Unit 1 and Unit 2 Flashcards
o concluded that the mind and body are separate entities.
o They believed that the mind continues after death and that
knowledge individuals are born with knowledge.
Socrates and Plato
- believed that knowledge is
developed through experience stored in our memories .
o Derived psychological principles from careful observation
Socrates
o Agreed with Plato and Socrates about how individuals are
born with knowledge, the mind and body are separate, and
how the mind continues after death
o Dissected animals and concluded that the cerebrospinal fluid
in the brain’s cavities contained animal spirits.
These spirits flowed from the brain through nerves
(which he thought were hollow) to the muscles,
provoking movement.
Memories formed as experiences opened pores in the
brain into which the animal spirits flowed as well.
Descartes was right that nerve paths are important and
that they enable reflexes
Rene Descartes
o One of the founders of modern science whose influence
remains present in today’s psychological experiments.
o Fascinated by the human mind
o Wrote about the human mind’s ability to perceive patterns in
random events
o Explored our ability to notice and remember events that
confirm our beliefs
Francis Bacon
Wrote An Essay Concerning Human
Understanding in which he famously argued the mind at birth is a tabula rasa a “blank slate” on which experience writes
John Locke
o Studied introspection
o Professor at a university in Leipzig Germany
o Difference between physical sensation and cognitive
perception
Wilhelm Wundt
o Joined the Cornell University faculty and introduced
structuralism.
o As physicists and chemists discerned the structure of matter,
so … aimed to discover the structural elements of
mind
… method was to engage people in self-
reflective introspection (looking inward) training them
to report elements of their experience as they look at a
rose, listened to a metronome, smelled a scent, or tasted
a substance.
Edward Titchener
Later she finished all the requirements for a Harvard Ph.D.,
outsourcing all the male students on the qualifying exams.
o Harvard denied her the degree she had earned, offering her
instead a degree from Radcliff college, its undergraduate
sister school for women, … resisted the unequal
treatment and refused the degree.
o She was posthumously awarded the Ph.D. she earned more
than a century later.
o She went on to be a distinguished memory researcher and the
APA’s first female president in 1905
Mary Whiton Calkins
is the study of the physiological, evolutionary, and developmental
mechanisms of behavior and experience
Biological Psychology
which convey messages to one another and to muscles and glands, vary
enormously in size, shape and functions
Neurons
generally smaller than neurons, have many functions but do not convey
information over great distances
Glia
relates a behavior to the activity of the brain and other organs
Physiological Explanation
describes the development of a structure or a behavior
Ontogenetic Explanation
reconstructs the evolutionary history of a structure or
behavior
Evolutionary Explanation
describes why a structure or behavior evolved as it did
Functional Explanation
Within a small, isolated population, a gene can spread by accident through a process called… The larger the population the less powerful is
the …
Genetic Drift
Biological explanations of behavior raise the …
Mind body & mind-brain problem
the belief that mind and body are different kinds of substance–mental substance and physical substance that exist
independently.
Dualism
The belief that the universe consists of only one
kind of substance.
Monism
The nervous system consists of two types of cells:
Neurons and Glia
Receive information and transmit it to other cells
Neurons
Provide a number of functions. They do not convey information over great distances, but they aid the functioning of neurons in many ways.
Glial Cells
The edge of a cell is a … a structure that separates the inside of the cell from the outside environment.
Membrane
The structure that contains the chromosomes
Nucleus
The structure that performs metabolic activities.
Mitochondria
Are the sites at which the cell synthesizes new protein molecules.
Ribosomes
A network of thin tubes that transport newly synthesized
proteins to other locations
Endoplasmic Reticulum
Has its soma in the spinal cord. It receives excitation from other neurons through its dendrites and conducts impulses along its axon to a muscle.
Motor Neuron
Is specialized at one end to be highly sensitive to a particular type of stimulation.
Sensory Neuron
Are branching fibers that get narrower at near their ends.
Dendrites
The short growths that increase the surface
area available for synapses.
Dendritic Spines
Contains the nucleus, ribosomes, mitochondria, and other structures found in most cells
Cell body or soma
Is a thin fiber of constant diameter in most cases longer than the
dendrites.
Axon
Many vertebrate axons are covered with an insulating material called a …
Myelin Sheath
The myelin sheath has interruptions called …
Nodes of Ranvier
A nerve cell. Basic building block of the nervous system.
Neurons
A neuron’s bushy, branching extensions that receive messages and conduct
impulses toward the cell body.
Dendrites
The neuron extension that passes messages through its branches to other neurons or
to muscles or glands.
Axon
A fatty tissue layer segmentally encasing the axons of some
neurons; enables vastly greater transmission speed as neural impulses hop from one sausage-like node to the next.
Myelin Sheath
A neural impulse; a brief electrical charge that travels down an axon
Action Potential
The membrane of a neuron maintains an …, a difference in electrical charge between the inside and outside of the cell.
Electrical Gradient
A difference in electrical charge between two locations
polarization
The difference in voltage in a resting neuron is called the … (the result of negatively charged proteins inside the cell)
Resting Potential
Some chemicals can
pass through it more freely than others can (membrane)
Selectively Permeable
A protein complex that repeatedly
transports three sodium ions out of the cell while drawing two potassium ions into it.
Sodium-potassium Pump
The level of stimulation required to required to
trigger a neural impulse.
Threshold
A period of inactivity after a neuron has fired or a period during with it resists the production of
further action potentials.
Refractory Period
A neuron’s reaction
of either firing (with a full-strength response) or not firing. The amplitude and velocity of an action potential are independent of the intensity of the stimulus that inhibited it
All or None Response
The junction between the axon tip of the sending neuron and the dendrite or cell body of the receiving neuron. The tiny gap at this junction is called the synaptic gap or synaptic cleft.
Synapse
At a synapse, one neuron releases chemicals that affect a second neuron. Those chemicals are known as.
Neurotransmitters
A neurotransmitter’s reabsorption by the sending neuron
Reuptake
Acids containing an amine group
Amino Acids
Chains of amino acids.
Peptides
A chemical similar to amino acid, except that the NH2 group has been
replaced an N(CH3)3 group.
Acetylcholine
