Psych 10 Final Flashcards
1
Q
What is encoding?
A
the process of transforming what we perceive, think or feel into a memory
2
Q
In the “draw the apple logo” activity, was there a big difference in accuracy for those who owned apple products vs those who didn’t?
A
- No, it was not a big difference.
- Only 1 person drew it perfectly despite many having high confidence
- Highlights that memory is NOT like a DVD-in-the-head
3
Q
Why is the “memory is like a dvd-in-the-head” analogy bad?
A
- Memories are constructed, not recorded
- Constantly updating memories over time
- We don’t remember everything (even things we see frequently like apple logo and penny)
- Memories are imperfect
4
Q
What was shown in Craik & Tulving (1975)?
A
- The deeper the level of processing, the easier the information is to recall
- 3 levels are physical (most shallow), acoustic (middle), and semantic (deepest)
5
Q
What are mnemonics?
A
Strategies for remembering large amounts of information, usually involving imagining events occurring on a journey or with some other set of memorized cues
6
Q
What is storage (in memory)?
A
the information is held in a way that allows it to later be retrieved
7
Q
What does the Atkinson-Shiffrin Model (1968) say?
A
memory consisted of three stores: a sensory store, short-term memory, and long-term memory.
8
Q
What is sensory memory?
A
- Accurately holds perceptual information for a very brief amount of time
- High capacity, very brief
9
Q
What is short term memory? Describe it.
A
- the “space” used to hold information presently required
- limited duration
- About 20 secs (15-30secs)
- capacity: About 7 +/- 2 chunks of information
10
Q
What is a chunk? (in memory) Give examples.
A
- Information grouped into a meaningful unit…
- Words are chunks of letters
- Multi-digit numbers are chunks of single digit numbers
- Routes are chunks of locations
11
Q
What is working memory?
A
manipulation of presently required information for whatever task you are doing
12
Q
What is long term memory? Describe it.
A
- Memory that persists over time without conscious activation…
- Events in your life, facts about the world, motor skills, etc.
- “Long term” sometimes means a few minutes, doesn’t have to be years
- Can last indefinitely
- Can be retrieved and brought into working memory (but we might lose the ability to access that memory)
13
Q
Describe the serial position effect.
A
- tendency to remember the first and last items in a list better than those in the middle.
- primacy effect = better at remembering first few in list than those in middle (long term memory)
- recency effect = recent item will be recalled more than those in the middle (short term memory) - no recency effect when there is a delay
14
Q
How is memory involved in doing mental arithmetic?
A
- Sensory Store: (maybe)
- Short-term and working memory:
~ holds information about the particular problem
~ applies the rules and strategies retrieved from LTM to the present information
~ transiently stores intermediate outcomes and final
solution - Long-term memory:
~ rules of arithmetic
~ learned strategies for solving problems
15
Q
What are the two types of long term memory? Describe them.
A
Explicit memory:
- knowing “what”
- expressed verbally
- conscious awareness
- a.k.a. “Declarative Memory”
- ex: I remember that LA is in California
Implicit Memory:
- knowing “how”
- expressed behaviorally
- awareness not necessary
- a.k.a. “Non-declarative Memory”
- ex: remembering how to ride a bike
16
Q
What are the two types of explicit memory? Describe them.
A
Episodic:
- specific time, place
- personally experienced
*Prospective memory: future events
Semantic:
- facts
- general knowledge
- Can be things we know but don’t remember (i.e. a story from when we were a baby that we’ve been told
17
Q
What are the 3 types of implicit memory? Describe them.
A
Procedural:
- Skills
- How to do something
- Ex: how to ride a bike
Priming:
- Exposure influences behavior
Conditioning:
- Like classical and operant
- Ex: dog salivating from bell
18
Q
Compare retrograde and anterograde amnesia.
A
- Retrograde amnesia: cannot remember events prior to brain damage
- Anterograde amnesia: cannot later remember events that occur after brain damage
19
Q
Describe patient HM and the test of his procedural memory.
A
Patient HM:
- Anterograde amnesia
- unable to form new explicit memories
- had difficulty transferring explicit memories from STM to LTM due to removal of hippocampus
Test of procedural memory:
- Performance improved on a mirror tracing task even though he didn’t remember doing it before
20
Q
Describe Patient KC.
A
- Severe retrograde and anterograde amnesia
- Old semantic memories intact but not episodic
21
Q
What is retrieval? (in memory) Describe it.
A
- the process of bringing to mind information that has been previously encoded and stored…
- NOT like playback of a video
- Retrieval depends on cues/hints that help bring information to mind… evidence: context effect (context helps retrieval)
22
Q
What is the encoding specificity principle?
A
- memory is improved when information available at encoding is also available at retrieval…
- The more similar the retrieval situation is to the encoding situation, the better the retrieval
- ex: perform better on test in room where you studied
23
Q
What are different ways to measure/operationalize retrieval?
A
- Recall: name everything you need to buy at the market
- Recognition: you see a tomato and decide whether it was on your list
- Savings: can you learn something faster the second time around?
24
Q
Unlike a video recording, how we store our
experiences in memory depends on __________
A
our interpretations and expectations of them
25
What are schemas?
organized knowledge structures or mental models that we’ve stored in memory
26
Describe the transience of memory.
- Of the forgetting that will happen, most happens fast!
- Memories are susceptible to interference
27
Compare proactive and retroactive interference.
Proactive:
- Old learning gets in the way of new
- Ex: old phone number interferes w/ ability to learn new one
Retroactive:
- New learning gets in the way of old
- Ex: What’s my old number?
- Tip to remember: “writing over” from RO
28
What is blocking?
Failing to recall something, even when you know it!
29
Compare iconic and echoic memory.
- Iconic memory (<1s) = associated w/ visual senses
- Echoic memory (3-4s) = associated with auditory sense
- part of sensory memory
30
What does decision making involve?
Involves evaluating alternatives and making choices among them
31
What is availability bias?
items that are more readily available in memory are judged as having occurred more frequently
32
What are framing effects?
changing how an issue is presented can change people’s decisions
33
What is loss aversion?
people tend to want to avoid losses more than they want to achieve gains
34
What is the sunk-cost fallacy?
- People make decisions about current situations based on what they have already invested into it
- ex: going to a concert when sick because it was expensive
35
What is the anchoring effect?
- the bias to be affected by an initial anchor, even if the anchor is arbitrary, and to insufficiently adjust our judgements away from that anchor.
36
What is confirmation bias?
Tendency to search for confirming evidence, not disconfirming evidence
37
What is language? Describe it.
- A system that relates sounds (or gestures) to meaning
- Generativity
- Displacement
- Symbolism
- Structured & meaningful
38
What are phonemes and morphemes?
Phonemes:
- the smallest unit of sound
- /p/ vs /b/
- Pit vs. bit
Morphemes:
- Smallest units of meaning
- Prefix ‘Un’ means not
- Suffix ‘-s’ means more than 1
- ‘sub’ ‘marine’
39
What is syntax?
Rules for word combinations...
- The cat chased the dog.
- The dog was chased by the cat.
40
What is the Behaviorist theory of language development?
- We learn language through reinforcement
- Ex: Child is praised for calling a ball a ball.
41
What is the Nativist perspective of language development?
- Children are born with innate mental structures that guide their acquisition of language
- Noam Chomsky: Language-acquisition device (LAD)
42
What support is there for the Nativist perspective of language development?
- Linguistic universals
- Children apply rules of grammar to novel words
- Language is learned more easily in the critical period
~Ex: Genie story (couldn't speak until 13 b/c of abuse, learned individuals words but not grammar proficiency b/c not in critical period)
- Animals don’t learn language as readily or successfully as humans
~ Ex: Noam chimpsky (chimp raised as child, learned individual signs but not complex language like human children)
43
What is the Interactionalist Perspective on language development?
- Innate capacity for language interacts with experience
- Social interactions are important for language
learning!
- Ex: Benefits of “Motherese” or infant-directed speech
44
At what age can English learners differentiate the Salish & Hindi contrasts? When do they lose this ability?
- Can differentiate at 6 to 8 months old
- Lost this ability by 10 to 12 months
45
Describe the basic process of early speech production.
- Birth: Crying
- 1 month: Cooing
- Middle of first Year: Babbling
- End of first year: Patterned speech
- 10-15 months: First real worlds
- 18 months: Naming explosion
- 2 years: Combining words
46
What is the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis?
Strong version:
- thoughts and behavior are determined by language
- the language you speak determines the concepts and categories that you use, and, as a result, shapes what you can think about
- only evidence: Inuit words for snow
Weak version:
- thoughts and behavior are influenced by language
- language influences what we pay attention to and this shapes experience, which influences how we think
- most psychologists believe in weaker hypothesis
47
What is developmental psychology?
scientific study of changes or continuities in an organism between initial conception and death
48
When does perceptual experience begin?
In utero
49
What 3 assumptions are most infant testing methodologies based on?
1. Infants will attend/orient to stimuli they prefer or
find interesting
2. Infants prefer to hear/see stimuli that they have heard/seen before (familiarization)
3. If they have been repeatedly exposed to a stimulus (to the point of boredom) then they should prefer novel stimuli (habituation)
50
How well do newborns see?
- 20/200 to 20/800 (so very bad vision)
- but increase a ton so that it is within normal adult range by 6 months
- continues developing until 36 months
51
What is the premise of the preferential looking paradigm?
Infants will look longer at interesting stimuli than uninteresting stimuli
52
What is cognitive development?
the development of thinking across the lifespan.
53
Piaget thought children are like little ________.
- scientists...
- They are naturally curious
- Play an active role in acquiring knowledge
54
What is assimilation?
- new experiences are readily incorporated into child’s existing theories
- ex: realizing an eagle in the sky is a bird because it is like a pet bird at home
55
What is accommodation?
- theories are modified based on experience
- ex: a butterfly also has wings, flies, and is alive so the child has to update their schema bc a butterfly is not a bird… (new schema could include that birds have beaks, are an animal (not insect), and make a “caw” sound)
56
What are Piaget's stages of cognitive development and what ages fit them?
- Sensorimotor: 0 – 2 years
- Pre-operational: 2 – 7 years
- Concrete operational: 7 – 11 years
- Formal operational: 11+ years
57
Describe the sensorimotor stage.
- 0-2 years
- Infants progress from simple reflex actions to symbolic processing
- Develop an understanding of object permanence
58
What is object permanence? When does it develop?
- Understanding that objects continue to exist when they are no longer visible
- (Around 9 months of age, infants will search for hidden objects)
59
What does violation of expectations mean?
Infants will look longer at events that violate their expectations
60
Describe Baillargeon, 1986, 1991.
- Creates a paradigm where she shows infants an expected event (rolls car down ramp w/ toy placed behind tracks, screen comes down to hide toy, car drives in front of toy)
- and unexpected event is toy standing in path of car, gets covered, and car drives by
- Children DO look longer at the unexpected event
- so 3.5-4 month old infants can have object permanence & Piaget was underestimating their ability
61
Describe the pre-operational stage of cognitive development and its limitations.
Stage:
- Can mentally represent objects and think symbolically
- 2-7 years old
Limitations:
- Difficulty with logical reasoning/problem solving (ex: conservation)
- Difficulty representing the psychological experiences of others (ex: 3 mountains task)
62
What is conservation? When do children pass it?
- understanding that altering an object’s physical appearance does not change its quantitative properties (liquid, number, mass, volume etc.)
- Children do NOT pass conservation tasks until 6-7 years of age (b/c of centration & lacking reversibility)
~ Ex: Shows child 2 glasses of water and child is asked which has more water or if they’re the same (when they are the same) → he then pours glass B into a taller but skinnier glass and asks if they are the same
~ Ex: graham crackers → when she has 1 and other has 2, she thinks its unfair but when hers is broken in half she thinks it is fair
63
What is the three mountains task?
- Table w/ 3 paper mache mountains → child walks around and looks from different perspectives → sets teddy bear in 1 chair and child in another chair → asks what it looks like from the perspective of the teddy bear]
- Children do NOT pass the 3 mountains task until 7 to 8 years of age
64
Describe the concrete operational stage and its limitations.
Stage:
- Pass conservation tasks and can think logically about concrete situations
- 7-11 years old
Limitations:
- Reasoning is limited to real, present objects
- Difficulty with tasks that require mental manipulation ( Ex: who is the tallest of the 3 girls example)
- Difficulty thinking abstractly and reasoning hypothetically (Ex: if we didn’t have thumbs they’d say we couldn’t thumb wrestle whereas adults would mention driving, writing, etc.)
65
Describe the formal operational stage.
- 11+ years old
- Become capable of flexible and abstract thought
66
Describe Piaget's contributions and criticisms of him.
Contributions:
- Founded the discipline of cognitive development
- Explained, not just described, development
Criticisms:
- May have underestimated children’s abilities
- Vague with respect to the processes and mechanisms of change
- Stage model doesn’t account for variability in children’s performance
- Undervalues the influence of sociocultural environment
67
Describe the High Amplitude Sucking Procedure (HASP).
- Used to determine what infants prefer
- Computer analysis of sucking on pacifier - looks at rate of sucking
- more sucking = more interest
68
Describe infants’ perceptual experience of sound in utero.
Sounds in utero are low-passed filtered, thus the infant can only perceive the lower frequencies.
69
Describe the evaluations of professors study.
- Participants were surprisingly accurate in their evaluations of teachers based on thin-slices of behavior
- Accuracy = ability to predict end of year evaluations
70
Describe thin-slicing studies.
- take a thin slice of an experience and asks participants to to make judgements about the person
- humans can make judgements quickly and with some degree of accuracy
71
What is social cognition?
set of cognitive processes that we use to recognize, understand, and process social information and social situations
72
How skilled are we in evaluating others?
Judgements can be made quickly and with “some degree of accuracy”
73
Stereotypes can be...
- Inaccurate
- Overused
- Can lead to bias
74
What is stereotype threat?
fear of confirming a negative stereotype about their social group
75
Describe Jackson's impression formation task based on an actual study by Hamilton and Gifford.
- Participants tend to have a more positive view of members of group A than members of group B.
- Ratios of positive/negative were the same but group A was on it more
- availability bias
76
What is illusory correlation?
- when people estimate that they have encountered more confirmation of an association between social traits then they have actually seen...
~ Minority group attention grabbing
~ Negative events attention grabbing
~ When both occur together it is extra attention grabbing, which skews our perception of frequency
77
What does an implicit association test (IAT) measure?
Measures the “strength” of association between 2 concepts or categories
78
What is one way we can reduce bias?
- through contact & friendship...
~ Facilitates learning about the outgroup
~ Reduction in fear and anxiety
79
Describe the "fast friends" paradigm.
people answer quite personal questions so they quickly form bonds OR they solve tasks together to bond
80
What is obedience?
a the tendency to do what an authority figure tells you to do
81
What is conformity?
the tendency to do what others do simply because others are doing it
82
Describe the Solomon Asch experiment.
- Participants were asked to say out loud which
of 3 lines matched the line on the left
- 7 confederates (3rd trial confederates began saying unexpected line & gave incorrect answer on 12 trials)
- 75% of participants went along with the norm at least once (and gave the wrong answer)
- On average people conformed on 1/3 of 12 trials
83
Why did people conform in the Asch experiment?
- Normative influence: conformity results from a concern for what other people think of us.
- Informational influence: conformity results from feeling the group is giving them useful information
84
What factors influence conformity based on variations of the Asch experiment?
- Presence of an ally decreases conformity
- People conform less when confederates will not hear their responses
- # of confederates
85
Describe the Milgram Experiment.
- Participants were told that the experiment was about the effects of punishment on memory
- Experiment was rigged so participant was always the ‘teacher’ and a confederate the 'learner'
- Participants read a series of word pairs and tested the learner on their memory
- Told to increase shock for each incorrect response
- If the participant objected, the experimenter would tell them to continue
- prediction was that 1/10 of a percent would go to max. level but 65% of participants went to max. level
86
What are some possible conclusions of the Stanford Prison Experiment?
- Example of the power of social roles and how those roles play out in specific situations
- Roles, even though randomly assigned, made people do things they could have never imagined
- Today would be deemed unethical
87
What is the bystander effect?
the failure to offer help by those who observe someone in need when other people are present
88
Describe the Darley & Latane (1968) study.
- Inspire by Kitty Genovese story (murdered
while walking home from work in NYC)
- Person seems to be having a seizure over the phone
- IV: how many other people you think are on the call/listening
- DV is whether or not they go to get help (& how long did it take to go get help)
- Results: Helping behavior decreases as number of people thought to be on call increases. Response time increases as number of people thought to be on call increases
- They thought it was because of diffusion of responsibility but it may be driven more by uncertainty
89
What is diffusion of responsibility?
Tendency for people to feel diminished sense of responsibility when they are surrounded by others who are acting in the same way
90
What is the DSM? Describe it.
- Diagnostic and statistical Manual of mental Disorders (DSM-V)
- persistent disturbance or dysfunction in behavior, thoughts, or emotions that causes significant distress or impairment
- # of symptoms required for diagnosis
91
What are some benefits of the DSM?
- Helps to communicate between practitioners
- Allows for greater standardization of diagnoses
- Can guide practitioners in selecting the “most effective” treatment option
92
What approach should we use when using diagnostic labels?
- Person-centered approach
- Ex: "people with depression" not "depressed people"
93
Describe the diathesis-stress model.
- diathesis + stress = disorder
- proposes that a disorder may develop when an underlying vulnerability is coupled with a precipitating event
94
Describe the biopsychosocial model.
- a model of health that integrates the effects of biological, behavioral, and social factors on health and illness
- shows that there can be multiple underlying causes for Dif areas of issues
95
What are some drawbacks of the DSM?
- Can be problematic if just “below” cut off
- Systematic diagnosis of mental illnesses can be difficult
96
Describe the Research Domain Criteria Project (RDoC).
- Views psychological disorders as the result of differences/dysfunction in normal psychological processes
- Focus on studying basic processes/underlying causes of disorders
- Can help explain comorbidity
- Ex: Study response to reward more generally, not just cocaine addiction
97
What is anxiety?
Negative mood state accompanied by bodily symptoms such as increased heart rate, muscle tension, a sense of unease, and apprehension about the future.
98
What is generalized anxiety disorder (GAD)?
- Excessive worry about everyday things that is out of proportion to the specific causes of worry
- At least 6 months of excessive anxiety
- May be accompanied by:
~ Difficulty concentrating
~ Muscle tension, fatigue
~ Sleep problems
- Worry can be reinforced
99
What is Panic Disorder (and agoraphobia)?
- Recurrent unexpected panic attacks
- Intense anxiety and avoidance related to the attack for at least 1 month
- Causing significant distress or interference with life
- May also develop agoraphobia, a fear of public places
100
What is a specific phobia?
- Irrational fear of a specific object or situation that substantially interferes with the person's ability to function
- Most common anxiety disorder (12%)
101
What is the preparedness theory for why phobias might be so common?
- people are predisposed toward certain fears
- Easier to condition fear (in humans and in monkeys) for snakes and spiders than flowers or toy rabbits
102
What is social anxiety disorder?
- Fear of social situations which leads to worry and diminished day-to-day functioning
- 2nd most common anxiety disorder
103
What is post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)?
- Exposure to a traumatic event
- Chronic psychological arousal, recurrent unwanted thoughts or images of the trauma & avoidance of things that call the traumatic event to mind.
- More than 1 month
104
What is obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD)? How much time must it take up?
- Obsessive thoughts and/or compulsions that seem irrational or nonsensical
~ Checking, ordering, cleansing rituals, repeating
- Take up a significant amount of time (at least 1h per day)
- Cause significant distress or impairment in function
- obsession to anxiety to compulsion to relief (repeats)
105
What are obsessions and compulsions (in OCD)?
- obsessions: unwanted, inappropriate and persistent thoughts
- compulsions: repetitive, often ritualistic behaviors
106
What is major depressive disorder?
- One or more Major depressive episodes (MDE) but no history or manic or hypomanic episodes
- 5 or more of the 9 symptoms (has to include depressed mood or anhedonia)
- Symptoms occur for at least 2 weeks and cause significant distress or impairment in function
- prevalence = 18%
107
What contributes to depression?
- Biological
~ Genetics- twin studies
~ Neurotransmitters: serotonin
- Psychological
~ Attribution style: pessimistic attribution style
- Social
~ Stressful life events
~ Interpersonal factors
~ Social economic status (SES)
- Gene x Environment interactions
108
What is bipolar disorder?
- Characterized by cycles of abnormal, persistent high mood (mania) and low mood (depression)
- Mania: Must last at least 1 week
~ Decreased need for sleep
~ Talkativeness
~ Racing thoughts
~ Reckless behavior
- Prevalence = 2.5%
109
What contributes to bipolar disorders?
- Biological:
~ Genetics – twin studies
- Psychosocial
~ Life stressors
~ Positive life events lead to more manic episodes after life events in which goal is attained
110
Describe schizophrenia.
At least 2 of the 5 must be present for 1 month (and must include 1 of first 3)
- 1) Delusions: false beliefs (persecutory, grandiose, referential)
- 2) Hallucinations: perceptual experiences that occur even when there is no stimulus in outside world generating those experiences (usually auditory)
- 3) Disorganized speech: speech that is difficult to follow because answers do not clearly follow questions or one sentence does not logically flow from another
- 4) Disorganized or catatonic behavior
- 5) Negative symptoms
- Larger ventricles
- Reduced overall brain volume
- prevalence = 1%
111
Give examples of the 3 types of delusions in schizophrenia.
- Persecutory: ex: "FBI is out to get me"
- Grandiose: ex: thinking you are a movie star reincarnated, thinking you found solution to world hunger
- Referential: ex: thinking people are always talking about you, thinking newspaper articles/newscasts are actually messages sent to you
112
What factors lead to developing schizophrenia?
- Biological factors
~ Genetics
~ Neurotransmitter/dopamine abnormality
- Environmental factors
~ Issues during pregnancy (stress, infection, malnutrition, hypoxia)
113
Describe the goals of Psychoanalytic/ psychodynamic therapy.
- Reduce inner conflict by giving patients insight into their unconscious thoughts and feelings
- Reveal how childhood experiences have shaped the individual
114
Describe the goals of cognitive behavioral therapy.
- Teach people new, more constructive ways of thinking and acting (i.e., change the cognitions and the behaviors of a disorder)
- Homework to practice techniques learned in therapy
115
What is Psychopharmacology?
the study of the effect of drugs on the mind and behavior
116
What is antipsychotic medication?
- Blocks dopamine receptor sites (some also affect serotonin systems)
- Treats some positive symptoms, not negative ones
- Ex: Chlorpromazine (Thorazine)
117
What is antidepressant medication?
- Commonly: Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs)
- Fluoxetine (Prozac)
- Can also treat anxiety and eating disorders
118
Which school of psychological thought utilized introspection?
structuralism
119
In their studies of visual processing in cats, ___________ found that there were feature detection cells in the cat’s primary visual cortex that responded primarily to ________.
- Hubel & Wiesel
- lines and angles
