Experimental Psychology Exam Practice Tests
Course Introduction
Experimental Psychology explores the scientific methods and principles used to investigate human behavior and mental processes. This course introduces students to the fundamentals of psychological research design, hypothesis formulation, data collection, and statistical analysis. Emphasizing laboratory-based experimentation, students learn how to design, conduct, and interpret experiments in various domains such as perception, learning, memory, and cognition. Through hands-on activities and critical analysis of published research, the course fosters a deep understanding of how empirical evidence contributes to psychological theories and applications.
Recommended Textbook
Learning and Behavior 7th Edition by Paul Chance
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13 Chapters
699 Verified Questions
699 Flashcards
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Page 2
Chapter 1: Introduction: Learning to Change
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61 Verified Questions
61 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) Malthus' book, An Essay on the Principle of Population, had a strong influence on Darwin.
A)True
B)False
Answer: True
Q2) Variation and natural selection are the foundations of _______.
A) genetics
B) evolution
C) learning
D) adaptation
Answer: B
Q3) Most mutations _______.
A) are not helpful to survival
B) contribute to survival in important ways
C) cause monsterism
D) occur in one-celled organisms
Answer: A
Q4) A stimulus is an environmental event that is capable of affecting _______.
Answer: behavior
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Chapter 2: The Study of Learning and Behavior
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41 Verified Questions
41 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) One thing researchers can control better with animal subjects than with human subjects is _________.
Answer: genetic history/environmental history/learning experiences
Q2) Your text describes four basic sources of evidence: anecdotal, case study, descriptive study, experimental study. The least reliable of these is ______.
Answer: anecdotal
Q3) One problem with computer simulations as a substitute for animal research is that
A) they are terribly expensive
B) they take years to develop
C) "bugs" in the software distort the findings
D) no one knows what behavior to program until the research has been done
Answer: D
Q4) In a cumulative record, learning is indicated by a change in response _______.
A) topography
B) amplitude
C) speed
D) rate
Answer: D
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Chapter 3: Pavlovian Procedures
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66 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) Each pairing of a CS and US is one _______.
Answer: trial
Q2) In studying "psychic secretions," Pavlov focused his attention on the ________.
A) dog's thoughts and feelings
B) events in the dog's environment
C) genetic history of the dog
D) behavior of the dog before and after feeding
Answer: B
Q3) Each time a buzzer sounds, a puff of air makes a rabbit blink. Soon the rabbit blinks when it hears the buzzer. George believes that this means the buzzer takes the place of the air puff. George is an Advocate of ________.
A) stimulus substitution theory
B) exchange theory
C) preparatory response theory
D) stimulus-response theory
Answer: A
Q4) Conditional reflexes are so named because they ____________.
Answer: depend on many conditions
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Chapter 4: Pavlovian Applications
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Sample Questions
Q1) Thomas Parish and colleagues reduced the bias of white American children toward the Vietnamese by pairing images of Vietnamese with________.
Q2) Exposure therapy is really a form of counterconditioning.
A)True
B)False
Q3) The use of classical conditioning to change feelings (such as likes and dislikes) is sometimes called ___________.
A) pavrotics
B) emotoconversion
C) evaluative conditioning
D) neo-conditioning
Q4) The CS and US in the Garcia et al. experiment were__________.
A) flavored water and radiation
B) a bell and food
C) food and bell
D) a light and loud buzzer
Q5) VRET owes a debt to the work of Mary Cover Jones.
A)True
B)False
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Chapter 5: Reinforcement
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Sample Questions
Q1) The _______ principle states that high probability behavior reinforces low probability behavior.
Q2) The Watson and Rayner experiment with Little Albert may have involved operant as well as Pavlovian learning because the loud noise ______. A) occurred as Albert reached for the rat B) occurred while Albert was eating C) did not bother Albert initially D) was aversive
Q3) E. L. Thorndike's studies of learning started as an attempt to understand _______.
A) operant conditioning B) the psychic reflex C) animal intelligence
D) maze learning
Q4) Positive reinforcement is sometimes called _______.
A) escape training
B) positive training C) satisfier training
D) reward learning
Q5) The experimental chamber developed by Skinner is often called a _________.
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Chapter 6: Reinforcement: Beyond Habit
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Sample Questions
Q1) Creative behavior is a function of its consequences.
A)True
B)False
Q2) In shaping, it is sometimes a good idea to back up-- i.e., to reinforce earlier approximations of the desired behavior.
A)True
B)False
Q3) The author of your text probably believes that most childhood tantrums are due to unintentional shaping by adults.
A)True
B)False
Q4) Insightful problem solving is best viewed as an example of _______.
A) unconscious processes
B) trial-and-error learning
C) Pavlovian conditioning
D) operant learning
Q5) Your text describes various tips for shaping effectively. Describe as many of these tips as you can.
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Chapter 7: Schedules of Reinforcement
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Sample Questions
Q1) Choice involves ________ schedules.
Q2) The rate at which a response occurs, once the subject begins performing it, is called the _________.
A) clock rate
B) walk rate
C) run rate
D) performance rate
Q3) One difference between FT and FI schedules is that in FT schedules, reinforcement is not contingent on a behavior.
A)True
B)False
Q4) Studies of choice involve _________.
A) multiple schedules
B) chain schedules
C) concurrent schedules
D) redundant schedules
Q5) In CRF, the ratio of reinforcers to responses is 1 to 1; in FR 1, the ratio is _______.
Q6) Explain why fatigue is not a good explanation for postreinforcement pauses.
Q7) CRF stands for ________.
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Chapter 8: Operant Procedures: Punishment
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Sample Questions
Q1) When disciplining their son, Jacob, Mr. and Ms Grinch begin with an extremely mild form of punishment and gradually increase its strength if the offenses continue. This procedure is likely to Result in _______.
A) violent outbursts from Jacob
B) confusing Jacob
C) the use of excessively strong aversives
D) a rapid suppression of the unwanted behavior
Q2) Frequent use of weak punishers is more effective than occasional use of intense punishers.
A)True
B)False
Q3) It is common practice to begin punishment with a very weak punisher and gradually increase the intensity of the punisher until one finds an effective level of intensity. Is this a good ideahy or why not?
Q4) The one process in the one-process theory of punishment is ________.
Q5) You have a ten-year-old child who mistreats the family dog. Describe two ways of dealing with this problem without using punishment.
Q6) Briefly discuss the problems associated with punishment.
Page 10
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Chapter 9: Operant Applications
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Sample Questions
Q1) Jack is a homeless man who lives on the streets of New York City. One cold January night he takes up a position outside a fancy restaurant and starts shouting, "God has ordered an equestrian invasion of Long Island." The restaurant owner calls the police and they take Jack to a hospital, where he spends
A quiet night. You look into Jack's medical history and find that he _____________.
A) has an inoperable brain tumor
B) is a minister
C) is a dedicated equesstrian
D) has been hospitalized for bizarre behavior in the winter more than in other seasons
Q2) Research demonstrates that when teachers provide positive consequences for good behavior and ignore minor misbehavior, the usual result is an increase in both good and bad behavior.
A)True
B)False
Q3) Which is the better way of reducing the frequency of misbehavior in students, time out or differential reinforcement?
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Chapter 10: Observational Learning
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Sample Questions
Q1) Observing a model is particularly helpful if the task involved is easy.
A)True
B)False
Q2) In the Thompson and Russell two-mat study, children who observed a model __________.
A) did better than those who did not observe a model
B) did less well than those who did not observe a model
C) did about the same as those who did not observe a model
D) imitated irrelevant acts of the model
Q3) Keith and Catherine Hayes found that their adoptee, Viki, learned more from observing models than some children of about the same age. This was surprising because Viki was a _________.
A) monkey
B) chimpanzee
C) porpoise
D) Golden Retriever
Q4) In _______, an observer looks on as a model's behavior is punished.
Q5) Discuss the role of observational learning in criminal behavior.
Q6) There are two kinds of social observational learning experiences, vicarious _______ and vicarious _______.
Page 12
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Chapter 11: Generalization, Discrimination, and Stimulus Control
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54 Verified Questions
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Sample Questions
Q1) Some people argue that stimulus control suggests that people are robots controlled by environmental events. How could you argue against this position?
Q2) In _______, the task is to select from two or more alternatives the stimulus that is different from a standard.
A) matching to nonsample
B) oddity matching
C) error matching
D) difference matching
Q3) Concepts involve both generalization and discrimination.
A)True
B)False
Q4) In the ________discrimination training procedure, the discriminative stimuli alternate.
Q5) Discuss whether stimulus control is a good thing. (328) Answers should note that stimulus control is good or bad to the extent that the behavior involved is appropriate to the situation.
Q6) Discuss the DOE and its implications for discrimination training.
Page 13
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Chapter 12: Forgetting
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Sample Questions
Q1) Memories that cannot be expressed are called _____.
A) ineffable
B) nondeclarative
C) explicit
D) motoric
Q2) The "man who couldn't forget" was studied by__________.
A) Freud
B) Luria
C) Ebbinghaus
D) Underwood
Q3) The first person to argue that the passage of time does not cause forgetting was probably __________.
A) Ebbinghaus
B) McGeoch
C) Steinmetz
D) Underwood
Q4) What did Bartlett's War of the Ghosts study reveal about forgetting?
Q5) The period between the end of a learning experience and its recall is called the _______ interval.
Q6) Describe Krueger's study of overlearning and its findings.
Page 14
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Chapter 13: The Limits of Learning
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Sample Questions
Q1) While walking in the woods, Larry happens to stumble across a nest of turkey eggs just as they are hatching. Larry watches the chicks as they emerge from their eggs and begin walking about. As he Leaves the nest area, Larry finds the young birds are determined to go with him. Larry's new friends are
Victims of _________.
A) instinctive drift
B) imprinting
C) the nonhereditability of learning
D) low intelligence
Q2) An animal that can learn to perform one trick is sure to learn another trick of similar complexity.
A)True
B)False
Q3) Suppose learning were passed on from generation to generation. How would your relationship with your parents be different?
Q4) How might preparedness to learn be nonadaptive?
Q5) Does learning inevitably mean progresshy or why not?
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