Introduction to psychology Flashcards
What parameters are measured in experimental psychology?
- Subjective responses (e.g. introspection)
- Behavioural responses (e.g. facial expressions)
- Unconscious (implicit) responses (e.g. implicit association)
- Physiological responses (e.g. heart rate)
- Neuroimaging (e.g. fMRI)
How can functional imaging be used to elicidate neural mechanisms?
Observing areas of the brain that are active when certain tasks are being performed allows us to associate these regions with the particular activity.
What are the “causal explanations” in psychology?
- Cognitive: Subject believes by logical deduction the action is the right thing to do.
- Emotional: Subject is driven by some kind of emotional motive (e.g. they are afraid).
- Motivation: Subject wants to gain something from performing the action.
What is bistable perception?
Phenomenon whereby the same image/object can be subjectively interpreted in 2 different ways by the same person. The perception alternates between the 2 interpretations spontaneously.
What are examples of bistable perception?
- Rotating cylinder
- Transparent cube
What is structuralism?
- Use of introspection to breakdown consciousness into fundamental sensations, ideas and mental images.
- The purpose of this was to attempt to identify individual components of consciousness so that they can be put back together to determine how the mind works as a system.
What is functionalism?
- The mind should not be studied structurally as the constituents of consciousness are not important and cannot be understood fully.
- The mind should be studied functionally by measuring how each conscious state contributes towards behaviour.
- Psychology should only be concerned with the aspects of the mind that have purposes relating to interaction of organism with outside world.
What is Skinner’s theory behind language development?
Language results from a series of positive and negative reinforcements, whereby correct grammar is rewarded while incorrect grammar is punished.
How does the James-Lange theory of emotions support functionalism?
- States that emotions are merely a consequence of behavioural responses to certain stimuli.
- Schachter & Singer proved that emotions depended on behavioural response and context, so does need cognition, in contrast to original theory.
What was the experiment performed by Marcel (1983)?
- Participants were presented with a word very quickly (few ms), so quickly that they are unable to consciously process it.
- They are presented with a distraction (e.g. pattern mask) and then presented with second word.
- Subjects were asked to determine whether the second word was a real word.
What was the result of the Marcel (1983) experiment?
- Subjects were quicker to decide whether second word was real if first word was semantically related.
- For example, if “bread” was first word and “butter” was second word, subject was quicker to decide that butter is a real word comared to if the second word was “cat”.
- This experiment illustrates the importance of subconscious processing in cognition.
What is the implicit association test?
- Subjects were presented with buttons with good and bad on them, as well as European American and African American.
- Subjects were them presented with faces and words and were told to sort them by pressing the relevant buttons.
What were the results of the implicit association test?
- Subjects were quicker to sort words when good was on the same button as European American and bad was on the same button as African american.
- Implied that subjects may have implicit racial bias, even if a previous racial prejudice questionnaire determined that they were not racist.
- fMRI study showed that degree of racial bias correlates better with IAT than questionnaire.
Which area of the brain are associated with racial bias?
Amygdala, as it is concerned with determining emotional significance of certain stimuli, including race.
