Lecture 1

Question 1

What is Biopsychology?

Answer 1

-The scientific study of the biology of behaviour
-bio approach to psych
-views psychological functioning as having roots in the physiology and chemistry of the brain

Question 2

What is Biopsych a subdiscipline of?

Answer 2

Neuroscience that draws together knowledge from the other neuroscientific disciplines and applies it to the study of behaviour

Question 3

What are human subjects? (advantages?)

Answer 3

A type of subjects that have the advantage of:
-being able to follow instructions
-being able to report their subjective experiences
-often being cheaper
-completely modelling the intricacies of human brain function

Question 4

What are non-human subjects? (advantages?)

Answer 4

The type of subjects that have the advantage of:
-being simpler, and thus more likely to reveal fundamental brain-behaviour interactions
-providing insights from a comparative approach
-having fewer ethical restrictions

Question 5

What is experimental design?

Answer 5

-a type of research design that is used by scientists to study causation - to find out what causes what

Question 6

How does experimental design work?

Answer 6

-researcher assigns subjects to conditions, administers treatments, and measures the outcome in such a way that there is only one relevant difference between the conditions being compared
-when done correctly, any differences in the dependent variable between conditions must have been caused by the independent variable
*it is critical that there be no differences between conditions other than the independent variable

Question 7

What is non-experimental design?

Answer 7

-type of research design that includes quasiexperimental studies and case studies

Question 8

What does the non-experimental design allow?

Answer 8

-allows the participants themselves to decide which group they would be in, and thus allow the possibility of pre-existing differences between groups

Question 9

When is non- experimental design allowed to be conducted?

Answer 9

When physical or ethical impediments make it impossible to assign subjects to particular conditions or to administer the conditions once the subjects have been assigned to them

Question 10

What is pure research?

Answer 10

-type of research motivated primarily by the curiosity of the researcher
-done solely for the purpose of acquiring knowledge for knowledge’s sake

Question 11

What is applied research?

Answer 11

-the type of research motivated primarily by the desire to bring about a direct benefit to humankind
-done solely for the purpose of developing some practical application

Question 12

What is physiological psychology?

Answer 12

-the division of biopsych that directly manipulates the brain in controlled experiments
-lesions or electrically stimulates the brains of laboratory animals

Question 13

What is psychopharmacology?

Answer 13

-the division of biopsychology that experimentally manipulates neural activity and behaviour with drugs
-studies the effects of drugs on the brain and behaviour

Question 14

What is neauropsychology?

Answer 14

-the division of biopsych that studies the psychological effects of brain damage in human patients
-studies patients with brain damage resulting from disease, accident, or neurosurgery

Question 15

What is psychophysiology?

Answer 15

-a division of biopsych that studies the relation between physiological activity and physiological processes in human subjects
-records electrical brain wave patterns of humans through electrodes on the scalp

Question 16

What is cognitive neuroscience?

Answer 16

-the division of biopsych that studies the neural bases of higher intellectual processes such as thought, memory, attention, and complex perceptual processes
-uses functional brain imaging techniques to study how the brain produces different aspects of thought

Question 17

What is comparative psychology?

Answer 17

-the division of biopsych that compares the behaviour of different species in order to understand the evolution, genetics, and adaptiveness of behaviour
-would study the behaviour of genetically modified mice

Question 18

What is computed tomography (CT)?

Answer 18

-the brain imaging technique that uses a computer-assisted X-ray procedure to view the structure of the brain
-provides less clear images of brain structure than MRI does and does not provide images of brain activity

Question 19

What is magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)?

Answer 19

-the brain imaging technique that uses magnetic fields and radio-frequency waves to view the structure of the brain
-provides more clear images of the brain structure than CT does and does not provide images of brain activity

Question 20

What is positron emission tomography (PET)?

Answer 20

-the brain imaging technique that uses radioactive 2-deoxyglucose to view the activity levels of the brain
-provides images of brain activity but not images of brain structure

Question 21

What is functional MRI (FMRI)?

Answer 21

-the brain imaging technique that uses magnetic fields and radio-frequency waves to view the activity levels of the brain
-produces images representing the increase in oxygen flow in the blood to active areas of the brain
-provides images of both brain activity and structure