Kin selection as an explanation for altruistic behavior would argue that:
a. individuals help others who help them.
b. individuals pick their mates based on how altruistic they are.
c. individuals spread their genes by helping their relatives.
d. society benefits as a whole when individuals help each other.
If two voices differ in their frequency, this means they differ in their:
a. amplitude.
b. number of waves per second.
c. height of each wave.
d. loudness.
Sensations from phantom limbs:
a. come from the stump of the amputated limb.
b. are a result of brain reorganization.
c. do not have a neural basis.
d. can be diminished if more of the limb is removed surgically.
If a group of individuals shares a highly similar environment, what effect does this have
on the heritability estimate of a characteristic?
a. Heritability will be low.
b. Heritability will be high.
c. Heritability estimates will be unaffected.
d. It is determined by the power of the environmental factors.
The eighth cranial nerve contains both a(n) ____ component and a ____ component.
a. vestibular; somatosensory
b. visual; vestibular
c. auditory; taste
d. auditory; vestibular
An axon in your hand causes contraction of a muscle fiber in your finger as you write.
This neuron belongs to which branch of the nervous system?
a. Central
b. Somatic
c. Sympathetic
d. Parasympathetic
The anterior pituitary is composed of:
a. glandular tissue.
b. neural tissue.
c. vaso tissue.
d. lymph tissue.
Lamina IV is prominent in:
a. all the primary sensory areas.
b. the secondary sensory areas.
c. primary motor areas.
d. spinal cord.
How do parallel fibers in the cerebellum control the duration of a response?
a. By determining the number of Purkinje cells that fire in sequence
b. By altering the velocity of action potentials from Purkinje cells
c. By determining which one of all the available Purkinje cells becomes active
d. By passing information back and forth between one Purkinje cell and another
The use of certain behaviors for camouflage is something that would be covered with
the ____ explanation.
a. functional
b. otogenetic
c. evolutionary
d. physiological
A female rat is more likely to develop a preference for a cage where sexual activity with
a male rat occurs if:
a. the male is castrated.
b. pheromones are present.
c. she is given testosterone.
d. she can control the timing of sexual activity.
Lashley’s conclusions from his engram research were based on certain unnecessary
assumptions, which later psychologists have discarded. One of those assumptions was
that the:
a. brain treats all kinds of memory the same way.
b. left hemisphere of the brain is simply the mirror image of the right hemisphere.
c. physiological mechanisms of learning in rats are similar to those in humans.
d. hippocampus is more important for storage than it is for retrieval.
Which of the following represents the all-or-none law?
a. Every depolarization produces an action potential.
b. Every hyperpolarization produces an action potential.
c. The size of the action potential is independent of the strength of the stimulus that
initiated it.
d. Every depolarization reaches the threshold, even if it fails to produce an action
potential.
Dopamine stimulation of D2 receptors facilitates:
a. arousal.
b. orgasm.
c. erection of the penis.
d. sexually receptive postures in the female.
Which of the following means “toward the side, away from the midline”?
a. Lateral
b. Medial
c. Proximal
d. Ventral
In the most common form of color vision deficiency, people have difficulty
distinguishing:
a. between blue and yellow.
b. between green and blue.
c. between red and green.
d. among all colors.
Children of mothers who drink heavily during pregnancy are born with:
a. fetal alcohol syndrome
b. Turner’s syndrome
c. Klinefelter’s syndrome
d. PKU
Suppose “A” is a dominant gene for the ability to taste phenylthiocarbamide and “a” is a
recessive gene for inability to taste it. Which of the following couples could possibly
have both a child who tastes it and a child who does not?
a. father AA, mother aa
b. father Aa, mother AA
c. father Aa, mother Aa
d. father AA, mother AA
Fat cells produce:
a. CCK.
b. insulin.
c. neuropeptide Y.
d. leptin.
If a person suffered injury to the right motor cortex that resulted in paralysis of the left
arm and later showed some evidence of recovery of function, which of the following
would be a likely explanation?
a. Using the right arm more strengthened the left arm.
b. The left motor cortex strengthened its control over the left arm.
c. New neurons grew in place of the damaged ones.
d. The left arm was deafferented.
After a series of electrical shocks, a person becomes overresponsive to lights and
noises. This exemplifies:
a. habituation.
b. sensitization.
c. operant conditioning.
d. classical conditioning.
The most common side effect of electroconvulsive shock therapy is:
a. dry mouth and blurred vision.
b. damage to the frontal lobes.
c. memory loss.
d. high probability of broken bones during the treatment.
One disadvantage in using tranquilizers as sleeping pills it that they may:
a. cause narcolepsy.
b. decrease body temperature during the second half of the night.
c. cause sleeplessness on later nights.
d. prevent the brain from inhibiting movements during sleep.
The ____ constitutes a higher percentage of the brain in primates than in other species
of comparable size.
a. cerebral cortex
b. cerebellum
c. basal ganglia
d. thalamus
Repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation is similar to ECT in that:
a. both deal with magnetic stimulation.
b. both increase the frequency of action potentials.
c. both are effective in alleviating depression and no one knows why.
d. neither requires patient consent.
Which lobe of the cerebral cortex is most important for visual information?
a. Occipital
b. Parietal
c. Temporal
d. Frontal
Major depression is diagnosed about ____ in women as in men.
a. four times as often
b. the same
c. three times as often
d. twice as often
The pineal gland releases the ____ hormone, which influences both circadian and
circannual rhythms.
a. androgen
b. melanopsin
c. melatonin
d. Estrogen
Endorphins:
a. can interact with the same receptors as morphine.
b. have chemical structures just like morphine.
c. increase pain.
d. are human-made drugs which mimic endorphins.
Amyloid is to ____, as tau is to ____.
a. plaques, tangles
b. tangles, plaques
c. neurons, glia
d. glia, neurons
Atypical antipsychotic drugs differ from standard neuroleptics like chlorpromazine in
terms of:
a. the blood pH they require for effectiveness.
b. which set of dopamine synapses they affect.
c. how quickly they take effect.
d. how long their effects last.
Traumatic experiences greatly increase the risk of depression in some people, and only
slightly increase it in others, depending on
a. the density of neurons in the occipital cortex.
b. the density of neurons in the parietal cortex.
c. a gene that controls myelin formation.
d. a gene that controls serotonin receptors.
The current view of how endorphins decrease the experience of pain is that they:
a. deplete the brain of substance P.
b. block the release of substance P.
c. block sodium channels in the membrane of certain neurons.
d. increase the sensitivity of neurons to dopamine.