PSYCH unit 3

Question 1

what is the nervous system

Answer 1

a complex but organised network of signals that facilliate the cimmuncation of messages all over the body

Question 2

what is the nervous system made up of

Answer 2

the CNS (central nervous system) that includes the brain and the spinal cord.
the PNS (peripheral nervous system) that includes the nervous outside the brain and spinal cord

Question 3

what is the role of the hypothalamus

Answer 3

• Maintains homeostasis: a consistent internal environment
• Works to maintain body temperature, blood sugar levels, water levels, and more:
  achieved through nerve impulses and
  releasing/triggering the release of hormones

Question 4

what is the role of the cerebrum

Answer 4

Largest part of the brain into two parts:
- left and right cerebral hemispheres
different parts are responsible for memory, emotions, senses and problem solving

Question 5

what is the role of the cerebellum

Answer 5

helps to coordinate our body movements and maintaining posture and balance

Question 6

what is the role of the medulla oblongata

Answer 6

part of the brian stem that connects the brain to the spinal cord.
controls lots of involuntary processes e.g. breathing and heart rate

Question 7

what is the role of the spinal cord

Answer 7

transmit information between the brian and the peripheral nervous system which then transmits messages to rest of body

Question 8

which structure connects the left and right hemisphere of the brain

Answer 8

corpus callosum

Question 9

two types of electrical impulses

Answer 9

sensory and motor neurons

Question 10

function of sensory neurons and example

Answer 10

carry information about the environment from the rest of the body to the brain e.g.

Question 11

function of motor neurons and example

Answer 11

send messages from the brain to effector cells in order to initiate a response e.g. muscle cells to initiate a movement

Question 12

PNS consists of two sub systems

Answer 12

somatic and autonomic NS

Question 13

Somatic nervous system

Answer 13

voluntary conscious part of the nervous system:
- responisble for controlling what you are aware of
made up of nerves that connect to the skin, sensory organs and skeletal muscles e.g walking, running

Question 14

autonomic nervous system

Answer 14

involuntary unconscious part of the nervous system:
- controlling eveything not thinking about
made up of nerves that connect the cardiac muscle in the heart and the smooth muscle in the organs e.g sweating, salavating, heart rate

Question 15

two sub systems of autonomic nervous system

Answer 15

sympathetic NS and parasympathetic NS

Question 16

sympathetic nervous system

Answer 16

automatically responds to stressful situations whcih is mostly known as fight or flight
body reaction e.g. heart rate increases, muscle tense, breathing rate increases, digestion stops

Question 17

parasymathetic nervous system

Answer 17

calms the body when there are no stressful stimuli known as “rest and digest” body reaction e.g. heart rate slows, muscles relax, breathing rate slows, digestion occurs

Question 18

what is classical conditioning

Answer 18

• A three-phase process that involves developing an association with a stimulus (or stimuli) that results in a learned response.
• associate two stimuli in their minds and react to one of them as though it was the other

Question 19

who was classical conditioning first described by

Answer 19

Ivan Pavlov in 1899

Question 20

what was ivan pavlov studies on and what was it

Answer 20

He trained a hungry dog to salivate at the sound of a metronome or buzzer, which was previously associated with the sight of food.

Question 21

what is neutral conditioning

Answer 21

it is a stimulus that initially does not evoke a response until it is paired with an unconditioned stimulus

Question 21

what is unconditioned stimulus

Answer 21

one that unconditionally naturally and automatically triggers a response. takes place without any prior learning

Question 22

what is unconditioned response

Answer 22

is an unlearned response that occurs naturally in reaction to the unconditioned stimulus

Question 23

what is conditioned stimulus

Answer 23

is a stimulus that was once neutral (didnt trigger a reponse) but now leads to a response

Question 24

what is conditioned response

Answer 24

is a learned response or a response that is created where no response existed before

Question 25

essentially…..

Answer 25

Unconditioned = natural
conditioned = learnt
stimulus= thing that causes behaviour
response = behaviour
NS (neutral stimulus) and CS (conditioned) should be the same
UCR and CR usually the same or relate to each other

Question 26

what is stimulus generalisation

Answer 26

occurs when a stimulus that is similar to an already-conditioned stimulus begins to produce the same response as the original stimulus does

Question 27

what is stimulus discrimmination

Answer 27

the ability to distinguish among different stimuli

Question 28

what is spontanoeus recovery

Answer 28

can be defined as the reappearance of the conditioned response after a rest period or period of lessened response.

Question 29

what was the “little albert experiment”

Answer 29

In 1920 American psychologist John Watson used a 9 month old who never cried as a test subject.
“Albert” was allowed to play with a rat on the floor of the lab. He showed no fear with a rat, or other animals and objects but he was afraid of a hammer on steel bar hit behind him.
Watson paired the rat with the loud noise & eventually this made Albert cry.
Once the response was conditioned Albert cried and tried to crawl away when he saw the rat, a dog, a fur coat and a Santa Claus mask although the response was less in a larger lab.

Question 30

what is operant conditioning

Answer 30

occurs when an association is made between a particular behaviour and a consequence for that behaviour. Association built upon use of reinforcement and/or punishment to encourage or discourage behaviour.

Question 31

who was operant conditioning studied by and how did he describe it

Answer 31

B.F. Skinner
Operant behaviourwas the term Skinner used to describe a behaviour that is reinforced by the consequences that follow it. Those consequences play an important role in whether or not a behaviour is performed again.

Question 32

what was B.F. skinners experiments

Answer 32

Skinner began with pigeons and rats in the 1930s he trained them to turn in circles when a light flash or push a lever when bell rang and rewarding them with food.

Question 33

what is the ABC of operant conditioning

Answer 33

Antecedent- the action event or circumstance that led up tothe behaviour occurring and encompasses anything that might contribute to the behaviour occurring

Behaviour- refers to what the subject does in response to the antecedent (discriminative stimulus)

Consequence- an action or response that follows the behaviour (reinforcers or punishers)

Question 34

two types of reinforcers

Answer 34

primary reinforcers - naturally reinforced behaviour because they are innately desirable e.g. food

conditioned reinforcers - reinforce behaviour not because they are innately desirable, but because welearnto associate them with primary reinforcers.
Paper money is not innately desirable, but it can be used to acquire innately desirable goods, such as food and shelter

Question 35

describe positive, negative reinforcer and descibe punisher

Answer 35

positive reinforcer- a reward that strengthens a response by providing a pleasant or satisfying consequence.
negative reinforcer - the removal, reduction or prevention of an unpleasant stimulus
punisher- any stimulus (action or event) that weakens or decreases the likelihood of a response(behaviour)

Question 36

what two types of punishment are there

Answer 36

postive punishment- something happens to you, behaviour followed by negative experience. A parent yells at a child who has drawn on his bedroom wall; a mother cat picks up a kitten that has run away and shakes him
negative punishment- something is taken away from you. A form of punishment that entails something desirable being removed, such as being grounded (losing freedom

Question 37

who studied the social learning theory

Answer 37

Albert bandura 1977

Question 38

what is the social learning theory

Answer 38

Asserts that most human behaviour is learned through observation, imitation, and modelling
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Question 39

what two theories did Bandura add to classical and operant conditioning

Answer 39

mediating processes occur between stimuli and responses
behaviour is learned from the environment through the process of observational learning.

Question 40

define vicarious learning

Answer 40

a theory that an individual is more/less likely to engage in a behaviour/activity depending on if they witness another being rewarded/punished for it

Question 41

what is positive and negative vicarious reinforcement

Answer 41

positive vicarious where a learner witnesses another person (model) being rewarded for a behaviour and so decides to act in the same way

Negative vicarious reinforcement - where a learner witnesses another person (model) being punished for a behaviour and so decides to discontinue or not act in the same way

Question 42

three processes involved in memory

Answer 42

encoding, storage and retrieval (or recall)

Question 43

what did Atkinson and Shiffrin (1968) propose

Answer 43

the multi-store model of memory

Question 44

what three stores of memory does the multi-store of memory detail

Answer 44

sensory, short term and long term

Question 45

sensory memory

Answer 45

unlimited capacity, brief duration
Two examples of sensory memory that relate to our visual and auditory sensory systems are iconic and echoic memory.

Question 46

short term memory

Answer 46

Receives information from both sensory and long-term memory
If sensory information is attended to
Memories can be retrieved from long term
Limited capacity (5-9 pieces of information)
Duration of approximately 12-20 seconds (no interference/ distraction)
Once capacity is reached information must be displaced for new information to remain

Question 47

long term memory

Answer 47

Important information store required for every day function
Information needs to be encoded
Stored semantically in semantic networks (meaning applied)
Allows for the information to be retrieved
Capacity of long term memory unknown, considered to be infinite
Forgetting generally attributed to poor retrieval cues rather than capacity issues

Question 48

types of long term memory

Answer 48

Procedural memory: how to perform tasks
Declarative memory: long-term memory store of personal experiences and facts
Semantic memory: Facts
Episodic memory: Memories or events
Retrospective memory: past events
Prospective memory: future to-do’s
Implicit and explicit memory: unconscious and conscious retrieval of memory

Question 49

describe implicit and explicit memory

Answer 49

Implicit - procedural
Memories about skills, emotions, preferences, disposition, motor skills, conditioning
Thought that these memories are processed by the amygdala and cerebellum

Explicit - declarative
Conscious retrieval of memories (recall and recognition) – facts, names, images, events etc.
Thought to be processed by the hippocampus

Question 50

what is LOP and who studied it

Answer 50

In 1972,Craikand Lockhart devised the levels of processing (LOP) model of memory, which suggests that incoming sensory information is processed at three different encoding levels: shallow (structural – sight or touch), intermediate (phonetic – hearing) and deep (semantic – meaning).

Question 51

what are the three methods of memory retrieval

Answer 51

recall, relearning, recognition

Question 52

what are the three types of recall

Answer 52

Free recall:
The recollection of as much information as possible without any cues
Serial recall:
Recalling information in the order it was presented
Cued recall:
Recall assisted by prompts/hints (cues) to aid retrieval without using the original terms
Least sensitive form of retrieval

Question 53

which is the most sensitive form of retrieval and which is the least sensitive

Answer 53

relearning most
recall least

Question 54

what is context dependent memory

Answer 54

refers to the improved memory performance when individuals are tested in the same context in which they learned the tested material.

Question 55

who studied context dependent memroy

Answer 55

grant et al. 1998

Question 56

what experiment did Godden and Baddley do and what was its focus

Answer 56

many instances of context-dependent effects for recall tasks (Godden &Baddeley, 1975).
Scuba divers performed better on their tests when the material was learnt in the same environment in which the test was completed (underwater)

Question 57

what are the stages of vision? divided into sensation and perception

Answer 57

sensation-
1. Reception : Stimulus energy is collected by the eye.

2. Transduction : Stimulus energy is converted by the receptor cells into electrochemical nerve impulses.
3. Transmission : Receptor cells send the nerve impulses to the primary sensory cortex where specialised receptor cells respond as the process of perception begins.

perception:
4. Selection: We can’t pay attention to all the millions of stimuli that we receive at the same time, so we pick out the ones that are important to us and pay attention to those.

5. Organisation: The information reaches the brain and is organised so that we are able to make sense of it.
6. Interpretation: Our past experiences, motives, values and context (including stimulation) give the stimulus meaning.