psych midterm 1

Rousseau philosophy

people are born good and corrupted by society

Hobbes philosophy

people born evil, made good by society

Cognitivism

emphasis on undertsanding the mediating process between the enviornment and observabke behavior

humanism

focus on self actualization, rejection of behaviorism and psychoanalysis.

internal validity

the degree to which changes in the dependent variable are due to the manipulation of the independent variable

descriptive stats

summerize basic data from given sample

inferential stats

draw conclusions about meaning of data

Interneurons

processes the information given by the sensory neurons

Reuptake

broken down and reused neurotransmitters

reticular formation

network of neurons controlling arousal and sleep, focus on attention

substantia nigra

key part of dopamine containing pathway, deterioates in parkinsons disease

Fusiform gyrus

ability to recognize faces

Somatosensory cortex

processes info about bodily sensations (parietal lobe)

Sleep

reticular formation, thalamus, medulla

theta waves

daydream, flow, slower,greater amplitude

Delta waves

Deep sleep, greatest amplitude, slowest frequency

GABA

inhibitory neurotransmitter, ambien activates the gaba system

sensation

raw experience of stimuli, transduced into neural signals/ action potentials

Transduction

conversion of sensory stimulus into neural signal

working memory

Memory system for temporary storage, Processed in prefrontal cortex, Maintain up to 7 distinct items

Episodic memory

specific autobiographical memories

Behavior

What motivates, drives and influences organisms

Tabula rasa

Blank state

external validity

degree to which variable maps on to what happens in the real world

Linear regression

do predictor variables do good job at predicting outcome

P value

assess weather population effect might be value other than zero

Biopsychological approach

everything psychological is simultaneously biological

Central Nervous System (CNS)

brain and spinal cord, controls sensations, thinking, langauge

Autonomic system

controls involuntary movements such as heart beating and digestion

Sympathetic system function

fight/flight mode, send multiple signals for reactions

Parasympathetic system function

relaxes, calms processes

Neuron

a nerve cell; the basic building block of the nervous system

sensory neurons

neurons that receive information from the external world and convey this information to the brain via the spinal cord

nodes of ranvier

gaps in the myelin sheath

all or none law

if membrane potential does not reah threshold there will be no firing

Neurotransmitters

chemical messengers that cross the synaptic gaps between neurons

Hindbrain

medulla, pons, reticular formation, cerebellum

forebrain

limbic system, pituitary gland, hypothalamus, cerebrum, thalamus

medulla

controls breathing, blood circulation, postural control, sneezing

pons

respirtion, breathing, swallowing, bladder control, hearing, taste, eye movement, facial expressions, sensation

cerebellum

balance, coordination, control of rapid/timed movements, spatial reasoning/ locating, integrating, sensory input

superior and inferior colliculi

transmitting sensory information to the brain and in movement control

frontal lobe

judgment, decison making, planning, voluntary muscle movement, personality, intelligence

parietal lobe

somatosensory, motor control, attention

limbic system

at border of cerebrum and brainstem, associated with emotions (ex: fear, agression), includes amygdala, hippocampus and hypothalamus

Amygdala

almond shaped structure, associated with anxiety and fear, agressive behavior as well

Hypothalamus

Lies below (hypo) thalamus, moniters bodys internal state (tempurature), directs activities involved in reward (eating, drinking, etc.), plays role in emotional regulation

Memory

cerebellum, cerebral cortex, hippocampus, medial temporal lobes, all play critical roles in formation and retrival of __

Studying the brain

Lesion studies, case studies, EEG, ERPs, MRI, fMRI

Sleep

natural state of rest for the body and mind that involves reversible loss of consciousness

beta waves

brain is active and engaged; fastest waves

REM stage

breathing rapid, heart rate increases, limbs temporarily paralyzed, Theta brain waves similar to when awake, dreaming occurs

Adenosine

caffeine blocks receptors for this to make us feel more awake

activation-synthesis theory

dreams reflect our attempt to make sense of random neural firing during sleep

circadian rhythm

internal biological clock, sensitive to changes in light, regulated by suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN) in your brain

Stimulus activates sensory receptor which gives rise to?

neural impulses that result in an awareness of conditions inside or outside the body

perceptual organization

The processes that merge

sensory information together

to give the understanding of

a coherent scene

factors that determine how we percieve things around us

Sensory Thresholds, Attention, Adaptation and Signal Detection

inattentional blindness

failure to detect unexpected events when attention

is engaged

Signal detection theory

mathematical

model studying the ability to differentiate

between meaningful stimuli and noise

top down processing engages?

cognition, relies on pre existing knowledge

bottom up processing engages?

Sensation, relies on sensory receptors to understand info from external enviornment

photoreception

detection of light, used in vision

Mechanoreception

detection of vibration or pressure, used in touch and hearing

Chemoreception

detection of chemical stimuli, used in smell and taste

3 components of memory

1. Encoding

2. Storage

3. Retrieval

memory system (how it works)

working memory goes through consolidation to long term memory. Either goes to declarative (explicit) or non declarative (implicit/procedural)

non-declarative (implicit) memory

Skills and knowledge your not consciously aware of

Brain systems implicated in memory

Memory is actually a system of brain functions

Stannderd deviation

average deviation of scores from the mean

Peripheral Nervous System (PNS)

the sensory and motor neurons that connect the central nervous system (CNS) to the rest of the body.

Stage 3 sleep

Deep sleep, no eye movement, very difficult to wake someone from this stage, synchronized delta brain waves, sleepwalking and nightmares typically occur, people are confused and disoriented when woken up

Cognitive theory

dreams allow us to process info, solve problems and think creatively about what going on in our lives

encoding

information getting put into memory system.

Psychology

scientific study of behavior of humans and animals

Locke philosophy

the mind starts as tabula rasa and sensations become associated to form ideas

Kant philosophy

Mind organizes perception into pre existing innate categories of space, time and casualties

Structuralism

understanding human mind through introspection

Functionalism

understanding purpose/function of behavior, how it adapts to external enviornment

Correlational methods

measure strength of relationship between two measured variables

Experimental methods

manipulating an independent variable to determine its causal effect on an observed or measured dependent variable

Ethics

ask to present to institution and explain the risks and goals of the experiment

Varience

how far values are from mean

Somatic system

sensory input that controls voluntary movements

motor neurons

use the information to convey action to external world

Dendrites

branches that extend from cell body and are used to communicate with other axon terminals

Myelin sheath

smoothes transition of messeges to other neurons

axon terminals

branches at the end of the axon

action potential

a neural impulse; a brief electrical charge that travels down an axon

midbrain

superior and inferior collicus, substantia nigra

temporal lobe

hearing, language (left), memory

occipital lobe

process visuals, make sense of what u see

Hippocampus

seahorse shaped, formation of new memories, doesn't store memories

Brocas area

speech production, brocas aphasia, staccato, non fluent grammatical speech

Wernickes area

understanding language, wernickes aphasia, grammatical but meaningless speech

Motor cortex

processes about voluntary movement (front lobe)

Language

temporal lobe, brocas and wernickes area

alpha waves

brain is calm; slower and higher in amplitude

Stage 1 sleep

light sleeper, sensation of falling, theta waves are low frequency and low amplitude, be awakened easily

Stage 2 sleep

Deeper sleep, characterized by decreased muscle activity, eye movement stops, no longer consciously aware, brain waves become slower with bursts of spindly theta waves