AP PSYCHLOGY (important hard terms to remember)

Retrograde Amnesia

Lost of memories before an event

Anterograde Amnesia

Inability to form new memories after the event

Proactive interference

Older memories interfere with the recall of new memories

Retroactive interference

Newer memories interfere with the recall of older memories

Latent Learning

Learning that occurs without any obvious reinforcement or immediate demonstration of the behavior learned

Example of Latent learning

1. A child frequently rides in the car with their parents

   They might later be able to navigate to a familiar destination on their own. Having formed a cognitive map of the are through repeated exposure

Primary reinforcer

Motivate behavior because they satisfy basic needs

Secondary reinforcer

Stimulus that reinforces a behavior

fMRI

Neuroimaging measuring brain activity by detecting changes in blood oxygenation

Yerkes-Dodson Rule

Performance is the best under conditions of moderate arousal

Cochlear Implants

Serve to profound sensorineural hearing

Case study

In-depth examination of a single person’s psychological issues

id

Resides in the unconscious and strives to satisfy a person’s most basic drives

Superego

Person’s ideals, moral values, and judgements

Ego

Mediating between the id and superego

Diathesis-stress Model

Focuses on how psychological disorders come from the interaction between genetic or biological vulnerabilities

Dopamine

Helps with movement, learning, attention, and emotions

Acetylcholine

Enables muscle action, learning, and helps with memory

Substance P

Helps transmit pain signals from sensory nerves to central nervous system

Serotonin

Impacts on individual’s hunger, sleep, arousal, and mood

Endorphins

Help with pain control and impact an individual’s pain tolerance

Epinephrine

Helps with body’s response to high emotional situations and form memories

Norepinephrine

Increases your blood pressure, heart rate, alertness, and helps with body’s fight or flight response

Glutamate

Helps with long term memory and learning

Gaba

Helps with sleep, movement, and slows down nervous system

Leptin

Helps regulate energy balance by inhibiting hunger, signals to the brain that the body has enough stored fat, reducing appetite

Ghrelin

Hunger hormone

Melatonin

Helps regulate sleep wake cycles, also known as circadian rhythms

Oxytocin

Produced in the hypothalamus and released by the pituitary gland. This hormone promotes feelings of affection and emotional bonding

Endocrine system

Sends hormones throughout the body’s blood and uses neurons to quickly send and deliver messages

Synapse

Neurons connect and communicate with each other

Psychodynamic Perspective

Unconscious mind and early childhood experiences

Behaviorism

Observable behavior

Social Cultural Perspective

Person’s experiences and influences in their life to better understand how culture shapes ones

Humanistic Perspective

Potential as humans to grow

Cognitive Perspective

Individuals process and remember information

Biological Perspective

Understand the links between our biological and psychological processes

Biopsychosocial

Interconnectedness of biological, psychological, and social factors

Evolutionary Perspective

How natural selection and adaptation influence behavior

Nature

Passing of traits

Nurture

Environmental factors

Central Nervous system

Sends out orders to the body

Peripheral Nervous System

Connects the central nervous system to all of the body’s organs and muscles

Nervous system uses

Sensory and motor neuronns

Somatic Nervous system

Skeletal movements

Autonomic Nervous system

Controls involuntary activities like heart beating

Sympathetic

Gets your body ready for fight or flight

Parasympathetic system

Relaxes the body

Glial cells

Support neurons through protection and provide nutrients

Hindbrain

Bottom of brain

Midbrain

Center sitting above the base of the brain

Forebrain

Top of the brain

Spinal Cord

Connects your brain to the rest of your body

Brain Stem

Base of your brain and includes the Medulla, pons, and midbrain. It controls vital functions

Medulla

Regulate cardiovascular and respiratory system. Takes care of autonomic functions

Pons

Bridge between different areas of the nervous system. It connects the medulla and helps coordinate movement, sleep, and dreams

Reticular Activities system

Network of nerve cell bodies and fibers within the brain stem. Involved in regulation of arousal, alertness, and sleep wake cycles

Cerebellum

In the back of the brain. It helps coordinate voluntary movements and maintain balance

Midbrain region

Helps process visual and auditory information, motor control, and integrate sensory and motor pathways

Cerebrum

Largest part of the brain and divides into two hemispheres. Each hemisphere can be further subdivided into four different lobes.

Corpus Callosum

Beneath the cerebral cortex and is a band of nerve fibers that connect the two cerebral hemispheres

Frontal Lobe

Deals with high level thinking, making judgements, language voluntary movements. It’s separated into two areas.

Prefrontal Cortex (an area in the frontal lobe)

Foresight judgement, speech, complex thought

Motor Cortex (an area in the frontal lobe)

Voluntary movement, located in the back of the frontal lobe

Broca’s Area

Located in the left hemisphere in front of the motor cortex and is crucial for language production.

Parietal Lobe

Located in the upper part of the brain, receives sensory information, allows your to touch, responsible for processing touch, pressure, etc.

Temporal lobe

Process auditory information and the hippocampus is in it

Hippocampus

Help us learn and form memories

Amygdala

Emotional reactions, fear, anxiety, and aggression

Wernicke’s Area

Creates meaningful speech

Occipital Lobe

Processing visual information

Thalamus

Relay station

Limbic system

Helps regulate emotions and behavior

Hypothalamus

Keeps your body balanced

Pituitary Gland

Master gland as it produces and releases hormones that regulate many bodily functions and controls other endocrine glands

Left hemisphere

Words, letters, interpreting language

Right hemisphere

Spatial concepts, facial recognition, discerning direction

Consolidation Theory

Dreams help process and strengthen our memories and experiences

Restoration Theory

We sleep because we get tired from daily activities and need sleep to restore our energy and resources

Insomnia

Trouble falling or staying asleep

Sleep apnea

Hard time falling or staying asleep because of hard time breathing

Weber-Fechner-Law

Two stimuli must differ by a constant percent for us to notice a difference

Trichromatic theory

See color because of different wavelengths of light stimulate combinations of 3 color receptors.

The Place Theory

Certain hair cells respond to certain frequencies

Olfactory Receptors

Located in the nose

Pheromones

Chemical signals released by an individual that affect the behavior

Phi Phenomenon

Lights blink on and off in sequence, resulting in us perceiving objects as moving even though the objects are stationary

Gestalt

Humans naturally group elements together to form meaningful patterns

Monocular Cues

Require one eye

Binocular Cues

Rely on both eyes working together when looking at something

Priming

Exposure to one stimulus influences how we respond to a later stimulus

Divergent thinking

Person explores many possible solutions

Convergent thinking

Narrowing down the possibilities

Explicit Memory

Information that we consciously recall, these memories require effort and thought

Episodic Memory

Personal experiences or events

Semantic Memory

Involves knowledge, facts, and general information

Implicit memory

Information or skills we learn without being fully aware of it

Procedural memory

Help us recall how to perform tasks

Prospect memory

Remembering to perform future actions like taking medication at a time

Iconic memory

Sensory memory