Midterm Exam - PY 338

Which of the following would a classical behaviorist be LEAST likely to study?

• a participant’s response to a regularly occurring situation

• a participant’s beliefs

• changes in a participant’s behavior that follow changes in the environment

• principles that apply equally to human behavior and to the behavior of other species

Which of the following statements about introspection is FALSE?

• It is a rigorous attempt to observe conscious events directly.

• Data collection relies on subjective reports from participants.

• It provides researchers with accurate insights into cognition to which only an individual usually has access.

• It is a technique used historically to study cognition.

The philosopher Immanuel Kant based many of his arguments on transcendental inferences. A common example of such an inference is a

• physicist inferring what the attributes of the electron must be on the basis of visible effects that the electron causes.

• computer scientist inferring what the attributes of a program must be on the basis of his or her long-range goals for the program’s functioning.

• biologist inferring how an organism is likely to behave in the future on the basis of assessment of past behaviors.

• behaviorist inferring how a behavior was learned on the basis of a deduction from well-established principles of learning.

For 10 days, a group of rats is simply allowed to explore a maze. On Day 11, food is introduced at a specific location within the maze, and the rats find it. On Day 12, the rats move to the food’s location just as quickly as rats who had been trained for many days with food in that location. The most plausible explanation for this result is that

• the rats that were permitted only to explore learned the layout of the maze.

• the reward of food was not sufficient to shape the trained rats’ behaviors.

• rats are born with the ability to locate food.

• the rats trained to locate food learned the layout of the maze.

The development of computers facilitated research in cognition by

• suggesting hypotheses that framed cognition as stages of information processing.

• providing a way to directly confirm the accuracy of participants’ introspection.

• integrating elements of subjective experiences.

• discrediting behavioral principles.

The behaviorist movement and the Gestalt psychology movement both contributed to the rise of the cognitive revolution. Which of the following is a way in which Gestalt psychologists differ from behaviorists in the study of psychology?

• Gestalt psychologists proposed that behaviors can only be understood by considering an individual’s schemas, but behaviorists did not support this.

• Unlike behaviorists, Gestalt psychologists argued that psychology could only be understood by considering the “whole,” including one’s behaviors, beliefs, and perceptions.

• Unlike behaviorists, Gestalt psychologists only studied internal mental states, not behavior.

• Gestalt psychology was, in fact, a branch of the behaviorist movement. These psychologists did not differ in their opinions from behaviorists regarding how best to study psychology.

Capgras syndrome indicated that recognition requires the evaluation of

• factual and auditory information.

• factual and emotional information.

• visual and factual information.

• visual and auditory information.

Patients who have epilepsy are likely to experience a decreased seizure frequency after a split-brain procedure. Research from split-brain patients has also

• led to the well-supported notion that people are “left-brained” or “right-brained.”

• indicated that localization of function in the brain is fairly uncommon.

• revealed that a person cannot live without an intact corpus callosum, indicating its importance to survival and functioning.

• provided evidence that functions can be localized to some extent to the left or right hemispheres.

Lisa has recently suffered a brain injury. Her symptoms include deficits in coordination and interpretation of pain. Which structure is most likely damaged?

• primary motor area

• midbrain

• forebrain

• hindbrain

Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) uses a strong magnetic pulse to

• record the amount of glucose a specific brain region used during a cognitive task.

• measure the oxygen content in blood flow throughout the brain.

• produce a temporary disruption to the brain area, and thus brain function, where it is applied.

• create a detailed “map” of the different brain structures.