixing; whereas, mixing colors of light is called ___________ color mixing.

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You are attending a lecture with your friend but can't quite hear what the presenter is saying. Once your friend tells you the title of the lecture is "Psychology in Oscar-Winning Movies," you are able to understand much more of what was being said. This is an example of ____________.

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The ______ is the colored muscle of the eye that dilates and constricts according to the amount of light.

iris

Kendra likes to listen to soft music while studying. Each time her roommate Layla comes in, Layla turns the music up by one. Kendra doesn't always notice the change, but she does notice it more than 50 percent of the time. This is an example of __________.

just noticeable difference

The place theory of hearing explains _________; the frequency theory explains ____________; and the volley principle explains _____________.

Marcus loves to listen to music, podcasts, and radio talk shows. He usually falls asleep while listening to something on the Internet and has his earphones in almost 5-6 hours a day. He has noticed lately that he seems to be asking his wife to repeat what she said several times before he can hear it. What type of hearing loss may Marcus be experiencing?

Sensorineural hearing loss

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Which theory of color vision states that we have three special receptor cells to process color that work in an opposing manner?

Opponent process theory

The __________ is comprised of multilayered tissue at the back of the eye and is responsible for visual transduction.

retina

What does the term Gestalt mean for psychological purposes?

It refers to how we naturally group objects together and perceive whole shapes instead of individual parts.

When a person is shown a series of disconnected curved lines in a circular pattern, the brain will interpret it as a circle. Which Gestalt principle is this example illustrating?

Closure

Research has determined that our brain is capable of sensing stimuli without conscious awareness of that stimuli. This is called ____________.

subliminal perception

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Most psychologists define consciousness as the awareness of our ______ and __________ environment.

internal; external

This altered state of consciousness involves training the mind by using focused and regulated breathing, minimization of distractions, and mental imagery.

Meditation

Syed is sitting in a bustling restaurant listening to his friend talk about the test he just took. Syed is interested in the conversation because he is taking the test tomorrow but all of a sudden his interest is drawn across the room because he heard his name spoken. This is called ___________________.

cocktail party phenomenon

Sasha has her laptop open in class and is watching funny cat videos while the professor talks. After class is over, she hears the other students talking about the quiz they are having Friday. Which phenomenon explains why Sasha didn't hear her professor talk about the quiz?

Selective inattention

Multiple studies have shown that when students multitask during class or studying

they do not learn effectively, which leads to lower grades.

Brain waves that are lowest in frequency and highest in amplitude are called _____________ waves.

delta

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Select the correct order of brain waves from actively awake to deep sleep.

beta, alpha, theta, delta

Choose the correct pairing of characteristic brain waves with their stages of sleep.

Stage W Beta Waves
Stage N1 Alpha Waves
Stage N2 Theta Waves
Stage N3 Delta Waves

One of the many reasons psychologists believe we need to sleep is that our bodies tire during the day, and sleep helps the body recuperate and function at maximum capacity. This is a description of which theory?

Body restoration

In which stage of sleep do vivid dreams typically occur?

REM

delta

Beta waves are associated with ___________, while theta waves are characteristic of the __________ stage.

alert wakefulness; N2

Billy is having trouble with insomnia. He has difficulty going to sleep and wakes up numerous times throughout the night. Based on what you know about sleep hygiene, what should you recommend he start doing?

According to Freud, the latent content of our dreams is __________ and contains the repressed _______ and drives of the dreamer.

Petra feels really alive and an overwhelming sense of well-being after her 4-mile morning run. We could say Petra has entered a(n) __________state of consciousness after exercise.

altered

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_________ perception is an example of awareness without attention.

Subliminal

Justin installed a blue tooth device in his car. He now believes he will be safe from distracted driving because he does not have to use his hands to hold his phone. Justin doesn't understand that distracted driving stems from impaired _______ caused by redirection of ________.

cognition; attention

In order to study sleep in natural conditions, researchers took people out to camp in the woods for one week. What did they discover about the influence of natural light on the participant's biological clocks?

It shifted the increase and decrease of melatonin in their bodies to 2 hours earlier to correspond with the natural light-dark conditions.

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Jaebok stayed up studying most of the night for his calculus final. He only slept about 4 hours. According to research, his memory and cognitive functioning will be decreased by approximately what percentage?

30%

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Andre sometimes will wake himself up because his body jerks as he is drifting off to sleep and he says it feels like he is falling. Researchers refer to this bodily sensation as a _______________.

hypnagogic jerk

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____________ waves emerge in sleep Stage N1 and continue into Stage N2.

Theta

This disorder involves excessive daytime sleepiness and periodic, uncontrolled sleep attacks that may leave the sufferer falling asleep at odd and inconvenient times.

narcolepsy

Cyan told her friend that she believes her dreams are just random neural activity and they have no deeper meaning. Cyan believes in:

the activation-synthesis hypothesis

The information-processing perspective on dreaming suggests dreams allow us to consolidate experiences from the day into ___________.

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Insomnia

The neutral stimulus, when paired with an unconditioned stimulus, becomes a(n) ________ in classical conditioning.

conditioned stimulus

Spontaneous recovery

Which of the following is an example of fixed interval reinforcement?

receiving a paycheck every two weeks

__________ is learning behaviors through successive approximations of desired behaviors in response to consequences.

Shaping

An example of positive reinforcement would be __________.

receiving a treat for good behavior

Which of the following increases the probability of a behavior recurring?

Reinforcement

Checking your email is a form of _________________.

variable interval reinforcement

Positive reinforcement involves _______ and negative reinforcement involves _______.

presenting something desirable; removing something undesirable

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negative reinforcement increases behavior whereas punishment decreases behavior

Having your cell phone turned off because you did not pay your bill is an example of ____________.

negative punishment

You have been asked to sell cookie dough as a way of raising money for your school. After every 5 tubs of cookie dough that you sell, you will earn a $5.00 Visa gift card. Type of reinforcement schedule?

fixed ratio

You work at a store that is part of a chain. Your manager is responsible for your store and the 4 other stores in town. Your manager typically shows up to your store at least once each week, but you never know which day. Type of reinforcement schedule?

variable interval

You are playing a video game where if you die, you have to wait 5 minutes before your character is regenerated. Type of reinforcement schedule?

fixed interval

Which of the following statements is accurate regarding the impact of different schedules of reinforcement on behavior?

Partial reinforcement leads to behaviors that will persist longer than behavior learned through continuous reinforcement

When the number of responses is important to a schedule of reinforcement, that schedule is called a ________ schedule.

ratio ("responses, ratio")

both operant and classical conditioning

___________________ reinforcement occurs when something pleasant follows a behavior.

Positive

Fred is afraid of spiders. He won't even watch a nature show on TV about them. When he sees a picture of a spider, he has a panic attack, but when he avoids looking at the image, his panic goes away. Fred's avoidance of spiders is ________.

You are learning about psychology, and you can earn "surprise" bonus points after correct responses on quizzes. Sometimes you can get an extra point after 3 correct responses and sometimes it takes 10 correct responses. Type of reinforcement schedule?

variable ratio

negative punishment

shaping

The application of operant-conditioning techniques to teach new responses or to reduce or eliminate maladaptive or problematic behavior is called ________.

applied behavior analysis

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Sophie receives an allowance after completing some chores around the house. Sometimes, she receives money after completing one task; other times, she must do five or six jobs before receiving any money. Her friend Riley also receives an allowance, but Riley always gets paid at the end of the week, regardless of how many chores she has completed. Sophie's parents are following a ________________ schedule of reinforcement, whereas Riley's parents are following a ________________ schedule of reinforcement.

variable ratio; fixed inteval

Ms. Wang gives a sticker for each book her 3rd grade students read. At the end of the year, any student with more than 10 stickers gets to attend a pizza party. What behavioral technique is Ms. Wang using?

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the Premack principle

Research on mirror neurons shows that these neurons fire when an animal________________.

either engages in a particular behavior or watches another animal engage in the behavior

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Michael grows up in a home where his father is generally unloving toward his mother. He observes his father yell and degrade his mother, and he notices that his mother never resists this treatment. Based on the work of Bandura, what might we predict about Michael's own relationships when he is older?

Michael may treat women with discourtesy and disrespect, as he repeats the behavior he saw in his father.

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For observational learning to occur, each of the following must happen except ______.

You need to remove a broken light bulb from a lamp. Without a pair of gloves, you are likely to cut yourself on the jagged glass. Suddenly, it occurs to you that you can use a cut potato to remove the light bulb from the socket. You have just demonstrated

insight learning

Scientists like Tolman and Köhler conducted important studies to help determine the role of _________ in learning.

cognition

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Rats that have never received any reinforcement for finding the end of a maze are presented with food the next time they complete the maze. According to the theory of latent learning, the next time the rats enter the maze, their performance will be________________.

as fast as rats who have always received reinforcement

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Latent learning

All answers are correct (There may be a bias in the way studies are selected for publication, many studies have reported correlational results rather than experimental results, and finding an accurate and consistent way of measuring aggression has been difficult)

Imagine a study that examines levels of aggression among people who play violent video games (VVGs) and people who do not. What is the primary limitation of this type of study?

People were not randomly assigned to either play VVGs or not play VVGs, so differences between groups cannot necessarily be attributed to VVGs.

Studies have shown that individuals with high levels of ___________ tend to respond to playing violent video games (VVGs) with increased levels of aggression when compared to other individuals.

hostility

The puff of air serves as the unconditioned stimulus.

John Watson offered a live, white rat to Little Albert and then made a loud noise behind Albert's head by striking a steel bar with a hammer. Eventually, the white rat alone made Albert cry. The white rat served as the ________ stimulus in this study.

conditioned

Watson's experiment with Little Albert demonstrated that fears might be __________.

based on classical conditioning

In Pavlov's studies, he was able to condition dogs to salivate in response to specific tones while not salivating to other similar tones. This is called ______________.

After Little Albert acquired a conditioned fear of rats, Watson wanted to see how he would react to a white rabbit, cotton wool, and a Santa Claus mask. He was studying whether or not ________ had occurred.

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You decide to condition your dog to salivate to the sound of a metronome. You give the dog a biscuit, and then a second later you sound the metronome. You do this several times, but no conditioning seems to occur. This is probably because ________.

the metronome should have been sounded before the dog ate the biscuit

________ classical conditioning, operant conditioning requires the organism to voluntarily produce the ________.

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Reflexive learning is related to _____________, while learning related to voluntary behaviors is known as __________.

classical conditioning; operant conditioning

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Of the following, ________ would serve as a primary reinforcer for most people.

food

Bill hates to clean up after dinner. One night, he volunteers to bathe the dog before cleaning up. When he finishes with the dog and returns to the kitchen, his wife has cleaned everything up for him. Which of the following statements is most likely true?

positive reinforcement

When a stimulus is removed from a person or animal resulting in a decrease in the probability of response, it is known as ________.

negative punishment

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A reinforcer is a consequence that ________ a behavior, while a punisher is a consequence that ________ a behavior.

strengthens; weakens

You put a dollar in a soda machine and are rewarded with a bottle of root beer. When you put in another dollar, you get another soda. Assuming that the machine has a limitless supply of root beer, which kind of reinforcement schedule does this machine operate on?

Continuous reinforcement

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Reinforcement given for a response emitted after each hour and a half (e.g., 10 a.m., 11:30 a.m., 1 p.m.) is most likely a ___________________ schedule.

fixed-interval

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Al must build 25 radios before he receives $20. What schedule of reinforcement is used?

________ is an operant-conditioning procedure in which successive approximations of a desired response are reinforced.

Shaping

Phil wants to train his parrot to kick a ball into a soccer net. Which of the following should he do?

Begin by reinforcing when the parrot goes near the ball.

The application of operant-conditioning techniques called ________ has been used to help children with autism.

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a token economy

Observational learning

After watching her father slide through pictures on his smartphone using his index finger, Laura, a 5-year-old, learns to use her finger to slide the screen on his smartphone. Laura acquired this behavior through ________.

observational learning

Cheryl is trying to teach her son to do the laundry by watching her. According to observational learning theory, what must occur for Cheryl to be effective?

Memory

insight

Which of the following is true of research on insight?

Researchers have found support for the existence of both human and animal insight learning.

You spend days wandering aimlessly around a park with many different paths that end at different parts of the park. One day when you arrive at the park, you get a call on your cell phone from your cousin whom you haven't seen for years, and she says she is waiting for you in a particular section of the park. Even though the paths are complicated and twisted, you manage to find the shortest route to your cousin. Tolman would explain your efficient passage through the park as an example of ________.

formation of a cognitive map

Learning that occurs but is not immediately reflected in a behavior change is called ________.