Chapter 2 Flashcards
What are the three elements of psychology?
- “Why” deals with evolution, environment, and culture
- “How” deals with cognition, behaviour, and subconscious
- “What” deals with sensations, emotions, perceptions, and actions
What are 10 key areas to focus in regards to biological psychologists?
- Sensation and perception
- Motivated behaviour (hunger, thirst, etc)
- Control of movement
- Learning
- Memory
- Sleep and biological rhythms
- Emotion
- Reasoning
- Decision making
- Consciousness
What is biological psychology also considered?
Reductionist: because it explains complex phenomenon with simple elements
What are Biological psychologists?
Measure biological, physiological, or genetic variables in an attempt to relate them to psychological or behavioural variables
What are Cognitive psychologists?
A type of biological psychologist, they rely on the functionalist insight in discussing how affect, or emotion, and environment or events interacts and result in specific perceptions
The brain is comprised of four lobes, what are they?
- Frontal lobe
- Occipital lobe
- Parietal lobe
- Temporal lobe
What is the frontal lobe?
Also known as the motor cortex, this portion of the brain is involved in motor skills, higher level cognition, and expressive language
What is the occipital lobe?
Also known as the visual cortex, this portion of the brain is involved in interpreting visual stimuli and information
What is the Parietal lobe?
Also known as the somatosensory cortex, this portion of the brain is involved in the processing of other tactile sensory information such as pressure, touch, and pain
What is the temporal lobe?
Also known as the auditory cortex, this portion of the brain is involved in the interpretation of the sounds and language we hear
What are the two examples of biological/cognitive research
- Internal versus external focus and performance
- Visual attention
What is internal versus external focus and performance?
- Focusing on external objects increases performance compared to focusing on your own body
What is visual attention?
- The brains ability to selectively filter unattended or unwanted information from reaching awareness — diminishes with age, leaving older adults less capable of filtering out distracting or irrelevant information
