Unit one, Test 1 Flashcards
Get a 100 on this shit. Or as close as possible.
What is the definition of psychology?
It’s the study of human thought and behavior. Can be clinical, popular, or just plain scientific.
What are some subdisciplines? Broad, narrow, overarching?
Cognitive psychology, developmental psychology, behavioral, personality, social
What is structuralism? Who’s involved, and what’s its impact?
Structuralism is how psychology essentially “made it”. Pioneered by Wundt, it broke the experience of consciousness down into composite elements.
What does introspection have to do with structuralism?
Introspection involves looking into oneself and classifying/observing one’s mind and mental processes in order to break it down.
What is behavioralism?
Behavioralism, simply put, describes behavior– what causes it, what alters it, and the behavior’s implications itself.
What does functionalism have to do with structuralism?
Functionalism mostly explains phenomena and its benefits/effects/causes instead of focusing on labeling it. Supposedly more nuanced, it allows for action to be taken with the knowledge.
Who is involved in behavioralism?
John Watson and B.F. skinner, one with critiques to psychology thus far, and the other with a new theory about how behavior is affected by its consequences.
What’s the nature v. nurture argument?
Meant to figure out why people are the way they are, it pits genetics and environmental factors against eachother to see what has most influence in the outcome of a human person’s personality and behavior.
Evolutionary perspective of psychology– what’s the reasoning?
Evolution can explain our present behaviors as behaviors that allowed us to survive are put across generations and present now.
Psychoanalysis
Freud, early childhood, the unconscious
Behavioralism
Behaviors are concrete and measurable. You can change or influence a behavior through association and consequence.
Humanistic/Positive
People are inherently going to strive for goodness.
Cognitive
Memory, learning, and problem solving– we are affected by our thinking and perception.
Sociocultural
You can’t understand someone without understanding the context and culture they grew up in. Cultures have similarities and differences.
neuro psycho behav
People differ in part due to their different genes and brains, causing their behavior to vary.
Evolutionary
nat/sex/nat/nurt
What are the elements of science?
Physical, biological, and social. A culture of scrutiny and honesty, as well as the verification of beliefs
How does pseudoscience differ?
It doesn’t seek to disprove its assertions, is presented as science without the integrity, and it doesn’t actually create new knowledge.
What are the components of a study?
Population and sample
What is population? What is a sample?
A population is the demographic of people a reseearcher focuses on. A sample is a small subset of those people chosen for research in order to realistically represent them.
What are different ways to collect data?
A case study, naturalistic observation, a survey.
What do case studies do and why do we do them?
Case studies involve an individual who is intimately observed long term. It gives a lot of insight despite its lack of representative data.
What is Naturalistic observation?
Observation done “in the wild” and thus it is not told that those persons’ actions are being observed. It’s meant to be unobtrusive.
What are surveys?
Clean cut questionaires that collect opinions across several participants, which allow people to see attitudes.
Why is replication done?
Replication weeds out flukes and builds upon the basis for scientific beliefs.
What are confounding variables
Unwanted influences on final results, unwanted differences between the experimental and control
What do correlational studies do?
Without the manipulation of variables, these studies show correlation between two variables. This is meant to elucidate situations where creating them in lab is unethical.
What are experimental studies?
They contain randomm assignments, and controlled conditions. These aren’t applicable to the real world in all occasions, but are good to determine causation.
What are the differences between the control and experimental group?
One is a reference, the other is changed.
What’s the difference between a single and double blind study?
Single blind studies leave the subject not knowing the purpose of the experiment, while double blind studies leave the practitioner unknowing as well.
What are the guidelines for the ethical treatment of human subjects?
Informed consent, respect for persons, beneficience, privacy and confidentiality, and justice.
What are the parts of a neuron and the pathway of a signal?
Soma, axon, dendrites, terminal buttons, and synapses.
What is an action potential?
- It is the positively charged electrical message which moves through an axon.
Reuptake
- Part of synaptic transmission !!! it removes excess neurotransmitters from a synaptic cleft.
Mirror neurons
- Brain cells which fire when an action is observed or imitated.
What are neurotransmitters and diseases they are associated with?
See the attached graphic.
Acetylcholine
- Acetylcholine is released at synapses controlling muscle movement, but also while learning, attention, and dreaming.
Dopamine
- Dopamine is meant to voluntarily control muscles, but is also part of the reward and pleasure response. Presence of the neurotransmitter is pleasure, and reuptake of it is the fading of euphoria.
Serotonin
- Serotonin controls emotional responses, which is why anxiety and depression’s effects are driven by a lack of it, and genes of its reuptake tend to determine the disease’s heredity.
Sympathetic/parasympathetic nervous systems
- Parts of the autonomic/involuntary system, which control organ movement and behavior.
o Aroused = sympathetic
o Relaxed = parasympathetic
Thyroid gland
- hormones that control the rate of metabolism
What is the role of the brainstem?
- midbrain, medulla, pons. Controls senses and information, as well as voluntary movement.
What is the role of the cerebellum?
Body movement, balance, coordination, and fine motor skills. Minor role in mood and emotion.
Hippocampus
What is the role of the hippocampus?
- Receives sensory information, which is converted to the memory. Incoming info is often categorized from long to short term using the hippocampus. Has a good role in learning.
What are the four lobes of the brain?
The frontal, parietal, temporal, and occipital
What does the frontal lobe do and contain?
The frontal lobe controls planning and thinking, as well as attention. It controls the primary motor cortex.
Parietal lobe role - what is it?
Parietal has to do with touch, and it holds the somatosensory cortex. Sizes of the areas correspond to sensitivity.
What does the temporal lobe have to do with anything?
The temporal lobe controls hearing, with connections to the hippocampus. It houses the auditory cortex, but also is involved with the amygdala and memory. Wernicke’s part allows for language comprehension.
Who is Phineas Gage?
He had a rail shot through his frontal lobe. His personality changed drastically, establishing a link.
What is neuroplasticity?
The brain’s ability to adapt to new functions, reorganize, or make connections.
What’s the basis of neuroplasticity?
It varies with age, depends on the part of the brain, and changes with experience.
What’s the split brain procedure?
Cuts the corpus callosum, and it alleviates epilepsy, but also ends communication between the two hemispheres of the brain. It limits language and perception.
What’s the somatosensory cortex?
It’s part of the parietal lobe involved with processing and sensory infomration, eespecially temperature, pressure, pain. It is located in front of the motor cortex
What is sensation?
It’s a physical phenomena where stims become action potentials
Transduction takes..
Physical stimlli into neural stimuli, thus processing it.
Absolute threshold is..
The lowest possible intensity of something that is detectable.
Signal detection theory involves…
Hits, misses, rejections, false alarms.
Difference thresholds are…
The amt of difference needed to be present in order to differentiate things
Perceptual sets are…
The effects of our expectations on our events. lookit up!!!
Accomodation is…
How the lens of an eye changes in order to focus on objects depending on their distance.
Apparent motion is…
An illusion where things appear to be moving.
Figure-ground
Our eye’s separation of an object from its background.
What are the gestalt principles? take a moment to envision them.
similarity, continuity, proximity, closure, figure ground
What is binocular disparity?
The difference between what is percieved between both eyes
What are monocular cues?
linear perspective, texture gradient, atmospheric perspective, andinterposition.
What are perceptual constancies?
Size and shape. also, color.
What is the opponent process theory/?
The thalamous links colors into pairs, activation in one inhibits the other, with blue yellow red green and black with white.
