Exam 1 Flashcards
Wilhelm Wundt
established the first psychology lab in Germany, structuralism.
Introspection
looking inward, unreliable.
Structuralism
promoted by Wundt and Titchener, used introspection to reveal the structure of the human mind.
How does consciousness serve as a function?
It enables us to consider our past, adjust our present, and plan our future.
Functionalism
early school of thought promoted by James and influenced by Darwin; explored how mental and behavioral processes function - how they enable the organism to adapt, survive, and flourish.
What event defined the start of scientific psychology?
Began in Germany in 1879 when Wilhelm Wundt opened the first psychology laboratory.
Why did introspection fail as a method for understanding how the mind works?
People’s self-reports varied, depending on the experience and the person’s intelligence and verbal ability.
C.S. Lewis
“There is one thing, and only one in the whole universe which we know more about than we could learn from external observation,” and that one thing is ourselves.
Freudian psychology
emphasized the ways our unconscious thought processes and our emotional responses to childhood experiences affect our behavior.
Cognitive psychology
scientifically explores the ways we perceive, process, and remember information.
Cognitive neuroscience
studies the brain activity underlying mental activity.
Modern psychology
the science of behavior and mental processes.
Plato
Greek philosopher, assumed that we inherit character and intelligence and that certain ideas are inborn.
Aristotle
countered that there is nothing in the mind that does not first come in from the external world through the senses.
John Locke
argued that the mind is a blank slate on which experience writes.
Evolutionary psychology
how the natural selection of traits has promoted the survival of genes.
What is contemporary psychology’s argument on the nature-nurture debate?
psychological events often stem from the interaction of nature and nurture, rather than from either of them acting alone.
W.E.I.R.D.
Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic (Henrich, Heine, Norenzayan).
Positive psychology
the scientific study of human functioning, with the goals of discovering and promoting strengths and virtues that help individuals and communities to thrive.
What are psychology’s three levels of analysis?
biological, psychological, social-cultural.
Biopsychosocial approach
integrated viewpoint that incorporates various levels of analysis and offers a more complete picture of any given behavior or mental process.
Biological influences (4)
- Genetic predispositions
- Genetic mutations
- Natural selection
- Genes responding to the environment
Psychological influences (3)
- Learned fears and other learned expectations
- Emotional responses
- Cognitive processing and perceptual interpretations
Social-cultural influences (4)
- Presence of others
- Cultural, societal, and family expectations
- Peer and other group influences
- Compelling models in media
Neuroscience
how the body and brain enable emotions, memories, and sensory experiences.
Psychodynamic psychology
how behavior springs from unconscious drives and conflicts.
Behavioral psychology
how we learn observable responses.
Social-cultural psychology
how behavior and thinking vary across situations and cultures.
Basic research
pure science that aims to increase the scientific knowledge base.
Applied research
scientific study that aims to solve practical problems.
Community psychology
a branch of psychology that studies how people interact with their social environments and how social institutions affect individuals and groups.
Testing effect
enhanced memory after retrieving, rather than rereading, information (Roediger, Karpicke)
SQ3R
a study method incorporating five steps: survey, question, read, retrieve, review.
Intuition
an effortless, immediate, automatic feeling or thought, as contrasted with explicit, conscious reasoning.
Hindsight bias
the tendency to believe, after hearing a certain outcome, that one would have foreseen it (I knew it all along phenomenon).
What 3 attitudes helped make modern science possible?
curiosity, skepticism, and humility.
Critical thinking
thinking that does not blindly accept arguments and conclusions. Rather it examines assumptions, appraises the source, discerns hidden values, evaluates evidence, and assesses conclusions.
Operational definition
Turn a conceptual variable into a variable that can be measured or manipulated. Connect unobservable traits, experiences, or qualities into things that can be observed and measured.
Case study
an in-depth analysis of an individual or group.
Naturalistic observation
watching and recording the natural behavior of many individuals.
Regression toward the mean
the tendency for extreme or unusual scores or events to fall back (regress) toward the average.
Serendipity
the act of discovering something while looking for something else entirely - an accidental discovery.
Conceptual variable
a hypothetical factor/construct that is not observed directly. Rather, its existence is inferred from certain observations and assumed to follow from certain situations (e.g., shyness, sleep quality, intelligence).
Spurious relationship
2 variables appear to relate to one another, but it is really a third variable affecting them both.
Extraneous/confounding variable
any variable that the researcher wants to hold constant on purpose to eliminate alternate explanations for data.
Research ethics (4)
- Obtain informed consent
- Protect them from harm
- Maintain confidentiality
- Debrief
Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee
made up of several faculty members from the university and an outside member from the community; justifies the study when there is potential for harm and ensures proper care of animals during and after study.
The 3 R’s for non-human research
- Replacement: use alternatives to animal research when possible.
- Refinement: minimize or eliminate animal distress.
- Reduction: employ designs or procedures that require fewest number of animals possible.
Phrenology
a popular but wrongheaded theory that claimed bumps on the skull could reveal mental abilities and character traits as specific as the desire to have children.
Sensory neurons
carry messages from the body’s tissues and sensory organs inward to the brain and spinal cord for processing.
Motor neurons
carry messages from the brain and out to the body’s tissues.
Axon
passes messages away from the cell body to other neurons, muscles, or glands.
Dendrites
receive messages from other cells.
Terminal branches of axon
form junctions with other cells.
Myelin sheath
covers the axons of some neurons and helps speed neural impulses.
Neural impulse
electrical signal travelling down the axon.
Acetylcholine
enables muscle action, learning, and memory; at every junction between motor neurons and skeletal muscles.
Dopamine
influences movement, learning, attention, and emotion.
Serotonin
affects mood, hunger, sleep, and arousal.
Norepinephrine
helps control alertness and arousal.
Peripheral nervous system
autonomic or somatic, sympathetic (arousing) or parasympathetic (calming).
Sympathetic system
expands energy - accelerates heart rate, raises blood pressure, etc.
Parasympathetic system
conserves energy - decelerates heart rate, lowers blood pressure, etc.
How many neurons does the average brain have?
40 billion
Transcranial magnetic stimulation
procedure for inducing temporary “lesions” in which a magnetic field is passed over a particular brain region.
Electroencephalogram (EEG)
provides amplified tracing of waves of electrical activity in the brain.
Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI)
detects changes in blood oxygenation in different brain regions; revels functioning as well as structure.
Where did Plato and Aristotle think the mind was, respectively?
The head, the heart.
Who invented phrenology?
Franz Gall
Localization of function
the idea that various brain regions have particular functions.
Biological perspective
concerned with the links between biology and behavior; neuroscience, behavior genetics, and evolutionary psychology.
Glial cells
cells in the nervous system that support, nourish, and protect neurons; they may also play a role in learning, thinking, and memory.
Action potential
a neural impulse; a brief electrical charge that travels down an axon.
What is the speed range of a neural impulse?
2 mph to 200 mph.
The fluid outside the axon’s membrane has mostly ______ charged sodium ions while a resting axon’s fluid interior has mostly ______ charged neurons.
positively, negatively.
Resting potential
the positive-outside/negative-inside state of an axon.
What happens when a neuron fires?
the first section of the axon opens allowing in positively charged sodium ions causing depolarization which makes the next axon channel open, and so on. This temporary inflow of positive ions is the neural impulse or action potential.
Refractory period
a period of inactivity after a neuron has fired in which the neuron pumps the positively charged sodium ions back outside.
Threshold
the level of stimulation required to trigger a neural impulse.
All-or-none response
a neuron’s reaction of either firing (with a full strength response) or not firing.
In what order does a neuron travel through the axon, dendrites, and cell body?
dendrites, cell body, axon.
Sir Charles Sherrington
discovered/made the term synapse.
Synapse
the junction between the axon tip of the sending neuron and the dendrite or cell body of the receiving neuron. The tiny gap at this junction is the synaptic gap/cleft.
Who called synaptic gaps “protoplasmic kisses”?
Santiago Ramon y Cajal
Neurotransmitters
chemical messengers that cross the synaptic gaps between neurons; bind to receptor sites on the receiving neuron and influence whether that neuron will generate a neural impulse.
Reuptake
a neurotransmitter’s reabsorption by the sending neuron.
What happens to neurotransmitters after crossing the synaptic gap?
they drift away, are broken down by enzymes, or are reabsorbed by the sending neutron.
When acetylcholine is released to our muscle cell receptors, the muscle _____. When it is blocked, the muscle_____.
contracts; is paralyzed.
What discovery did Candace Pert and Solomon Snyder make?
Endorphins
Endorphins
“morphine within”; natural, opiate-like neurotransmitters linked to pain control and to pleasure.
Agonist
a molecule that increases a neurotransmitter’s action.
Antagonist
a molecule that inhibits or blocks a neurotransmitter’s action.
Nerve
a bundle of axons that form neural cables connecting the CNS with muscles, glands, and sense organs.
Interneurons
neurons within the CNS; communicate internally and process information between the sensory inputs and motor outputs.
Reflex
a simple, automatic response to a sensory stimulus.
Adrenal glands
a pair of glands that secrete epinephrine and norepinephrine in response to stress.
Pituitary gland
most influential gland; regulates growth and controls other endocrine glands under the influence of the hypothalamus.
Lesion
naturally occurring or experimentally caused tissue destruction.
PET scan (Positron Emission Tomography)
a visual display of brain activity that detects where a radioactive form of glucose goes while the brain performs a given task.
Brainstem
the oldest part and central core of the brain, begins where the spinal cord swells as it enters the skull; responsible for automatic survival functions.
Medulla
the base of the brainstem; controls heartbeat and breathing.
Pons
sits just above the medulla, helps coordinate movements and control sleep.
Thalamus
directs messages to the sensory receiving areas in the cortex and transmits replies to the cerebellum and medulla.
Reticular formation
filters incoming stimuli (from the spinal cord) and relays information to other areas of the brain, arousal.
Cerebellum
the “little brain” at the rear of the brainstem; processes sensory input, coordinates movement output and balance, and enables nonverbal learning and memory.
Limbic system
neural system located below the cerebral hemispheres associated with emotions and drives; hippocampus, amygdala, hypothalamus.
Hippocampus
a neural center located in the limbic center; helps process explicit memories for storage.
Amygdala
two neural clusters in the limbic system linked to aggression and fear.
Hypothalamus
a neural structure that directs several maintenance activities (eating, drinking, body temperature), helps govern the endocrine system via the pituitary gland, and is linked to emotion and reward.
Who discovered that the hypothalamus provides rewards?
James Olds and Peter Milner
Cerebral cortex
convoluted mass that enables higher-level functions, including perceiving, thinking, and speaking.
Frontal lobes
involved in motor function, language, and memory, and executive functions.
Parietal lobes
involved in sensations of touch, pain, and temperature; contains somatosensory cortex.
Occipital lobes
portion of the cerebral cortex that receives information from the visual fields.
Temporal lobes
involved in hearing, understanding language, and storing autobiographical memories; contains auditory cortex.
Motor cortex
an area in the rear of the frontal lobes that controls voluntary movements.
Who discovered the motor cortex?
Gustav Fritsch and Eduard Hitzig
Somatosensory cortex
area at the front of the parietal lobes that registers and processes body tough and movement sensations.
Association areas
are found in all four lobes and are responsible for integrating information, linking sensory inputs with stored memories.
Plasticity
the brain’s ability to change, especially during childhood, by reorganizing after damage or by building new pathways based on experience.
Neurogenesis
the formation of new neurons.
Corpus callosum
the large band of neural fibers connecting the two brain hemispheres and carrying messages between them.
Split brain
a condition resulting from the surgery that isolates the brain’s two hemispheres by cutting the fibers connecting them.
What are the older brain structures?
brainstem, thalamus, cerebellum, and limbic system.
What are the four F’s?
fighting, fleeing, feeding, and reproduction.
Damage to visual cortex disrupts _______.
consciousness.
Wernicke’s area
region between left temporal and parietal lobes, associated with the processing of words that we hear being spoken, or language inputs.
Sensory (parietal) cortex
receives information from skin surface and sense organs.
Broca’s area
an area of the frontal lobe, usually in the left hemisphere, associated with the production of language, or language outputs.
Type A personality
aggressive, ambitious, and controlling.
Type B personality
passive and easy-going.
Adopted children are more similar to their ______ parents instead of their ______ parents.
biological, adoptive.
