When you are about to get a shot with a hypodermic needle, your muscles tighten and there is a catch in your breathing because you have learned to expect that getting poked with a needle will be painful. This explanation of your behavior is consistent with

Laboratory hearing tests of adults reveal that

women and men begin to lose their hearing at the same age. men show hearing deficits later than women. men lose their hearing twice as fast as women. age-related hearing loss is often not apparent until after age 60.

In the scientific use of the term, a "theory" is ________

a. a prediction about the outcome of a given experiment or study b. an organized system of assumptions and principles that purports to explain a set of observations and how they are related c. a precise definition of a term in a hypothesis, which specifies how it will be observed and measured d. a scientist's best guess about the cause of an event or phenomenon