Research and Testing - AP Psychology

In an experiment, the independent variable is the predicted cause while the dependent variable is the predicted effect. The independent variable can be manipulated by experimentors to elicit a change in the dependent variable. The dependent variable cannot be directly manipulated.

For example, in a experiment that studies the effect of soda consumption on AP exam scores, the independent variable would be the amount of soda the subject drink (easily controlled by the experimentors) and the dependent variable would be AP exam scores (the unpredictable variable being tested).

Brenda is experiencing the placebo effect, in that she is reporting a positive effect (more energy) when she was given a blank pill. Brenda mentally prepared herself for the expected effects of the pill, and was thus able to mimic the expected outcome despite no actual biological change.

The Hawthorne effect is also known as "the observer effect." Subjects of a study will alter their behavior if they are aware they are being observed. Because the researcher was watching the experiment, it is possible that the subject behaved differently than he would have if he was not being watched.

Mean is not a measure of variability - it is a measure of central tendency, along with mode and median. Measures of variability show the spread of a data set and describe how different points are from one another, whereas measures of central tendency are representative of the data set as a whole.

Jessica's z-score indicates how many standard deviations below or above the mean Jessica's test score was. Jessica's test score of 70 was less than the mean (95), so we know that the the answer must be negative.

We know that the standard deviation was , so

Jessica's z-score is

A PET scan measures chemical activity in the brain.

An EEG measures brain activity by detecting waves and is typically used in sleep studies.

A CAT scan uses x-rays to take images of the brain and can be useful when looking at the brain's physical structure.

An MRI also can be used to examine the structure of the brain, but uses magnetic resonance to produce images.

Introspection is when a person uses their personal experience to look inward. Wundt believed that a focused practice of introspection could be used to find and study the basic elements of the human mind. Wundt's practice of introspection fell out of favor by the 1930s, and his primary contribution to the history of science was his founding of the first experimental psychology lab, which helped formalize the study of psychology as an academic disciple.

Functionalism, while it never became a formalized school of psychological thought, had an important impact on the field. Functionalism considered thinking and behavior in terms of functional adaptation to the subject's environment. It is fallacious to say that a school of thought must have been formalized and maintained in order to have influence in a field of study.

Falsifiability is the principle that states that a research hypothesis must be able to be disproven. This does not mean that the hypothesis needs to be disproven in the study; however, hypothesis should be able to be disproven. If a hypothesis is correct under all conditions, then there is no way to scientifically test its validity.

The independent variable is what the researchers manipulate in the experiment. In this example, since the distribution of the drug and placebo is the element controlled by the researchers, it is the independent variable.

The dependent variable is what the researchers measure in the experiment. In this case, the dependent variable is reactions of the participants to the drug or placebo (the independent variable). Since the reaction depends on the drug and is not within the direct control of the researchers it is the dependent variable.

The population is the entire group of people that the researcher is interested in, and the sample is the (often much smaller) group of people from that the researcher collects information from. Sampling is the process by which the sample group is chosen from the population.

The answer is the "Flynn effect." The Flynn effect is the finding that IQ scores have steadily been surpassing previous generations. The reason for this effect has not been identified yet, but it is generally attributed to better nutrition and education.

Garth's thinking represents an illusory correlation. Although Garth believes that eating yogurt will help him to score higher on his important tests, there is no actual relationship between these two variables.

Roger Sperry and colleagues, using a tachistoscope and other instruments, studied patients that had their corpus callosum severed. Their findings demonstrated that information is specialized in the hemispheres of the brain.

Participants in the line-judgment task were asked to identify which of three lines shown in a series of projected images was the longest while sitting in a room with a group of study confederates whom they believed were other participants in the study. The confederates would unanimously agree on the same incorrect line for a question, forcing the participant to choose between conforming to the majority opinion or trusting his/her own eyes and dissenting.

Participants were more likely to disobey when they were far away from the experimenter or when the experimenter's authority was diminished. They were also more likely to disobey if they were nearer to the suffering victim (really a confederate acting as though they were in pain) or if they had previously observed someone else disobeying.

The IQ test has an average score of 100, with a standard deviation of 15. Scores of 130 or above demonstrate a person with superior ("gifted") intelligence, while scores of 70 or below indicate an intellectual disability. This scale is the same for both the original IQ test, as well as modern iterations.

Milgram is best known for devising an experiment to study how human participants react when they are asked to shock others. Whenever the "learner" got a memory question wrong, the "teacher" was told to administer a shock to a learner located in a different room. Milgram devised this study to examine how so many people participated in the cruel acts of the Holocaust.