Exam 1 Flashcards
Research Procedures
Descriptive, Correlational, Experimental
Different Research Methods and How to Choose a Method for a Research Project
Choosing a research question
Selecting most appropriate design
Determining most effective setup
Considering cost, time, ethical issues, and other limitations
Deciding how to measure the behavior or process to be studied
Considering confounding variables
Basic Ethical Concepts for Animals
British Psychological Society (BPS): Has established guidelines for reasonably natural living conditions and companions for social animals
American Psychological Association (APA): Has established guidelines for humane treatment and minimization of infection, illness, and pain
Basic Statistical Concepts
Measures of central tendency include a single score that represents a set of scores.
Mode: Most frequently occurring score(s) in a distribution
Mean: Arithmetic average of a distribution, obtained by adding the scores and then dividing by the number of scores; can be distorted by few atypical scores
Median: Middle score in a distribution; half the scores are above it, and half are below it
Sensory Neurons
Most of the neurons are found in the brain, but motor and sensory neurons are found throughout the body. The message does not travel down the axon in the same way an electrical signal does down a wire; in fact, electricity in a wire travels 3 million times faster. In the body, neural signals travel about 2 to 180 miles per hour. However, the chemical signal has an advantage; it does not decrease in intensity as it travels down the axon. No signal is lost.
Acetylcholine
Enables muscle action, learning, and memory.
With Alzheimer’s disease ACh producing neurons deteriorate.
Dopamine
Influences movement, learning, attention, and emotion.
Oversupply linked to schizophrenia, Undersupply linked to tremors and decreased mobility in Parkinson’s disease.
Serotonin
Affects mood, hunger, sleep, and arousal.
Undersupply linked to depression. Some drugs that raise serotonin levels are used to treat depression.
Norepinephrine
Helps control alertness, and arousal.
Undersupply can Depress mood.
GABA (gammaaminobutyric acid)
A major inhibitory
neurotransmitter
Undersupply linked to seizures, tremors, and insomnia.
Glutamate
A major excitatory
neurotransmitter; involved in
memory.
Oversupply can overstimulate the brain, producing migraines
or seizures.
Endorphins
Neurotransmitters that influence
the perception of pain or pleasure
Oversupply with opiate drugs can suppress the body’s
natural endorphin supply
The Nervous System and Its Role in Motivation, Learning, and Memory
The body’s speedy electrochemical communication network, which consists of all the nerve cells of the central and peripheral nervous systems
Central nervous system (CNS)
The brain and the spinal cord are the body’s decision makers.
Peripheral nervous system (PNS)
Sensory and motor neurons connect the CNS to the rest of the body for gathering and transmitting information.
Somatic nervous system and autonomic nervous system
Temporal Lobes
Temporal lobes: Portion of the cerebral cortex lying roughly above the ears; includes areas that receive information from the ears.
Occipital Lobes
Occipital lobes: Portion of the cerebral cortex lying at the back of the head; includes areas that receive information from the visual fields.
Parietal Lobes
Parietal lobes: Portion of the cerebral cortex lying at the top of the head and toward the rear; receives sensory input for touch and body position.
Frontal Lobes
Frontal lobes: Portion of the cerebral cortex lying just behind the forehead; involved in speaking and muscle movements and in making plans and judgments.
Cerebral Cortex
Cerebral cortex: Thin layer of interconnected neurons covering the cerebral hemispheres; the body’s ultimate control and information-processing center
Plasticity
Neuroplasticity: the brain’s ability to change, especially during childhood, by reorganizing after damage or by building new pathways.
Neuroplasticiy enables us to adapt to our rapidly changing world.
Through neuroplasticity
The brain changes throughout life by reorganizing after damage or by building new pathways based on experience.
New neural pathways reflect personal experiences.
The human brain is designed to change.
Development (zygote to adulthood)
Zygote
Zygote: The life cycle begins at conception, when one sperm cell unites with an egg to form a zygote (fertilized egg). The zygote enters a 2-week period of rapid cell division. (Conception- 2 Weeks)
Embryo
Embryo: The zygote’s inner cells become the embryo; the outer cells become the placenta. The embryo is the developing human organism from about 2 weeks after fertilization through 2 months.
Fetus
Fetus: In the next 6 weeks, body organs begin to form and function. By 9 weeks, the fetus is recognizably human.
Newborn
Newborn
Arrives with automatic reflex responses that support survival—sucking, tonguing, swallowing, and breathing
Cries to elicit help and comfort
Searches for sights and sounds linked to other humans, especially mother
Smells and sees well and uses sensory equipment to learn
Possesses a biologically rooted temperament
Infancy
Brain cells are sculpted by heredity and experience.
Birth: Neuronal growth spurt and synaptic pruning
3 to 6 months: Rapid frontal lobe growth and continued growth into adolescence and beyond
Early Childhood
Early childhood: Critical period for some skills (i.e., language and vision)
Throughout life: Brain tissue changed by learning
Adolescence
Until puberty, brain cells increase their connections.
During adolescence, selective pruning removes unused neurons and connections.
Frontal lobes develop.
Myelin growth enables better communication with other brain regions.
Improved judgment, impulse control, and long-term planning
Impulse control lags reward seeking
Emerging Adulthood
Emerging adulthood
Includes the time from 18 to the mid-twenties; a not-yet-settled phase of life
Characterized by not yet assuming adult responsibilities and independence and feelings of being “in between”
May involve living with and still being emotionally dependent on parents
Adulthood
Early adulthood: Peak time for learning and memory
Middle adulthood: Greater decline in ability to recall rather than recognize memory
Late adulthood: Better retention of meaningful than of meaningless information; longer word production time
End of life: Terminal decline; typically occurs during last 4 years of life
Schemas
Schemas: concepts or mental molds into which we pour our experiences.
Absolute Threshold
absolute threshold
the minimum stimulus energy needed to detect a particular stimulus 50 percent of the time.
Sensation Vs. Perception
Under normal circumstances, sensation and perception are parts of one continuous process.
Sensation: The process by which our sensory receptors and nervous system receive and represent stimulus energies from the environment
Perception: The process of organizing and interpreting sensory information, enabling us to recognize meaningful objects and events
Piaget’s Test of Conservation
This visually focused preoperational child does not yet understand the principle of conservation. When the milk is poured into a tall, narrow glass, it suddenly seems like “more” than when it was in the shorter, wider glass. In another year or so, she will understand that the amount stays the same.
Piaget’s Theory of Mind
Theory of mind
Involves the ability to read the mental state of others
Between ages 3½ and 4½, children worldwide use theory of mind to realize others may hold false beliefs.
By age 4 to 5, children anticipate false beliefs of friends.
Sensorimotor Stage (Piaget)
Birth to nearly 2 years
Sensorimotor
Experiencing the
world through
senses and actions
(looking, hearing,
touching, mouthing,
and grasping)
Object
permanence
Stranger
anxiety
Preoperational Stage (Piaget)
About 2 to
6 or 7
years
Preoperational
Representing things
with words and
images; using
intuitive rather than
logical reasoning
Pretend play
Egocentrism
Concrete Operational Stage (Piaget)
About 7 to
11 years
Concrete operational
Thinking logically
about concrete
events; grasping
concrete analogies
and performing
arithmetical
operations
Conservation
Mathematical
transformations
Formal Operational Stage (Piaget)
About 12
through
adulthood
Formal operational
Reasoning abstractly
Abstract logic
Potential for
mature moral
reasoning
Bottom-Up Vs. Top-Down Processing
Bottom-up processing
Analysis that begins with the sensory receptors and works up to the brain’s integration of sensory information
Top-down processing
Information processing guided by higher-level mental processes, as when we construct perceptions drawing on our experience and expectations
Basic Visual Processing (Eye)
Light rays reflected from a candle pass through the cornea, pupil, and lens.
The curve and thickness of the lens change to bring nearby or distant objects into focus on the retina.
Rays from the top of the candle strike the bottom of the retina. Those from the left side of the candle strike the right side of the retina.
The candle’s image appears on the retina upside down and reversed.
Wavelength
Wavelength
Distance from the peak of one light or sound wave to the peak of the next. Electromagnetic wavelengths vary from the short blips of cosmic rays to the long pulses of radio transmissions.
Hue
Hue
Dimension of color that is determined by the wavelength of light; what we know as the color names blue, green, and so forth
Intensity
Intensity
Amount of energy in a light wave or sound wave, which influences what we perceive as brightness or loudness. Intensity is determined by the wave’s amplitude (height).
Transduction
Transduction
Conversion of one form of energy into another
In sensation, the transformation of stimulus energies, such as sights, sounds, and smells, into neural impulses the brain can interpret
Perceptual Adaptation
the ability to adjust to changed sensory input, including an artificially displaced or even inverted visual field.
Basic Auditory Sensation
Sound waves strike the eardrum, causing it to vibrate.
Tiny bones in the middle ear transmit the vibrations to the cochlea, a coiled, fluid-filled tube in the inner ear.
Ripples in the fluid of the cochlea bend the hair cells lining the surface, triggering impulses in nerve cells.
Axons from these nerve cells transmit a signal to the auditory cortex.
Gestalt
Gestalt: An organized whole. Gestalt psychologists emphasize our tendency to integrate pieces of information into meaningful wholes.
Psychophisics
the study of relationships between the physical characteristics of stimuli, such as their intensity, and our
psychological experience of them
Pain (Different Ways to Control Pain)
Placebo, Distraction, Hypnosis
ESP (What it is and Examples of Each Claim)
the controversial claim that perception can occur apart from sensory input; includes telepathy, clairvoyance, and
precognition.
Descriptive Research Method
Observes and Records behavior. Examples include: Case Studies, Naturalistic Observations, or Surveys.
Weakness: No control of variables, single cases may be misleading
Correlational Research Method
To detect naturally occurring
relationships; to assess how
well one variable predicts
another. Collects Data on variables without any manipulation.
Weakness: Cannot Specify Cause and Effect.
Experimental Research Method
Explores cause and effect. Manipulates one or more factors, uses random assignment. INDEPENDANT VARIABLES ARE MANIPULATED.
Weakness: Sometimes not feasible; results may not generalize to other contexts; not ethical to manipulate certain variables.
Mode:
Mode: Most frequently occurring score(s) in a distribution
Mean
Mean: Arithmetic average of a distribution, obtained by adding the scores and then dividing by the number of scores; can be distorted by few atypical scores
Median:
Median: Middle score in a distribution; half the scores are above it, and half are below it
