PSYC 1100 Practice Exams
Instructor: Eric Lundquist

These questions are from another professor's old midterm AND final exam (which explains why the items re-use some numbers). They are adapted for the different order in which the material is covered in my class (which explains why the items are out of order). Some material may not have been covered in the same way. But for the most part, these questions are answerable from a combination of information presented in lecture and in the Gleitman textbook. These exam questions are representative of (1) the material that will be tested, (2) how the questions will be phrased, and (3) the level of detail at which you should be familiar with the course material. On the actual exams they will not be clearly segregated by topic; this is only done here to facilitate studying.

NEUROPSYCHOLOGY (Ch. 2)

9. The corpus callosum
a. is found in the right hemisphere
b. is a massive bundle of fibers that interconnects the motor and somatosensory areas of the left hemisphere
c. connects the two hemispheres
d. leads to a failure of short-term memory when damaged

10. A patient has a cortical lesion. When shown a drawing of a camel, he pain-stakingly identifies several parts and then ventures a guess: "Eyes...mouth...of course, it's an animal." He probably suffers from:
a. an agnosia
b. an apraxia
c. an expressive aphasia
d. a receptive aphasia

19. Apraxia results from damage to
a. the back of the brain
b. the front of the brain, either left or right
c. areas of the brain that when damaged also produce agnosia
d. Wernicke's area

23. In most people, the right hemisphere appears to be the locus of control in
a. language
b. spatial relations
c. complex numerical problems
d. reasoning and logic

24. Patients with Wernicke's aphasia
a. can speak only with great effort, if at all
b. can speak fluently and rapidly
c. have speech comprehension problems identical to patients suffering from Broca's aphasia
d. make no speech errors

33. The somatosensory area is located in the
a. temporal lobe
b. frontal lobe
c. occipital lobe
d. parietal lobe

35. A split-brain patient cannot
a. see an object presented briefly on the right side of the field of vision
b. name an object presented briefly on the right side of the field of vision
c. name an object presented briefly on the left side of the field of vision
d. see anything presented to the right hemisphere

37. With respect to the motor projection area
a. the different parts of the body are each represented by the same amount of cortical tissue
b. the leg and arm of the same side of the body are represented by the same part of the motor projection area
c. more space is dedicated to controlling the thumb than the leg
d. it is found only in the right hemisphere

43. Where is the auditory projection area?
a. the frontal lobe
b. the parietal lobe
c. the temporal lobe
d. the occipital lobe

44. A patient who systematically neglects features of the environment on his left and neglects the left side of his body is suffering from:
a. agnosia
b. a lesion of the right parietal lobe
c. receptive aphasia
d. both a and b

61. The fact that reflexes are more vigorous when the influence of higher brain centers is removed is referred to as
a. disinhibition
b. spatial summation
c. opponent process
d. reciprocal inhibition

63. The right hemisphere of right-handers
a. controls the right side of the body
b. can understand short written words and tell whether a small string of letters makes up a word or a nonword
c. has rich spatial abilities but absolutely no language abilities
d. is specialized for organization in time

64. The right thumb
a. is controlled by the left motor projection area and sends sensory signals to the right somatosensory projection area
b. uses less cortical space than the right arm
c. projects sensory fibers to the upper region of the left somatosensory projection area
d. is controlled by the region of the left motor projection area closest to Broca's area

66. The unilateral neglect syndrome results from lesions
a. of the right parietal lobe
b. in the limbic system
c. in the left frontal lobe
d. of the occipital lobe

71. Aphasia
a. can occur for both spoken and signed language
b. is a disorder only of spoken language
c. is unrelated to apraxia and agnosia
d. is a problem of understanding rather than producing language

79. Destruction of brain tissue in the association cortex can result in
a. agnosia
b. aphasia
c. apraxia
d. all of the above

82. The final common path
a. was identified by Sherrington
b. is demonstrated in spatial but not in temporal summation
c. is demonstrated in temporal but not in spatial summation
d. is a notion associated primarily with Sperry

85. Which is not an apraxia
a. receptive aphasia
b. expressive aphasia
c. failure to identify ordinary objects despite being able to identify the separate details of objects
d. both a and c

94. The cortex
a. was one of the first brain structures to emerge in the course of evolution
b. is as well developed in fish, reptiles and birds as it is in primates
c. is the most recently evolved brain structure
d. contains only sensory functions

95. Stimulating the sensory site that causes a flexor muscle to contract, also causes
a. the corresponding extensor muscle to contract
b. the corresponding extensor muscle to relax
c. the flexor to relax
d. an effect referred to as disinhibition

97. The peripheral nervous system
a. includes the spinal cord
b. includes the somatic but not the autonomic nervous system
c. includes the parasympathetic but not the sympathetic branch of the autonomic nervous system
d. none of the above


LEARNING (Ch. 4)

1. Biological effects of no control over stressful events include
a. increased risk of cancer
b. impairment of the immune system
c. only minor illnesses such as colds and stomach ailments
d. both a and b

3. Which of the following is a correct statement about learned taste aversion?
a. it is not found in humans
b. cancer patients who eat a novel tasting food prior to chemotherapy develop a strong aversion to the novel flavor
c. sickness functions as the CS
d. it only develops when the sickness follows the novel food within thirty minutes

4. The purpose of a negative reinforcer is to
a. increase the probability of a response
b. decrease the probability of a response
c. punish an animal for a given response
d. extinguish a response

8. The Garcia effect is important because it
a. gives evidence of conditioning when the conditioned stimulus (CS) comes after the unconditioned stimulus (UCS)
b. shows that conditioning can take place even when the CS and the effects of a UCS are separated by many hours
c. indicates a particular built-in readiness of certain animals to link taste and illness
d. both b and c

9. In Pavlov's experiment on salivary conditioning which of the following caused salivation before the conditioning trials began the
a. CS
b. CR
c. UCS
d. UCR

10. Second-order conditioning
a. uses a CS from one classical conditioning situation as the UCS in another classical conditioning situation
b. refers to the process of classical conditioning in higher animals such as humans
c. does not support as strong a conditioned response relative to first-order conditioning
d. a and c

15. The equipotentiality (or equivalence of associability) principle advanced by Pavlov
a. holds that the associations between the CS and UCS are essentially arbitrary
b. is supported by studies on learned taste aversion
c. asserts that all temporal intervals between CS and UCS are equivalent in producing conditioning
d. asserts that all forms of learning are equivalent in that each is an instance of conditioning

16. Resistance to extinction is
a. identical for all forms of partial reinforcement
b. greater under fixed-ratio rather than variable-ratio schedules
c. greater under variable-ratio rather than fixed-ratio schedules
d. greatest under continuous reinforcement

17. Experimental extinction:
a. results from repeated presentations of the CS without the UCS
b. results from repeated presentations of the UCS with the CS
c. both a and b
d. neither a nor b

19. In a fear conditioning experiment, the probability of the UCS in the presence of the CS was always .40. Conditioning would be greatest for which probability of the UCS in the absence of the CS?
a. .10
b. .20
c. .30
d. .40

24. Pavlov believed that inhibition does not last as long as excitation. Which phenomenon did he cite as evidence for this view?
a. generalization of the orientation reflex
b. reconditioning
c. spontaneous recovery
d. the difficulty of forming a CR if the CS-UCS interval is more than a minute

26. The highest response rates are obtained with a
a. fixed ratio schedule
b. variable ratio schedule
c. fixed interval schedule
d. variable interval schedule

30. Instrumental conditioning differs from classical conditioning in that
a. reinforcement depends on the organism making the proper response
b. reinforcement, the UCS, is presented regardless of what the organism does
c. it can be established when the somatic branch of the peripheral nervous system is disabled
d. only contiguity applies

33. A human subject is touched on the shoulder while receiving electric shock. Subsequent tests show that he will give a more vigorous galvanic skin response when touched on the shoulder, less vigorous when touched on the lower back, still less vigorous when touched on the thigh, and least when touched on the calf. The results are plotted with the galvanic skins response on the y-axis and the parts of the body on the x-axis. The resulting curve is called:
a. an acquisition curve
b. an excitation gradient
c. a spread of inhibition curve
d. a generalization gradient

38. A response will be much harder to extinguish if it was acquired through
a. partial reinforcement
b. second-order conditioning
c. continuous reinforcement
d. instrumental conditioning

40. Belonginess phenomena
a. vary in type from one species to another
b. include language acquisition in humans
c. include the observation that pigeons can learn to peck to avoid an unpleasant situation as easily as they can learn to avoid by hopping or flying
d. both a and b

45. To produce novel behaviors consisting of complex chains of responses
a. shaping by successive approximations is required
b. reinforcement must be immediate (without delay) throughout the process
c. the reinforcement must be delivered on a fixed interval schedule
d. both a and b

46. The UCR
a. usually occurs before the UCS
b. is not needed to establish conditioning but is needed to produce the orienting response
c. occurs at a later point in the sequence of events defining a conditioning trial than the CS
d. is often identical to the UCS

51. Which schedule of partial reinforcement underlies many gambling systems and may help to explain compulsive gambling?
a. Fixed-interval
b. Fixed-ratio
c. Variable-interval
d. Variable-ratio

54. The Russian physiologist Sechenov argued that:
a. associations were qualitatively different from reflexes
b. only automatic behaviors could be explained by reflex-like mechanisms
c. all behavior could be understood in terms of reflex actions
d. neutral stimuli can come to signal the availability of food

55. Stimulus generalization
a. occurs in both classical and instrumental conditioning
b. is limited to classical conditioning
c. is limited to instrumental conditioning
d. is an example of extinction

65. The optimum interval between UCS and CS is:
a. CS precedes UCS by about two seconds
b. CS precedes UCS by about half a second
c. CS and UCS simultaneously
d. UCS precedes CS by about half a second

69. If the CS is inside the animal's body, the conditioning is referred to as
a. second-order
b. backward
c. operant
d. interoceptive

70. Contingency
a. plays no role in classical conditioning
b. is evident in the instrumental behavior of two-month- old infants
c. must be perfect for learning to occur
d. is inseparable from contiguity in its effects upon learning

74. In determining whether two events are contingent, one must consider:
a. the number of times the two events have co- occurred
b. the number of times the two events have not co- occurred
c. the time relationship between the two events
d. both a and b must be taken into account

75. Quizzes in the classroom and speed traps on the highway are examples of _______ scheduling of aversive stimuli.
a. fixed-interval
b. variable-interval
c. fixed-ratio
d. variable-ratio

76. The galvanic skin response
a. is a drop in the electrical resistance of the skin, particularly the palm
b. is a sensitive index of general arousal of the body
c. indexes activity of the autonomic nervous system
d. all of the above

80. When reinforcement always follows the first response made after a specific time period, the schedule is:
a. fixed ratio
b. fixed interval
c. variable ratio
d. variable interval

88. The CR and the UCR
a. are always identical
b. are different because the CS serves as a preparatory signal for the UCS but does not become a substitute for it
c. are identical in salivary conditioning (as in Pavlov's original research) but not in fear conditioning
d. are such that the CR can never be the opposite of the UCR


MEMORY (Ch. 7)

1. A subject is presented with a word. The task for the subject is to come up with a word of opposite meaning in the shortest possible interval. The experimenter records the reaction time of the subject. This experiment taps:
a. episodic memory
b. short-term memory
c. semantic memory
d. implicit memory

12. Implicit memory
a. benefits more from elaborative rehearsal than explicit memory.
b. is disrupted more in cases of amnesia than explicit memory.
c. typically involves no awareness of "remembering".
d. both b and c

13. Permastore refers to
a. a permanent feature of short-term memory
b. the fact that semantic memory suffers little change over several decades of a person's life
c. the persistence of episodic memory
d. the fact that any cell can store any memory

15. If you get a new phone number and have trouble remembering it because your old phone number keeps getting in the way, you are experiencing the problematic effects of:
a. retroactive interference
b. proactive interference
c. state-dependent memory
d. generic memory

16. Maintenance rehearsal
a. has the same consequences as elaborative rehearsal
b. is the type of rehearsal that can be performed by anterograde amnesiacs like H.M.
c. result in changes in long-term memory
d. affects episodic but not semantic memory

17. With respect to the mechanism of chunking
a. each chunk imposes a greater load on memory than do each of the smaller units contained within the chunk
b. much of the ability to recode items into larger chunks is established very late in life
c. it has been shown to increase the memory span from 7- digit sequences to
80-digit sequences
d. it occurs in maintenance rehearsal but not in elaborative rehearsal

18. If the test of free recall is delayed for 30 seconds, with rehearsal during this time prevented, then
a. the primacy effect is abolished
b. the recency effect is abolished
c. the free recall data of a normal subject will look like that of the patient KF
d. both b and c

21. According to Lashley, if we remove some of the cortex after an animal has learned to run a maze, the accuracy of the animal's memory of the maze
a. depends on how much of the cortex remains
b. depends on the location of the cortex that remains
c. is unaffected
d. both a and b

30. An anterograde amnesiac was tested for her short-term memory span for unrelated nouns. What is your best guess about her memory span?
a. 0
b. 4
c. 7
d. 11

32. The encoding-specificity hypothesis focuses on:
a. the similarities between the conditions of learning some facts and the conditions of recalling those facts.
b. the differences between proactive and retroactive inhibition.
c. the contrast between coding phonetically and coding semantically.
d. the specific relations between the nature of chunks and elaborative rehearsal.

40. Damage to the hippocampus
a. produces effects that are similar to those of Korsakoff's syndrome
b. impairs the establishment of procedural memories
c. results in a total lack of short-term memory
d. results in a total loss of all long-term memories developed before the damage

47. The spreading activation hypothesis proposes that:
a. concepts in memory that are similar are near each other in the semantic network
b. when a concept in memory is activated, that activation spreads with equal strength to all concepts in the network
c. only episodic memories are influenced by spreading activation
d. all of the above

48. There is reason to believe that retrograde amnesia is:
a. a special case of anterograde amnesia
b. a demonstration that young traces are more vulnerable than old traces
c. often found in elderly persons
d. the cause of primacy in immediate memory

50. Which of the following best describes the major characteristics of LTM for verbal material?
a. unlimited capacity, primarily semantic coding, relatively permanent
b. limited capacity, primarily semantic coding, fades rapidly
c. unknown capacity, primarily acoustic coding, relatively permanent
d. unlimited capacity, primarily acoustic coding, fades rapidly

20. Lashley found that
a. rats lost their memories following removal of the motor cortex
b. memories in rats were preserved when all but a few cells were left in any part of the visual cortex
c. rats suffered a permanent loss of memory when the association cortex was destroyed
d. memory loss in rats depended on the location from which brain tissue was removed but not on the amount

29. Forgetting due to misplacement and forgetting due to displacement characterize
a. long-term and short-term memory, respectively
b. short-term and long-term memory, respectively
c. both long-term and short-term memory
d. episodic and generic memory, respectively

31. Coding in terms of the acoustic and speech related properties of spoken and written material characterizes
a. implicit memory
b. long-term memory
c. episodic memory
d. short-term memory

53. Implicit memory
a. is better in amnesics than explict memory
b. relies upon a conscious act of remembering
c. benefits from elaborative rehearsal
d. cannot be studied experimentally

68. Alzheimer's disease
a. is characterized by degeneration of cells in the front part of the brain and hippocampus
b. affects most intellectual functions but not memory
c. afflicts 5 to 10 percent of all persons under 30 years of age
d. is the consequence of alcohol abuse

84. Procedural memories
a. cannot be established by HM
b. could be established by patients suffering from Korsakoff's syndrome
c. are less likely to be established in amnesics than declarative memories
d. all of the above


SENSATION / PERCEPTION (Ch. 5, Ch. 6)

2. A man sees a tree. What is the distal stimulus?
a. the tree
b. the light waves reflected by the tree
c. the image cast by the tree on the man's retina
d. the pattern of nerve impulses triggered by the retinal image and conducted to the brain by the optic nerve

3. The assumption that the whole is different from the sum of the parts is central to
a. Gestalt theory
b. Helmholtz's interpretation of illusions
c. opponent-process theory
d. the duplex theory of vision

4. In the neuroanatomy of the visual system, the retinal region of an eye that is:
a. close to the nose connects with both hemispheres.
b. furthest from the nose connects with the hemisphere on the opposite side.
c. close to the nose connects with the hemisphere on the same side.
d. furthest from the nose connects with the hemisphere on the same side.

5. The trichromatic theory of color vision
a. was advanced by Young and Helmholtz
b. has difficulty explaining the sensation of yellow
c. has difficulty explaining why red-green and blue- yellow are opposing pairs
d. all of the above

6. The Weber fraction
a. is smaller for vision than for taste
b. is the same for all senses
c. when small, means that the discriminating power is small
d. is greater for vision than for taste

7. The view that all knowledge comes through the senses is referred to as
a. Nativism
b. Gestaltism
c. Phrenology
d. Empiricism

8. The distribution of rods and cones in the retina is such that:
a. both rods and cones increase in density as one progresses from the fovea to the periphery
b. rods are most plentiful at the fovea
c. cones are most plentiful at the periphery
d. both are absent at the spot where the optic nerve originates from the retina

11. Which of the following is true about color blindness?
a. It occurs most commonly in males.
b. It is most commonly in the form of greens confused with yellows
c. It is not due to defective opponent processes.
d. It occurs most commonly in females.

14. Tau
a. is an optical flow property that specifies time-to- contact
b. is associated with the approach to perception developed by Gestalt psychology
c. is an optical flow property that specifies backward movement
d. is associated with the approach to perception developed by Helmholtz

20. Sensations
a. are the same as perceptions
b. are linked through association, according to the empiricists
c. are directly related to the distal stimulus
d. require no ordering or organizing, according to the nativists

22. The claim that perception is always in the direction of best inference would be
made by
a. Helmholtz
b. Gestalt Psychologists
c. Gibson
d. Sperry

25. An individual sees two equal-sized trees. One tree is 40 feet away from the person, and the other is 100 feet away. The retinal image of the closer tree will be ________ that of the further tree.
a. larger than
b. smaller than
c. equal to
d. reversed relative to

26. The physiological mechanism that underlies brightness contrast assumes that:
a. adjacent cells of the visual system are mutually excitatory
b. bright light inhibits the firing of retinal cells
c. the absence of light inhibits cell firing
d. adjacent cells of the visual system are mutually inhibitory

27. Blue-yellow cells
a. are not influenced by either "red" cones or "green" cones
b. are inhibited by "blue" cones
c. are inhibited by "red" cones
d. are excited by "green" cones

28. Interposition
a. is a monocular cue to depth
b. is a binocular cue to depth
c. refers to the fact that far-off objects necessarily produce a smaller retinal image than do nearby ones
d. is both a and c

29. Which of the following statements is false?
a. cones are more plentiful in the fovea
b. rods and cones are the first neurons reached by incoming light
c. rods are cylindrical in shape
d. cones are pear-shaped or conical

34. Which of the following is not associated with Gibson?
a. direct perception
b. higher-order patterns of stimulation
c. texture gradients
d. unconscious inference

36. The maximum-likelihood principle
a. cannot explain the grouping principles of Gestalt Psychology.
b. asserts that we tend to interpret the proximal stimulus as that distal stimulus that most probably produced it.
c. asserts that the proximal stimulus is specific to the distal stimulus
d. both a and b

38. The perception of moving forward would arise from
a. global optical outflow
b. stroboscopic motion
c. linear perspective
d. the Gestalt principle of closure

39. According to the doctrine of specific nerve energies, if an ear was surgically connected to your optical nerve and Mozart's Jupiter Symphony was played
you would:
a. experience nothing
b. have a visual experience
c. see Wolfgang Mozart
d. have an auditory experience

41. Psychophysics investigates
a. the laws relating proximal and distal stimuli
b. the laws relating changes in sensations to changes in variables of energy
c. the rules by which environmental objects and events are inferred from sensations
d. none of the above

42. That proximal stimuli may not be ambiguous was argued by
a. Gibson
b. Helmholtz
c. Lashley
d. Gestalt psychologists

45. Linear perspective
a. is a cue for motion perception
b. is an optical consequence of the projection of a three-dimensional world upon
a flat surface
c. is also known as the cue of interposition
d. is useful only when both eyes are open

46. One way to achieve a feeling of depth in a painting is to
a. make the gradient of texture finer as distance becomes greater
b. sharpen the detail of a distant object
c. let object size increase as distance increases
d. draw closer objects higher in the picture

7. The most common form of color blindness is:
a. confusing yellows with blues
b. confusing reds with greens
c. confusing reds with blues
d. confusing yellows with greens

14. A just-noticeable difference is:
a. a psychological entity that describes a person's ability to discriminate stimuli
b. expressed in the units of the physical stimulus that produced it
c. a measurement that enters into formulating a general law relating stimulus intensity to sensory magnitude
d. defined by all of the above

22. Helmholtz would advocate
a. unconscious inference
b. the use of memories to resolve ambiguities in the retinal image
c. the use of monocular depth cues to interpret the retinal image
d. all of the above

23. Optic flow field is a concept most commonly associated with
a. Chomsky
b. Sherrington
c. Sechenov
d. Gibson

34. In reference to the visual system
a. all locations on the retina are occupied by a photoreceptor of some kind
b . both the left and right visual fields are projected onto each occipital lobe
c. the sensation of light can only be induced by stimulating the retina with light
d. none of the above

60. Gibson's ecological approach to perception proposes that
a. memories must be used to make sense of the ambiguous sense data
b. the stimuli at the eyes, ears, etc. are sufficient in themselves to permit accurate perception of the environment
c. innate concepts must be used to make sense of the ambiguous stimuli at the eyes, ears, etc.
d. unconscious inference determine the perception of patterns

72. Cones
a. are overall more sensitive than rods
b. have the same point of maximal sensitivity as the rods, close to the wavelength of green
c. are overall less sensitive than rods
d. are least plentiful in the fovea

73. Empiricism
a. rejects the notion of proximal stimulus
b. asserts that sensations and perceptions are identical
c. claims that visual perception is determined completely by the retinal image
d. is not defined by any of the above

86. In the layers of cells comprising the retina
a. bipolars link rods to cones
b. rods and cones converge on ganglion cells
c. nerve fibers from bipolar cells make up the optic nerve
d. ganglion cells receive signals only from receptors at the fovea

93. Closure
a. is a principle used by Helmholtz to explain perceptual organization
b. is another term for the Gestalt principle of good continuation
c. seems to be the perceptual principle behind subjective contours
d. is a cue for depth perception

99. The smell system of animals of species A has a Weber fraction of 1/10, that of animals of species B has a Weber fraction of 1/100.
a. B is more sensitive to smells than A
b. A is more sensitive to smells than B
c. A can smell odors that are 10 times less in magnitude than those B can smell
d. both b and c