Psychology 101-074
Fall 2006
Union County College

Exam I
Dr. Michael Schwartz

Correct answers are in Orange

Note: For #'s 13, 16, & 19, I accepted two answers

1. In an experiment, a bell is rung before a dog is presented with food powder until, after a number of pairings, the dog now salivates in response to the bell. In this experiment, the conditioned response is the:
(a) salivation in response to the bell
(b) salivation in response to the food powder
(c) salivation in response to both the bell and the food powder
(d) not given in the example

2. It seems that almost every time little Bobby goes to the doctor's office he gets a shot. Now, upon entering the doctor's office, he cries hysterically. This is an example of classical conditioning in which the shot is the:
(a) conditioned stimulus
(b) unconditioned stimulus
(c) conditioned response
(d) unconditioned response

3. In classical conditioning the response is usually considered _______, while the response in operant conditioning is usually under _______ control.
(a) involuntary; voluntary
(b) learned; biological
(c) healthy; unhealthy
(d) experimental; environmental

4. When Pavlov placed meat powder or other food in the mouths of dogs, they began to salivate. His student assistant noticed that after being brought to the laboratory a number of times, the dogs would begin to salivate at the sound of the person's footsteps. The salivation to the sound of the footsteps was a/an:
(a) unconditioned response
(b) unconditioned stimulus
(c) conditioned response
(d) conditioned stimulus

5. Tara notices that her cat scurries into the kitchen as soon as Tara opens a can of food with an electric can opener. In this example, the _________ is the conditioned stimulus.
(a) can of cat food
(b) sound of the electric can opener
(c) dish that Tara puts the food in
(d) cat scurrying into the kitchen

6. Extinction in classical conditioning occurs when:
(a) the reward for the conditioned stimulus is discontinued
(b) the unconditioned stimulus and the conditioned stimulus are no longer paired together
(c) the dogs are no longer able to salivate
(d) the reward for the operant response is discontinued

7. For classical conditioning to be most effective, the stimulus to be conditioned should:
(a) precede the unconditioned stimulus
(b) occur simultaneously with the unconditioned stimulus
(c) follow the unconditioned stimulus
(d) be of greater intensity than the unconditioned stimulus

8. Reinforcement, whether positive or negative, always:
(a) weakens the response
(b) strengthens the response
(c) has no effect on the response
(d) depends on the response

9. The technique called shaping involves:
(a) the strategic use of punishment in training animals to do tricks
(b) the use of food as a means to shape the animal's behavior during classical conditioning
(c) reinforcing a series of small behaviors that lead to the desired response
(d) the use of food as reinforcement to shape the animal's weight and activity level during an experiment

10. Suppose Michelle wants to operantly condition her son Mikey to clean up his room. She waits until after he has not eaten for awhile, gives him a cookie, and tells him to go clean up the room. From an operant conditioning point of view, what is wrong with her procedure?
(a) Mikey should not be given a cookie until after he cleans up his room.
(b) To lower his frustration level, Mikey should be well-fed before the conditioning
procedure begins
(c) A small bit of food such as a cookie will be ineffective in conditioning Mikey.
A large amount initially is needed to increase motivation.
(d) Michelle should give Mikey fruit rather than cookies

11. Sara begs her father for a frosted cookie at the bakery but he refuses. Sara continues to whine and complain until finally her father buys her the cookie. For her dad, the ending of Sara's whiny behavior is a ___________ and for Sara the cookie is a _______.
(a) positive reinforcer; positive reinforcer
(b) negative reinforcer; positive reinforcer
(c) negative reinforcer; negative reinforcer
(d) positive reinforcer; negative reinforcer

12. After paying a $500 fine, an able-bodied driver is careful not to park in a space reserved for handicapped drivers. The loss of money is a:
(a) positive (classic) punishment
(b) negative (response cost) punishment
(c) negative reinforcer
(d) positive reinforcer

13. The week after he earns his driver's license, 16 year-old Evan arrives home an hour after curfew. As a consequence, Evan must wash the car on Saturday and is not allowed to drive it for a week. Washing the car is a __________, and losing driving privileges is
a ________.
(a) positive (classic) punishment; positive (classic) punishment
(b) negative (response cost) punishment; positive (classic) punishment
(c) negative (response cost) punishment; negative (response cost) punishment (also Accepted)
(d) positive (classic) punishment; negative (response cost) punishment (BEST)

14. Sarabelle puts a dollar into the vending machine and gets nothing back. She puts in a second dollar and gets the same response. After her second attempt, she stops trying. This is an example of:
(a) punishment
(b) extinction
(c) reinforcement
(d) natural consequences

15. Charlie always asks Sally for money. Sally doesn't like this, but every now and then she gives Charlie money anyway. How can Sally extinguish Charlie's behavior?
(a) give Charlie money one last time
(b) give Charlie money only when he really needs it
(c) stop giving Charlie money every time
(d) give Charlie a bill for money he owes

16. Stimulus generalization occurs when, after conditioning, a response occurs to a stimulus that:
(a) differs from the stimulus involved in the original conditioning
(b) resembles the stimulus involved in the original conditioning (BEST)
(c) is identical to the stimulus involved in the original conditioning
(d) may be similar or different to the stimulus involved in the original conditioning (also Accepted)

17. An experimenter places food at the end of a maze and several rats at the beginning of the maze. The experimenter then records how long it takes each rat to reach the food. The speed with which the rats run the maze is the:
(a) correlation coefficient
(b) independent variable
(c) dependent variable
(d) variance

18. If you wanted to study the relationship between drinking coffee and how well you perform on a test, the number of cups of coffee you drank would be the:
(a) independent variable
(b) dependent variable
(c) control variable
(d) self-reported variable

19. The control that is possible in an experiment is valuable because it:
(a) allows alternative explanations to be ruled out (BEST)
(b) ensures the representativeness of the sample (also Accepted)
(c) allows the researcher to duplicate conditions existing in natural settings
(d) ensures that results will generalize to real-life settings

20. Teachers were interviewed by a psychologist, and it was found that teachers with the highest IQs tended to be working in schools for mentally retarded children. The best term used to describe this type of study was a(n):
(a) experiment
(b) correlational study
(c) naturalistic observation study
(d) survey

21. The process of getting encoded information out of storage and back into awareness is called:
(a) retrieval
(b) retention
(c) recognition
(d) sensing

22. You go to a theater and see, for just a few seconds, an ad for popcorn. After the ad disappears, you can still "see" the afterimage on the blank screen for a second, although it rapidly fades away. The memory system that is responsible for the afterimage is:
(a) long-term memory
(b) short-term memory
(c) sensory memory
(d) generic memory

23. In order for an event to remain in the short-term memory, it must be:
(a) repeated after a short rest
(b) encoded from the icon
(c) rehearsed
(d) associated with previously stored information

24. Suppose you meet a woman with an incredible memory for lists of digits. She can recall the serial numbers of ten dollar bills after looking at them for only a few seconds. It is most accurate to conclude that she:
(a) has an unusually large short-term memory
(b) has an unusually large long-term memory
(c) uses some sort of chunking strategy
(d) has a short-term memory that lasts several minutes

25. What is the capacity of short-term memory?
(a) unlimited
(b) whatever information you can process in 30 seconds
(c) about 2 or 3 chunks of information
(d) about 7 unrelated items

26. If one organized information and associated it with other information, perhaps by forming images, psychologists would say he or she was engaging in _____ rehearsal.
(a) primary
(b) secondary
(c) maintenance
(d) elaborative

27. According to what you have learned about recall and recognition, which of the following types of test items would typically be the easiest?
(a) multiple-choice questions
(b) fill-in-the-blank questions
(c) a short answer essay
(d) a long answer essay

28. Jason was in a bad car crash and finds that he does not remember any of the events that occurred before the accident. He may suffer from:
(a) prospective amnesia
(b) retrograde amnesia
(c) fading of the memory trace
(d) anterograde amnesia

29. Maria studied Spanish for many years, and then took a year of Italian in college. If she had a harder time learning Italian than others who had never studied a foreign language before, we might suspect that she was experiencing what phenomenon?
(a) proactive interference
(b) primacy effect
(c) retroactive interference
(d) recency effect

30. The general term for clever ways of organizing information in memory to facilitate retention is:
(a) method of loci
(b) mnemonic device
(c) networking
(d) rote rehearsal or learning

31. In terms of comparing the mind to an information processor, more specifically, a computer, which of the following terms would be used?
(a) encode, memorize, define
(b) encode, store, retrieve
(c) store, define, interpret
(d) store, retrieve, interpret

32. When you roller blade, you are relying on ________ memory?
(a) semantic
(b) episodic
(c) procedural
(d) declarative

33. An 8 year-old child who scored like an average 10 year-old on an intelligence test would have a mental age of ______ and an IQ of ______.
(a) eight; 100
(b) eight; 125
(c) ten; 100
(d) ten; 125 (MA/CA) X 100

34. Tests which are used to make predictions about some future behavior are called:
(a) achievement tests
(b) aptitude tests
(c) objective tests
(d) projective tests

35. AmyLee is given a multiple-choice style test to assess her mood and pattern of thinking. After reading the first few test items, she quickly determines that if she chooses the first given choice for each item, it will cast her in the "best" possible light to the examiner. She therefore answers all items in this fashion. This is an example of:
(a) projection
(b) response bias
(c) examiner bias
(d) internal consistency

36. A test is considered to be "valid" if it:
(a) can be similarly replicated at two different points in time
(b) measures what it's supposed to measure
(c) is free of any bias
(d) is administered in a standardized fashion

37. The Rorchasch Inkblot Test is an example of what kind of test:
(a) objective
(b) aptitude
(c) projective
(d) intelligence

38. Projective tests are called "projective" because it is believed that subjects:
(a) project their beliefs about the examiner's expectations into their responses
(b) project aspects of conscious awareness into their responses
(c) project aspects of their unconscious minds into their responses
(d) project future desired behavior into their responses

39. A 500 item test of personality in which subjects are asked to indicate true or false to a variety of descriptive statements would best be considered:
(a) a projective test
(b) an achievement test
(c) an objective test
(d) an aptitude test

40. The test you are currently taking would best be considered which type of test:
(a) achievement
(b) aptitude
(c) personality
(d) projective