Psychology Exam 2

What two systems make up the general nervous system?

The central and peripheral nervous system.

What is the central nervous system?

It consists of the brain and spinal cord. The spinal cord works reflexively without the brain (ex. touching a stove). The function of the central nervous system is to process and interpret outside and inside stimuli.

What is the peripheral nervous system?

Consists of the somatic (voluntary movement control) and autonomic (involuntary movement control) systems. It handles general nervous system input and output.

What is the somatic nervous system (part of peripheral nervous system)?

Consists of voluntary skeletal muscles and receptors. It has two divisions: afferent (carries sensory info from body to the Central Nervous System) and efferent (carries sensory info away from the Central Nervous System and to skeletal muscles).

What is the autonomic nervous system (part of peripheral nervous system)?

Responsible for involuntary movement. Has two divisions: the sympathetic (fight or flight) and the parasympathetic (conserves bodily resources → ex. digestion slows when trying to survive).

What are meninges?

Enclosing brain sheaths.

What are the three regions of the brain?

The Hind brain, the midbrain, and the forebrain.

What does the Hind Brain consist of?

It contains vital functions (can be small), and damage to this brain part is life-threatening. It consists of the medulla, pons, cerebellum.

What is the medulla?

Part of the hindbrain responsible for breathing.

What are the pons?

Part of the hindbrain responsible for facial expressions, sleep and arousal.

What is the cerebellum?

Part of the hindbrain responsible for fine muscle movement and balance.

What is the midbrain?

Sensory region of the brain. Consists of the reticular formation.

What is the reticular formation?

Part of the midbrain responsible for sleep-wake cycles, attention, and arousal.

What does the forebrain consist of?

The thalamus, hypothalamus, hippocampus, amygdala, and cerebrum.

What is the thalamus?

The relay for senses.

What is the hypothalamus?

Responsible for biological functions (hunger, temp, control, sex). “Pleasure center”.

What is the hippocampus responsible for?

Memory.

What is the amygdala responsible for?

Emotions (mainly fear) and aggression.

What is the cerebrum responsible for?

It is the largest/most complex part of the brain, and is responsible for thinking, reasoning, and decision-making. It consists of the cerebral cortex, which is the convuluted outer layer of the cerebrum. There are two cerebral hemispheres: left and right. Have diff. purposes, but ONLY TO A DEGREE.

Left cerebral hemisphere

Responsible for verbal functions (ex. speech, language). It consists of Broca’s Area (speech production) and Wernicke’s Area (language comprehension).

Right cerebral hemisphere

Responsible for nonverbal functions. Is responsible for spatial and musical awareness and development.

What are the four lobes of the cerebral cortex

1. occipital - visual (back of the brain)

2. parietal - somatosensory (top of the brain)

3. temporal - auditory (sides - by ears)

4. frontal - executive functions (thinking, personality)

-fully develops at 25 for women and 28 for men

-pruning is happening, which is when the brain cuts off parts with age

What does the brain have that allows it to mold?

Plasticity

What two things make up the nervous system?

Neurons and glial cells

Neurons

basic unit of the nervous system that receive and transmit information and signals

Glial Cells

Provide support, nourishment, and a little bit of info transmittance to neurons.

Lesioning

Destroying a piece of the brain. It is done by inserting an electrode into a brain structure and passing a high-frequency current through it to burn the tissue + disable the structure.

ESB (electrical stimulation of the brain)

Sending a weak electric current through the brain to activate it.

Is the fact that more people are left or right-brained more mythical or real?

MYTHICAL. It is mostly speculative.

What is the basic structure of the neuron?

1.) dendrites - what receives the signal (tree)

2.) cell body (soma) - maintenance of the neuron

3.) axon - takes messages away from the neuron, and is the highway of the nervous system

What is the myelin sheath?

-made of glial cells

-in-between nodes

What is multiple sclerosis?

A disease that attacks and destroys the myelin sheath

What are nodes?

They make for faster neural pulses

How do neurons communicate?

Thru electrical signals or processes

What is the action potential?

-the electrical impulse that travels along the axon.

-“all or none”, it either fires or doesn’t

-speed = 200mph

-ex. firing a gun, you can softly pull the trigger but still fire bullet at full speed

-intensity from the rate at which it fires, so a stronger stimulus = faster firing

What are terminal buttons?

They touch the ends (dendrites) of the next neuron to keep them connected

What is the synaptic cleft?

The “gap” between a terminal button and a dendrite

What is the whole synapse made up of?

The terminal buttons, dendrites, and synaptic cleft

What is the synaptic vesicle?

The sack that contains chemicals (neurotransmitters).

What do neurotransmitters do?

They break out of their vesicle in the terminal button and diffuse across the synaptic cleft. They then bind in “lock and key” fashion at receptor sites on the dendrite.

What is reuptake?

When neurotransmitters are sponged back up into terminal button because too many are released.

What is drug abuse?

-when reuptake is prevented or slowed down, leaving extra neurotransmitters that keep bombarding the dendrite

-this causes more neurotransmitters to be released from the dendrite

What are the types of neurotransmitters?

1.) endorphins

2.) dopamine

3.) seratonin

What are endorphins?

Responsible for pain suppression (body’s natural opium), “runner’s high”, found in poppy seeds

What is dopamine?

Responsible for pleasurable emotion, “reward pathway” of abused drugs

What is serotonin?

It is responsible for contentment, causes depression if in abcess, is a MDMA, molly, and ecstasy drug. You cannot truly overdose. You can have hyperthermia, and short/long term damage if abused.

Short term effects: “depressive Tuesday” bc body produces too little seratonin in response to MDMA drug

Long term effects: fried dendrites

What are hormones?

Long-distance messengers, chemicals, can be identical to neurotransmitters, endocrine system

Do genes shape behavior?

Yes, but the disposition will too. Ex. genes can make you more vulnerable to fall into depression

-stress can turn genes on

How much percentages of genes do relatives/siblings share?

-identical twins share 100% of genes

-fraternal twins share 50% of genes

-grandparents share 25% of genes

-cousins share 12.5% of genes

What are the types of studies done to compare related genes in families?

1.) Family studies → studying blood relatives

2.) Twin studies → comparing identical vs. fraternal twins with a shared environment

3.) Adoption studies → IQ = 50/50, alcohol use = 75/25

1-3, 3 is best to show impact of ENVIRONMENT on development and maturation

Stress

any real/imagined circumstances that threatens or are perceived to threaten one’s well-being, thereby taxing the body system by:

1.) physical danger

2.) short-term stress

It is not the event but…

how you look at it

What did Ellis say about stress?

That people are looking at stress wrong, as anticipating the event leads to a consequence right away.

-he believed in anticipating → belief → consequence

-you don’t have to become angry, anger is a secondary emotion

Catastrophize

small → bigger → bigger

Overgeneralize

small thing → assuming you’re bad at everything b/c of one thing

Acute stress

-short (ex: cold)

-clear end point

Chronic stress

-long

-no readily apparent end point (ex: cancer, can’t find a job)

Predictable stressor

Nazis bombing England in WWII

Unpredictable stressor

Pop quizzes

Stress is…

cumulative (small stress = big disease)

What are the four major types of stress?

Frustration, conflict, change, and pressure.

What is frustration stress?

Stress due to a blocked goal.

What is conflict stress?

2 or more incompatible motivations.

1.) approach-approach = 2+ attractive goals

2.) avoidance-avoidance = 2+ unattractive goals

3.) approach-avoidance = 1 goal with both + and - attributes

-to go back and forth = vaccilation

What is change stress?

Change = being able to adapt to diff. living circumstances.

-SSRS: more stress = more points

-death of a spouse has 100 points (most)
-divorce has 73 points

-vacation has 13 points

-Christmas has 12 points (least)

People do not get stressed by change itself, but rather the uncertainty of it.

What is pressure stress?

Expectations to perform and behave a certain way.

1.) perform (ex. on a test, in a game)

2.) conform (ex. follow the crowd)

Who was Hans Selye?

He came up with the general adaptation syndrome.

What is the general adaptation syndrome?

1.) alarm = fight or flight

2.) resistance = plateau

3.) resolve → exhaustion → depleted, however this step is WRONG because the stress response is always worse than the stress itself

What does it mean for a disease to be psychosomatic?

That it is a real disease from real stress (ex: ulcers).

What is the theory of eastern medicine?

That the body is all connected with the psychological.

Insomnia

Chronic problems in getting adequate sleep that result in daytime fatigue and impaired functioning

Narcolepsy

A disease marked by sudden and irresistible onsets of sleep during normal waking periods.

Sleep apnea

Frequent, reflexive gasping for air and pauses in breathing that disrupt sleep.

Somnambulism

Sleepwalking, occurs when a person arises and wanders about while remaining asleep.

REM Sleep Behavior Disorder (RBD)

Potentially troublesome dream enactments during REM periods.

Hypnosis

A systematic procedure that typically produces a heightened state of suggestibility. It may also lead to passive relaxation, narrowed attention, and enhanced fantasy.

Dissociation

A splitting off of mental processes into two separate, simultaneous streams of awareness.

What is the immune response?

The body’s defensive reaction to invading substances.

-your body’s cell level will be different within 2 hours if there is a major stressor introduced to the body system

Neurogenesis

Forming new neurons

-stress can decrease neurogenesis, and exercise can increase it

Type A personality

-started by cardiologists

1.) competitive

2.) impatient

3.) hostile

-There was a weaker correlation than thought to be between Type A and heart attacks, however, when just comparing hostility to heart attack rate, there was a strong correlation

Yerkes-Dodson Curve

Curve that shows that a middle-level of stress equals the highest level of performance.

Learned helplessness

Passive behavior from unavoidable aversive events.

Locus of control

Where the power is in the situation

-internal locus: when you are internally responsible

-external locus: when you aren’t relying on yourself, it is up to the environment

Coping

Active efforts to reduce the demands of stress

Ex: drinking (maladaptive)

Constructive coping (5 efforts)

Relatively helpful efforts to reduce stress

1.) confront problems directly

-behavior changes attitude

2.) optimism - tendency to expect good outcomes

-people with 8/10 levels of optimism do better in life

3.) social support - getting emotional support from fam/friends/pets

-being lonely has same mortality as smoking 50 cigs a day

4.) exercise

-aerobic is better than anaerobic

-vigorous

-20 min/day x ¾ times a week

-there are psychological benefits from spreading it out

5.) conscientiousness - disciplined, reliable, dependable

-better to disengage if goal is unattainable

-reframe at the right time (only when too late)

What is the conscious?

Awareness and self-surroundings. Both internal and external conscious.

Internal conscious

Who you are (ex: I’m a musician)

-self

-internal sensation

External conscious

Cognitive function related to the outside world and environment

Biological rhythm

Periodic fluctuation in physiological function

-internal biological clock → 24 hrs → circadian rhythm

-early birds and night owls may even be a genetic thing

-students in eastern time zone do better than in the western one

-shift working is bad for the body

-go to bed and wake up at the same time every day is optimal

Meditation

A family of practices that train attention to heighten awareness and bring mental processes under greater voluntary control.

Reversible figure

A drawing that is compatible with two different interpretations that can shift back and forth.

Perceptual set

A readiness to perceive a stimulus in a particular way.

Inattentional blindness

The failure to see fully visible objects or events in a visual display because one’s attention is focused elsewhere.

Feature Analysis

The process of detecting specific elements in visual input and assembling them into a more complex form.

Bottom-Up Processing

A progression from individual elements to the whole.

Top-Down Processing

A progression from the whole to the elements.

Phi phenomenon

The illusion of movement created by presenting visual stimuli in rapid succession.

Perceptual hypothesis

An inference about what form could be responsible for a pattern of sensory stimulation.