Psychology Midterm 2

Consciousness

Our awareness of internal and external states

Properties of Consciousness

Limited, selective, dynamic

2 states of consciousness

Awareness and Arousal

First person data

Hard problem, subjective

Third person data

easy problem, things you can test/see

Vegetative State

Shows no signs of obvious awarness

fMRI and Vegetative state

Can prove that these patients are aware, they just cannot express their awareness

Blindsight

responding to visual stimuli not seen due to occipital or visual cortex damages

Split Brain

Hemispheric Lateralization (the 2 sides of the brain can’t talk to each other any more)

Left Brain

Language Processing

Right Brain

Visuospatial Functions (drawing)

Circadian Rhythm

Internal Clock that regulates sleep-wake cycles and other physiological processes over a 24-hour period.

Sleep Stages

Studied using EEG’s, short bursts, irregular, large and slow brain waves.

REM Sleep

stage of sleep where brain activity is similar to when you are awake

Depressants

drug that decreases activity in the CNS

Stimulants

drug that excites neural activity and speeds up bodily functions

Hallucinogens

drug that change in conscious awareness and interferes with serotonin

Neurons

DNA packages into chromosomes

Genotype

sequence of letters inherited from your parents

Phenotype

Measurable/seeable trait

Epigenetics

anything that influences your genes that isn’t your parents (environment opening and closing your DNA)

Heritability

how much of a phenotype is inherited, presumable due to genetic factors

Twin Studies

Compare twins in different environments to see how that influences their traits.

Influence of the Environment

always plays a part, but there is not enough research to conclude it is everything

Dopamine

tells up when something suprising happens

Conditioned Stimulus

something that wasn’t important to you, but when paired with something else you associate it with the same feeling

Nonassociative Learning

simple learning to reduce or increase the amount of responding we do to stimuli that innately drive a response

Habituation

Something that repeats in your environment and doesn’t predict anything important, so you stop responding to it

Sensitization

Repeats in your environment and is annoying, so it will increase your response.

Associative Learning

linking up stimuli and experiences because of something that was previously neutral predicts something important

Classical Conditioning

measure responses to the cue to measure strength of learning (involuntary)

Unconditional Stimulus

the stimulus in the environment is automatically meaning something to you

Unconditional Response

the “involuntary” response you have to something without a conditioned stimulus

Conditioned Response

the response to the conditioned stimulus

Acquisition

the initial learning of the US-CS link in classical conditioning

Generalization

tendency to reply to a stimuli similar to the CS

Discrimination

We learn not to respond to particular stimuli, but respond to others

Extinction

You stop responding to neutral stimulus when it no longer predicts the response

Spontaneous Recovery

when you all of a sudden react to a stimulus after extinction

Blocking

need to not learn about a second predictive stimulus because the second one has no value to you

Garcia Effect

Some associations are evolutionally advantaged (loud music and eating a new food + getting sick)

Latent Inhibition

It is hard to learn a cue that predicts something if that cue is already associated with something else

Pavlov Experiment

Dogs salivate at the sound of the bell before the food because they had been classically conditioned

Little Albert

Showed that CR can be an emotion like fear. We can rewire brains to be terrified of something.

Conditioned Taste Aversion

Individuals are more likely to associate nausea with food rather than other environmental stimuli as a survival mechanism

Thorndike Law of Effect

behavior is a function of concequence

Primary reinforcers

Biological needs

Secondary Reinforcers

learned through experience, based off things in society

Positive Reinforcement

Getting a reward that increases behavior

Negative reinforcement

Removing an unpleasant stimulus, increases behavior

Positive Punishment

presenting negative stimulus to decrease behavior

Negative Punishment

removing positive stimulus leading to a decrease in behavior

Skinner Box

Operant chamber to examine and reinforce behavior

Continuous Reinforcement

behavior is rewarded every time it is preformed

Fixed-ratio schedule

specific number of behaviors are preformed before a reward is given

Variable-ratio schedule

The behavior is rewarded after an average number of times

Fixed-interval schedule

Reinforcement is given for a behavior after a fixed amount of time and isn’t rewarded until the next interval

Variable-interval schedule

Average amount of time elapses before the reward is given, it is not given again until the next average time

Insight Learning

learning that occurs without trial and error, you have to weight the options before acting

Observational Learning

observing and imitating behavior from a model

Social Learning Theory

how peoples cognitions, behaviors, and dispositions are shaped by observational learning

Cultural Transmission of Learning

Transfer of information for one generation to another by teaching

Operant Conditioning

Voluntary learning that you should do an action to receive a certain outcome

Shaping

random behaviors that are formed into the desired behavior

Chaining

type of intervention that puts together steps in order to create associations and therefore a behavior

Sensations

taking in the information from the environment

Perception

How you feel about the sensation

Bottom-Up processing

Influenced by the stimulus

Top-down processing

Influenced by the cognition

Psychophysics

The relationship between the physical stimuli and the resulting psychological experiences

Detection

what is the weakest stimulus you notice

Discrimination

What is the smallest difference between stimuli that we can tell

Neural Noise

Neurons change the rate they fire, creating a quieter or louder sound

Spontaneous Activity

firing action potential in the absence of stimulation

Liberal Bias

they want to appear sensitive, they will say yes more often

Conservative Bias

want to appear insensitive, they will say no more often

Signal Detention Theory

accounting for sensitivity and bias

Hit

Signal presented, they say there was a signal

Miss

The signal was presented, say there wasn’t

False Alarm

No signal, they said there was

Correct Rejection

No signal, they say there wasn’t

Webers Law

Just noticeable difference in the intensity of a stimulus

Adaptation

response to a stimulus decreases when the stimulus remains constant

Electromagnetic Energy

Energy emitted or reflected from objects in the form of electrical and magnetic waves

Rods

Black and White/Light receptors

Cones

Color Receptors

Ganglion cells

where transduction occurs in the eye

Retina

Back of the eye

Lens

Focuses the Light

Pupil

Light hole

Iris

Contracts to let in and take out light

Fovea

Center of the eye; where cones reside; highest visual acuity

Accommodation

changing its shape to accommodate nearby objects

Blind Spot

Where the optic nerve meets the retina

Trichromatic Theory of Color Vision

The 3 cones inside the eye determines the color that is

perceived

Opponent-Process Theory

The visual system responds in opposite ways to complementary colors, adapting to o

Motion Aftereffects

Adapting to a motion in a particular direction, so when you look away the opposite motion is created (even to non-moving objects)

Apparent Motion

Series of successive still images, our brain produces motion

Cillia

where transduction occurs in auditory stimulus

Place Theory

we seperate certain pitches in the beasular membrane