Introduction to Psychology Comprehensive Review

Vocabulary practice cards covering the first five chapters of introductory psychology, including history, biological foundations, sensation, consciousness, and learning theories.

Psychology

The study of behavior and mental processes.

Science

The use of systematic methods to draw conclusions.

Behavior

Everything we can observe directly, such as kissing or crying.

Mental Processes

Thoughts, feelings, and motives we experience privately that cannot be observed directly.

Critical Thinking

The process of thinking deeply and actively, asking questions, and evaluating evidence.

Empirical Method

Gaining knowledge from observing events, collecting data, and reasoning logically.

Wilhelm Wundt ($1832\text{--}1920$)

German philosopher-physician who founded the academic discipline of psychology and performed the first experiment in December $1879$ at the University of Leipzig.

William James ($1842\text{--}1910$)

Psychologist and philosopher who gave the field an American stamp and is associated with functionalism.

Structuralism

Focuses on identifying the elemental parts or structures of the human mind, often described as "the what."

Functionalism

Probes the functions or purposes of the mind and behavior in the individual's adaptation to the environment, described as "the why."

Biological Approach

Focuses on the body, especially the brain and the nervous system.

Behavioral Approach

Focuses on observable behavior responses and environmental determinants.

Psychodynamic Approach

Emphasizes unconscious thought, conflict between biological drives (such as sex), society's demands, and early childhood family experiences.

Sigmund Freud

Founder of the psychodynamic approach who developed psychoanalysis to unlock unconscious conflicts.

Humanistic Approach

Emphasizes positive qualities, capacity for growth, freedom to choose one's destiny, and altruism.

Cognitive Approach

Emphasizes mental processes involved in knowing, including attention, perception, memory, thinking, and problem solving.

Evolutionary Approach

Focuses on adaptation, reproduction, and natural selection.

Sociocultural Approach

Focuses on the influence of social and cultural environments on behavior.

Culture

The shared knowledge, practices, and attitudes of groups of people, including language, customs, and beliefs.

Biopsychosocial

The perspective that biological, psychological, and sociological factors all influence behavior.

Theory

A broad idea that attempts to explain an explanation.

Hypothesis

A testable prediction that is derived logically from a theory.

Operational Definition

An objective description of how a variable is measured and observed in a particular study.

Descriptive Research

Research aimed at describing a phenomenon by determining its basic dimensions; includes observation, surveys, interviews, and case studies.

Case Study

An in-depth look at an individual, such as the study of Gandhi's spiritual identity.

Correlational Research

Defines the relationship between variables and determines how they change together.

Naturalistic Observation

Observing behavior in a real-world setting.

Francis Cecil Sumner, Ph.D.

Psychologist who refuted racist research and mentored African American students at Howard University.

Plasticity

The brain's special capacity to change, which is highest at birth.

Central Nervous System (CNS)

Consists of the brain and spinal cord.

Peripheral Nervous System (PNS)

A network connecting the CNS to other body parts, sending information and carrying out CNS commands.

Somatic Nervous System

Conveys information from the skin and muscles to the CNS about conditions like pain and temperature.

Autonomic Nervous System

Takes messages to and from internal organs, monitoring processes like breathing and heart rate.

Sympathetic Nervous System

Mobilizes the body for action and is involved in the stress response (fight-or-flight).

Parasympathetic Nervous System

Calms the body.

Stress

Circumstances and events that threaten people and tax their coping abilities.

Dendrites

Parts of the neuron that receive information and rotate towards the cell body.

Axon

The part of the neuron that carries information away from the cell body toward other cells.

Acetylcholine

Stimulates the firing of neurons and is involved in muscle action, learning, and memory; low amounts are linked to Alzheimer's.

GABA

Keeps neurons from firing and controls precision; low levels are associated with anxiety.

Glutamate

Excites neurons to fire and is involved in learning and memory; excess can cause migraines.

Norepinephrine

Inhibits neuron firing but excites the heart and intestines; helps control alertness.

Dopamine

Controls voluntary movement and affects sleep, mood, and reward recognition; linked to Parkinson's (too little) and Schizophrenia (too much).

Serotonin

Regulates sleep, mood, attention, and learning; low levels are linked to depression.

Endorphins

Natural opiates that shield the body from pain and elevate feelings of pleasure.

Oxytocin

Neurotransmitter that plays an important role in love and social bonding.

Agonist

A drug that mimics or stimulates a neurotransmitter's effects by binding to receptors.

Antagonist

A drug that blocks a neurotransmitter's effects.

Medulla

Controls breathing and heart rate, and regulates reflexes.

Cerebellum

Controls motor coordination, such as arm and leg movements.

Reticular Formation

A midbrain system involved in stereotyped patterns of behavior like walking and sleeping.

Amygdala

An almond-shaped structure involved in discriminating objects for survival and emotional expression.

Hippocampus

Brain structure with a special role in memory; damage prevents new conscious memories.

Thalamus

The relay station of the brain, similar to a computer network system.

Hypothalamus

Monitors pleasurable activities (eating, drinking, sex), emotion, stress, and reward.

Frontal Lobes

Involved in intelligence, personality, and control of voluntary muscles.

Parietal Lobes

Involved in spatial location, attention, and motor control.

Temporal Lobes

Involved in hearing, language processing, and memory.

Occipital Lobes

Involved in response to visual stimuli.

Corpus Callosum

A large bundle of axons that connects the brain's hemispheres and relays information between them.

Brenda Milner, Ph.D.

The founder of clinical neuropsychology who lived to be $102$ years old.

Sensation

The process of receiving stimulus energies from the external environment and transforming them into neural energy.

Perception

The process of organizing and interpreting sensory information to make sense of it.

Bottom-up Processing

Taking in information and trying to make sense of it without prior expectations.

Top-down Processing

When expectations or prior knowledge affect what is seen, heard, or felt.

Absolute Threshold

The minimum amount of stimulus energy that a person can detect.

Difference Threshold

The degree of difference that must exist between two stimuli before it is detected $50\%$ of the time; also called the just noticeable difference.

Signal Detection Theory

An approach to perception focusing on decision making about stimuli under conditions of uncertainty.

Selective Attention

Focusing on one specific thing while ignoring the rest.

Sensory Adaptation

A change in the responsiveness of the sensory system based on the average level of surrounding stimulation.

Rods

Receptors in the retina sensitive to light, used for night vision but not color.

Cones

Receptors in the retina used for color perception.

Trichromatic Theory

Proposes that color is produced by three types of cone receptors sensitive to different wavelengths.

Opponent-process Theory

Explains color vision through four types of cone receptors in pairs (red-green, blue-yellow) and accounts for afterimages.

Figure-ground Relationship

Organization of the perceptual field into stimuli that stand out (figure) and those that are left over (ground).

Gestalt Psychology

Probes how people naturally organize their perceptions according to certain patterns.

Perceptual Constancy

The recognition that objects are constant even though sensory input about them changes.

Cochlea

A tubular, fluid-filled, snail-shaped structure in the ear.

Kinesthetic Sense

Provides information on movement, posture, and orientation.

Vestibular Sense

Provides information on movement and balance.

Consciousness

A person's awareness of external events and internal sensations under a condition of arousal.

Circadian Rhythms

Daily behavioral or physiological cycles involving sleep, temperature, and blood pressure.

Suprachiasmatic Nucleus

A brain structure that uses retinal input to synchronize rhythm with the daily cycle of light and dark.

Sleep Spindles

High frequency bursts of neurons firing during N2 sleep, important for memory consolidation.

REM Sleep

An active stage of sleep where vivid dreaming, rapid eye movements, and fast brain waves occur.

Sleep Apnea

A disorder where individuals stop breathing while sleeping, often resulting in loud snoring.

Manifest Content

The surface content of a dream containing symbols that hide the true meaning.

Latent Content

A dream's hidden, unconscious, and true meaning.

Activation-synthesis Hypothesis

The theory that dreams result from the cerebral cortex's attempt to find logic in random neural signals from the lower brain. Dreams reflect the brain's efforts to make sense out of neural activity that takes place during sleep, random memories being activated

Tolerance

The need to take increasing amounts of a drug to achieve similar effects.

Behaviorism

A theory of learning that focuses strictly on observable behaviors.

Classical Conditioning

A process where a neutral stimulus is associated with a meaningful stimulus to elicit a similar response.

Unconditioned Stimulus (US)

A stimulus that produces a response prior to any learning.

Conditioned Stimulus (CS)

A previously neutral stimulus that, after association with a US, produces a conditioned response.

Extinction

The weakening of a conditioned response when the unconditioned stimulus is absent.

Operant Conditioning

Associative learning where the consequences of a behavior change the probability of its occurrence; associated with B.F. Skinner.

Positive Reinforcement

Increasing behavior by adding a stimulus, such as a smile.

Negative Reinforcement

Increasing behavior by removing an unpleasant stimulus, such as taking out trash to stop nagging.

Learned Helplessness

When an organism learns through unavoidable stimuli that it has no control over negative outcomes.

Martha E. Bernal, Ph.D.

The first Latina to earn a Ph.D. in Psychology in the U.S. and co-founder of the National Hispanic Psychology Association.