Rev 10/2021

Study Guide for the Key Assessment in Psychology (KAP)

Multiple Choice Exam Psychology 111

Give a friend these questions to ask YOU and help you prepare!

1) Understanding Research Design

What makes human beings so difficult to study? And makies the following so important?

Benign deception and debriefing. (Exam questions will describe a study. Be able to
recognize these elements.)

Single-blind and double-blind designs, placebos. (Exam questions will describe a study.
Be able to recognize these elements.)

Institutional review board (IRB). (Exam questions will describe a study or a process. Be
able to recognize the function of an IRB.)

What are the distinguishing elements of descriptive, correlational and experimental designs?

Include: sample size, naturalistic vs. laboratory observation, case studies, surveys,
operationalizing, manipulating variables (IVs, DVs), confederates and control groups

Be able to recognize: independent variables, dependent variables, and confounding (or

third-degree) variables.

Understand: how random sampling and random assignment are different.

Understand: the relationship between a population and a random sampling of that

population. Why use random sampling?

Can a theory be proven? Disproven?

Broadly speaking, what is reliability? Validity? Theory? Hypothesis?

How are the broad categories of experimental research and applied research different?

2) Understanding the Nervous System

Where is the central nervous system located? The peripheral nervous system?

What are the two main divisions of the peripheral nervous system? What are their functions?

What are the two main divisions of the autonomic nervous system? What are their functions?

Explain fight-or-flight, rest-and-digest. How do reflexes work so quickly?

Rev 10/2021

3) Understanding Aspects of the Brain

What are the benefits of having many, many folds within the cortex?

What is severed during the split-brain procedure? When is this procedure used?

What devices are used to study the brain’s structure? Electrical activity?

What area of the brain processes visual stimuli? Auditory stimuli? Somatosensory stimuli?

What are some basic functions of the limbic system? Where is it located?

When you look at a Homunculus, what part of the body is drawn the largest? In other words,
which areas of the body are most densely saturated with nerve endings?

What becomes difficult or impossible if Broca’s area is damaged? Wernicke’s area?

Hippocampus? Amygdala?

What was learned from the life of the person known simply as H.M.?

What was learned from the study involving London Taxicab drivers?

What was learned from the life of Phineas Gage?

4) Understanding NeuroAnatomy and Function

What do the following neurotransmitters do in the brain/body? Dopamine; Serotonin; GABA;

Glutamate; Acetylcholine; Endorphins.

How do nerve signals travel? Describe both the electrical and chemical aspects of neural
communication including:

resting potential; action potential; dendrites; soma; axon; myelin sheath; terminal
vesicles; synaptic cleft; release, reuptake, and binding of neurotransmitters;

Use this space to draw a neuron, showing the flow of nerve signals in the correct
sequence.