Intro to Psychology Quiz
Questions: 16 · 10 minutes
1. A neuron carries information from receptors in the skin toward the spinal cord. What type of neuron is it?
Interneuron
Motor neuron
Sensory neuron
Mirror neuron
2. A researcher changes the amount of sleep participants receive and then measures their attention. What is the independent variable?
The amount of sleep participants receive
The participants' attention scores
The number of participants studied
The researcher's prediction about attention
3. A bathroom scale displays the same reading each time, but that reading is consistently five kilograms too high. How should its measurement quality be described?
Valid but unreliable
Reliable but not valid
Neither valid nor reliable because consistency is irrelevant
Both valid and reliable
4. While entering a verification code, Lena keeps the six digits in mind just long enough to type them. Which memory system is she primarily using?
Procedural memory
Working memory
Sensory memory
Episodic memory
5. After spending heavily on a disappointing event, Marcus insists it was excellent because otherwise he would feel foolish about the purchase. Which concept best explains his response?
Observational learning
The bystander effect
Sensory adaptation
Cognitive dissonance
6. A commuter is less likely to offer help to someone who falls on a crowded platform because many other people are present. Which concept most directly applies?
Social facilitation
Self-serving bias
Group polarization
The bystander effect
7. Priya believes that left-handed people are unusually creative. She notices examples that support her belief but overlooks counterexamples. Which bias is she showing?
Hindsight bias
Availability heuristic
Fundamental attribution error
Confirmation bias
8. In a medication experiment, neither participants nor the researchers interacting with them know who receives the medication or the placebo. What is the main purpose of this design?
To make random sampling unnecessary
To prove that the medication has no side effects
To ensure every participant expects the medication to work
To reduce expectancy effects and observer bias
9. Damage to which brain structure is especially associated with difficulty forming new explicit memories?
Medulla
Hippocampus
Cerebellum
Hypothalamus
10. A car stops making an irritating beeping sound when the driver fastens the seat belt. This increases future seat-belt use. Which learning process is illustrated?
Positive punishment
Negative reinforcement
Positive reinforcement
Negative punishment
11. A tone is repeatedly sounded before a dog receives food. Eventually, the dog salivates when it hears the tone alone. After conditioning, what is the tone?
The conditioned stimulus
The unconditioned stimulus
The unconditioned response
The conditioned response
12. A trainer rewards a dog first for approaching a hoop, then for touching it, and finally for jumping through it. What operant-conditioning technique is being used?
Extinction
Stimulus generalization
Shaping
Spontaneous recovery
13. A study finds a correlation of -0.70 between daily stress-management practice and reported stress. What does this value indicate?
The two variables have almost no relationship
Stress-management practice necessarily causes stress to fall
Higher practice tends to accompany lower reported stress
Both variables tend to increase together
14. An infant watches a toy being covered with a blanket and then searches beneath the blanket for it. This behavior demonstrates:
Object permanence
Egocentrism
Conservation
Secure attachment
15. During which stage of sleep are vivid, story-like dreams especially common?
N3 sleep
N1 sleep only
REM sleep
Quiet wakefulness
16. Why do experimenters randomly assign participants to different conditions?
To reduce systematic differences between the groups before treatment
To ensure participants do not know the research hypothesis
To guarantee that the sample represents the entire population
To make the dependent variable easier to measure