Psych Test Revision Flashcards
What is psychology?
The scientific study of human thoughts, feelings and behaviour.
What are behaviours?
Directly observable actions.
What are mental processes?
Internal and personal activities that are potentially inferrable from behaviour.
Science vs Pseudoscience
Science uses empirical evidence and minimises personal bias.
What does the Cerebral Cortex do?
It processes complex information (sensory areas), initiates movement (motor areas), and integrating functions (association areas).
Where is the Cerebral Cortex?
Outer layer of the brain and appears wrinkled.
What are the cerebral hemispheres and how similar are they?
The left and right hemispheres are similar in size, shape and structure, they are involved in almost all functions.
What is hemispheric specialisation?
One hemisphere specializes in/has greater control over certain functions.
What does the left hemisphere control?
Verbal (use of words), analytical functions (breaking things down sequentially) and processes sensations and controls voluntary movement on the right side of the body.
What does the right hemisphere control?
Visual (facial recognition), spatial thinking (emotion recognition) and processes sensations and controls voluntary movements on the left side of the body.
What are cortical lobes?
The areas of the cerebral cortex associated with different functions.
Each cerebral hemisphere has which lobes?
Frontal lobe, parietal lobe, occipital lobe and temporal lobe.
What does the frontal lobe do and what is special about it?
Largest lobe and last to fully develop, distinguishes humans from other species, as complex thoughts come from it.
Helps coordinate other lobes functions, is crucial for behavioural and emotional regulation and is involved in problem solving.
What does the parietal lobe do?
Receives and processes somatosensory information and is responsible for spatial reasoning.
What does the temporal lobe do?
Involved in auditory perception and facial recognition, emotional signals.
What does the occipital lobe do?
Processes visual information and specialized neurons in it respond.
What is synaptic plasticity?
This is how the brain adapts as a product of its experiences.
What is a sensation?
Sense receptors detect and respond to sensory data, that is processed by the brain.
What is perception?
How people interpret and give meaning to sensory information.
Visual Sensation vs Visual Perception
Visual sensation is a purely physiological process which acts independently of other senses and is the same for all people with standard vision. Visual perception is the process of observation which may differ between people, this is the process of selecting and interpreting information brought to the brain. Can be influenced by input from other senses.
What are the processes of the visual perception system?
RTTI
Reception (sensory info received), Transduction (converted to neural impulse), Transmission (sent to brain for processing), Organisation and Selection can be grouped with Interpretation (sensory info understood through assigned meaning), leading to conscious awareness of stimuli. Relies heavily on sensory nervous system.
What are the key structures in the eye?
Aqueous humour, Vitreous humour, cornea, lens, eye muscles, optic nerve, sclera, pupil, iris, retina, photoreceptors and optic disc.
What is the aqueous humour?
Clear watery fluid between cornea and lens, lubricates them.
What is the cornea?
Clear, in front of the iris and bends light into lens.
What is the lens?
Flexible structure that focuses light on the retina, creating inverted images.
What is the vitreous humour?
Clear fluid between lens and retina.
What do the eye muscles do?
Enable the eye to rotate in its socket.
What does the optic nerve do?
Carries electrical signals to and from the brain.
What is the sclera?
Eye white.
What is the pupil?
Opening in iris centre, allows light to enter eye.
What is the iris?
Coloured part of eye around pupil regulating amount of light entering the eye.
What is the retina?
Photoreceptors and glial cell layer capturing photons and transmit them to the brain chemically and electrically.
What are photoreceptors?
Rods and cones.
What is the optic disc?
Region where ganglion cells’ axons form optic nerve.
What is the path of light?
CPIVLRO
Light moves through Cornea, through Pupil (surrounded by Iris), through Lens, through vitreous humour to Retina, to optic nerve to primary visual cortex in occipital lobe.
Rods vs Cones
Rods - Low levels of light, night vision, black and white, peripheral, on retina edge
Cones - Bright light, day vision, colour, visual acuity, in fovea.
What are depth cues?
Visual cues allowing judgement of distance or depth.
Allow us to perceive the world in 3D because retinal image is received in 2D.
What are the two monocular depth cues?
Accomodation (lens’s focus adjustment with distance) and pictorial depth cues (LITRH)
What are pictorial depth cues?
LITRH - Linear perspective (parallel lines seem to converge with distance),
Interposition (overlapping objects, where one is obscured making the one behind look further away)
Texture gradient (detail fades with distance), Relative size (larger is closer)
Height in visual field (close to horizon is further away).
What are binocular depth cues?
Depth is judged by comparing images from both eyes, especially for nearby objects
What is retinal disparity?
Comparison of images perceived by each eye, when combined accurate cohesive image is created. Closer object = greater disparity
What is convergence?
Brain interprets depth/distance from changes in eye muscle tension. Closer object = greater convergence.
What are the Gestalt principles?
FCSP Figure-ground, Closure, similarity, proximity
What is figure ground?
The organisation of visual information by separating important aspects of visual field into “figure” and “ground”
What is closure?
Perceptual tendency to mentally “close” gaps in image to perceive it as a whole.
What is similarity?
Tendency to perceive stimuli with similar features as being a whole.
What is proximity?
Tendency to perceive parts of a visual image that are close together as belonging together.
Psychology vs Psychiatry
Psychiatrists are medical doctors, psychologists are not. Psychiatrists prescribe medication, psychologists can’t.
What affects vision?
Genetics influence conditions like myopia and color blindness, developmental issues affect binocular vision, and depth cues guide perception.
Where are rods and cones most concentrated?
Cones are the most concentrated in the fovea and rods are concentrated in outer areas of the retina.
How do photoreceptors aid reception and transduction?
Photoreceptors detect light helping reception and converting light into electrical signals that the brain can interpret aids transduction and transmission.
What are two specialisations of psychology?
Health psychologists - promote positive health behaviours to encourage optimal health and prevent poor health.
Clinical neuropsychologists - assess, diagnose, and treat individuals with brain disorders
Why is retinal disparity only useful for close up objects?
Beyond this range, the difference in the images seen by each eye becomes too small to detect accurately.
Are there more rods or cones?
Rods
Why are many monocular depth cues also known as pictorial depth cues?
Because they can be used to create the illusion of depth in a 2D image, like a picture or painting. These cues allow artists and observers to perceive depth and distance from a single eye.
Why is accomodation different to all other monocular depth cues?
Accomodation is the lens’ automatic adjustment to distance. This is a physiological process, whereas other monocular depth cues, rely on visual information rather than bodily adjustments.
Name and explain a binocular depth cue that someone would not be capable of if they only had one working eye and how this would affect their vision?
They would be incapable of convergence which is where the brain interprets distance by the tension in the eye muscles. Without this depth perception would be significantly reduced because in this process the brain compares the movement of the eyes to focus on close objects. The ability to judge proximity of close objects would be impaired.
What is meant by a sensory system?
A sensory system refers to the body parts that work together to detect and process environmental information.
