AP Psych Unit 1.4c-2.1

What is neurogenesis?

the formation of new neurons

Why does the brain produce new cells?

to try and repair damage

What helps to promote neurogenesis?

exercise, sleep, and stimulating (non-stressful) environments

What is the corpus callosum?

the large band of neural fibers connecting the two brain hemispheres and carrying messages between them

What is split brain?

a condition resulting from surgery that isolates the brain’s two hemispheres by cutting fibers (mainly those of the corpus callosum) connecting them

What is the right hemisphere responsible for?

perceptual tasks, making inferences, makes meaning clear with speaking, and feel our sense of self

What is the left hemisphere responsible for?

speaking, calculating, and making quick, literal interpretation of language

What produces different states of consciousness?

sleep, psychoactive drugs, and hypnosis

What is consciousness?

our awareness of ourselves and our environment. It encompasses thoughts, feelings, perceptions, and experiences.

What is cognitive neuroscience?

the interdisciplinary study of the brain activity linked with cognition (including perception, thinking, memory, and language)

What is dual processing?

the principle that information is often simultaneously processed on separate conscious and unconscious tracks

What is blindsight?

a condition in which a person can respond to a visual stimulus without consciously experiencing it

What is parallel processing?

routine things

What is sequential processing?

new information or difficult problems

What is sleep?

periodic, natural loss of consciousness- as distinct from unconsciousness resulting from a coma, general anesthesia, or hibernation

What is circadian rhythm?

the biological clock; regular bodily rhythms (for example temperature and wakefulness) that occur on a 24-hour cycle (really around 24 or 25 hours)

How many stages of sleep are there and how long is each cycle?

4 different stages with 90 minutes cycles

What is REM sleep?

rapid eye movement sleep; a recurring sleep stage in which vivid dreams commonly occur

What are Alpha waves?

the relatively slow brain waves of a relaxed, awake state

What is NREM sleep?

non-rapid eye movement sleep; encompasses all sleep stages except for REM sleep

What are hallucinations?

false sensory experiences, such as seeing something in the abscence of an external visual stimulus (during NREM-1)

What are hypnagogic sensations?

bizzare experiences, such as jerking or a feeling of falling or floating weightlessly while transitioning to sleep

What are Delta waves?

the large, slow brain waves associated with deep sleep (during NREM-3)

What happens during REM sleep?

heart rate rises, breathing becomes rapid and irregular, eyes dart around, have emotional and hallucinatory dreams, genitals are aroused, paralyzed, and cannot be easily awakened

What is the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN)?

a pair of cell clusters in the hypothalamus that controls circadian rhythm. In response to light, the SCN causes the pineal gland to adjust melatonin production, thus modifying our feelings of sleepiness

What does the SCN do?

signals the brain’s pineal gland to decrease production of the sleep-inducing hormone melatonin in the morning and increase it in the afternoon

What does sleep do?

• protects-you are safer hidden away at night sleeping

  • helps us recuperate-it helps restore and repair brain tissue, gives neurons a rest

  • helps restore and rebuild our fading memories of the day’s experiences

  • feeds creative thinking-people solves problems more insightfully after sleeping on it, better at seeing connections

  • supports growth-during sleep, the pituitary gland releases a growth hormone that is necessary for muscle development; dramatically improves athletic ability

What does sleep deprivation do?

makes someone irritable, less productive, more likely to make mistakes, gain weight, and suppresses our immune system

What is insomnia?

recurring problems in falling or staying asleep

What is narcolepsy?

a sleep disorder characterized by uncontrollable sleep attacks. The sufferer may lapse directly into REM sleep, often at inopertune times; genetic disease

What is sleep apnea?

a sleep disorder where you stop breathing so you wake up and feel tired in the morning even though you don’t remember

What is sleepwalking?

a NREM-3 sleeping disorder that usually occurs in childhood and run in families

What are night terrors?

a sleep disorder characterized by high arousal and an appearance of being terrified; unlike nightmares, night terrors occur during NREM-3 sleep

What is REM sleep behavior disorder?

when adults act out the content of their dreams

What are dreams?

a sequence of images, emotions, and thoughts passing through a sleeping person’s mind

What is the wish-fufillment theory?

dreams provide a place to get rid of otherwise unacceptable feelings

What is manifest content?

the remembered story line of a dream

What is latent content?

the underlying meaning of a dream

What does the information-processing perspective propose?

dreams help sort through experiences in our memories

What is the third dream theory?

dreams help to develop and preserve neural pathways-physiological function, connected to development

What is the fourth dream theory?

dreams make sense of neural static-dreams could be the attempt of the brain to make sense of random neural activity from brainstem

What is the fifth dream theory?

dreams reflect cognitive development-part of brain maturation (top-down control of dreams)

What is REM rebound?

the tendency for REM sleep to increase following REM sleep deprivation (created by repeated awakenings during REM sleep)

What is hypnosis?

a social interaction in which one person (the subject) responds to another person’s (the hypnotist’s) suggestions that certain perceptions, feelings, thoughts, or behaviors will spontaneously occur

What is sensation?

the process by which our sensory receptors and nervous system receive and represent stimulus energies from our environments

What is perception?

the process of organizing and interpreting sensory information, enabling us to recognize meaningful objects and events

What is bottom-up processing?

analysis that begins with the sensory receptors and works up to the brain’s integration of sensory information

What is top-down processing?

information processing guided by higher-level mental processes, as when we construct perceptions drawing on our experience and expectations

What is transduction?

conversion of one form of energy to another

What is psychophysics?

the study of relationships between the physical characteristics of stimuli, such as their intensity, and our psychological experience of them

What are absolute thresholds?

the minimum stimulation needed to detect a particular stimulus 50% of the time

What is the signal detection theory?

a theory predicting how and when we detect the presence of a faint stimulus (signal) amid background stimulation (noise). Assumes that there is no single absolute threshold and that detection depends partly on a person’s experience, expectations, motivation, and alertness

What is subliminal?

below someone’s absolute threshold for conscious awareness (so stimulus you cannot detect 50% of the time)

What is priming?

the activation, often unconsciously, of certain associations, thus predisposing one’s perception, memory, or response

What is difference threshold?

the minimum difference between two stimuli required for detecting 50% of the time. We experience the difference (or jnd)

What is Weber’s law?

the principle that to be perceived as different, two stimuli must differ by a constant minimum percentage (rather than a constant amount)

What is dual track mind?

much of our information processing occurs automatically, out of sight, off the radar screen of our conscious mind

What is sensory adaptation?

diminished sensitivity as a consequence of constant stimulation

What is wavelength?

the distance from the peak of one light or sound wave to the next

What is hue?

the dimension of color that is determined by the wavelength of light; what we know as the color names blue, green, and so forth

What is intensity?

the amount of energy in a light or sound wave, which we perceive as brightness or loudness, as determined by the wave’s amplitude (height)

How does light enter the eye?

through the cornea-pupil-lens-retina

What is the retina?

the light-sensitive inner surface of the eye, containing the receptor rods and cones plus layers of neurons that begin the processing of visual information

What is accommodation?

the process by which the eye’s lens change shape to focus near or far objects on the retina

What do the receptor cells do?

convert particles of light energy into neural impulses and forward those to the brain (not a whole image) until put together

What is the Young-Helmholtz trichromatic (three color) theory?

the theory that the retina contains three different color receptors- one most sensitive to red, one to green, one to blue-which, when stimulated in combination, can produce the perception of any color

What is the opponent-process theory?

the theory that opposing retinal processes (red-green, yellow-blue, white-black) enable color vision

What are feature detectors?

nerve cells in the brain that respond to specific features of the stimulus, such as shape, angle, or movement

What is audition?

the sense or act of hearing

What is frequency?

the number of complete wavelengths that pass a point in a given time (for example, per second)

What is pitch?

a tone’s experienced highness or lowness, depends on the frequency

How does a sound wave travel?

outer ear to middle ear to inner ear

What happens after a sound wave hits the hair cells?

hair cells in the inner ear/cochlea bend from sound waves-hair cell movement triggers the adjacent nerve cells-auditory nerve-thalamus-auditory cortex in the temporal lobe

What is sensorineural hearing loss?

hearing loss caused by damage to the cochlea’s receptor cells or to the auditory nerves; also called nerve deafness

What is conduction hearing loss?

hearing loss caused by damage to the mechanical system that conducts sound waves to the cochlea

What is a cochlear implant?

a device for converting sounds into electrical signals and stimulating the auditory nerve through electrodes threaded into the cochlea

What is the place theory?

in hearing, the theory that links the pitch we hear with the place where the cochlea’s membrane is stimulated

What is the frequency theory?

in hearing, the theory that the rate of nerve impulses traveling up the auditory nerve matches the frequency of a tone, thus enabling us to sense its pitch

What does skin sense?

pressure, warmth, cold, and pain

What is pain?

the body’s way of telling you something is wrong

What does pain reflect?

both bottom-up processes and top-down processes

What is the gate-control theory?

the theory that the spinal cord contains a neurological “gate” that blocks pain signals or allows them to pass on to the brain. The “gate” is opened by the activity of pain signals traveling up small nerve fibers and is closed by activity in larger fibers or by information coming from the brain

What is taste divided into?

sweet, sour, salty, and a savory, meaty taste of umami (MSG)

How do we smell things?

when molecules of a substance carried in the air reach a tiny cluster of cells at the top of each nasal cavity

What is kinesthesia?

the system for sensing the position and movement of individual body parts (from body-joints/tendons/bones)

What is vestibular sense?

the sense of body movement and position, including the sense of balance (from ear/brain)

What is sensory interaction?

the principle that one sense may influence another, as when the smell of food influences its taste

What is embodied cognition?

in psychological science, the influence of body sensations, gestures, and other states on cognitive preferences and judgments

What is selective attention?

the focusing of conscious awareness on a particular stimulus

What is inattentional blindness?

failing to see visible objects when our attention is directed elsewhere

What is change blindness?

failing to notice changes in the environment

What is perceptual set?

a mental predisposition to perceive one thing and not another

What is a schema?

a mental framework that helps people organize, process, and store information

What is extrasensory perception (ESP)?

the controversial claim that perception can occur apart from sensory input; includes telepathy, clairvoyance, and precognition

What is a gestalt?

an organized whole

What did gestalt psychologists emphasize?

our tendency to integrate pieces of information into meaningful wholes

What is figure-ground?

the organization of the visual field into objects (the figures) that stand out from their surroundings (the ground)

What is grouping?

the perceptual tendency to organize stimulus into coherent groups

What is depth perception?

the ability to see objects in three dimensions although the images that strike the retina are two-dimensional; allows us to judge distances

What is visual cliff?

a laboratory device for testing depth perception in infants and young animals