Psych 1010 Exam 2 (uLeth)

Flashcard set for Psych 1010 exam 2 (uLeth)

Consciousness

Consciousness

One’s moment-to-moment subjective experience of the world - Continuous stream

Qualia

The qualitative experiences of your conscious state - Subjective experiences of sensation

Change blindness

A failure to notice large changes in one’s environment

How do the limits on consciousness contribute to change blindness?

Major changes to the environment may go unnoticed when conscious awareness is focused elsewhere

Stressor

Anything that pushes the bodily systems out of homeostasis (physical or psychological)

Stress response

The suite of psychological + behavioral responses to return the body to homeostasis - An adaptive response of all psychological systems (with brain) to mobilize for global action

What is homeostasis?

The happy-medium for the system

The Yertes-Dodson Law

What are the two main components of the stress response?

1) Nervous system function: Fast, immediate process

2) Endocrine system: Slow, longer lasting response

The fast response

• Emergency Theory

  • Focused on the role of sympathetic nervous system (noradrenaline + adrenaline) in producing highest arousal + emotion

• Fight or flight response

  • Fast + immediate

  • Autonomic nervous system

Arousal + Emotion

The cognitive interpretation of a bodily reaction that drives the subjective experience of emotion + that experience is context dependent

Are emotional responses altered when the spinal cord is damaged?

Sure is

General Adaptation Syndrome (GAS)

1. Alarm Stage (Emergency response)

• What is perceived + experienced as a stressor varies between individuals

• Primary appraisal

  • Is this stressful?

  • Mount an immediate defense or not?

  • Does this engage the alarm reaction?

Perceiving a stimulus as stressful

The loss of control due to unanticipated factors increases the likelihood that the event will be appraised as stressful

Primary cognitive appraisal

The perception of Coping

Modifications of of alarm stage → secondary appraisals of stressful event

• What will I do?

• Can I cope?

• Do I have the problem-solving skills?

• Control?

What determines the pathological consequences of the stress response?

The predictability of shock

2. Resistance Stage(max resources mobilized)

• Moderate stress = coping + resolution → engagement of additional resources to restore homeostasis

  • Both physiological mechanisms + behavioral strategies are involved

  • Physiological = engage the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis

HPA axis

Mobilization to restore homeostasis

Stressful event

Brain → Hypothalamus → chemical message → Pituitary gland → hormones → Adrenal gland → cortisol

Hypothalamus → CRF → Anterior Pituitary → Posterior Pituitary → Adrenal gland → Glucocorticoids

• Glucocorticoids takes sugar from body to use for muscles + brain

Acute Stress Response

Shift from energy storage to energy use

• Increased cognition

• Increased cardiovascular tone

• Decreased digestion

• Decreased growth

• Decreased reproduction

• Altered immune function + inflammatory responses

• Increase analgesia

Emotion-focused coping

• Does nothing to help with stress

• Minimizing avoidance, blaming others, drugs, too much/too little eating, crying, exercise, etc

• Outlets for frustration may be positive in the short term

• Displacement behaviors (pacing around, swinging legs, biting nails)

Problem-focused coping

• Face the problem

• Accept responsibility + culpability, tackling problem, asking for help, accepting injustices, realizing some things are out of control

The stress response does not exhaust! (Robert Sapolsky)

• Prolonged stress → prolonged physiological responses to restore homeostasis

  • Stress kills brain cells that moderate / regulate hormones

• Pathology results from the very process that are adaptive in the short term

  • Increased likelihood of emotion-focused coping strategies

Pathological state associated with chronic stress

• Fatigue

• Myopathy

• Steroid diabetes

• Hypertension

• Peptic ulcers

• Psychological dwarfism

• Impotence

• Anovulation

• Loss of libido

• Impaired disease resistance

• Cancer

• Accelerated neural degeneration during aging

What are the 2 components of consciousness + subjective experiences?

1) Contents of consciousness

2) Level of consciousness

How do we sense our worlds?

• Sensation is our sense organs’ detection of + response to external stimulus

• Perception is brain’s processing of detected signals that results in internal rep. stimuli

Asomatognosia (unilateral neglect)

No body knowledge - one side doesn’t “exist”

Phantom Limbs

Lost sensory receptors but can still sense pain from those areas

Hallucinations

Mental illness, stimulant drugs (cocaine, meth)

What is the difference between sleeping and a coma?

The perception of time

Glasgow Coma Scale

Reticular Activation System

Responsible for sending info to hypothalamus → arousal center

Regular sleep

Slow wave sleep - pedestrian dreams (black + white, boring)

• Beta waves

  • Awake + alert

• Alpha waves

  • Getting sleepy

• Stage 1 (Theta waves)

  • Just falling asleep, easily woken up

• Stage 2

  • Sleep spindles

  • K-Complexes → no specific function

• Stage 3 (Delta waves)

• Stage 4

  • Straight konked out, hard to get woken up

Stays in this cycle for ~1.5 hours

Characteristics of stages of non-REM sleep

• Stage 1: Theta waves appear

  • Light sleep, person still claims to be awake

• Stage 2: Sleep spindles, K-Complexes

  • Person definitely asleep, but responds to noise

• Stage 3 + Stage 4: Delta activity

  • Very deep sleep; nonresponsive to most stimuli + slow to awake

REM sleep

• Low amplitude, irregular EEG = similar to those found in waking brain

• Begins 70-90 min into sleep cycle

• Changes in physiological pattern including increased heart rate, darting eyes, twitching hands + feet + face

• Most people awoken during REM report dreaming

  • Technicolor (funky) dreams → wild stuff

What is the function of sleep?

1. Repair + restoration

   Downtime to employ process that’ll restore us back to health

2. Consolidation of memories

   Remember more if you sleep better

3. Safety / adaptive behavior

   How long do you have to speed eat?

What is the function of REM sleep?

1. Activation - Synthesis

   Debugging the system to make it run better

   Hobson - Brain needs to run when no sensory is coming in

   Activity in the absence of external stimuli + normal brain activity

2. Threat reversal

   Revonsuo → preparing for what’s to come

   Rehearsal for real-life situations

Circadian Rhythm

• Biological activities that rise + fall along a 24-hour cycle

• Triggered at appropriate times by brain structures called biological clocks

  • The master Clock: Suprachiasmatic nucleus of the hypothalamus

  • Set by factors in the environment (light)

  • The pineal gland + melatonin

How do drugs affect behavior?

• Drugs affect behavior + mental processes through alterations of conscious awareness

• The electrical + chemical communication within + between neurons is the target of drug action

Mechanisms of drug action

• Drugs can be agonists → mimic / potentiate the actions of neurotransmitters

  • Fit into same receptor, potentiate release, block reuptake

• Drugs can be antagonists → block / decrease the action of neurotransmitters

  • Block a receptor, block synthesis, speed up metabolism

CNS Depressants

• Slow (depress) activity of the central nervous system

• GABA agonists + Glutamate antagonists

  • Ethyl alcohol, barbiturates, minor tranquilizers (benzodiazepines), anesthetics, inhalants of abuse

• After long term use withdrawal symptoms will occur (seizures, tremors)

CNS Stimulants

• Increased activity of the nervous system; General stimulants vs. Psychostimulants

• General stimulus

  • Agonists for various transmitters

    • Caffeine, nicotine

• Psychostimulants

  • Specifically target the monoamine transporter: cocaine vs. d-amphetamine

    • Cocaine, methylphenidate; ephedra; the rest of the amphetamines (MDMA=ecstasy)

      • Amphetamines look almost identical to dopamine → changes the flow direction of reuptake

Opioids (Opiates; “Narcotics”)

• Depress nervous system activity (shut down brain stem)

• Reduce pain + produce euphoria

• Agonists for the Endogenous opioid system

Hallucinogens (“Psychedelics”)

• Affect perception, distort reality

• A catch-all category

  • LSD, mescaline, psilocybin, marijuana, PCP, ketamine

• Agonists and/or antagonists for various transmitters

• Cannabis: an agonist for the endogenous cannabinoid system - the natural ligand for which is anandamide → retrograde messenger

Psychological factors

• Same amount for same drug may produce different effects on different people

  • Some may feel euphoria, some may feel fear

Opiate or Opioid?

• Opioid: Class of drugs that are derived from Opium (poppy)

• Opiate: Alkaloid substances derived from Opium (natural)

• Opium → natural

• Morphine → natural

• Codeine → natural

• Heroin → Semisynthetic

• Oxycodone → Semisynthetic

• Fentanyl → synthetic

Factors that can influence the effect

• Context (conditioned cues)

• Past experiences with the drug

• The user’s physical + psychological state

• Your physiology

Endogenous attention

Attention that is directed voluntarily

Exogenous attention

Attention that is directed involuntarily by a stimulus

You see an accident on the side of the road and cannot help but slow down to look at the traumatic scene. Why?

Exogenous attention occurs when attention is unintentionally shifted to an emotional stimulus

Why should you avoid using a laptop during lectures?

Laptop use in the classroom may shift attention away from the lecture, leading you to miss or superficially process info

Priming

A facilitation in the response to a stimulus due to recent experience with that stimulus or a related stimulus

Subliminal Perception

The processing of info by sensory systems without conscious awarness

Which type of subliminal messages are most likely to affect behavior?

Messages that invoke emotion or motivation may subtly shift behavior, but such messages do not affect complex behaviors like buying or self-confidence

Automatic processing

Occurs when a task is so well learned that we can do it without much attention → driving, walking, understanding the meaning of words

Controlled processing

Slower, helps people perform in complex or novel situations.

When Tara was learning to knit, she had to pay attention to every stitch. Now she can knit while watching television. Why can she knit now without giving it full attention?

Learning a complex task like knitting requires controlled processing. Once you learn the task, it becomes automatic + no loner requires full attention

Meditation

A mental procedure that focuses attention on an external object, an internal event, or a sense of awareness

Suppose a person meditating focuses on thoughts of waves rolling onto a beautiful beach. Is the person practicing concentrative meditation or mindfulness meditation?

Concentrative, b/c the person is focusing on a specific image

Does showing that long-term meditators have less age-related change in brain structure prove meditation reduces neural aging and decline?

No, correlation does not equal causation. Those who practice mediation may also have other lifestyle differences that affect brain aging.

Flow (textbook definition)

A particular kind of experience that is so engrossing + enjoyable that it is worth doing for its own sake even thought it may have no consequences outside itself. An optimal experience in that the activity is completely absorbing + satisfying + seems to happen automatically.

What is flow?

The state of being deeply immersed in a completely enjoyable + satisfying experience that may have no consequences beyond itself.

Hypnosis

A social interaction during which a person, responding to suggestion, experiences changes in memory, perception, and/or voluntary action.

Posthypnotic suggestions

After the hypnosis session, the listener will experience a change in memory, perception, or voluntary action.

Neodissociation theory of hypnosis

Hypnosis is a trancelike state in which conscious awareness is separated, or dissociated, from other aspects of consciousness.

Can everyone be hypnotized?

Hypnotic suggestibility varies between individuals + is related to personal qualities such as being focused, imaginative, easily absorbed, and willing to participate.

What hormone, released by the pineal gland, promotes sleep?

Melatonin

Dreams

Products of an altered state of consciousness in which images and fantasies are confused with reality.

Brain Regions and REM Dreams

These two views of the brain show the regions that are activated (shown in red) and deactivated (shown in blue) during REM sleep. (a) As seen here from the side, the motor cortex, brain stem, and visual association areas are activated, as are brain regions involved in motivation, emotion, and reward (e.g., the amygdala). A region of the prefrontal cortex is deactivation. (b) As shown here from below, other visual association areas are activated as well. (This view also reveals the full size of the prefrontal cortex.)

Activation-synthesis hypothesis

A hypothesis of dreaming proposing that the brain tries to make sense of random brain activity that occurs during sleep by synthesizing the activity with stored memories.

Is a dream about folding + putting away laundry more likely to occur during REM sleep or non-REM sleep?

Non-REM sleep, when dreams are often dull + lack bizarre qualities typical of REM dreams

Restorative theory

Sleep allows the body, including the brain, to rest + repair itself

Circadian rhythm theory

Sleep has evolved to keep animals quiet + inactive during times of the day when there is the greatest danger.

After an exhausting day helping your friend move into a new apartment, you sleep a great deal that night. Which theory of sleep does this behavior support?

The restorative theory

Insomnia

A disorder characterized by an inability to sleep that causes significant problems in daily living

Obstructive sleep apnea

A disorder in which people, while asleep, stop breathing b/c their throat closes; the condition results in frequent awakenings during the night.

Narcolepsy

A sleep disorder in which people experience excessive sleepiness during normal waking hours, sometimes going limp + collapsing

REM behavior disorder

the normal paralysis that accompanies REM sleep is disabled. People with this disorder act out their dreams while sleeping.

Sleepwalking (somnambulism)

occurs during slow-wave sleep, typically within the first hour or two after falling asleep. During an episode, the person is glassy-eyed and seems disconnected from people + surroundings.

Suppose a person frequently has trouble falling asleep but is unbothered + functions well enough in daily life. Does this person have insomnia?

No, insomnia is a sleep disorder that affects mental health + causes functional impairments in a person’s daily life.

What time should you go to bed if you want to establish good sleeping habits?

The specific time depends on you, but it should be the same time every night

How does unresponsive wakefulness syndrome differ from brain death?

Those in a state of unresponsive wakefulness show some abnormal brain function, while those who are brain dead show no brain function.

Psychoactive Drugs

Which type of drug heightens behavioral and mental activity?

Stimulants, such as caffeine, nicotine, amphetamines, and cocaine

What type of drug is in Adderall, used to treat ADHD?

An amphetamine (Stimulant)

What is the definition of binge drinking?

Drinking 5 or more drinks in one setting

What are the brainwaves from fastest to slowest?

Beta, alpha, theta, delta

What are the steps for sensation and perception?

1. The Stimulus

2. Sensation

3. Transmission

4. Translation

5. Perception + Attention

The stimulus

What is detected

The sensation

Detection + Transduction of the stimulus into action potentials

The Transmission

Action Potentials travel to primary cortical area for processing

• What is the pathway?

  • Ultimately the thalamus

• Is it multisynaptic?

  • Not sure

• Where is the info processed along that pathway?

  • Also not sure

The translation (Transduction)

The process by which sensory stimuli are converted to neural signals the brain can interpret.

Reception of the Action Potentials

• Where does the info arrive in the central cortex?

  • Primary cortexes for each sense

• What association areas are recruited to process that input?

  • Sensory receptors → thalamus (except smell) → specific region of the cerebral cortex for each sense

The perception + attention

• Did you register the input?

  • Don’t register most things every day

• Did you experience the stimulus?

• What did you experience?

• Further processing, organizing, and interpretation of sensory info

How do we sense chemicals in the world?

The chemical senses → Gustation + Olfaction

How do we sense mechanical energy from the environment?

Mechanical senses → Somatosensory + Audition

• Fine touch (haptic system) → pain is perceived by deep tissue receptors

• Temperature

• Pressure (light pressure - okay, heavy pressure - ouch)

• Body position + movement

• Pain (early + late pain)

Haptic system

• Uses the hair on body to detect touch (nerve endings wrapped around hair follicles)

• Disk structures under skin react to pressure on skin

• Anything that provides enough input will cause nerves to go ouch

Proprioception + kinesthesia

The ability to sense the position + movement of one’s body parts

• Many systems involved: receptors in muscles, joints, skin; visual feedback

Vestibular sense

The ability to sense changes in acceleration, posture

• Inner ear organs that contribute: semicircular canals, vestibular sacks