Final Exam Ap Psych Unit 0 and `1 Flashcards
What are the psychological perspectives?
Biological, Evolutionary, Cognitive, Humanistic, Psychodynamic, Behavioral, Sociocultural, Biopsychosocial
What is the hindsight bias?
our tendency to view events as more predictable than they already are
What is overconfidence?
An overestimation of one’s actual ability to perform a task successfully
What is the confirmation bias?
seeking evidence to support the answer you want
What does the hypothesis do?
test theories and make predictions
What is falsifiability?
the possibility that a hypothesis can be proven false
What is replication?
ability to repeat a study with different participants or situations, to see if findings can be reproduced
What is positive correlation?
two variables go together
What is negative correlation?
two variables go opposite direction
What correlation is close to 1?
a strong correlation
What correlation is close to 0?
a weak correlation
What does the + or - sign indicate?
+ indicates a positive relationship and - indicates a negative relationship
What are the ethical guidelines?
informed consent, debriefing, confidentiality/anonymity, deception, institution review board (ISB), protection from harm
What is nature and nurture?
Nature = biology, predisposed characteristics
Nurture = environment, external factors
What are Eugenics?
attempt to isolate and breed “best” human genes/traits so that future generations have physical and mental improvements
What does the Nervous System consist of?
Central Nervous System, Peripheral Nervous System, Nerves
What does the Central Nervous System consist of?
brain and spinal cord
What does the Peripheral Nervous System consist of?
sensory & motor neurons that connect the rest of the body with the CNS
What is the Somatic and the Autonomic Nervous System?
Somatic Nervous System: enables voluntary control of skeletal muscles
Autonomic Nervous System: controls involuntary control of glands and internal organs
What ae the two types of Autonomic Systems?
Sympathetic and Parasympathetic Nervous Systems
What is the Sympathetic Nervous System?
arouses the body and expands energy
What is the Parasympathetic Nervous System
conserves energy and calms the body back to its resting state
What is sensory input?
messages sent from tissues and receptors in to CNS
What is motor output?
messages from CNS sent out to muscles and glands
What are the three types of neurons?
sensory, motor, and interneurons
What are sensory neurons?
carry messages from the body to the brain/spinal cord about sensations we perceive
What are motor neurons?
carry messages from the brain/spinal cord to the body telling our body (skeletal muscles) to move
What are internuerons?
connect sensory and motor neurons (in the spinal cord of CNS)
What is the structure of the nueron?
cell body, nucleus, dendrite, axon, myelin sheath, axon terminal
What do dendrites and axons do?
Dendrite receive information, axon transmits information
What does the myelin sheath do?
insulates axon & speeds communication
What are glial cells and what do they do?
Glial cells are helper cells in the nervous system
Aid in structure, insulation, communication, and waste disposal
How do neurons send signals?
- Neurons are stimulated by senses or neighboring neurons
- When stimulated, they can transmit a message
- Action potential = electrical charge that travels down the axon
- This is how the neurons send messages, by firing this impulse
What is an action potential?
it’s an electrical charge that travels down the axon
What is depolarization?
loss of the positive-outside/negative-inside resting potential state
What is the refractory period?
pause between firings
What is the synapse?
the meeting point for two neurons
What is the synaptic gap?
the tiny gap between the axon terminal buds of the sending neuron & the receptor site on the dendrite of the receiving neuron
What are neurotransmitters?
chemical messengers that cross the synaptic gaps between neurons
What is reuptake?
when the neurotransmitter is reabsorbed by the sending neuron
What are excitatory and inhibitory neurotransmitters?
Excitatory: make action potential more likely
Inhibitory: make action potential less likely
What is the endocrine system?
System of glands and organs that make and release hormones directly into blood so it can travel to other tissues and organs
What are the types of hormones?
adrenaline, leptin, melatonin, ghrelin, oxytocin
What is adrenaline?
fight or flight mode
What is leptin?
a hormone that supresses hunger
What is melatonin?
a hormone that induces sleep
What is ghrelin?
a hormone that stimulates hunger
What is oxytocin?
labor, lactation, love
What is an EEG and what does it stand for?
reads (the electrical activity from the brain’s neurons that causes waves across the surface) those waves with electrodes placed on scalp
stands for Electroencephalogram
What is an fMRI and what does it stand for?
reveals function and structure by comparing blood movement where the brain is active
stands for functional magnetic resonance imaging
What is lesioning?
selective destruction of tiny clusters of normal or damaged cells to observe effects
What is neuroplasticity?
brain’s ability to change, build new pathways, adjust to experiences, reorganize after damage
What big parts are in the brain in order?
brainstem, limbic system, and cerebrum
What does the brainstem do?
it’s respnsible for the most basic life support functions that keep us alive
What are the parts of the brainstem?
medulla, reticular formation, thalamus, cerebellum
What and where is the medulla?
- sits on the base of the brainstem, where spinal chord reaches the skull
- controls breathing, heart rate, autonomic nervous system functions
What and where is the reticular formation?
- inside the brainstem
- controls arousal and alertness
What and where is the cerebellum?
- extends from the rear of the brainstem below the occipital lobe
- helps coordinate movements and balance and procedural learning
What and where is the thalamus?
- sits at the top of the brainstem
- the brain’s sensory switch board; receives incoming messages from the senses and directs these messages to the correct brain region
What and where is the limbic system?
- located ubove the brainstem
- responsible for emotions, food drives, reproductive drives, and memory
What is in the limbic system?
hypothalamus, hippocampus, amygdala, and pituitary gland
What is the amygdala?
involved in emotion, particularly fear and aggression
What is the hippocampus?
helps process concious, explicit memories for storage
What is the hypothalamus?
controls eating, drinking, and body temperature. also helps control endocrine system and linked to emotion and reward
What is the pituitary gland?
- directs the endocrine system and influenced by hypothalamus
- releases growth hormones and controls the other glands
What is the cerebral cortex?
the body’s ultimate control and information processing center
What is the motor cortex?
an area at the rear of the frontal lobes that control voluntary movements
What is the somatosensory cortex?
region of the brain which is responsible for receiving and processing sensory information from across the body, such as touch, temperature, and pain
What are association areas?
higher mental functions
What is aphasia?
impaired use of language
What is the Broca’s area?
produces speech
What is the Wernicke’s area?
produces the ability to speak
What is split brain?
patients with a severed corpus callosum?
What is the corpus callosum?
connects the two hemispheres together and carries messages between them
What are split brain procedures used for?
used for cases of severe epilepsy
What is when the hemispheres represent opposite sides of the body?
contralateral hemispherical organization
What is on the left brain?
language, Broca’s area, and Wernicke’s area
What happens when the left side of the brain is damaged?
It leads to aphasia
What is on the right brain?
Spatial awareness/art
Making inferences/interpretations
Self-awareness
Each side of the visual field is processed by the opposed side of the brain in the visual cortex
cortex specialization
What are the lobes of the brain?
frontal, temporal, parietal, occipital
What does the occipital lobe do?
controls visual information
What does the parietal lobe do?
processes sensory information
What does the temporal lobe do?
processes auditory information
What does the frontal lobe do?
complex thinking
What is parallel processing?
process multiple aspects of stimulus or problem at the same time
What is sequential processing?
process stimulus or problem at one time (conciously)
What is selective attention?
the process of directing our attention to relavent stimuli while ignoring irrelevent stimuli
What are the states of conciousness?
- Sleeping and wakefulness
- Dreaming
- Waking States - fantasizing and daydreaming
- Altered States - drug-induced, hypnosis-induced, meditation, sensory deprivation
What is the circadiun rhythm and how is it distrupted?
-Our body’s natural 24-hour internal clock
-Disrupted by artificial light, shift work, and jet lag
How are sleep stages distinguished?
brain activity (EEG)
What are the stages of sleep?
Awake, NREM Stage 1, NREM Stage 2, NREM Stage 3, REM
What are the waves and what happens during the awake stage?
- Awake, normal alertness: beta waves
- Relaxed, but awake: alpha waves
What happens during NREM Stage 1?
- Transitions from awake to asleep.
- Slowed breathing and irregular brain waves
- Hipnagogic sensations
What happens during NREM Stage 2
- true sleep, about half the night is spent here
- sleep talking typical occurs here
What happens during NREM Stage 3
- deeper sleep, slow wave sleep, delta waves
What happens during REM stage?
- Brain activity is aroused & active while muscles are intensely relaxed, almost paralyzed; “paradoxical sleep”
- Brain waves similar to beta waves
Why do we sleep?
memory consolidation and restoration
What is activation-synthesis?
brain is trying to make sense of/synthesize the random neural activity
What is consolidation?
dreams help sift, sort, fix, consolidate the day’s experiences into our memory
What is insomnia and symptoms and treatment?
- recurring problems staying or falling asleep
- Symptoms: hard time falling asleep, waking up at night, waking up too early, feeling tired, cranky, depressed, anxious
- Treatment: medication like artificial melatonin
What is narcolepsy and symptoms and treatment?
- disorder that makes a person extremely drowsy during the day, can fall asleep suddenly
- Symptoms: loss of muscle tone (cataplexy)
Treatment: Medication (amphetamines)
What is REM sleep behavior disorder and symptoms and treatment?
- disorder where normal REM “paralysis” doesn’t occur, movement (sometimes violent) during REM stage
- Symptoms: movement, noises during sleep/dreams
- Treatment: medication (melatonin, clonazepam normally for anxiety)
What is sleep apnea and symptoms and treatment?
- breathing during sleep repeatedly stops and starts
- Symptoms: loud snoring, episodes reported by another person that you stopped breathing, awakening with dry mouth, morning headache feeling tired during the day
- Treatment: lifestyle changes, breathing devices (CPAP machine), dental appliances, surgery for adenoids or tonsils
What is somnabulism and symptoms and treatment?
- sleep walking (more common in children)
- Symptoms: walking around while asleep
- Treatment - usually not treated unless risk of injury
What is transduction?
process by which our sensory systems convert stimulus energies into neural messages (for perception); conversion of energy
What is Weber’s Law?
two stimuli must differ by a constant proportion (not constant amount) for their difference to be perceived
What does wavelength determine?
lights’ hue (color)
What does amplitude influence?
lights’ brightness
What are the parts of the eye?
lens, retina, fovea, optic nerve, blind spot
What is the retina and what occurs here?
- photosensitive surface at the back of the eye
- transduction occurs here
What are the rods?
detect shapes and movement
Light and dark adaptation
Work mostly in peripheral vision
What are cones?
detect color and details
Cluster around fovea
Don’t work well in dark
What is the Trichromatic Theory?
retina contains three types of color receptors
What are the colors that the retina contains?
blue, green, red
What do blue, green, and red cones detect?
Blue cones - detect short wavelengths
Green cones - detect medium wavelengths
Red cones - detect long wavelengths
What is the Opponent Process Theory?
Detecting colors depends on three sets of opposing retinal processes related to ganglion cells
What do red, white, and blue detect?
Red-green | blue-yellow | white-black
What is prosopagnosia?
can see and sense faces but cannot recognize it
What is blindsight?
can respond to visual stimulus without conciously perceiving it
What is wavelength?
pitch
What is amplitude?
loudness
What are the parts of the ear?
semicircular canals, auditory nerve, eardrum, cochlea
What is the place theory?
We hear different pitches because different sound waves trigger activity at different places
What is the frequency theory?
We hear different pitches because different sound waves trigger neural impulses to the brain at the same rate as the sound wave.
What is the volley theory?
Neural cells work together, alternating when they fire (only one fires at a time)
What is sound localization?
The ability to identify the position and changes in position of sound sources
What is gustation?
taste
What are the types of gustation?
bitter, sweet, sour, salty, umami, fatty (oleogustus)
