Biology

Behavioral Psychology and Physiology

1,324 Questions

Behavioral psychology and physiology explore cognitive processes, attention, memory, and learning mechanisms like conditioning. These concepts are frequently tested in general science and psychology sections of various competitive exams. Prepare thoroughly using these practice questions covering key behavioral theories and physiological functions.

Cognitive processesMemory and learningAttention and focusDevelopmental milestonesSensory perception

Behavioral Psychology and Physiology Questions

Multiple choice

As per the author, the muscular effort we make is

Directions: Read the passage and answer the given question.

One of the most potent elements in body language is eye behaviour. You shift your eyes, meet another person's gaze or fail to meet it - and produce an effect out of all proportion to the trifling muscular effort you have made. When two people look searchingly into each other's eyes, emotions are heightened and  the relationship tipped toward greater intimacy.

In normal conversation, each eye contact lasts only about a second before one or both individuals look away. Because the longer meeting of the eyes is rare, it is weighted with significance when it happens and can generate a special kind of human-to-human awareness. Most of the time, a lingering look is inter­preted as a sign of attraction and this should be scru­pulously avoided except in appropriate circumstances. A young woman once complained. ‘That man makes me so uncomfortable, half the time when I glance at him he's already looking at me - and he keeps right on looking.'

Proper street behaviour requires a balance of at­tention and intention. You are supposed to look at a passer-by just enough to show that you are aware of his presence. If you look too little, you appear haughty or furtive; too much and you are inquisitive. Usually what happens is that people eye each other until they are about eight feet apart, at which point both cast down their eyes.

Much of eye behaviour is so subtle that we react to it only on the intuitive level. This has been demon­strated in elaborate experiments. Subjects sit and talk in the psychologist's laboratory, irrespective of the fact that their eye behaviour is being observed from be­hind a one-way vision screen. In one fairly typical ex­periment, subjects were induced to cheat while per­forming a task, then were interviewed and observed. It was found that those who. had cheated met the interviewer's eyes less often than was normal, an in­dication that 'shifty eyes' can actually be a tip-off to an attempt to deceive.

However, none of the `facts' of eye behaviour are cut and dried, for there are variations between indi­viduals. People use their eyes differently and spend different amounts of time looking at others. Besides, no pattern of eye behaviour is precisely predictable in any normal conversation.

  1. approximately equal to the effect of our shifting of the eyes

  2. much more than the effect of our eye movement

  3. much less than the effect of our eye movement

  4. inversely proportional to the effect of our eye movement

Reveal answer Fill a bubble to check yourself
C Correct answer
Explanation

The passage opens by stating: 'You shift your eyes, meet another person's gaze or fail to meet it - and produce an effect out of all proportion to the trifling muscular effort you have made.' This shows the effect is much greater than the effort.

Multiple choice

From the findings of the research described in the passage, one can come to the conclusion that

Directions: Read the passage and answer the given question.

One of the most potent elements in body language is eye behaviour. You shift your eyes, meet another person's gaze or fail to meet it - and produce an effect out of all proportion to the trifling muscular effort you have made. When two people look searchingly into each other's eyes, emotions are heightened and  the relationship tipped toward greater intimacy.

In normal conversation, each eye contact lasts only about a second before one or both individuals look away. Because the longer meeting of the eyes is rare, it is weighted with significance when it happens and can generate a special kind of human-to-human awareness. Most of the time, a lingering look is inter­preted as a sign of attraction and this should be scru­pulously avoided except in appropriate circumstances. A young woman once complained. ‘That man makes me so uncomfortable, half the time when I glance at him he's already looking at me - and he keeps right on looking.'

Proper street behaviour requires a balance of at­tention and intention. You are supposed to look at a passer-by just enough to show that you are aware of his presence. If you look too little, you appear haughty or furtive; too much and you are inquisitive. Usually what happens is that people eye each other until they are about eight feet apart, at which point both cast down their eyes.

Much of eye behaviour is so subtle that we react to it only on the intuitive level. This has been demon­strated in elaborate experiments. Subjects sit and talk in the psychologist's laboratory, irrespective of the fact that their eye behaviour is being observed from be­hind a one-way vision screen. In one fairly typical ex­periment, subjects were induced to cheat while per­forming a task, then were interviewed and observed. It was found that those who. had cheated met the interviewer's eyes less often than was normal, an in­dication that 'shifty eyes' can actually be a tip-off to an attempt to deceive.

However, none of the `facts' of eye behaviour are cut and dried, for there are variations between indi­viduals. People use their eyes differently and spend different amounts of time looking at others. Besides, no pattern of eye behaviour is precisely predictable in any normal conversation.

  1. innocent people maintain longer eye contact than the guilty ones

  2. guilty people make frequent gazes during interrogation

  3. 'shifty eyes' indicate an intent to deceive

  4. 'shifty eyes' indicate a feeling of guilt

Reveal answer Fill a bubble to check yourself
D Correct answer
Multiple choice
  1. study

  2. knowledge

  3. research

  4. experiments

Reveal answer Fill a bubble to check yourself
C Correct answer
Explanation

Careful study of a given subject, field, or problem, undertaken to discover facts or principles is called research.

Multiple choice
  1. position

  2. behaviour

  3. exercise

  4. disease

Reveal answer Fill a bubble to check yourself
B Correct answer
Explanation

Yawning is not an exercise, position or disease. It's a behaviour which is usually triggered by fatigue or boredom.

Multiple choice
  1. trust

  2. freedom

  3. restriction

  4. control

Reveal answer Fill a bubble to check yourself
D Correct answer
Explanation

An involuntary action is that which is carried out without one's conscious wish; not voluntary; unintentional.

Multiple choice
  1. effected

  2. joined

  3. exclusive

  4. rare

Reveal answer Fill a bubble to check yourself
C Correct answer
Explanation

Exclusive means belonging to a particular individual or group and not to any other; not shared. Yawning is not exclusive as other creatures yawn too. 

Multiple choice
  1. moratorium

  2. foreclosure

  3. diffusion

  4. identity achievement

  5. none of these

Reveal answer Fill a bubble to check yourself
A Correct answer
Explanation

An identity moratorium is one step in the process of finding a sense of self. It is a period of active searching for one's occupational, religious, ethnic or other form of identity. During a moratorium, individuals typically explore many different options - such as visiting different types of churches - and do not feel committed to any one approach. In other words, a person in a moratorium is undergoing an active identity crisis. While this period may feel confusing and difficult to endure, many psychologists believe that an individual must go through a moratorium before he or she can form a true sense of identity (a state called identity achievement).

Multiple choice

Which of the following is true about fast reading?

Directions: Read the passage below and answer the question given underneath.

Passage

There is another interesting fact about eye movement. If you record the eye movements of someone who is reading, you will notice that, from time to time, the reader goes back and looks again at something he has read before; in other words, he regresses to an earlier part of the text, probably because he realises he does not understand the passage properly. Then he comes back to where he left off and continues reading. At one time, it was thought that regression was a fault, but it is in fact a very necessary activity in efficient reading. There are several different kinds of faults in reading, which are usually more exaggerated with foreign learners. The most common one is that most people read more slowly than they should. There is no rate at which people ought to read of course; it, depends on your purpose in reading, how difficult the language is, how unfamiliar the material and so on. But most people read everything at the same slow speed, and do not seem to realise that they can read faster or slower as required. Other people say the words to themselves, or move their lips - these habits slow the reader down to something near speaking speed, which is, of course, much slower than reading speed. Another habit which can slow you down is following the line with your finger, or with a pen.
If you want to be able to read faster, the secret is simply to practise under timed conditions. This means that you should give yourself a certain amount of time to read with understanding, and then check your time when you have finished. Students who have practised fast reading even for only an hour - a week, have shown average improvements of over 50% over a term of ten week's duration. Reading fast does not necessarily mean reading with less comprehension. In fact, students usually show a small increase in comprehension as well as a dramatic increase in speed.

  1. It cripples comprehension.

  2. It tremendously improves the level of understanding.

  3. It requires practice under timed conditions.

  4. It is more important than comprehension.

Reveal answer Fill a bubble to check yourself
C Correct answer
Explanation

The passage explicitly states If you want to be able to read faster, the secret is simply to practise under timed conditions. This directly matches option C. A is incorrect because the passage says students usually show small increase in comprehension. B is not stated. D is never claimed.

Multiple choice
  1. Pavlov’s stimulus- response

  2. Lock’s Tabula rasa

  3. Thorndike’s Law of Effect

  4. Thorndike’s Law of Exercise

  5. None of these

Reveal answer Fill a bubble to check yourself
C Correct answer
Explanation

The law of effect principle developed by Edward Thorndike suggested that responses closely followed by satisfaction will become firmly attached to the situation and therefore more likely to reoccur when the situation is repeated. Conversely, if the situation is followed by discomfort, the connections to the situation will become weaker and the behavior of response is less likely to occur when the situation is repeated.

Multiple choice
  1. Reproduction of young ones

  2. Breathing in of fresh air

  3. Movement from one place to another

  4. Adaptation to the environment

  5. Circulation of blood

Reveal answer Fill a bubble to check yourself
C Correct answer
Explanation

Locomotion refers to the forms of movement that animals naturally use like flying, swimming, gliding, galloping, hopping, etc.

Multiple choice
  1. sing a specific song that is not sung by any other species

  2. not sing at all

  3. sing a song of its own white-crown species

  4. sing a song of the species to which he listened during the crucial period

Reveal answer Fill a bubble to check yourself
A Correct answer
Explanation

At maturity, the separated white-crowned male will sing a specific song that it does not learn directly from its father, but rather from the generalised song environment of its natal neighborhood.