Psychology Chapter Review Questions

Questions and Answers

What is the philosophical idea that all mental processes in the mind are reducible to physical processes in the brain?

philosophical materialism

What is the idea that complex mental phenomena like conscious awareness can be understood by breaking them down into elemental parts?

structuralism

Who most influenced the rise of functionalism?

Darwin

What therapy is meant to help people attain insight into their unconscious minds?

psychoanalysis Signup and view all the answers

Who believed that behaviorism would make psychology an objective science?

Watson Signup and view all the answers

Whose principle of reinforcement explains how behavior is shaped by its consequences?

Skinner Signup and view all the answers

What group of American psychologists resisted behaviorism in the early 1900s?

social psychologists Signup and view all the answers

What invention made the cognitive revolution possible?

digital computer Signup and view all the answers

John Garcia's experiments helped bring about which type of psychology?

evolutionary psychology Signup and view all the answers

What are the two new areas of psychology that have emerged in the 21st century?

behavioral neuroscience and cultural psychology Signup and view all the answers

What is the belief that accurate knowledge can be acquired through observation?

empiricism Signup and view all the answers

What is a falsifiable prediction called?

hypothesis Signup and view all the answers

If a detector is used to measure the same property twice but produces different measurements, then it lacks what?

reliability Signup and view all the answers

What are aspects of an observational setting that cause people to behave as they think someone wants or expects them to?

demand characteristics Signup and view all the answers

What is the average value of all measurements in a particular distribution?

mean Signup and view all the answers

What does the sign of r (correlation coefficient) show?

direction of a correlation Signup and view all the answers

What keeps us from concluding that one variable is the cause and the other is the effect when two variables are correlated?

third-variable problem Signup and view all the answers

A researcher administers a questionnaire concerning attitudes towards tax increases to people of all genders and ages who live all across Canada. The dependent variable in the study is the __________ of the participants.

attitude Signup and view all the answers

What type of experiment defines variables as they are defined in the real world?

externally valid Signup and view all the answers

When people find evidence that confirms their beliefs, they often do what?

stop looking Signup and view all the answers

Signals are transmitted from one neuron to another across the what?

synapse Signup and view all the answers

Which type of neuron receives information from the external world and conveys this information to the brain?

sensory neuron Signup and view all the answers

What is an electrical signal that is conducted along the length of a neuron's axon to the synapse?

action potential Signup and view all the answers

What are chemicals that transmit information across the synapse to a receiving neuron's dendrites?

neurotransmitters Signup and view all the answers

What automatically controls the organs of the body?

autonomic nervous system Signup and view all the answers

Which part of the hindbrain coordinates fine motor skills?

cerebellum Signup and view all the answers

What part of the brain is involved in movement and arousal?

midbrain Signup and view all the answers

What regulates body temperature, hunger, thirst, and sexual arousal?

hypothalamus Signup and view all the answers

What explains the apparent beneficial effects of cardiovascular exercise on aspects of brain function and cognitive performance?

neuron plasticity Signup and view all the answers

Genes set the ___ in populations within a given environment.

range of variation Signup and view all the answers

Sensation involves _ whereas perception involves _

stimulation; interpretation Signup and view all the answers

What process converts physical signals from the environment into neural signals carried by sensory neurons into the central nervous system?

transduction Signup and view all the answers

What is the smallest intensity needed to just barely detect a stimulus?

absolute threshold Signup and view all the answers

Signal detection theory allows researchers to distinguish between what?

perceptual sensitivity and decision criterion Signup and view all the answers

What leads to our ability to see colors?

Light striking the retina, causing a specific pattern of response in the three cone types. Signup and view all the answers

Which part of the brain is the location of the primary visual cortex?

area V1 Signup and view all the answers

Our ability to combine visual details so that we perceive unified objects is explained by what theory?

feature-integration theory Signup and view all the answers

What kind of cues are relative size and linear perspective?

monocular depth cues Signup and view all the answers

What is crucial to our ability to localize sound sources?

The placement of our ears on opposite sides of the head. Signup and view all the answers

What best explains why smells can have immediate and powerful effects?

Involvement of smell in brain centres for emotions and memories. Signup and view all the answers

Currently, unconscious processes are understood as what?

unexperienced mental processes that give rise to thoughts and behavior. Signup and view all the answers

The _______ unconscious is at work when subliminal and unconscious processes influence thought and behavior.

cognitive Signup and view all the answers

What is one of the major patterns of human life called, related to sleep and waking?

circadian rhythm Signup and view all the answers

Sleep needs _______ over the life span.

decrease Signup and view all the answers

During dreaming, the dreamer ________ changes in emotion, thought, and sensation.

uncritically accepts Signup and view all the answers

Which explanation of dreams proposes that they are produced when the mind attempts to make sense of random neural activity during sleep?

activation-synthesis model Signup and view all the answers

Psychoactive drugs influence consciousness by altering the effects of what?

neurotransmitters Signup and view all the answers

What occurs when larger doses of a drug are required over time to achieve the same effect?

tolerance Signup and view all the answers

What reflects people's beliefs about how alcohol will influence them in particular situations?

alcohol expectancy Signup and view all the answers

Hypnosis has been proven to have an _______ effect.

analgesic Signup and view all the answers

What is the process by which we transform what we perceive, think, or feel into an enduring memory?

encoding Signup and view all the answers

What is the process of relating new information in a meaningful way to knowledge that is already stored in memory?

semantic encoding Signup and view all the answers

What kind of memory storage holds information for a second or two?

sensory memory Signup and view all the answers

What process involves making memories stable in the brain?

consolidation Signup and view all the answers

What strengthens synaptic connections?

long-term potentiation Signup and view all the answers

What increases the likelihood of recalling a sad memory when you are in a sad mood?

state-dependent retrieval Signup and view all the answers

What do neuroimaging studies suggest activates the brain when trying to remember?

left frontal lobe Signup and view all the answers

What is the act of consciously or intentionally retrieving past experiences called?

explicit memory Signup and view all the answers

Remembering a family reunion that you attended as a child illustrates what type of memory?

episodic memory Signup and view all the answers

Eyewitness misidentification or false recognition is most likely a result of what?

memory misattribution Signup and view all the answers

In classical conditioning, a conditioned stimulus is paired with an unconditioned stimulus to produce a what?

conditioned response Signup and view all the answers

What occurs when a conditioned stimulus is no longer paired with an unconditioned stimulus?

extinction Signup and view all the answers

What experiment by Watson and Rayner sought to demonstrate that even sophisticated behaviors such as emotion are subject to classical conditioning?

Little Albert Signup and view all the answers

Which part of the brain is involved in the classical conditioning of fear?

amygdala Signup and view all the answers

After having a bad experience with a particular type of food, what can people develop towards that food?

a lifelong aversion Signup and view all the answers

Which mechanisms have no role in Skinner's approach to behavior?

cognitive, neural, evolutionary Signup and view all the answers

What provides evidence for a cognitive element in operant conditioning because it occurs without any obvious reinforcement?

latent learning Signup and view all the answers

Neural research indicates that observational learning is closely tied to brain areas involved in what?

action Signup and view all the answers

What kind of learning takes place largely independent of awareness of both the process and the products of information acquisition?

implicit learning Signup and view all the answers

Which study strategy has been shown to be the most effective?

taking practice tests Signup and view all the answers

What governs the combining of words to form phrases and sentences?

syntactic rules Signup and view all the answers

What theory of language development posits it as an innate biological capacity?

nativist theory Signup and view all the answers

Damage to which brain region results in difficulty in producing grammatical speech?

Broca's area Signup and view all the answers

What hypothesis maintains that language shapes the nature of thought?

linguistic relativity hypothesis Signup and view all the answers

What is the most typical member of a category called?

prototype Signup and view all the answers

Which theory of concept formation is based on our judgment of features that appear to be characteristic of category members?

family resemblance theory Signup and view all the answers

Inability to recognize objects that belong to a particular category is known as what?

category-specific deficit Signup and view all the answers

What causes people to give different answers to the same problem depending on how the problem is phrased?

framing effects Signup and view all the answers

What process involves deciding on a goal, analyzing the current situation, and settling on strategies to reduce differences?

means-end analysis Signup and view all the answers

What kind of reasoning is aimed at deciding on a course of action?

practical Signup and view all the answers

Study Notes

Key Concepts in Psychology

Philosophical Materialism: All mental processes are reducible to physical processes in the brain.
Structuralism: Understanding complex mental phenomena by breaking them down into elemental parts.
Functionalism Influences: Charles Darwin significantly impacted the rise of functionalism, emphasizing the function of mental processes.
Psychoanalysis: A therapeutic approach to gain insight into unconscious thoughts and feelings.
Behaviorism: Watson believed behaviorism would enable psychology to be an objective science, focusing solely on observable behaviors.
Reinforcement Theory: B.F. Skinner's principle shows that behavior is shaped by its consequences.
Early 1900s Psychology Resistance: Social psychologists in America resisted the behaviorist approach of the time.
Cognitive Revolution: Enabled by the invention of the digital computer, which allowed new ways to study mental processes.
Evolutionary Psychology: John Garcia's rat experiments illustrated how certain associations are quickly learned, enhancing evolutionary psychology.
21st Century Psychology: Emergence of behavioral neuroscience and cultural psychology as significant fields.

Research and Methodology

Empiricism: Accurate knowledge acquisition through observation is central to scientific study.
Hypothesis: A falsifiable prediction that can be tested.
Reliability: Consistency of measurements; lack of reliability indicates issues with the measuring instrument.
Demand Characteristics: Observational settings that influence participant behavior based on perceived expectations.
Mean: Average value in a dataset.

Correlation and Causation

Correlation Coefficient (r): The sign indicates the direction of the correlation between two variables.
Third-Variable Problem: A challenge in establishing causality due to the influence of an unseen variable.
Attitude as Dependent Variable: In studies assessing attitudes, the participants' attitudes towards subjects like tax increases serve as the dependent variable.

Neuroanatomy and Function

Synapse: The junction through which signals are transmitted between neurons.
Sensory Neurons: Neurons that convey information from the external world to the brain.
Action Potential: An electrical signal moving along the axon of a neuron.
Neurotransmitters: Chemicals that transmit information across synapses to receiving neurons.
Autonomic Nervous System: Part of the nervous system that regulates involuntary bodily functions.
Cerebellum: Coordinates fine motor skills.
Hypothalamus: Regulates crucial bodily functions like temperature, hunger, and thirst.

Sensation and Perception

Transduction: The process of converting physical environmental signals into neural signals.
Absolute Threshold: The minimum intensity needed to detect a stimulus.
Monocular Depth Cues: Visual cues like relative size and linear perspective that help in depth perception.
Feature-Integration Theory: Explains how we combine visual details into unified perceptual objects.

Memory and Learning

Encoding: The process of transforming perceptions into lasting memories.
Long-Term Potentiation: Strengthening of synaptic connections, crucial for memory consolidation.
Episodic Memory: Recollection of specific events, like family reunions from childhood.
Classical Conditioning: Involves pairing a conditioned stimulus with an unconditioned stimulus to induce a conditioned response.
Extinction: Occurs when a conditioned stimulus is no longer paired with an unconditioned stimulus.

Language and Thinking

Nativist Theory: Language development is seen as an innate biological capacity.
Broca's Area: Brain region critical for grammatically correct speech production.
Framing Effects: Responses can vary based on how questions or scenarios are presented.
Means-End Analysis: A problem-solving strategy of identifying goals and deducing steps to achieve them.

Additional Insights

Memory Misattribution: Eyewitness errors often stem from the misattribution of memories.
Motivational States: People's beliefs, such as alcohol expectancy, can influence their reactions in social situations.
Hypnosis: Proven to have analgesic effects by altering perceptions of pain.

This collection of notes covers foundational concepts, research methodologies, neuroanatomy, cognitive psychology, and affective components of learning and memory in psychology.

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Test your understanding of key concepts in psychology with these chapter review questions. Covering topics like philosophical materialism and structuralism, this quiz will help reinforce your knowledge of the subject.