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A study guide or review material for a general psychology midterm exam. It covers a wide range of topics in psychology, including the definition of psychology, research methods, the nervous system, perception, learning, and memory. Definitions, explanations, and examples related to these psychological concepts. It seems to be designed to help students prepare for a midterm exam by reviewing key terms, theories, and principles in the field of psychology. The level of detail and breadth of topics covered suggest this document is intended for a university-level general psychology course.
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science that studies behavior and mental processes and applies that study to improve human welfare. - Psychology is best defined as the biological - Dr. Vance is attempting to discover where emotional experience is localized in the brain by using brain imaging technology. Dr. Vance works in the subfield of __________ psychology. studying memory, thinking, learning, and other mental processes. - Cognitive psychologists are primarily interested in industrial and organizational - As an undergraduate psychology major, Carl has developed a strong desire to study behavior and mental processes, in particular human performance. During an internship at a local business, Carl is intrigued with how a manager's interpersonal style can affect the workers' motivation. The field of __________ psychology would be most applicable to Carl's interests. John B. Watson and B. F. Skinner - "Anything that cannot be observed and measured directly is not worth studying." Which psychologists are most likely to agree with this statement? description, prediction, control, and explanation. - The goals of research in scientific psychology are naturalistic observation - Dr. Lampert wants to know how college students tend to flirt with each other, so he sits in the college cafeteria and pretends to be doing a crossword puzzle. In fact, he's listening to the conversations of nearby students and is taking notes when he observes flirtations taking place. Dr. Lampert has chosen a __________ research method. Survey -
Lupe is interested in knowing how people feel about working for a male boss versus a female boss. She asks men and women in several business firms for information about their relationships with their supervisors, noting the sex of both the participant and their boss at work. What research method is Lupe using? experimental - Dr. Kilgore is studying the effects of Prozac on depression. Dr. Kilgore ran a double-blind study on a group of sixty college students. Thirty students received Prozac and thirty students received a placebo. At the beginning and end of the study, Dr. Kilgore administered the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) to determine the efficacy of the drugs. In this experiment, the group that received Prozac is considered the __________ group. dependent - Dr. Fontenot is studying the effects of fatigue on aggression. He hypothesizes that the more fatigue a person is experiencing, the more aggressively the person will behave. The level of aggression in Dr. Fontenot's study is the __________ variable. negative correlation - As you go south from Maine to Florida, your latitude decreases, but the average daily temperature goes up. This illustrates a Positive - Veronica's research focuses on optimism and the factors that lead to living a balanced and happy lifestyle; that is, the factors that make life worth living. Veronica has dedicated her research to the study of ___________ psychology. clinical - Hank is a psychologist interested in providing services to help those suffering schizophrenia. He focuses on the maladaptive ways in which its sufferers receive and process information about themselves and the world around them. Hank is most likely a(n) __________ psychologist. school - Craig works with students at Middlesex High School who are experiencing academic problems. He meets with these students to assess what family and peer factors may be leading to their poor performance. Craig is a(n) __________ psychologist. sport -
The main divisions of the peripheral nervous system are the __________ and the __________. parasympathetic; autonomic - During a job interview, Samira realizes that she is sweating a little bit and she feels her heart pounding against her chest. Her stomach is also a little bit upset and she hasn't felt like eating all day. From this information, it appears that the __________ division of Samira's __________ nervous system is very active. moving her limbs - Tisha has a disorder that affects the functioning of her somatic nervous system. Of the following, Tisha probably experiences the most trouble while Cerebellum - Trisha is gradually developing an impairment in her ability to perform finely coordinated movements, such as cutting a clove of garlic into very small pieces. Doctors will probably discover a problem in her Forebrain - The largest level of brain tissue in the human being is the ________, which includes such structures as the thalamus and hypothalamus, amygdala, and cerebral cortex. forming new memories of events after the accident. - After a freak boating accident, Arlo's hippocampus was lost at sea. Although he has recovered in all other respects, Arlo will have difficulty Broca's area. - After a stroke, Juanita has great difficulty with speech. Words come slowly and haltingly, and her speech is often grammatically incorrect. The stroke probably damaged language abilities - As part of a new government program, U.S. citizens can donate part of their brains to the supercomputer development fund in exchange for a Statue of Liberty commemorative coin set. If you decide to donate a significant chunk of the right hemisphere of your brain (for the gold coin set, of course), which of the following abilities would be least affected?
hormones - Which of the following is not one of the three main classes of neurotransmitters used in the nervous system? GABA - Alcohol slows down the speed with which messages travel through the nervous system. This is best explained by the fact that alcohol increases the amount of __________ in the brain. Norepinephrine - Dr. Chen's patient describes her main symptoms as sleeplessness and mood difficulties. Dr. Chen suspects that a neurotransmitter is malfunctioning. Which neurotransmitter should he look at? his pancreas - Eric has been suffering from diabetes for his entire life. This illness involves incorrect functioning of the gland that controls levels of insulin and glucagon and regulations of blood sugar levels. What part of the endocrine system gives Eric a problem? ACTH and cortisol - Jacelyn is wandering through a national park when she sees a bear lumbering toward her. As her fight-or-flight reaction is triggered, what hormones are being released in her body in response to the perceived threat? Sympathetic - You see a vicious-looking squirrel getting ready to attack you. What specific part of the nervous system would be activated to prepare you for this fight-or-flight encounter? neuron - The most basic unit of communication in the human nervous system is the ________, which begins with dendrites and ends at axon terminals. chemicals; synapse - Neurotransmitters are __________ that travel across the __________ to another cell. Somatic nervous system -
While dining at a Chinese restaurant, Jaquan and Nelda order some fried rice with shrimp. When it comes, Jaquan says, "I really hope they use a lot of monosodium glutamate in their food!" Nelda, knowing quite a bit about the human system of taste, says "you must really enjoy foods that have the ________ flavor." a. flavor - While randomly searching through Wikipedia, you read an article on the cutaneous senses. You now understand that the cutaneous senses consist of all of the following except analgesia - After smashing his foot, Gwo-Ling felt no pain because messages from his brain blocked incoming pain messages. This effect is called sense of equilibrium - After riding several roller coasters, you find that you feel nauseous. You feel the nausea because your __________ has been overstimulated. in your inner ears. - Arc-like structures, called semicircular canals, play an important role in your overall sense of equilibrium, or balance. These structures are located analysis and interpretation. - If sensation equals raw data, then perception equals response criterion. - In an experiment, Ahmed is asked to say when he sees a flash of light. At the end of the experiment, the experimenter says that he was trying to find the minimum amount of light that Ahmed could detect 50 percent of the time. The experimenter is looking for Ahmed's selective attention. - Brandon is able to sit and work on his laptop computer writing a psychology textbook even while his three sons are yelling in the same room while playing with their toys. His ability to tune out the background noise demonstrates hue -
Ally and Billy are going to paint their new house. They both like the color blue, but Ally picks out a different color blue than Billy, and they argue about which is the better color for the house. Ally and Billy are arguing about the __________ of the paint. color blindness. - Ophelia has two types of cones: those sensitive to red light and those sensitive to green light. Ophelia has a perfume he would put on his body. - Chiang wished he had a date. As he changed the channels on TV one day, he heard a commercial stating, "The pheromones in our product guarantee you'll get a date the first time you use it!" That product would most likely be Figure ground discrimination - During a war, soldiers wear camouflage clothing to not be perceived by enemies. The perceptual cue that is being manipulated in this example is Gestalt psychologist. - "While watching a crowd of people, one does not focus on individual colors, movements, and shapes. Instead, one perceives the event as a whole." This statement has most likely been made by a collection is to interpretation. - Sensation is to perception as consciousness - Your mother asks you to pick up a book at the library that explores the awareness of the outside world and one's own mental activity. If you want to pick up the correct book, you should make sure the book focuses on exploring all aspects of conscious - While appearing on the game show Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader, Helen tries to remember the answer to a Greek literature question. She successfully remembers that the answer is Euripides. When Helen calls out the answer to the host, the information is at the __________ level of consciousness.
psychoactive drugs and their effects. - Dr. Krain's specialty is psychopharmacology. This means that she studies psychological dependence. - When Rapunzel was locked in a tower, she used cocaine every day. Now, although she has escaped from the tower and can function without the drug, she still feels that she needs cocaine for her sense of well-being. Rapunzel is experiencing drug tolerance - When he first started taking drugs, Marcell found that they markedly affected his perceptions. Now, however, he finds that greater dosages are required to achieve the same effects. He is experiencing a barbiturate - Louise uses a drug that causes her to relax and go to sleep. Her attention is lowered, and she experiences mild euphoria along with decreased muscle coordination. Louise is using barbiturates. - Tricia likes to take drugs that will increase her behavioral and mental activity. Tricia most likely uses all of the following types of drugs except opiate - After taking a pill, Dante felt euphoric and didn't feel any pain when he rammed his knee into the table. He most likely took a(n) a hallucination - A middle-aged man accosts you in a campus building and insists on telling you that several horses must have gotten into the building because he can hear them whinnying wherever he goes. You do not hear any sounds and cannot see any animals. This man is probably suffering from EEG - What kind of instrumentation is needed to accurately assess what stage of sleep a person is experiencing?
sleeping pills - Which of the following is not a characteristic of REM sleep? progressive relaxation training. - You see a therapist because you have been suffering from insomnia for the past two months. The therapist discusses learning-based treatments that may help you, including Narcolepsy - Which of the following conditions, if left untreated, would you be most likely to detect in one of your instructors if your only contact with your instructor was in class? a relatively permanent change in behavior or knowledge due to experience. - Psychologists have defined learning as At first, the smell of fresh pizza is intoxicating, but after several minutes you barely even notice the scent. - Which of the following is an example of habituation? spontaneous recovery. - Sniffy the rat has been taught to press a bar in a cage to receive food. The behavior disappeared, though, when Sniffy stopped getting food following bar-pressing. Several days later, Sniffy was put in the cage again, and he immediately began to press the bar. The reappearance of this response is called generalization. - Hugo has learned to fear the bell on his phone because every time the phone rings a prank caller starts shouting at him. He now finds himself fearful of other bells, like bicycle bells and doorbells. Hugo is affected by stimulus taste aversion. - Keren decides to try cotton candy for the first time. She enjoys it, but unfortunately, later that day Keren comes down with the stomach flu. Now the smell or thought of cotton candy makes her shudder and feel slightly nauseous. This is an example of
Secondary - What kind of reinforcer is money? learned helplessness. - While she was growing up, Lindsay was repeatedly told by others that she can't understand math concepts and she will never be any good at math. By the time Lindsay reached high school math classes, she didn't put any effort into the classes because she didn't think any amount of effort would help her to do well at math. This is an example of cognitive map. - Jelena is studying in her apartment when suddenly the power goes out. She has to walk to the kitchen to get a flashlight and is surprised by how well she "navigates" without bumping into anything in the dark. She is able to do this because she has formed a(n) insight. - Brandon is trying to get out of his crib. He tries sticking his legs through the bars, hitting the bars with his arms, and butting them with his head. He realizes that he is getting nowhere. Then suddenly Brandon tries climbing over the top of the bars, and he breaks free. This illustrates observational learning. - Penelope watches her mother shell a peanut before eating it. She then picks up a peanut and begins to peel away the shell, too. This is an example of active learning - Recently, Callie's calculus TA has started having Callie's class form small groups and work on solving problems, rather than just lecturing to them for the whole class session. Callie thinks that this method of teaching makes her think more deeply about the material than when she just sits and takes notes. Callie's TA is using __________ as an instructional method. skill learning. - Grasping how to perform a complex action sequence, such as driving a car, pitching a baseball, or playing the harmonica, is referred to as negative reinforcement. -
It's a very hot summer day and Ai is sweating in her apartment. She turns on the air- conditioning and right away her apartment gets cooler. Ai is now more likely to turn on the AC when she is hot to reduce her discomfort; this is an example of