Scientific Foundations Of Psychology week 8

god damn rabies

Descriptive Statistics

Set of tools used to summarise, organise and present data in a meaningful and simplified manner

• Initial Data Exploration

• Comparative Analysis

• Data Summarization

Measures Of Central Tendency

Statistical values that indicate the central or typical value within a dataset

• Help describe that point which the data values tend to cluster

Measures Of Central Tendency

• mean

• Median

• Mode

Central Tendency

Typical or middle results

Median

Middle number/value

• Average or middle of where the data lies

Mode

Value that occurs most frequently

Variability

How spread out is the data, and how far from themes or median do observed values tend to be

Range

Biggest value minus the smallest value

• Gives the full spread of data. Very vulnerable to outliersa nd as a consequence isn’t often used unless there is good reason

Interquartile Range

The difference between the 25th and 75th percentile

• Percentile: 10th percentile of the data set is the smallest number x such that 10% of the data is less than x

• Tells us middle half of the data set’s

Typical Deviation

Mean or median value of these deviations, leading leading to the mean absolute deviation and median absolute deviation

Variance

Squared deviations rather than absolute deviations

• Tells you the average squared devoation from the mean

• Mathematically elegant and is probably the “right” way to describe variabtion around the mean

Standard Deviation

Derived from variance and easily understandable

• Square root of the variance

• Fairly elegant mathematically and it’s expressed in the same units as the data so it can be interpreted pretty well

• Average measure of how spread numbers are

Skew

Measure od Asymmetry

• If data has lots of extreme small values and not many large values, its a negative skew. Vice versa

Kurtosis

Measure of how thin or fat the tails of distribution are

Confirmation Bias

Ignoring evidence and mainly placing importance on evidence that supports specific points

Seeing Relationships That Don’t Exist

Believing two random events that happen at the same time must be related even though it is probably a cojncidence

Accepting after-the-fact explainations

Come up with explainations even when their is incomplete information

Hindsight Bias

Make sense of something and understand the issues/factors after it has already happened

Taking Mental Shortcuts

Follow simple rules to make decisions

• follow rules and procedures that are the easiest to complete

Structuralism

Based on the idea that the conscious experience can be broken down into its basic underlying components like the periodic table

Functionalism

Mind came into the existance over the course of human evolution

Evolutuon Theory

Species change overtime

• Changes get passed down, those changes called adaptations

• Natural selection: Some factors are passed down, some arent

Psychoanalytic Theory

Understand how unconscious thoughts cause psychological disorders

Gestalt Movement

Study subjective perceptions as. aunified whole

Behaviourism

Describe behaviour in response to environmental stimuli

Humanistic Psychology

Investigates how people become happier and more fulfilled: focus on the basic goodness of people

Cognitivism

Explore internal mental processes that influence behaviour

Latest Developments In psychology

• Brain Chemistry

• Human Imaging

• Brain Imaging

Evolutionary Thinking

Solving adaptive problems → determining where adaptive problems affect survival and reproduction

Our Evolutionary Heritage → How we evolved and what we came from, as well as what our brains used to be and what they are

Big Influences On Psychology

• Egypt

• HEraclitus

• Leucippus And Democritus

• Socrates

• Phrenology And localization

Histogram

graph of frequency table that shows shape of distribution

• height of bar equivalent to each value in frequency table

Frequency Histogram

Variable is continuous and all bas are next to each other with no space in between them so graph looks like city skylineqq

Potential Causes For Skewness

• functionality of sample

• unusual case

• problem with measure

• problem with data entry

• outliers

Democritus And Determinism

For everything that has ever happeend there are conditions such that, given them, nothing else could happen

• Human behaviour follows lawful behaviour

• Choices you make are beyond your control

Socrates And Objective Truth

Emphazised that behaviour results from multiple causes

Socratic method:

Form in inquiry and debate between individuals with opposing viewpoints based on asking and answering questions to stimulare rationale thinking and illuminate ideas

Plato And The Psyche

When they refer to psyche, it refered to a wax slate.

• When you encounter an experience, it forms an impression upon your psyche, allowing for memory later on

• Mental illness is due to issue between parts of your psyche

Aristotle Physiological Psychology

Cannot understand psych unless we examine the structure and inner working of the eye

• Psyche was interdepdndetn with the body

• Empirial

Cardiocentrism

Believed the heart did thinking

• Egyptions

Cerebrocentrists

Believe the brain did thinking

Galen: Noticed gladiators with brain damaged had struggles when thinking or struggles moving limbs

Ventricular Theory

Mind is located in the hollow ventricles in the brain

• anterior chamber: perception

• Middle chamber: reason/cognition

• Posterior chamber: memory

Renaissance And Vesalius

Humans and cows had same size ventricles, even when stupid animals like cows had bigger ventricles

• highlighted how humans cannot use ventricles as they hae the same size as human ventricles and instead in the brain

Gall: Phrenology And localization

Different parts of the brain carry out cognition and behavioural functions

• Incorrectly theorized that there must be a direct relationshio between physical anatomy and function

• Enlarged part of brain leads to change in skull shape

Doctrine Of Localization

Cerebral Localization: Idea that parts of brain have relatively distinct neural, behavioural or physiological functions

• revolutionary for brain structures

• - Flaw was believing skull was faithful cast of brain/underlying cranium