AP Psych Final Review

Neurotransmitters

chemicals messengers stored in sacks in axon terminal; affect ability to perceive, think, feel, act/react, move

Hormones

chemical messengers that are manufactured by the endocrine glands travel through the bloodstream and affect other tissues

Where are hormones secreted

The blood stream

EEG

measures brain waves

Occipital lobe

visual info

Temporal lobe

hearing

Parietal lobe

top of head receives sensing touch

What part of brain is cut for split brain patients

Corpus callosum

Consciousness

Awareness of ourselves and our environment

Circadian rhythm

24 hour biological clock (bodily rhythms)

When do you see sleep spindles?

Stage 2

Delta waves

large slow brain waves

REM sleep

eyes dart

Why is REM sleep called paradoxical sleep?

paradox of a sleeping body with an active brain

Melatonin

SCN triggers release of melatonin from the pineal gland and causes sleepiness

Suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN)

control circadian rhythm

Memory

Learning that has persisted over time

Encoding

getting info in our memory

Length of long-term memories

forever (permanent)

Magic 7

capacity of STM, 7 bits of info

Algorithm

A methodical, step by step logical rule or procedure that guarantees solving a particular problem

Heuristics

mental shortcuts

Insight

A sudden realization of a problem's solution aha

Confirmation bias

A tendency to search for information that supports our preconceptions

Fixation

inability to see a problem from a new perspective

Mental set

tendency to approach a problem a particular way (usually a successful way from past)

Representative heuristic

a mental shortcut whereby people classify something according to how similar it is to a typical case

Availability heuristics

estimating the likelihood of events based on their availability in memory

Belief perseverance

clinging to one's initial conceptions after they have been discredited

Framing

the way an issue is phrased

Language

spoken, written, signed way of communicating

Phoneme

smallest unit of language

Number of phonemes in English language

40

Semantics

rules of language

Syntax

order of words in a sentence

Receptive language

ability to comprehend speech

Telegraphic speech

early speech stage a child speaks —"go car"—using mostly nouns and verbs.

Introspection

A method of self-observation in which participants report their thoughts and feelings

Who emphasized the role of the unconscious?

Sigmund Freud

What perspective emphasizes unconscious conflict?

Psychodynamic perspective

Psychiatrist

A medical doctor who has specialized in the diagnosis and treatment of psychological disorders

Morphemes

The smallest units of meaning in a language (prefix)

Chunking

grouping info together

what brain structure related to implicit memory?

cerebellum & basal ganglia

what brain structure related to explicit memory?

hippocampus & amygdala

Medulla

the base of the brainstem; controls heartbeat and breathing

Cerebellum

the "little brain" at the rear of the brainstem; sensory/coordinating movement/balance

Phineas Gage

frontal lobe damaged

Sensation

sensory receptors and nervous system receive and represent stimulus energies from our environment

Perception

organizing and interpreting sensory information, enabling us to recognize meaningful objects and events

Transduction

conversion of one form of energy into another

absolute threshold

the minimum stimulation needed to detect a particular stimulus 50 percent of the time

difference threshold

the minimum difference between two stimuli

sensory adaptation

diminished sensitivity as a consequence of constant stimulation

accommodation

the process by which the eye's lens changes shape to focus near or far objects on the retina

correct order of structures in which light passes through the eye

cornea, pupil, iris, lens, retina, fovea

Gestalt

an organized whole

Learning

acquiring new and relatively enduring information or behaviors

Conditioning

the process of learning associations

classical conditioning

a type of learning in which one learns to link two or more stimuli and anticipate events

who is most closely related to classical conditioning

ivan pavlov

Who created first psych lab

Wilhem Wundt

Focus of Functionalism

Mental behavioral processes & conscious thought function an organism to flourish

Focus of humanistic psychology

how environmental influences can nurture or limit growth for the importance of needs being met

What influences behavior according to the biological perspective

hormones

Focus of cognitive perspective

how we encode, process, store, and retrieve information

Focus of behavioral perspective

Looking at behavior through conditioning

Focus of biological perspective

Looking at psychology as a result of biological aspects

Hypothesis

A testable prediction

Case study

study of one individual in great detail

Naturalistic observation

watching & recording natural behavior of individual without interference

Survey

acquiring self-reported attitudes/behaviors of a particular group via random sampling to represent the larger mass

Correlation coefficient

statistical index of relationship b/w two variables

Experiment

research method where an investigator manipulates one or more variables to observe the effect/outcome

Experimental group

group exposed to treatment/ID

Control group

group not exposed to treatment/ID

Standard deviation

computed measure of how much scores vary around the mean

Dendrites

neurons bushy, branch extensions that receive messages and conduct impulses

Axon

neuron extension that passes messages to other neurons

Path of the signal down a neuron

dendrite -\> cell body -\> axon -\> axon terminal

Action potential

brief neural impulse that travels down axon

conditioned response

a learned response to a previously neutral stimulus

unconditioned response

a reflexive reaction that is reliably produced by an unconditioned stimulus

unconditioned stimulus

A stimulus that evokes an unconditioned response without previous conditioning

conditioned stimulus

a stimulus that elicits a response only after learning has taken place

sponataneous recovery

the tendency of a learned behavior to recover from extinction after a rest period

Generalization

responding similarly to a range of similar stimuli

Discrimination

learned ability to distinguish between a conditioned stimulus and stimuli that do not signal an unconditioned stimulus

pairing for classical conditioning

UCS = UCR, NS+UCS=UCR, CS=CR

operant conditioning

Learning based on the consequences of responding

law of effect

The principle that behaviors are selected by their consequences

Who is most closely related to operant conditioning?

BF Skinner

Shaping

The reinforcement of closer and closer approximations of a desired response.

reinforce

to encourage behavior

Negative reinforcement

increasing behavior by the removal, escape from, or avoidance of an unpleasant stimulus

fixed-ratio schedule

reinforces a response only after a specified number of responses

variable-ratio schedule

reinforces a response after an unpredictable number of responses

prototype

mental representation of the whole category

Components of creativity

Expertise, Imaginative thinking skills, A venturesome personality, Intrinsic motivation, A creative environment