psych midterm 2

sensory memory

visual and auditory

• iconic memory: visual, limit of 1/3 second

• echoic memory: auditory, 2-10 seconds

• high capacity but very fragile

encoding

sensory info transformed into neural code

• require attention

• adds meaning

consolidation

stabilizing info into long term memory

• primarily during sleep

working memory

active maintenance of items in memory temporarily

• can hold 4-7 items at once (phone numbers)

• begin to attach meaning to information

long term memory

stored for later retrieval

retrieval

retrieving memory

multistore model of memory

components differ in duration and capacity

• memory becomes less detailed as it progresses

primacy effect

increased processing

recency effect

still active in working memory

area of brain associated with encoding and consolidation

hippocampus

Discuss why elaborations are useful for memory storage.

move information from superficial memory to deep, semantic encoding enhancing long term retention

types of long term memory

explicit: episodic and semantic

implicit: procedural, priming, classical conditioning

explicit memory

consciously store and retrieve (ex. remembering your phone number)

• episodic: memories of specific personal experiences (ex. remembering first day of school)

• semantic: general knowledge (ex. 2+2=4)

implicit memory

memories that influence behavior, but not consciously retrieved (ex. riding a bike)

• procedural:learned, automatic skills (ex. tying your shoes)

• priming: exposure to a stimulus influences response to a later stimulus without conscious awareness (ex. bananas and yellow being associated)

• classical conditioning: automatic, involuntary response becomes associated with a new, neutral stimulus (ex. Ivan pavlov dogs)

what happens neurologically during consolidation

achieved via long term potentiation

• short term memory, short term method: more neurotransmitter released

• long term memory, long term method: more receptors created (genetic change)

Explain how stress contributes to the formation of fragmented memories.

prolonged stress hurts learning which can fracture memories

weapon focus

• eyewitnesses remember weapons at expense of other info

• potential explanations

  • heightened encoding of threats

  • unexpected objects capture our attention

flashbulb memory

vivd memory for emotionally significant event

• more vivid and accurate but contain heightened level of inaccuracies

types of retrieval

recognition: identifying information from set of options

• multiple choice

free recall: retrieving information without cues

• “describe the main functions of the hippocampus”

cued recall: retrieving information with cues

• “name a brain structure involved in memory formation that starts with an H”

encoding specificity principle

easiest when retrieval and encoding context match

misinformation effect

inaccurate information is introduced after the event

loftus misinformation effect study

• participants shown a series of picture, one featuring a car stopping infant of a stop sign

• some participants read descriptions of what they just saw that contained misinformation: that the car stopped at a yield sign instead of a stop sign

• participants exposed to misinformation were more likely to report seeing a yells sign than those who were not misinformed

• people who avidly imagined the misleading information were more likely to integrate the misinformation into their original memory

Discuss potential explanations for false memories, including a summary of the methods and findings from the Loftus and Pickrell (1995) study.

• participants were presented with four event that supposedly happened to them when they were kindergartners

• 3 were true and one was false getting lost in a mall

• participants recalled details of the events, then were asked a week later to recall the events again

• 25% of participants remembered the false event of getting lost in a local mall as something that happened to them

infantile amnesia

inability to recall episodic memories from first years of life

• underdeveloped hippocampus

• no language system

• limited sense of self

memory decay

we lose info as often as we remember

• trace decay:lack of use will weaken trace over time

• interference theory: new/old memories interfere

Describe factors that contribute to forgetting beyond memory decay.

• limite encoding

• faulty consolidation

• inability to retrieve information

three components of personality

id: instinctual drive towards pleasure and your won desires

ego: conscious self, the mediator

superego: moral compass, driven by right and wrong

defense mechanism

projection: see all your worst traits in others

• A person who's having an affair may accuse their partner of infidelity

List one contribution of Freud to modern psychology.

the existence of an unconscious, just not the id

Big Five

Openness: curiosity, creativity

Conscientiousness: mindful and dependable

Extraversion: sociality, tendency to seek company and talk

Agreeableness: trusting and helpful nature

Neuroticism: predisposition to psychological stress

Explain how much of personality is genetically determined.

Behavioral genetics studies show that about 40–60% of the differences in personality between individuals are due to genetic factors.

Discuss why different personality traits develop from an evolutionary perspective.

different personality traits develop because they offer different advantages for survival and reproduction

Analyze how gender interacts with culture to create more complex personality patterns.

pressures to perform gender in specific ways

Describe the three components of stability to consider when exploring personality.

1. within person: day to day reliability

2. lifespan consistency: changes/stability across decades

3. between person: rank relative to others across time

personality paradox

personality is consistent, behavior is not

• strong: sitting at red light and taking forever to turn, but police officer right behind you → wouldn’t turn right

  • include clear rules and expectations

• weak: sitting at red light that is taking forever but no right on red sign → would you turn?

Evaluate the stability of personality across the lifespan. Identify age-related shifts and explain potential reasons for these changes.

• personality from from infancy

• mostly stable across lifespan

• increase in agreeablness

• decrease in neuroticism

• being an adult means: getting a long with others and keeping a schedule

What was emphasized by the humanist perspective, and how does that relate to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs?

• intrinsic value of human nature

• humans can can self0actualize: fulfill true potential

locus of control

internal: I have control over my life

external: outside forces control what happens

• learned helplessness: history of no control leads to resignation

  • student who does bad academically may drop out of school

self-serving bias

biases that maintain positive attitudes towards selves

• athlete contribute a win to their hard work and skills, but a loss to bad reffing or weather

self esteem

attitude towards ourselves

cognitive psychology

• study of mental activities

  • cognition

  • thinking, knowing, remembering

• include conscious and unconscious

mental representation

internal symbols that stand for things in the world

concepts

mental categories that have common properties

prototypes

most idealized representation of the concept

Describe the three tiers in which concepts are organized

superordinate: no clear prototype (ex. furniture)

basic: clear prototype (ex. chair)

subordinate: more specific (ex. office chair)

insight

sudden, conscious change in understanding

• feels spontaneous, built on unconscious work

dual process theory

automatic system: fast, efficient, prone to bias

controlled system: slow, accurate, requires effort

heuristic

mental shortcuts that allow for quick decisions

• pros: speed up decision making

• cons: lead to biases and errors in judgement

confirmation bias

tendency to gravitate towards information that confirms preexisting beliefs

• only reading news sources that align with your political beliefs

overconfidence bias

tendency to overestimate accuracy of knowledge and judgements

• confidence that your paper will only take and hour (it will take much longer)

hindsight bias

tendency to see events as predictable after the event has occurred

• “I should have known” (no way you could have)

How do experience and framing shape decision-making? Provide an example for each

experience: use past knowledge (like analogies) to solve new problems.

• can hurt when you get stuck thinking about things in their usual way

framing: how information is presented, which changes what people focus on.

• People are influenced by loss aversion (they prefer avoiding losses over gaining the same amount)

language

shared system of symbols and set of rules for how to combine them to communicate meaning

phonemes

smallest distinctive units

• hand shapes and movements in sign

morphemes

smallest meaningful units

• sometimes entire words (are, talk)

grammer

governs how language components are put together to convey meaning

What are the three major components of language? Define them, and come up with an example from each.

syntax: grammatical rules for constructing sentences

• subject-verb-object: the cat chased the mouse

semantics: symbolic learning, words and their meanings

• understanding “bucket” and “pail” refer to the same object

pragmatics: rules for how context can change meaning

• “I have a million hours of homework” meaning I have a lot of homework not literally a million hours

linguistic determinism hypothesis

the specifics of our language actually change the way we think by imposing different ways of understanding the world

• in languages with no numbers, can only recognize 1, 2, 3 or many → open new ways of thinking

What is the first things infants must learn when learning language, and how do they practice?

learn to differentiate phonemes

• “pa” vs “ba"

practice by babbling

List the two major challenges of learning words for infants, and one strategy for each that they use to overcome them.

parsing: spawn language is continuous, there are no cases between words

• use statistical learning to track which sounds frequently occur together

labeling: infants must figure out what each words refers to in a complex environment

• use social cues like pointing

• Describe the types of errors infants make when first learning grammar rules

overregularization errors: over apply grammar rules and ignore exceptions

• “run” and “runned”

language acquisition device

innate and automatic capacity to learn language, activate when exposed to it

• in Nicaragua deaf children were brought to a specific school

• combined their individual home-signs, formed a complete and complex language

g factor

if intelligence is all of those things, then g should predict performance on all task types

fluid intelligence

ability to tackle new problems, challenging or novel situations

crystalized intelligence

accumulated knowledge, facts, skills

What is an intelligence quotient (IQ)? How should a score on an IQ test be interpreted (e.g., what does an IQ of 120 signify)?

compare mental age to chronological age

• school success

• income

• productivity

• job performance

Outline the three criteria necessary for an intelligence test to be considered effective.

reliability, validity, standardization

For what reasons might IQ vary between individuals?

• heritability estimate of 35%-50%

• environment is crucial

  • flynn effect: health care, formal education, complex environments

stereotype threat

negative stereotypes cause anxiety that inhibits performance

Steele and Aronson stereotype threat study

Black college students performed worse on set of verbal problems when they believed their verbal intelligence was being tested

compared with condition which they believed the problems were part of a simple laboratory exercise

had no effect on white students

developmental psychology

• asks the when questions

• examines how people change across the lifespan

• used to be focused just on early development