Psychology Flashcards
What is psychology?
The study of behaviour and mental process
What are the 4 goals of psychology?
Description, Explanation, Prediction & Change
What’s description?
tells “what” occurred
What’s explanation?
tells “why” a behaviour or mental process occurred
What’s Prediction?
Identifies conditions under which a future behaviour or mental process is likely to occur
What’s change?
Applies psychological knowledge to prevent unwanted behaviour or to bring about desired goals
Why psychology?
Learn about and better understand your own an others behaviour
Modern psychology arose from:
philosophy and physiology
Aristotle asked questions to understand the relationship between:
Body and psyche
What did Wilhelm Wundt establish?
The first psychology lab in Germany, in 1879
What are two key elements that help make psychology a science?
- Carefully measured observation
- Experiments
What does introspection mean?
Systematic self-observation
What are early approaches?
Structuralism and Functionalism
What is structuralism?
sought to identify the basic components or structures of conscious experience
What is functionalism?
The function or purpose of consciousness and not structure. Interaction between the mind and the environment.
Who is William James?
The father of American psychology
What are the modern approaches?
Behavioural, psychoanalytical, humanistic, Cognitive, Biological
Evolutionary and behaviour genetics and Social-cultural
What’s a behavioural approach?
study the objective, observable environmental influences on overt behaviour. It cannot study consciousness because it cannot be directly observed.
Skinner and Watson
What’s a psychoanalytical approach and who took part?
Sigmund Freud emphasized the importance of the unconscious mind and its effect in the human behaviour. It’s unlearned biological instincts
What psychologist took part in the behavioural approach?
Skinner and Watson
What psychologist took part in the humanistic approach?
Maslow abd Roger
What is the humanistic approach?
Optimistic view of human behaviour. It focuses on the free will, self-actualization and positive growth-seeking human nature.
What’s a Cognitive approach?
renewed interest in cognition and the biology behind behaviour
What’s cognition?
Mental processes involved in accumulating knowledge
Cognitive Neuroscience approach:
Studies the brain activity underlying mental activity
What’s a biological approach?
Behaviours that can be explained by the influence of genetics and other biological processes in the brain and other parts of the nervous system.
The brain and NS are central to understanding behaviour, thought and emotion
What’s evolutionary Approach?
The importance of natural selection, adaptation and evolution on why certain behaviours are formed, modified and survive over time.
What’s behaviour Genetics?
The study of the relative power and limits of genetic and environmental influences on behaviour.
How humans may different because of genetics and environment
How are humans similar because of genetics and the environment
What’s behaviour Genetics?
The study of the relative power and limits of genetic and environmental influences on behaviour.
How humans may different because of genetics and environment
What’s a social-cultural approach?
The recognition of social interaction, context and cultural determinants of mental processes and behaviour. How culture shapes the mind
Why are multiple perspective are enriching?
They allow psychologist to better understand and research complex behaviour and mental processes. It’s possible to view the world in more than one way.
Applied Research vs Basic Research
Applied research conducts research that applies psychological principles to practical problem
Vs
Basic research conducts research to discover the basic principles of human behaviour
Clinical psychologist vs
Counselling psychologist
clinical psychologist diagnose and treat psychological problems
vs
Counselling psychologist is the treatment of milder problems such as adjustment issues.
Psychiatrist vs Psychologist
Psychiatrist is a medical doctor specializing in diagnosis and treatment of psych problem
vs
Psychologist majority of them conduct research only clinical training.
What are psychology’s subfield: Research?
Biological, developmental, cognitive, personality and social
What would be considered limits of intuition?
Hindsight bias, overconfidence error and perceiving order in random event
What is hindsight bias?
the outcome of an event, many people believe they could have predicted that very outcome.
Molding our thinking to fit how events turn out
What’s overconfidence error?
Certainty in our judgement
Overestimate the accuracy of our knowledge
What’s a random event?
Trying to put a pattern on a random event
Gambler fallacy- having a better change because an event hasn’t occurred in a while
What is scientific research?
Effective and generalizable than intuition, avoids hindsight
What are the 4 scientific methods?
- Theories- set of principles
- Hypotheses- testable prediction
- Research & observation
- Replication
What are the 3 research methods?
1.Experimental
2. Descriptive
3. Correlation
What are the 3 research methods?
1.Experimental
2. Descriptive
3. Correlation (predictive)
What are the 4 goals of psychology?
- Description-“what”
- Explanation- “why”
- Prediction
- Applies psychological knowledge
What’s a descriptive research?
It observes and records behaviour without producing causal explanations
What are 3 different types of descriptive research?
Naturalistic observation- may change the way you behave when being observed
Survey- gathering info from many ppl
Case study- single case study
What is correlational research?
Research observes or measures 2 or more variables to determine a relationship between them
What are the types of correlations?
Positive: move in the same direction
Negative: Move in opposite direction
True or false: a correlation is a causation?
False
What’s a confounding variable ?
a variable which is uncontrolled or unaccounted for and may influence the result of a research study
What’s experimental research?
controlled scientific procedure that manipulates variables to determine cause and effect
What are key factors of experimental research?
Independent variable- manipulated factors vs Dependent- measured factor
Experimental (receives treatment) vs control group (no treatment)
What are the 3 measures of central tendency?
Mode
Mean
Median
What is an extreme outliers called
Skewed
what’s variability?
It described the spread of the scores in a distribution. How similar or different the people in the sample are from one another. Two samples with the same mean can be very different
What’s a normal bell curve?
An aptitude tests tend to form a normal cell shaped, curve.
When are differences reliable?
- Representative samples are better than biased samples.
- Less variable observations are more reliable than more variable ones.
- More cases are better than fewer cases.
When calculations indicate that research results are not likely to be result of chance, we say that the results are called:
statistically significant
What’s prosopagnosia?
Face blindness
What’s sensation?
Process of receiving, translating, and transmitting raw sensory information from the external and internal environments to the brain.
What’s perception?
Process of selecting, organizing, and interpreting sensory data
What are the 3 steps of the process of sensation?
Reception
Transduction
Transmission
What’s reception?
the stimulation of sensory receptor cells by energy (sound, light, heat, etc)
What’s transduction?
transforming this cell stimulation into neural impulses
What’s transmission?
delivering this neural information to the brain to be processed
What’s absolute threshold?
the minimum level of stimulus intensity needed to detect a stimulus half the time.
Anything below the threshold is considered what?
Subliminal
What’s sensory adaptation?
To detect novelty in our surroundings, our senses tune out a constant stimulus.
What path does light take in our eyes?
Cornea, pupils, Iris, lens retina and the Fovea
Name the 2 photoreceptors:
Rods and Cones
What are Rods?
help us see the black and white actions in our peripheral view and in the dark
What’s are Cones?
help us see sharp colourful details in bright light.
A great amplitude would show what colours?
Bright colours
A small amplitude would show what colours?
Dull colours
A short wavelength = high frequency would show what colour?
bluish colours
Long wavelength = low frequency would show what colour?
Reddish colour?
What are the primary colours of vision and light?
Blue, green & red
What’s the Trichromatic theory
Relative activity levels between the three different cone types are compared in the brain. This determines the colour of a stimulus. This helps to explain certain types of colour blindness.
What is the opponent process theory?
Within one colour pair, one member will respond positively to one colour (e.g. blue) and negative to the other (e.g. yellow). This helps to explain complementary colour afterimages and prominence of yellow as a primary colour.
What does the outer ear do?
collects sound and funnels it to the eardrum.
What does the middle ear do?
the sound waves hit the eardrum and move the hammer, anvil, and stirrup in ways that amplify the vibrations. The stirrup then sends these vibrations to the oval window of the cochlea.
What does the inner ear do?
waves of fluid move from the oval window over the cochlea’s “hair” receptor cells. These cells send signals through the auditory nerves to the temporal lobe of the brain.
What is intensity?
Amount of energy in a wave, determined by the amplitude, relates to the perceived loudness.
What would be considered prolonged exposure to sounds?
85db
What’s a frequency (pitch)?
The dimension of frequency determined by the wavelength of sound.
What’s a wavelength?
The distance from the peak of one wave to the peak of the next.
What’s Olfaction?
Sense of smell
What’s gustation?
Sense of taste
The sense of touch consist of what four basic skin sensation
Pressure
Warmth
Cold
Pain
What’s the Gate-Control Theory?
Our spinal cord contains neurological “gates” that either block pain or allow it to be sensed.
What’s the Gate-Control Theory?
Our spinal cord contains neurological “gates” that either block pain or allow it to be sensed.
What’s Kinesthesis?
The sense of our body parts’ position and movement
what’s the vestibular sense?
monitors the head (and as a result your body’s) position.
What’s an illusion?
False or misleading perceptions that help scientists study normal processes of perception
What are the 4 major factors of interpretation?
1.Perceptual adaptation
2.Perceptual set
3.Context effects (or frame of reference)
4. Bottom-up vs. top-down processing
what’s perceptual adaptation?
Visual ability to adjust to an artificially displaced visual field
What’s a perceptual set?
Readiness to perceive in a particular manner, based on expectations
What’s bottom-up?
taking sensory information and then assembling and integrating it
What’s top-down?
using models, ideas, and expectations to interpret sensory information
Why do we study the brain in psychology?
Our brains controls all our behaviours except for simple reflexes
What are the 2 types of major cells in the nervous system?
Neurons and glial cells
What are neurons?
cells that receive, integrate and transmit information (i.e., permit communication). Features: soma (with nucleus), dendrites, axon, and myelin sheath, terminal branches.
What are glial cells?
cells that support neurons (i.e., support communication). They provide nourishment to neurons, remove waste products, provide insulation around axons.
How do neurons communicate?
transmit signals electrochemically
Each neuron receives excitatory and inhibitory signals from many other neurons.
When the excitatory signals minus the inhibitory signals exceed a minimum intensity (i.e., threshold) the neuron fires
This is called an action potential.
What are the properties of action potential
A strong external stimulus can trigger more neurons to fire, and to fire more often, but it does not affect the action potentials strength or speed.
Intensity of an action potential remains the same throughout the length of the axon.
What’s the synapse?
The junction between the terminal button (on the end of an axon) of one neuron (pre-synaptic), and either:
the dendrite of another neuron (post-synaptic),
the membrane of a muscle fibre, or
a gland
What’s the synapse cleft?
The gap between the terminal button of the pre-synaptic neuron and the cell membrane of the post-synaptic neuron.
What’s reuptake?
After the action potential is communicated to the post-synaptic neuron, the neurotransmitter that remains in the synaptic cleft is broken down by an enzyme, it is then re-absorbed by the pre-synaptic neuron and used to produce more neurotransmitter later on – process
What’s reuptake?
After the action potential is communicated to the post-synaptic neuron, the neurotransmitter that remains in the synaptic cleft is broken down by an enzyme, it is then re-absorbed by the pre-synaptic neuron and used to produce more neurotransmitter later on – process
What are neurotransmitters?
Each neurotransmitter has a specific function (sometimes many functions)
Transmitters can only bind to receptors where they ‘fit’ (lock and key)
Some transmitters stimulate or ‘excite’ neurons to fire, others inhibit neurons from firing
Neurons must integrate all excitatory and inhibitory transmitter inputs to come to a decision about launching or not launching an action potential
What’s acetylecholine?
Usually stimulates (i.e., ‘excites’) the firing of neurons
Involved in voluntary muscle activity (e.g., walking, talking, etc.) and regulating attentiveness, arousal and memory
What’s dopamine?
Mainly inhibits neuronal firing
Helps to control voluntary movement
Contributes to the experience of pleasurable emotions
Affects sleep, mood, attention, and learning
What’s dopamine hypothesis?
Overactivity in dopamine circuits are associated with schizophrenia
What are endorphins?
Natural opiates (or pain killers) that mainly stimulate the firing of neurons
Internally produced chemicals
Shield the body from pain and elevate feelings of pleasure
What’s the CNS?
Comprised of the brain and spinal cord
Spinal cord connects the brain to the rest of the body through the peripheral nervous system
What’s the PNS?
Comprised of the nerves that lie outside the brain and spinal cord
The PNS can be divided into two subareas:
Somatic nervous system: Nerves that connect to voluntary skeletal muscles and sensory receptors
Autonomic nervous system: Nerves that connect to the heart, blood vessels, smooth muscles and glands
What’s the autonomic nervous system?
Refers to the ‘involuntary’ part of the peripheral nervous system (i.e., organs that we cannot control directly)
Participates in the regulation of the internal environment/organs
Heart rate, blood pressure, perspiration
Explain and name the 2 subdivisions of the autonomic nervous system?
Sympathetic: Stimulates energy resources to deal with threatening situations (activates functions that accompany arousal & energy expenditure)
Ex: Fight or flight response
Parasympathetic: Acts to conserve energy (activates functions that occur during a relaxed state)
Explain the oldest part of the brain
The brainstem is the oldest part of the brain, beginning where the spinal cord swells and enters the skull. It is responsible for automatic survival functions.
What is the base of the brainstem and what does it do?
The medulla is the base of the brainstem that controls heartbeat , breathing, and regulates reflexes.
What does the thalamus do?
the brain’s sensory switchboard, located on top of the brainstem. It directs messages to the sensory areas in the cortex and transmits replies to the cerebellum and medulla.
What’s the reticular formation?
a nerve network in the brainstem that plays an important role in controlling arousal.
What’s the cerebellum?
The “little brain” attached to the rear of the brainstem. It helps coordinate voluntary movements and balance.
What happens when damage to the cerebellum occurs?
Damage to the cerebellum causes coordination difficulties
What’s the limbic system?
a doughnut-shaped system of neural structures at the border of the brainstem and cerebrum, associated with emotions and drives
Amygdala is a part of the limbic system, what does it consist of?
The amygdala consists of two lima bean-sized neural clusters linked to the emotions of fear and anger.
The hippocampus is a part of the limbic system, what does it do?
The hippocampus processes conscious memories.
It has strong connections to the amygdala, with emotionally significant events being more likely to be encoded.
The hippocampus is a part of the limbic system, what does it do?
The hippocampus processes conscious memories.
It has strong connections to the amygdala, with emotionally significant events being more likely to be encoded.
The hypothalamus is a part of the limbic system, what does it do?
The hypothalamus lies below (hypo) the thalamus
“Reward” centre of the brain.
What’s the cerebral cortex?
The intricate fabric of interconnected neural cells that covers the cerebral hemispheres. It is the body’s ultimate control and information processing centre.
What causes impairment of language?
left hemisphere damage either to Broca’s area (impaired speaking) or to Wernicke’s area (impaired understanding
What’s aphasia?
Impairment of language
What are the lobes of the brain?
occipital, parietal, temporal and frontal
What’s the occipital lobe?
Visual centre, primary visual cortex.
What’s the parietal lobe?
Spatial location, attention, movement, recognition. Primary somatosensory cortex.
What’s the temporal lobe?
Speech and sound production, memory. Primary auditory cortex.
What’s the temporal lobe?
Speech and sound production, memory. Primary auditory cortex.
What’s the frontal lobe?
Voluntary muscles, cognitive abilities, personality. Primary motor cortex.
Who’s Phineas Gage?
Railroad worker in accident where an iron rod was pushed through the front of his skull
Caused damage to the frontal lobe
Personality pre-injury: mild-mannered, hardworking, calm
Personality post-injury: moody, irresponsible, selfish
Brain’s plasticity refers to what?
refers to the brain’s ability to modify itself after some types of injury or illness.
What’s the lateralization?
The left and right hemispheres specialize in particular operations
