PSYCH exam concepts

Where is consciousness located in the brain?

prefrontal cortex

What is higher level awareness

controlled processes (doing a problem)

What is lower level awareness

automatic processes that require little attention (typing on a keyboard)

What are altered states of awareness?

metal states that are notably different than a normal state

• induced by drugs, hypnosis, fatigue

What is subconscious awareness

information that your brain processes without you noticing

What is waking subconscious awareness

processes occuring in the brain just under awareness

What waves are found in the W stage of sleep?

alpha and beta

What waves are found in the N1 stage of sleep?

Theta waves

What waves are found in the N2 stage of sleep?

Theta waves with higher frequency (sleep spindles)

What waves are found in the N3 stage of sleep?

Delta waves

What waves are found in the REM stage of sleep?

beta waves (found in N1)

What is bottom up processing?

sensory receptors register information from stimuli in external environment and send to brain to process

What is top down processing?

We have a sense of what is happening and apply that to our situation

What part of the brain registers all senses?

thalamus

What is absolute threshold?

The minimum amount of energy to detect stimulus 50% of the time

What is difference threshold?

The smallest difference needed to distinguish the difference between two stimuli to detect one of them 50% of the time

ex. artist detecting between two shades of blue

What is weber’s law?

two stimuli must differ by constant proportion to be percieved as different (ex. db of 100 and 110 to 1000 and 1100 not 1010)

What is subliminal percpetion?

detection of information below consciousness

What stimuli attracts our atttention?

• new things

• size, colour, movement,

• emotional stimuli

What is sensory adaptation?

change in the responsiveness of the sensory system to the average level stimulation

ex. when you turn the lights off you can eventually see some figures

What do cones do?

perceive colour and small details

What do rods do?

light sensitivity

What is the trichromatic theory of colour?

There are three types of cones in the retina that respond to different frequencies of wavelengths

What is the Opponent Process theory of colour ?

cells in the visual system respond complimentary pairs of red-green or yellow-blue. A cell may be stimulated by red but inhibited by green or vice versa

What is the Place Theory of hearing?

frequencies produce vibrations in different spots on the basilar membrane

What is the frequency theory of hearing?

perception of a sounds frequency depends on how often the auditory nerve fires.

What are kinesthetic senses?

provides information about movement, posture and orientation

What are vestibular senses?

provides information about balance and movement

What are heuristics?

shortcut strategies that suggest a solution to a problem but dont gurantee an awnser

What is inductive reasoning?

reasoning from specific observations to make generalizations

What is deductive reasoning?

reasoning from a general principle that is known to be true

What is the automatic system of reasoning?

rapid and intuitive

What is the controlled system of reasoning?

slower and analytic

What is loss aversion?

weighing possible losses more heavily than possible gains

What is confirmation bias?

searching and using certain ideas that support someone point than the ideas that go against their point

What is rate neglect?

ignoring information about general principeles in support of specific ones

What is a representative heuristic?

making judgements based on stereotypes/assumptions instead of given information

What is hindsight bias

falsely report after someone accurately predicts an outcome “i know that would happen”

What is availability heurstic?

predicting the chance of an event based on previous occurrences of the event happening.

What is phonology?

sounds "(sk, sp, ba)

What is morphology?

word formation (help + er → helper)

What is syntax?

Combing words for proper phrases and scentences

What are semantics?

meaning of words

What are pragmatics?

Communicating more information with less words

What part of the brain is responsible for percieving new sounds?

cerebellum

What age does language develop?

10-13 months

What did Chomsky say about language learning?

We were born pre-wired to learn language at a certain time

What is the drive reduction theory?

The stronger a drive becomes, the more motivated we are to reduce it

What is the Yerkes-Dodson Law?

moderate arousal levels by overlearning = better performance

What is the optimal arousal theory?

there is a level of arousal that affects goal attaining

What is leptin?

hormone released by fat cells to control metabolism

What part of the brain is involved with stimulating eating?

Lateral hypothalamus

What part of the brain is responsible for reduced hunger?

Ventromedial hypothalamus

What is self determination theory?

we are all capable of self-fulfillment, we just need the right conditions

What is gamblers fallacy

the chance of something happening with a fixed possibility is higher or lower as it occurs more often

What is a semantic network?

What is motivated forgetting?

conscious or unconscious suppression of unwanted memories

What is pseudoforgetting?

information loss due to ineffective encoding

What is field independence?

ability to percieve objects and details as seperate from their surroundings

What is face validity?

the extent to which a test appears to measure what it intends to measure, based on a subjective judgment of its relevance.

What is construction validity?

the degree to which a test appears to measure what its supposed to be measuring

What is criteron-related vaildity?

how well one measure predicts an outcome based on another measure

What is base rate neglect?

The tendency to ignore information about general principles in favor of very specific but vivid information

What is reification?

treating abstract concepts and tangible objects

ex. think of the emotion happiness as an object (sun)

What are semantic networks?

organized form of memory that describes declarative memories and knowledge

What is risk aversion cognition?

preferring an expected outcome over an unexpected outcome, even if it is less desirable

What is subjective utility?

a result of the situation being viewed as positive

What is explicit/declarative memory?

memory of specific facts

what is semantic memory?

general knowledge about the world

What are implicit/nondeclarative memories?

information that does not require conscious retrieval (your name)

What is Habituation?

A decrease in the response to a repeated stimulus over time

What is Taste Aversion learning?

the learned association between a particular taste and nausea

What is a fixed ratio schedule?

What is a variable ratio schedule?

behaviour is reinforced after an uncertain amount of times (not fixed)

What is a fixed interval schedule?

behaviour is reinforced on a fixed interval of time

What is a variable interval schedule?

reinforcement after a variable amount of time has elapsed

what is Thorndike’s Law of Effect?

behaviours followed by pleasant outcomes are strengthened and behaviours followed by unpleasant outcomes are weakened

What is divergent thinking?

Thinking that produces many solutions to the same problem.

What is convergent thinking?

Thinking that produces the single best solution to a problem.

What is spearman’s g?

general intelligence underlies performance in a variety of areas

What is validity?

The extent to which a test measures what it is intended to measure

What is intelligence quotient?

individual's mental age divided by chronological age multiplied by 100

What is normal distribution?

A symmetrical, bell-shaped curve; a majority of the scores fall in the middle of the range, and few scores appear toward the extremes

What is the Flynn effect?

The phenomenon of rapidly increasing IQ test scores across a relatively short period of time

What is lateralization

The specialization of function in one hemisphere of the brain or the other

What is the strength and vulnerability integration model.

suggests that when older adults are faced with unavoidable stressful situations such as health problems, which are common in later adulthood, they may be more emotionally reactive and decline in their well-being.

What are the 4 Piaget’s stages of development

1. sensorimotor

2. preoperational

3. concrete operational

4. formal operational

What is sensorimotor stage?

• uses physical senses and actions to get an understanding of the world

What is the preoperational stage?

More symbolic and intuitive thinking

• cant understand the concept of conservation (water and glass)

• egocentric

What is the concrete operational stage?

uses operations and reasoning instead of intuition

What is the formal operational stage?

making predictions and using logic and thinking of the future

What are the periods of prenatal development?

1. germinal period - clump of cells

2. embryonic period - heart starts to beat and some parts begin to form

3. fetal period - size of a kidney bean and more developed

What is assimilation?

incorporating new information to existing information (what you know)

what is accommodation?

altering the existing information with new information

What are the stages in Erikson’s development theory?

1. Trust vs Mistrust

2. Autonomy vs Shame

3. Initative vs Guilt

4. Industry vs Inferiority

5. Identity vs Confusion

6. Intimacy vs Isolation

7. Generativity vs Stagnation

8. Integrity vs Depair

What is preferential looking?

A research technique that involves giving an infant a choice of what object to look at.

What is iconic memory?

visual sensory memory

What is echoic memory?

auditory sensory memory

What is the three part system of working memory?

the phonological loop - stores speech/language information

visuo-spatial working memory - stores visual and spatial information

the central executive - integrates information from both and forms long term memory

What is priming?

activation of known information to help remember new information