Psych all units

random assignment

groups made by chance so theyre equal

confounding variables

hidden factors that influence results

central nervous system

brain and spinal cord

peripheral nervous system

nerves outside ventral nervous system

somatic nervous system

voluntary movement

autonomic nervous system

automatic functions (heartbeat)

sympathetic

fight / flight

parasymathetic

digestion

dendrites

receive messages

cell body

processes information

axon

sends messages away

myelin sheath

speeds messages

neurotransmitters

chemicals that pass signals between neurons

dopamine

movement, reward

serotonin

mood (low = depression)

acetylcholine

memory, movement

GABA

calming (alc inc GABA activity)

glutamate

learning, memory

medulla

controls heartbeat, breathing

pons

movement coordination sleep, arousal

reticular formation

alertness, filters incoming info

thalamus

sensory switchboard, directs info to correct brain area

hypothalamus

hunger, thirst, temeprature, sex drive; links brain = endocrine system

hippocampus

makes new memories

amygdala

fear, aggression, emotion

frontal lobes

planning, judgment, personality, impulse control

parietal lobes

touch, spatial reasoning

occipital lobes

vision

temporal lobes

hearing, language

motor cortex

voluntary movement

somatosensory cortex

touch sensation

cerebellum

balance, coordination, procedural learning

REM sleep

dreaming, breain active but body paralyzed

N1 (sleep stage)

light sleep

N2

deeper, sleep spindles

N3

deepest sleep , growth hormone released

classical conditioning (pavlov)

learing by pairing two things tg (bell + food = dog salivate)

operant conditioning (skinner)

learning from consequenses, reinforcment increases behavior, punishment dec bahavior

pos reinforcment

add something good (candy for cleaning)

neg reinforcment

remove something bad (seatbelt beep stops when you buckle)

pos punishment

add soemthing bad ( extra chores)

neg punishment

removes soemthing good (take away phone)

continuous reinforcement

behavior is reinforced everytime it happens (dog gets treat every time it sits)

continuous reinforcement results

learn trick quickly, trick ends when reinforcment ends

partial reinforcment

behavior is reinforced only some of the time

partial reinforcment result

slower learning, but behavior is more ressutant to extinction

fixed ratio

reinforcment after a set number of responses ( worker gets paid ater making 10 shirts)

variable ratio

reinforcment after an enpredictable number of responses (lottery tickets)

fixed interval

reinforcment after a set amount of time (weekly paychecks)

variable interval

reinforcment after changing, unpredictable time intervals (checking you phone for messages)

shaping

reinforce small steps toward big bahavior

taste aversion

easier to associate taste with sickness than other cues

latent learning

learning without obvious reinforcement

observational learning

learning by watching and imitating others

mirror neurons

fire both when we act and when we watch someone act (helps with imitation)

sensory memory

very short

short term memory

20 secs, abt 7 items

long term mem

ulimited

semantic

facts (NJ capital = trenton)

retrograde amnesia

lose old memories

amterograde amnesia

cant form new memories

encoding faliure

neever paid attention

storage decay

fades over time

retreival faliure

cant find it (tip of tongue)

spacing effect

study over time

testing effect

quiz yourself

mnemonics

tricks (rhymes)

eyewitness

memory cna be changed by leading questions

sensation

detecting sensory input from the enviroment (light, sound, touch)

perception

organizing and interpreting sensory information to make meaning

absolute threshold

the smallest amount of stimulus detected 50% of the time

difference threshold

the smallest change needed to notice a difference

sensory adaptation

diminished sensitivity after constant exposure

color constancy

perceiving color as constant under different lighting

top down processing

using experience and expectations to interpret information

bottom up processing

starting with raw sensory input and building upward

monocular

linear perspective, relative size, rel height

binocular

retinal disparity, slightly diff views from each eye

gestalt principles

how our brain organizes visual information into meaningful wholes

proximity

we group nearby figures together

similarity

we group similar objects as belonging together

continuity

we perceive smooth, continuous patterns rather than discontinuous ones

closure

we fill in gaps to create a complete, whoel object

treansduction

conversoion of sensory energy (light) into newural impulses

blind spot

the point of the retina with no recpetor cells

avalibility heuristic

judging likelihood based on what easily comes to mind (fearing shark attacks after new reports)

representativeness heuristic

judging based on sterotypes

freaming effect

descions are influenced by wording

conformation bias

looking for info that supports what we already believe

counterfactual thinking

imagining ‘what culd have been’

nudging

chaning choices to subtly encourage better descions

sterotype threat

worry about confimring a sterotype that can hurt preformance

subtle bias

unconsicouse preferance that affects judgment

intrinsic motivation

doing something for enjoyment

extrinsic motivation

doing something for a reward

brocas area

involved in producing speech (damged = broken/halted speech)

wernickes area

involved in understanding speech (damged = fluenct but meaningless sentences)

twin and adoption studies

shows that intelligence is influenced by both genetics and envrioment

algorithm

step by step method that guarantess and answer but takes time

heuristic

a shortcut strategy that is quicker by less accurate