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Psychology Yr 12 > Externals Study > Flashcards

Externals Study Flashcards

1
Q

What does the Central Nervous System (CNS) consist of?

A

Brain and spinal cord

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2
Q

What does the CNS do?

A

Controls the body by processing and responding to sensory input from the peripheral nervous system

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3
Q

What are the three main areas of the brain?

A

Forebrain, midbrain and hindbrain

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4
Q

What is the hindbrain responsible for?

A

Movement and balance

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5
Q

What is the midbrain responsible for?

A

Coordinating sleep, movement and arousal

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6
Q

What is the forebrain responsible for?

A

Receiving and processing sensory information and higher order thinking processes

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7
Q

What does the peripheral nervous system do?

A

Communicates information from the body to the CNS

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8
Q

What neurons is the PNS made up of?

A

Sensory and Motor neurons

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9
Q

What are sensory neurons?

A

Neurons that carry sensory impulse to the CNS

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10
Q

What are motor neurons?

A

Neurons that carry motor impulses from the central nervous system to the specific effectors

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11
Q

What are the two subdivisions of the PNS?

A

Autonomic nervous system and somatic nervous system

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12
Q

What does the somatic nervous system control?

A

Skeletal muscles - voluntary movements

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13
Q

What is the autonomic nervous system responsible for?

A

The body’s non-skeletal muscles (organs, glands) and also occurs without conscious control (breathing) - involuntary movements

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14
Q

What are the two parts of the autonomic system?

A

Sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems

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15
Q

What does the parasympathetic nervous system do?

A

Allow us to go about our everyday tasks and keep our bodily functions at a state of balance

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16
Q

What does the sympathetic nervous system do?

A

Prepares the same organs to deal with threats or stressors - flight or fight response

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17
Q

What is an effector?

A

An organ that gives the response

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18
Q

What is the cerebral cortex?

A

The outer surface of the cerebrum

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19
Q

What are the four distinct lobes of the cerebral cortex?

A

Frontal lobe, temporal lobe, occipital lobe and parietal lobe

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20
Q

What is the frontal lobe responsible for?

A

Speech, planning, movement, language, problem solving, personality and emotions

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21
Q

What is the parietal lobe responsible for?

A

Space, location, contralateral motions (e.g. the right side controls the left side of the body)

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22
Q

What is the temporal lobe responsible for?

A

Sound and human speech

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23
Q

What is the occipital lobe responsible for?

A

Vision

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24
Q

What is Broca’s area responsible for?

A

Coordinates movement of lips, tongue and vocal cords to articulate words - speech production

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25
Q

What is the Wernicke’s area responsible for?

A

Interpretations and comprehension of language

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26
Q

What is Geschwind’s territory responsible for?

A

Provides the connection between Broca’s and Wernicke’s area. Allows processing of visual and auditory stimuli, ideal for processing properties of words - how they sound, how they look and what they represent - develops with age

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27
Q

What are neurons responsible for?

A

Receive, process and transmit sensory information or motor commands to each other

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28
Q

What is the importance of neurons?

A

It allows our bodies to respond to what’s happened in our internal and external environments

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29
Q

What is the reflex arc?

A

The neural pathway followed by a reflex action

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30
Q

What is the spinal reflex?

A

When the reflex arc occurs within the spinal cord, without involving the brain or conscious thought

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31
Q

What does the spinal reflex do?

A

Enables an organism to respond faster

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32
Q

Name the kinds of spinal reflex arc

A

Monosynaptic and polysynaptic

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33
Q

What is a monosynaptic reflex arc?

A

Involving only one synapse, an effector neuron brings a sensation from receptors in the body and an effector neuron carries motor messages to the muscles of the body

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34
Q

What is a polysynaptic reflex arc?

A

Involving interneurons connecting the affector and effector neurons and, therefore, at least two synapses

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35
Q

Recall the steps in reflex response

A

Receptor - a special transducer that registers the stimulus and transfers it to an electrical response
Sensory (afferent) neurons - transmits electrical response from the receptor to the spinal cord (CNS)
Integration centre - (interneuron) transfers electrical impulses to lower motor neuron
Motor (efferent) neuron - sends information to an effector
Effectors - perform action

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36
Q

What are efferent neurons?

A

Motor neurons

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37
Q

What are afferent neurons?

A

Sensory neurons

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38
Q

What are the characteristics of the cerebral cortex?

A
  • Contains billions of neurons
  • Large cognitive capacity; increased surface area due to many folds (gyrus/gyri) and grooves (sulcis/sulci)
  • Responsible for receiving information from the environment, controlling our responses and allowing us complex voluntary movements and higher order thinking processes
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39
Q

What is the role of the thalamus?

A

Receives signals from sensory receptors, selects which information most requires our attention at any given moment and regulates states of sleep and wakefulness

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40
Q

What can damage to Broca’s area cause?

A

Broca’s aphasia - non fluent speech (broken, long pauses 1-2 words at a time, mispronounced), speech lacks grammar, writing difficulty

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41
Q

What can damage to Wernicke’s area cause?

A

Wernicke’s aphasia - fluent unbroken speech, unable to understand speech, difficulty producing written speech

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42
Q

What coordinates voluntary movement?

A

Basil ganglia, cerebellum and primary motor cortex

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43
Q

What are the three steps to voluntary movement?

A

Selection stage or intention, planning or initiating stage and the execution stage?

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44
Q

What does the basil ganglia do?

A

Prevents movements that may not suit the end goal of the movement, enables voluntary movement and gathers information from various regions of our brain

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45
Q

What voluntary movement steps does the basil ganglia contribute to?

A

Selection stage and planning stage

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46
Q

What voluntary movement steps does the cerebellum contribute to?

A

Planning stage and execution stage

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47
Q

What does the cerebellum do?

A

Coordinates and remembers well-sequenced movements and communicates with the primary motor cortex

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48
Q

Where is the cerebellum located?

A

At the back of the skull - in the hindbrain

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49
Q

Where is the primary motor cortex located?

A

The rear of each frontal lobe

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50
Q

What does the primary cortex do?

A

Responsible for movement of the body’s skeletal muscles and activates the neural impulses that execute voluntary movement - primary cortex is also responsible for emotion

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51
Q

What is contralateral organisation?

A

The left PMC controls the right side of the body and vice-versa

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52
Q

What voluntary movement steps does the primary motor cortex contribute to?

A

The execution stage

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53
Q

What is the limbic system responsible for?

A

the interpretation, production and regulation of emotion and behaviour

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54
Q

Where is the limbic system located?

A

On both sides of the thalamus

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55
Q

What does the limbic system consist of?

A

Amygdala, hypothalamus and midbrain areas

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56
Q

What is the short route? (Low road)

A

Goes from the thalamus to the amygdala for induction of emotional response

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57
Q

What is the long route (high road)?

A

Passes via cerebral cortex and hippocampus before reaching an emotional response

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58
Q

What is the hypothalamus?

A

Production of hormones, fight-flight hormones, particularly used in stressful/fearful scenarios

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59
Q

What is the prefrontal cortex?

A

Associated with regulating and modifying emotions, plays a role in higher order thinking

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60
Q

What is neuroplasticity?

A

The brain’s ability to form new neural connections and neural pathways and to fundamentally change how it is wired

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61
Q

What are the two types of neuroplasticity?

A

Fundamental and structural plasticity

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62
Q

What is fundamental plasticity?

A

When the brain moves the function of the damaged area to an undamaged area

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63
Q

What is structural plasticity?

A

Changes in the physical structure of the brain as a result of learning

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64
Q

What are neurons responsible for?

A

Communication in the body

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65
Q

What do neurons consist of?

A

Dendrites, soma, axon and axon terminals and Myelin Sheath

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66
Q

What are the dendrites responsible for?

A

Receiving information from other nerve cells and transporting the information into the cell body

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67
Q

What is the soma responsible for?

A

Controlling the metabolism and maintenance of a neuron

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68
Q

What is the soma?

A

Cell body

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69
Q

What is the axon?

A

A nerve fibre

70
Q

What is the axon responsible for?

A

Carrying information as an electrochemical nerve impulse along the nerve cell to communicate with other cells

71
Q

What is the myelin sheath?

A

A white fatty and waxy substance that coats some axons an insulates them

72
Q

What are axon terminals?

A

Have terminal buttons that secrete chemicals called neurotransmitters

73
Q

What is the synapse?

A

Gap between neurons - it gives the neurons options on where to go and allows communication between neurons

74
Q

What is a neurotransmitter?

A

A chemical that transmits information from one neuron to the next

75
Q

What is a synaptic transmission?

A

The process of neurons sending information from one neuron to the next via neurotransmitters

76
Q

What is an excitatory synapses?

A

Cause the target cell to become excited and more likely to fire and cause an action potential. Increase in the amount of activity of neurotransmitters

77
Q

What is an inhibitory synapses?

A

Inhibit neurons from firing and stop action potential

78
Q

What does glutamate do?

A

Excite almost every neuron in the brain and nervous system - involved in memory and learning

79
Q

What does GABA do?

A

Important in arousal, sleep and reducing severe anxiety

80
Q

What is acetylcholine?

A

A neurotransmitter found in the brain, spinal cord and peripheral nervous

81
Q

What does acetylcholine do?

A

It stimulates muscular contractors and is involved in memory and learning - it helps the quality of communication in the brain associated with learning

82
Q

True or false; Alzheimer’s patients have depleted acetylcholine

A

True

83
Q

What is epinephrine?

A

Also known as adrenaline, a hormone and neurotransmitter - it’s released from the adrenal glands and from the brain

84
Q

When is epinephrine released?

A

It is released in response to situations provoking anxiety, fear and emotional arousal

85
Q

What does epinephrine do?

A

Increases heart rate, heightens blood pressure and increases respiratory rate - plays a key role in fight-flight-freeze

86
Q

What is norepinephrine?

A

Neurotransmitter and hormone involved in stress responses, alertness, arousal, emotional regulation and attention

87
Q

What does norepinephrine do?

A

Mobilises the brain and body to act - increases heart rate, blood flow, alertness, arousal and speeds up reaction times

88
Q

What is dopamine?

A

A neurotransmitter involved in thoughts, feelings, motivation and behaviour - involved in movement, control, emotional experiences, pleasure and association of behaviours with reward - can also lead to behaviours such as addiction

89
Q

What is serotonin?

A

A neurotransmitter in the brain involved in the regulation of mood, sleep, eating, arousal and pain

90
Q

What does serotonin do?

A

Helps regulate mood, social behaviour, appetite and digestion, sleep, memory - it helps regulate our body’s sleep-wake cycle and is responsible for our ‘internal’ body clock

91
Q

What can impaired functioning of neurotransmitters be the result of?

A

Neurons not manufacturing enough of a particular neurotransmitter or the release of too much of a particular neurotransmitter

92
Q

Which diseases are associated with the impaired functioning of neurotransmitters

A

Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s disease - mental disorders such as depression, schizophrenia and drug addictions can also be related to deficits in neurotransmitters

93
Q

What is Parkinson’s disease?

A

A progressive neurological conditions known to affect the control of movement

94
Q

What causes Parkinson’s disease?

A

Degeneration of dopamine - releasing Neurons in the substantia nigra

95
Q

What is substantia nigra?

A

Part of the basil ganglia - located in midbrain responsible for reward, addiction and the coordination of movement.

96
Q

What happens in Parkinson’s disease?

A

Without enough dopamine, the Neurons fire uncontrollably, which prevents a Parkinson’s disease sufferer from adequately controlling their movements

97
Q

What are motor symptoms of Parkinson’s disease?

A

Slowness of movement, rigidity and involuntary movement of the hands, arms, legs, feet, jaw or head, difficulty starting or stopping movements such as walking

98
Q

What are non-motor symptoms of Parkinson’s disease?

A

Reduced facial expressions, pain, depression, dementia, difficulty sleeping

99
Q

What is Alzheimer’s disease?

A

A disease that progressively destroys Neurons in the brain, causing memory less

100
Q

What are symptoms of Alzheimer disease?

A

Involved gradual, severe memory loss, confusion, impaired attention, disordered thinking and depression

101
Q

List the order of which symptoms of Alzheimer disease usually occur?

A

The earliest symptom is usually impaired declarative memory (memory recall). Next, the patient might repeat stories or questions, and eventually fail to recognise familiar people and family members

102
Q

What does Alzheimer disease involve?

A

Both antegrade (inability to recall past memories) and retrograde (inability to create new memories) because the disease effects both the hippocampus and the prefrontal cortex

103
Q

What are some causes of Alzheimer disease?

A

Can be both genetic and neurological - both can contribute to memory loss and cognitive decline - and amyloid plaques (proteins that form axon terminals and interfere with communication)

104
Q

What are two examples of sensory memory?

A

Iconic and echoic memory

105
Q

What is iconic memory?

A

Sensory register for the storage of visual information, lasts about .03 seconds and explains why we see a moving picture from a series of still photos

106
Q

What is echoic memory?

A

Auditory memory in the sensory memory register - stored slightly longer than iconic memory for 3-4 second

107
Q

What is procedural memory?

A

Knowing how to do things (actions, skills, operations and conditional responses) yet finding it hard to describe how to do them

108
Q

What is declarative memory?

A

Memory for facts, events and knowledge

109
Q

What is declarative memory often associated with?

A

Learning for school, reading, maths and higher order thinking

110
Q

What memory does declarative memory include?

A

Semantic and episodic memory

111
Q

What is semantic memory?

A

The memory for facts or general knowledge

112
Q

What is episodic memory?

A

Long-Term memories of episodes or experiences in life

113
Q

What is implicit memory?

A

Assist in recall of procedural memory, motor learning and classical conditioning through the amygdala

114
Q

What is explicit memory?

A

Assists in the recall of declarative memory through the hippocampus

115
Q

What does the central executive memory do?

A

Delegates tasks to the three working systems - it is the head of the model and is responsible for organisation

116
Q

What is the central executive responsible for?

A

Screening out irrelevant information, switching attention from one item to another and modifying items from LTM through the episodic buffer

117
Q

What is the phonological loop?

A

The auditory working memory

118
Q

What are the two main parts of the phonological loop?

A

Phonological store (inner ear - what you hear) and articulatory (inner voice - rehearse words to keep them in working memory)

119
Q

What is the visuospatial sketch pad?

A

The visual memory - storage of what we see

120
Q

What are the two parts of the visuospatial sketchpad?

A

Visual cache (stores shape and colour) and the inner scribe (arrangement/spatial awareness of objects)

121
Q

What is an episodic buffer?

A

The interaction between long-term memory and the working memory

122
Q

What does the episodic buffer do?

A

Organise the phonological loop and the visuospatial sketchpad

123
Q

What does the LOP model of memory suggest?

A

Memory is a continuous dimension in which memories are encoded related to the ease with which they can be retrieved

124
Q

What are the key brain structures involved in memory?

A
  • Hippocampus for declarative memory
  • Cerebellum for implicit memory
  • The amygdala for explicit memory
  • Basal Ganglia for procedural memory
125
Q

What is the cerebral cortex?

A

Long-term declarative memories stored in different cortical areas, generally processed and encoded in the frontal lobes

126
Q

Where are spatial memories stored?

A

Parietal lobe

127
Q

Where is memory for sounds stored?

A

Temporal lobe

128
Q

Where is memory for pictures stored?

A

Occipital lobe

129
Q

What is procedural memory?

A

Something you’ve done continuously, therefore, it’s always in your memory - e.g. brushing your teeth

130
Q

What is episodic memory?

A

Long-term memories of episodes or experiences in life

131
Q

The hippocampus makes up part of the limbic system

A

True

132
Q

What does the hippocampus do?

A

Establish the context for each new memory

133
Q

Prolonged stress can cause hippocampus to shrink

A

True

134
Q

What is the role of the cerebellum?

A

Works with the motor cortex and frontal lobes to perform motor skills. Encodes, processes and stores procedural memories. Activates the relevant neural systems to retrieve a procedural memory

135
Q

Amnesia can be caused through injury of the hippocampus

A

True

136
Q

What is recall?

A

Recall of stored information using minimal cues

137
Q

What is free recall?

A

Participants as much information as they can in any order

138
Q

What is cued recall?

A

Uses various prompts (cues) to assist retrieval

139
Q

What is recognition?

A

Choice of correct answers among incorrect answers (e.g. multiple choice)

140
Q

What is reconstruction?

A

Filling in the gaps to make sense of what happened

141
Q

What is the encoding specificity principle?

A

The associations formed at the time of encoding new memories will be the most effective retrieval cues

142
Q

What s context dependant cues?

A

External environment - brightness of light, smells, noise

143
Q

What are state dependent cues?

A

Internal environment - mood, level of anxiety, state of tiredness

144
Q

What is pseudo-forgetting?

A

information was thought to be forgotten but, actually, was never encoded properly in the first place - ineffective coding

145
Q

What is cue dependant forgetting?

A

Suggests that if the memory cue/prompt is the wrong one, then we are likely to forget

146
Q

What is the tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon

A

An example of how we search for cues that will prompt the retrieval

147
Q

What is the retrieval failure theory?

A

The information was available but not accessible due to inadequate retrieval cues

148
Q

What is proactive interference?

A

Previous material inhibits our ability to encode and store new material

149
Q

What is retroactive interference?

A

Newly acquired information inhibits our ability to retrieve previously learnt material

150
Q

Four ways of shallow processing

A

Structural, phonemic, graphemic, orthographic

151
Q

Three ways of semantic processing

A

Relating object/situation to something else, meaning of something is thought of, processing importance of something

152
Q

What is classical conditioning?

A

When a stimulus was originally neutral but now causes behavioural or emotional reaction - e.g. driving and you hear sirens behind you

153
Q

What is the first face of classical conditioning? (Before conditioned)

A

Not yet conditioned, response is natural or automatic (UCS, UCR, NS)

154
Q

What is an unconditioned stimulus?

A

Stimulus causes unconditioned response

155
Q

What is a unconditioned response?

A

Response occurs naturally

156
Q

What is a neutral stimulus

A

Causes no response

157
Q

What is the second phase of classical conditioning?

A

During conditioning - development of a connection between neutral stimulus and the unconditional stimulus - causes neutral stimulus to become conditioned stimulus

158
Q

What is the third phase of classical conditioning?

A

After conditioning - conditioned stimulus produces a conditioned response

159
Q

What is a conditioned response?

A

Automatic response developed by being trained to respond to a typically neutral stimulus

160
Q

What is a conditioned stimulus?

A

A stimulus that causes a conditioned response

161
Q

What is stimulus generalisation?

A

Organism responds to any stimulus that is similar to the conditioned stimulus

162
Q

What is stimulus discrimination?

A

Organism responds to the conditioned stimulus but not to any other stimulus

163
Q

What is aversion therapy?

A

Uses classical conditioning to stop individuals from reacting or behaving in a certain way

164
Q

What is operant conditioning?

A

A form of learning in which behaviour becomes controlled by its consequences

165
Q

What is Edward Thorndike’s “Law of Effect” (1898)

A

Any behaviour that was followed by pleasant rewards would likely to be repeated and any behaviour that was followed by unpleasant consequences would likely to stop

166
Q

What is the three-phase model of operant conditioning?

A

A - Antecedent - the environment make the conditions right
B - behaviour - follows the antecedent
C - consequences - reinforces behaviour

167
Q

What is positive punishment?

A

A behaviour followed by a negative experience or unfavourable outcome in order to weaken the response it follows

168
Q

What is negative punishment?

A

Form of punishment that entails something desirable or favourable is being removed

169
Q

What is extinction?

A

Conditioned response disappears over time after reinforcement has ceased

170
Q

What are respondent behaviours?

A

Occur automatically and reflexively, such as pulling your hand back from a hot stove

171
Q

What are operant behaviours?

A

Actions under our conscious control - some may occur spontaneously and others purposely

172
Q

What is the basal ganglia?

A

Responsible primarily for motor control, as well as other roles such as motor learning, executive functions and behaviours, and emotions

Psychology Yr 12 (2 decks)

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