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psychology > Mid term Vocab part 2 > Flashcards

Mid term Vocab part 2 Flashcards

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1
Q

phrenology

A

• studying bumps on the skull

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2
Q

biological psychology

A

links between biological and psychological processes

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3
Q

neuron

A

o nerve cells, or building blocks of our bodys nueral information system

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4
Q

dendrites

A

recieve information and conduct it toward the cell body

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5
Q

axon

A

o pass the message through its terminal branches to other nuerons or to muscles or glands

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6
Q

myelin

A

• layer of fatty tissue that insulates axons and speeds their impulses (insulation)

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7
Q

action potential

A

• brief electrical charge that travels down its axon

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8
Q

refractory period

A

• period of inactivity after a nueron has fired

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9
Q

threshold

A

• the level of stimulation required to trigger a nueral impulse

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10
Q

all or none response

A

• a nuerons reaction of either firing ( with a full strength response ) or not firing

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11
Q

synapse

A

o meeting point of to nuerons (synaptic gap or synaptic cleft

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12
Q

neurotransmitters

A

o chemical messengers that cross the synaptic gaps between nuerons

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13
Q

reuptake

A

o a nuerotransmitter’s reabsorption by the sending nueron

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14
Q

endorphins

A

natural opiate like neurotransmitters linked to pain control and to pleasure

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15
Q

agonist

A

a molecule that, by binding to a receptor site, stimulates a response

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16
Q

antagonist

A

o a molecule that, by binding to a recptor site, inhibits or blocks a response

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17
Q

Acetylcholine

A

o enables muscle action, learning, and memory

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18
Q

dopamine

A

o influences movement, learning, attention, and emotion

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19
Q

serotonin

A

o affects mood, hunger, sleep, and arousal

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20
Q

norepinephrine

A

o helps control alertness and arousal

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21
Q

GABA

A

o a major inhibitory nuerotransmitter

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22
Q

glutamate

A

o a major excittory nuerotransmitter; involved in memory

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23
Q

endorphins

A

o “morphine within” natural, opiate like - nuerotransmitters linked to pain control and to pleasure
• explain runners high, ainkilling effects of acupuncture

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24
Q

nervous system

A

BODY’S SPEEDY, ELECTROCHEMICAL COMMUNICATION NETWORK, CONSISTING OF ALL THE NERVE CELLS OF THE PERIPHERAL AND CENTRAL NERVOUS SYSTEMS

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25
Q

central nervous system

A

• brain and spinal chord

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26
Q

peripheral nervous system

A

• responsible for gathering information and for transmitting CNS (central nervous systems) decisions to other body parts

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27
Q

nerves

A

• electrical cables formed of bundles of axons, link the central nervous system with the body’s sensory receptors, muscs, and glands.

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28
Q

sensory neurons

A

• nuerons that carry incoming informtion from the sensory recetors to the brain and spinal cord

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29
Q

motor neurons

A

• nuerons that carry outgoing information from the brain and spinal cord to the muscles and glands

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30
Q

interneurons

A

• nuerons within the brain and spinal cord that communicate internally and intervene between the sensory inputs and motor outputs

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31
Q

somatic nervous system

A

• enables voluntary control of our skeletal muscles. or skeletal nervous system,

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32
Q

automatic nervous system

A

• controls our glands and the muscles of our internal organs, influencing such functions as glandular activity, heartbeat, and digestion (like automatic pilot) can be overridden but usually works in its own

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33
Q

sympathetic nervous system

A

• arouses and exoands energy if you get startled, this sytem will accelerate your heartbeat, raise your blood pressure, slow your digestion, raise your blood sugar, and coll you with persperation maing you alert and ready for action

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34
Q

parasympathetic nervous sytem

A

• produce opposite effects as sypathetic nervous system. division of the autonomic nervous sytem that calms the body, conserving its energy

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35
Q

reflex

A

• a simple, utomatic reponse to a sensory stimulus such as a knee-jerk reaction

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36
Q

endocrine system

A

• the body’s “slow” chemical communiction system; a set of glands that secrete hormones into the bloodstream

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37
Q

hormones

A

• chemical messengers that are manufactured by the endorcine glands travel through the bloodstrem and affect other tissues

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38
Q

adrenal glands

A

• a pair of endocrine glands that sit just above the kidney and secrete hormones (epinephrine and norepinephrine) that help arouse the body in times of stress

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39
Q

pituitary glands

A

the endocrine system’s most influential gland. Under the influence of the hyothalamus, the pituitary gland regulates growth and controls other endocrine glands

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40
Q

lesion

A

tissue destruction

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41
Q

EEG

A

• An amplified recording of the waves of electrical activity sweeping across the brain’s surface. These waves are measure by electrodes placed on the scalp
 Shower cap like hat that is filled with electrodes covered with a conductive gel

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42
Q

CT

A

• Examines the brain by taking x-ray photographs that can reveal bran damage

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43
Q

PET

A

• Depicts brain activity by showing each brain area’s consumption of its chemical fuel, the sugar glucose

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44
Q

MRI

A

• Person’s head is put in a strong magnetic field, which aligns the spinning atoms of brain molecules

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45
Q

fMRI

A

• can reveal the brain’s functioning as well as its structure e

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46
Q

brainstem

A

• Oldest and innermost region of the brain

 Begins where the spinal cord swells slightly after entering the skull

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47
Q

medulla

A

base of the brain stem; o Here lie the control fro your heartbeat and breathing

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48
Q

thalamus

A

o Sits atop the brainstem
• A pair of egg-shaped structures that act as the brain’s sensory control center
• Receives information from all the senses except smell and routes it to the higher brain regions that deal with seeing, hearing, tasting, and touching
• Also receives some the higher brain’s replies, which it then directs to the medulla and to the cerebellum

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49
Q

reticular reformation

A

o Inside your brainstem in-between your ears
• A neuron network that extends form the spinal cord with up through the thalamus
• Filters incoming stimuli and relays important information to other brain areas
• Enables arousal

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50
Q

cerebellum

A

o Extending form the rear of the brainstem; baseball sized
• Means little brain
 Which is what its two wrinkled halves resemble
 Enables nonverbal leaning and memory. Helps us judge time, modulate our emotions, and discriminate sounds and textures
 Coordinates voluntary movement

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51
Q

limbic system

A

o Newest and highest regions
• Cerebral hemispheres (the two halves of the brain)
 Contains the amygdala, the hypothalamus, and the hippocampus

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52
Q

amygdala

A

o Two lima bean sizes neural clusters, to aggression and fear
• Linked to emotion
 Perceptions of these emotions

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53
Q

hypothalamus

A

o Just below the thalamus
• An important link in the command chain governing bodily maintenance
 Some clusters influence hunger; others regulate thirst, body temperature, and sexual behavior
• All together, they help maintain a steady internal state

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54
Q

cerebral cortex

A

 Thin surface layer of interconnected neural cells

• It is your brain’s thinking crown

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55
Q

glial cells

A

• Cells in the nervous system that support, nourish, and protect neurons; they may also play a role in leaning and thinking

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56
Q

frontal lobe

A

portion of the cerebral cortex lying just behind the forehead; involved in speaking and muscle movements and in making plans and judgements

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57
Q

parietal lobes

A

lying atop the head and toward the rear; receives sensory input for touch and body position

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58
Q

occipital lobe

A

lying at the back of the head; includes areas that receive information from the visual fields

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59
Q

temporal lobes

A

roughly above the ears; includes the auditory areas, each revving information primarily from the opposite ear

60
Q

motor cortex

A

an are at the rear of the frontal lobes that controls voluntary movements

61
Q

evolutionary psychology

A

focus mostly on what makes us so much alike, evolutionary psychology is the study of the evolution of behavior and the mind, using principles of natural selection

62
Q

natural selection

A

the principle that, among the range of inherited trait variations, those contributing to reproduction and survival will most likely bypassed on to succeeding generations

63
Q

mutation

A

random error in gene replication that leads to a change

- genetic leash that makes cats pounce or dogs retrieve is looser in humans

64
Q

cognition

A

• mental activities associated with thinking, knowing, remembering and communicating information

65
Q

concept

A

mental groupings of similar objects, events, ideas, and people

66
Q

prototype

A

• mental image or best example of a category

67
Q

creativity

A

• the ability to produce ideas that are both novel and valuable
o scoring 120 or higher on a standard intelligence test supports creativity

68
Q

convergent thinking

A

• narrows the available problem solutions to determine the single best solution

69
Q

divergent thinking

A

• expands the number of possible problem solutions (creative Thinking that diverges in different directions)

70
Q

algorithm

A

step by step procedures that guarantee a solution

71
Q

heuristics

A

• simpler thinking strategies

72
Q

insight

A

• a sudden realization of a problems solution; contrasts with strategy based solutions

73
Q

confirmation bias

A

• a tendency to search for information that supports our preconceptions and to ignore or distort contradictory evidence

74
Q

mental set

A

• our tendency to approach a problem with the mind-set of what has worked for us previously

75
Q

intuition

A

• our fast, automatic, unreasoned feelings and thoughts

76
Q

representative heuristics

A

judging the likelihood of things in terms of how well they seem to represent, or match, particular prototypes; may lead us to ignore other relevant information

77
Q

availabillty heuristics

A

• operates when we estimate the likelihood of events based on how mentally available they are

78
Q

overconfidence

A

• the tendency to overestimate the accuracy of our knowledge and judgments

79
Q

belief perseverance

A

• - often fuels social conflict, as it did in a classic study of people with opposing views of capital punishment

80
Q

framing

A

• the way we present an issue, sways our decisions and judgment.

81
Q

language

A

our spoken, written, or signed words and the ways we combine them to communicate meaning

82
Q

phoneme

A

the smallest distinctive sounds units in a language, when saying chat you have the ch, a, and the t.

83
Q

morpheme

A

the smallest units that carry meaning in a given language, such as prefixes and suffixs

84
Q

grammar

A

the system of rules that enables us to communicate with one another

85
Q

babbling stage

A

beginning at about 4 months, thestage of speech development in which the infant spontaneously utters various sounds at first unrelated to the household language

86
Q

one word stage

A

the stage in speech development, from about age 1 to 2, during which a child speaks mostly single words

87
Q

two word stage

A

beginning about age 2, the stage in speech development during which a child speaks mostly in two-word statements

88
Q

telegraphic speech

A

early speech stage in which a child speaks like a telegram “go car” using mostly nouns and verbs

89
Q

aphasia

A

impairment of language, usually caused by left-hemisphere damage either to the Broca’s Area (impairing speaking) or to Wernicke’s area (impairing understanding)

90
Q

broca’s area

A

impairing speaking

91
Q

wernicks area

A

impairing understanding

92
Q

linguistic determinism

A

whorf’s hypothesis that language determines the way we think

93
Q

learning

A

the process of acquiring new and relatively enduring information or behaviors

94
Q

habituation

A

o An organism’s decreasing response to a stimulus with repeated exposure to it

95
Q

associative learning

A

o Learning that certain events occur together

96
Q

stimulus

A

any event or situation that evokes a response

97
Q

cognitive learning

A

o The acquisition of mental information, whether by observing events, by watching others, or through language

98
Q

classical conditioning

A

o A type of learning in which one learns to link two or more stimulated and anticipate events

99
Q

behaviorism

A

o The view that psychology should
• Be an objective science that
• Studies behavior with out reference to mental processes

100
Q

neutral stimulus

A

stimulus that elicits no response before conditioning (classical)

101
Q

unconditioned response

A

o In classical conditioning, an unlearned, naturally occurring response to an unconditioned stimulus

102
Q

unconditioned stimulus

A

• In classical conditioning, a stimulus that unconditionally, naturally and automatically

103
Q

conditioned response

A

• In classical conditioning, a learned response to a previously neutral (but not conditioned) stimulus

104
Q

conditioned stimulus

A

• An originally irrelevant stimulus that, other association with an unconditioned stimulus comes to trigger a conditioned response

105
Q

acquisition

A

o In classical condition: the initial stage of learning a response (when you link a neural stimulus to an conditioned stimulus)
o In operant conditioning
• The strengthening of a reinforced response

106
Q

higher order conditioning

A

o A procedure in which the conditioned stimulus in one conditioning experience is paired with a new neural stimulus, creating a second (often weaker) conditioned stimulus

107
Q

extinction

A

o The diminished responding that occurs when the conditioned stimulus no longer signals an impending unconditioned stimulus

108
Q

spontaneous recovery

A

o The reappearance of a (weakened) conditioned response after a pause(?)
• Extinction suppresses the conditioned response but doesn’t eliminate it

109
Q

generalization

A

o The tendency to respond likewise to stimuli similar to the conditioned stimulus
• Can be adaptive

110
Q

discrimination

A

o The learned ability to distinguish between a conditioned stimulus and other irrelevant stimuli

111
Q

operant conditioning

A

o Organisms associate their own actions with consequences

112
Q

law of effect

A

• Principle that behaviors followed by favorable consequence become more likely, and that behaviors followed by unfavorable consequences become less likely

113
Q

operant chamber

A

o A chamber containing a bar of key that an animal can manipulate to obtain a food or water reinforcers; attached devices record the animal’s rate of bar pressing or key pecking
• Also known as skinner box

114
Q

reinforcement

A

o In operant conditioning, any event that strengthens the behavior that it follows

115
Q

shaping

A

o Which reinforcers guide behavior toward closer and closer approximations of the desire behavior

116
Q

discriminative stimulus

A

stimulus that elicits a response after association with reinforcement (in contrast to related stimuli not associated with reinforcement

117
Q

positive reinforcement

A

o Increasing behaviors by presenting positive reinforcers. A positive reinforcers is any stimulus that, when presented after a response, strengthens the response

118
Q

negative reinforcement

A

o Strengthens a response by reducing or removing something negative

119
Q

primary reinforcer

A

o An innately reinforcing stimulus, such as one that satisfies a biological need

120
Q

conditioned reinforcer

A

o A stimulus that gains its reinforcing power through its association with a primary reinforcer
• Also known as secondary reinforcer

121
Q

reinforcement schedule

A

o A pattern that defines how often a desired response will be reinforced

122
Q

continuous reinforcement

A

o Reinforcing the desired response every time that it occurs

123
Q

partial reinforcement

A

o Reinforcing a response only part of the time

124
Q

fixed ration schedule

A

o A reinforcement schedule that reinforces a response only after a specified number of responses

125
Q

variable ratio schedule

A

o A reinforcement schedule that reinforces a response after an unpredictable number of responses

126
Q

fixed interval schedule

A

o A reinforcement schedule that reinforces a response only after a specified time has elapsed

127
Q

variable interval schedule

A

o a reinforcement schedule that reinforces a response at unpredictable time intervals

128
Q

punishment

A

o an event that tends to decrease the behavior that it follows

129
Q

respondent behavior

A

behavior that occurs as an automatic response to some stimulus

130
Q

operant behavior

A

behavior that operates on the environment producing consequences

131
Q

cognitive map

A

o Mental representation of the layout of ones environment

132
Q

latent learning

A

o Learning that occurs but isn’t apparent until there is an incentive to demonstrate it

133
Q

insight

A

o A sudden realization of a problem’s solution

134
Q

intristic motivation

A

o A desire to perform a behavior effectively for its own sake
• Excessive rewards can destroy this
 If I have to be bribed into this, it must not be worth doing for its own sake

135
Q

coping

A

o Alleviating stress using emotional, cognitive, or behavioral methods

136
Q

problem focused coping

A

o Attempting to alleviate stress directly

137
Q

emotion focused coping

A

o Attempting to alleviate stress by avoiding or ignoring a stressor and attending to emotion needs related to one’s stress reaction

138
Q

learned helplessness

A

o The hopelessness and passive resignation an animal or human learns when unable to avoid repeated aversive events

139
Q

external locus of control

A

o The perception that chance or outside forces beyond our personal control determine our fate

140
Q

internal locus of control

A

o The perception that you control your own fate

141
Q

self control

A

o The ability to control impulses and delay short term gratification for greater long term rewards

142
Q

observational learning

A

• Learning by observing others

143
Q

modeling

A

o The process of observing and imitating a specific behavior

144
Q

mirror neurons

A

o frontal lobe neurons that some scientists believe fire when performing certain actions or when observing another doing so

145
Q

prosocial behavior

A

o positive, constructive, helpful behavior

psychology (17 decks)

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