Pysch 1 Exam 1

Paul Broca

was a French Surgeon who had a patient called "Tan"

Who was "Tan"?

A patient that had a lesion on his left prefrontal cortex, because of this he could only say the word "Tan"

this showed strong evidence for the connection between mind and brain

Wilhelm Wundt

german physiologist who founded psychology as a formal science; opened first psychology research laboratory in 1879

Psychology is

the study of the mind and behavior

Rene Descartes suggested

Dualism! That the mind and brain are SEPARATE entities

Do psychologists today believe in dualism?

No, few psychologists believe in dualism but instead believe that our mind is determined by activity in our brain.

Structuralism

an approach by Wilhelm Wundt to look at the "building block" of human consciousness

William James

founder of functionalism; the idea that consciousness should be studied in terms of how it aided the human; wrote principles of psychology; trained is Europe and brought ideas back to harvard

Functionalism was strongly influenced by

Darwin

Both structuralism and functionalism focused on

introspection

Introspection

examination of one's own thoughts and feelings

Behaviorism focused on

things that were observable and replicable

John Watson

was the most famous behaviorist who believed that humans were a product of their environment, moved from stimulus response relationships in rats to studying them in humans to show the applicability of his work

Behaviorism helped

establish psychology as a science

B.F. Skinner

extended watson's ideas

Operant conditioning

a type of learning in focused on how particular behaviors were changed based on the outcomes of those behaviors

Behaviorism was the strongest for from

the 20s to the 50s

How did WWI impact psychology?

WWI brought psychology into public view

(first intelligence tests were for the military then were puublicized)

Donald Broadbent

a pilot who nearly crashed his plane because he was looking at the wrong dial and realized that humans have a limited capacity for processing information

Cognitive Psychology

the scientific study of all the mental activities associated with thinking, knowing, remembering, and communicating (term coined by Ulric Neisser)

WWII helped create

modern clinical psychology

(through a new model for training clinical psychologists- a faster one)

and modern social psychology through trying to understand how people could be so inhumane

Sigmund Freud

Austrian physician whose work focused on the unconscious causes of behavior and personality formation; founded psychoanalysis.

Kurt Lewin

WWII, was a key figure in trying to understand how the environment influences behavior, focusing on how other's behavior can influence your own (why did the nazis treat people so inhumanely/human behavior)

Neuroimaging

a technique that captures a picture of the brain, makes it possible to "See" the brain in action

cognitive neuroscience

A field that attempts to understand the links between cognitive processes and brain activity. Led to many advances in how the "mind" and thinking is related to the brain

Psychology is always

evolving!

Why is psychology a science?

because we practice empiricism

Empiricism

the practice of gathering information about the world through observation

Pschology focuses on factors that

influence human thought, mental processing, and behavior

Process of Science

A cycle that starts with a hypothesis

Hypothesis

Falsifiable statement about the relationship between two variables

Observations

Data that is gathered to asses a hypothesis

Operational definition

Concrete and replicable definition of an abstract concept

We can't have ________ without _________!

Validity, Reliability

Reliability

Consistency of a measurement

Validity

Whether the measurement is an accurate representation of the concept

The scientifice method/process

hypothesis -> experiment -> conclusion or knowledge

Observations

psychological scientists collecting data to assess the hypothesis

operational definition

a concrete and replicable definition of an abstract concept

reliability

consistency of a measurement

validity

whether the measurement is an accurate representation of the concept

we cant have validity without...

reliability!

case studies

examine cases in depth, usually of unusual/exceptional individuals

(not really an experiment, but allows for the generation of hypotheses)

Correlational Studies

looks for relationships between two measured variables (positive- both increase, negative- one decrease one increase)

Causation cannot be determined by

correlational studies

Causation requires

1. correlation
2. time order
3. ruling out alternative explanations

third variable problem

some other potential cause in a study

true experiments

experimenter manipulated an independent variable and measures a dependent variable

independent variable

The experimental factor that is manipulated; the variable whose effect is being studied.

dependent variable

The outcome factor; the variable that may change in response to manipulations of the independent variable.

random assignment

assigning participants to experimental and control conditions by chance

confound

another variable that changes with the independent variable, but BAD

using true experiments means

causation can be determined!

quasi experiments

experimenter uses a quasi-independent variable and measures a dependent variable

quasi independent variable

in a non-experimental study, the "independent variable" that is used to create the different groups of scores

quasi-dependent variable

the variable that we think was impacted by the quasi-independent variable

Quasi experiments are missing...

random assignment, so no causation can be determines

descriptive statistics

numerical data that summarize the data collected in a study

Mean

average

Median

Middlemost number

mode

most frequent value

standard variation

indicates spread of data in original units

inferential statistics

statistics that allow us to draw conclusions about data and make inferences

(p<.05 is the golden rule!)

Internal validity

whether we can draw strong causal conclusions (no confounds)

external validity

whether these findings apply to the constructs (variables) more broadly

Generalizability

whether the data from the group (the sample) you sampled should be used to make conclusions about a larger population (usually depends on random sampling)

The 3 ways ethics are maointained in experiments

1. respect for persons- informed consent

2. Beneficence- harm/benefit assessment

3. Justice- no group unfairly targeted

Who verifies that experiments are ethical?

the IRB

What we know about the brain depends HEAVILY on

the techniques available

Parts of the neuron

mitochondria- produces energy

cell nucleus- contains genetic instructions

ribosomes- translate genetic instructions into proteins

Neurons are specialized for

communication with other neurons

Types of neurons

motor, sensory, interneurons

Motor neurons

stimulate muscles or glands

sensory neurons

respond to environments stimuli such as light, odor, or touch

interneurons

recievve input from and send input to other neurons

how do neurons communicate

neurons mainly communicate by sending neurotransmitters across the synapse

What are released from the presynaptic cell and taken up by the postsynaptic cell?

Neurotransmitters

What is a neurotransmitter release the result of?

Presynaptic cell firing an action potential

What are action potentials?

They are all-or-nothing, there are no graded responses

What does neuronal communication depend on?

Electrochemical forces

At rest what is a neurons resting potential?

-65 mV

Where are there more negatively charged ions?

Inside the cell

Where do ions want to move?

They want to move to a area of lower concentration (chemical force) and away from their charge (electric force)

Signals coming from other neurons at the dendrites can either...

hyperpolarize the neuron or depolarize the neuron

Hyperpolarize

Makes the neuron less likely to fire

Depolarize

Makes the neuron more likely to fire

Axon Hillock

Where the neuron is integrated

When will a neuron generate an action potential and fire?

When there are enough signals to reach the threshold.

What does generation of the action potential depend on?

Voltage-gates ion channels

Voltage gates Na+ Channels ______ when threshold is reached.

Open

Voltage gates K+ Channels ______ near peak of action potential, and Na+ close

Open

Where does the action potential propagate down?

The axon

Myelin

Makes the propagation go faster, limiting the number of places this process has to occur.

When do the voltage-gated Ca2+ channels open?

When the action potential reaches the terminal button

What happens when there is a influx of Ca2+?

The synaptic vesicles fuse with the presynaptic membrane and dump their neurotransmitter contents into the synapse

Acetylcholine

Voluntary motor control (a main neurotransmitter)

Dopamine

Motor initiation, pleasure and emotion (a main neurotransmitter)

Glutamine

Main excitatory (a main neurotransmitter)

GABA

Main inhibitory (a main neurotransmitter)

Norepinephrine

Vigilance