Psych First Exam

How is psychological science defined?

How is psychological science defined?

• “Science of behavior and mental processes”

• Observable and unobservable behavior

• Includes “mental behavior”, can be unconscious

What is the “scientific attitude” and why did I call it “special?”

Being curious, skeptical, open-minded, not cynical or gullible, critical thinking

What are ways of “knowing”

• Ex: Faith, religion, memory, logic, reasoning

• Science is one special way of knowing

• Some things just seem true (intuition/emotion)

  • Observation can back it up to seem true (illusory correlation)

• “Somebody told me” “The same thing happened to her” (anecdote)

• Personal experience

• Authority

• Slippery slope that goes both ways

  • Why peer reputations matter, institutions matter, funding matters

• Actors, musicians, politicians, physicians, friends, historical figures, many followers on social media

  • Why famous people are used in advertising

What is the scientific approach to knowing? What makes “good” science? What is empiricism?

• Science is based on empiricism, not opinion

  • Observable, measurable, quantifiable, verifiable, replicable

  • Process of uncovering likely truths

  • Driven by data

  • Skeptical

  • Collaborative and adversarial

  • Falsifiable

  • Peer reviewed

  • Open, transparent, ethical

What are some of the things psychologists study? Why do we “need” psychology, anyway?

• Clinical, developmental, personality, social, cognitive, counseling, biological etc

• We need psychology because of hindsight bias, overconfidence and the better than average effect, perceiving order where none exists

What is the replication crisis? What is open science, statistical power, and meta-analysis?

• Replication crisis: the results of scientific studies are difficult or impossible to improve

• Open Science: To make the output of research work openly accessible, understandable, and reusable to the greatest extent possible

• Statistical power: the likelihood of a hypothesis test detecting a true effect if there is one

• Meta-analysis: the likelihood of a hypothesis test detecting a true effect if there is one

What are the differences between case studies, surveys, naturalistic observation, correlation research, and experiments?

• Case studies: In-depth analyses of individuals or groups

• Surveys: Examines “average” responses with large samples

• Naturalistic observation: recording natural behavior

• Correlation research: Not causation, measuring two variables and assessing their relationship

• Experiments: Help establish causality, random assignment to conditions, helps rule out confounds

What is the difference, if any, between “basic” and “applied” research?

• Basic answers to fundamental questions

• Applied tries to solve problems

What is an operational definition?

Ex:  “happiness”, “depression”, “job satisfaction”, definitions that are different for every person

How do theories and hypotheses differ?

Theories: explanations that's well-justified by facts, tested hypotheses, and laws

Hypothesis: testable prediction of a relationship between two or more things

What is skewness? What is the mean and standard deviation? What are some problems with treating a mean as the “center” of a distribution?

• Skewness: used to show whether a distribution is distorted or asymmetrical

• Mean: Average

• Standard deviation: How many individuals in each set

• Problems with treating mean as “center” of a distribution: Mean takes into account outliers which changes the most accurate average

What are populations, samples, and statistical significance?

• Populations: the pool of individuals from which a statistical sample is drawn for a study

• Samples: a subset containing the characteristics of a larger population

• Statistical significance: indicates that an observed relationship is unlikely to be due to chance

How is consciousness defined?

• The sense of “you”; your thoughts, drives, sensations, and awareness of yourself as you

• Our subjective awareness of ourselves and our environment

• If others have no consciousness, they have no free will, which means they lack moral standing

What is attention? How many things can we attend to at once?

• Attention: The ability to focus stimuli on specific things, it’s selective

• We can only consciously attend to one thing at a time, maybe a few bc we only have so much cognitive capacity

What is cognition and how does it differ from consciousness?

Consciousness is about awareness of our minds whereas cognition is our understanding through attention

What is system 1 and system 2? Which of these is “hot” and which is “cold?”

• System 1 “Cold”; Automatic thinking, unconscious

• System 2 “Hot”; When you think about it, spending time, using cognitive effort

What are the stages of sleep and what is the brain (and mind, and body) doing during each state?

• N1: Early sleep, sometimes accompanied by sensory hallucinations (falling asleep)

• N2: Deeper relaxation accompanied by sleep spindles or bursts of rapid brain-wave activity that aids memory processing

• N3: Deep sleep, hard to be awaken, accompanied by slow delta waves

• Throughout the night, we pass back and forth through these stages

What happens during REM sleep and what does REM stand for?

• REM: Rapid Eye Movement sleep

  • Hard to awaken

  • Accompanied by story-like dreams with strong emotional content

  • Essentially paralyzed

  • Internal arousal but physical calm

What are things that disrupt sleep, and why do they disrupt it?

Disruptions:

• Bright lights: Decreases melatonin production

• Stress: time to think

• Drugs (alcohol)

Impact of sleep loss

• Sleep loss fatigues us, makes us hungrier, slows our reaction times, reduces immune response, negatively impacts our mood and memory, associated with depression

Examples of sleep disorders

• Sleepwalking

• Sleep apnea

• Night terrors

• Nightmares

• Sleep paralysis

What are some of the theories for why we need sleep?

• Evolution: Protection from predators

• Recuperation: Body rests and repairs

• Consolidate memories and skill

• Stimulate creative thinking

• Support growth

What are some of the theories for why we dream? What happens, theoretically, while dreaming?

• Freud: Subconscious wish fulfillment (not much support)

• Information processing: consolidation of memories and learning

• Physiological functions: develop and preserve neural pathways

• Synthesis of random neural activity: Making sense of activation from brainstem

• Developmental: more descriptive than explanatory; dreaming reflects different stages of cognitive development

Psychoactive drugs: Depressants

• All used to alter consciousness

• Alcohol

  • Slows brain activity that controls judgement and inhibitions, disrupts memory, reduces self-awareness

  • Causes around 3 million yearly deaths

• Barbiturates

  • Can also impair memory and judgement

• Opiates (heroin, oxycontin, Vicodin, morphine, fentanyl)

  • Very addictive, tolerance builds up quickly

  • Relieve pain, cause pleasure

  • Taken repeatedly, brain stops producing natural opiates (endorphins)

Psychoactive drugs: Stimulants

• Excite neural activity, increased energy and self-confidence, alertness, weight loss

• Caffeine, nicotine, amphetamines, methamphetamine, ecstasy

• Little effect on memory, frequently addictive, can cause anxiety and create long-term problems

Psychoactive drugs: Hallucinogens

• LSD, ecstasy, shrooms, marijuana, DMT

• Visual and auditory hallucinations, strong emotions, perceived separation from body, felt connection with the external world

• Can lead to “bad trips”

What is cognitive capacity?

The total amount of information that the brain can retain at once

What is cognitive load, why do researchers use it, and what would be an example of a cognitive load manipulation?

• Cognitive load is the mental effort required for a task

• Used by researchers to understand how task complexity and design impact performance

• Example of manipulation: adding distracting visuals to assess their effect on learning

What is a circadian rhythm?

• Natural, internal biological clock that regulates various physiological and behavioral processes in a 24-hour cycle, such as sleep-wake patterns, body temperature, hormone secretion, and alertness, in alignment with the Earth's day-night cycle

The cocktail party effect, pop out, inattentional blindness, change blindness? How do these effects relate to attention?

• Cocktail party effect: Individual can focus on a singular conversation in a crowded room

• Pop out effect: Something that naturally stands out and grabs attention

• Inattentional blindness: people fail to perceive or notice an unexpected and salient object or event in their visual field due to their attention being focused on something else

• Change blindness: the inability to notice significant changes in a visual scene when attention is not directed to those changes

What is biological psychology?

• Studying links between psychological processes and different biological processes such as genetics, neurons and nervous system, hormones

In what ways is the human brain complex?

• The brain is the most complex structure in the universe as far as we can tell

  • The brain has 100 billion neurons and 100 trillion interconnections among neurons

What is neuroplasticity and why is this important?

• The brain's ability to reorganize itself by forming new neural connections throughout life, and it's important because it underlies learning, memory, recovery from brain injuries, and adaptation to new experiences

What are neurons and what are the parts of neurons (e.g., soma, axon, dendrite, terminal button)?

• Neurons receive input from other neurons

• Soma: Cell body

• Synaptic gap: Gap between 2 neurons

• Axon: Signal fires from the cell body to the terminal end

• Dendrite: receives info

What is a synapse and a synaptic gap?

• Synapses: Where neurons connect

• Synaptic gap: Gap between two neurons

What are neurotransmitters?

• When an action potential reaches the terminal button, it releases neurotransmitters

  • These are like “keys” for receptor locks in dendrites

  • Then, neurons reuptake excess

• Examples: Dopamine, Serotonin, Endorphins

What is an action potential and why is it described as an “all or nothing” response?

• Types of action potentials

  • Excitatory

    • Makes the neuron want to fire

  • Inhibitory

    • Stops the neuron from firing

• All or nothing response, they either fire or they don’t

What types of effects do drugs have on the brain and behavior? Why do drugs have these effects?

• Drugs can mimic neurotransmitters and affect the brain

  • Alcohol enhances GABA transmission, dampened transmission of neurotransmitters

  • Nicotine enhances attention and arousal

  • Morphine makes people feel good and block pain

What is an “agonist” and “antagonist?”

• Agnoists may block reuptake or enhance transmission

• Antagonists may block the function of a neurotransmitter

What happens to the production of neurotransmitters when we take too many drugs for too long?

• Because drugs can mimic the brain’s natural neurotransmitters, the brain can stop producing them naturally

What are the complex downstream effects of drug use?

• Mimicked neurotransmitters from the drugs can affect the release or inhibition of different neurotransmitters

What is the nervous system and what are its major branches?

• Specialized cells called neurons and other support cells that transmit and process information in the body

• Includes Central nervous system (just your brain and spinal cord “the boss”) and the peripheral (everything else

What are the parasympathetic and sympathetic branches of the nervous system and what is associated with each?

• Sympathetic (arousing): fight or flight, feeling scared

• Parasympathetic (calming): rest and digest, feeling calm

• Both in the autonomic system

What is the difference between the autonomic and somatic nervous system?

• Somatic: voluntary control of muscles

  • Sensory neurons (input) and motor neurons (output controlling skeletal muscles)

  • Interneurons connect these and facilitate neuronal “conversations”

• Autonomic system: controls glands and muscles of internal organs autonomously

What is the endocrine system and what are hormones? How do they work?

• Connects to our nervous system

• Pituitary: the “master gland” (controlled by the hypothalamus)

• Communicates through hormones

  • Travel through the blood

  • Affects behavior

What are the different ways we study the brain? How do the different methods differ from one another?

• Brain lesioning

• Destroying parts of the brain

• EEG (electroencephalogram) and MEG (magnetoencephalography)

  • Allow us to see brain activity

• MRI (magnetic resonance imaging)

  • Structural

  • Functional

  • Traces blood oxygenation

    • fMRI (uses blood level oxygen dependence, while you’re doing something)

• PET (Positron Emission Tomography)

  • Determines blood glucose

• TMS (Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation)

  • Generates a current TMS can interfere with the firing of neurons (on the surface only)

By disrupting activity, we can discover what types of behaviors are controlled by different brain regions

What is BOLD signal?

Blood Oxygenation Level-Dependent signal; measures used in functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI)

What is the “old brain”?

• Human and non-human brains are very similar

• Our brainstem is the oldest brain, responsible for automatic survival functions

  • Medulla regulates heartbeat, breathing, BP

  • Reticular formation helps control arousal

  • Thalamus is a hub for traffic between the senses and the higher brain

  • Cerebellum helps with balance, motor coordination, etc

• These structures work outside of conscious awareness

What is the limbic system? What are some of the major areas of the limbic system?

• Part of our brain associated with emotions, drives

  • Amygdala: fear

  • Hypothalamus: controls the pituitary gland, regulates hunger, thrust, body temperature, and is implicated in reward

  • Hippocampus: memories

What are the major lobes of the brain and what functions are generally associated with each?

• Frontal (higher-order reasoning, interpretation, associations)

• Temporal (hearing)

• Parietal (sensory associations, sense of “self)

• Occupital (visual perception)

What is a brain-machine interface?

• Large strides have been made in helping people regain motor functions

  • Cybernetic organisms

What are the somatosensory and motor cortices?

• Somatosensory: Left hemisphere section, receives input from right bodys side

• Motor Cortex: Right hemisphere section, receives input from left bodys side

What is the majority of our brains devoted to?

• About 75% of our brain is devoted to higher mental functions

  • We use all of our brains

What is “functional connectivity?”

Communication between different brain regions and neural networks

What is evolutionary psychology?

• Human behavior can be explained through evolutionary processes

  • Natural selection

What are the basics of the theory of evolution? What is natural selection?

• Organisms and their offspring compete for survival

• Some biological or behavioral variations, sometimes due to random mutations, increase chances for survival and subsequent reproduction (evolutionary fitness)

• Offspring that survive are more likely to reproduce and pass on their genes

• Over time, species change and diversity in pursuit of better survival and reproduction

  • Less competitive species become extinct

What are behavior genetics?

• Branch of biological psych that studies the interplay of hereditary and environment

 What are genes, chromosomes, and DNA?

Genetics:

• Every cell in your body contains the master code for how to build another you

• We have 46 chromosomes, 23 from each parent

• Chromosomes are composed of DNA

• Genes are small segments that make up DNA and can be expressed or inactive

What does it mean when a gene is “expressed” or is not expressed?

• Expressed: the information encoded in that gene is used to produce a functional product

• Not expressed: it remains inactive, and its information is not used to create a biological product.

What is polygenetics? What is epigenetics?

• Epigenetics: genes adapt to environments

• Polygenetics: characteristics/traits

What is a genome and to what extent does the human genome overlap with the genomes of other organisms?

• 20,000 genes, which can be turned on or off

• Yet, humans also have a somewhat unique genetic sequence that makes us all human

• Despite this, at functionally important DNA cites, our DNA sequence overlaps with a lot of other living things

  • Ex: We share 99.4% overlap with chimpanzees

What are the basics of sibling studies?

• Identical twins: from the same fertilized egg

  • Share 100% of genes

  • Same start, same prenatal environment

  • Same developmental timing

• Fraternal twins: from two different eggs

  • Share 50% of genes

  • Different start, same prenatal environment

  • Same developmental timing

• Non-twin biological siblings

  • Share 50% of genes, different prenatal environment

  • Different start

  • Different developmental timing

EMPHASIS: Regardless of where you’re raised, you would have a lot of similarities with your siblings (Nature and Nuture are equally important)

What do we know about the effects of environments? Do environments matter much, and if so, what is the evidence they do (or do not)?

• Growing up together has little effect on personality (stable traits that vary substantially across people)

• People who have been adopted are more similar to biological parents than adoptive parents

  • Yet, environments do matter: Adoptive parents invariably want children, and neglect and abuse are much rarer

  • Strong attachment frequent between adopted children and parents

  • May be more altruistic, happier, stable, than people raised by biological parents

What are traits and temperaments and how do these two things differ from one another?

• Traits: consistent patterns of behavior and characteristics across various situations

• Temperaments: early-emerging tendencies that influence emotional reactions and activity levels.

What does adaptability mean in terms of behavior and genetics?

• We adapt to our environments

• The most important is how our genes and environments interact

What is culture, norms, and rituals?

It is “ways of life” (arts, food, beliefs, institutions, laws, norms. Languages, rituals) shared by a population and passed down from generation to generation

Gender similarities and differences

Similarities

• Dr. Hyde notes: that genders are very similar in most ways

  • For ex: Variation within genders on various traits or preferences is often much greater than variation between genders

  • 45 of our 46 chromosomes are the same for everyone

  • We feel the same emotions

  • We are similarly capable and intelligent

  • We use language in the same ways

  • Brains essentially the same

Differences

• Males tend to be more aggressive and independent

  • More willing to fight, commit more violent crimes

  • More social power

• Females tend to be more socially connected and listen more without trying to solve problems

  • Women’s friendships tend to be more intimate

  • Men and women both think female friends are more nurturing and are preferred for sharing intimacy

What has research found about sex differences? What are evolutionary explanations for sex differences?

• Men are much more willing to sleep with strangers than women

• For women, takes a long time to grow a baby, and can only have so many children, takes a lot of resources to raise them, so an invested mate with resources is useful to a woman

• Men can have number of children and although women with high reproductive chances are best, the best evolutionary bet might be as many as possible in many environments as possible

• Be sure to read about evolutionary critiques in mate selections

What are gender roles and how do “masculinity” and “femininity” differ from “agency” and “communion?”

• Attitudes, behaviors, and traits that are “expected” in women and men

  • Attitudes about these issues are rapidly changing, in some places

  • Division of labor in nomadic societies was very similar; agriculture led to many changes

• Psychology femininity and masculinity vs communion and agency

  • Communion: Warm, intimate

  • Agency: Self-sufficient

  • Women are underrepresented in STEM, earn less, face backlash