Psych Exam

Psych 2 Exam

Psychoanalytic theory (wish satisfaction)

Theory created by Freud that says dreams provide a "psychic safety valve," allowing us to express otherwise unacceptable feelings and desires.

Information processing theory

Dreams help us sort out the day's events and consolidate our memories, reorganizing and recharging the brain.

Physiological function theory

Regular brain stimulation from REM sleep may help develop and preserve neural pathways.

Activation synthesis theory

REM sleep triggers neural activity in the brainstem that evokes random visual memories, which our sleeping brain weaves into stories.

Cognitive theory

Dream content reflects a dreamer's knowledge - their thoughts about themselves, other people, and the world. Theory created by Calvin Hall.

Lucid dream

A dream during which the dreamer is aware of dreaming and may be able to exert some degree of control over the dream characters, narrative, and environment.

Insomnia

Habitual sleeplessness; inability to sleep.

Somnambulism

Sleepwalking.

Narcolepsy

Sleep disorder in which a person has uncontrollable sleep attacks, often lapsing directly into REM sleep.

Sleep apnea

A sleep disorder characterized by temporary cessations of breathing during sleep and repeated momentary awakenings.

Delayed sleep phase syndrome

Disorder in which a person's sleep is delayed by two or more hours beyond the socially acceptable or conventional bedtime.

Idiopathic hypersomnia

A neurological disorder which is characterized primarily by excessive daytime sleepiness (EDS).

Bruxism

The involuntary or habitual grinding of the teeth, typically during sleep.

Restless legs syndrome

A disorder characterized by an unpleasant tickling or twitching sensation in the leg muscles when sitting or lying down, which is relieved only by moving the legs.

Caffeine

A central nervous system stimulant which prevents the onset of drowsiness induced by adenosine.

Hypnosis

A state of consciousness in which a person is relaxed, focused, and highly responsive to suggestion.

Anton Mesmer

Put his patients into a trance-like state and "cured" them with magnets.

Hypnotizability

The degree to which a hypnosis subject is responsive to hypnotic suggestions.

Divided consciousness theory

Theory that under hypnosis, our consciousness is divided, and one part of the mind is open to hypnotic suggestion while the other part retains an awareness of reality; created by Ernest Hilgard.

Social influence theory

Theory that under hypnosis, a person is just playing a role.

Post-hypnotic suggestion

A instruction, given during a hypnosis session, that subject would carry out (if he or she wanted to) when no longer hypnotized.

Meditation

To engage in mental exercise (as concentration on one's breathing or repetition of a mantra) for the purpose of relaxation, improving health, or reaching a heightened level of spiritual awareness.

Sleep hygiene

Habits and practices that are conducive to sleeping well on a regular basis, such as keeping the room cool, dark, and free of light, and also following a regular sleep schedule.

Cataplexy

A medical condition in which strong emotion or laughter causes a person to suffer sudden physical collapse; a symptom of narcolepsy.

Night terrors

Characterized by high arousal and an appearance of being terrified; occur during stage 3 sleep and are seldom remembered. Most common in children.

Nightmares

Anxiety-arousing dreams that lead to awakening.

Sigmund Freud

This psychologist pioneered dream research, in which he examined the manifest and latent content of dreams.

Hypnotic induction

The process of relaxation prior to experiencing hypnosis.

Sleep paralysis

The state of being awake but unable to speak or move; sometimes a symptom of narcolepsy.

Latent content

According to Freud, the hidden meaning of a dream.

Manifest content

According to Freud, the actual storyline of the dream, or what the dream seems to be about on the surface.

Consciousness

Awareness of one's own existence, sensations, thoughts, and surroundings.

Selective attention

The act of focusing on a particular object for a period of time while simultaneously ignoring irrelevant information that is also occurring.

Subconscious

Consciousness just below our present awareness.

Unconscious

Information processing of which we are unaware.

Biological clock

An internal mechanism that controls the physiological activities of an organism that change on a daily, seasonal, yearly, or other regular cycle.

Entrainment

The synchronization or alignment of the biological clock rhythm to external time cues, such as the natural dark-light cycle.

Circadian rhythms

Physical, mental and behavioral changes, controlled by biological clocks, that follow a roughly 24-hour cycle.

Hypothalamus

The part of the brain that links the nervous system to the endocrine system (via the pituitary gland) and is responsible for regulating the sleep-wake cycle.

Melatonin

A hormone released by the pineal gland that makes a person feel sleepy.

Electroencephalograph (EEG)

A machine that detects electrical activity in the brain using small, flat metal discs (electrodes) attached to the scalp.

Beta waves

The normal electrical activity (waves) of the brain when conscious and alert.

Alpha waves

The normal electrical activity (waves) of the brain when conscious and RELAXED.

Delta waves

Electrical activity (waves) of the brain at a frequency of around 1-8 Hz, typical of DEEP SLEEP.

Stage 1 NREM

Sleep stage indicated by the presence of alpha and theta waves; a light sleep.

Hypnic myoclonia

A sudden jerking movement that most people have experienced when falling asleep, often accompanied with a feeling of falling; also called a hypnic jerk.

Hypnagogic hallucination

Imagined sensations (which seem very real) that occur as one is falling asleep.

Stage 2 NREM

Stage of sleep indicated by sleep spindles and K-complexes; 50% of sleep time.

Sleep spindles

Short bursts of brainwave activity visible on an EEG that occur during stage 2 sleep.

K-complexes

Brain waves characterized by sudden rises in amplitude (height) with sudden declines; tepee shaped.

Stage 3 NREM

The deepest stage of sleep indicated by slow delta waves; in this stage the growth hormone is released, and sleepwalking and night terrors may also occur.

REM

Often called paradoxical sleep because the brain is very active (dreams occur), but the person is hard to awaken and appears calm (the body is paralyzed).

REM rebound

The tendency for REM sleep to increase following sleep deprivation.

Sleep

Periodic natural loss of consciousness, as distinct from unconsciousness resulting from a coma, general anesthesia, or hibernation.

Dream

A sequence of images, emotions, and thoughts passing through a sleeping person's mind during REM.

Free-running cycles

Cycles set up by biological clocks that are under their own control, ignoring the environment.

REM sleep behavior disorder

The paralysis that normally occurs during REM sleep is incomplete or absent, allowing the person to "act out" his or her dreams. Characterized by the acting out of dreams that are vivid, intense, and violent. Associated with Parkinson's Disease.

Sleep debt

The cumulative effect of not getting enough sleep; can be repaid by tacking on an extra hour or two each night.

Memory

The persistence of learning over time through the encoding, storage, and retrieval of information.

Encoding

The process of getting information into the memory system.

Storage

The process of retaining encoded information over time.

Retrieval

The process of getting information out of memory storage.

Sensory memory

The immediate, very brief recording of information from the five senses into the memory system. The "entry point."

Short-term memory

Activated memory that holds a few items briefly (from 15 to 30 seconds without rehearsal), such as the seven digits of a phone number while dialing, before that information is stored or forgotten.

Long-term memory

The relatively permanent and limitless storehouse of the memory system. Includes knowledge, skills, and experiences.

Working memory

A newer understanding of short-term memory that stresses conscious, active processing of information, whether newly encoded or retrieved from long-term memory.

Automatic processing

Unconscious and unintentional encoding of everyday information.

Effortful processing

Encoding that requires attention and conscious effort.

Spacing effect

The tendency for distributed study or practice to yield better long-term retention than is achieved through massed study or practice.

Implicit memory

Retaining learned skills or classically conditioned associations, without conscious awareness; also called non-declarative memory.

Explicit memory

Memory of facts and personal events that you can consciously retrieve; also called declarative memory.

Long-term potentiation

The strengthening of synapses between nerve cells. Believed to be the neural basis for learning and memory.

Flashbulb memory

A clear memory of an emotionally significant moment or event.

Chunking

Organizing items into familiar, manageable units; often occurs automatically.

Mnemonics

Memory aids or tricks, especially techniques that use vivid imagery and organizational devices.

Testing effect

Enhanced memory after retrieving, rather than simply re-reading, information. Also sometimes referred to as the retrieval practice effect or test-enhanced learning.

Hippocampus

A neural center located in the limbic system; helps process explicit memories for storage.

Priming

The activation, often unconsciously, of particular associations in memory.

Infantile amnesia

Difficulty or inability that adults have remembering early childhood (because the brain is not developed enough to form long-term explicit memories).

Information-processing model

Model of memory that assumes the processing of information for memory storage is similar to the way a computer processes memory in a series of stages; created by Atkinson and Shiffrin.

7 +/- 2

The "magical number" (the number of items that can be kept in short-term memory at a time).

Episodic memory

Memory of personal events in a specific time and place.

Semantic memory

Memory for general facts and concepts not linked to a specific time.

Procedural memory

Memory for motor skills and habits, such as texting or riding a bike.

Classical conditioning

Memory of learned associations.

Peg-word system

Mnemonic device in which you associate items you want to remember with a list of words you have already memorized (e.g. one is bun, two is shoe, three is tree, etc.).

Method of loci

Mnemonic device that involves taking a mental walk through a familiar location. A person connects specific locations with the items he or she wants to remember. Also called the "memory palace."

Cerebellum

Part of the brain that plays an important role in forming and storing memories created by classical conditioning.

Basal ganglia

Part of the brain that helps form memories of physical skills (walking, cooking, dressing, etc.).

Echoic memory

A form of sensory memory that allows the mind to temporarily perceive and store auditory information or sound.

Iconic memory

A brief sensory memory of visual stimuli.

Recall

Memory demonstrated by retrieving information learned earlier, as on a fill-in-the-blank test.

Retrieval cue

Any stimulus (event, feeling, place, and so on) linked to a specific memory.

Deja vu

That eerie sense that "I've experienced this before." Cues from the current situation may subconsciously trigger retrieval of an earlier experience.

Mood-congruent memory

The tendency to recall experiences that are consistent with one's current good or bad mood.

Memory trace

Physical changes in the brain as a memory forms.

Proactive interference

The disruptive effect of prior learning on the recall of new information. You forget the new.

Repression

In psychoanalytic theory, the basic defense mechanism that banishes anxiety-arousing thoughts, feelings, and memories from consciousness.

Misinformation effect

When misleading information is incorporated into one's memory after an event.

Source amnesia

Faulty memory for how, when, or where information was learned or imagined.