Introductory Psychology (PSY301, 3:30-5:00pm) – Test 1

Tuesday, September 18, 2007

 

1.  During this test, it is likely that while your answers are coming from actions in your central nervous system, at the same time, the activity of taking the test has activated the _____ system.

a.

spinal cord

b.

pathetic

c.

enteric

d.

parasympathetic

e.

sympathetic

 

 

 

2.  Paul Broca found that Tan’s language production was limited because of deterioration in his left frontal lobe.  Carl Lashley lesioned rat brains and found that it didn’t affect their maze performance.  What debate in psychology did these two findings represent?

a.

whether brain function is changeable

d.

whether brain damage is ethical

b.

the chicken or the egg

e.

whether brain function is localized

c.

whether brain function is inherited

 

 

 

 

3.  What allows the movement of sodium and potassium ions to the inside and the outside of the neuron to cause firing?

a.

gating mechanisms

b.

changes in membrane thickness

c.

refraction

d.

changes in the charge of the ions

e.

changes in the chemical structure of the ions

 

 

 

4.  Dr. Pennebaker only takes 6 half hour naps during the day and never gets a full night’s sleep. How will his sleep cycles change?

a.

They will not change. His brain and body will adapt and try to keep his normal sleep cycle. 

d.

Dr. Pennebaker will turn into a sleepy zombie and eat students during lecture.

b.

He will only get REM sleep. 

e.

He will only get slow-wave sleep. 

c.

His brain will bypass unnecessary alpha wave sleep and will switch between slow-wave and REM sleep. 

 

 

 

 

5.  Dana is interested in examining whether working at a job while attending school affects grade point average (or GPA). She collects data from students on the number of hours they work and their GPA. What type of study is Dana doing?

a.

third variable

b.

correlational

c.

double secret probation method

d.

experimental

e.

case study

 

 

 

6.  You overhear a psychologist talking about her research on brain function. At first you think the research was done on humans but then you realize it must be done on animals when you hear her talk about:

a.

Directly stimulating the brain in live subjects

d.

Examining brain damage

b.

Interviews

e.

Lesioning studies

c.

Recording brain activity

 

 

 

 

7.  A split brain patient is shown a frog in her left visual field. She is asked to identify what she sees. She would most likely be able to

a.

say what she saw and then point with her right hand.

b.

remember what she saw only.

c.

point to the frog with her left hand.

d.

say what she saw only.

e.

point to the frog with her right hand.

 

 

 

8.  Let’s say you want to find out if the attractiveness of a supervisor at work causes poorer job performance, perhaps because his or her appearance distracts workers. What is the best method of testing whether supervisor attractiveness causes the poor job performance?

a.

correlational study

d.

behavioral introspection

b.

case study

e.

none of the above

c.

experimental approach

 

 

 

 

9.  Robert has hypnotized many people over his career as a hypnotist. Some have responded well, some haven’t. What is the best reason for this variation in response?

a.

Responses to hypnosis are highly individualized.

d.

Robert does not possess animal magnetism

b.

All those who responded well were faking it.

e.

Hypnosis does not exist in real life.

c.

Robert was not trained well as a hypnotist.

 

 

 

 

10.  An amputee feels a sensation in his lost hand as an experimenter stimulates his cheek. This phenomenon could be the result of

a.

splintering of neurons from too much pain during amputation.

b.

temporary psychosis the amputee experiences after the stress of losing a limb.

c.

fact that neurons in the unemployed hand are recruited by the face.

d.

amount of times the amputee used to touch his face with the hand.

e.

misaligned growth of the severed spinal neurons.

 

 

 

11.  Imagine you are a researcher who wants to understand why some children are unable to resist eating cookies and why some children can resist.  What part of the brain would you look at?

a.

the occipital lobe

d.

the temporal lobe

b.

the frontal lobe

e.

the parietal lobe

c.

the Simpsons lobe

 

 

 

 

12.  Which of the items below is not a behavior in the sense in which psychologists use this term?

a.

remembering and thinking about a quote made by a candidate

b.

smiling and nodding agreement during a candidate’s speech

c.

putting up a campaign poster

d.

wearing a campaign button

e.

voting in an election

 

 

 

13.  Which of the following is a drawback to survey or questionnaire research?

a.

Surveys are only used on ”Family Feud‘. 

d.

Questionnaires cannot be used in developmental studies.

b.

Self-reports can be inaccurate or false.

e.

It is impossible to use statistics on survey data.

c.

Surveys are easy to administer.

 

 

 

 

14.  You notice your best friend Susie has lost weight although there hasn’t been a change in her eating habits. She is constantly too hot and too cold, and seems tired and sluggish. You know she’s been staying up to cram for her Psychology exam. What advice do you give her?

a.

Write a book on weight-loss – clearly whatever she is doing is working!

d.

Drink more caffeine – it will give her more energy.

b.

Get some sleep - sleep deprivation is impairing her organ functions.

e.

Eat more food – she’s using up all her energy to study.

c.

Visit a hypnotist – it will cure her circulation problem.

 

 

 

 

15.  If a newborn kitten was brought up in a completely dark cave where there was no visual stimulation at all for one month, what might happen to its visual cortex?

a.

The kitten would only be able to see in black and white.

b.

The kitten would be able to see only certain key items in its environment.

c.

The kitten would be blind because it would have passed the critical period of development.

d.

The visual cortex would go back to normal when the eyes were reopened.

e.

The kitten would have enhanced vision because the visual cortex would have had more time to develop.

 

 

 

16.  High amounts of oxytocin, the neurotransmitter associated with bonding and trust, are released during all of the following situations except:

a.

Breastfeeding

d.

Childbirth

b.

Meditation

e.

By people who claim to be in love

c.

Orgasms

 

 

 

 

17.  Dr. Bennett is conducting an experiment on a new teaching strategy that is hypothesized to aid memorization. He selects two groups from a class of students. One group will be exposed to the new method, the other to the traditional method. Why is it important that the participants be randomly assigned to the groups?

a.

to ensure that the groups are generally equal in abilities that may be related to memory

b.

to make the study less boring

c.

to be certain that participants in the study are as intelligent as the larger population

d.

to make sure people feel random thoughts while participating

e.

to discourage them from knowing anything about the study before it begins

 

 

 

18.  According to Dr. Pennebaker’s lecture, which of the following methods may help you fool a lie detector test?

a.

Drinking green tea beforehand will dehydrate you so you don’t sweat when you answer the questions

d.

Tensing your buttocks while answering every question because that will cause you sweat.

b.

Drinking green tea beforehand because it increases your heart rate.

e.

Taking care to sit very still after giving the false answer so your heart rate remains constant.

c.

Stepping on the foot of the test administrator

 

 

 

 

19.  You are walking through the woods and you feel the sting of a dart in your back. You soon realize it must have had curare on its poison tip to it because:

a.

You are soon unable to move any of your muscles but are aware of your surroundings.

d.

You still have feeling in your body but you can no longer see or hear anything.

b.

You are in control of all your limbs but you lose consciousness. 

e.

You suddenly become monogamous.

c.

Your whole body goes numb

 

 

 

 

20.  Sometimes, correlational research is more appropriate for answering a question than is experimental research.  What would be the best example of this?

a.

There are only two variables.

b.

The variable of interest cannot be manipulated.

c.

The research hypothesis cannot be tested on humans.

d.

The data is best visualized in a scatterplot.

e.

There are few participants available.

 

 

 

21.  After stealing a famous painting from a museum, Sammy is caught and taken into custody. Sammy asserts he would never willingly commit a theft and claims he was under hypnosis. Was Sammy telling the truth?

a.

No, because hypnosis cannot make people do something they don’t want.

d.

Yes, because hypnosis can make people do something they don’t want.

b.

Yes, because hypnosis causes people to develop multiple personalities.

e.

Yes, because only hypnosis could give Sammy the skills to steal the painting.

c.

No, because hypnosis helps memories recollection rather than cloud memories.

 

 

 

 

22.  In discussing your study of sleep deprivation on test performance, you discover that some people study until 5 a.m. and then get a couple hours sleep before their exam, while others sleep a bit and then get up at midnight and study all night until the test. You decide it doesn’t really matter at which point your participants sleep as neither group has had much total sleep. In fact, time of sleep does have an effect. In this experiment time of sleep is an example of a(n)

a.

outcome variable.

b.

confound.

c.

observer bias.

d.

correlated variable.

e.

experimental definition.

 

 

 

23.  Data are analyzed using statistical methods to determine whether the results are due to

a.

cheating.

b.

confounds.

c.

chance.

d.

consequences of the dependent variable.

e.

inflaboratory inversion processes.

 

 

 

24.  You are reading a newspaper article about a sailor who inexplicably went on a rampage, shooting at numerous crew mates. She was caught and a brain scan revealed that she had a brain tumor. Someone has spilled ice-cream on the newspaper so you can’t see where the tumor was located but given your knowledge of the brain you suspect it was near:

a.

Broca’s area.

d.

The cerebellum but not the hippocampus.

b.

The amygdala or the hypothalamus

e.

The occipital or parietal lobes.

c.

The cerebellum or the hippocampus.

 

 

 

 

25.  Since nicotine increases acetylcholine (or ACh) functioning we would assume it is

a.

a toxin released by neurons that binds to ACh receptors.

b.

a substance that destroys neurons with ACh receptors.

c.

an agonist.

d.

an analogist.

e.

an antagonist.

 

 

 

26.  Scientists can try to understand a problem from many different perspectives, such as from molecular, social, and evolutionary levels of analysis.  Which statement most correctly summarizes the relationship between levels of analysis and determining cause and effect?

a.

The less practical the level of analysis, the more complex the cause and effect model. 

d.

The broader the level of analysis, the simpler the cause and effect model

b.

The more practical the level of analysis, the more complex the cause and effect model.

e.

The higher the level of analysis, the stronger the correlation.

c.

The narrower the level of analysis, the simpler the cause and effect model.

 

 

 

 

27.  You are introduced to a patient with damage to the parietal lobe. Which of the following unusual behaviors might you expect to see?

a.

She draws a picture of a house but the door and all the windows are scrunched to one side of the house.

d.

When you ask her to draw a clock, she suddenly becomes enraged

b.

She neglects to generate any new words since the damage occurred.

e.

She claims she cannot see the clock but she can point to it when asked.

c.

You ask her to recall what she had for breakfast and she can remember every tiny detail, even the number of home fries.