Midterm Flashcards
Metaphysical questioning
Seeking first principles of nature
the search for overarching and universal principles
What two things does psych work to do?
Understand and also control (change) the human experience
Pyschology
the systematic study of behavior and experience
Different types of psych professions
1) addressing basic research questions
2) clinical psych
3) how to enhance productivity (advertisements/military)
Different domains within psychology
Physiology, physics, philosophy, medicine, sociology, and biology
Unification of psychology
psychology is unified by it’s variety of perspectives on psychological phenomenon
can look at things through many different lenses
Science
knowledge that is sanctioned by a certain method
data-driven
Systematic scientific method
define a problem in measureable terms
observe based on fact
analyze with statistics and classification
Interpretation and replicate
3 basic scientific approaches in psych
1) Nautralistic observation
2) Case study
3) Experimental method
Naturalistic observation
no manipulation of population you are studying, do not impose treatment
Case study
systematic observation of an individual or a few individuals
Experimental method
manipulate variables/impose treatment and compare to control
determine the relationship between the dependent and independent variable
Scientific truth
is an approximation, is replicable, is flasifiable
it is agreed upon through consensual language
How can you compare the outcome of nature versus nurture??
Use a Twin study
What type of twins to use for a twin study?
Monozygotic twins
What separates humans from other animal behavior??
Humans have a language with grammar and syntax
Humans can self reflect and talk about metaphysical things
Inhibitory function
ability to refrain from natural urges
animals and humans possess this
3 conditions for natural selection
1) Variation among individuals within a population
2) Some traits are more fit for survival than others
3) Traits are inheritable
Ultimate survival
gene survives through evolution
Proximate survival
the individual survives
Can evolution happen quickly?
Yes in example of fish developing armour
Motivated action behavior
like feeding, fighting, fleeing and sex
thought to have evolutionary roots
What shows that human behavior can be inherited?
Basic emotional expressions are universal
such as everyone smiles
Dias + Ressler Study
Mice inherit specific memories due to epigenitics
A traumatic event can influence the DNA in sperm and future generations are predisposed to the same traumatic event
Phineas Gage
Foreman who got a rod stuck in front lobe
Before accident he was friendly, after he was argumentative and obstinate
Shows how the brain’s functioning can trickle down to a basic level (brain affects function)
Jody Miller
Became epileptic at around 3 years old
Electrical explosions in right side of brain left her left side of her body unable to function
Brain’s plasticity allowed it to change shape and connections
Shows the resiliency of the brain
Who started the secular approach to studying the brain?
Descartes in 17th century difference between mind and body
Reflex concept
Phrenology
Franz Joseph Gall
External bump on head reflects differences in individuals brain/disposition
Example of trying to link the mind to the body
What is an example of modern day phrenology?
We basically do indepth phrenology with MRIs
What is the basic unit of communication?
Neuron
Neuron is composed of
Dendrites connected to cell body connected to axon which is connected to axon terminal
Central nervous system
brain and spinal cord
Peripheral nervous system
the nervous system outside the brain and spinal cord
Communication among neurons
cell membrane potential is highly unstable
when the difference in potential electric charge is greater than the threshold an action potential activates on neuron to another
Action potential mechanics
interior of cell temporarily reaches slightly less negative . (-55 instead of -70mV)
Go from -55 to fully positive (no inbetween, all/nothing)
Synapes
at terminal ending of neuron, neurotransmitters move from axon terminals to dendrites
if dendrites accept neurotransmitters, another action potential is triggered
What type of processes are action potentials?
Binary
all or nothing mechanism
What happens to neurotransmitters after action potential is fired?
some are inactivated by a “cleanup enzyme”
other are reused by synaptic uptake
Examples of neurotransmitters
dopamine, serotonin, acetylcholine
Subdivisions of the peripheral nervous system
Somatic nervous system and autonomic nervous system
Somatic nervous system
skin, muscles, joints that connect spine to brain
Autonomic nervous system
glands and internal organs connect to the spine/brain
uses hormones for long distance signaling
broken into sympathethic or para-sympathetic
Sympathetic nervous system
directs the body’s rapid involuntary response to dangerous or stressful situations
constricts pupils, boosts heart, erection
Parasympathetic nervous system
rest and digest system
conserves energy as it slows heart rate, increases gland activity, and relaxes sphincter muscles in GI tract
Homeostasis
maintenance of internal environment of the organism
Hind brain
subconscious, primary functions like breathing and heartbeats
Midbrain
coordinates motion, relays information to other sites
Forebrain
associated with human consciousness
cortical and subcortical
The Cortex
part of the forebrain
3mm thick, makes up 89% of total brain volume
Very compact (folded and wrinkled)
2 hemispheres and 4 paired lobes
What are the brain’s 4 lobes?
Frontal
Parietal
Occipital
Temporal
Occipital lobe
determines vision
Frontal lobe
linked to executive function
Parietal lobe
processes sensory information as well as processing language and mathematics
Temporal lobe
sound is processed
auditory and speech comprehension systems are located
What connects the left and right brain?
corpus callosum
corpus callosum size could potentially indicate schizophrenia
2 halves work as an integrated whole and are generally similar
What is right brain involved with?
more creativity
What is left brain involved with?
logic and analytics and language
Subcortal brain structures
thalamus
hypothalamus
limbic system
Thalamus
relay station for sensory information
Hypothalamus
eating, drinking, aggession, sexual behavior
releases hormones and controls body temperature
Limbic system
learning, memory, and emotion
has the hippocampus and amygodala
How do we record the brain?
MRI/CT studies anatomy
PET/PMRI studies activity of the brain through bloodflow
Sensation
the raw data
the psychological phenomena involving an awareness of physical stimulation
What is the flow of sensation?
1) External stimulus energy
2) Amplification of stimulus
3) Transduction to impulse
4) Coding of sensation
5) Interaction with the rest of system
More big picture flow of sensation
Stimulation
Sensation
Perception
Representation (knowledge)
Psychophysics
works on relationship between physical energy and what we actually experience
Weber’s law
the size of the difference threshold of stimulus is a constant ratio of the standard stimulus
need a lot of physical energy to detect smaller changes
Fechner’s law
the strength of a sensation grows as the logarithm of stimulus intensity
strength vs intensity
eventually plateaus
Proximal stimulation
need to have contact to stimulus
Types of proximal stimulation
Kinesthesis of preoprioception: skeletal movements
Vestibular sense: sense of relative stability
Taste/gustatory sense
Skin sense (pressure, temp, pain)
Distal stimulation
don’t need to touch stimulus
Types of distal stimulation
olfaction
audition (frequency, pitch, sound)
vision (color, contrast, movement)
What is true of detection features?
they are very specialized
Perception
the meaning making process of sensory experience
the interpretation of sense data
3 theories of perception
Info processing approach
Gestalt theory
Ecological approach
Info processing approach
way of looking at perception
bottom to top reconstruction
piecewise puts info together
combine info from retina with stored knowledge
Gestalt theory
immediate impression, not piecewise
innate properties of the perceive (have evolved to perceive)
Ecological approach
directedness and immediacy of perceptual processes
all needed information is already available in nature, just have to pick it up
ex: way light falls on a rock shows depth
no reconstruction of information like in the info processing approach
What is perception always?
Contextual
We assume and fill in gaps in our perception
Consciousness
our awareness of ourselves, thoughts and environment
How can consciousness be studied?
introspection
What is the problem with consciousness?
it can be hard to describe experience and sometimes people are deceitful
Cognitive unconscious
unnoticed support machinery
much of what is going on in our minds happens outside of awareness
Unconscious functioning
the scope of the cognitive unconscious is evident in cases of brain damage
we can remember/perceive without being aware
Unconscious attribution
ability to evaluate and interpret evidence while being unaware of the process
What does cognitive unconscious allow for?
Processes that are fast, effortless, and automatic
Mind body problem
the conscious mind is completely different from physical body
What are the two dimensions of consciousness?
level of arousal and clarity of context
example is sleepwalking has high level of arousal, but low clarity of context
Global Workspace Hypothesis
consciousness is made possible by integrating neural activity of various regions
this is made possible by workspace neurons
controlled by process of attention
Sleep
our conscious state changes when we are asleep
people seem to need a right amount of slow wave and REM sleep
Different theories for why we sleep
repair our bodies
allow neurons to reset
allow for rest when not finding food
Dreams
occur during REM sleep
can contain preoccupations or events that occur that day
dreams are a byproduct of activity that occurs while we sleep
Hypnosis
highly relaxed state of mind in which a person is likely to feel that his/her actions and thoughts are happening to him/her rather than it being produced momentarily
can be susceptible to social pressures
Meditation
quiet, relaxed state produced by intense focus to a specific stimulus
brain activity changes during meditation (more relaxed)
Theories about the origins of knowledge
nativism- knowledge is innate, prewired and built in
empiricism- knowledge is learned and determined by individual experiences
true origins of knowledge is probably somewhere inbetween these two
Learning
process by which an activity originates or is changed through reactions to an encountered situation
react to situations differently after an encounter
What can learning not be explained by?
learning exists outside of native response tendencies (reflexes), maturation, and temporary states of the organism (drugs + fatigue)
What are ways of learning
1) Habituation
2) Classical conditioning
3) Operant conditioning
4) Observational learning
Habituation
a decline in response to a stimulus once the stimulus has become familiar
Dishabituation
an increase in responsiveness when something new is presented following a series of presentations of something familiar
What are evolutionary advantages of habituation?
we don’t waste energy on stuff we already know
ex: babies transition from the universal learner to free space
Classical conditioning
a form of learning in which one stimulus is paired with another so that an organism can learn a relationship between the two
Pavlov’s experiment
dog learns to associate a bell with food
US: food
UR: salivate
CS: the bell
CR: salvation with the bell
Unconditioned response
the natural response elicited from a unconditioned stimulus
Unconditioned stimulus
reliability triggers a response without prior training
Conditioned stimulus
initially neutral stimulus that becomes associated with the US and elicits a conditioned response
Example of different conditioned and unconditioned response
mouse runs away when sees a cat (UR)
mouse associates cat with kitchen (CS)
mouse is on high alert when in the kitchen, but doesn’t run away (CR)
What does the strength of conditioning depend on?
timing and contingency
Extinction
the weakening of a learned association when a conditioned stimulus is now repeatedly presented without the unconditioned stimulus
Operant conditioning
participant receives a reinforcer only after performing the desired response and therefore learns the relationship between the response and the reinforcer
Thorndike’s cat
Thorndike rewarded the cat for getting out of the cage
made the cat get out of the cage more
an example of operant conditioning
The Law of Effect
performance is strengthened if rewarded and weakened if not
Operant
voluntary response that is defined by its effect (the way it operates) on the environment
Reinforcer
stimulus delivered after a response makes a response more likely in the future
Who is responsible for saying “free will is an illusion” but also doing work with operant conditioning?
BF Skinner
Difference between operant conditioning and classical conditioning
Operant conditioning is based on rewards of voluntary responses and classical conditioning is not voluntary response
Observational learning
process of watching others behave and learning from their example
Mirror neurons
neurons that fire both when an animal acts and when an animal watches another animal perform the same action
Implicit memory
memories that you are unable to talk about but exist and come up through actions without being aware of
When can you explicitly talk about memory?
2-3 years of age
What helps with accuracy errors in memory?
schema (narrative to tell)
chunking
Flashbulb memory
highly detailed snapshot of when big news was heard
Thoughts on selective memory
could be a defense mechanism
sensory memory
< 3 seconds
Immediate memory of sensory stimuli
Short term memory
also called working memory
10 seconds
Immediate conscious memory
Long term memory
hours to lifetime
Stages of long term memory
Encoding, storage, retrieval, output
Primacy
early items receive more rehearsal and are more likely to be transferred to long term storage
(remembering things in a list)
Recency
just heard items can be easily retrieved from working memory
Chunking
items are recoded into a smaller number of larger units (ex: phone numbers)
Active nature of memory
we change and shape our memories
Maintenance rehearsal
process of repeatedly verbalizing or thinking about a piece of information
does little to promote long term storage
Shallow processing
encoding that emphasizes superficial characteristics
Deep processing
encoding that emphasizes understanding and meaning
Clive’s case
hippocampus damage
no long term memory after brain damage
stops encoding memories after the event
lives moment to moment
Hippocampus
part of the limbic system
plays role in transferring info from short term to long term memory
Retrograde amnesia
unable to remember past events
Anterograde amnesia
unable to remember events after the trauma
Episodic memory
concerns specific episodes
Semantic memory
concerns broader knowledge (ex: language)
Amygdala
helps emotional memory lead to better episodic memories
plays a key role in the processing of emotions
Thinking
process by which meanings and ideas are developed
Concepts
an idea of what something is or how it works
generic idea formed through experience
Two types of views of concepts
prototype versus conceptual
Representation
present something to the mind that gets converted to words, symbols, and images
Analogical representations
capture some of the actual characteristics of what they represent
Symbolic representations
bear no such relationship to what they represent
Two types of thinking
spatial (mapping + imaging)
abstract (conceptualization + reasoning)
Non-analogical thinking
another name is abstract thinking
two types of non-analogical thinking
inductive (observation to conclusion)
deductive (premise to conclusion)
Directed thinking
internal thinking with the goal of problem solving
goal oriented mental hierarchy of action
