1. The visual receptors in the eyes called ___________ function best in dim lighting and are primarily black-and-white brightness receptors.
a. rods
b. cones
c. fovea
d. ganglion cells
2. A person with a deficiency in only one of the color systems, such as red-green, would be considered a ___________, while someone who is color-blind in two color systems is a labeled a _____________.
a. monochromat; dichromat
b. dichromat; monochromat
c. monochromat; trichromat
d. dichromat; trichromat
3. When a nerve impulse is sent to the brain from the ear, that impulse originates from:
a. the eardrum.
b. the hair cells on the organ of Corti.
c. the oval window.
d. the basilar membrane.
4. Compared to sensory receptors in the eyes and ears, the senses of gustation and olfaction are
somewhat unique in that their receptors are sensitive to ____________ rather than to ___________.
a. some form of energy; chemical molecules
b. sounds; some form of energy
c. chemical molecules; some form of energy
d. light; sounds
5. Tactile information regarding pressure, pain, and warmth are sent to and processed in the:
a. motor cortex.
b. frontal lobe.
c. somatosensory cortex.
d. occipital lobe.
6. The phantom limb phenomenon is apparently caused by:
a. irritated neurons that trick the brain into interpreting nerve impulses as real sensations.
b. depressive symptoms experienced by the amputee.
c. expectancy and placebo effects about what is supposed to happen when a limb is lost.
d. damage to the motor cortex.
7. Which of the following is an advantage of selective attention?
a. Selective attention allows us not to be overwhelmed by the millions of sensory messages that are being processed by our nervous system.
b. Selective attention determines the sensitivity of various sensory receptor neurons.
c. Selective attention allows us to completely attend to multiple stimuli simultaneously.
d. Selective attention prevents us from attending to potentially important stimuli once we have
filtered them out of attention.
8. Visual illusions are primarily of interest to researchers studying perception because they:
a. provide valuable information on sensory adaptation.
b. provide information about how key photo pigments in the retina function.
c. provide important information about how perceptual processes work under normal conditions.
d. represent instances in which the dual-process theory of vision fails.
9. When shown a picture of a hunting scene, African people perceived a hunter as attempting to kill a baby elephant, while Westerners tended to perceive that the hunter was after another animal and thought that the “baby elephant†was actually an adult elephant off in the distance. These results were presented as an example of how the use of __________ depth cues _________ consistent across cultures.
a. binocular; are not
b. binocular; are
c. monocular; are not
d. monocular; are
10. Which of the following examples best illustrates the process of perception?
a. recognizing the voice of your best friend
b. detecting a faint sound during a hearing test
c. a sensory neuron in the eye responds to a light hitting it
d. a drop of sugar hitting the taste buds on your tongue
11. In the human eye, light is focused on the back of the retina by the:
a. iris.
b. pupil.
c. lens.
d. cornea.
12. Someone who suffers from hyperopia:
a. has good distance vision but has difficulty seeing things up close.
b. can see things well up close but has poor distance vision.
c. has color blindness that affects only one of the color systems.
d. has only black-and-white vision.
13. The process in which the qualities of a sensory stimulus are converted into nerve impulses is specifically called:
a. perception.
b. transduction.
c. conversion.
d. sensory adaptation.
14. According to the opponent-process theory of color, if you stare steadily at a green stimulus, when you close your eyes the afterimage will be:
a. blue.
b. white.
c. red.
d. green.
15. Two important physical characteristics of sound waves are:
a. amplitude and decibels.
b. frequency and pitch.
c. amplitude and frequency.
d. frequency and hertz.
16. Research concerning young infants’ understanding of simple arithmetic:
a. has yet to be conducted.
b. has shown that the earliest age at which an understanding of arithmetic appears is 1.5 years old.
c. suggests that young infants understand simple addition and subtraction.
d. suggests that young infants understand multiplication and division.
17. According to Jean Piaget, the process in which new information is incorporated into preexisting schemas is known as:
a. assimilation.
b. accommodation.
c. adaptation.
d. adjustment.
18. Which of the following examples best demonstrates the process of accommodation?
a. An infant who is used to sucking on a pacifier learns that she can also suck on toy blocks.
b. A toddler begins to correctly refer to a horse as a “horsy†and not a “big doggie.â€Â
c. A toddler at dinner attempts to eat the place mat because she thinks it is something to eat.
d. A toddler refers to a giraffe as a “tall kitty.â€Â
19. An infant who interprets her world primarily through her physical interactions with objects is most likely in Jean Piaget- ____________ stage.
a. preconventional
b. concrete operational
c. preoperational
d. sensorimotor
20. Jean Piaget observed that infants typically develop the concept of _____________ during the
____________ stage of cognitive development.
a. object permanence; preoperational
b. object permanence; sensorimotor
c. conservation; preoperational
d. conservation; sensorimotor
21. Which of the following placements of a hypothetical third eye would be most characteristic of a child in the concrete operational stage?
a. between her other two eyes
b. on her hand
c. on the back of her head
d. on top of her head
22. The concept “theory of mind†is most closely related to which of the following constructs?
a. egocentrism
b. zone of proximal development
c. object permanence
d. conservation
23. The tendency for some species of birds and mammals to follow and attach to the first thing that moves after they are born is called:
a. reflex attachment.
b. fixating.
c. imprinting.
d. encoding.
24. Harry Harlow presented infant monkeys with two “surrogate mothers.†One was a bare wire cylinder with a feeding bottle whereas the other was a wire cylinder covered with soft terrycloth that had no feeding bottle. The results of his experiments revealed that:
a. infant monkeys became attached to the bare wire mother.
b. infant monkeys became attached to the terry cloth mother.
c. infant monkeys did not become attached to either mother and showed strong symptoms of anxiety.
d. some monkeys became attached to the bare wire mother whereas others became attached to the terrycloth mother.
25. An infant who smiles at and vocalizes to almost any adult that she encounters is most likely in John Bowlby- _______________ attachment behavior phase.
a. undifferentiated
b. random
c. indiscriminate
d. uniform
26. Which of the following statements concerning attachment is TRUE?
a. Stranger anxiety and separation anxiety occur at approximately the same time, when the child is about 6 or 7 months old.
b. Stranger anxiety and separation anxiety occur at approximately the same time, when the child is between 12 and 16 months old.
c. Stranger anxiety develops around the age of 6 or 7 months, whereas separation anxiety develops somewhere between the ages of 12 and 16 months.
d. Separation anxiety develops around the age of 6 or 7 months, whereas stranger anxiety develops somewhere between the ages of 12 and 16 months.
27. Psychologist Mary Ainsworth used ____________ to examine different types of infant attachment.
a. wire cylinder monkeys
b. the strange situation
c. moral dilemmas
d. conservation problems
28. Trang is participating in an attachment experiment involving the strange situation. When his mother is present with the stranger, he explores the room and is friendly with the stranger. However, when the mother leaves, he becomes upset and starts to cry. When she returns, he happily greets her and then returns to his previous explorations. Trang would most likely be classified as a(n) _______________ child.
a. resistant-avoidant
b. anxious-resistant
c. anxious-avoidant
d. securely attached
29. Harry Harlow found that when isolated monkeys were returned to the colony, they were likely to show any of the following characteristics EXCEPT:
a. indifference.
b. depression.
c. terror.
d. aggression.
30. A child is told a story about Bobby, who puts his teddy bear under his bed and then goes outside to play. While he is gone, Bobby- mother comes in to clean his room, finds his teddy bear, and puts it in the closet. When asked where Bobby will look for his teddy bear when he returns, most 2- and 3-year-olds will say ________ and most 4-year-olds will say _________.
a. under the bed; under the bed as well
b. in the closet; in the closet as well
c. under the bed; in the closet
d. in the closet; under the bed
31. A child is bitten by a German Shepherd when he is young. When he grows up, the child develops a fear of not just German Shepherds but of all dogs, and he refuses to go near them. The fact that this person now avoids all dogs is most relevant to which of the following?
a. punishment.
b. avoidance learning.
c. stimulus generalization.
d. negative reinforcement.
32. ______________ has strong adaptive significance, because if we responded continuously to every stimuli in the environment we would quickly become fatigued and overwhelmed.
a. Habituation
b. One-trial learning
c. Extinction
d. Negative reinforcement
32. Pavlov determined that a tone triggered salivation more quickly when the size of the _________ was greater or more intense.
a. UCR
b. UCS
c. CR
d. CS
34. When Pavlov was conditioning his dogs to salivate in response to a tone, he first paired the tone with the presentation of food until the tone alone could induce salivation. In his experiments, which of the following was the unconditioned stimulus?
a. salivation in response to the food
b. the food
c. salivation in response to the tone
d. the tone
35. One major way that the CS and UCS are similar is that:
a. after classical conditioning, they both elicit the same behavioral response.
b. before classical conditioning, they both elicit the same behavioral response.
c. they both make the behaviors that they follow more likely to occur.
d. they both make the behaviors that they follow less likely to occur.
36. Stimulus generalization refers to the process where stimuli that are similar to the initial
______________ also elicit a conditioned response.
a. CS
b. UCS
c. CR
d. UCR
37. John Watson and Rosalie Rayner (1920) conditioned baby Albert to fear a white rat by pairing it with a loud noise that Albert already feared. After the conditioning had taken place, the researchers also found that Albert was afraid of furry white and gray objects, such as a rabbit and a Santa Claus mask. The fact that Albert was afraid of these additional items demonstrated that:
a. stimulus generalization had occurred.
b. discrimination had occurred.
c. extinction had occurred.
d. higher-order conditioning had occurred.
38. In aversion therapy, a stimulus that triggers an unwanted behavior is paired with:
a. a pleasant stimulus.
b. a discriminative stimulus.
c. a noxious stimulus.
d. extinction trials.
39. Edward Thorndike would most likely have given which of the following explanations for why cats could eventually escape his puzzle box?
a. The cats eventually gained insight into how to solve the problem.
b. The cats eventually were able to discriminate the CS sufficiently.
c. The cats used trial and error and slowly eliminated ineffective responses.
d. The cats’ response costs for ineffective action eventually became too high.
40. In negative reinforcement, when an aversive stimulus is ___________, it makes the behavior that it follows ________ likely to occur.
a. removed; less
b. removed; more
c. presented; less
d. presented; more
41. While walking through the mall, a young boy sees a new pair of shoes and immediately tells his grandmother that he would like to have them. The grandma initially refuses, prompting the boy to get upset and he starts to cry. The grandma hates to see her grandson get upset, so she changes her mind and buys him the shoes. In this example, we could say that the grandma- initial refusal was _____________ and the boy- mini-tantrum was ____________.
a. the conditioned stimulus; the conditioned response
b. the consequence; the discriminative stimulus
c. classically extinguished; extinguished via operant conditioning
d. aversively punished; positively reinforced
42. A reinforcement system that utilizes such things as points or chips that can be redeemed later for tangible rewards to reinforce desired behavior is called:
a. a token economy.
b. shaping.
c. classical conditioning.
d. latent learning.
43. Police dogs that are used to locate illegal drugs and pigeons that can peck a signal button when they spot an orange life jacket in the water both demonstrate how the principles of _______________ can be used to train animals to assist humans.
a. classical conditioning
b. operant conditioning
c. observational learning
d. higher-order conditioning
44. The text discussed an experiment in which rats were exposed to X-rays that were paired with sweet water, a light, and a buzzer. The X-rays made the rats ill and the researchers wanted to know which stimuli would become associated with the illness. The results revealed that the rats avoided ___________. The findings from this experiment were used to demonstrate the concept of ___________.
a. only the light; latent learning
b. only the sweet water; preparedness
c. only the buzzer; negative reinforcement
d. all three stimuli; discrimination
45. The concept of instinctive drift refers to:
a. an unlearned response triggered by a simple stimulus.
b. the fact that an organism learns behaviors by observing mature organisms.
c. the ways in which instinctual behaviors can be modified to create unique conditioned responses.
d. the tendency for a conditioned response to regress toward instinctual behavior.
46. According to learning theorists, insight involves the:
a. positive reinforcement of a conditioned response on a variable schedule of reinforcement.
b. sudden perception of a useful relationship that helps to solve a problem.
c. identification of antecedent stimuli that indicate when a behavior will have certain consequences.
d. association of a previously neutral stimulus with an unconditioned stimulus.
47. A new skier who first watches and then copies his experienced friends is most likely making use of which learning strategy?
a. insight
b. observational learning
c. positive reinforcement
d. secondary reinforcement
48. ____________ specifically refers to the memory process in which information is retained over time.
a. Storage
b. Retrieval
c. Encoding
d. Priming
49. The capacity of _____________ memory is generally agreed to be about five to nine meaningful pieces of information.
a. short-term
b. episodic
c. procedural
d. sensory
50. The capacity of ____________ memory appears to be unlimited.
a. working
b. long-term
c. sensory
d. iconic
51. Making a grocery list and taking notes for a class are both examples of _____________, which refers to encoding that is initiated intentionally and requires conscious attention.
a. effortful processing
b. automatic processing
c. maintenance rehearsal
d. state-dependent memory
52. If I present you with the word “BOOK†and ask you if this word contains all lowercase letters, answering this question involves the use of ___________ encoding.
a. structural
b. phonological
c. episodic
d. semantic
53. A person uses the term “HOMES†to remember the names of the Great Lakes (Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie, Superior). This memory-enhancing technique is best viewed as an example of:
a. maintenance rehearsal.
b. the use of hierarchies.
c. chunking.
d. an acronym.
54. In the case of the amnesia patient H.M. presented in the text, it was found that:
a. his declarative memory and procedural memory were severely impaired.
b. his procedural memory functioned normally but his declarative memory was severely impaired.
c. his episodic memory functioned normally but his semantic memory and procedural memory were severely impaired.
d. his semantic memory functioned normally but his episodic memory and procedural memory were severely impaired.
55. Fill-in-the-blank questions, true or false questions, and essay questions allow professors to assess your:
a. procedural memory
b. episodic memory
c. implicit memory
d. semantic memory.
56. Research has found that self-generating many retrieval cues is a technique that facilitates memory. It is assumed that this type of processing facilitates encoding by:
a. making the information more declarative.
b. limiting the impact of retroactive interference.
c. providing deeper and more elaborative processing.
d. making use of state-dependent learning effects.
57. Imagine that you have studied for an exam in a noisy environment and your state of physiological arousal has been low while you were studying. If on the day of the exam you were given the test in a quiet environment and your physiological arousal was high (due to test anxiety), the concept of state-dependent memory would predict that your recall would be __________ and the concept of context-dependent memory would predict that your recall would ___________.
a. worse; also be worse
b. better; be worse
c. worse; be better
d. better; also be better
58. Retroactive interference is said to occur when ____________ material in memory interferes with the recall of ____________ material.
a. older; newly acquired
b. older; other older
c. newly acquired; other newly acquired
d. newly acquired; older
59. ___________ amnesia is said to occur when memory loss occurs for events that happened prior to the onset of the amnesia.
a. Anterograde
b. Retrograde
c. Proactive
d. Prospective
60. When you enter a nice restaurant, you typically expect that a host or hostess will seat you, that you will receive a menu before you order, and that you will receive a bill at the conclusion of the meal. These thoughts together are best considered to be an example of:
a. a retrieval cue.
b. priming.
c. overlearning.
d. a schema.