Final Flashcards
Define Psych.
The discipline concerned with behaviour and mental processes and how they are affected by an organism’s physical state, mental state, and external environment
Who is considered father of psych, and established the first psychological lab?
Wilhelm Wundt
What does empircial evidence mean?
Numbers
What was the ancient pseudoscientific practice believed that specific personality traits could be “read” from bumps on the skulls called?
Phrenology
Who is associated with pschoanalytics theory and the emphasis on the unconscious mind?
Sigmund Freud
What % of humans mind is conscious at any one time?
2-10%
Fill in the blank
In psych research, mental processes are measured using_________ ______________.
Operational Definition
When conducting an experiment what do psychologist manipulate?
have control over
Indpendent Variable
In an experiment investigating the effect of eating junk food on weight gain, what would be the dependent variable?
Weight
In an experiment investigating the effect of eating junk food on weight gain, what would be the experimental condition?
Junk Food Group
Assigning partipants to different groups by drawing numbers out of a hat is an examples of what important research practice?
Random assignment
What is the median?
Middle number in a set
Feeling a boost of energy after drinking a decaf coffe is called what type of effect?
Placebo
True or false
Correlation proves causation.
FALSE
What is it called when a memory is tied to a very strong emotion and feel very accurate?
Flashbulb Memories
What are the three processes of memory that describe how memory “get in” “stay in” and “get out” of our minds?
Encoding, Storage and Retrival
What type of encoding is when you remember words by imagining them?
Visual Imagery encoding
What is millers magic number for the capacity of Short term memory?
7 +/-2 pieces of info
What type of memories are stored for longer than 30 sec in the human brain?
Long term memory
True or False
Eyewitness testomonies are an ideal form of evidence for police and lawyers to use because humans have SUPERIOR memory for faces.
False
Knowing how to swim would be considered which type of long-term memory?
Procedural memory
What is a memory trick or technique used to help remember?
Mnemonic Device
What type of long-term memory has been impaired, after a severe car accident and a patient can’t remember general factes, 2+2=4 and birds can fly?
Semantic Memory
What term describes the basic registration f light,sound,touch,odour or taste as the body interacts with physical world?
Sensation
What is the term for the weakening and eventual disappearance of a learned response?
Extinction
What was the neutral stimulus that became conditioned stimulus that “Little Albert” was classically conditioned to be scared of?
White Rat
What type of reinforcement involves adding something pleasant to increase likelihood of a behavior reocurring?
Positive Reinforcement
Students with perfect attendance for the entire semester are exempt from writing the final exam. What form of operant conditioning is being applied to increase the behavior of attending class?
Negative Reinforcement
How many pairings are needed to establish taste aversion according to classical conditioning principles?
1
True or Flase
Receiving money as a reward can be considered a type of primary reinforcment.
False
Money is a secondary reinforcer
What is the best schedule to decrease undesirable behavior?
Continuous Punishment
Fill in the blank
__________ is the process by which organisms organize,identify,intrepret, and assign meaning to sensory inputs to form a mental representation of the world.
Perception.
What is the term for the cross talk of sensations called?
Synasthesia
What is the process of converting physical signals from environment into neural signals sent to the central nervous system called?
Transduction
Fill in the blank
________________ ____________ is the smallest quantity of physical energy that can be reliably detected by an observer 50% of the time.
Absolute threshold
What is the primary function of rods in the retina?
Night Vision
What is the name of the types of cells in the retina responsible for our ability to see color?
Cones
True or Flase
Humans can only see a tiny portion of the electromagnetic spectrum,while other forms of electromagnetic wavelengths such as UV light, IR light, Xrays,Microwaves and radio waves are invisble to the human eye.
True
Humans can’t hear the sound of dog whistle. What part of the Signal Detection Theory does this show?
Miss
Fill in the blank
People with __________ __________ have an absence or dysfunction of one or more of the cone types and experience difficulty distingueing certain colours from one another such as green and red.
Color Blindness
True or False
Humans can survive if half their brain is removed.
True
What is the brains ability to change and adapt rsponse to experience by reorganizing or growing new neural connections called?
Plasticity
Fill in the blank
The cerebrum is divided into two __________ and connected by thin tissue called the _____________ _ ___________.
Hemisphere; Corpus Callosum
Which lobe contributes to what makes us uniquely human?
Frontal Lobe
What two parts of the body does the central nervous system contain?
Brain and Spinal Cord
Which system is activated during the rest and digest part of your day?
Parasympathetic Nervous system
What does the Myelin Sheath do?
Increases speed,efficiency and accuracy of electrical signals within neurons.
Define the job of a synapse.
Space between neurons where neurotransmitters such as serotonin,dopamine,GABA,glutamate and acetycholine cross, allowing neurons to communicate with one another.
What is the definition of consciousness?
Aware experience of the world and mind
What are the three levels of consciousness?
- Minimal
- Full
- Self
What is daydreaming?
State of consciousness in which a flow of thoughts come to mind,creating partial or complete distraction from the present reality.
What is an altered state of mind?
Any forms of experience that depart from the normal subjective experience of the world and the mind.
What can lead to alter state of consciousness?
Sleeping,hypnosis, drug use and meditation
What is circadian rhythm?
Naturally occuring 24 hour sleep and wake cycle.
True or False
Extreme sleep loss can be fatal.
True
What system operates mainly suring sleep to eliminate toxic waste products within the CNS?
Glymphatic System
Define sleep debt.
The sleep you owe your body.
Dream in which the dreamer is aware they are dreaming, may be able to exert some control over the dream. This call what type of dreams?
Lucid Dreams
What are the 4 types of psychoactive drugs?
- Stimulants
- Depressants
- Opiates
- Psychedelics
What do stimulant drugs do?
Speed up the CNS
Nicotine, Caffeine,Coke, Meth and Amphetamines
What do depressant drugs do?
Drugs that slow activity in the CNS
Alcohol, Weed, Opiods
What do opiates drugs do?
Derived from opium poppy that relieves pain and commonly produced euphoria.
Heroin,Opium, Morphine, Oxycodone, Fentanyl ALL HIGHLY ADDICTIVE
What do psychedelic drugs do?
Produce hallucinations,change thought processes or distrupt the normal perception of time and space
LSD, Magic mushrooms
What does ecstacy (MDMA) do?
Increases empathy, insight, energy.
What does nature refer to in psychology?
Heredity, biology and genetic make up.
What does nuture refer to in psychology?
Environment and how they were raised.
What is the current scientific view about Nature vs Nurture?
Both of them are important.
Describe the famous Jim Twin study.
- Jim Springer and Lewis
- identical twins sepereated at 6 weeks old
- married people names Linda (1st) 2nd named betty
- Children and dogs with same names
- Drove the same car
What is epigentic?
Study of Nurture’s affect on Nature
What are some environmental influences that ENHANCED mental ability?
- Good health and nutrition
- Mentally enrichment in home,childcare and school
- Parental interaction,discussion and encouragement of mental processing.
What are some environmental influences that REDUCED mental ability?
- Poor prenatal care
- Malnutrion
- Exposure to toxins
- Stressful family circumstances
What is develpoment psych?
The study of how people CHANGE and grow OVER TIME, physically, mentally and socially.
What is socialization?
Process by which children learn the rules and behavior expected of them by society.
What is maturation?
The development of genectically influence behavior and physical characteristics
Define Motor Reflexes.
Automatic behaviours that are necessary for survival.
How can baby tells apart primary care givers from strangers?
Sight, smell and sound
What are life long attachment styles created by?
Mother-Child relationships.
What does contact comfort mean?
Becoming attached because of the comfort and safety our mothers make us feel.
What is Harry Harlows attachment study?
Two mother monkey (fake) one metal that fed the baby monkey and a cuddly monkey to see which one the mothers they prefer.
Contact comfort was preferred
Define Sepertation anxiety.
Distress that most children develop. AT about 6-8 months when their primary caregivers temporaily leave them with strangers.
What are the three types of attachment styles?
- Secure
- Avoidant
- anxious/ambivalent
Define Securely attachment.
Babies cry or protest if the parents leaves the room, but welcomes her back and play happily again when she returns.
Define avoidant attachment.
Not caring if mom leaves the room makes little effort to seek contact when she returns.
Define anxious attachment.
Very upset and crying loudly when mom leaves but resisting contact when she returns, doesnt stop crying
What are some factors that increase insecure attachment?
- Abandonment and deprivation in first 2 years of life
- Abusive, neglectful,erratic parenting
- Childs own genetically influenced
- Stressful circumstances in childs family
What age does sepreation anxiety peak?
One year old
True or false
Attchement style last throughout entire lives.
True
What did Jean Piaget believe?
Nature and Nuture are important in development
What is Schema?
Idea or knowledge about how something works or how something is
Define disequilibrium.
New experiences and new objects that a child encounters may create a state of imbalance, lack of understanding something new.
What does assimilation mean?
Schema
New info that matches a current schema so it is just added to existing schema.
What is accomodation?
Schema
Occurs when new info cannot be assimlated into existing schema, schema has to be changed or adapted.
What does Jean Piaget identify 4 stages of cognitive development?
- Sensorimotor
- Preoperational
- Concrete Operational
- Formal Operational
Define Sensorimotor stage.
- 0-2 years
- Baby think if they cant see an object its gone
- 4-8 months Object permanance (learning something exists even when it cannot be seen)
Define Preoperational stage
- 2-7 years
- Symbolic thinking/development of langauge
- Can’t graso the idea of conservation
- Egocentric: Can only see things from their POV
Define Concrete Operational Stage.
- 7-12 years old
- Thinking is based on real experience only
Define Formal Operational Stage.
- 12+ years old
- Abstract and symbolic thinking because of the developement of more adavance language skills
- Learn to figurative language
What are the theories of the adolescent brain?
Old theory: teens have fully developed brains
New theory: Brains dont develop until 20s
What stage of life so we being to exoerience many different transitions of life?
Adulthood
What is refered to as the golden ages?
60+
What is alzheimers?
affects hippocampus by deterioation and leads to rapid memory lose.
