UBC Psyc 101 Final

Altered state of consciousness

A form of experience that departs significantly from the normal subjective experience of the world and the mind

Circadian rhythm

A naturally occuring 24hr cycle for the human body

Beta waves

High frequency activity during alertness

Alpha waves

Low frequency activity during relaxation

Theta waves

The frequency patterns that are even lower than alpha waves for the first stage of sleep

Sleep spindles & K complexes

In the second stage of sleep, short bursts of activity where the sleeper is difficult to awaken

Delta waves

In the deepest stage 3 and stage 4 of sleep, known as slow-wave sleep, low frequency and high amplitude waves

REM sleep

Stage 5 of sleep, where there are rapid eye movements and high brain activity, high frequency sawtooth waves, more dreams. Plays a developmental role and high levels for newborns

In the first hour, fall into stage _ of sleep, the stage marked by _____ waves, there are a general synchronization of neurons, as the brain is doing one thing at a time. You later fall into lighter sleep stages, eventually reaching ___ sleep, cycling through every __ minutes or so

4, delta, REM, 90

REM deprivation

Rebound of more REM sleep the following night

Deprivation from slow-wave sleep

Has physical effects like tired, fatigued, hypersensitive to muscle and bone pain

Glymphatic system

A system in the brain that eliminates neurotoxic waste products and distributes useful compounds to the brain, mainly operates when sleeping

Insomnia

The difficulty in falling or staying asleep, the most common sleep disorder. Can be caused by night shifts or even worried about not falling asleep (anxiety)

Sleep apnea

A disorder where someone stops breathing during sleep, may cause awakenings and insomnia

Somnambulism/Sleepwalking

Occurs when a person arises and walks around while asleep, more common in kids during slow-wave sleep

Narcolepsy

Trouble with maintaining wakefulness. The intrusion of sleep (REM) into wakefulness and accompanied by excess sleepiness

Sleep paralysis

the experience of waking up unable to move, associated with narcolepsy, awakens from REM sleep before regaining motor control, accompanied by hallucinations

Sleep terrors/night terrors

Abrupt awakening with panic and intense emotional arousal, happen to children and non-REM sleep

5 major characteristics of dream consciousness

1. We intensely feel emotion

2. Dream thought is illogical

3. Sensation is fully formed and meaningful

4. Dreaming occurs with uncritical acceptance

5. We have difficulty remembering the dream after it's over

First psychological theory of dreams from Freud

Dreams are confusing and obscure because the dynamic unconscious creates them precisely to be confusing and obscure

Activation - synthesis model

The theory that dreams are produced when the brain attempts to make sense of random neuron activity that occurs during sleep

Brain areas activated during REM sleep

The motor cortex, visual association areas (occipital lobe), amygdala, brainstem

Sleep

Change in consciousness/loss in consciousness that happens in a periodic cycle

4 characteristics of sleep

Immobility, posture, responsibility, reversibility

Immobility

A characteristic of sleep that is not moving around

Posture

A characteristics of sleep that is universal across all species

Responsibility

A characteristics of sleep that is less likely to wake up

Reversibility

A characteristic of sleep where we can reverse back into a waking state

Electroencephalon/EEG

A way of measuring sleep by attaching electrodes to a person and measure the voltage and activity in the brain. Signals are faint from all the noise

Electromygram/EMG

A way of measuring sleep by measuring muscle, less signal as falling asleep

Electro-oculargraph (EOG)

A way of measuring sleep by measuring occular-motor muscles, works like a pulley system to pull eyes at different angles

Gamma waves

Lots of frequency and small amplitude waves

Total sleep deprivation (TSD)

Preventing animals from sleep altogether/all-nighter, next night brain will get more delta waves

Delta rebound

Catching up on the lost delta waves by not sleeping enough

Effects of loss of sleep

Less sociable, more irritable, annoyed, fatigue, low levels of optimism, lapses in attention (microsleep), activity in the parietal lobe (3 alcoholic drinks = all-nighter)

judgement, planning, concentration, productivity, self-control, high-level performance

Effect of loss of sleep - cognitive functions called executive functions, feature of pre-frontal cortex

REM sleep - neuroscience

Guided by neurons found in pons, the neurotransmitter acetylcholine transitions slow wave sleep to REM sleep

Cerebral cortex (dreaming)

Signals are sent down to inhibit muscle cells, brain is inhibiting motor systems to not act out the dream

Slow-wave sleep

Serotonin neurons are responsible for this. Hypothalamus of preoptic area produce the sleep process

GABA

The basal ganglia in the forebrain produces this neurotransmitter during slow wave sleep

Circadian rhythm

Locked to the day night cycle, contains many processes of how we work including when we get hungry, changes over a lifespan

Suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN)

Cells have their own clocks, and it is managed by this master clock. It is a part of the hypothalamus. Our eyes bring in light information to synchronize the clock and projects here. Organizes melatonin and hormone released by pineal gland

ultradian rhythms

A biological cycle that repeats more than once in a 24-hour period, with a cycle length shorter than 24 hours

Infradian rhythms

a biological cycle that lasts longer than 24 hours

Memory

The ability to store and retrieve information overtime

Encoding, storage, retrieval

Three key functions of memory

Encoding

the process of transforming what we perceive, think, or feel into an enduring memory

Storage

The process of maintening information in memory over time

Retrieval

Bringing in memory that was previously stored and encoded, long term memory goes back into working memory, some gaps are consolidated

Semantic encoding

The process of relating new knowledge in a meaningful way to knowledge that is already stored in memory

Visual imagery encoding

The process of storing new information by converting it into mental pictures

Organizational encoding

categorizing information according to the relationships among a series of items

Mnemonics

Encoding strategies to improve subsequent retrieval. Ex. visual imagery, organizational, semantic

Sensory memory

Storage that holds sensory information for a few seconds or less

Iconic memory

a fast-decaying store of visual information

Echoic memory

a fast-decaying store of auditory information

Short-term memory

Type of storage that holds non-sensory information for more than a few seconds but less than a minute. As soon as we attend to something else, the memory is lost.

Rehearsal

the process of keeping information in short-term memory by mentally repeating it

Serial position effect

the observation that the first few and last few items in a series are more likely to be recalled than the items in the middle

Primacy effect

Recall the first few items in a list of words

Recency effect

Enhanced effect of the last few items due to rehearsing items still in the short-term storage

Chunking

Combining small pieces of information into larger clusters or chunks that are more easily held in short-term memory.

Working memory

active maintenance of information in short-term storage

long-term storage

a type of storage that holds information for hours, days, weeks, or years

Anterograde amnesia

the inability to transfer new information from the short-term store into the long-term store

Retrograde amnesia

the inability to retrieve information that was acquired before a particular date, usually the date of an injury or surgery

Consolidation

The process by which memories become stable in the brain

Reconsolidation

memories can become vulnerable to disruption when they are recalled, requiring them to become consolidated again

Long-term potentiation

Repeated communication across the synapse between neurons strengthens the connection, making further communication easier

Retrieval cue

external information that is associated with stored information and helps bring it to mind

Encoding specificity principle

a retrieval cue can serve as an effective reminder when it helps re-create the specific way in which information was initially encoded

State-dependent retrieval

Information tends to be better recalled when the person is in the same state during encoding and retrieval

Transfer-appropriate processing

memory is likely to transfer from one situation to another when the encoding context of the situations match

Retrieval-induced forgetting

a process by which retrieving an item from long-term memory impairs subsequent recall of related items

Explicit memory/declarative memory

when people consciously or intentionally retrieve past experiences

implicit memory (nondeclarative memory)

When past experiences influence later behaviour and performance, even without an effort to remember or an awareness of the recollection, by basal ganglia and cerebellum

Procedural memory

the gradual acquisition of skills as a result of practice, or "knowing how" to do things, part of implicit memory

Priming

An enhanced ability to think of a stimulus, such as a word or object, as a result of a recent exposure to the stimulus, part of implicit memory

Semantic memory

a network of associated facts and concepts that make up our general knowledge of the world, part of explicit memory

Episodic memory

the collection of past personal experiences that occurred at a particular time and place, part of explicit memory

Transience

forgetting what occurs with the passage of time, one of the memory failures

Retroactive interference

situations in which information learned later impairs memory for information acquired earlier

Proactive interference

situations in which information learned earlier impairs memory for information acquired later

Absentmindness

a lapse in attention that results in memory failure, one of the memory failures

Prospective memory

Remembering to do things in the future

Blocking

a failure to retrieve information that is available in memory even though you are trying to produce it, one of the memory failures

Memory misattribution

Assigning a recollection or an idea to the wrong source, one of the memory failures

Source memory

recall of when, where, and how information was acquired

False recognition

a feeling of familiarity about something that hasn't been encountered before

Suggestibility

the tendency to incorporate misleading information from external sources into personal recollections, one of the memory failures

Bias

the distorting influences of present knowledge, beliefs, and feelings on recollection of previous experiences, one of the memory failures

Persistence

the intrusive recollection of events that we wish we could forget, one of the memory failures

Flashbulb memories

detailed recollections of when and where we heard about shocking events

Melatonin

Hormone released by the pineal gland used to regulate sleep and circadian rhythm, supplements are not regulated, can kill if too much

Social jet lag

When using the phone interferes with suprachiasmatic nucleus and throws off schedule

Cataplexy

Key symptom in narcolepsy, go into REM state where muscles stops working

REM behaviour disorder

Acting out dreams, brain is no longer sending inhibitory signals to muscles. Can turn into violence. Predictor of future problems.

Enuresis

Wetting the bed during stage 4 related to bladder, children grow out of it

Active recall

A way to measure memory by seeing ability to retrieve information from long-term memory with minimal cues, mostly exams are relied on familiriaty

Relearning

Feel like we forgot, but subsequent times get faster at it. Ebbinghaus ran experiments on himself and each time learned faster.