Psych 107 Exam 1 TAMU

Psychology definition

The scientific study of the mind, brain, and behavior

As a discipline, psychology spans

Levels of analysis

5 Factors make the study of psychology what are there?

1) Human behavior is difficult to predict.

2) Psychological influences are rarely independent of each other.

3) People display individual differences in thinking, emotion, and personality.

4) People influence one another.

5) Behavior is shaped by culture.

Naive Realsim

The belief that we see the world as precisely as it actually is in truth - "seeing is believing" - works well in ordinary life

Confirmation Bias

Tendency to seek out evidence that supports our hypothesis and neglect or distort contradicting evidence

Belief Perseverance

Tendency to stick to our initial beliefs even when evidence contradicts them - warning signs of pseudoscience

Ad hoc immunizing hypotheses

Escape hatches to protect against falsification, usually a loophole or exception for negative findings - lack of self correction - overreliance

Why pseudoscience?

Our brains are predisposed to make order out of disorder and make sense out of nonsense

Apophenia/Patternicity

Tendency to find connections among unrelated or random phenomena

Pareidolia

Seeing meaningful images in meaningless visual stimuli

3 Concerns for pseudoscience

1) Opportunity cost

2) Direct harm

3) Confusion

Structuralism

Encouraged systematic data collection and empiricism

Functionalism

Influenced evolutionary perspectives in modern psychology

Behaviorism

Helped to understand how we learn and improved psychology's scientific rigor

Cognitivism

Highlighted the role of thought and our interpretation of events in behavior

Psychoanalysis

May have actually retarded scientific advance of psychology, but theories of mental processing outside of conscious awareness are holding up

Cognitive

Study how we perceived and process information

Personality

Study how our individual traits develop as we mature

Social

Study how others impact our thoughts and behaviors

Clinical

Work with people who have mental disorders - different from counseling psych

School

Asses and develop intervention programs - Differs from educational psychology

Health

Psychological factors in health and illness

Developmental

Study why and how people change over time - most work with infants and children

Biological (behavioral neuroscience)

Examine physiological bases of behavior - most work in research settings

Forensic

Assess, diagnose, and assist with rehabilitation and treatment of prison inmates - others conduct research on eyewitnesses or juries

I/O

Personnel psychology - real world applications

Sports

Psychological effect on performance in sports

Prefrontal Lobotomy

Developer won Nobel Prize - Neural fibers connecting frontal lobes to the thalamus were severed - didn't work

Heuristics

Mental shortcuts or rules of thumb that we use daily - Reduce cognitive energy required to solve problems but we oversimplify reality

Representativeness Heuristic

Which is more likely?

Availability Heurisitc

What is around

Principles of Research design

Perceive the question

Form a hypothesis

Test the hypothesis

Draw conclusions

Report your results clearly

Descriptive Studies

Describe observations about behavior - Naturalistic observation, case studies, surveys - generate testable hyptheses

Naturalistic Observation

Record behavior in naturally occurring situations

Advantage of Natural Observation

Realistic picture of behavior - High external validity

Disadvantages of Natural Observation

Observer effect (participant observer) - Observer bias (blind observers) - Low internal validity

Laboratory Observation

Advantages: Control over environment/subjects

Disadvantage: Artificial situation may result in artificial behavior

Case Study

Study of one individual; Advantage: Tremendous amount of detail, patterns may be detected, tested

Disadvantages: cannot generalize or be replicated

Self-Report Measures

Questions that asses characteristics such as personality or mental illness - Ask about people's opinions or abilities

Pro/Cons of Self-Report

Pro: Easy to administer, self-assessment

Con: Skewed data, dishonest results, response set (malingering)

To trust results, measures must have...

Reliability and Validity

Statistics

Collection, analysis, interpretation, and presentation of research data

Correlation

Measure of the relationship between two variables

Correlation does not

prove causation

Illusory Correlation

Perception of a statistical association where none exists

Independent variable is

Manipulated

Dependent variable is

Measured

Confounds

Difference between the experimental and control groups aside from IV

Cause and Effect

Possible to infer, with random assignment and manipulation of independent variable

Demand Characteristics

Cues that participants pick up allowing them to guess at the researcher's hypotheses

Variability

Sense of how loosely or tightly bunched scores are

Range

Difference between the highest and lowest scores

Standard Deviation

Measure that takes into account how far each data point is from the mean

Inferential Statistics

Allow us to determine whether we can generalize findings from our sample to the population - Statistical and practical significance

Cell Body

Cell's life; support center

Dendrites

Receive messages from other cells

Axon

Passes messages away from the cell body to other neurons, muscles, or glands

Neural Impulse

Electrical signal traveling down the axon

Myelin Sheath

Covers the axon of some neurons and helps speed neural impulses

Terminal branch of axon

Form junctions with other cells

Number of axon processes

Unipolar, Bipolar, and Multipolar (most common)

Sensory Neuron

Carry messages towards the brain

Motor Neuron

Carry messages to muscles

Interneurons

Connect cells

Neuroglia

"Glue" - Provide physical support, control nutrient flow, and are involved in phagocytosis

CNS and PNS support cells

Microglia, Oligodendroglia, Schwann cells, and Astrocytes

What support cell is most common?

Astrocytes

Chemical messengers

activate receptors on the dendritic membrane

Receptor activation

opens ion channels, which alter membrane potential

Action potential

causes release of transmitter from axon terminals

Impact of ion channel will depend on

Charge/direction of flow

Action Potentials

Generated in the initial segment (axon hillock) when the RMP rises above threshold

Re-uptake

The NT molecule is transported back into the cytoplasm of the presynaptic membrane

Enzymatic deactivation

Enzyme destroys the NT molecule

Diffusion

Away from the receptor sites

Transmitter substances are

Synthesized, stored, released, and terminated - Susceptible to drug manipulation

Acetylcholine Neurons

Distributed across the brain - Release is generally facilitatory - Drugs act at multiple levels to facilitate or inhibit activity

Examples of Acetylcholine

Botulinum toxin, Black widow spider venom, Atropine, Curare

Dopamine is used in

Cocaine, Amphetamines, Methylphenidate, and MAO inhibitors prolong DA activity

Norepinephrine

Found in neurons in the automatic nervous system - Cells project throughout the brain

Serotonin

Cells are mostly located in the gut with only 2% in brain

Amino Acids

Most common NTs in the CNS

Glutamate

Principal excitatorry NT in the CNS

GABA

Primary inhibitory NT in the CNS - Distributed throughout the brain - Alcohol

Anandamide

Marijuana - THC

4 ways our brain change over time

1) Growth

2) Synaptogemesis

3) Pruning

4) Myelination

Planes of the brain

Sagittal, Coronal, Horizontal

Sulci

Small grooves

Fissures

Large grooves

Gyri

Bulge in cortex

Cortex is divided into 4 lobes

Frontal, parietal, occipital, and temporal

Basal Ganglia

Collection of subcortical nuclei that lie just under the anterior aspect of the lateral ventricles

Parkinson's disease

Loss of dopamine neurons

Huntington's Chorea

Loss of GABA/ACh

Alzheimer's disease

Loss of ACh neurons

Limbic system is comprised of...

Hippocampus, Amygdala, Mammillary bodies

Hippocampus

Involved in learning and memory

Amygdala

Involved in emotion

Mammillary Bodies

Fornix is a fiber bundle that interconnects the hippocampus with the mammillary bodies

Thalamus

Contains nuclei that receives sensory information and transmit it to cortex