Psychology 101:  Introductory Psychology

Fall 2006--Professor Fong

 

Midterm #2—Information and Review Questions

_______________________________________________________________________________________

 

Date and Time:  Midterm #2 will be held on Thursday, November 16, 2006 during our regular class time.

 

Location:  As with Midterm #1, the midterm exam will be held in different locations, depending on last name:

 

If your last name begins with...

Report to this location:

A–H

Humanities Theatre, Main Floor

I–Ri

Humanities Theatre, Balcony

Ro–V

Ron Coutts Hall (RCH) 302

W–X

Ron Coutts Hall (RCH) 207

Y–Z

Ron Coutts Hall (RCH) 206

 

Format and content:  The format of the midterm will be the same as Midterm #1.  It will not be cumulative (that is, it will not include material from Midterm 1):

 

Multiple Choice:  As indicated in the Course Outline, Midterm #2 will include multiple choice questions from Chapters 8-13 and 15 in the Myers textbook.  There will be 5 questions each taken from these 7 chapters, for a total of 35 questions (the same number of questions as in Midterm #1). 

 

Short Answer:  The material from the first midterm to the material I get through on Tuesday's class will be covered.  In addition to the lecture material, I distributed two sets of lecture notes:  Notes on Developmental Psychology, and Notes on Hypnosis.  You will be responsible for that material as well.

 

The review questions below should help you study for the short answer questions.  In addition, I am distributing the short answer questions from Fall 2005's Midterm #2. The answers to the Fall 2005 short answer questions will be available on the Psych 101, Midterm 2 website early next week. 

 

As with Midterm #1, the point totals for the short answer section will be about the same as the point totals for the multiple choice section.

 

Answers to these review questions: I will be making an audio recording of the answers to the review questions and these will be available as MP3 files on the Psych 101 Midterm 2 website on Tuesday.


 

Psychology 101 Hot Line:  The ever-popular Psych 101 Hot Line will be open on Wednesday, Nov 15, 9:30–10:30 pm. The number will be given out next week. (The number is 519-886-4732. Please call only during that one-hour period.) Operators will be standing by.


On the questions below, a * indicates that I might not have covered this topic during my lecture (so don't worry about it for the midterm).  Because I had to construct this list over one week before the midterm, I had to include review questions for lectures I haven't yet given, so there may be some differences.

 

Remember that on the Review Questions for Midterm #1, there were questions that were not covered on that previous midterm because we had not gotten to that material.  But those questions will be covered on this Midterm #2.  I repeat those questions in the first part of the questions that follow:

 

Note that there are slight changes in the first few questions here to reflect a slightly different presentation of the material than had been anticipated in my MT1 review questions (specifically, #117 on teratogens has been added).


NOV 14: The starred questions below are those that will NOT be part of the midterm questions. THIS IS THE FINAL LIST OF OMITTED QUESTIONS


 

113.     Describe the Rosenzweig experiments on how a rich environment affects the brain.  What is the significance of the increase of acetylcholine in the brain of the rat who has been in a rich environment?

114.     Describe Greenough's findings on putting middle-aged and elderly rats in enriched environments.

115.     What does it mean to say that the brain has remarkable plasticity?

116.     What is the effect of radiation on brain development, as demonstrated by studies of children/adults who were developing as fetuses when the atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima/Nagasaki?

117.     What is a teratogen? Why is it that teratogens (such as radiation and alcohol) cause the most lasting damage between 8-16 weeks after conception--what is going on in fetal development during that time?

118.     How does alcohol affect the brain of the fetus?  How does it affect behavior after birth?

119.     What are glial cells and what is their role in the migration of neurons in the brain during fetal development?

120.     How does alcohol affect the migration of brain cells in the fetus?

121.     What characterizes a person who has damage to the frontal lobes?  What is a perseverative error?

122.     What are the effects of moderate prenatal use of alcohol (1-2 drinks/day) by the mother on the child?

123.     What is the distinction between sensation and perception?

124.     Describe the debate between the empiricists (e.g., Locke, James) and the nativists (e.g., Descartes, Kant) concerning whether infants can perceive the world.

125.     Describe the four methods for studying infant sensation and perception (preference method, habituation method, evoked potentials, high-amplitude sucking)

126.     What did Fantz find that very young infants preferred to look at?

127.     What is the problem with preference studies, i.e., when are the results hard to interpret?

128.     What is habituation?  What are examples from adult life?

129.     Why is habituation the most popular for studying infant sensation and perception?

130.     Describe the high-amplitude sucking paradigm.

131.*   Describe Leslie Cohen's research on infants' understanding of the concept of an angle.

132.*   What is the significance of studying premature infants in understanding the capabilities of infants?

133.*   What does it mean that the 3-month old infant responds more dramatically to the presentation of a new stimulus, as compared to an adult?  Why does this happen--that is, why are infants so responsive?

 

And now, here are the new review questions:

 

134.     What was James Vicary's claim about the effects of subliminal messages on food consumption in movie theaters?  What is the truth about his claim?

135.     Describe the Sidis (1898) study on subliminal perception--what does it say about the possibility that information gets into the perceptual system without conscious awareness?

136.     It seems paradoxical that we could perceive without awareness, if perception is an all-or-none process.  But what is a more accurate way of thinking about perception, and how does this more accurate way help us understand perception without awareness?

137.     What is the full-report technique vs. the partial-report technique?  What does it tell us about the perceptual process?

138.     How did Sperling (1960) use the partial-report technique to demonstrate that there was more in the perceptual system than could be immediately reported?  Describe his study.

139.     What is iconic memory?

140.     About how long does the icon last?

141.     Why can't we report all 9 or 12 of the stimuli in Sperling's task when we use the full-report technique?

142.     What is an example of attended vs. unattended channel?

143.     What is the dichotic listening task?  What does it tell us about attention?

144.     What kinds of information are particularly likely to be noticed even when presented in the unattended channel?

145.     What is the cocktail-party effect?

146.     Describe the Corteen and Wood (1973) study on GSR responses in the nonattended channel. 

147.     What is the blindsight phenomenon?

148.     Do psychologists believe that subliminal perception is possible?

149.     Evaluate Wilson Bryan Key's claims about the presence of hidden sexual stimuli in print advertising.  Compare his claims to those made in the Judas Priest trial.

150.     What did Pratkanis et al. (1990) do to demonstrate the effects of labeling on expectations of subliminal effects?

151.     Describe the CBC study that demonstrates how expectations affect beliefs in subliminal effects.

152.     What have psychologists concluded about subliminal effects on behavior?

153.     Why do people continue to believe in subliminal influence?

154.     What are the historical factors that led to the hysteria surrounding subliminal claims during the 1950's?

155.     What are Circadian rhythms?

156.     Describe how time of day affects biological variables (body temperature, immune functioning, performance measures, effects of drugs).

157.     What part of the brain is responsible for circadian rhythms?

158.     What is it about the location of that part of the brain (suprachiasmatic nucleus, a part of the hypothalamus) that suggests that the perception of light is an essential feature of circadian rhythms (setting or resetting the biological clock)?

159.     What did scientists find when they measured the pattern of electrical activity in the suprachiasmatic nucleus when it was extracted from the brain and kept alive in a petri dish?

160.*   What does the suprachiasmatic nucleus produce that may explain how it communicates information about time of day to the rest of the body?

161.*   What is the relationship between time of day and the use of stereotypes in judgments about people?

                  (describe Bodenhausen's study)

162.     At what time of day should you go to the dentist (so that the effect of the anesthesia is greatest)?

163.     How does shifting work schedules (e.g., day shift to midnight shift) affect work performance?

164.     About how long does it really take for your body to adjust to a time shift of one hour?

165.     What are the three kinds of measurements sleep researchers use to study sleep?

166.     What was the traditional view of sleep (before the 1950's)?

167.     Describe the extraordinary discovery Kleitman and Aserinsky made that changed sleep research.

168.     What are the four stages of sleep?  How are they distinguished in brain wave patterns?

169.     What is REM sleep?  Describe the physiological/brain wave differences between REM and NREM sleep.

170.     What kinds of physiological changes take place in REM sleep?

171.     How does the amount of REM sleep change throughout the night?

172.     What kinds of animals get REM sleep?

173.     What is the relationship between amount of REM sleep and position on the evolutionary ladder?

174.     How does amount of REM sleep change as the human infant grows to adulthood?

175.*   What are the effects of lack of sleep?

176.     What is the relationship between REM sleep and dreaming?

177.*   Describe the study testing the claim that dreams are not instantaneous.  What were the findings? 

178.*   Can outside stimuli affect the content of a dream?

179.     What is Freud's theory of dreams?  What was the goal of his book, The Interpretation of Dreams?

180.     What is the distinction between manifest content and latent content of a dream?

181.     How did dreaming provide the key to Freud for arguing that his psychoanalytic theory was applicable to everyone?

182.     What would Freud think about today's popular books that translate dream symbols into their supposed meaning?

183.     How did Freud differ from Jung about the nature of symbols in dreams? 

184.     Did Freud believe in universal symbols in dreams?

185.     What was the method that Freud used to help people interpret their dreams?

186.     Describe Hobson's neuropsychological theory of dreaming (the activation-synthesis model).  Contrast it with Freud's theory.

187.     What is the difference between REM-on and REM-off brain cells?  Where is each kind located?

188.     What is Hobson's evidence that REM-on cells are indeed positively associated with dreaming?  Hint:

                  two studies that involves neurotransmitters.

189.     What neurotransmitter is associated with REM-on cells?

190.*   What is one possible reason for REM sleep, according to Crick?

191.*   What is the REM rebound effect?


Qs 192–205 on hypnosis are from Lecture Notes on Hypnosis (also available on the Psych 101 website)

 

192.     How is hypnotic suggestibility (also known as hypnotic ability) assessed?

193.     How good is the relationship among the various scales of hypnotic suggestibility?

194.     How consistent and stable is hypnotic suggestibility over the lifespan?

195.     How do children compare to adults in hypnotic suggestibility?  Why might this be?

196.     At approximately what age does stable hypnotic suggestibility emerge?

197.     Describe the two clinical case studies of hypnosis presented in the lecture notes on hypnosis (allergy patient, icthyosis patient).

198.     In the allergy patient, how was it demonstrated that the active ingredients of the allergy were still present even though she showed no behavioral signs of the allergy?

199.     What are zone-specific effects?  Why are they convincing evidence that hypnotic effects are real?  How do they relate to the issue of internal validity?

200.     What are the problems with clinical case studies of hypnosis?

201.     Describe the Hilgard studies of hypnotic analgesia (pain relief) involving the cold pressor test. 

202.     What data in the Hilgard studies of hypnotic analgesia demonstrated that it was hypnosis (rather than some individual difference) that was responsible for the pain relief effect?

203.     Are the analgesic effects of hypnosis due to greater endorphin release?  Describe an experiment that tested this hypothesis.  What were the results?

204.     When people are age-regressed, are their behaviors and memories veridical?  Explain what goes on under hypnotic age regression.

205.     What are the effects of hypnosis on the accuracy of memory?  How about on the confidence in memory?

206.     What is the definition of learning?

207.     Why do we have to be careful in concluding that animal behavior that seems intelligent/learned really is due to learning?  Give some examples of animal behaviors that we could be misinterpreting.

 

Question #207 is the last question that will be relevant to Midterm #2. The remaining questions (208-237) will NOT be covered (we'll save them for the Final Exam).

 

208.     Describe Pavlov's experiments.

209.     Know how to identify the various components in classical conditioning.

210.     Know the stages of classical conditioning.

211.     How can classical conditioning be used to cure enuresis (bedwetting)?

212.     What are the differences between classical conditioning and instrumental (operant) conditioning?

213.     Describe what you would do to train an animal to perform complex behaviors.

214.     What is shaping?  What are successive approximations?

215.     Know the characteristics of the various schedules of reinforcement.

216.     What is the partial reinforcement effect?  What are some examples in everyday life?

217.     How can the principles of reinforcement explain how well-meaning parents attempting to help their child get to sleep can inadvertently create a situation where the child actually stays up for longer.

218.     What happens when you provide pigeons with fixed interval reinforcement?

219.     How does superstitious behavior emerge in pigeons and in people?

220.     What did Watson claim about the possibility of conditioning any stimulus to any response?

221.     How did Garcia's studies concerning biological constraints in learning argue against Watson's

                  broad claims about learning?

222.     Does punishment work?  Describe the Freedman (1965) forbidden toy experiment.

223.     What is the overjustification effect?  What does it tell us about the costs of reward?

224.     What do the forbidden toy experiment and the overjustification effect experiment suggest about using extrinsic rewards and punishments in raising children?

225.     What was Ebbinghaus's approach to the study of memory?  Why did he use nonsense syllables?

226.     What was Bartlett's criticism of Ebbinghaus's approach?  What was Bartlett's own approach?  What kind of stimuli did he employ in his research? 

227.     Which approach has been more influential in the modern studies of memory?

228.     How is information processing in a computer analogous to information processing in a human?  Describe the stages of human information processing (encoding, storage, and retrieval).

229.     Describe the difference between short-term memory and long-term memory.

230.     What is a chunk?

231.     How many chunks can you retain in short-term memory?

232.     When do chess experts differ from chess novices in their memory for chess positions, according to deGroot (1965)?

233.     In studies of free recall, what is the shape of the serial position curve?

234.     What is the primacy effect?  What is the recency effect?  What accounts for each of these effects?

235.     What kind of coding is used in STM?  What kind of coding is used in LTM?

236.     What experimental evidence is there that STM is acoustic?

237.     What is working memory?


The omitted review questions are already marked on this version of the review questions--those starred (*) will NOT be covered on the midterm. In addition, questions 208-237 will NOT be covered on the midterm.


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