Psychology clep review

The focus of psychological science is the attempt to relate overt responses to observable environmental stimuli. This statement is most closely associated with which of the following approaches?

• Cognitive

• Behavioral

• Biological

• Humanistic

• Psychodynamic

Which of the following types of research design is most appropriate for establishing a cause-and-effect relationship between two variables?

• Correlational

• Naturalistic observation

• Participant observation

• Experimental

• Case study

The science of psychology is typically dated from the establishment of the late-nineteenth-century Leipzig laboratory of

• Hermann Ebbinghaus

• Hermann von Helmholtz

• William James

• Wilhelm Wundt

• John Locke

The requirement that prospective participants know the general nature of a study so that they can decide whether to participate is a major part of

• reciprocal determinism

• confidentiality

• informed consent

• duty to inform

• debriefing

The statement "Response latency is the number of seconds that elapses between the stimulus and the response" is an example of

• introspection

• a description of an interaction

• an operational definition

• a deduction

• free association

As blind children learn to read braille, the amount of sensory cortex devoted to their finger tips increases. Which process is responsible for this allotment of brain activity?

• Plasticity

• Lateralization

• Synesthesia

• Place theory

• Transduction

A neuron is said to be polarized when

• it is in the refractory period

• it is in a resting state

• it is about to undergo an action potential

• the synaptic terminals release chemicals into the synaptic gap

• chemicals outside the cell body cross the cell membrane

Down syndrome is caused by

• an extra chromosome

• an imbalance of neurotransmitters

• a tumor in the parietal lobe

• a nutritional deficiency

• a viral infection in the third trimester of pregnancy

One common technique used in studying infant perception and cognition involves measuring a decreased response to a stimulus that an infant has been exposed to previously. This research technique is called

• the preferential-looking paradigm

• habituation

• the Strange Situation

• expectancy violation

• conditioned head turning

Damage to an individual's parietal lobes is most likely to result in

• a heightened sense of smell

• reduced sensitivity to touch

• decreased reaction time

• a loss in the ability to understand spoken language

• difficulty discriminating between the four primary tastes