Psychology Flashcards
7 cards from real CLEP practice questions. Tap to flip, then mark Knew It or Still Learning — missed cards come back until you master them.
Read the first 7 Psychology flashcards as text
In classical conditioning, salivation to a bell that was previously paired with food is an example of:
Answer: A conditioned response
Salivation to the bell is a conditioned response — it was learned through repeated pairing of the neutral stimulus (bell) with the unconditioned stimulus (food).
Which reinforcement schedule produces behavior most resistant to extinction?
Answer: Variable-ratio schedule
Variable-ratio schedules deliver reinforcement after an unpredictable number of responses, producing the highest response rates and greatest resistance to extinction — similar to gambling.
According to Piaget, object permanence — knowing an object exists even when out of sight — develops during the:
Answer: Sensorimotor stage
Object permanence develops during the sensorimotor stage (birth to approximately age 2), as infants begin to form mental representations of objects.
According to Craik and Lockhart's levels-of-processing model, which type of encoding produces the most durable memory?
Answer: Semantic encoding based on meaning
Semantic processing — encoding the meaning of information — creates the deepest level of processing and produces the strongest, most durable memory traces.
The serial position effect in memory research refers to the finding that:
Answer: Items at the beginning and end of a list are recalled better than middle items
The serial position effect combines the primacy effect (first items rehearsed into long-term memory) and the recency effect (last items still in working memory), both yielding better recall than middle items.
Vygotsky's Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) is defined as:
Answer: The gap between what a child can do alone and what they can achieve with guided assistance
The ZPD represents skills just beyond a learner's independent ability but achievable with support from a more knowledgeable other, highlighting the role of social interaction in learning.
The 'cocktail party effect' is a demonstration of:
Answer: Selective attention to personally relevant stimuli
The cocktail party effect shows that people can selectively attend to their own name or meaningful information even amid competing noise, demonstrating selective attention.