Psych-exam 1

Psychology

The science of behavior and mental processes

Experimental Psychology

lots of research (Publish)

Neuropsychology

How the brain effects our behavior

Rehabilitation (walk and talk again after injury)

personality psychology

nature vs nurture debate

how does personality develop

social psychology

how do we behave differently in different social places with different people

developmental psychology

how we develop from birth to death

longitudinal and cross sectional

longitudinal

study a group of people over a period of time

cross sectional

look at the same thing with different people and different age groups

industrial/organizational psychology

go to businesses to help employee morale and earn businesses money

educational psychology

how kids learn and understand

cuter kids get better grades in elementary school

clinical and counseling psychology

assess and treat; therapist

health psychology

help people get healthy.

focus on health of America.

connection between mental and physical health

sports psychology

the identity of athletes after sports.

how do you get them to perform better.

Psychology careers

A=art S=Science

BA/BS

MA/MS

PhD/PsyD

Ph-Philosophy Psy-Psychology

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4 things psychologists study

1. Overt Actions
2. Mental Processes
3. Emotional Responses


1. Physiological reactions

Research Sequence

Theory

Hypothesis

Collect data

Analyze data

Summarize and confirm or modify theory

Theory

Ideas that propose an explaination

hypothesis

testable prediction that gives direction to research

Goals of Modern psychology

1. description
2. explanation
3. prediction (Hypothesis)

Independent variable

controlled by experimenter

Dependent variable

experimenter measures to determine effect of IV

Correlation

Positive and negative

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positive- move in same direction (height up, weight up)

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negative- move in opposite direction (economy up, Unemployment down)

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_______ doesnt imply causation

True experiments

controlled environments

needs two things


1. comparison group
2. random assignment

Operational definition

how the researchers define the area of interest

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ex: crows feet around eyes to see if they smiled a lot as a kid

case study

studying one person or group in great detail because it is hard to get people together with what you’re studying.

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ex: multi personality disorder is rare. so they study it in great detail

Central nervous system

brain and spinal cord

sensation

how we sense and receive information from the world

5 senses

visual-seeing

auditorial- hearing

olfaction- smell

tactile- touch

gustation- taste

perception

how we mentally organize and interpret that information

absolute thresholds

bare minimum intensity to detect 50% of the time

difference threshold

bare minimum increase you would detect 50% of the time

subliminal threshold

below threshold, can’t detect

sound waves

frequency

measured in hertz

humans can hear between 20 and 20,000

amplitude

perceptual dimensions

loudness

pitch

localization

timbre-different frequencies of vibrations

Outer ear

pinna and auditory canal

middle ear

ossicles

hammer, anvil, stirrup

inner ear

cochlea

the chemical senses

molecule detectors

gatekeepers

olfaction (macro somatic, microsmatic)

Anosmia-sense of smell

Gustation

taste

perceiving depth and size

oculomotor cues-one eye

convergence

accommodation

binocular/retinal disparity

right eye sees different than left eye

pictorial cues

overlap

size and height in field of view

familiar size

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atmospheric perspective

looking through the atmosphere, things further away are harder to see

motion paradox

when in motion things that move fast are close, things that move slow are far away.