Psychology Flashcards
What is the definition of learning?
Process by which experience produces a relatively enduring change in an organism’s behaviour or capabilities.
What are the four types of learning processes?
- NON-ASSOCIATIVE LEARNING: response to repeated stimuli. 2. CLASSICAL CONDITIONING: learning what events signal e.g. that ringing a bell signals food. 3. OPERANT CONDITIONING: learning one thing leads to another. 4. OBSERVATIONAL CONDITIONING: learning from others.
What is habituation?
A decrease in the strength of a response to a repeated stimulus e.g. living on a busy road would originally keep you awake at night –> eventually, you don’t notice it.
What is sensitisation?
Increase in the strength of response to a repeated stimulus.
What are the two types of stimuli?
UNCONDITIONED STIMULUS (UCS): a stimulus that elicits a reflexive or innate response without prior learning; CONDITIONED STIMULUS (CS): a stimulus, through association with a UCS, comes to elicit a conditioned response similar to the original UCR. E.g. food induces salivation; a bell indicating food will also induce salvation.
What are the two types of response?
UNCONDITIONED RESPONSE (UCR): a reflexive or innate response that is elicited by a stimulus without prior learning; CONDITIONED RESPONSE (CR): a response elicited by a conditioned stimulus. E.g. food induces salivation; a bell indicating food will also induce salvation.
What makes classical conditioning strongest? (x4)
• There are repeated CS-UCS pairings e.g. food is paired with the bell ringing during conditioning MULTIPLE times before the bell is sounded without food. • The UCS is more intense. • The sequence involved forward pairing i.e. CS –> UCS. • The time interval between the CS and UCS is short.
What is stimulus generalization?
A tendency to respond to stimuli that are similar, but not identical, to a conditioned stimulus e.g. snakes = fear; you can apply the same fear to other species of snakes because of your original association.
How does the extent of the similarity of a stimulus affect the conditioned response?
Similar stimuli will elicit the conditioned response, but in a WEAKER form. See graph.
What is stimulus discrimination?
The ability to respond to various stimuli e.g. a fear of dogs might only include certain breeds.
What is the “Little Albert” Experiment regarding classical conditioning?
By WATSON and RAYNOR: Nine-month infant selected and allowed to play with a white rat. Each time Albert touched the rat, Watson and Raynor made a loud sound behind Albert. Albert responded by crying and showing fear. After several such pairings, Albert was presented with only the rat. Upon seeing the rat, Albert showed fear –> had now become a conditioned stimulus, and it has elicited a conditioned response, similar to the distress (unconditioned response) originally given to the sound (unconditioned stimulus).
What is the Little Albert Experiment regarding stimulus generalisation?
Days after the conditioning session, Albert tested with numerous other objects – rat, wooden blocks, rabbit, dog, coat. Result: there was a strong fear to other furry animals.
What is the two-factor theory of maintenance of classically conditioned associations?
A needle can induce a fear response (conditioned stimulus and unconditioned response). When patient avoids injections, the fear is reduced, so tendency to avoid is reinforced.
What is Thorndike’s Law of Effect?
An action followed by satisfying consequences is more likely to be repeated. An action followed by an aversive consequence is less likely to be repeated. E.g. each time a monkey presses a button, they get a treat. They will therefore keep pressing the button.
What is operant conditioning?
Behaviour is learned and maintained by its consequences.
What is the difference between positive and negative reinforcement?
• These terms do not describe ‘nice’ and ‘nasty’. They describe whether an action is reinforced based on stimuli. • POSITIVE REINFORCEMENT: occurs when a response is strengthened by the subsequent presentation of a reinforcer e.g. drinking water is reinforced by the refreshing feel it gives us. • NEGATIVE REINFORCMENT: occurs when response is strengthened by the removal (or avoidance) of an aversive stimulus e.g. the use of painkillers is reinforced by removing pain.
What is the difference between a primary and secondary positive reinforcer?
PRIMARY: those needed for survival e.g. food, water, sleep, sex; SECONDARY: stimuli that acquire reinforcing properties through their association with primary reinforcers e.g. money and praise.
What is the difference between positive and negative stimulus?
POSITIVE: occurs when a response is weakened by the presentation of a stimulus e.g. squirting a cat with water when it does something wrong; NEGATIVE: occurs when a response is weakened by the removal of a stimulus e.g. phone confiscation.
Why may reinforcement be considered more powerful than punishment?
Punishment can only make certain responses LESS FREQUENT – you can’t teach NEW behaviours. Reinforcement can change behaviours.
What is the difference between continuous and partial reinforcement?
CONTINUOUS – reinforcement is presented EVERY time a response is made e.g. treat given every time a button is pressed; PARTIAL – reinforcement is presented OCCASIONALLY when a response is made e.g. treat given only occasionally when someone does something right.
What reinforcement schedules are most powerful? However?
Continuous reinforcement produces more rapid learning than partial reinforcement – the association between a behaviour and its consequences become easier to understand. However, continuously reinforced responses extinguish more rapidly than partially reinforced responses – the shift to no reinforcement is sudden and easier to understand.
What are the different types of partial reinforcement schedule? (x4)
• FIXED INTERVAL SCHEDULE: reinforcement occurs after fixed time interval. • VARIABLE INTERBAL SCHEDULE: the time interval varies at random, around an average, at which a reinforcement occurs. • FIXED RATIO SCHEDULE: reinforcement is given after a fixed number of responses. • VARIABLE RATIO SCHEDULE: reinforcement is given after a variable number of responses, all centred around an average.
What is the social learning theory?
Outlines that not all behaviours are learnt through conditioning and reinforcement, but by social learning also – learning through others. OBSERVATIONAL (VICARIOUS) LEARNING – we observe the behaviours of others and the consequences of those behaviours. VICARIOUS REINFORCEMET – if their behaviours are reinforced, we tend to imitate the behaviours.
What is Bandura’s model on social learning theory?
BOBO DOLL EXPERIMENT: 4-year olds were recruited from Stanford University Nursery and spent time in a playroom with an adult who modelled either NON-AGGRESSIVE (building a tinker toy) or AGGRESSIVE play (punching and striking a Bobo doll with a mallet). Children who observed aggressive behaviour were also more aggressive towards their doll than those who witnessed non-aggressive play.
How does the person we are imitating affect our social learning? (x4)
We imitate behaviours of people when the person is: (i) seen to be rewarded, (ii) high status, (iii) similar to us, and (iv) friendly.
What is the model of Pavlov’s Dogs?
A model of CLASSICAL CONDITIONING: measured salivation rates of dogs – found that dogs would produce saliva when they heard or smelt food in anticipation of feeding. However, the dogs also began to salivate when events occurred which would otherwise be unrelated to feeding. By playing sounds to the dogs prior to feeding them, Pavlov showed that they could be conditioned to unconsciously associate neutral, unrelated events with being fed.
What is a health behaviour?
Any activity undertaken by an individual believing himself to be healthy, for the purpose of preventing disease or detecting it at an asymptomatic stage.
What are the three targets that can be utilised to change behaviours?
• POPULATION: social media campaigns, public health. • COMMUNITY: targeting ethnicities and areas more susceptible to poor health behaviours. • INDIVIDUAL: interventions made personally e.g. GP.
What is the role of education in changing health behaviours? How to make more effective? Problem with education?
Information does have an important role and is most effective for discrete behaviours e.g. getting a child vaccinated. Messages tailored to a particular audience are more effective. But often, people need more than knowledge to change habitual lifestyle behaviours, particularly addictive behaviours e.g. studies show that education does not change smoking habits.
What methods can we modify health behaviours? (x4) In the context of unhealthy food intake?
• STIMULUS CONTROL TECHNIQUES: Keep ‘danger’ foods out of the house, use small plates…. • COUNTER CONDITIONING: identify high risk situations or cues (for example, stress), and condition healthier responses e.g. find something other than eating that makes you feel better. • CONTINGENCY MANAGEMENT: for example, plan specific rewards for successful weight loss. • REINFORCEMENT: improved self-esteem, money for giving up smoking (positive reinforcement); and reduction in symptoms of breathlessness (negative reinforcement).
What are the limitations of reinforcement programmes in changing health behaviours? (x3)
• Lack of generalization (only affects behaviour regarding the specific trait that is being rewarded). • Poor maintenance (rapid extinction of the desired behaviour once the reinforcer disappears). • Impractical and expensive.
What is the effect of level of fear in learning on change in health behaviours?
When health promotion is taught with a high level of fear, the number of people that change their behaviour is LOW. When health promotion is taught with a low level of fear, the number of people that change their behaviour is HIGHER.
What is the effect of social learning on health behaviours?
When a person is surrounded by lots of people exercising a certain health behaviour, they are more likely to copy that behaviour. For example, if a person is surrounded with lots of smokers, they are more likely to smoke.
What is the expectancy-value principle?
The chance that a behaviour will occur is based on the expectancy (probability) that the behaviour will lead to a particular outcome (and the VALUE of that outcome to the individual) e.g. a patient who has just had a heart attack changes their diet, knowing that it’s more likely to decrease mortality (EXPECTANCY). They decided to do this because having a heart attack made them realise that living a longer life is important to them (VALUE).
What is the Health Beliefs Model?
- Behaviour change depends on a complex range of health beliefs and their interactions with an individual.
- The likelihood of behaviour change is significantly influenced by PERCEIVED THREAT, which is dictated by PERCEIVED SUSCEPTIBILITY and PERCEIVED CONSCIOUSNESS (e.g. threat of coronavirus is determined by an individual’s belief that they may catch it – based on susceptibility and seriousness).
- CUES TO ACTION can also influence perceived threat e.g. heart attack is a cue for many to change diet and lifestyle habits, OR family/GP tells someone to change behaviour.
- The likelihood of behaviour change is also influenced by PERCEIVED BENEFIT vs COST/BARRIERS (e.g. alcohol withdrawal is seen as beneficial to health, but individual may also see it as a way of feeling comfortable in social situations).
- All of these depends on BACKGROUND VARIABLES – intelligence, personality, age, sex and more.
What is outcome efficacy?
Individuals’ expectations that the behaviour will lead to a particular outcome.
What is self-efficacy?
Belief that one can execute the behaviour required to produce the outcome.
What are the factors that influence self-efficacy? (x4)
• Mastery experience e.g. getting driving lessons before you drive by yourself. • Social learning i.e. shadowing someone first, before doing it yourself. • Verbal persuasion or encouragement. • Physiological arousal – adrenaline-rush.
What is the Theory of Planned Behaviour?
- It is the theory that the intention to execute a health behaviour is underlaid by many factors.
- (1) EXPECTANCY-VALUE – beliefs about that outcome and evaluation of the outcome, which influences the attitude towards the behaviour.
- (2) SUBJECTIVE NORM – beliefs about important others’ attitudes towards the behaviour e.g. what your family and friends think about smoking.
- (3) PERCERICED BEHAVIOURAL CONTROL – internal (self-efficacy) and external (perceived costs/barriers) control factors.
What is the transtheoretical model of health behaviours?
• Outlines the stages of change of behaviour. • (PRE-CONTEMPATION – does not recognise the need for change or is not actively considering change.) • CONTEMPLATION – recognises problem and is considering change. • PREPARATION – is getting ready to change. • ACTION – is initiating change. • MAINTENANCE – is adjusting to change and is practicing new skills and behaviours to sustain change. • RELAPSE – may occur and start the cycle again.
What is the COM-B model of health behaviours?
- COM-B outlines the causes of health behaviour.
- It suggests that a health behaviour is the results of an interaction between CAPABILITY, OPPORTUNITY and MOTIVATION. Capability and opportunity influence motivation.
- The model is a starting point for choosing which interventions are most effective for a patient. It forms the “hub” of a BEHAVIOUR CHANGE WHEEL around which are nine possible interventions to choose from.
- Around these interventions, there are seven areas of policy that we can use as guidance to carry out those interventions.
How can each source of health behaviour be defined and categorised? (x2, x2 and x2)
- CAPABILITY: PSYCHOLOGICAL (capacity to engage in necessary thought processes i.e. is patient well-informed about behaviour) and PHYSICAL (capacity to engage in necessary physical processes e.g. adapt to diets or physical exercise; capability to walk to store and buy healthy groceries) capabilities are factors that determine whether a patient will adhere to a medication.
- MOTIVATION: can be split into REFLECTIVE (patient evaluation of a medication – belief about TREATMENT, OUTCOME, SELF-EFFICACY and PERCEPTION OF ILLNESS) and AUTOMATIC motivation (emotions and impulses arising from associative learning or innate dispositions e.g. what a patient learnt about their interaction with food as children, and how this implicitly contributes to their views and behaviours in adulthood) – these all affect adherence.
- OPPORTUNITY: are factors that lie outside of the individual that may prompt adherence. Opportunity can be split into PHYSICAL (physical opportunity provided by the environment e.g. costs, physical characteristics of medicine such as smell and taste) and SOCIAL (cultural environment that dictates the way we think about things e.g. stigma, supportive family and religious beliefs).
What are behaviour change techniques? How is this different from interventions? Examples?
• Behaviour change technique: a systematic strategy used in an attempt to change a behaviour – they tend to describe something quite specific. • Interventions are broader and refers to treatment or action plans that incorporate multiple behaviour change techniques. • EXAMPLES: providing information on consequences, prompting specific goal setting, prompting barrier identification (forcing patient to identify obstacles), modelling the behaviour, planning for social support.
What is the behaviour change taxonomy (BCT)?
Describes 93 behaviour change techniques arranged into 16 categories. It is a resource for clinicians containing a list of possible behaviour change techniques that they can use to make up an intervention.
[Do not need to revise this – just for understanding.] What are the categories in behaviour change taxonomy?
Look at photo.
Describe an example of techniques of behaviour change in the example of Cardiac Rehabilitation. [This is required knowledge.]
• Cardiac rehabilitation is used in patients who have suffered from cardiovascular disease or received a cardiac intervention. DIET is a major target for behaviour change in cardiac rehabilitation to reduce risk of a second cardiovascular event – a Mediterranean diet is promoted. • The COM-B MODEL is used as the basis for deriving techniques of behaviour change: • CAPABILITY: do patients in cardiac rehab have psychological and physical capability to change their diet e.g. are they fearful to leave the house because of their cardiac event, are they aware of the best diet? • OPPORTUNITY: is there a physical opportunity to obtain Mediterranean foods e.g. are these foods too expensive? Do they have family and friends who support a change in their diet (social opportunity)? • MOTIVATION: cardiac rehab provides an opportunity to reflect on the benefit of changing diet on their future CVS risks (reflective). What is their sub-conscious view on eating Mediterranean foods (automatic)? • Next, we study possible INTERVENTION FUNCTIONS that will lead to a patient adhering to a change in their diet. In this case, EDUCATION and PERSUASION are considered the most appropriate changes in behaviour that form the intervention. • Finally, what POLICY CATEGORIES will help us execute this intervention? PUBLIC HEALTH CAMPAIGNS are ideal for education and persuasion but is expensive for the NHS. SERVICE PROVISIONS are very effective and involve group talks on Mediterranean diets and heathy eating.
What is self-monitoring?
An individual keeping record of target behaviours e.g. food intake and weight. Encourages patients to become self-aware about their behaviour!
What is the benefit of self-monitoring on health behaviour changes? Disadvantage?
BENEFIT: Studies suggest that it is the most effective method of inducing positive health behaviour changes in patients who need to change DIET and EXERCISE. DISADVANTAGE: time-consuming for the patient and is a change in behaviour that requires long-term implementation.
What is motivational interviewing? How should motivational interviewing be carried out?
• A person-centred counselling style for addressing the common problem of ambivalence (having mixed feelings) about change. • Clinician must employ an ‘MI (motivational interviewing) spirit’: this means being non-judgemental (makes patient relaxed and less defensive, so more willing to change when you motivate them to). • Clinician must also not educate the patient or tell them what to do; instead, they should be listening out for areas in the conversation when a patient has ambivalence and recognises why they should pursue the positive behaviour. • Clinical should encourage patient to reflect on their behaviour and reinforce thoughts that identify reasons why they should pursue positive behaviour change. Doctor should ask what the patient wants and use positive reinforcement when these intentions are identified, in order to improve self-confidence that patient can pursue the positive behaviour – ENHANCE SELF-EFFICACY.
What are implementation intentions?
They are ACTION PLANS: where a clinician requests an individual to think about situations, and appropriate responses within those situations.
How do implementation intentions work? Example?
They follow an IF-THEN model e.g. IF it’s a Friday morning, THEN I will go on a run. By planning a situation in advance in which an individual will act, the intervention will become more accessible and easier for the patient to pursue. Therefore, behaviour is more likely to be enacted. FOR EXAMPLE, many patients who have a STEMI have never been on routine drugs before and are suddenly prescribed 8 different drugs. Planning cues such as, ‘each time a patient walks the dog they should take their medications’, increases the chances that the behaviour will be enacted.
What are incentives in health behaviour change?
It is a type of positive reinforcement e.g. mothers being offered cash for giving up smoking in pregnancy.
What are the advantages and disadvantages of incentives in health behaviour change? (x4 and x3)
• ADVANTAGES: cost-effective, raises awareness (people seek incentives), brings individuals into contact with health services by allowing earlier screening and treatment of illness, and can be effective in changing health behaviours. • DISADVANTAGES: poor maintenance (rapid extinction of the desired behaviour once the reinforcer disappears), expensive and impractical, and lack of generalisation (only affects behaviour regarding the specific trait that is being rewarded).
What is the advantage and disadvantage of targeting multiple behaviours at the same time?
e.g. Mediterranean diet and smoking cessation at the same time: targeting multiple behaviours may lead to greater OVERALL change, but reduces the change of INDIVIDUAL behaviours (sub-additivity).
What is the definition of sensation?
The stimulus detection system by which our sense organs respond to and translate environmental stimuli into nerve impulses that are sent to the brain.
What is the definition of perception?
This is the next step along from sensation: It is the active process of organising the stimulus output and giving it meaning i.e. processing the sensation and figuring out what it could be.
What are the two types of perception processes?
Top-down and bottom-up processing. Note that perception uses BOTH processes.
What is top-down processing in perception?
Processing a perception in light of existing knowledge (from motives, expectations, experiences and culture) e.g. perception that there is a coffee in front of you because this is what you expect every morning, and it is familiar to your past experiences.
What is bottom-up processing in perception?
This describes the brain processing the sensory information it receives to generate a perception. Individual elements are combined to make a unified perception e.g. the smell and sight of coffee gives the perception that there is coffee in front of you.
What factors affect perception? (x7) Note about the process involved!
• Attention. • Past experiences. • Current drive state e.g. arousal state – for example, when hungry, we are more likely to notice food-related stimuli. • Emotions e.g. anxiety increases threat perception. • Individual values and expectations. • Environment. • Cultural background. • NOTE that these are top-down processes influencing perception.
What are Gestalt laws of perception?
- The laws describe how we organise the parts of our perceptual field i.e. how we see things.
- FIGURE-GROUND RELATIONS: we tend to organise parts of our visual field into foreground and background, such that the focus of our attention becomes the figure; everything else is the background.
- CONTINUITY: when the eye is compelled to move through one object and continue to another object e.g. in the photo (1), even though the H and leaf are separate, our brain puts them together.
- SIMILARITY: we group things together that appear similar – see photo (2).
- PROXIMITY: objects that are near to each other are grouped together, even if the individual parts are different – see photo (3).
- CLOSURE: things are grouped together if they seem to complete some entity – see photo (4).
What is visual agnosia?
Basic vision is spared i.e. people can see, and their primary visual cortex is mostly intact, but they can’t perceive what they see e.g. they can see a pen, but they won’t be able to identify it as a pen.
What are the two types of visual agnosia?
APPERCEPTIVE and ASSOCIATIVE.
What is apperceptive agnosia?
A failure to integrate the perceptual elements of the stimulus. In other words, it is a failure of recognition that occurs because there is a FAILURE OF PERCEPTION.
What is associative agnosia?
PERCEPTION STILL OCCURS, but there is still a failure recognition i.e. there is a failure of retrieval of semantic (verbal) information (this means that although an individual can perceive the object in front of them, they can’t recall the name or the means to describe the object). Usually, if the object is touched, it can be recognised.
What is the definition of attention?
The process of focusing conscious awareness, providing heightened sensitivity to a limited range of experience requiring more intensive processing.
What are the two processes involved in attention?
Focusing on a certain element of your environment AND filtering out other information.
What are the two types of attention?
FOCUSED attention where attention is directed at one thing – the ‘spotlight’; and DIVIDED attention when you pay attention to more than one thing at once.
What are the stimulus factors affecting attention? (x5)
• INTENSITY. • NOVELTY: is this the first time you have seen this – things that are more novel tend to receive more attention. • MOVEMENT. • CONTRAST. • REPETITION.
What are the personal factors affecting attention? (x5)
• Motives. • Interests. • Threats e.g. anxiety makes you more attentive to threats. • Mood. • Arousal e.g. are you sleepy or alert?
What is the cocktail party effect of attention?
We can focus our attention on one person’s voice in spite of all other conversations. However, aspects of our brain also unconsciously focus on the environment around us e.g. when someone calls your name, it will still draw your attention.
What are the three stages of learning? In relation to attention?
• COGNITIVE STAGE: the stage in learning that requires attention. It requires explicit instruction through teaching, demonstration and self-observation. • ASSOCIATIVE STAGE: this point is reached when an effective motor programme has been developed to carry out the broad skill, but you lack the ability to perform finer subtasks with fluency. • AUTONOMOUS STAGE: the skill is largely automatic and does not require much conscious thought or attention.
What is the link between stage of learning and mistakes in clinical practice?
When skills reach the AUTONOMOUS STAGE of learning, and requires little attention and conscious control, errors and medical mistakes are more common. The smaller attention on the skill means that mistakes are more likely.
What is Medical Student Syndrome?
Where normal body sensations are given excess thought, and individual develops a hypervigilance of the body (overthinking potential problems). This leads to catastrophic interpretation of the normal body sensation, leading to anxiety etc. So called ‘Medical Student Syndrome’ because it is thought that all the information medical students are bombarded with regarding what can go wrong with the body, can lead to this anxiety.
Example: Effect of focus of attention on perception of bodily symptoms?
When students ran on a treadmill with headphones on which played the sound of their breathing, they reported greater number of bodily symptoms that students which ran on the treadmill and listened to headphones with street sounds playing.
Examples: Effect of expectation of perceived bodily symptoms on acute pain perception?
Students asked to rub a piece of sandpaper. Students who were told that it was going to be a pleasant sensation reported less pain than students who were told that it was going to be painful.
What is the physiology of chronic pain?
Chronic pain is defined when it has been present for greater than three months. At this point, it is likely that the original damage/injury has been healed. Chronic pain perception involved MANY regions of the brain, and is affected by how we feel, our emotional state, attention/anxiety on the pain, mindfulness, and external factors.
What is the Gate Theory of Pain?
Pain is transmitted up the spinal cord and signals are integrated at the dorsal horn before it enters the brain. In this integration, some signals are passed onto the brain and others are cancelled out. This ‘gate’ can be affected by psychological and physical factors which therefore affect perception of pain. This explains why there is pain relief by rubbing it better.
What is the Fear-Avoidance Model of chronic pain?
For people that experience pain over a long time, they can become avoidant of stimuli that promote the pain e.g. in many cases, movement can promote chronic pain. However, avoidance of pain can create a vicious cycle: This avoidance perpetuates stress, low mood and anxiety (because if you are avoiding moving around, the brain has more opportunity to focus on the pain). These feelings therefore increase the perception of pain even further.
What is a phoneme?
The smallest unit of speech sound in a language.
What are morphemes?
The smallest units of meaning in a language. They typically consist of one syllable and are combined into words.
What is the structure of language?
See photo.
What is syntax?
The rules and principles which govern the way in which morphemes and words are combined to communicate meaning in a particular language.
How does the ability to learn language change throughout lifetime?
There is a critical period of language acquisition, such that beyond a certain age, you struggle to pick up linguistic competence if you haven’t learnt the language. Between ages 5 to puberty, language acquisition becomes more difficult.
Which brain hemispheres are concerned with language? This is so interesting.
95% of right-handed people have left hemisphere dominance for language, 18.8% of left-handed people have right-hemisphere dominance for language function.
What is aphasia?
An inability to comprehend or formulate language (reading, speaking or writing) because of damage to areas of the brain.
What are the different types of aphasia?
Look at photo.
What is Broca’s aphasia?
Also termed ‘expressive’ aphasia. There is non-fluent speech, speech repetition and poor ability to produce syntactically correct sentences. However, comprehension and ability to understand sentences is intact.
What is Wernicke’s aphasia?
Also termed ‘receptive’ aphasia. Patient has problems comprehending speech (input or reception of language), and is able to speak fluently, but MEANINGLESSLY i.e. patient has fluent paraphasia, so their words are jumbled, and sentences carry no meaning. Also associated with neologisms, repetition and impairment in writing.
What are the two types of paraphasia?
SEMANTIC – substituting words similar in meaning e.g. barn and house; PHONEMIC – substituting words similar in sound e.g. house and mouse.
What are neologisms?
Non-words e.g. ‘glump’.
What regions of the brain are associated with language?
- Information about the sound is analysed in PRIMARY AUDIOTRY CORTEX and transmitted to Wernicke’ area.
- WERNICKE’S AREA analyses the sound to determine the word that was said.
- This information is transmitted to Broca’s area by ARCUATE FASCICULUS.
- BROCA’S AREA forms a motor plan to repeat the work and sends the information to the motor cortex.
- The MOTOR CORTEX implements the plan, manipulating the larynx and related structures to say the word.
What are the causes of aphasia? (x4)
Lesions caused by stroke, traumatic brain injuries, cerebral tumours and progressive neurodegenerative conditions.
What are executive functions?
The mental processes that enable us to plan, focus attention, remember instructions and juggle multiple tasks successfully.
What is dysexecutive syndrome?
Involves the disruption of executive function and is closely related to frontal lobe damage. It encompasses cognitive, emotional and behavioural symptoms.
What are the causes of dysexecutive syndrome? (x4)
Head trauma, tumours, degenerative diseases and cerebrovascular disease. Note that these are the same causes as language aphasias.
What is the concept of nature versus nurture?
Involves whether human behaviour is determined by the environment (nurture – prenatal environment, parenting, stimulation and nutrition), or by genetics (nature – gender, temperament, maturational stages).
What is temperament?
A person’s nature or character.
What is reciprocal socialisation?
A bidirectional socialisation process when both the parent and child socialize each other through their interactions. For example, during the bonding process between a mother and infant, mother and child start synchronizing actions and movements when looking at each other. This leads to SCAFFOLDING behaviours, in which a parent’s responses support and encourage the child’s behaviour: When baby cries, the mother may pick the baby up and making soothing noises; as the baby calms, the mother will mirror this by smiling; the baby may respond again by smiling, and this can continue.
What is the Still Face Experiment, Tronick 1975?
During a normal baby-mother interaction, the mother will react to the baby in an attempt to interact with the baby e.g. make faces to make the baby laugh or look in the direction that a baby points and go ‘wow’. However, when the mother shows a still face, the baby will do everything to try and regain the mother’s attention e.g. laughing or pointing again. These will soon turn into negative emotions as the baby starts to feel the stress of the situation.
What are the provisions of a supportive environment for development by parents? (x3)
Scaffolding, reciprocal socialisation, and provision of a stimulating and enriching environment (both physiologically e.g. food, and psychologically e.g. playing and smiling).
What is attachment? Significance?
A theory which describes a biological instinct that seeks proximity to an attachment figure (carer) when threat is perceived, or discomfort is experienced. The sense of safety the child experiences provides a SECURE BASE from which they can explore their environment thus promoting development through learning whilst being protected in the environment.
What process mediates attachment?
MIND-MINDEDNESS mediates attachment: This is when parents treat their children as individuals with minds. Therefore, they respond as if their children’s acts are meaningful – motivated by feelings, thoughts or intentions (an attempt to communicate). This ultimately helps the child to understand others’ emotions and actions.
What are the two types of attachment style?
• Based on the Strange Situation Test where children are presented with an unusual environment. The experiment tests how babies respond to the temporary absence of their mothers, and how they respond when their mother returns. • SECURELY ATTACHED CHILDREN: The securely attached child explores the room freely when Mum is present. He may be distressed when his mother leaves, and he explores less when she is absent. But he is happy when she returns. • INSECURELY ATTACHED CHILDREN: there are three types.
What are the three types of insecurely attached children?
• AVOIDANT-INSECURE CHILDREN: little exploration and little emotional response to mother. The avoidant-insecure child doesn’t explore much, and he doesn’t show much emotion when his mother leaves. He shows no preference for his mother over a complete stranger and, when his mother returns, he tends to avoid or ignore her. • RESISTANT-INSECURE (or ‘ambivalent’) CHILDREN: little exploration, great separation anxiety and ambivalent (mixed feelings) response to mother upon return. Like the avoidant child, the resistant-insecure child doesn’t explore much on her own. But unlike the avoidant child, the resistant child is wary of strangers and is very distressed when her mother leaves. When the mother returns, the resistant child is ambivalent. Although she wants to re-establish close proximity to her mother, she is also resentful—even angry—at her mother for leaving her in the first place. • DISORGANISED-INSECURE CHILDREN: little exploration and confused response to mother. The disorganized child may exhibit a mix of avoidant and resistant behaviours. But the main theme is one of confusion and anxiety.
What are the advantages of secure attachment?
• Promotes independence, better moods, emotional availability and better emotional coping. • Associated with fewer behavioural problems. • Associated with higher IQ and academic performance. • Associated with social competence, loyal friendships and greater leadership qualities in adolescence and adulthood.
What is the Crisis Theory of Coping with Illness?
- Your coping process is based on COPING APPRAISAL i.e. your beliefs about illness and ability to cope. These determine your coping skills:
- Associated with ADAPTIVE RESPONSES (personal growth and adjustment to illness), and MALADAPTIVE RESPONSES (psychological problems and low functioning).
- Coping appraisal is affected by three main factors: ILLNESS-RELATED FACTORS, BACKGROUND and PERSONAL FACTORS, and PHYSICAL and SOCIAL ENVIRONMENT.
What were the results of Auerbach’s study on amount of information and distress?
- Patients undergoing dental extraction surgery were given either general or detailed information in a pre-operative preparation. An assessment of desire for information was also completed, and distress during procedure measured.
- Most people desired a high level of information, and there was a normal distribution of people desiring involvement (i.e. not many people wanted 0 or 100% involvement; most people wanted a moderate amount of involvement).
- The study found that for those who preferred to be given a lot of information, and were only given general information, experienced higher levels of distress. Similarly, those who preferred to be given little information, and were given a high level of information, also experienced higher levels of stress.
What is Eysenck’s Two Factor Model of personality?
Theorised that personality is derived from two dimensions of personality trait: NEUROTICISM (or stability) – the tendency to experience negative emotions, and EXTRAVERSION (the degree to which a person is outgoing and seeks stimulation.
What is Charles Spearman’s theory of intelligence?
Believed that intellectual activity involves a general factor (g) and specific factors (s).
What are the factors that influence cognitive ability? (x6)
- Age.
- Hereditary.
- Physical fitness.
- Sex – there is no differene in cognitive ability between the sexes, but men are more represented at the extreme ends of the IQ scale than women – see photo!
- Social class.
- Cognitive disease such as autism or dementia.
What is Baron Cohen’s Empathizing/Systematizing Theory?
- Autism has a 4:1 male:female ratio. High functioning autism (Asperger’s syndrome) has a 9:1 male:female ratio.
- Baron Cohen’s Empathizing/Systematizing Theory explains the male-female neurological differences and the reason why this high functioning autism ratio exists.
- The theory explains that high functioning autism is characterised by DEFICITS in EMPATHISING (ability to infer thoughts and feelings of others) and INCREASED ABILITY to SYSTEMISE (the drive to analyse or construct any kind of system).
- Baron Cohen found that men have lower levels of empathising than females, and higher levels of systemising than females. They are therefore naturally more pre-disposed to autism than females.
What is Leventhal’s model of illness representations? !!!
- This model describes a self-regulatory model to illness and outlines patient beliefs and expectations about an illness or symptom. It focuses around three main responses to an illness/symptom: INTERPRETATION (a patient’s personal interpretation of their symptoms or illness), COPING (having identified the symptoms or illness, patient’s move onto a stage of coping with their presenting complain) and APPRAISAL (a self-assessment of one’s coping strategy. For example, is their paracetamol intake working?).
- All of these are affected by EMOTIONAL RESPONSE TO HEALTH THREAT (e.g. fear, anxiety or depression), and REPRESENTATION OF HEALTH THREAT to a patient. Leventhal describes FIVE COMPONENTS of these illness representations:
- (1) IDENTITY – the label given to the condition and the symptoms that ‘appear’ to go with it.
- (2) CAUSE – perceived cause for the condition. This will be based on personal experience as well as opinions of significant others, health professionals and media.
- (3) TIME-LINE – the predictive belief about how long the condition might last.
- (4) CONSEQUENCES – belief about how condition will impact themselves physically and socially.
- (5) CURABILITY – belief about whether the condition can be cured or kept under control and the degree to which the individual plays a part in this (affects how they cope and appraise e.g. does patient seek help from professional?).
What model can be used to demonstrate conformity? Describe this model.
ASCH MODEL, 1956: Male students participated in a ‘vision test’. Using a line judgement task, Asch put a naïve participant in a room of actors. The actors agreed in advance what their responses would be. Each person in the room had to state aloud which comparison line (A, B or C) was most like the target line. The answer was always obvious. The real participant sat at the end of the row and gave their answer last. In the end, real participants conformed with the clearly incorrect majority answers.
What model shows the influence of obedience on behaviour? Describe this model.
THE MILGRAM EXPERIMENT, 1974: one ‘learner’ and one ‘teacher’ told that experiment studied the effect of punishment on learning and memory. A shock generator was used to apply punishment, and shocks grew increasingly intense with each mistake. Findings: high proportion of subjects would fully obey instructions, albeit reluctantly, to shock ‘learner’.
Where may System 1 decision making be more important than System 2?
In urgent situations where an individual must act. These situations are time-critical and demand action over extensive thought-processing and focus on precision and detail.
What is anchoring and its effect in clinical decision making?
- Describes the behaviour whereby individuals are poor at adjusting estimates when they are given a starting point (see photo) i.e. they are anchored by a starting point.
- In clinical decision making, a clinician may make an initial reading in a patient as having pancreatitis. However, follow-up tests and some elements of the patient history contradict this initial reading. However, by anchoring on this initial reading of pancreatitis, it is harder for a clinician to adjust to a different reading for the patient’s health complaints. Clinicians may try to down-play these conflicting tests and findings in the history, in an attempt to validate their pancreatitis reading.
What are clinical decision support systems?
Provide clinicians assistance with clinical decision-making tasks.
What is the model of memory – how sensory inputs are processed within the short and long term memory stores?
Information is registered as sensory inputs. Some information is stored straight into your long-term memory e.g. traumatic events. Other inputs are transferred to the working memory store – however, this has limited capacity, and so most is lost. Information in the working memory that is rehearsed can be stored in the long-term memory. Equally, long-term memory can be retrieved, at which point, it enters the working memory.
What is the serial position effect of memory?
When given a list of words, you will typically remember the first words and last words and forget the ones in the middle. This is known as the primacy and regency effect respectively.
What is the COM-B model of non-adherence?
- It is a model that suggests the causes of health behaviour.
- It suggests that a health behaviour is the results of an interaction between CAPABILITY, OPPORTUNITY and MOTIVATION cause the behaviour.
- The model is a starting point for choosing which interventions are most effective for a patient. It forms the “hub” of a behaviour change wheel around which are nine possible interventions to choose from.
- Around these interventions, there are seven areas of policy that we can use as guidance to carry out those interventions.
What are the effects of stress: What is Selye’s General Adaptation Syndrome?
- Activation of the sympathetic nervous system, release of NA and adrenaline. This has results including increase in heart rate.
- This is followed by an endocrine stage. There is activation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenocortical axis, leading to production of cortisol (stress hormones). This sustains the SNS-mediated response.
- There is an exhaustive phase: the adrenal glands lose their ability to function normally.
What is the definition of stress?
Defined as a pattern of cognitive appraisals, emotional reactions, physiological responses and behavioural tendencies that occur in response to a perceived imbalance between situational demands (PRIMARY APPRAISAL) and the resources need to cope with them (SECONDARY APPRAISAL).
What psychological mechanisms underly the placebo effect? (x4)
- FRAMING: giving information in a different way will influence someone’s perception of risk e.g. framing post-operative pain can influence the degree of reported pain.
- SOCIAL LEARNING: observing others getting better can influence one’s own recovery.
- EXPERIMENTAL LEARNING: learning through experience of positive results from one medication can influence the expectation of positive results from similar looking medications.
- CLASSICAL CONDITIONING: if a stimuli e.g. seeing a syringe, leads to therapeutic effect; then an associated stimuli e.g. seeing another syringe, leads to placebo effect. See photo.
What is Clark’s cognitive theory of panic?
Individuals with panic interpret certain bodily sensations in a catastrophic fashion. Sensations, especially those involved in normal anxiety responses e.g. palpitations, are considered to be a sign of impending physical or psychological disaster e.g. palpitations –> ‘I’m having a heart attack’. These responses set up a vicious cycle (see photo), where the misinterpretation is amplified.
How is acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) used on chronic pain?
See photo.
