Multiple Choice (Correct answers delineated with *)
1. The decade of the 1990s was designated as the decade of:
a. The brain (*)
b. Behavior
c. Mind
d. Cognition
2. If someone is interested in the relationships between behavior and the body, what
area of science do they work in?
a. Psychobiology
b. Biopsychology
c. Physiological psychology
d. All of these areas are correct. (*)
3. Neuroscience is the multidisciplinary study of the ____ and its role in behavior:
a. Brain
b. Nervous system (*)
c. Mind
d. Human psyche
4. The annual costs of brain disorders and addictions in the United States is an
estimated:
a. 100 trillion dollars
b. 500 billion dollars
c. 1 trillion dollars (*)
d. 5 trillion dollars
5. Psychologists use the term behavior to refer to:
a. Overt acts
b. Learning
c. Emotions
d. All of the above (*)
,6. Which of the following questions would a biopsychologist be least likely to study?
a. How does the brain’s activity result in consciousness? (*)
b. What changes occur in the nervous system when a person learns?
c. How do people in different cultures view mental illness?
d. What is the physiological explanation for depression?
7. If you were able to build a time machine, and wanted to travel back to observe the
first psychology laboratory, where would you go?
a. To Charles Darwin’s office in Germany
b. To Charles Darwin’s boat in England
c. To Wilhelm Wundt’s lab in Germany (*)
d. to Rene Descartes’ apothecary in France
8. The mind-brain question:
a. Is concerned with the nature of the mind and its relation to the brain (*)
b. Was originally posed by early neuroscientists and remains unsolved today
c. Usually involves a choice between the positions of psychology and
philosophy
d. All of the other alternatives are correct.
9. The textbook author views the mind as a:
a. Spirit
b. Soul
c. Collection of things the brain does, such as planning and feeling
d. Concept (*)
10. Which of the following statements is most consistent with the materialistic monist
view of the mind-brain problem?
a. Both hemispheres of the brain work together.
b. The brain and the mind are both physical. (*)
c. Everything is made of matter and energy.
d. The body is made of matter, whereas the mind is not.
11. Which of the following statements is most consistent with the dualism view of the
mind-brain problem?
, a. Both hemispheres of the brain work together.
b. The brain and the mind are both physical.
c. Everything is made of matter and energy.
d. The body is made of matter, whereas the mind is not. (*)
12. Which mind-brain view is most likely to be held by a neuroscientist?
a. Idealistic monism
b. Dualism
c. Interactionism
d. Monism (*)
13. If you say you are a dualist, you are saying you believe in:
a. The mind and the spirit
b. Only the nonmaterial
c. A mind that is separate from the brain (*)
d. The body and the brain
14. If you say you are a monist, you are saying you believe in:
a. Just the mind
b. Both the material and the nonmaterial
c. The brain and mind are composed of the same substance (*)
d. Just the spiritual
15. Some neuroscientists:
a. Believe that evolution can’t explain all biological processes, such as brain
development
b. Believe that nonmaterial neuroscience has a better chance of explaining
consciousness than material neuroscience (*)
c. Believe that the mind changes the brain, based on the study of
psychotherapy altering the brain in patients with OCD
d. View the mind as being material
16. Which of the following philosophers debated the mind-brain question?
a. Aristotle
b. Democritus
c. Plato
d. All of the above (*)
, 17. A _________ is a proposed mechanism to explain how something, usually more
complex than the proposed mechanism, works.
a. assumption
b. model (*)
c. construct
d. hypothesis
18. According to Descartes, the brain controlled behavior by:
a. Directing spirit fluid through nerves, thereby inflating the muscles (*)
b. Tilting the spinal cord like a joystick
c. Bending energy from an outside light source
d. Actively directing the pineal gland to inflate and deflate
19. According to Descartes, ___ was where the mind interacted with the body.
a. the ventricles of the brain
b. the pineal gland (*)
c. fluid filled nerves and muscles
d. the pituitary gland
20. Why did Descartes choose the pineal gland as the “seat of the soul”?
a. It was in a perfect position to serve this function.
b. It was capable of bending at different angles to direct the flow of animal
spirits.
c. It was attached just below the two cerebral hemispheres.
d. All of the above (*)
21. What was the major drawback of Descartes’ view of the mind-brain problem?
a. It was a theory.
b. It was not tested by empirical methods. (*)
c. It was a hydraulic model.
d. He knew how the brain worked, but not the body.
22. Which individual was a seventeenth-century French philosopher and physiologist?
a. Rene Descartes (*)
b. Paul Broca