Exam 1 Flashcards
(95 cards)
1
Q
Wilhelm Wundt
A
Structuralism
2
Q
Structuralism
A
- Studied the mind by breaking it down into its most basic components.
- Asks “how”?
- e.g. which brain structure is associated with sleep?
- Uses introspection
3
Q
Introspection
A
Technique where a mental process is examined to gain insight into how it works. (examination of one’s conscious thoughts and feelings)
4
Q
William James
A
Functionalism
5
Q
Functionalism
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- A school of thought that studies the functions of consciousness.
- Asks the question of “why”?
- e.g. why is it adaptive to sleep at night instead of the day?
6
Q
Sigmund Freud
A
Psychodynamic
7
Q
Psychodynamic
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Unconscious wants/desires dictate behavior.
- Repressed memories, unresolved conflicts, etc. control our behavior even though we are not aware of them
- Behaviour reflects unconscious, inevitable conflict between impulses and defenses. Since this conflict is dynamic in nature, the name is psychodynamic.
8
Q
Psychoanalysis
A
Therapeutic method that aims to understand the unconscious mind. For example, techniques like hypnosis, dream journals, ink blot studies are used to gain insight on what’s bothering a patient. This information can be used to diagnose and treat a patient.
9
Q
Humans have strong inborn sexual and aggressive drives.
A
Psychodynamic, Freud (the human’s job is to kill to survive (food) and reproduce (sex))
10
Q
Adult personality is largely determined by childhood experiences.
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Psychodynamic, Freud
11
Q
Defense mechanisms help us cope with anxiety.
A
Psychodynamic, Freud
12
Q
Behavioral Perspective
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- Behavior is caused by stimuli in the environment.
- Knowledge is gained empirically (factual, e.g. I eat lemon and it is sour)
13
Q
Ivan Pavlov
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Behavioralism (classical conditioning)
14
Q
Classical Conditioning
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- Environment shapes behavior through association of events with one another
- Pavlov’s dogs would start salivating when the delivery guy would walk by, as they associated it with a sign of food.
15
Q
John Locke
A
Behavioralism, Empiricism
16
Q
Empiricism
A
The mind is a blank slate at birth, so you gain knowledge from experiences in the environment that surrounds you.
17
Q
John Watson
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Behavioralism, operant conditioning
- e.g. Little Albert
18
Q
Edward Thorndike
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Behavioralism, instrumental conditioning (same thing as operant conditioning)
- Thorndike’s Law of Effect (1911)
19
Q
Operant Conditioning
A
Voluntary behaviors are modified by association with reward or adverse stimuli.
- I clean my room to avoid being punished for not cleaning
- I set the table because I get allowance if I do it.
20
Q
Thorndike’s Law of Effect
A
- Behaviors followed by satisfying consequences are more likely to recur.
- Behaviors followed by unsatisfying consequences are less likely to recur.
21
Q
B. F. Skinner
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Behavioralism, operant conditioning.
22
Q
Cognitive Perspective
A
- The cause of your behavior is due to your thought process.
- Opposite of structuralism, (the whole is more than the sum of its parts)
- Studies how we perceive, organize and store information
- View brains as information processors, computers
- e.g. different people respond to alarm clock differently – variability between thoughts, mood, and person influences processing of stimuli and therefore behavior.
23
Q
Humanist Perspective
A
- The cause of behavior is from the innate human tendency to grow for the better.
- Emphasizes free will and the attempt to find meaning in one’s existence
- Humans are not controlled by unconscious processes, and humans do not merely react to the environment
24
Q
Gestalt Psychology
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- Cognitive perspective, looking at the big picture
- The whole is more than the sum of it’s parts
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Carl Rogers
Humanist Perspective
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Abraham Maslow
Humanist perspective, self actualization
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Self actualization
- Abraham Maslow
- People can progress up the hierarchy of self actualization if their lower needs are met e.g. physiological, safety, love needs
- Then if their growth needs are met (e.g. aesthetics), they can eventually become self-actualized
28
Socio-cultural perspective
- The cause of behavior is from our cultural environment. Culture can affect behaviours, thoughts, and feelings
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Social norms
Rules for acceptable and expected behavior for members of the group or within the group.
e.g. take shoes off when you enter the house (asian)
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Cross cultural psychology
Explores similarities and differences between people of different cultures
- e.g. even though eastern asian cultures have very different governments, how education is valued is the same
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Biological Perspective
- Cause of behavior is due to NTs, hormones, genes, evolution
- Examines biological influences on behavior
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Karl Lashley
- Biological perspective
- Did work on brain mapping through surgical lesions in mouse brain, and observed how it affected memory
- Memory is not localized to a single area, rather was distributed across the cerebral cortex
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Donald Hebb
- Biological perpspective
- Discovered neurotrasmitters
34
Serotonin (5HT)
- Long term regulation of mood, appetite, sleep, and other drives
- Lack of serotonin is seen in depression
- SSRI (selective serotonin reuptake inhibition) is taken when someone is depressed (lexapro, prozac)
35
Dopamine (DA)
- Important for short term pleasure/reward
- Important for large muscle movement coordination
- Important for learning and memory --> lots of dopamine released = good for survival
- Important for working memory
- Important for motor learning
- Lack of dopamine is seen in Parkinson's disease
- Too much dopamine is seen in schizophrenia
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Norepinephrine
- Released in fight or flight
- Important NT for attention and arousal
- Lack of NE = lack of motivation, concentration, attention
- Lack of norepinephrine is seen in ADHD
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Glutamate
- Excitatory signal
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Gaba
- Inhibitory signal
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Acetylcholine (Ach)
- Important for muscle movements
- Long term memory formation
- Blocking of ACh release can lead to botulism (disease where you can't move muscles voluntarily)
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Behavioral Genetics
- Examines how genetic factors influence behavioral tendencies
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Concordant twin studies
- Investigated whether or not twins share a level of agreement in phenotype of a disease
- Can determine if the cause of the disease is genetic or more environmental
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Adoption studies
- Examine twins who did not grow up together
- Often time see crazy coincidences
- Can examine whether a disease is more environmental or genetic
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Three major types of neurons
Sensory neurons, motor neurons, interneurons
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Sensory neurons
Carry input messages to spinal cord and brain
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Motor neurons
transmit messages from brain and spinal cords to muscles and organs
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Interneurons
Neurons between sensory and motor that make mental functions, emotions, and behavior possible
- processing of information
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arborization
- fine branching of structures at the end of a nerve fiber
- many synapses can form due to this fine branching
48
Endorphins
- NT that acts as body's natural painkiller (opiate)
- Runner's high is caused by high release of endorphins due to pain, leading to dopamine release
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Bipolar Disorder
Lack of serotonin = depressive
Too much serotonin = euphoric
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Sympathetic nervous system
- Activation/arousal function
- Fight or flight
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Parasympathetic
- Slows down body processes
- Rest and digest
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Methods for studying the brain: observation
E.g. someone has a head injury , what's their corresponding behavior?
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Methods for studying the brain: Destruction and stimulaton
- Destroy/stimulate parts of brain --> what is the corresponding behavior? (can't do in humans)
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Neuropsychological tests
- E.g. clock test
- Can be used as an early detection method to check cognition
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Basic Research v.s. Applied Research
Basic research = expanding on general principles through theoretical application
Applied research = aims to solve specific practical problems e.g. how can we get Alzheimer's patients to eat independently?
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Steps in synaptic transmission
Synthesis, storage, release, binding, deactivation
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Methods for studying the brain: EEG
Checks for abnormal brain electrical activity (overstimulated, understimulated?)
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CT Scan
Provides details about the brain tissue
- e.g. ratio of grey to white matter
- location/presence of blood --> stroke
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Methods for studying the brain: Imaging
Look at the brain through fMRI, PET scan, CT scan, etc.
- Good for looking at issue anatomically, but does not address cognitive details
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PET scan
- Radioactive tracer used to look at brain activity through color.
- Lack of or too much activity or a certain region can be viewed through PET scan
--> e.g. low activity in patient with alzheimers
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fMRI
- gives live recording of activity of brain
- high activity = more blood flow
- can see what brain regions are important for certain functions
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Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation
- Electric current is passed through brain to temporarily disrupt specific brain area
- important brain-mapping technique
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Medulla
- Part of the brainstem
- Important for vital body functions like heartbeat, breathing , blinking
- Decussation (left-right crossover)
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Decussation
- Left right crossover of sensory input and motor output
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Pons
- Part of the brainstem
- Bridge between medulla and spinal cord to thalamus/cerebellum (info to higher levels in nervous system)
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Reticular Formation
- Regulates flow of incoming information and filters information to send to other brain areas (thalamus)
- Location of synthesis of NTs like NE and 5HT
- Regulates consciousness
- why you stop getting somatosensory input of how your clothes feel against you --> reticular formation decides it is not important and filters it out
64
Cerebellum
- Important function in muscular movement coordination (both voluntary and involuntary --> e.g. we sit up without falling down)
- Important for motor learning (procedural learning) --> e.g. learning how to ride a bike (at some point these memories were learned - conscious memory - but after a while, they became second nature - unconscious memory)
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Family that walks on all fours
- Disease where their cerebellum did not form in utero
- Also had cognitive issues, showing that cerebellum is important for cognition to some extent
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Thalamus
- Sensory switchboard
- Organizes input from senses and sends to brain
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Hypothalamus
- Regulates appetites, drives, motivation, and emotion (homeostasis)
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Limbic system
- A group of interconnected brain structures that help regulate emotions and behavior
- Contains thalamus, hypothalamus, amygdala, and hippocampus
- Limbic system is evolutionarily conserved --> important!!
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Hippocampus
- Involved in retrieving and forming memories (especially long-term memories)
- In alzheimer's patient CT, you can see that hippocampus mass is disintegrated
70
Amygdala
- Organizes motivational and emotional responses to stimuli (e.g. aggression, fear)
- Regulates primary emotions
- Input from thalamus, hippocampus, hypothalamus needed to organize emotional responses
- Threat detector
- Picks up social cues from others
71
Cerebral cortex: four lobes
Frontal, Parietal, Occipital, Temporal
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Frontal Lobe
- Executive functioning, impulse control, decision making, attention, working memory, short term memory
- Broca's area
- Motor cortex (voluntary movement)
- Association cortex
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Broca's area
- Only on the left hemisphere
- Area important for speach formation. You can still comprehend speech without it, but you can't form comprehensible speech
- Right hemisphere of this region is important for understanding tone of speech
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Motor cortex
- In frontal lobe
- Important for voluntary motion
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Association cortices
- Combine information from two or more senses
- E.g. primary motor area in the frontal lobe and the primary somatosensory area in the parietal lobe
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Frontal-Temporal v.s. Temporal Dementia
- Frontal-Temporal = Difficulties with executive functioning, and memory
- Temporal = Only difficulties with memories
77
Phineas Gage
- Injury to left frontal cortex
- Was an upright citizen, became an alcoholic womanizer, with lack of executive function and inhibition
- Aggressive and sexual nature came out when he had lack of inhibition.
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Parietal Lobe
- Primary somatosensory area (decoding somatosensory stimulus)
- Left parietal lobe is important for language processing
- Right parietal lobe is important for visual spatial stimulus decoding, geometry, and music
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Prefrontal cortex
- Decision making, personality
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Left parietal lobe
- Important for language comprehension
- e.g. Pre-processing of sound to decipher if it's language or not
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Right Parietal Lobe
- Important for visual-spatial understanding, geometry, music
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Temporal lobe
- Contains auditory cortex
- Important for language formation and face and object recognition
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Left Temporal lobe
- Contains Wernicke's area, which is important for speech comprehension
84
Right temporal lobe
- Important to face and object recognition, perception
- People with damage to the right temporal lobe cannot perceive faces
85
prosopagnosia
- Face blindness (in ability to perceive faces
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Agnosia
- In ability to perceive objects
87
Occipital Lobe
- Contains primary visual cortex
- Important for breakdown of visual information and sending it to parietal/temporal lobe
- Damage in primary visual cortex can present as blindness
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Aphasia
- Language disorder that affects a person's ability to understand language and express language
- Both Broca's area and Wernicke's area need to work in unison to prevent this
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Corpus Callosum
- Tract of white matter that connects hemispheres of brain to exchange information
90
Right v.s. Left Occipital Lobe
R- Perceives right side of visual field (from both eyes)
L - Perceives left side of visual field (from both eyes)
91
Alien Hand Syndrome
- When a hand operates independently out of someone's control
- Usually caused due to damage to the corpus callosum
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