Final Exam Ivett

Hypotheses:

statement/question that can be tested

Functionalism:

• Focused on how mental activities helped an organism adapt to its environment

Qualitative Methods:

Non-numerical measurements, Interviews, Focus groups, Case studies, Observation (Observer bias)

what happens when Ion channels (Open):

Na+ ions flow into the cell & depolarize it - the inside the cell us now going to be more positive → leads to an action potential

Inhibitory:

• (GABA) Block/prevent the chemical message from being passed along any further. NO NEW ACTION POTENTIALS

Excitatory:

• (Glutamate) Excite the postsynaptic neuron & cause it to generate a new action potential meaning the message is passed

Frontal Lobe:

 Involved in reasoning, motor control, emotion, & language

parietal lobe

Processes sensory information from the body, including touch, pain, temperature, and proprioception (body position

occipital lobe

Process visual info

temporal lobe

Process auditory info

Frontal-, Parietal-, Occipital-, & Temporal- lobes (what part of the brain are these in)

Forebrain

Limbic System

Includes Thalamus, Hypothalamus, Hippocampus, Amygdala

Thalamus

 A sensory relay station for the brain

Hypothalamus

Regulates homeostatic processes, including body temp., appetite, & body pressure (looks like a nose)

Hippocampus:

• Associated with learning & memory (spatial memory + memory consolidation) (looks like devil horns)

Amygdala:

• Involved in our experience of emotion & tying emotional meaning to our memories (processing fear)

(like tad poles two balls)

• Hindbrain:

• Medulla, Pons, Cerebellum

• Cerebellum:

• IMPLICIT MEMORIES Controls our balance, coordination, movement, & motor skills & is thought to be important in processing some types of memory

Amplitude

•  Perceived as brightness, height of a wave is measured from the peak to the trough

Wavelength

• Perceived as color, measured from peak to peak

Frequency:

• The number of waves that pass a given point in a given time period (Expressed in hertz Hz) (KNOW FOR SOUND )

Longer wavelength

lower frequency

• shorter wavelengths

• have higher frequency

Auditory transduction:

• Auditory canal, Tympanic membrane, 3 ossicles, Cochlea, Hair cells, Auditory Nerve, Thalamus, Auditory Cortex

Physiological dependence:

Involves changes in normal bodily functions & withdrawals upon cessation of use

Psychological dependence:

The emotional need for the drug

Tolerance:

• occurs when a person requires more and more of a drug to achieve effects previously experienced at lower doses; linked to physiological dependence

Withdrawal:

Negative symptoms experienced when drug use is discontinued

Gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA):

• The major inhibitory neurotransmitter in the brain and the spinal cord

• Blocks the signals of excitatory neurotransmitters

• Low levels may be responsible for anxiety and panic

• Glutamate:

• The primary excitatory neurotransmitter in the mammalian brain

• Important for longer-term processes,learning and memory

Acetylcholine:

Muscle action and memory

Endorphins:

Pain and pleasure

• Dopamine:

• Mood, sleep, and learning

Norepinephrine:

• Heart, intestines, and alertness

• Serotonin:

• Mood and sleep

Stimulants Effects:

• Increase overall levels of neural activity can include nausea, elevated blood pressure, increased heart rate, feelings of anxiety, hallucinations, and paranoia 

Stimulants

Cocaine, Amphetamine, Cathinones (i.e bath salts), MDMA

• Opioid receptors

• Serve as analgesics (decrease pain) through their effects on the endogenous opioid neurotransmitter system (Highly addictive)

•  Heroine, Morphine, Methadone, Codeine, Fentanyl

Hallucinogens

• Cause changes in sensory and perceptual experiences. It can involve vivid hallucinations

• Circadian rhythm

• A biological rhythm that occurs over approximately 24 hours

  • Generated by the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN)

  • The sleep-wake cycle, one of four main circadian rhythms, is linked to our environment’s natural light-dark cycle

Pineal gland:

• Melatonin regulates our sleep-wake cycle

• Melatonin release is stimulated by darkness, making us sleepy and inhibited by daylight

• The pineal gland releases melatonin

 Stage 1

•  (Alpha waves): Transitional phase occurring between wakefulness and sleep

Stage 2

• (Theta waves): The body goes into deep relaxation

  • Characterized by the appearance of both sleep spindles and k-complexes

Stages 3 & 4

• Known as slow-wave sleep or Delta waves

Rapid Eye Movement (REM)

• Paralysis of voluntary muscles; dreams; brain waves are similar to those seen during wakefulness

Moujaes et al., 2023:

Same MRI/facility, all white participants, used previously published data

Meditation

involving focusing or clearing the mind, often using mental and physical techniques, to promote relaxation, reduce stress, and enhance overall well-being

• induced decrease connectivity between the posterior DMN and secondary visual networks (V2)

Hypnosis

a state of focused attention and heightened suggestibility

Classical Conditioning:

• The process of conditioning involves the pairing of a neutral stimulus with an unconditioned stimulus

•  Ivan Pavlov’s experiment with dogs

Dogs were conditioned to associate a sound cue with food. When the dogs heard the sound, they anticipated the food and salivated

Unconditioned stimulus + Neural stimulus =

Unconditioned response

Unconditioned stimulus (UCS):

Stimulus that elicits a reflexive response (food)

• Neutral stimulus (NS):

• Stimulus that does not naturally elicit a response (ringing a bell - does not cause salivation by itself before conditioning)

Unconditioned Response (UCR):

• A natural, unlearned reaction to a stimulus (salivation in response to food)

Conditioned stimulus →

Conditioned response

• Bell (CS) → Salivation (CR)

Conditioned stimulus (CS):

Stimulus that elicits a response after repeatedly being paired with an unconditioned stimulus

• Conditioned response (CR):

•  The behavior caused by the conditioned stimulus

• Acquisition:

• The initial period of learning when an organism learns to connect a neutral stimulus and an unconditioned stimulus

• Extinction:

• Decrease in the conditioned responses when the UCS is no longer presented with the CS

  • If food stops being presented with the sound of the bell then eventually the dog will stop responding to the bell

• Spontaneous recovery:

• The return of a previously extinguished conditioned response following a rest period

• Stimulus discrimination:

• When an organism learns to respond differently to various stimuli that are similar

  • The dog can discriminate between the specific bell sound that signals food and a similar bell sound that does not signal food

• Stimulus generalization:

• an organism demonstrates the conditioned response to stimuli that are similar to the conditioned stimulus

  • I.e If an individual learns to dislike a specific spider, they will usually then dislike all spiders

• Habituation:

• Learning not to respond to a stimulus that is presented repeatedly without change

  • As a stimulus is repeated, we learn not to focus on it

Operant conditioning

Is a process by which humans and animals learn to behave in such a way as to obtain rewards and avoid punishments

Skinner Box:

• To study operant conditioning, Skinner placed animals inside an operant conditioning chamber containing a lever that, when pressed causes food to be dispensed as a reward

• Positive punishment:

• Something is added to decrease the likelihood os a behavior (speeding ticket after driving too fast)

• Positive reinforcement:

• Something is added to increase the likelihood of a behavior

  • High grades, Paychecks, Praise

• Negative reinforcement:

• Something is removed to increase the likelihood of a behavior

  • The beeping sound that will only go away when you put your seatbelt on

• Negative punishment:

• Something is removed to decrease the likelihood of a behavior

  • Taking away a favorite toy when a child misbehaves

Primary reinforcers:

Those with innate reinforcing qualities (i.e food, water, sleep, pleasure). The value of those reinforces does not need to be learned

• Secondary reinforcers:

• Those that have no inherent value, Their value is learned and becomes reinforcing when linked with a primary reinforcer

• Continuous reinforcement:

• Every time the desired behavior is made the subject will receive some reinforcer

Partial reinforcement

involves reinforcing a desired behavior only sometimes, rather than every time it occurs

• Fixed-interval schedule:

• An exact amount of time passes between each reinforcement/reward

• Variable-interval schedule:

• A varying amount of time passes between each reinforcement/reward

Fixed-ratio schedule:

Reinforcement occurs after a fixed number of responses

• Variable-ratio schedule:

• Reinforcement occurs after a varying number of responses

(gambling)

• Cognitive maps

• A mental picture of the layout of an environment

• Semantic encoding:

• Encoding of words and their meaning (most effective)

  • Involves a deeper level of processing

• Visual encoding:

• Encoding of images

• Acoustic encoding:

• encoding of sounds

• Explicit:

• Memories of facts and events we can consciously remember and recall/declare

• Semantic:

• Knowledge about words, concepts, and language (i.e knowing who the president is)

• Episodic:

• information about events we have personally experienced (i.e remembering your 5th birthday party)

• Implicit:

• Memories that are not part of our consciousness (Formed through behavior)

• Procedural:

• Stores information about how to do things (how to ride a bike)

• emotional conditioning:

• you might have a fear of spiders but not consciously remember why or what occurred to condition that fear (She has no clear definition on her slide)

• Engrams:

• The group of neurons that serve as the “physical representation of memory” (Karl Lashley = never found it)

• Equipotentiality hypothesis:

• Each portion of any given area can encode or produce the behavior normally controlled by the entire area

  • If part of one area of the brain involved in memory is damaged, another part of the same area can take over that memory function

• Amygdala (memory):

• Involved in fear and fear memories (memory storage is influenced by stress hormones)

• Hippocampus (memory):

• Associated with explicit memory, recognition memory, and spatial memory

Cerebellum (memory):

Implicit and Plays a role in processing procedural memories, such as how to play the piano and classical conditioning

• Prefrontal cortex:

• Appears to be involved in remembering semantic tasks

  • Encoding is associated with left frontal activity

  • Retrieval of information is associated with the right frontal region

• Rehearsal:

• Conscious repetition of information to be remembered

• Chunking:

• Organizing information into manageable bits or chunks

  • Separating phone numbers into 3 chunks

• Elaborative rehearsal:

• Technique in which you think about the meaning of the new information and its relation to knowledge already stored in your memory (new area code by connecting it to the old one and just “subtracting two.”)

• Mnemonic devices:

• Memory aids that help us organize information for encoding

  • I.e through expressive writing or saying words aloud using the acronym “HOMES”

Patient H.M

• Patient Henry Molaison at the age of 9, H.M was knocked down by a bicycle and had a head injury → Developed seizures and epilepsy

• Did surgery and doctor removed his temporal lobe so epilepsy was gone but so was H.Ms ability to form new memories

Little albert

conditioned fear of white cause he’s scared of white rats

Anterograde amnesia:

• People cannot remember new information after the injury, but they can remember information and events that happened prior to the injury