AP Psychology Study Guide for Midterm Exam
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If most women prefer tall and physically strong partners because this preference enhanced the
survival of our ancestor’s genes. This viewpoint best illustrates what perspective of psychology?
Wilhelm Wundt is most tied to what major idea?
William James is most tied to what major idea?
When people are influence by those very close to them and behave in ways normal to the group,
their development would be most interesting to what kind of psychologist.
What type of psychological professional should someone seek out to pursue medical treatments
for psychological issues?
Give an example of a biological approach psychological investigation.
What does positive psychology movement focuses on?
The origins of psychology as a science began in the discipline of?
Give an example of critical thinking.
Behavior is observable while mental processes are what?
Feeling proud would be an example of a mental process because one cannot see, touch or feel this
thought.
Who conducted the first psychological experiment in 1879?
With which school of psychology is Wilhelm Wundt associated?
Charles Darwin argued that ________ determines the physical traits of survival.
documenting subjects' descriptions of an experience would be an example of introspection that
could be conducted by a structuralist.
Early researchers from which school of thought asked participants to report sensations they were
experiencing?
What was innovative about Wundt’s early work?
Psychologists who study the role of the brain in psychological processes have adopted what
perspective of psychology?
A psychologist who studies optical illusions to determine how they “trick” the brain would likely
specialize in what area of psychology?
A psychologist who is more interested in what you do, as opposed to how you feel, has adopted
what approach to psychology.
John B. Watson and B. F. Skinner believed that psychology should focus on what?
When a psychologist focuses on their patients deepest thoughts and early childhood memories in
order to unlock the causes of their troubling behaviors. This therapy follows what perspective of
psychology?
What does the scientific method require in research?
What all can variables lead to in research?
What is a theory?
What is an operational definition?
What is a hypothesis?
What does a correlation coefficient indicate?
What does it mean to have a strong positive correlation between two variables?
Know how to calculate the mean, medium and mode of a group of numbers.
In terms of statistical significance, what is considered to be the minimum level of probability that
scientists will accept for concluding that observed differences are real and not due to chance?
Your brain has instructed your muscles to move so that you avoid an oncoming bicyclist. Which
division of the nervous system carried this information to your muscles?
After finishing a basketball game, you try to relax by engaging in some meditation techniques.
Doing these exercises should increase the response of what nervous system?
When a neuron is at its resting state, what is the status of the charges on each side of the cell
membrane?
According to the all-or-nothing principle, what would happen if a cell were depolarized twice the
normal amount needed to produce an action potential?
Which of the following neurotransmitter plays an important role in human bonding?
Which part of the nervous system regulates breathing?
What does the reticular formation do?
39. When you see the bright color and round shape of a tomato on the vine in your vegetable garden,
smell its sun-warmed fragrance, hear the buzzing of a nearby bee, feel the velvety texture of its
skin, and taste the flavor as you bite into it, your process of receiving this stimulus energy from
the environment is called?
40. Know the difference between top-down and bottom-up processing.
41. What does the signal detection theory of perception propose?
42. What are the color changes you perceive in the sky due to?
43. Know what the parts of the eye do.
44. Know what the parts of the ear do.
45. Know what the parts of the nose do.
46. Know where taste buds are located.
47. Objects that resemble one another are often perceived as a group. This is the perceptual principle
of?
48. In a college lecture, you hear a professor talking about proximity, continuity, similarity, and
closure. You deduce that he is knowledgeable about?
49. What are Binocular cues?
50. Which depth cue accounts for why parallel lines appear to grow closer together the farther away
they are?
51. What is the major function of the hammer, anvil, and stirrup?
52. What does the Place theory state
53. Describe consciousness.
54. Describe incubation.
55. Know the different sleep stages and when dreams occur.
56. Know the different sleep disorders.
57. What does the term “reflex” mean in regards to classical conditioning?
58. Know all the components of Pavlov’s well-known study on classical conditioning.
59. What does Noam Chomsky have to say about language?
60. Describe Watson and Raynor’s Little Albert experiment.
61. Describe the placebo effect.
62. Describe the Flynn effect.
63. Describe the difference between positive and negative punishment.
64. Describe the difference between positive and negative reinforcement.
65. Know the different reinforcement schedules and be able to apply them.
66. Describe the different kinds of intelligences.
67. Give examples of instinctive drift and prepardedness.
68. Give examples of a fixed mindset.
69. Know the steps to problem-solving.
70. What is the main difference between an algorithm and a heuristic?
71. Give examples of functional fixedness?
72. Describe and give examples of inductive and deductive reasoning.
73. What is Paivio’s dual-code hypothesis?
74. Describe Atkinson-Shiffrin theory of memory.
75. George Miller’s classic paper on the seven plus or minus two phenomenon refers to a person’s?
76. Give examples of flashbulb, episodic; procedural memories.
77. Give an example of the effect of memory in regards to recency.
78. Describe Hermann Ebbinghaus research on forgetting.
79. Why does encoding failure occur?
80. According to decay theory, why do memories fade?
Do not forget to study and apply your key terms.
Write out all the theories that we have covered.
Look through the study guide packet and answer the essential questions.