Psychology - Exam 2

Sensation

the detection of external physical stimuli and the transmission of this information to the brain

Perception

the processing, organization, and interpretation of sensory signals

Sensation vs. Perception

Sensation is raw data that is experienced and perception is processing this data into meaningful senses and conscious experience

What structure is responsible for getting sensations through to the brain?

Thalamus

Function of the Thalamus

Sensory information goes here and then is projected into the brain

What sense is the temporal lobe responsible for?

Smell and hearing

What sense is the parietal lobe responsible for?

Touch and taste

What sense is the occipital lobe responsible for?

Sight

Prosopagnosia

A deficit in the ability to recognize faces despite the ability to recognize other objects - developmental is from birth and acquired stems from a brain injury

Gestalt meaning

shapes or form and in psychology it means organized whole

What is Gestalt psychology?

A series of laws to explain how our brains group the perceived features of a visual scene into organized wholes

What causes inner ear infections

Vestibular sense

What are the types of taste receptors

Sweet, bitter, umami, salty, sour

What helps close the neural gate in the brain for pain

Large sensory nerve fibers

Quantitative information

Degree or magnitude of qualities

Qualitative information

The most basic qualities of a stimulus

Quantitative vs. Qualitative

Qualitative is the difference between two types of qualities and quantitative is the difference in magnitude of one quality

What can you do to mitigate pain according to the Gate Control Theory

drug treatments, cognitive states like distraction, positive mood, and relaxation

Habituation

When our behavioral response to a stimulus decreases

Sensitization

When our behavioral response to a stimulus increases

What type of sensitization is most effective

One that is threatening and painful

What is the difference between habituation and dishabituation

Habituation decreases behavioral response and dishabituation increases behavioral response

Skinner's conditioning

Believed that behavior occurs because it has been reinforced and used an operant chamber with rats

Pavlov's conditioning

Believed that a neutral object elicits a response when it is associated with a stimulus that already produces that response

Pavlov vs. Skinner

Pavlov uses a stimulus that leads to a positive reinforcement but Skinner makes them exhibit an action to earn the positive reinforcement

Classical conditioning

When we learn that a stimulus predicts another stimulus

Operant conditioning

When we learn that a behavior leads to a consequence

What is the difference between classical and operant conditioning

Classical uses a stimulus and operant uses a behavior

If you trained a cat to fear a flashing light by pairing it with a painful stimulus what would be the conditioned stimulus

The flashing light

Extinction

a process in which the conditioned response is weakened when the conditioned stimulus is repeated without the unconditioned stimulus

Stimulus generalization

learning that occurs when the stimuli that are similar, but not identical, to the conditioned stimulus produce the conditioned response

Phobia

an acquired fear out of proportion to the real threat of an object or of a situation

Law of Effect

any behavior that leads to a "satisfying state of affairs" is likely to occur again, and any behavior that leads to an "annoying state of affairs" is less likely to occur again

Reinforcement vs. Punishment

Reinforcement increases behavior and Punishment decreases behavior

Positive vs. Negative

Positive means to add a stimulus while negative means to take it away

Positive punishment

add a punishment for the purpose of decreasing behavior - a penalty in a sport

Negative Punishment

Take away something for the purpose of decreasing a behavior - taking away a kid's phone when they don't do chores

Positive Reinforcement

Add something for the purpose of increasing a behavior - Giving praise for a kid doing something good

Negative reinforcement

increase behavior through the removal of an unpleasant stimulus - putting on a coat to avoid being cold

Which neurotransmitter is related to reinforcement learning

Dopamine

What is the difference between retrograde amnesia and anterograde?

Retrograde people lose past memories but anterograde people lose the ability to form new memories

What is a procedural memory

a type of implicit memory that involves skills and habits like knowing how to read

What is an episodic memory

conscious memory from one's past experience that are identified by a time and place

What is a semantic memory

conscious memory for knowledge of facts independent of personal experience

Three steps of memory information processing

Encoding, Storage, and Retrieval

Short-term memory

a memory storage system that briefly holds a limited amount of information in awareness

Retrieval Cues

anything that helps a person recall a memory including contextual cues and internal states that help us access stored information

Mnemonics

Learning aids or strategies that improve recall through the use of retrieval cues

Tip of the tongue phenomenon

people struggle to recall specific, somewhat obscure words

PTSD

Emotional events are associated with amygdala activity which might underlie teh persistence of certain memories

infantile amnesia

Not being able to remember episodic memories from before age 3 or 4

Analogical representations

mental representations that have some of the physical characteristics of objects

Symbolic representations

abstract mental representations that do not correspond to the physical feature of objects or ideas

Prototype

a way of thinking about concepts within each category, there is a best example - a prototype - for that category

Exemplar

a way of thinking about concepts: all members of a category are examples and together they form the concept and determine category membership

Schemas

cognitive structures that help us perceive, organize, and process information such as how to behave in different settings

Stereotypes

cognitive schemas that allow for easy, fast processing of information about people based on their membership in certain groups

Scripts

a schema that directs behavior over time within a situation

Decision making

attempting to select the best alternative among several options

Problem Solving

finding a way around an obstacle to reach a goal

Heuristics

shortcuts used to reduce the amount of thinking that is needed to make decisions such as rules of thumb or informal guidelines

Framing

in decision making, the tendency to emphasize the potential losses or potential gains from at least one alternative - saying something is half full instead of half empty

Lottery Sales

Lottery sales increase when people feel like good things are happening

Insight

the sudden realization of a solution to a problem

Working backwards strategy

start with a desired outcome and then work backward to identify the necessary steps needed to achieve it

Aptitude

a test designed to predict a person's future performance and the ability they have to learn

achievement

a test designed to assess what a person has learned