Go to Section 2-1: Answers to Quiz Questions

1. Which of the following is an example of a sensation?

A. I feel an ant walking down my arm, which causes a tickling feeling that leads me to brush the ant off my arm.
B. Rods and cones on my retina are activated by light coming from a lamp next to my bed.
C. The activation of my rods and cones causes unconscious mental activity associated with visual areas of my brain.
D. I saw flashes when my retina detached, because the detachment caused abnormal activity my rods and cones.

2. Some people find eating chocolate to be a very rewarding experience. Which area of the brain would you expect chocolate to activate more than any other?

A. the nucleus accumbens
B. the hippocampus
C. the amygdala
D. the thalamus

3. Which of the following people has anterograde amnesia?

A. Bayani, who cannot remember anything from before the age of about 4 years.
B. Shabnam, who cannot remember anything from the time of her car accident to the present.
C. Dainagon, who cannot remember the names of his family members or where he was born.
D. Zalika, who cannot remember anything from before the age of about 25 years.

4. Which of the following is an example of induction?

A. On average, about 1% of the general population develops schizophrenia at some point during their lives.
B. People who are highly motivated and intelligent often are successful at a number of tasks.
C. Ann is a mathematician; all mathematicians are good with numbers; therefore Ann is good with numbers.
D. Every student who has taken the quiz so far has gotten an A; therefore all students who take the quiz probably will get an A.

5. Which of the following is controlled primarily by the spinal cord?

A. sneezing in response to an irritant
B. walking movements
C. perceiving that an object is hot
D. moving your arm in order to catch a baseball

6. Gwen didn't have time to work on all 200 study questions that were to be covered on the test. She thought that the instructor might get tired while he was writing test questions and, because of this, include more test questions from the first half of the study questions than the second half. Thus, she decided to complete only the first 100 questions. Assuming that the instructor included an equal number of test questions from the first half of the set of study questions as the second half, it would have been better if Gwen had decided to complete every other study question (that is, 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, etc.). Which of the following concepts is most relevant to this point?

A. representative sample
B. representative population
C. systematic generalization
D. systematic induction

7. Every student who has ever received an A on a test in this course has carefully read the chapter before taking the test. Based on these observations, I have concluded that "any student who receives an A on a test must have carefully read the chapter." Why should I not feel completely confident in the reasoning process that led to this generalization?

A. Because it is based on only a limited number of observations.
B. Because it is based on an unverifiable conclusion.
C. Because there are students who carefully read the chapter and didn't receive an A.
D. Because there are students who received an A and didn't carefully read the chapter.

8. Which of the following is not a reflex controlled by the spinal cord?

A. the scratching reflex in dogs
B. sneezing in response to an irritant
C. walking movements
D. pulling a finger away from a hot object

9. Which of the following people is most likely to have damage to his or her hippocampi?

A. Karen, who is so depressed that she feels little interest in or pleasure about anything.
B. Joe, who becomes enraged without any provocation and attacks anyone who is near him.
C. Kelly, who falls asleep many times throughout the day, even when engaged in activities.
D. Richard, who often can't remember events that occurred only minutes before.

10. Almost all sensory input passes through the _____ in the limbic system.

A. thalamus
B. hypothalamus
C. hippocampus
D. septum

11. Evolutionary biology states that all modern species are the descendants of (typically) extinct ancestral species, and that closely related species, such as chimpanzees and humans, descended from a common ancestral species within the recent past (geologically speaking). If this theory is true, then the mental functions and behaviors of nonhuman primates should show similarities with those of humans. Studies performed to test this idea often have found that higher primates exhibit at least the rudiments of complex human mental functions — such as the ability to use language. In this case, the theory of evolution has fulfilled which of the three functions of theories?

A. the organization of past and present observations
B. the prediction of future observations
C. the explanation of all observations
D. all the above

12. When the nucleus accumbens is electrically stimulated in humans, the most common response is

A. sexual arousal.
B. severe hunger.
C. depression.
D. mania.

13. In the dopamine circuit, the _____ stimulates the _____ when an individual experiences a rewarding stimulus.

A. ventral-tegmental area; amygdala
B. thalamus; amygdala
C. ventral-tegmental area; nucleus accumbens
D. nucleus accumbens; amygdala

14. If the amygdala is electrically stimulated in people, which of the following responses is most likely to occur?

A. They will have trouble speaking clearly.
B. They will better remember events during the stimulation.
C. They will become fearful and anxious.
D. They will enter deep sleep.

15. Which of the following people has retrograde amnesia?

A. Xuyen, who cannot remember anything from after the age of about 4 years.
B. Tana, who cannot remember anything for more than about 30 seconds.
C. Langidrik, who can remember only the last three days of his life and his first name.
D. Pogisa, who can recall only events that were encoded and stored as explicit memory codes.

16. Which of the following structures is most important in the development of emotional memories?

A. thalamus
B. nucleus accumbens
C. amygdala
D. ventral-tegmental area

17. Addictive behaviors are most closely associated with activity in the

A. dopamine circuit.
B. serotonin circuit.
C. amygdala.
D. hippocampus.

18. Which of the following is not one of the three major subdivisions of the brain as described in the textbook?

A. the brain stem
B. the cerebral cortex
C. the limbic system
D. the cerebellum

19. Stimulation of the nucleus accumbens was once studied to determine if it could be used in the treatment of

A. schizophrenia.
B. obsessive-compulsive disorder.
C. depression.
D. bipolar disorder.

20. Over the years, I have observed many students hand in a test and then tell me how easy it was. When I grade their tests, I have discovered that these students rarely get above a C. Thus, I have concluded that, when a student hands in a test and tells me that it was easy, he or she probably didn't get above a C on the test. The reasoning that has led to this conclusion is an example of

A. a correlation.
B. an association.
C. deduction.
D. induction.

21. Jenny believes that elderly people cause most of the accidents in Arizona because she has seen many "old people" drive terribly. The most important problem with basing any generalization like this on our everyday observations is that

A. we generally are not consistently skeptical and empirical in our everday lives.
B. we generally are not consistently inductive and deductive in our everday lives.
C. what we attend to generally is not a representative population of all possible observations.
D. what we attend to generally is not a representative sample of all possible observations.

Go to Section 2-1: Answers to Quiz Questions