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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