psychology exam

What is psychology?

Science of behaviour and factors that influence it.

What is behaviour?

Directly observable activity and mental processes.

What are the causal factors in psychology?

Biological, individual, and environmental.

What are the goals of psychology?

Identify/describe behaviour, identify/describe factors causing/influencing, replication, and change.

What do perspectives on behaviour provide?

Guides to understanding behaviour.

What is the biological perspective in psychology?

It includes concepts such as mind-body dualism and monism.

What did Luigi Galvani contribute to psychology?

His studies in bioelectricity supported the monism perspective.

Who is Karl Lashley?

A psychologist who studied learning and memory.

What did structuralism focus on?

Sensations as basic elements of consciousness.

Who is known for the concept of functionalism?

William James.

What is evolutionary behaviour based on?

The legacy of Darwin and natural selection.

What is cognitive perspective associated with?

Child development stages as described by Piaget.

What are psychological problems said to be a result of in the psychodynamic perspective?

Unconscious motives and unresolved past conflicts.

What is radical behaviourism?

Focuses only on observable behaviours, not mental events.

What does the humanistic perspective emphasize?

Conscious motives, freedom, choice, and self-actualization.

What is the sociocultural perspective in psychology?

Focuses on culture's role in behaviour and traditions.

What are circadian rhythms?

Regular fluctuations in certain body functions over a 24-hour period.

How can consciousness be measured?

Through self-reports, physiological measures, and behavioral performance.

What happens during REM sleep?

Increased brain activity and irregular breathing.

What is the restoration model of sleep?

The theory that we sleep to restore energy and bodily functions.

What are common sleep disorders?

Insomnia, narcolepsy, and sleep apnea.

What theories explain dreaming?

Activation-synthesis theory and Freud's psychoanalytic theory.

What is operant conditioning?

A learning process where behaviour is controlled by consequences.

What are the principles of operant conditioning?

Reinforcement, punishment, and schedules of reinforcement.

What is observational learning?

Learning by observing others, as studied by Albert Bandura.

What are the basic questions of human memory?

How information gets into memory, how it's maintained, and how it's retrieved.

What is encoding?

The process of getting information into memory.

What is the self-reference effect?

Encoding with respect to oneself increases memory retention.

What is short-term memory characterized by?

Durability of storage for about 20 seconds without rehearsal.

What happens in long-term memory?

It has unlimited storage capacity and can last permanently.

What is the tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon?

Inability to retrieve information that feels just out of reach.

What is sensory memory?

Brief preservation of information in its original sensory form.

What is the difference between proactive and retroactive interference?

Proactive interference is when older memories hinder new ones, while retroactive is when new memories hinder old ones.

What is psychophysics?

The study of relationships between physical stimuli and the sensations and perceptions they produce.

What is Weber's Law?

The principle that relates the just noticeable difference (JND) to the original stimulus intensity.

What is signal detection theory?

Explores how we decide whether a stimulus is present based on our certainty.

What is sensory adaptation?

Diminished sensitivity to unchanging stimuli over time.

What does the trichromatic theory of color vision state?

Three types of color receptors in the retina are responsible for color perception.

What are cones and rods in the retina?

Cones are for color and detail; rods are for low-light conditions.

What does the opponent-process theory suggest?

Color perception is based on opposing pairs of colors processed by the nervous system.

What is the difference between trichromats and dichromats?

Trichromats have normal color vision; dichromats are deficient in one color system.