Note: Answers are at
the bottom of this exam
1.What
theory is most directly related to the old ideas of phrenology?
A. law of mass action
B. law of functionality
C. functional localization
D. equipotentiality
E.
theory of relativity
2. Which of the following statements about lie detection is NOT true?
A. Investigators intersperse irrelevant (usually threatening) questions with relevant ones when they test a suspect.
B. Investigators will often “cheat” by giving a practice test on a suspect to demonstrate that the lie detector is infallible.
C. Results based on a lie detection test cannot be used as evidence because the chance of false accusation is unacceptably high.
D. The way a lie detector works is that parasympathetic nervous system readings fall within a fixed range across people when they lie.
E. Taking drugs that reduce the action of the autonomic nervous system is generally not effective in beating a lie detector machine.
3.What is
the purpose of the amygdala?
A.
to store new memories
B.
to remind us of the
Greek word for “sea horse”
C.
to allow for the
efficient processing of language
D.
to store information
about time
E.
to learn associations
between stimuli through emotional responses
4.Which of the following statements is NOT true about the frontal lobe?
A. Phineas Gage became a reserved and rational person after the tamping iron he was using on the railroad destroyed most of his frontal lobe.
B. Many researchers think of the frontal lobe as the part of the brain most closely linked to socialization and personality.
C. Recent research on the frontal lobe (and prefrontal cortex) challenges the notion of a split between emotion and logic; rather emotion and logic are parts of the same system.
D. The frontal lobe is related to behavioral inhibition.
E. The frontal lobe houses the primary motor cortex.
5.If your physician tells you that you "pinched a
nerve" in your back, what part of the neuron is she referring to?
A. dendrite
B. axon
C. soma
D.
terminal buttons
E.
epinephrine
6.The parietal lobe contains the primary ___________ cortex. There are huge individual differences in terms of facial recognition. And people who have the condition, called __________, have a hard time recognizing faces.
A. somatosensory; Korsakoff’s syndrome
B. somatosensory, prosopagnosia
C. visual; aphasia
D. visual; Asperger’s syndrome
E.
motor; amnesia
7.Which of
the following phenomena could be considered a type of subliminal perception?
A.
blindsight, because
visual information is processed without the person’s awareness
B.
stretch reflex,
because the brain responds to stimulation from stretch receptors
C.
GABA, the
neurotransmitter most responsible for changes in visual thresholds
D.
Munchausen’s syndrome,
because people feel sick but really don’t know why
E. temporal lobe epilepsy, the syndrome that has occurred for thousands of years but has gone virtually undetected by people in medicine of religious studies
8.Let’s say that we draw a parallel between changes in American culture and trends in brain research. In 60’s and 70’s of American culture characterized as the age of sex, drugs, and Rock’n Roll the focus of research was on ________. Then the focus shifted to research on _________ when the society supported more on the values of inhibition. More recently, the research on _______ seems to reflect a heightened sense of fear in society especially since 911.
A. Basal ganglia, medulla, amygdala
B. Hypothalamus, reticular formation, cerebellum
C. Hippocampus, tectum, thalamus
D. Hypothalamus, hippocampus, amygdala
9.Which of the following statements is true about perception?
A. The relationship between reality and perception of reality can be explained fully by psychophysics.
B. Motion parallax refers to the phenomenon in which near objects seem to move more slowly than objects far away.
C. Perception is a dynamic process and the context of perception plays an important role.
D. Muller-Lyer illusion is symptomatic of schizophrenia.
E. Studies based on psychophysics suggest that competition of cues is reversible.
10.There are a number of theories that attempt to explain
why dreams occur. Which of the following is NOT a likely theory to explain
them:
A. activation of the brain (pons and visual
cortex) occurs randomly during sleep; the mind then tries to make sense of this
random activity.
B. dreams reflect daily life events and one
function is that they help to organize these experiences in a meaningful way
C. dreams serve an evolutionary purpose in that
they simulate threatening events which helps us to rehearse how we could deal
with them
D. during sleep, the frontal cortex is less
active which allows for more delusional and illogical thoughts to come to mind
in the form of dreams
E. dreams are the result of distortions of time
(because of the temporal lobe) which explains why they often predict the future
and dwell in the past
11.What is
the definition of a neurotransmitter?
A. a brain chemical that communicates messages
between hormones
B. a brain wave that signals electromagnetic
energy from one brain region to the next
C. a brain hormone that communicates messages
between neural chemicals
D. a brain hormone that communicates messages
between motor cells
E. a brain chemical that communicates messages
between nerve cells
12.Which of the following statements is NOT true?
A. According to competition of cues, a person would do worse on an exam if they had a toothache than if they didn’t have a toothache.
B. If you were watching two monkeys at the zoo and one of the monkeys had on red hat which drew your attention, you would think that the red-hatted monkey was more dominant than the other monkey.
C. The Ponzo illusion is an example of the size-distance illusion that relies on misleading cues about depth perception.
D. If a person suffers brain damage, the brain is unable to recover because it is not capable of reorganizing itself.
E. The sympathetic nervous system, when stimulated, is responsible for the fight or flight response.
13.The
propagation of a nerve impulse is analogous to
A. the toppling of a string of dominoes.
B. the steady drip of a faucet.
C. the development of a photograph.
D. the acceleration of a racecar.
E. eating ice cream on a hot beach during a
hurricane
14. What
is the current opinion about the cognitive effects of nicotine?
A. Nicotine helps all people perform better cognitively.
B. It boosts the cognitive performance of
nonsmokers, who have not developed a tolerance for the substance.
C. Current smokers suffer deficits in cognitive
performance when they do not ingest nicotine.
D. There are no effects of nicotine on cognitive
performance.
E. Smoking is actually much healthier than was
originally thought.
15. You are sitting at a picnic table in the summer with two trusty flyswatters – one in each hand. You are staring straight ahead at a can of Dr. Pepper directly in front of you. For reasons we can never understand, you are trying to memorize all of the ingredients in Dr. Pepper. Would you be faster at killing flies with your left or your right hand while rehearsing the ingredients in your mind? Assume that you are equally skilled at fine movements with both hands.
A. You would kill the flies with your right side more quickly because information from your right eye goes to your right brain – the emotional side.
B. You would kill the flies on your left side more quickly because information from the left visual fields of both eyes goes to your right brain. And your right brain would not have any interference from the verbal task.
C. You would kill the flies on your right side more quickly because language is processed in the left brain and there wouldn’t be any interference from the words on the Dr. Pepper can since the can is directly in front of you.
D. You would kill the flies on the left side more quickly because the information from your left eye goes to the right brain – the emotional side.
E. You would kill flies at exactly
the same rate and with the same efficiency because focusing on an object
directly in front of you would allow for complete equality of processing on
both sides of the brain (equipotentiality).
16.In psychology experiments, observer bias on the part of the experimenter is most similar to:
17.A patient
who has trouble walking, does not understand the meaning of a "thumbs
up," and lacks emotional emphasis when expressing sentimental feelings
most likely has damage to the
A. occipital lobe.
B. amygdala.
C. rear end of his/her car.
D. hippocampus.
E. basal ganglia.
18.Which of the following is NOT true about REM sleep?
A. Rapid eye movements occur during REM sleep.
B. As morning approaches, relatively less time is spent in REM sleep.
C. The use of antidepressants tends to be related to a decrease in REM sleep.
D. Dreaming occurs more during REM sleep than during non-REM sleep.
E. The brain is active during REM sleep.
19.Scientists use inferential statistics when comparing
group means to assess the probability that differences between the means
A. occurred by chance.
B. occurred because of experimental treatments.
C. occurred only in one group.
D. are irrelevant; inferential statistics are not
used to compare group means.
E. can be inferred by statistics.
20. Before conducting research on the role of the locus coerelius in depression in dogs, Dr. Rufus must describe exactly what he means by depression. By doing this, he is:
A. Engaging in stream of consciousness thought.
B. Creating an operational definition of depression.
C. Trying to decrease the correlation coefficient he will find.
D. Predicting a positive correlation between depression and the locus coerelius.
E. Creating a research hypothesis about depression.
21.Across
the centuries, which method has most reliably yielded correct theories of the
mind?
A. phrenology
B. stimulation of the awake brain
C. evolutionary functional dynamism
D. observation of humans with brain injuries
E. observation of animals with brain injuries
22. A respected journal of psychology prints a study claiming that there is a strong negative correlation between a person’s level in college and their level of depression. Which of the following r value (or correlation coefficient) did the study probably report to support that claim?
A. -2.0
C. -0.1
D. 0.2
E.
0.9
23.Who
uses additive color mixing in their work?
A. stage lighting designers
B. painters
C. pen and ink drawers who rely only on black ink
on white paper
D. make-up artists
E. serial killers
24. An active parasympathetic nervous system causes:
A. An increase in saliva production and digestion.
B. An increase of the levels of cortisol found in the bloodstream.
C. All the systems in the body to slow down.
D. Depression.
E.
Activation of the locus coerelius.
25.What is
one of the main goals of psychoanalysis?
A. to push conscious thoughts into unconscious
awareness
B. to bring unconscious thoughts into conscious
awareness
C. to repress traumatic memories
D. to determine the biological basis for behavior
E. to bring freedom to the people of foreign
lands
26.Julie has been working long days and weekends
in order to prepare for an important presentation at work and is very stressed
out. Fortunately, she knows that once
the presentation is completed she will be heading to
A. When her stress level is at its peak because her immune system is trying to kill all of the bacteria and viruses that it encounters.
B. The day of the big presentation because her immune system has completely shut down.
C. The day before the big presentation because that would be just her luck.
D. Once she begins her vacation because her immune system is strengthened due to less stress and can kill the bacteria and viruses that have been allowed to live in her stressed body.
E. Once she returns back to work from her vacation because she doesn’t want to go back to work.
27.A study using electroencephalography would need which of
the following?
A. electrodes
B. radioactive fluid
C. magnetic fields
D. computer scanning systems
E. a divining rod
28.A researcher can measure a neuron sending an action potential down it’s axon to activate the next neuron in the chain by using which of the following brain imaging techniques?
A. PET
B. N17-Halciona
C. EEG
D. X-ray
E. MRI
29.If someone is trying to tickle you with a feather while
you sleep and you don't feel it, what is happening?
A. The sensation exceeds the absolute threshold.
B. The sensation fails to meet the absolute
threshold.
C. The sensation exceeds Weber's fraction.
D. The sensation fails to meet Weber's fraction.
E. The binjammer hypothesis exceeds 2.67 on the
electrometer.
30.Even though Joe’s mom is generally a heavy sleeper, it seems like she always wakes up when he comes home late on weekend nights. Which of the following is the most likely explanation for this phenomenon?
A. Joe’s mom has very good hearing.
B. Joe’s mom’s reticular formation was sensitive to her son’s noises.
C. Joe’s mom’s parasympathetic nervous system made her aroused.
D. Joe’s mom uses her hippocampus very well.
E. Joe’s mom in experiencing a “fight or flight” response.
31.Perception
results from all of the following EXCEPT:
A. top-down processing.
B. bottom-up processing.
C. the influence of information at higher
processing levels on lower processing levels.
D. astral projection.
E. the processing of multiple sensory systems
working together.
32.Last weekend, Sue
went to
A. “I probably had an overactive amygdala because of the alcohol I drank.”
B. “I must be crazy.”
C. “The alcohol must have affected my hippocampus.”
D. “I must be a left-brained person.”
E.
“The alcohol probably stopped me from taking in
sensory information.”
33.What would happen to an organism that received
transplanted cells that had already taken on a cell-type identity?
A. The cells would change and develop into the
type of cell appropriate to the new location.
B. The cells would develop into the type of cell
they were before transplantation.
C. The organism would develop normally.
D. The organism would develop with an extra
cortex.
E. The organism would go insane.
34.Dr. George is conducting a research study to examine the relationship between the amount of sleep a person gets and how sensitive they are to optical illusions. In this case, the amount of sleep the person gets is the _______ and their sensitivity to optical illusions is the ______.
A. independent variable, dependent variable.
B. operational definition, dependent variable.
C. dependent variable, independent variable.
D. operational definition, control group.
E. control group, independent variable.
35.The
purpose of lateral inhibition is
A. to make colors seem brighter.
B. to make objects taste saltier.
C. to detect edges and contours.
D. to produce night vision.
E. to inhibit people from being too literal.
36. A correlational study is to an experimental study as ________ is to __________
A. inferential statistics; deductive statistics.
B. Description of a phenomenon; causal understanding of a phenomenon.
C. Random selection of participants; random assignment of participants.
D. Survey methodology; self-report methodology.
E.
Demand characteristics; sample size.
37.Which
of the following is most closely associated with the phenomenological approach?
A. behaviorism
B. natural selection
C. functionalism
D. neosporisms
E. Gestalt psychology
38. Jared has not been asleep for 36 hours because he has been participating in an all night protest against the “no sleeping in class” policy. Which of the following might Jared experience when he finally does go to sleep?
A. He will experience much more REM sleep than normal.
B. He will engage in sleep paralysis.
C. He will develop sleep apnea.
D. He will sleepwalk.
E. He will experience the tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon.
39.What do
Gestalt theory and structuralism have in common?
A. perceiving stimuli as the whole and not parts
B. believing that thoughts can be broken down
into different components
C. believing that perception is subjective
D. believing that the mind and body are governed
by different processes
E. thinking that love means never having to say
you are sorry
40.Processes
in the cerebellum allow for
A. maintaining control of jealous feelings.
B. running while contemplating a family
disagreement.
C. being lost in thought on a bus ride.
D.