1-9 Review Flashcards
Cognitive
Process by which sensory input is transferred, reduced, stored, recovered, and used
Neuroscience
Scientific study of the nervous system
Behavior genetics
Study of the relative power and limits of genetic and environmental influences on behavior
Evolutionary psychology
Study of the evolution of behavior and the mind, using principles of natural selection.
Psychoanalytic
Personality and therapeutic technique that attributes thoughts and actions to unconscious motives and conflicts.
Naturalistic observation
Observing and recording behavior in naturally occurring situations without trying to manipulate and control the situation
Lab studies
Laboratory research—also called clinical trials, research in which the researcher seeks to control conditions and variables to determine whether a clinical intervention produced the desired effects or if other factors were responsible for the desired effects.
Standard deviations
A computed measure of how much scores vary around the mean score
Rule of 68/95/99
All values lie within three standard deviations of the mean in a normal distribution.
Correlation study
Measure of the extent to which two factors vary together, and this of how well either factor predicts the other
Correlation coefficients
Mathematical expression of the relationship, ranging from -1 to +1.
Neural impulse
Electrical discharge that travels along a nerve fiber
Action potential
Brief electric charge that travels down an axon. Generated by the movement of positively charged atoms in and out of channels in the axons membrane.
Graded potential
Slight difference of charge across the membrane of the cell
Motor neuron
motor neuron: neurons that relay signals from the central nervous system to the other parts of the body
Sensory neuron
sensory neuron: neurons that transmit information to the central nervous system from the senses of sight, hearing, taste, touch, and smell, as well as those that transmit pain signals
Inter neurons
inter neurons: relay signals between neurons or groups of neurons, are responsible for the processing of information by the brain, like the logic circuits of a computer. also serve to relay signals from place to place within the central nervous system.
Neural networks
Interconnected neural cells
Frontal lobe
Involved in speaking and muscle movements and in making plans and judgements.
Parietal lobe
Receives sensory input for touch and body position
Occipital lobe
Visual areas which receive visual information from the opposite visual field
Temporal lobe
Which receives auditory information primarily from the opposite ear.
Split brain
Condition in which the two hemispheres of the brain are isolated by cutting the connecting fibers between them
Brocas
Makes words
Wernicke area
Comprehends words
Heritability
Proportion of variation among individuals that we can attribute to genes
Collectivist
Giving opportunity to the goals of ones group and defining ones identity accordingly
Individualistic
Priority to ones own goals over group goals, and defining ones identity in terms if personal attributes rather than group identifications.
Gender schema
Children learn from their cultures a concept of what it means to be male and female and that they adjust their behavior accordingly.
Gender identity
Ones sense of being make or female
Teratogens
Chemicals and viruses, that can reach the embryo or fetus during prenatal development and cause harm
Imprinting
Process by which certain animals form attachments during a critical period very early in life.
Maturation
Biological growth process that enable orderly changes in behavior, relatively uninfluenced by experience
Attachment
An emotional tie with another person: shown in young children by seeking closeness to the caregiver and showing distress on separation
Object permanence
The awareness that things continue to exist even when not perceived
Conservation
Properties such as mass, volume, and number remain the same despite changes in the forms of objects
Accommodation
All doggies are different than kitties
Assimilation
Everything with four legs is a doggie
Fluid intelligence
Ones ability to reason speedily and abstractly
Crystallized intelligence
Ones accumulated knowledge and verbal skills
Absolute threshold
The minimum stimulation needed to detect a particular stimulus 50 percent of the time
Difference threshold
Minimum difference between two stimuli required for detection 50 percent of the time.
Young helmholtz trichromatic or three color
The retina contains three different color receptors- one most sensitive to red, green, and blue- which when stimulated in combination can produce the perception of any color.
Opponent-process
Opposing retinal processes (red-green, yellow-blue, white-black) enable color vision
Vestibular sense
Sense of body movement and position, including sense of balance
Kinesthesis
System for sensing the position and movement of individual body parts
Phi phenomenon
Illusion of movement when two or more adjacent lights blink on and off in quick succession
Visual capture
Tendency for vision to dominate the other senses
Retinal disparity
Binocular cue for perceiving depth. Compares images from two eyeballs, the brain computes distance.
Convergence
Binocular cue for perceiving depth. Eyes converge inwards when looking at an object.
Figure ground
Visual field into objects that stand out from their surroundings.
Depth perception
Ability to see objects in three demons ions although the images that strike the retina are two dimensional.
Selective attention
Focusing of conscious awareness on a particular stimulus, as in the cocktail party effect
Cock tail party effect
the phenomenon of being able to focus one’s auditory attention on a particular stimulus while filtering out a range of other stimuli, much the same way that a partygoer can focus on a single conversation in a noisy room
Awake and relaxed
Alpha waves
Stage 1 sleep
Happens in an unrembered moment. Can experience hallucinations
Stage 2 sleep
Last 20 minutes. Periodic experience of sleep spindles- rapid bursts, rhythm ethic brain activity
Stage 3 sleep
From normal sleep to deep sleep. Small amount of delta waves
Stage 4 sleep
Heavy delta waves and this is where children may begin to sleep walk or wet the bed
REM sleep
Rapid eye movement, reoccurring sleep stage which vivid dreams commonly occur.
Narcolepsy
Sleep disorder characterized by uncontrollable sleep attacks
Sleep apnea
Sleep disorder characterized by temporary cessation of breathing during sleep and repeated momentary awakenings.
Hallucinations
False sensory experiences, such as seeing something in the absence of an external visual stimulus
Dreaming
Sequence of images, emotions, and thoughts passing through a sleeping persons mind
Manifest
According to frued, the remembered story line of a dream
Latent content
According to frued, the underlying meaning of a dream
Depressants
Drugs the reduce neural activity and slow body functions
Stimulants
Drugs that excite neural activity and speed up body functions.
Classical conditioning
Type of learning in which an organism comes to associate stimuli.
Operant conditioning
Type of learning in which behavior is strengthened if followed by a reinforcer or diminished if followed by a punisher.
Discrimination
Classical conditioning- learned ability to distinguish between a conditioned stimulus and stimuli that do not signal an unconditioned stimulus.
Generalization
Tendency, once a response has
Been conditioned, for stimuli similar to thenconsitionednstimulusnro elicit similar responses
Shaping
Operant conditioning procedure in which reinforcers guide behavior toward closer and closer approximations of the desired behavior
Extinction
Diminishing of conditioned response
Spontaneous recovery
Reappearance, after a pause, of an extinguished conditioned response
Positive reinforcers
Increasing behaviors by presenting positive stimuli, such as food
Negative reinforcers
Increasing behaviors by stopping or reducing negative stimuli, such as shock.
Punishment
Event the decreases the behavior that it follows
Observational learning
Learning by observing others
Latent learning
Learning that occurs but is not apparent until there is an incentive to demonstrate it.
Cognitive maps
Mental representation of the layout of ones environment
