Biological Psychology Flashcards
What is the assumption of the biological area?
Assumes our behaviour is influenced by biological processes, brain and body. For example our hormones and our genetics
What is the key theme of the biological area?
Regions of the brain
What is a general strength of the biological area?
Often have to use scientific methods to obtain data which means they’re usually unbiased and more accurate
What is a general weakness of the biological area?
Can lack ecological validity because they’re so scientific
What are the 2 studies in the biological area?
Casey= contemporary
Sperry= Classic
What is lateralisation of brain function?
Means that different hemispheres are responsible for different things
What is the corpus callosum?
Bundle of nerve fibres that connect the two hemispheres
What is epilepsy?
Result of abnormal electrical discharges
What is hemisphere deconnection?
division of the hemispheres through surgery, good for people with epilepsy
What does the left hemisphere control on the body?
The left visual field and the right hand
What does the right hemisphere control on the body?
The right visual field and the left hand
What does our left hemisphere control?
Language
What does our right hemisphere control?
Perception and Creativity
What was sperry’s aim?
To investigate the effects of hemisphere disconnection and to show each hemisphere has different functions
Describe sperry’s participants
11 patients who had undergone surgery as a result of epilepsy
What was Sperry’s IV?
Whether the person had the hemisphere disconnection or not
What was sperry’s DV?
The performance on the task
What research method was Sperry’s study?
Quasi as they had undergone surgery which can’t be manipulated
What were the two types of task in Sperry’s study?
Visual
Tactile
Explain one visual stimuli task
There was a visual stimuli projected for 1/10th of a second to one visual field e.g a naked lady was projected to the left visual field
Explain how the tactile tests worked?
They would be told to pick up an object with their right hand but it was out of sight and then were asked to do three things: if they could name it, draw it or find it with other hand
What happened when they were shown the naked lady through their left visual field?
They didn’t say what they’d seen but they would blush and giggle
What happened when the tactile stimulus was presented to the right hand?
Able to name it
Able to draw it
Able to find again with the same hand
Not recognised by the left hand
What can you conclude about Sperry’s study?
Provides evidence for lateralisation of brain function
Shows language is controlled by the left hemisphere and emotion is associated with right
What is instant gratification?
The inability to resist temptation for an immediate reward and not be able to wait for a later reward
What is delayed gratification?
The ability to resist temptation for an immediate reward and wait for a later reward
What is cognitive control?
Ability to suppress inappropriate thoughts or actions in favour of appropriate ones.
The ability to delay gratification depends on this
What is a low delayer?
People who can not delay gratification
What is a high delayer?
People who can delay gratification
What is the ventral striatum?
This facilitates our rewards and excites our behaviour in social interactions.
Known as the ‘hot system’ because it involves desires and emotions
What is the inferior frontal gyrus?
The cognitive control part of the brain that interprets facial expressions and gives us an appropriate emotional response to that expression
Known as ‘cool system’ of the brain because it doesn’t excite us
What happens in our brain when we try to resist temptation?
There’s a conflict between the ventral striatum and inferior frontal gyrus
What part of the brain is more active in high delayers?
Inferior frontal gyrus
What part of the brain is more active in low delayers?
Ventral Striatum
What type of study was casey’s?
Longitudinal
What is it called when you lose participants on a longitudinal study?
Sample Attrition
What is the scan called that looks at the activity of the brain?
fMRI
What was Casey’s overall aim?
To conduct a longitudinal study to investigate delayed gratification 40 years from when participants were initially tested
Describe the participants at the start of the study?
562 four year olds from Stanford University nursery completed a gratification task using cookies and marshmallows
How many of the original sample completed self reports in their 20s?
155
How many completed another set of self reports in their 30s?
135
In 2011 how many of the original sample completed experiment 1 and then 2?
1 = 59
2 = 27
What was Casey’s experiment 1?
Completed 2 versions of a go/no-go task on laptops sent to them.
What happened in the go/no-go task?
P’s told to click when they see a certain stimulus.
Each face was shown for 0.5 seconds with a 1 second break before the next face was shown
How was their performance measured in experiment 1?
Accuracy and reaction time
What was the hot go/no-go task?
P’s asked to click when they saw a happy expression and not click when they saw a fearful one
What was the cool go/no-go task?
Asked to click when they saw a specific gender
What were the results from experiment 1?
LD’s made more errors on the hot tasks than on the cool tasks
No difference in reaction time between LD’s and HD’s
What happened in experiment 2 of casey’s study?
Participants placed in an fMRI scanner and completed a hot task similar to the one in experiment 1.
Their brain was observed while completing the task
What were the results from experiment 2 of casey’s study?
LD’s had less activity in their inferior frontal gyrus and had more activity in their ventral striatum.
When told not to click the happy faces they couldn’t resist the urge to click
What can you conclude from Casey’s study?
Our ability to delay gratification during childhood may be the same when we are adults
Resisting temptation appears to be natural rather than learnt
What was the independent variable in both experiments of casey’s study?
LD’s or HD’s
What was the dependent variable in both experiments of casey’s study?
Self control in the go/no go tasks
REACTION TIME AND ACCURACY
What was the research design?
Independent measures
What was the research method?
Quasi as they either fell in LD or HD
Give 2 similarities between sperry and casey
Quasi
Independent measures
Give 2 differences between sperry and casey
Casey=longitudinal Sperry=snapshot
casey= use of brain imagery sperry= relies on p’s answer
