1. If you adopt the _______ perspective, you’ll reject an emphasis on what goes on in people’s minds in
favor of focusing on measurable behaviors that can be objectively measured.
A. psychodynamic
B. cognitive
C. behavioral
D. neuroscience
2. Among his oil-field buddies, Conrad was known as a cheerfully profane hard drinker who was seldom
averse to a barroom scrap. But, after he suffered a head injury in a car accident he returned to work as a
docile, timid man who could no longer deal with the violent activity of a drill rig platform. His physicians
determined that damage to his __________ was the likely cause of his changed behavior.
A. amygdala
B. cerebellum
C. thalamus
D. hippocampus
3. The left hemisphere of the cerebral cortex is more specialized in language functions and processing
information sequentially. The right hemisphere tends to specialize in spatial perception and distinguishing
patterns. These are examples of cortex
A. lateralization.
B. adaptation.
C. neuroplasticity.
D. evolution.
4. Among the advanced technologies used to study the brain’s structure and functions, which one provides
detailed three-dimensional images of the brain’s structures and activities?
A. Positron emission tomography
B. Functional magnetic resonance imaging
C. Electroencephalogram
D. Transcranial magnetic stimulation
5. A reflex, like automatically removing your hand from a hot stove, involves pain messages sent to the
spinal cord by way of _______ neurons, while the movement of your hand is controlled by _______
neurons.A. somatic; sensory
B. somatic; sympathetic
C. motor; sensory
D. sensory; motor
6. I study a sample of 100 high school students and find that student IQ scores increase significantly as the
level of reported parental income increases. I can conclude from this that
A. there’s a negative relationship between parental income and children’s IQ scores.
B. there’s a positive correlation between parental income and children’s IQ scores.
C. higher parental income causes an increase in children’s IQ scores.
D. students get smarter when their parents earn more money.
7. Regarding the association areas of the cerebral cortex, which of the following statements is most
accurate?
A. Changes in personality may indicate damage to the association areas.
B. Most association areas are located in the left cerebral hemisphere.
C. The association areas are largely responsible for neurogenesis.
D. Association areas are to thinking as neuroplasticity is to language.
8. Under Weber’s law, we’ll notice a stimulus difference such that it will be a constant proportion of the
intensity of the initial stimulus. Thus, for weight, we’ll notice a one-ounce difference in a weight of 50
ounces. Weber’s law applies most directly to the concept of
A. perceived stimulus.
B. difference threshold.
C. absolute threshold.
D. sensory adaptation.
9. Agatha maintains that people are capable of freely making voluntary choices. Constance is mainly
focused on how aggression is caused by genetic inheritance. It seems reasonable to assume that Constance
is not much interested in environmental factors impacting behavior while Agatha rejects
A. heredity.
B. introspection.
C. determinism.
D. mental processes.
10. Lorraine and Albert are discussing neurotransmitters, getting ready for an exam. Lorraine maintains that
neuronal dendrites sort excitatory and inhibitory messages through a process of elimination dictated by
reuptake activity. Albert, on the other hand, argues that inhibitory messages always cancel out excitatory
messages. Who is correct?
A. Albert is correct.
B. Lorraine is correct.
C. Neither Lorraine nor Albert is correct.
D. Both Lorraine and Albert are correct.
11. In the autonomic division of the nervous system, preparing the body for action under conditions of
stress is to the sympathetic division as pupil dilation and inhibited digestive processes are to the _______
division.
A. peripheral-somatic
B. sympathetic
C. peripheral-autonomous
D. peripatetic
12. In a neuron, the myelin sheath serves to insulate
A. terminal buttons.
B. the axon.
C. the cell body.
D. dendrites.
13. Within the cerebral cortex, the _______ area is found in the occipital lobe.
A. somatosensory
B. visual
C. association
D. main auditory
14. Dr. Lombard’s research is focused on the capacity of the human mind to store and retrieve information.
Her colleague, Dr. Fry, is a clinician who strives to help his clients be “the best that they can be.” As a fly
on the wall listening to the two psychologists’ friendly disputes during coffee breaks, which of these
assertions would you most likely expect from Dr. Fry?
A. Mental confusion is best compared to a deficiency in short-term memory.
B. People can’t be held responsible for their life choices.
C. A person’s basic assumptions about themselves are inevitably false.
D. If biology is destiny the concept of free will can be only an illusion.
15. In his research, Dr. Caulfield wants to compare levels of test anxiety among high school students in
grades 10 and 12. His hypothesis is that seniors will have higher levels of test anxiety than sophomores will.
His _______ definition of test anxiety for each person in his sample will be a self-reported test-anxiety
level, marked in a questionnaire as “high,” “moderate,” or “low.”
A. operational
B. theoretical
C. functional
D. subjective
16. By means of introspection, Dr. Marsh attempts to determine the components of things like perception,
thinking, and consciousness. By contrast, Dr. Smyth wants to understand what the mind does in producing
different kinds of behavior. We can reasonably assume that Dr. Marsh’s research is mainly guided by the
principles of
A. functionalism.
B. Gestalt psychology.End of exam
C. objectivism.
D. structuralism.
17. Which of the following statements regarding depth perception is true?
A. Motion parallax is detected because we perceive binocular disparity.
B. Experience teaches us to perceive relative size as an indicator of the color of an object.
C. The change in position of an object relative to the retina is a binocular cue.
D. Texture gradient is a monocular cue.
18. Which of these statements most accurately characterizes linear perspective?
A. We learn to compensate for the monocular disparity between the retinal images of the left and right eye.
B. As we view a landscape, the relative sizes of objects are revealed by texture gradient cues.
C. Through experience, we determine that changes in images focused on the retina occur as a result of the motion of our bodies.
D. Having learned that distant objects tend to be closer together, we interpret a two-dimensional image on the retina in three
dimensions.
19. You could locate receptor sites involved in transmitting a nerve impulse by finding the
A. myelin.
B. neural regulators.
C. synapse.
D. endorphins.
20. You’ll need to select a sample that represents a larger group when you’re conducting
A. survey research.
B. naturalistic observation.
C. archival research.
D. a case study.
