Psychology Mid-Term (quizzes) – Flashcards

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A person's subjective experience of the world and himself or herself is:
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consciousness
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_____ is the interdisciplinary study of brain activity linked with cognition, including such areas as perception, thinking, memory, and language.
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cognitive neuroscience
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_____ is the focusing of conscious awareness on a particular stimulus.
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selective attention
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REM sleep is also called:
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paradoxical sleep
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The human body naturally tends to follow a cycle of sleeping and waking that corresponds to a:
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circadian rhythm of a 24-hour cycle
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Most dreams:
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are about everyday settings, people, activities, and events
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The broad term that refers to a condition in which a person feels psychologically and physically compelled to take a specific drug is:
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addiction
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Depressant drugs:
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inhibit the activity of the central nervous system
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Alcohol, barbiturates, and opiates calm neural activity and slow body functions. They belong to which category of psychoactive drugs?
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depressants
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Most school-age and college students:
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overestimate how much their peers are using drugs
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In December of 1879, he created the very first psychology laboratory in Germany.
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Wundt
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Who was the first woman to earn a PhD in psychology?
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Washburn
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The _____ enables judgment, planning, and processing of new memories.
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prefrontal cortex
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Psychology is the study of:
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behavior and mental processes
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The idea that specific psychological or cognitive functions are processed primarily on one side of the brain is called _____.
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lateralization
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Watson is to _____ as Rogers is to _____.
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Behaviorism; humanistic psychology
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It is 1965, and Professor B.F. Skinner is lecturing in your introductory course. he defines psychology as "the scientific study of _____."
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observable behavior
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An organism's inherited traits that increase its likelihood to reproduce and survive are the traits it will most likely pass on to the generations that follow. This pattern can be explained by the principle of:
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natural selection
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_____ are medical doctors who can provide medical treatment and psychological therapy. Whereas, _____ are NOT medical doctors, but they can access and treat mental, behavioral, and emotional disorders.
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psychiatrists; clinical psychologists
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Much like a battery, these generate electricity from chemical events.
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neurons
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Dendrites transmit messages _____ the cell body, and axons transmit messages _____ the cell body.
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toward; away from
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Depressed mood states are linked to _____ levels of serotonin and _____ levels of norepinephrine.
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low;low
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If you were taking psychology prior to 1920, psychology was defined as "the science of _____."
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mental life
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_____ is to psychology as the microscope is to biology.
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Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)
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This brain structure helps coordinate movement and enables a type of nonverbal learning.
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the cerebellum
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Which school of psychology was most clearly concerned with the adaptive value of complex mental processes?
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functionalism
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Which lobe of the cerebral cortex is most directly involved with vision?
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the occipital lobe
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Which lobe of the cerebral cortex is most directly involved with speaking?
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frontal
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The brain's ability to change function and structure is referred to as:
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plasticity
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Ivan Pavlov pioneered the study of
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learning
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Detecting a weak stimulus, or signal, depends:
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on the psychological state of a person
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_____ refers to the process of organizing and interpreting sensations.
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perception
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_____ is the process in which we detect physical energy in the environment and encode that energy as neural signals.
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sensation
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What makes sensation possible?
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sensory receptors
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_____ refers to the conversion of one form of energy into another.
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transduction
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_____ refers to the amount of energy in a light or sound wave, which we perceive as brightness or loudness, as determined by the wave's amplitude.
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intensity
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_____ refers to the distance from the peak of one light or sound wave to the peak of the next.
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wavelength
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In terms of vision, _____ is the ability to adjust to an artificially displaced or inverted visual aid.
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perceptual adaptation
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Most hearing losses result from damage to the:
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hair cells
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Every day we inhale and exhale nearly _____ breaths of life-sustaining air.
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20,000
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The process of acquiring new and relatively enduring information or behaviors is called:
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learning
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Any event or situation that evokes a response is a:
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stimulus
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_____ is a behavior that occurs as an automatic response to some stimulus.
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respondent behavior
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_____ is behavior that operates on the environment, producing consequences.
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operant behavior
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What is reappearance, after a pause, of an extinguished conditioned response called?
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spontaneous recovery
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Blinking in response to a puff of air directed into your eye is a(n):
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unconditioned response (UR)
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_____ involves any stimulus that, when presented after a response, strengthens the response.
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Positive reinforcement
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With continuous reinforcement, an organism is reinforced _____. With intermittent reinforcement, an organism is reinforced _____.
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Every time the desired behavior occurs; sporadically when the desired behavior occurs
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Studies show that exposure to violence also _____ viewers when later viewing other violent programs on TV.
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desensitizes
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By age _____ months, infants will imitate acts modeled on television.
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14
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The study of how people change physically, mentally, and socially throughout the life span is called:
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developmental psychology
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Nutrients and oxygen are transferred from a mother to her developing fetus through the:
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placenta
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The correct order of prenatal development is:
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zygote, embryo, fetus
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_____ refers to people's ideas about their own and other's mental states; that is, how feelings, perceptions, or thoughts might predict behavior.
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theory of mind
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This famous experiment by _____ involved rearing monkeys with two artificial mothers.
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Harry Harlow
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The average age of earliest conscious memory is _____ years.
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3.5 years
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_____ is the transition period from childhood to adulthood, extending from puberty to independence.
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adolescence
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_____ is a period from about age 18 to the mid-twenties when many young people in Western cultures are no longer adolescents but have not yet achieved full independence as adults.
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emerging adulthood
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Studies in which people of different ages are compared with one another are called:
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cross-sectional studies
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People differ the most in their learning and memory abilities during:
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late adulthood
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An organism's complete set of genetic instructions is called a
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genome
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External influences on development such as social support are said to constitute:
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our environment
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When two people grow up in very similar environments, _____ becomes more important when looking for the source of their differences.
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heredity
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Using the principles of natural selection, _____ studies how behavior and the mind have evolved.
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evolutionary psychology
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A good time to teach children another language is:
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during early childhood
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Early experiences influence how the brain develops by:
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Increasing neural connections
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_____ represents the enduring behaviors, ideas, attitudes, and traditions that are shard by a group of people and transmitted from one generation to the next.
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Culture
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All cultural groups have their own _____, which are the rules for accepted and expected behavior.
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norms
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A _____ is a set of expected behaviors for men and women.
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Gender role
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Aggression is defined in psychology as:
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physical or verbal behavior intended to hurt someone
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