EPPP Part 1 (Examination for Professional Practice in Psychology) — All Questions

In Garcia and Koelling's (1966) study, rats readily learned to avoid flavored water that was followed by illness but did not learn to avoid light-and-noise cues followed by the same illness. What does this show?

• a.Illness is a weaker unconditioned stimulus than electric shock
• b.Conditioning requires the stimuli to occur within a few seconds of each other
• c.Some cue-consequence pairings are learned more readily than others✓
• d.Rats cannot perceive audiovisual cues while they are drinking

Garcia and Koelling (1966) found that taste was easily associated with illness and audiovisual cues with shock, but not the reverse, showing that organisms are prepared to learn certain associations. Taste aversion also forms with delays of hours, so contiguity of a few seconds is not required. Illness produced strong learning with taste, and the rats did learn about the audiovisual cues when they were paired with shock.

Whenever a child screams at dinner, his father removes the vegetables from the plate and the screaming stops; the father now removes the vegetables sooner and more often. What maintains the father's behavior?

• a.Extinction
• b.Negative punishment
• c.Negative reinforcement✓
• d.Positive reinforcement

The father's behavior (removing vegetables) increases because it ends an aversive stimulus, the screaming; removing an aversive stimulus to strengthen a behavior is negative reinforcement (Skinner, 1953). Positive reinforcement adds a stimulus, negative punishment removes a pleasant stimulus to weaken behavior, and extinction is the withholding of reinforcement, none of which fits a behavior that is growing more frequent.

A gambler's machine delivers a win after a number of pulls that keeps changing, one win per twenty pulls on average. Which schedule is this, and what response pattern does it typically produce?

• a.Variable-interval; moderate, steady responding over time
• b.Variable-ratio; high, steady rates that resist extinction✓
• c.Fixed-ratio; a pause after each payout, then rapid responding
• d.Fixed-interval; a scalloped rise in responding near payout

Payout after an unpredictable number of responses is a variable-ratio schedule, which Ferster and Skinner (1957) showed produces high, steady rates that are highly resistant to extinction. A fixed-ratio schedule pays after a set number of responses, and interval schedules depend on elapsed time rather than the number of plays.

In Rescorla's (1968) experiments, two groups received the same number of tone-shock pairings, but one group also received many shocks when no tone was present. That group showed little fear of the tone. What does this demonstrate?

• a.Frequent unsignaled shocks cause rats to habituate to shock
• b.Backward conditioning is stronger than forward conditioning
• c.The CS must predict the US, not merely be paired with the US✓
• d.Fear conditioning requires at least ten tone-shock pairings

Rescorla (1968) held the number of tone-shock pairings constant and varied the probability of shock without the tone; when shocks were just as likely without the tone, the tone predicted nothing and little conditioning occurred. The result concerns contingency, not habituation, a fixed number of trials, or backward pairing.

In Tolman and Honzik's (1930) maze study, rats that explored the maze for days without food made many errors, but when food was introduced their errors dropped almost immediately to the level of rats rewarded all along. What does this illustrate?

• a.Stimulus generalization
• b.Spontaneous recovery
• c.One-trial learning
• d.Latent learning✓

The unrewarded rats had learned the maze layout (a cognitive map) without reinforcement, and the learning showed up in performance only once food gave them a reason to use it; Tolman and Honzik called this latent learning. One-trial learning refers to a single pairing producing learning, stimulus generalization to responding to similar stimuli, and spontaneous recovery to the return of an extinguished response after a rest.

Participants recall a 15-word list either immediately or after 30 seconds spent counting backward. Compared with immediate recall, what change is expected in the delayed condition?

• a.The recency effect shrinks while the primacy effect remains✓
• b.The primacy effect shrinks while the recency effect remains
• c.Both effects grow because the delay allows extra rehearsal
• d.Both effects disappear, flattening the serial position curve

Glanzer and Cunitz (1966) showed that a filled delay of about 30 seconds eliminates the recency effect, which reflects items still in short-term memory, while leaving primacy, which reflects rehearsal into long-term memory, largely intact. Counting backward prevents rehearsal, so neither effect grows, and primacy does not vanish.

Repeating 'the-the-the' aloud while trying to memorize a list of letters sharply lowers recall. In Baddeley and Hitch's working memory model, which component is being disrupted?

• a.Visuospatial sketchpad
• b.Phonological loop✓
• c.Episodic buffer
• d.Semantic long-term store

Articulatory suppression occupies the articulatory rehearsal process of the phonological loop, the working-memory component that holds and rehearses speech-based information (Baddeley & Hitch, 1974). The visuospatial sketchpad handles visual and spatial material, the episodic buffer was added in 2000 to integrate information across systems, and long-term semantic memory is not part of the working-memory model's slave systems.

Which study instruction is expected to produce the best later recall of a list of words?

• a.Judge whether each word fits a sentence's meaning✓
• b.Decide whether each word rhymes with a target word
• c.Count the number of vowels in each word
• d.Decide whether each word is printed in capital letters

Craik and Lockhart's (1972) levels-of-processing framework, tested by Craik and Tulving (1975), found that semantic processing, such as judging whether a word fits a sentence, produces better retention than phonemic (rhyme) or structural (typeface, letter) processing. Rhyme judgments yield intermediate recall and case or vowel judgments the poorest.

Divers who learned word lists underwater recalled them better underwater than on land, and lists learned on land were recalled better on land. This result illustrates:

• a.Retroactive interference from later learning
• b.The spacing effect in distributed practice
• c.Context-dependent memory✓
• d.Proactive interference from earlier learning

Godden and Baddeley (1975) found that recall was best when the environment at retrieval matched the environment at learning, a context-dependent memory effect consistent with Tulving's encoding specificity principle. Interference effects concern competing learned material, and the spacing effect concerns distributing study sessions over time.

After moving to a new apartment, a woman keeps writing her old street address on forms when asked for her current one. Which memory process best explains the error?

• a.Retroactive interference
• b.Retrieval-induced forgetting
• c.Proactive interference✓
• d.Anterograde amnesia

Proactive interference occurs when older, well-learned information disrupts retrieval of newer information, here the old address intruding on the new one. Retroactive interference runs the other way (new learning disrupts old), anterograde amnesia is a general inability to form new memories, and retrieval-induced forgetting refers to practicing some items impairing related unpracticed items.

Across later adulthood, which kind of ability is expected to hold up best?

• a.Rapid coding of new visual symbols
• b.Vocabulary and general knowledge✓
• c.Speed in solving novel abstract puzzles
• d.Reasoning about unfamiliar figural matrices

Horn and Cattell (1967) distinguished crystallized intelligence, knowledge and vocabulary built up through experience, which stays stable or rises into later adulthood, from fluid intelligence, novel reasoning and processing speed, which declines from early adulthood. Novel puzzles, figural matrices and symbol coding all tap fluid ability or speed.

A theory holds that a person feels a specific emotion after noticing physiological arousal and labeling it with cues from the surrounding situation. Which theory is this?

• a.Two-factor theory✓
• b.James-Lange theory
• c.Opponent-process theory
• d.Cannon-Bard theory

Schachter and Singer (1962) proposed that emotion requires both general arousal and a cognitive label drawn from the situation. The James-Lange theory holds that emotion is the perception of bodily changes themselves, Cannon-Bard holds that arousal and emotional experience occur simultaneously and independently, and opponent-process theory concerns an initial emotional reaction followed by an opposing one.

A student does best on a difficult exam when moderately aroused and does worse when either very relaxed or highly anxious. This inverted-U relationship is known as:

• a.The Premack principle
• b.Drive-reduction theory
• c.The Yerkes-Dodson law✓
• d.Weber's law

Yerkes and Dodson (1908) reported that performance rises with arousal up to an optimum and then falls, with a lower optimum for more difficult tasks. Weber's law concerns just-noticeable differences in sensation, the Premack principle uses a more probable behavior to reinforce a less probable one, and drive-reduction theory explains motivation as reducing internal tension without predicting an inverted U.

Preschoolers who already liked drawing were told they would get a 'Good Player' certificate for drawing. Weeks later, during free play, they drew less than children who got no reward or an unexpected one. What best explains the drop?

• a.Unexpected rewards lowered interest just as much
• b.The expected reward undermined their intrinsic interest✓
• c.All tangible rewards raise later free-choice activity
• d.The certificate acted as a punisher for drawing

Lepper, Greene and Nisbett (1973) found that only the expected-reward group showed reduced later interest, the overjustification effect that self-determination theory (Deci & Ryan) attributes to rewards being experienced as controlling. The unexpected-reward group did not decline, the certificate was not an aversive consequence, and the finding contradicts the claim that tangible rewards always increase later interest.

Two radiologists are equally good at telling tumors from normal tissue, but one reports many more suspected tumors, producing both more hits and more false alarms. In signal detection theory, the two differ in:

• a.Response criterion (bias)✓
• b.Just-noticeable difference
• c.Sensitivity (d')
• d.Absolute threshold

Signal detection theory (Green & Swets, 1966) separates sensitivity (d'), the ability to discriminate signal from noise, from the response criterion, the observer's willingness to say 'signal.' Equal sensitivity with more hits and more false alarms means a more liberal criterion. Absolute threshold and just-noticeable difference are classical psychophysics concepts that do not separate these two factors.

A person can just detect the difference between a 100-gram and a 102-gram weight. According to Weber's law, about how large a difference would be needed to detect a change from a 500-gram weight?

• a.10 grams✓
• b.20 grams
• c.5 grams
• d.2 grams

Weber's law states that the just-noticeable difference is a constant proportion of the original stimulus. Here the Weber fraction is 2/100 = 0.02, and 0.02 x 500 = 10 grams (check: 10/500 = 0.02). A 2-gram difference would wrongly assume a constant absolute difference, and 5 or 20 grams do not keep the 0.02 ratio.

Seligman and Maier (1967) found that dogs first given inescapable shock later failed to escape shock in a shuttle box, while dogs first given the same shock but able to end it learned to escape readily. Which variable produced the difference?

• a.Whether they could control the earlier shock✓
• b.Whether the earlier shock was signaled by a tone
• c.The total amount of shock received earlier
• d.The number of days between the two phases

Seligman and Maier (1967) used a yoked design in which the escape and inescapable groups received identical shocks; only controllability differed, and only the no-control group later failed to escape, which they called learned helplessness. Because shock amount was matched, it cannot explain the difference, and signaling and time between phases were not the manipulated variables.