Semester 1 Flashcards
Define the scientific method
A set of procedures which guide the gathering and interpreting of information to minimize bias and error
What are the 6 steps of the scientific method?
- Observation/Question/Background research
- Hypothesis
- Experiment to test hypothesis
- Analyze results and draw conclusion
- Report/Publish results
- New question to answer/replication of results
What are the three methods used in the study of behaviour/health/development?
- Descriptive
- Correlational
- Experimental
What is the descriptive method?
Observe and describe things as they naturally occur
What is the correlational method?
Examines the degree to which 2 or more variables are related
This allows one variable to predict the other
How is correlation measured/Proven?
It can be positive or negative, ranging from -1 to 0 (no correlation) to +1.
It is proven when change of one variable is accompanied by change in another
What is the experimental method?
Investigation of causal relationships
Has an independent variable, and the dependant variable
What are the strengths of correlational research?
Suggests a potential causal relationship (to be investigated)
Allows researchers to examine potentially unethical relationships
Reveals real world relationships as no artificial environment
What are the weaknesses of correlational research?
Only reveals a correlation- there is no inference of causation able to be made
What are the strengths of experimental research?
Causal claims can be proven
What are the weaknesses of experimental research?
Random assignment may be impossible or unethical
Lab behaviour may not reflect reality
What is important to have in experimental studies?
- A representative sample
- Random assignment to minimize confounding
- Standardised procedures to minimize confirmation bias, expectancy and confounders
- Definitions of variables to minimize confirmation bias
- Double blinding to minimize placebo and expectancy effects
- Good statistical significance
What are 5 important considerations in experiments?
- Risk/Gain assessment
- Informed consent and confidentiality
- Vulnerable subjects
- Intentional deception
- Debriefing
What is risk/gain assessment?
Need to have greater gain than potential risk to the participants
What is informed consent and confidentiality?
Participants know their requirements, benefits and risks, where to get support and that they can withdraw
Their contact details are kept secure and their data does not make them easily identifiable
What are vulnerable subjects?
Children are vulnerable- consent from caregivers must be obtained
What is intentional deception?
Withholding the true purpose of a study when going through informed consent, in order to double blind.
What is debriefing?
Providing support and information
Explaining the true purpose of study and why deception was necessary
Allow participants to choose to keep their information in the study.
What are the 5 different psychological study types?
- Longitudinal
- Cross sectional
- Self report
- Naturalistic observation
- Laboratory observation
What is a longitudinal study?
- Follows the same group over time to determine time-related changes in thoughts and behaviours
What is a cross sectional study
Compares people at one point in time
What is a self report study?
Collects data using questionnaires or interviews
Collects a wide range cheaply
However, subjects may lie, misremember, not understand etc.
What is a naturalistic observation study?
Observe behaviour in its natural setting, without influencing it
Collects a realistic picture of behaviour, allowing new idea generation
Takes time, usually a small scale. Can’t infer causality
What is a laboratory observation study?
Observe behaviour in a lab
Confounding factors more able to be controlled
Specialized equipment can be used
Surrounding may impact behaviour
What is important with measures in studies?
They must be:
Reliable (consistent results when repeated)
Valid (measures to a good standard)
What causes depression?
The ANS
It involves the hippocampus, Amygdala, Hypothalamus and pituitary gland.
The hypothalamus releases CRH, ant. pituitary releases ACTH, releasing cortisol from the adrenal gland
What are the symptoms of depression?
Weight change Problems thinking and concentrating Helplessness Thoughts of death Isolation Sleep issues Agitation
What are the neurotransmitter changes associated with depression?
Decreased serotonin
Decreased dopamine
No Norepinephrine
What are the endocrine changes associated with depression?
Disturbed circadian rhythm
High cortisol
Low oestrogen
Low testosterone (after 50)
Why is stimulation important in children?
It wires brain grouwth through experience. Understimulation impairs development, and toxic environments may overwhelm children
How does neglect affect the developing brain?
It disrupts development: emotional, cognitive and behavioural disorders
It alters the development of the stress response: greater risk of anxiety, depression and chronic disease
What is the difference between positive, tolerable, and toxic stress?
- Positive stress can help us cope and stay safe
- Tolerable stress occurs if there is a supportive environment surrounding a traumatic event
- Toxic stress is when activation of the stress response is strong, frequent or prolonged, without support.
What are the hormones related to stress and their effects?
- Adrenaline: Mobilizing energy, vasomotor
- Cortisol: Immune depression, mobilizing energy, damage to hippocampus (memory)
How does the stress response occur?
Stressor Hypothalamus --> CRH Ad. Pit --> ACTH Kidneys release cortisol Cortisol impacts organs
What are the 4 types of unresponsive care?
- Occasional inattention
- Chronic understimulation
- Severe neglect in a family context
- Severe neglect in an institutional context
What is occasional inattention?
Intermittent diminished attention in a responsive environment
This can promote growth in a supportive environment
What is chronic understimulation?
Ongoing diminished level of child focussed responsiveness and enrichment
Leads to developmental delays
What is severe neglect in a family context?
Significant and ongoing abuse of one on one interaction
Failure to provide basic needs
Causes anything from developmental delays to a threat to health and survival
What is severe neglect in an institutional setting?
Warehouse conditions, with many children and few caregivers
No individual adult-child responsiveness
Impaired cognitive, physical and psychological development, although survival needs are met.
What do drugs target?
The reward pathway, increasing the amount of dopamine acting on the brain and feeling of reward
How does ecstacy enter the brain?
- Dissolves in stomach
- Absorbed from stomach and SI
- Liver to heart
- Heart to lungs to heart
- Heart to systemic circuit including brain
What does ecstasy do in the brain?
- Affects neocortex, hypothalamus, basal ganglia, amygdala and hippocampus
- Not physically addictive (no withdrawl) but can be psychologically addictive
- Causes heightened perception, reduced appetite, stimulation and elevated mood
- Builds resistance
- Clouds thinking, disturbs behaviour, jaw clenching and hyperthermia, and memory impairment
- Manmade, so could contain anything.
- Lots taken at once: hyperthermia, arrhythmias and renal failure
How does ecstasy have its effects in the brain?
Takes the MDMA pathway, through the raphe nucleus to the neocortex
- Blocks transporter that removes serotonin from synaptic clefts
- Serotonin is in the cleft for a longer time- more reward
- After it’s gone, transporters overcompensate, leading to a drop in serotonin and depression/irratibility
- Overall- reduces serotonin and metabolites, transporter and terminals, even many years after use
It degrades serotonin axon terminals to degenerate
Gray matter less active
What are teratogens?
Environmental agents that cause damage during the prenatal period, as they can cross the placenta
What can have a protective effect from teratogens?
The mother and child’s genes may moderate their effects
What determines the effects of teratogens?
The time of exposure- more severe the earlier in regnancy
What do teratogens do?
Affect accumulation of adipose tissue, necessary for insulation.
Are examples of teratogens?
Stimulants
Opiates
Tobacco
Alcohol
What do stimulants do to foetuses?
Cocaine: LBW, deformed urogenital system & heart, brain seizures, behaviour and mental issues
Meth: LBW, delayed motor and behavioural development, poor alertness
(Also related to maternal mental illness–> neglect)
What do opiates do to foetuses?
LBW, preterm birth, foetal withdrawl, delayed development and SIDS
MBS can be taken as a substitute as it isn’t so harmful
What does tobacco do to foetuses?
LBW, preterm birth, SIDS, diabetes, high BP, reduced gray matter, ADHD and behavioural/aggression disorders
What does alcohol do to foetuses?
LBW, small heads, developmental delay, organ dysfunction, facial abnormalities, poor coordination, social, learning and behavioural disorders, FAS
- Irreversible
- Brain cell death
- Reduced cell growth & proliferation (migrational errors)
- Inhibited nerve growth
- Disruption of neurotransmitters
What is FAS?
- Neurons migrate in a disorganized manner, failing to make connections
- CNS dysfunction, growth deficiency and facial deformity
- Hyperactivity and ADHD
- Learning disorders
- Memory, language, judgement issues
- Delayed development, mental retardation and brain damage
- Microcephaly, motor issues, seizures
Why do FAS babies have smaller heads?
They have reduced gray matter
What compounds the effect of FAS?
Babies with mothers who drink during pregnancy are often raised in stressful home environments, potentially leading to further neglect.
What is consciousness?
Personal awareness of both internal and external stimuli
What are the three levels of consciousness? (Freud)
Preconscious
Conscious
Unconscious
What is ‘conscious’?
The things you are actually thinking about
What is ‘preconscious’?
Things in you mind, but you’re not immediately thinking about
What is unconscious?
Things we are unable to access easily or that are actively kept out of our awareness
What parts of the brain are important for consciousness?
Hindbrain and midbrain- arousal and sleep
Reticular formation: alertness
Prefrontal cortex: Control of information processing
What are daydreams?
Shifts in attention towards internal thoughts and imagined scenarios
How can we measure the flow of consciousness?
Experience- Sampling: asking participants to record their thoughts at periodic alarms
What is hypnosis?
A systematic procedure increasing suggestibility.
Theoretically, it forms a second, simultaneous stream of awareness called dissociating consciousness
How can hypnosis be used?
Analgesia- during labour, minor medical procedures, burns
Help people stop smoking or eat better
What is meditation?
Practices training attention to heighten awareness and bring mental processes under greater voluntary control
How can meditation be used?
Reduces stress
Can physiological benefit (BP)
Enhanced immune system
Better self esteem, mood etc.
What is subliminal perception?
Perception of stimuli below the threshold of consciousness
How does hypnosis affect behaviour, health and development?
Can cause anaesthesia, hallucination, disinhibition or posthypnotic suggestion and amnesia
- Highway hypnonis- can have larger impacts such as leaving a baby in the car
How can meditation affect behaviour, health and development?
Alpha and beta waves more prominent, decreased arousal, HR, skin conductance, resp. rate, O2 consumption and CO2 elimination
How can subliminal perception affect behaviour, health and development?
Influences emotion and behaviors, but only with a focussed audience.
What is a circadian rhythm?
A cyclical, biological process evolved around the daily light/dark cycle
It begins from 6mos in utero
25hr, but entrained to 24hr.
Regulated by melatonin
What can happen if circadian rhythms are disrupted?
Jet lag, difficulty working
change in energy, mood and efficiency
Impacts on physical and mental health- mood and bipolar disorder
What are the features of the human circadian rhythm?
Related to temperature, which is directly correlated with alertness:
Lowest just before waking, then builds. A slump in midafternoon, before a second peak and a decline during sleep.
What is sensation?
The process by which sensory receptors detect stimuli and convert the input energy to neural impulses that travel to the brain
What is perception?
The process by which the brain selects, organizes and interprets sensory inputs
How does sight work?
Receives light waves via eyes
How does hearing work?
Receives sound waves via ears
How does taste work?
Chemicals in food and drink are received via tongue: sweet, sour, bitter, salty, umami
How does smell work?
Receives chemicals in the air via our nose. However, this also interacts with the limbic system, to apply memories and allow personal reactions to smell
How does pressure work?
Skin is mechanically displaced or moved
How does temperature work?
Cold and warmth felt in the skin
How does pain work?
Various pain producing stimuli
How does kinaesthetic work?
Body position and their movement relative to one another is detected by tension receptors in muscles, tendons and joints
How does vestibular work?
receptors in the inner ear detect gravity, acceleration and rotation to determine where your body is in space.
What is psychophysics?
Study of the relationship between physical stimulation and the experiences they evoke
What is absolute threshold?
The minimum physical energy necessary to produce a sensory response half to the time (eg. lightest possible touch)
What is signal detection theory?
Detection is based on sensory processes and judgement. The theory separates the impact of people’s motivations, expectations etc. from what they physically sense.
What is sensory adaptation?
The diminishing responsiveness of sensory systems to prolonged stimulus input- eg. you don’t always feel a hot bath as really hot
What is difference threshold?
The smallest physical difference between two stimuli that can be detected as different half the time.
What is weber’s law?
The size of the just-noticeable difference is proportional to the intensity of the stimulus- eg. it’s easier to detect a 1kg change in a 1kg weight than a 50kg weight
What are the sensory capacities at birth?
Sensitivity to taste, smell and touch
Attraction to breast milk
Touch is crucial for development
Attraction to taste and smell impacted by in utero environment
Sensitivity to pain, able to be eased with breast milk, sugar solution and touch
Hear variety of sounds (prefer mother’s voice and human speech)
Limited vision- poor acuity (8-12 inches)
What are sensory capacities at infancy?
- Organize sounds into complex patterns
- Recognize familiar words
- Focus shifts to large segments of speech
- Distinguish music by 6mos
- Distinguish color by 4mos
- recognize objects & people across a room by 8mos: near adult acuity
- Depth perception
What kind of patterns do babies prefer as they age?
Babies prefer patterned to plain stimuli
As they age, they prefer more complex patterns over simple patterns
How does vision change as we become elderly?
- Harder to focus on nearby objects, see in dim light and discriminate color
- Decreased acuity, contrast & depth
- Sensitivity to glare
- Increased cataracts and macular degeneration risk
- Lens less flexible and ciliary muscles less agile
How does hearing change as we become elderly?
- Hearing loss
- Loss of high frequency sounds
- Soft sound detection worse
- Speech comprehension more difficult
- Less impact on daily life than sight, but impacts safety and satisfaction
How does taste/smell change as we become elderly?
- reduced sensitivity
- has health and safety impacts- can’t smell.taste bad food or smoke
How does touch change as we become elderly?
Perception in hands, especially the fingertips, declines