Psychology, The World, and You Quiz

Answer: Substance P

Substance P is released for intense pains and glutamate is released for all pains, including mild ones.
Capsaicin is a chemical that stimulates receptors that respond to painful heat and thus causes the release of substance P. The jalapeņo peppers contain capsaicin.
Epinephrine is adrenaline, it is released when the sympathetic nervous system is aroused.
Olfaction is the sense of smell, that one was a freebie.

Answer: Your circadian rhythm

The circadian rhythm is a rhythm of activity and inactivity lasting about one day. Sunrise and sunset provide cues to reset the rhythm each day. If you're closed off from the outside world, you will continue to follow your set circadian rhythm, unless for some reason you put up great effort to resist sleep by inflicting harm upon yourself or other rather drastic measures.
The moon illusion is an illusion that the moon looks larger when it is closer to the horizon than when it is farther up, it has nothing to do with your sleep cycle.
The repair and restoration theory does have to do with sleep, in that if you are deprived of sleep, your body will take longer to "restore" the functions that your body does during sleep (such as protein synthesis).
REM sleep stands for rapid eye movement sleep, and the literal definition is self-explanatory. It is also during this stage of sleep that people report most frequently remembering a dream (if they are woken up during this sleep).

Answer: Omission training

Omission training is when don't you do the response (breaking the window), you get reinforcement (the dessert). Inverted, if you do provide the response (breaking the window), you don't get the reinforcement (dessert).
Positive reinforcement is the presentation of something that makes the wanted behavior to increase. An example would be: "If you study for your exam, I'll buy you a sweater."
Passive avoidance is, in essence, punishment. It is considered learning, however, because once you have been through the punishment, you avoid your initial mistake from then on out. An example would be: "If you stare at me, I'll bite you!"
Finally, active avoidance is if your response leads to escape from something you don't want. An example would be that you get out of the way of a speeding truck.

Answer: the von Restorff effect

The von Restorff effect is the tendency to remember unusual items better than common ones. In the example in the question, television is the unusual item because it is the only one that you cannot ingest... I hope.
Free recall is simply the ability to produce a response like one that you would be expected to give on an essay or short answer exam.
The sensory store is also known as iconic memory. It is a very brief storage of sensory information (such as sight, sound, etc.).
Finally, proactive interference is when old information interferes with the memorization of new information. An example would be if you forget where you parked your car at a busy shopping mart, and you falsely remember it being where it was the last time or time before that you were at the mart.

Answer: retrograde amnesia

Retrograde amnesia is the loss of memory for everything that happens before the brain damage.
Anterograde amnesia is the inability to acquire new long-term memories.
Korsakoff's syndrome is a condition caused by the chronic deficiency of Vitamin B1. Many alcoholics develop this illness.
Finally, the hippocampus is a large forebrain structure in the interior of the temporal lobe. In layman's terms, it's part of the brain.

Answer: the sunk cost effect

The sunk cost effect is when you decide to do something you otherwise wouldn't choose to do because more money has been invested in it.
The framing effect is when you answer a question differently if it has been framed (asked) in a different way. An example is: would you rather gain $700 or risk a 25% chance of winning $2000 (a 75% chance of winning nothing), as opposed to would you rather lose $700 or risk a 75% chance of losing $2000 (a 25% chance of losing nothing).
The availability heuristic is how a person assumes that it's easier to remember some kinds of events as opposed to others because of how common they are. An example would be: are there more words that begin with the letter "K" than words that have the letter "K" as the third letter? You'd most likely respond that there are more words that begin with "K", even though there are really more that have "K" as the third letter. Don't feel bad! It's easy to remember key, king, knuckle, knight, as opposed to like, ink, etc...
Finally, the Knicks do not rule. Sorry. Another freebie!

Answer: Your testimony is not falsifiable.

If your experiments and research are falsifiable, then they make very precise predictions that can be easily questioned or challenged. Despite that this may seem like a negative, it is in fact a good thing! Theories are meant to be challenged (unlike facts) and you should always strive to make them falsifiable. Valid contradictions to theories provide further information in the field of psychology, because the answer is rarely simple.

Replicability is simply that the results from your experiment or research can be attained following the precise steps you took in attaining them. For instance, it is like a recipe. Anyone can follow that recipe and attain the exact same product.
If your testimony is not parsimonious, then it must be filled with exaggerations and assumptions and complex ideas. If your testimony is parsimonious, then it is simple and uses minimal outside ideas. In psychology, one wants to always use parsimony in all experiments and calculations, because one's research would be very hard (or impossible) to defend if it were questioned, not to mention seemingly ridiculous (such as this question).
Finally, of course your friend would read your mind, if he could! That cad! (Another freebie!)

Answer: Unilateral neglect

Unilateral neglect is caused by damage to the parietal lobe (usually the right hemisphere of the brain). This is when one neglects (or disregards) the opposite side of the body. It is not to be confused with a loss of sensation, but rather a loss of attention. If the right side of the brain is damaged, the left part of the body suffers the loss of attention, and vice versa.

Retinal disparity is the difference in the apparent position of an object as seen by the left and right retinas.
To lose the ability for color constancy means that you can't tell what the color of an object is, if it's shrouded in a different color of light. For example, you have a blue pen in your hand, but someone turns on a red light bulb. Normally, you would be able to tell that the pen is blue despite the red light, but if you're Lucy in this case, the pen will look red and you won't be able to distinguish the true color.
Motionblindness is the inability or difficulty in distinguishing moving objects (such as birds, planes, heck, even Superman). One can suffer motionblindness if one damages the motion pathway (temporal lobe, no less) or experiences severe damage to the occipital lobe which will in turn hinder the processes of the temporal lobe. It cannot be cured.

Answer: Presbyopia

Myopia is the scientific name for nearsightedness, which makes it difficult to focus on objects far away. This is caused by an elongation of the eyeballs.

Hyperopia is the scientific name for farsightedness, which makes it difficult to focus on nearby objects. Although this may seem like Presbyopia, the difference is that Hyperopia is obtained due to eyeballs that become slightly flatter than normal (as opposed to decreased flexibility of the lenses).

Glaucoma is a serious disorder due to high pressure on the eyes. Glaucoma can damage the optic nerve and cause progressive loss of peripheral vision.

Answer: No, the strongest correlations possible range from +1 to -1

Pearson's R ranges from +1 to -1, with +1 indicating a strong positive correlation and -1 indicating a strong negative correlation.

In the example in the question, what is presented IS a strong positive correlation, but the correlation coefficient exceeds the -1/+1 range and is thus invalid.

A strong negative correlation would be, for example, the less food you eat, the higher chance you have of obtaining an eating disorder.

A correlation coefficient of 0 (or close to 0) indicates that there is no correlation between two variables. For example, the more ice cream you eat yields no effect on the amount of children you're liable to have.