PSYO 111 Final

What is psychology?

The scientific study of mind and behaviour

What are the goals of psychological science?

To describe, explain, predict, and control behavior and mental processes.

What are the two major components of psychology?

Mind (internal mental states) and behavior (observable actions).

Who founded the first psychology lab?

Wilhelm Wundt in 1879 in Germany.

What is structuralism?

The analysis of the basic elements of consciousness.

What is functionalism?

The study of how mental processes help people adapt to their environments.

What are some early schools of thought in psychology?

Structuralism, functionalism, psychoanalysis, behaviourism, humanism.

What is the unconscious according to Freud?

The part of the mind that operates outside conscious awareness but influences thoughts and behaviour.

What is behaviourism?

The view that psychology should be an objective science focused on observable behaviour.

Who is B.F. Skinner?

A behavioruist who studied operant conditioning using reinforcement and punishment.

What is humanistic psychology?

An approach emphasizing human growth and potential.

What is cognitive psychology?

The scientific study of mental processes such as perception, memory, and reasoning.

Why was the Canadian medic with PTSD discussed?

To show how psychological trauma can drastically affect behaviour, even in highly trained individuals.

How did WWII influence psychology?

Psychologists helped assess soldiers and treat trauma, expanding applied psychology fields.

How did early psychologists approach the study of consciousness?

Through introspection, measurement, and structural analysis.

What distinguishes psychology from philosophy?

 Its reliance on empirical research and scientific methods.

What is the scientific method?

A systematic procedure for collecting and analyzing evidence.

What is a hypothesis?

A testable prediction derived from a theory.

What is an operational definition?

A concrete, measurable description of a variable.

What is a variable?

Anything that can vary or be measured.

What is a double-blind study?

A study in which neither participants nor researchers know group assignments.

What are demand characteristics?

Cues that influence participants to behave as they think they should.

What is naturalistic observation?

Observing behaviour in its natural context without interference.

What is the difference between reliability and validity?

Reliability is consistency of a measure; validity is accuracy of what it intends to measure.

What is correlation?

A statistical relationship between two variables.

What does a correlation coefficient indicate?

 Strength and direction of a relationship between variables.

What is a confounding variable?

An external factor that may affect the results of a study.

What is random assignment?

Assigning participants to groups by chance to avoid bias.

What ethical lesson came from the Tuskegee syphilis study?

That informed consent and respect for persons are essential in research.

Why is deception sometimes used in psychological research?

To prevent bias, but it must be ethically justified and followed by debriefing.

Why is random assignment important?

 It controls for confounding variables and improves internal validity.

What are the main ethical standards in human research?

Informed consent, freedom from coercion, protection from harm, risk-benefit analysis, debriefing.

What is the role of the neuron?

To receive, integrate, and transmit information.

What is the difference between the CNS and PNS?

CNS includes the brain and spinal cord; PNS connects the CNS to the rest of the body.

What is the function of the frontal lobe?

Involved in planning, reasoning, movement, and problem solving.

What is the function of the parietal lobe?

Processes sensory information related to touch, temperature, and pain.

What is the amygdala responsible for?

Processing emotions, especially fear.

What is neuroplasticity?

The brain's ability to adapt or change due to experience.

What is the myelin sheath?

A fatty layer that speeds up neural transmission.

What did Phineas Gage’s accident reveal about the brain?

That the frontal lobe is critical for personality and decision-making.

What are mirror neurons?

Neurons that activate both when performing and observing an action, important for empathy.

How does split-brain research contribute to our understanding of the brain?

It reveals how the two hemispheres process information differently.

How do neurotransmitters influence behaviour?

They carry signals between neurons and affect mood, arousal, and thought processes.

What technologies help us study brain structure and function? 

MRI, fMRI, PET scans, EEG.

What is sensation?

The process by which sensory receptors receive stimuli from the environment.

What is perception?

The process of organizing and interpreting sensory information.

What is transduction?

The conversion of physical signals into neural signals.

What is sensory adaptation?

The decline in sensitivity to a constant stimulus over time.

What are rods and cones?

Rods detect dim light; cones detect color and fine detail.

What is the difference between the dorsal and ventral streams?

Dorsal stream processes spatial location ("where"), ventral stream processes object identity ("what").

What is feature integration theory?

The idea that attention is required to bind features into a unified perception.

What is the binding problem?

How features processed in different brain areas combine into a single perception.

What is the trichromatic theory of colour vision?

Colour vision results from activity in three types of cones: red, green, and blue.

What is the opponent-process theory?

Cells in the visual system respond to red-green, blue-yellow, and black-white oppositions.

What is the just noticeable difference (JND)?

The minimum difference in stimulation that can be detected.

What is Weber’s Law?

JND is a constant proportion of the original stimulus.

What is JND

Just Noticeable Difference, the smallest change in something you can notice.

What does the McGurk effect demonstrate? 

That visual information can influence what we hear.

What illusion shows our blind spot in action?

The disappearing dot illusion.

What is the Ames Room illusion?

A distorted room that creates an optical illusion of size disparity.

What is synesthesia?

A condition in which one sense is simultaneously perceived by another (e.g., seeing sounds).

Why do we perceive motion from static images (phi phenomenon)?

Because of how the visual system interprets changes in light across time.

What role does attention play in perception?

Attention helps bind individual features into a coherent perceptual experience.

How do we perceive depth and distance?

Through binocular cues (e.g., retinal disparity) and monocular cues (e.g., linear perspective).

What does the Gestalt principle of closure suggest?

We tend to fill in gaps in visual information to create whole objects.

What is storage in memory?

The process of maintaining information over time.

What are the three major memory stores?

Sensory memory, short-term memory, and long-term memory.

What is sensory memory?

A brief store of sensory information (iconic and echoic memory).

What is short-term memory? 

A system that holds information temporarily, usually for less than 30 seconds.

What is long-term memory?

A relatively permanent store of information with virtually unlimited capacity.

What is rehearsal?

The process of repeating information to extend its duration in 2short-term memory.

What is chunking?

Grouping individual pieces of information into larger, meaningful units.

What is working memory?

A system for actively maintaining and manipulating information.

What are the components of working memory according to Baddeley and Hitch?

Central executive, phonological loop, visuospatial sketchpad, and episodic buffer.

What is consolidation?

The process by which memories become stable in the brain.

What is long-term potentiation (LTP)?

A long-lasting increase in the strength of synaptic connections between neurons.

 Who was H.M., and why is his case important?

H.M. had his hippocampus removed and couldn’t form new explicit long-term memories.

Who is Jill Price?

A woman with Highly Superior Autobiographical Memory (HSAM), capable of recalling nearly every day of her life in detail.

What is the Serial Position Effect?

The tendency to remember the first (primacy effect) and last (recency effect) items in a list.

What is the method of loci (memory palace)?

A mnemonic that uses spatial memory of familiar environments to enhance recall.

What does reconsolidation refer to?

The process where recalled memories become susceptible to alteration before being stored again.

What does the Ebbinghaus forgetting curve demonstrate?

That memory declines rapidly at first and then levels off over time.

What is the role of the hippocampus in memory storage?

It is critical for transferring new explicit memories into long-term storage.

How does long-term potentiation support memory?

By strengthening synapses based on recent patterns of activity, making future transmission easier.

What evidence suggests memory is reconstructive?

Studies showing how people alter memories over time based on current knowledge or beliefs.

What is learning?

A relatively permanent change in behaviour or knowledge due to experience.

What is classical conditioning?

A type of learning in which a neutral stimulus becomes associated with a stimulus that naturally produces a response.

What are the key terms in classical conditioning?

Unconditioned stimulus (US), unconditioned response (UR), conditioned stimulus (CS), conditioned response (CR).

What is extinction?

The gradual weakening and disappearance of a conditioned response.

What is spontaneous recovery?

The reappearance of an extinguished response after a rest period.

What is generalization?

When stimuli similar to the conditioned stimulus elicit the conditioned response.

What is discrimination?

The ability to differentiate between similar stimuli and respond only to the conditioned stimulus.

What is operant conditioning?

A type of learning in which behaviour is influenced by its consequences.

What is reinforcement?

Any event that strengthens or increases the frequency of a behaviour.

What is the difference between positive and negative reinforcement?

Positive adds a desirable stimulus; negative removes an aversive one.

What is punishment?

A consequence that decreases the likelihood of a behaviour recurring.

What are primary vs secondary reinforcers?

Primary reinforcers satisfy biological needs; secondary are learned (e.g., money, praise).

What are schedules of reinforcement?

Patterns that define how often a desired response will be reinforced (e.g., fixed-ratio, variable-ratio).

What did Skinner’s Box demonstrate?

That behaviour could be shaped through systematic reinforcement.

What did the Bobo doll experiment show?

That children imitate aggressive behaviour observed in adults (observational learning).