Psychology definitions exam 1 (chp 1-4)

Thalamus

The gateway to the brain, receives all to all incoming sensory information before it reaches the cortex

Hypothalamus

The brain structure that is involved in the regulation of the bodily functions, including temperature, body rhythms, blood pressure, and glucose levels. Also influences basic motivated behaviors

Hypothalamus four F’s

Fight, flight, feeding, and … mating

Hippocampus

Associated with the formation of memories (remember when you saw the hippos on campus), also where neurogenic is occurs

Amygdala

Serves vital role in learning to associate things with emotional responses and in processing emotional information, doesn’t fully connect with PFC until around age 25

Spinal cord

Coordination of reflexes; carries sensory info to the brain and motor signals away from the brain

How fast do electrical signals in the body travel?

Around 268 mph, depending on fiber size and myelin sheath

Brain stem

An extension of the spinal cord, houses structures that control functions associated with survival, such as heart rate, breathing, swallowing, urination, etc

Brain stem consists of these structures:

Medulla oblongata, pons, midbrain, and reticular information

Cerebellum

A large, convoluted protuberance at the back of the brain stem, essential for coordination and balance

Cerebellum most obvious roles

Motor learning and motor memory, basically trained by rest of nervous system and operates independently and unconsciously (muscle memory- bike riding)

Damage to little nods at the bottom of cerebellum

Causes head tilt, balance problems, and loss of smooth compensation of eye position or head movement

Damage to the ridge that runs up the back of the cerebellum

Affects walking

Damage to the bulging lobes on either side of the cerebellum

Would cause loss of limb coordination, not be able to perform tasks such as reaching smoothly to pick up a pen

What is consciousness?

One’s moment by moment personal, subjective experiences of the world

Quaila

Individual subjective experiences of consciousness, everyone experiences consciousness differently and we can’t know if two people experience the world in the same way

Objective world states corresponds to…

Subjective experiences

How are thoughts and perception related?

They flow together, consciousness as a stream

Catatonia

A state of altered consciousness where reduced movement, withdrawal, etc. basically

Do sleeping people have any kind of consciousness?

Yes, though it may look different from when we are awake

How can consciousness be altered or manipulated?

Methods such as priming or drugs

How is consciousness focused?

We are often unaware of the operations of our brain, we may block certain things out, such as background noise, limited processing capacity, and we do not experience all of the world consciously

Why are some things ignored by our consciousness?

It has limits, and cannot focus on everything at once. We cannot multitask, our mind wanders, we filter out what we think is not important and extra sensitive to what we think is important

mind

refers to mental activity. includes memories, thoughts, feelings and and perceptual experiences

mental activity

results from biomedical processes within the brain

behavior

describes the totality of observable human or animal actions, can range from subtle to complex. examples include debating, surgery, eating, and drinking

amiable skepticism

combines openness and wariness, someone who remains open to new ideas but is wary of new “scientific findings” when good evidence and sound reasoning do not support them

critical thinking

systematically questioning and evaluating information using well-supported evidence

conformation bias

the tendency to seek out and prefer information that supports our preexisting beliefs

seeing casual relationships that dont exist

an extremely common misperception that two events that happen at the same time must somehow be related

hindsight bias

a cognitive bias that causes people to believe they predicted the outcome of an event before it happened

availability heuristics

a mental shortcut that influences how likely we think an event is

mind/body problem

a fundamental psychological issue: are mind and body separate and distinct, or is the mind simply the physical brains subjective experience

culture

the beliefs, values, rules, norms, and customs that exist within a group of people who share a common language and environment

nature/nurture

the argument concerning whether psychological characteristics are biologically innate or acquired through education, experience and culture

stream of consciousness

a phrase coined by william james to describe each persons continuous series of ever-changing thoughts

functionalism

an approach to psychology concerned with the adaptive purpose, or function, of mind and behavior

natural selection

in evolutionary theory, the idea that those who inherit characteristics that help them adapt to their particular environment have a selective advantage over those who do not

diversity and inclusion

the value and practice of ensuring that

epigenetics

the study of biological or environmental influences on gene expression that are not part of inherited genes

big data

science that uses very large data sets and advanced computational methods to discover patterns that would be difficult to detect with smaller data sets

data ethics

the branch of philosophy that addresses ethical issues in data science, including data accessibility, identifiability, and autonomy

replicability

the likelihood that the results of a study would be very similar if it were run again

open science movement

a social movement among scientists to improve methods, increase research transparency, and promote data sharing

biopsychosocial model

an approach to psychological science that integrates biological factors, psychological processes, and social-contextual influences in shaping human mental and behavior

distributed practice

learning material in several bursts over a prolonged time frame

retrieval-based learning

learning new information by repeatedly recalling it from long term memory

elaborative interrogation

learning by asking yourself why a fact is true or a process operates the way it does

self explanation

reflecting on your learning process and trying to make sense of new material in your own words

interleaved practice

switching between topics during studying

research

a scientific process that involves the careful collection, analysis, and interpretation of data

data

measurements gathered during the research process

scientific method

a systematic and dynamic procedure of observing and measuring phenomena, used to achieve the goals of description, prediction, control, and explanation: involves an interaction among research, theories, and hypotheses

theory

a model of interconnected ideas or concepts that explains what is observed and makes predictions about future events, based on empirical evidence

hypothesis

a specific, testable prediction, narrower than the theory it is based on

variable

something in the world that can vary and that a researcher can manipulate (change), measure (evaluate), or both

operational definition

a definition that quantifies (describes) and quantifies (measures) a variable so the variable can be understood objectively

replication

repetition of a research study to confirm or contradict the results

false positive

a result that occurs when there is no real effect but a study produces a statistically significant results by chance

questionable research practices

practices that unintentionally make the research less replication

HARKing

“hypothesizing after the results are known” instead of generating a theory before running the study and analyzing the results

p-hacking

testing the same hypothesis using statistical tests in different variations until one produces a statistically significant result

preregistration

documenting a study’s hypotheses, methods, and analysis plan ahead of time and publishing it on a time-stamped website

meta-analysis

a “study of studies” that combines the findings of multiple studies to arrive at a conclusion

accuracy

the degree to which an experimental measure is free from error

bayesian statistics

a class of statistics that combines existing beliefs (“priors”) with new data to update the estimated likelihood that a belief is true (“posterior”)

case study

a descriptive research method that involves the intensive examination of an a typical person or organization

central tendency

a measure of the typical response or the behavior of a group as a whole

cofound

anything that affects a dependent variable and that may unintentionally vary between the experimental conditions of a study

construct validity

the extent to which variables measure what they are supposed to measure

control group

the participants in an experiment who receive no intervention or who receive an intervention that is unrelated to the independent variable being investigated

correlation coefficient

a descriptive statistic that indicates the strength and direction of the relationship between two variables

correlational studies

a research method that describes and predicts how variables are naturally related in the real world, without any attempt by the researcher to alter them or assign causation between them

culturally sensitive data

studies that take into account the role that culture plays in determining thoughts, feelings, and actions

dependent variable

the variable that is measured in a research study

descriptive research

research methods that involve observing behavior to describe that behavior objectively and systematically

descriptive statistics

statistics that summarize the data collected in a study

directionality problem

a problem encountered in correlational studies; researchers find a relationship between two variables, but they cannot determine which variable may have caused the changes in the other variable

experiement

a research method that tests casual hypotheses by manipulating and measuring variables

experimental group

the participants in an experiment who receive the treatment

experimental aversion

a tendency for people to prefer to receive an untested treatment than to participate in a randomized study to evaluate the effectiveness of the treatment

external validity

the degree to which the findings can be generalized to other people, settings, or situations

independent variable

the variable that is manipulated in a research study

inferential studies

a set of procedures that enable researchers to decide whether differences between two or more groups are probably just chance variations or whether they reflect true differences in populations being compared

institutional review board (IRBs)

groups of people responsible for reviewing proposed research to ensure that it meets the accepted standards of science and provides for the physical and emotional well-being of research participants

internal validity

the degree to which the effects observed in an experiment are due to the independent variable and not confounds

mean

a measure of central tendency that is the arithmetic average of a set of numbers (average value, add values then divide by the number of values present)

median

a measure of central tendency that is the value in a set of numbers that falls exactly halfway between the lowest and highest values

mode

a measure of central tendency that is the most frequent score or value in a set of numbers

naturalistic observation

a type of descriptive study in which the researcher is a passive observer, separated from the situation and making no attempt to change or alter ongoing behavior

participation observation

a type of descriptive study in which the researcher is involved in the situation

population

everyone in the group the experimenter is interested in

random assignment

placing research participants into the conditions of an experiment in a way that each participant has an equal chance of being assigned to any level of the independent variable

reliability

the degree to which a measure is stable and consistent over time

sample

a subset of a population

scatterplot

a graphical depiction of the relationship between two variables

self-report methods

methods of data collection in which people are asked to provide information about themselves, such as in surveys or questionnaires

standart deviation

a statistical measure of how far away each value is, on average, from the mean

third variable problem

a problem that occurs when the researcher cannot directly manipulated variables; as a result, the researcher cannot be sure that another, unmeasured variable is not the actual cause of differences in the variables of interest

variability

in a set of numbers, how widely dispersed the values are from each and from the mean