Quicksheets Flashcards
What are the three types of neurons in the nervous system? Are they afferent or efferent?
- Motor (efferent)
- Interneurons
- Sensory (afferent)
What is the difference between the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems? What is the relative location of the nerves associated with them?
Sympathetic: “Fight or Flight” responses; mostly located between T1 and T12 of the spinal cord.
Parasympathetic: “Rest and Digest” Responses; mostly located in upper and lower spinal cord

What are the subcategories of the autonomic nervous system?
Sympathetic Nervous System: This division of autonomic nervous system is responsible for controlling fight or flight response. It controls the involuntary responses of the body when a person is in some serious situation. The sympathetic responses prepare the body to deal with some fight or flight conditions.
Parasympathetic Nervous System: This division controls the body functions in a calm state. The involuntary responses of the body under calm conditions are controlled by the parasympathetic nervous system. It is responsible for regulating body functions under normal conditions.
Enteric Nervous System: It is the third division of the autonomic nervous system. It is confined to the control of the gut. It contains branches from both sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems and is responsible for regulating the functions of gastrointestinal tract.
What are the roles of the parasympathetic nervous system? The sympathetic nervous system?

What are the 3 main categories for “organization of the brain”? What do each of them contain?
- Hindbrain:
- Cerebellum
- Medulla Oblangata
- Reticular formation
- Midbrain
- Inferior colliculi
- Superior colliculi
- Forebrain
- Thalamus
- Hypothalamus
- Basal Ganglia
- Limbic system
- Cerebral Cortex

What part of the brain does the thalamus belong to? What is its role?
The thalamus belongs to the forebrain
It is the “relay station” for sensory information

What part of the brain does the hypothalamus belong to? What is its role?
The hypothalamus belongs to the forebrain.
It maintains homeostasis and integrates with the endocrine system through the hypophyseal portal system that connects it to the anterior pituitary.

What part of the brain does the Basal Ganglia belong to? What is its role?
The basal ganglia belongs to the forebrain
It smoothens movements and helps maintain postural stablility

What part of the brain does the limbic system belong to? What is its role? What are the major subgroups of the limbic system?
The limbic system belongs to the forebrain.
Controls emotion and memory.
Includes the septal nuclei (pleasure seeking), the amygdala (fear and aggression), hippocampus (memory), and fornix (communication with limbic system)
What are the 4 lobes of the cerebral cortex?
- The frontal lobe
- The parietal lobe
- The occipital lobe
- The temporal lobe

What is the role of the frontal lobe?
What larger area of the brain is it a part of?
The frontal lobe:
Executive function
impulse control
long-term planning (prefrontal cortex)
Motor function (primary motor cortex)
Speech Production (Broca’s area)
Subcategory of cerebral cortex

What is the role of the parietal lobe?
What larger area of the brain is it a part of?
Parietal Lobe:
Sensation of touch, pressure, temperature, and pain (somatosensory cortex)
Spatial processing, orientatation, and manipulation
Part of the cerebral cortex
What is the role of the Temporal lobe?
What larger area of the brain is it a part of?
Temporal Lobe:
Sound processing (auditory cortex)
Speech perception (Wernicke’s area)
Memory and emotion (limbic system)

What is the role of the occipital lobe?
What larger area of the brain is it a part of?
Occipital Lobe:
Visual Processing
What is the role of acetylcholine?
Voluntary muscle control
Parasympathetic nervous system
Attention
Alertness

What is the role of epinephrine and norepinephrine?
Fight-or-Flight
Wakefullness
Alertness

What is the role of dopamine?
Smooth movements
Postural stability

What is the role of serotonin?
Mood
Sleep
Eating
Dreaming

What is the role of GABA, Glycine?
Brain “stabilization”

What is the role of glutamate?
Brain “excitation”

What is the role of endorphins?
Natural Painkillers

What is nature vs. nurture?
What type of studies are used to reseach it?
Nature vs. Nurture is a debate regarding the contributions of genetics (nature) and the environment (nurture) to an individual’s traits.
Family, twin, and adoption studies are used to study nature vs. nurture
What is the difference between sensation and perception? How is it involved in the nervous system? (3 major ways)
The conversion of physical stimuli into neurological signals in sensation while perception is the processing of sensory information to amke sense of its significance.
Sensory Receptors: respond to stimuli and trigger electrical signals.
Sensory Neurons: transmit information from sensory receptors to the CNS
Sensory stimuli: are transmitted to projection areas in the brain, which further analyze sensory input
What is Weber’s Law?
States that the just-noticeable difference for a stimulus is proportional to the magnitude of the stimulus, and this proportion is constant over most of the range of possible stimuli

What is the signal detection theory?
Studies the effects of nonsensory factors, such as experiences, motives, and expectations, on perception of stimuli.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WUjwk92r-ME
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tcDpnWeCjBU

What is the response bias?
Examined using signal detection experiments with four possible outcomes: hits, misses, false alarms, and correct negatives.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WnfQ2CPHtwk

What is adaptation?
A decease in response to stimulus over time

What is the path of vision
Retina -> optic nerve -> optic chiasm -> optic tracts -> lateral geniculate nucleus (LGN) of thalamus -> visual radiations -> visual cortex

What is the auditory pathway?
cochlea -> vestibulocochlear nerve -> medial geniculate nucleus (MGN) of thalamus -> auditory cortex

What is the role of the cochlea?
Detect sound
What is the role of the utricle and saccule?
Detect linear acceleration
What is the role of the semicircular canals?
Detect rotational acceleration
How is smell detected?
What is responsible for detection?
Through volatile or aerosolized chemicals by olfactory chemoreceptors (olfactory nerves)
How is taste detected?
What is responsible for detection?
detection of dissolved compounds by taste buds in papillae
Define: somatosensation
Four touch modalities:
pressure
vibration
pain
temperature
Define kinesthetic sense (proprioception)
The ability to tell where one’s body is in space
What is bottom-up processing?
Aka Data driven processing: Recognition of objects by parallel processing and feature detection. Slower but less prone to mistakes.
Subgroup of object recognition
What is top-down processing?
Aka conceptually-driven processing: recognition of an object by memories and expectations, but with little attention to detail. Faster, but more prone to mistakes.
Subgroup of object recognition
Define: Gestalt Principles
Ways that the brain can infer missing parts of an image when it is incomplete
Subgroup of object recognition
Define: Habituation
The process of becoming used to a stimulus
Subgroup of Learning
Define: Dishabituation
Occurs when a second stimulus intervenes, causing a resensitization to the original stimulus
Subgroup of Learning
Define: Observational Learning
The acquisition of behavior by watching others
Define: Associative Learning
Pairing together stimuli and responses, or behaviors and consequences.
Subgroup of Learning
Define: Classical Conditioning
A form of associative learning in which a neutral stimulus becomes associated with an unconditioned stimulus such that the neutral stimulus alone produces the same response as the unconditioned stimulus; the neutral stimulus thus becomes a conditioned response.

Define: Operant Condtioning
A form of associative learning in which the frequency of behavior is modified using reinforcement (increases behavior) or punishment (decreases behavior)

What are the stages of consciousness? (as it pertains wakefullness and sleep)
Image

What is dyssomnias
Sleep disorder
(amount or timing of sleep)
insomnia, narcolepsy, sleep apnea, sleep deprivation

what is parasomnia?
(odd behaviors during sleep)
night terrors and sleepwalking (somnambulism)

Drug addiction is mediated by the _______, which includes the _______, ______, and _______. ______ is the main neurotransmitter.
Drug addiction is mediated by the mesolimbic pathway, which includes the nucleus accumbens, medial forebrain bundle, and ventral tegmental area. Dopamine is the main neurotransmitter.
Organize this tree for memory


Define: encoding
the process of putting new information into memory
Facts are stored via _____. ______ of informaion is often based on ______ interconnected nodes of the semantic network.
Facts are stored via semantic networks. Retrieval of informaion is often based on priming interconnected nodes of the semantic network.
(what is priming)?
Which one is a stronger memory process? Recognition or recall?
recognition of information is stronger than recall of information
What are the 4 stages of Piaget’s Stages of Cognitive Development? (no definitions)
Sensorimotor stage
Preoperational stage
Concete operational stage
Formal operational stage
What is the sensorimotor stage?
What ages does it effect?
The first stage of Piaget’s Stages of Cognitive Development
Focuses on manipulating the environment to meet physical needs through circular reactions; object permanence ends this stage.

What is the preoperational stage?
What ages does it effect?
Stage 2 of Piaget’s Stages of Cognitive Development
focuses on symbolic thinking, egocentrism (inability to imagine what another person thinks or feels), and centration (focusing on only one aspect of a phenomenon)

What is the concrete operational stage?
What ages does it effect?
3rd stage of Piaget’s Stages of Cognitive Development
focuses on understanding the feelings of others and manipulating physical (concrete) objects

What is the formal operational stage?
What ages does it effect?
4th stage of Piagets Stages of Cognitive Development
Focuses on abstract thought and problem-solving

What are 4 main techniques of problem solving?
Trail-and-error
algorithms
deductive reasoning (deriving conclusions from general rules)
inductive reasoning (deriving generalizations from evidence)
_____ (simplified principles used to make decisions - “rules of thumb”), ______, ______, and ______ may assist in decision-making, but may also lead to erroneous or problematic decisions.
Heuristics (simplified principles used to make decisions - “rules of thumb”), biases, intuition, and emotions may assist in decision-making, but may also lead to erroneous or problematic decisions
Define: selective attention
allows one to pay attention to a particular stimulus while determining if additional stimuli require attention in the background
Define: divided attention
Uses automatic processing to pay attention to multiple activities at once.
What are the 3 main language areas in the brain?
Wernicke’s Area
Broca’s Area
Arcuate Fasciculus
What is Wernicke’s Area?
langauge comprehension; damage results in Wernicke’s Aphasia (fluent, nonsensical aphasia with lack of comprehension)

What is Broca’s Area?
What happens if you damage this area?
motor function of speech; damage results in Broca’s Aphasia (nonfluent aphasia in which generating each word requires great effort)

What is Arcuate Fasciculus?
What happens if you damage this area?
Connects Wernicke’s Area and Broca’s Area; damage results in conduction aphasia (the inability to repeat words despite intact speech generation and comprehension)

Define: Motivation
What are the 2 main types?
Motivation is the purpose or driving force behind our actions
Extrinsic: Based on external circumstances
Instrinsic: Bases on internal drive or perception
What is the Arousal Theory?
Instinct theory: innate, fixed patterns of behavior in response to stimuli
Arousal Theory: The state of being awake and reactive to stimuli; aim for optimal level of arousal for a given task (Yerkes-Dodson Law) - image represents Yerkes-Dodson Law
Drive Reduction Theory: Individuals act to relieve internal states of tension
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs: (highest priority) - physiological needs -> safety and security -> love and belonging -> self-esteem -> self-actualization (lowest priority)

What are the 4 theories of motivation?
Instinct theory
Arousal Theory
Drive Reduction Theory
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
What is instinct theory?
Instinct theory: innate, fixed patterns of behavior in response to stimuli
Define Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs: (highest priority) - physiological needs -> safety and security -> love and belonging -> self-esteem -> self-actualization (lowest priority)

Define: Drive Reduction Theory
Drive Reduction Theory: Individuals act to relieve internal states of tension

What are the seven universal emotions?
Happiness
Sadness
Contempt
Surprise
Fear
Disgust
Anger
What are the 3 main theories for emotion?
James-Lange
Cannon-Bard
Schachter-Singer
Define the 3 theories of emotion
See Image:

Define: Stress
What are the 2 main types?
Stress: the physiological and cognitive response to challenges or life changes
Primary Appraisal: classifying a potential stressor as irrelevent, benign-positive, or stressful
Secondary Appraisal: Directed at evaluating whether the organism can cope with the stress, based on harm, threat, and challenge.
Define: Stressor
Stressor (distress or eustress): anything that lead to a stress response; can include environment, social, psychological, chemical, and biological stressors
What are the 3 stages of general adaptation syndrome?
Alarm
Resistance
Exhaustion

Define: Self-concept
Subcategory of Identity and Personality
The sum of the ways in which we describe ourselves: in the present, who we used to be, and who we might be in the future.

Define: Identities
Individual components of our self-concept related to the groups in which we belong

Define: Self-Esteem
Our evaluation of ourselves
Define: Self-Efficacy
The degree to which we see ourselves as being capable of a given skill in a given situation
Define: Locus of control
A self-evaluation that refers to the way we characterize the influences in our lives. Either internal (success or failure is the result of our own actions) or external (success or failure is a result of outside factors)
Marlene often blames herself for anything that goes wrong (“I should have brought Maya to the vet”) whereas Austin blames external factors (“The game is Lagging”)
What is DSM?
The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders: The guide by which most psychological disorders are characterized, described, and diagnosed.
Define: Schizophrenia
What are the 2 main categories of symptoms?
Psychotic disorder characterized by distortions of reality and disturbances in content and form of thought, perception, and behavior.
Positive: include hallucinations, delusions, and disorganized throught and behavior (psychotic symptoms)
Negative: Removal of normal processes, decreased emotions or interest, decreased avolition (motivation) and alogia (comes from the Greek words meaning “without speech” and refers to a poverty of speech that results from impairment in thinking that affects language abilities).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PURvJV2SMso

Define: Generalized Anxiety Disorder
Define: Specific Phobias
Irrational fears of specific objects (Marlene and her fear of moths and frogs)
Define: Social Anxiety Disorder
Anxiety due to social and performance situations
Define: Agoraphobia
Fears of places or situations where it is hard for an individual to escape

Define: Panic Disorder
Recurrent attacks of intense, overwhelming fear and sympathetic nervous system activity with no clear stimulus. It may lead to agoraphobia
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YxELZyA2bJs

What are the bipolar disorders (and related disorders)
Bipolar 1 disorder: contains at least one manic episode
Bipolar 2 disorder: contains at least one hypomanic episode and at least one major depressive episode.
Cyclothymic disorder: containts hypomanic episodes with dysthymia (defined as a low mood occurring for at least two years, along with at least two other symptoms of depression)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KSvk8LLBo2g

What are the 3 main types of depressive disorders?
Major Depressive Disorder
Peristent Depressive Disorder
Seasonal Affective Disorder
Define: Major Depressive Disorder
Contains at least one major depressive episode

Define: Peristent Depressive Disorder
A depressed mood (either dysthymia or major depression) for at least 2 years

Define: Seasonal Affective Disorder
The colloquial name for major depressive disorder with seasonal onset, with depression occurring during winter months

Define: Freud’s Stages of Psychosexual Development
Based on tensions caused by the lipido, with failure at any given stage leading to fixation

Define: Erickson’s Stages of Psychosocial Development
Stem from conflicts that are the results of decisions we are forced to make about ourselves and the environment around us at each phase in our lives.
Stages are:
Trust vs Mistrust
Autonomy vs Shame and Doubt
Initiative vs Guilt
Industry vs Inferiority
Identity vs Role Confusion
Intimacy vs Isolation
Generativity vs Stagnation
Integrity vs Despair

Define: Kohlberg’s Theory of Moral Reasoning
Describes the approaches of individuals to resolving moral dilemmas

Preconventional
Conventional
Postconventional
Define: Vygotsky’s Theory of Cultural and Biosocial Development
Describes the development of language, culture, and skills

Define: Obsessive-compulsive disorder
Obsessions (persistant, instrusive thoughts and impulses) and compulsions (repetitive tasks that relieve tension but cause significant impairment)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8Jofzx_8p4

Define: Body Dysmorphic Disorder
unrealistic negative evaluation of one’s appearance or a specific body part

Define: Dissociative Amnesia
Inability to recall past experience. May involve dissociative fugue, a sudden change in location that can involve assumption of a new identity

Define: Dissociative Identity Disorder
Define: Depersonalization/derealization disorder
Feelings of detachment from the mind and body, or from the environment

What are the 2 main perspectives on personality?
Psychoanalytic Perspective
Humanistic Perspective
Define: Psychoanalytic Perspective of Personality
Personality results from unconscious urges and desires
Freud: Id, superego, ego
Jung: collective unconscious, archetypes

Define: Humanistic Perspective of Personality
Emphasizes internal feelings of healthy individuals as they strive toward happiness and self-realization
Maslow: Hierarchy of Needs
Rogers: Unconditional positive regard

Define: Type and Trait Theory
Personality can be describes as a number of identifiable traits that carry characteristic behaviors
What are the major type theories of personality?
Ancient Greek Humors
Sheldon’s somatotypes: division into Types A and B, and the Meyers-Briggs Type Inventory (image)
(Expand on these…)

Define: Eysenck’s Three Major Traits:
Psychoticism
Extraversion
Neuroticism
What are the “Trait Theorists’ Big-Five”?
Openness
Concsientiousness
Extraversion
Agreeableness
Neuroticism
(OCEAN)
Define: Allport’s Three Basic Types of Traits
Cardinal
Central
Secondary
Define: Somatic Symptom Disorder
At least one somatic symptom, which may or may not be linked to an underlying medical condition, that causes disproportionate concern
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVO7tZS2ZdI

Define: Illness Anxiety Disorder
Preoccupation with having or coming down with a serious medical condition

Define: Conversion Disorder
Unexplained symptoms affecting motor or sensory function

Define: Personality Disorders
What are the 3 subgroups (clusters)?
Personality Disorders are patterns of inflexible, maladaptive behavior that cause distress or impaired functioning.
Cluster A: (odd, eccentric, weird): paranoid, schizotypal, schzoid
Cluster B: (dramatic, emotional, erratic, wild): antisocial, borderline, histrionic, narcissistic
Cluster C: (Anxious, fearful, worried): Avoidant, dependent, obsessive-compulsive
Define: Social Facilitation
Tendency to perform at a different level (better or worse) when others are around.
(I often do worse when people are watching me)
Define: Deindividuation
Loss of self-awareness in large groups; can lead to drastic changes in behavior

Define: Bystander Effect
In a group, individuals are less likely to respond to a person in need.

Define: Peer Pressure
Social influence placed on an individual by other individuals they consider equals

Define: Group Polarization
Tendency towards making decisions in a group that are more extreme than the thoughts of the individual group members

Define: Groupthink
The tendency to make decisions based on ideas and solutions that arise within the group without considering outside ideas
(like the example of the oil spill. Scientists couldn’t figure out a good way to clean up oil spill, sent out question to general public, general public responded with better solution. They moved outside of groupthink)

Define: Assimilation
When one culture begins to melt into another. Adapting cultural norms of dominant culture.

Define: Multiculturalism
Encouragement of multiple cultures in a community to enhance diversity

Define: Subculture
A group that distinguishes itself from the primary culture to which it belongs

Define: Socialization
The process of developing and spreading norms, customs, and beliefs.

Define: Norms
Bondaries of acceptable behavior within society
Define: Stigma
Extreme disapproval or dislike of a person or group based on perceived differences
Define: Deviance
any violation of norms, rules, or expectations within a society
Define: Conformity
changing beliefs or behaviors in order to fit into a group or society
Define: Compliance
What are 4 techniques for gaining compliance? Define them.
individuals change behavior based on the request from others; techniques for gaining compliance include:

Foot-in-the-door: starting with small simple request, then asking for larger request
Door-in-the-face: starting with large unreasonable request that is likely to get turned down, then asking for smaller more reasoonable request
Lowball: Compliance to a costly request is acheived by first getting compliance to an attractive, less costly request then renouncing it to get the costly request.
That’s-not-all: People are more likely to comply to a request after a “build-up” to make the request sound better (infomercials)
Define: Obedience
Change in behavior based on a command from someone seen as an authority figure
Define: Status
a position in society used to classify individuals. Can be ascribed (involuntarily acheived), achieved (voluntarily earned), or master (primary identity)
Define: Role
Set of beliefs, values, norms that define the expectations of a certain status.
Define: Group
Two or more individuals with similar characteristics that share a sense of unity
Define: Network
Observable pattern of social relationships between individuals or groups
Define: Organization
group with a structure and culture designed to achieve specific goals; exists outside of each individual’s membership within the organization.
Define: Display Rules
unspoken rules that govern the expression of emotion
Define: Impression Management
maintenance of a public image through various strategies
Define: Dramaturgical Approach
Individuals create images of themselves in the same way that actors perform a role in front of an audience
Define: Interpersonal Attraction
influenced by physical, social, and psychological factors.
Define: aggression
behavior with the intention to cause harm or increase social dominance
Define: attachment
an emotional bond to another person; usually refers to the bond between a child and a caregiver
Define: Altruism
helping behavior in which the person’s intent is to benefit someone else at a personal cost.
Define: Attribution Theory
What are the 4 types?
Focuses on the tendency for individuals to infer the causes of other people’s behavior:
Dispositional (internal): causes relate to the features of the person who is being considered
Situational (external): causes relate to features of the surroundings or social context
Correspondent Inference Theory: describes attributions made by observing the intentional (especially unexpected) behaviors performed by another person.
Fundamental Attribution Error: Bias torwards making dispositional attributions rather than situational attributions
Define: stereotype
attitudes and impressions that are made based on limited and superficial information
Define: self-fulfilling prophecy
the phenomenon of a stereotype creating an expectation of a particular group, which creates conditions that lead to confirmation of this stereotype.
(if you tell someone who is black that they are dumb because they are black and continuously repeat this to them then they may internalize this, failing to succeed in school, and perpetuation that notion)
Define: stereotype threat
a feeling of anxiety about confirming a negative stereotype
(in Europe, I felt that many Europeans thought of Americans as loud and obnoxious. When my friend was being loud and obnoxious in public I would get anxious and try to distance myself from him)
Define: Prejudice
An irrationally based attitude prior to actual experience
Define: Ethnocentrism
the practice of making judgements about other cultures based on the values and beliefs of one’s own culture (in-group vs. out-group)
When I was in Vietnam I thought they were extremely inefficient and therefore less capable. But this is a very American ideal. I was being ethnocentric.
Define: Cultural Relativism
The opposite of ethnocentrism
Studying the social groups and cultures on their own terms
Define: Discrimination
Define: Functionalism
focuses on the function and relationships of each component of society
Define: conflict theory
focuses on how power differentials are created and how they maintain order
Define: symbolic interactionism
the study of how individuals interact through a shared understanding of words, symbols, and gestures
Define: Social Constructionism
Explores how individuals and groups make decisions to agree upon a given social reality.
Define: material culture
physical items one associates with a given group (art, clothing, food, buildings)
Define: symbolic culture
The ideas associated with a particular cultural group
Define: Demographics
The statistical arm of sociology
statistical data relating to the population and particular groups within it.
Define: Migration
What are the 2 types?
Refers to the movement of people into (immigration) or out of (emigration) a geographical location
Define: Demographic Transition
a model used to represent drops in birth and death rates as a result of industrialization
Social Stratification is based on socioeconomic status (SES) what are the five factors that make this up?
Class: a category of people with shared socioeconomic characteristics
Power: The capacity to influence people through real or perceived rewards and punishments
Social Capital: The investment people make in society in return for economic or collective rewards. (hmmm not sure i agree)
Social Reproduction: the passing on of social inequality, especially poverty, to other generations
Poverty: low SES; in the US, the poverty line is the government’s calculation of the minimum income requirements to acquire the minimum necessities of life.
Define: Epidemiology
What are 4 ways in which it is measure in social science?
Incidence:
Prevalence
Morbidity
Mortality
(need to get more info on these, don’t like the quickfacts data)**