General Psychology Unit 1 Flashcards

Vocabulary flashcards covering fundamental terms and concepts for General Psychology Unit 1 Exam, based on the provided study guide.

Father of Psychology

Wilhelm Wundt, recognized for establishing the first psychological laboratory and founding psychology as an independent formal science.

Biological / Neuroscience Perspective

A psychological perspective that focuses on how bodily events, brain chemistry, genetics, and neural structures shape behavior and mental processes.

Evolutionary Perspective

A psychological perspective centered on how natural selection of traits has promoted the survival of genes and shaped human mental processes and behavior.

Humanistic Perspective

A psychological perspective emphasizing individual growth potential, self-actualization, and human free will.

Psychodynamic (Psychoanalytic) Perspective

A psychological perspective focusing on unconscious drives, internal conflicts, and early childhood experiences in shaping behavior.

Behavioral Perspective

A psychological perspective emphasizing observable responses and environmental conditioning over internal mental events.

Cognitive Perspective

A psychological perspective focused on mental activities such as thinking, knowing, remembering, processing, and communicating information.

Social-Cultural Perspective

A psychological perspective examining how behavior and thinking vary across situations, societies, and cultural environments.

Operational Definition

A carefully worded statement of the exact procedures or measurements used to define research variables in a study.

Replication

Repeating the essence of a research study with different participants and situations to determine whether the original finding extends to other circumstances.

Naturalistic Observation

A descriptive research method that involves observing and recording behavior in naturally occurring situations without manipulating or controlling the environment.

Case Study

An in-depth observational technique in which one individual or small group is studied in detail to reveal universal principles.

Direct (Positive) Correlation

A relationship between two variables in which both variables increase together or decrease together in the same direction.

Indirect (Negative) Correlation

A relationship between two variables in which one variable increases while the other variable decreases.

Independent Variable

In an experiment, the factor that is manipulated or varied by the researcher to observe its effect.

Dependent Variable

In an experiment, the factor that is measured to assess the impact of the independent variable.

Confounding Variable

A factor other than the factor being studied that might influence a study's results.

Placebo Effect

Experimental results caused by expectations alone, where a subject experiences real changes despite receiving an inactive treatment.

Double-Blind Procedure

An experimental procedure in which both the research participants and the research staff are ignorant about whether the participants have received the treatment or a placebo.

Neuroplasticity

The brain's ability to change, reorganize, and build new neural pathways in response to experience or after damage.

Action Potential

A neural impulse consisting of a brief electrical charge that travels down an axon.

Refractory Period

A brief resting pause after a neuron has fired, during which subsequent action potentials cannot occur until the axon returns to its resting state.

Reuptake

A neurotransmitter's reabsorption by the sending neuron that released it.

Endorphins

Neurotransmitters linked to pain control and to pleasure.

Central Nervous System

The brain and spinal cord.

Peripheral Nervous System

The sensory and motor neurons that connect the central nervous system to the rest of the body.

Somatic Nervous System

The division of the peripheral nervous system that controls the body's skeletal muscles.

Autonomic Nervous System

The division of the peripheral nervous system that controls the glands and muscles of internal organs, operating automatically.

Sympathetic Nervous System

The division of the autonomic nervous system that arouses the body and mobilizes its energy in stressful situations.

Parasympathetic Nervous System

The division of the autonomic nervous system that calms the body and conserves its energy.

Corpus Callosum

The large band of neural fibers connecting the left and right brain hemispheres and carrying messages between them.

Phineas Gage

A famous historical case study of a railroad worker whose personality drastically changed following a severe traumatic injury to his brain's frontal lobe.

Pituitary Gland

The endocrine system's most influential gland, which regulates growth and controls other endocrine glands under the influence of the hypothalamus.

Amygdala

Two lima-bean-sized neural clusters in the limbic system linked to emotion, particularly fear and aggression.

Hippocampus

A neural center located in the limbic system that helps process explicit, conscious memories for storage.

Sensation

The process by which sensory receptors and the nervous system receive and represent stimulus energies from our environment.

Perception

The process of organizing and interpreting sensory information, enabling us to recognize meaningful objects and events.

Transduction

The conversion of one form of energy into another, such as turning stimulus energies into neural impulses our brain can interpret.

Absolute Threshold

The minimum stimulus energy needed to detect a particular stimulus 50\text{\null}\% of the time.

Difference Threshold

The minimum difference between two stimuli required for detection 50\text{\null}\% of the time; also called the just noticeable difference.

Rods

Retinal receptors that detect black, white, and gray, and are necessary for peripheral and night vision.

Cones

Retinal receptor cells that are concentrated near the center of the retina and function in well-lit conditions, detecting fine detail and color.

Young-Helmholtz Trichromatic Theory

The theory that the retina contains three different types of color receptors: one most sensitive to red, one to green, and one to blue.

Hering's Opponent-Process Theory

The theory that opposing retinal processes (red-green, yellow-blue, white-black) enable color vision.

Ossicles

The three tiny bones in the middle ear—malleus (hammer), incus (anvil), and stapes (stirrup)—that transmit vibrations to the inner ear.

Cochlea

A coiled, bony, fluid-filled tube in the inner ear through which sound waves trigger nerve impulses.

Bottom-Up Processing

Analysis that begins with sensory receptors and works up to the brain's integration of sensory information.

Top-Down Processing

Information processing guided by higher-level mental processes, as when we construct perceptions drawing on our experience and expectations.

Gate-Control Theory

The theory that the spinal cord contains a neurological gate that blocks pain signals or allows them to pass on to the brain.

Kinesthesia

The system for sensing the position and movement of individual body parts.

Vestibular Sense

The sense of body movement and position, including the sense of balance, governed by the inner ear.