BehSci GR 1

Blocks 1 & 2

LOQ 1-1: How is psychology a science?

Scientists studying psychology use the scientific method to form theories and prove/ disprove hypotheses.

LOQ 1-2: What are the 3 key elements to a scientific attitude?

1. Curiosity - “Does it work?”

2. Skepticism - “What do you mean? / How do you know?”

3. Humility - “That was unexpected, let’s dig deeper.”

LOQ 1-3: How does critical thinking feed a scientific attitude?

Critical thinking helps us conduct the scientific process, as it guides the basis of the 3 key elements of a scientific attitude.

Critical Thinking

The thinking that challenges what we’re told— it examines assumptions, appraises sources, finds biases, evaluates evidence, and assesses conclusions.

Cognitive Psychology

The study of the mental processes involved in perceiving, learning, remembering, thinking, communicating, and problem-solving. (Cognitive Neuroscience studies the brain activity linked to this.)

Nature vs. Nurture

The debate of whether our personalities are created by our environments or our genetics. The current scientific conclusion is that it is a combination of both.

Positive Psychology

The study of human flourishing with the goal of discovering & promoting strengths & virtues that helps communities and individuals thrive.

The 3 levels of analysis

1. Biological

2. Psychological

3. Socio-cultural

LOQ 2-1: How does our common sense sometimes lead us to a wrong conclusion?

Three flaws in our thinking—hindsight bias, overconfidence, and perceiving patterns in random events.

Hindsight Bias

Also known as the I-knew-it-all-along phenomenon

Overconfidence

We tend to think we know more than we do; when asked how sure we are of our answers to factual questions, we tend to be more confident than correct.

Perceiving Order in Random Events

We tend to find patterns in completely random events.

LOQ 2-2: Why are people vulnerable to misinformation, and how can psychological science help?

Fake News Flies, Our Default Setting is to Believe What Others Say, Repetition Breeds Belief, Vivid Examples Stay Mentally Available in Our Mind, Confirmation Bias. We combat it by critical thinking, skepticism, and debunking.

LOQ 2-3 How do theories advance psychological science?

A theory explains behaviors or events by offering ideas that organize observations. By using principles to organize isolated facts, a theory summarizes and simplifies, and a coherent picture forms as we connect the dots.

case studies

in-depth analyses of individuals or groups

naturalistic observations

recording the natural behavior of many individuals

surveys

asking people questions

Correlation

A measure of the extent to which two factors vary together, and thus of how well either factor predicts the other.

Strong correlation= Close to +-1.0

Weak correlation= Close to 0

Positive correlation= 0→1.0, one goes up, the other goes up.

Negative Correlation= -1.0→0, one goes up, the other goes down.

Correlation = Causation?

NO!

Independent Variable

In an experiment, the variable that is manipulated; the variable whose effect is being studied.

Dependent Variable

In an experiment, the variable that is measured; the variable that may change when the independent variable is manipulated.

Confounding Variables

In an experiment, an extraneous variable (not the variable being studied) that might influence a study’s results.

Descriptive Research

• Basic purpose: To observe and record behavior

• How conducted: Do case studies, naturalistic observations, or surveys

• What is manipulated: Nothing

• Weakness: No control of variables; single cases may be misleading

Correlational Research

• Basic purpose: To detect naturally occurring relationships; to assess how well one variable predicts another

• How conducted: Collect data on two or more variables; no manipulation

• What is manipulated: Nothing

• Weakness: Cannot specify cause and effect

Experimental Research

• Basic purpose: To explore cause and effect

• How conducted: Manipulate one or more variables; use random assignment

• What is manipulated: The independent variable(s)

• Weakness: Sometimes not feasible; results may not generalize to other contexts; not ethical to manipulate certain variables

LOQ 2-9 How can simplified laboratory experiments help us understand general principles of behavior?

Psychological science focuses less on specific behaviors than on revealing general principles that help explain many behaviors.

LOQ 2-10 Why do psychologists study animals, and what ethical research guidelines safeguard human and animal welfare? How do psychologists’ values influence what they study and how they apply their results?

Many psychologists study nonhuman animals because they find them fascinating, but also to learn about people. American Psychological Association (APA) guidelines state that researchers must provide “humane care and healthful conditions” and that testing should “minimize discomfort”.

LOQ 2-11 How can psychological principles help you learn, remember, and thrive?

• Manage your time to get a full night’s sleep

• Make space for exercise.

• Set long-term goals, with daily tasks.

• Have a growth mindset.

• Prioritize relationships.

LOQ 3-1 Why are psychologists concerned with human biology?

When we understand the body, we understand the mind.

LOQ 3-2 How do biology and experience together enable neuroplasticity?

Our brain changes in response to the experiences we have. Learning a new skill or language can help develop new neural pathways in your brain.

Neuroplasticity

The brain’s ability to change, especially during childhood, by reorganizing after damage or by building new pathways based on experience.

LOQ 3-3 What are neurons, and how do they transmit information?

Neurons: a nerve cell; the basic building block of the nervous system.

They transmit information through electrical signals (within the cell) and neurotransmitters (outside the cell).

What are the parts of the Neuron?

• Cell body

  • the cell’s life-support center.

• Dendrites

  • receives and integrates messages from axons.

• Axon

  • passes messages through its branches to other neurons, muscles, or glands.

• Myelin Sheath

  • a layer of fatty tissue that insulates axons and speeds up their impulses.

• Terminal branches

  • Forms junctions with other cells

Glial Cells

“glue cells.” Glial cells are worker bees. They provide nutrients and insulating myelin, guide neural connections, and clean up after neurons send messages to one another. Glia also play a role in learning, thinking, and memory.

Action Potential

a brief electrical charge that travels down a neuron’s axon

Threshold

the level of stimulation required to trigger a neural impulse.

Synapse

the meeting point between neurons.

Neurotransmitters

chemical messengers that cross the synaptic gap between neurons

Reuptake

One of the three ways neurotransmitters are released from receiving neurons— the sending neuron re-absorbs the transmitter. The other two ways are when they float away or are broken down by enzymes.

Endorphins

natural, opioid-like neurotransmitters linked to pain control and to pleasure.

Acetylcholine (ACh)

Enables muscle action, learning, and memory

Dopamine

Influences movement, learning, attention, and emotion

Serotonin

Affects mood, hunger, sleep, and arousal

Norepinephrine

Helps control alertness and arousal

GABA (gamma-aminobutyric acid)

A major inhibitory neurotransmitter

Glutamate

A major excitatory neurotransmitter; involved in learning and memory

Endorphins

Neurotransmitters that influence the perception of pain or pleasure

Central Nervous system

Controls the brain and spinal cord

Peripheral Nervous system

connects the central nervous system to the rest of the body.

Somatic Nervous system

the division of the peripheral nervous system that controls the body’s skeletal muscles. Also called the skeletal nervous system.

autonomic nervous system

Controls our glands and our internal organ muscles.

sympathetic nervous system

arouses and expends energy

parasympathetic nervous system

Conserving your energy as it decreases your heartbeat, lowers your blood sugar, and enables you to rest and digest.

Motor Neurons

Carries outgoing messages to muscles and glands

Sensory Neurons

Communicates within the central nervous system and processes info going in and out

Interneurons

Carries incoming messages from sensory receptors

LOQ 5-1 What are the hindbrain, midbrain, and forebrain?

• Hindbrain: contains brainstem structures that direct essential survival functions, such as our breathing, sleeping, arousal, coordination, and balance

• Midbrain: at the top of the brainstem, connects the hindbrain with the forebrain; it also controls some movement and transmits information that enables seeing and hearing.

• Forebrain: manages complex cognitive activities, sensory and associative functions, and voluntary motor activities.

LOQ 5-2 What structures make up the brainstem, and what are the functions of the brainstem, thalamus, reticular formation, and cerebellum?

• Medulla

  • the control station for your heartbeat and breathing.

• Thalamus

  • receives information from all the senses except smell, and routes that information to the brain regions that deal with each.

• Reticular Formation

  • filters information and plays an important role in controlling arousal.

• Cerebellum

  • “little brain” at the rear of the brainstem; functions include processing sensory input, coordinating movement output and balance, and enabling nonverbal learning and memory.

LOQ 5-3 What are the limbic system’s structures and functions?

Linked to emotions, memory, and drives. Includes the amygdala (involved in behavioral and emotional responses); the hypothalamus (directs various bodily maintenance functions, helps govern the endocrine system, and is linked to emotion and reward); and the hippocampus (helps process explicit, conscious memories).

LOQ 5-5 Is it true that 90 percent of our brain isn’t really used?

The unresponsiveness of our association areas to electrical probing led to the false claim that we use only 10 percent of our brain. But these vast areas of the brain are responsible for interpreting, integrating, and acting on sensory information and linking it with stored memories. Evidence from brain damage shows that the neurons in association areas are busy with higher mental functions; a bullet would not land in an “unused” area.

LOQ 5-4: What four lobes make up the cerebral cortex, and what are the functions of the motor cortex, somatosensory cortex, and association areas?

The cerebral cortex has two hemispheres, and each hemisphere has four lobes: frontal, parietal, occipital, and temporal.

• Motor cortex: at the rear of the frontal lobes, controls voluntary movements.

• Somatosensory cortex: at the front of the parietal lobes, registers and processes body touch and movement sensations.

• Association areas: integrate information involved in higher mental functions such as learning, remembering, thinking, and speaking.

LOQ 8-1: What is the place of consciousness in psychology’s history?

After initially claiming consciousness as their area of study in the nineteenth century, psychologists abandoned it in the first half of the twentieth century, turning instead to the study of observable behavior because they believed consciousness was too difficult to study scientifically. Since the 1960s, our awareness of ourselves and our environment—our consciousness—has reclaimed its place as an important area of research, such as in the interdisciplinary field of cognitive neuroscience.

LOQ 8-2: How does selective attention direct our perceptions?

We selectively attend to and process a very limited portion of information, blocking out much and often shifting the spotlight of our attention from one thing to another. We often display inattentional blindness to other things because of it.

LOQ 8-3: What is the dual processing being revealed by today’s cognitive neuroscience?

Scientists studying consciousness and cognition have found that the mind processes information on two separate tracks: conscious-level (sequential processing) and unconscious-level (parallel processing).

LOQ 9-1: What is sleep?

Sleep is the periodic, natural loss of consciousness—as distinct from unconsciousness resulting from a coma, general anesthesia, or hibernation.

LOQ 9-2: How do our biological rhythms influence our daily functioning?

Our bodies are roughly synchronized with the 24-hour cycle of night and day. This circadian rhythm appears in our daily patterns of body temperature, arousal, sleeping, and waking. Age and experience can alter these patterns, resetting our biological clock.

LOQ 9-3: What is the biological rhythm of our sleeping and dreaming stages?

Young adults cycle through four distinct sleep stages about every 90 minutes. (more frequently for older adults.) Leaving the alpha waves of the awake stage, we descend into the irregular brain waves of N1 sleep, the first non-REM (NREM) sleep stage, often with hallucinations. N2 sleep (in which we spend about half our sleep time) follows, lasting about 20 minutes, with its characteristic sleep spindles. We then enter N3 sleep, lasting about 30 minutes, with large, slow delta waves. About an hour after falling asleep, we ascend from our initial sleep dive and begin periods of REM (rapid eye movement or R) sleep. REM sleep, which includes most dreaming, is described as a paradoxical sleep stage because of internal arousal but external calm (near paralysis). During a typical night’s sleep, N3 sleep shortens and REM and N2 sleep lengthen.

LOQ 9-4: How do biology and environment interact in our sleep patterns?

Our biology—our circadian rhythm as well as our age and our body’s production of melatonin (influenced by the brain’s suprachiasmatic nucleus)—interacts with social, cultural, and economic influences and individual emotions and behaviors to determine our sleeping and waking patterns. Being bathed in (or deprived of) light disrupts our 24-hour biological clock. Those who are chronically deprived of natural sunlight, such as night-shift workers, may experience desynchronization. Artificial light, including from light-emitting electronic devices, delays sleep and affects sleep quality.

LOQ 9-5: What are sleep’s functions?

Sleep may have played a protective role in human evolution by keeping people safe during potentially dangerous periods. Sleep also helps restore the immune system and repair damaged neurons. Sleep consolidates our memories by replaying recent learning and strengthening neural connections. Sleep promotes creative problem solving the next day. During slow-wave sleep, the pituitary gland secretes a growth hormone necessary for muscle development.

LOQ 9-6: How does sleep loss affect us, and what are the major sleep disorders?

Sleep deprivation causes fatigue and irritability and impairs concentration and memory consolidation. It can also lead to depression, obesity, joint inflammation, a suppressed immune system, and slowed performance (with greater vulnerability to accidents). Sleep disorders include insomnia, narcolepsy, sleep apnea, Sleepwalking; night terrors (in N3).

LOQ 17-1: What are sensation and perception? What do we mean by bottom-up processing and top-down processing?

• Sensation: the process by which our sensory receptors and nervous system receive stimulus energies from our environment.

• Perception: the process of organizing and interpreting this information, enabling recognition of meaningful objects and events.

• Bottom-up processing: sensory analysis that begins at the entry level, with information flowing from the sensory receptors to the brain.

• Top-down processing: information processing guided by high-level mental processes, as when we construct perceptions by filtering information through our experience and expectations.

LOQ 17-2: What three steps are basic to all of our sensory systems?

Our senses (1) receive sensory stimulation, often using specialized receptor cells; (2) transform that stimulation into neural impulses; and (3) deliver the neural information to the brain. Transduction is the process of converting energy into a form that our brain can use.

LOQ 17-4: How are we affected by subliminal stimulation?

We do sense some stimuli subliminally—less than 50 percent of the time—and can be affected by these sensations. But although we can be primed, subliminal sensations have no powerful, enduring influence.

LOQ 17-5: What is the function of sensory adaptation?

Sensory adaptation (our diminished sensitivity to constant or routine odors, sounds, and touches) focuses our attention on informative changes in our environment.

LOQ 17-6: How do our expectations, contexts, motivation, and emotions influence our perceptions?

Perceptual set is a mental predisposition that functions as a lens through which we perceive the world. Our learned concepts (schemas) prime us to organize and interpret ambiguous stimuli in certain ways. Our expectations, contexts, motivation, and emotions can color our interpretation of events and behaviors.

LOQ 18-1: What are the characteristics of light energy? What structures in the eye help focus that energy?

Visible light is only a thin slice of the broad spectrum of electromagnetic energy. The portion visible to humans extends from the shorter blue-violet wavelength to the longer red wavelengths. After entering the eye through the cornea, passing through the pupil and iris, and being focused by a lens, light energy particles strike the eye’s inner surface, the retina. The hue determines its wavelength, and its brightness depends on its intensity.

LOQ 18-2: How do the rods and cones process information, and what is the path information travels from the eye to the brain?

Light entering the eye triggers chemical changes that convert light energy into neural impulses. Photoreceptors called cones and rods at the back of the retina each provide a special sensitivity—cones to detail and color, rods to faint light and peripheral motion. After processing by bipolar and ganglion cells, neural impulses travel from the retina through the optic nerve to the thalamus, and on to the visual cortex. A lack of receptor cells at the point where the optic nerve leaves the eye creates a blind spot in the field of vision.

LOQ 18-3: How do sighted people perceive color in the world around them?

According to the Young-Helmholtz trichromatic (three-color) theory, the retina contains three types of color receptors. Contemporary research has found three types of cones, each most sensitive to the wavelengths of one of the three primary colors of light (red, green, or blue). According to Hering’s opponent-process theory, there are three additional sets of opposing retinal processes (red-green, blue-yellow, white-black). Research has confirmed that, en route to the brain, neurons in the retina and the thalamus code the color-related information from the cones into pairs of opponent colors. These two theories, and the research supporting them, show that color processing occurs in two stages.

LOQ 18-4: Where are feature detectors located, and what do they do?

Feature detectors, specialized nerve cells in the visual cortex, respond to specific features of the visual stimulus, such as shape, angle, or movement. Feature detectors pass information on to other cortical areas, where supercell clusters respond to more complex patterns.

LOQ 18-5: How does the brain use parallel processing to construct visual perceptions?

Through parallel processing, the brain handles many aspects of vision (color, movement, form, and depth) simultaneously. Other neural teams integrate the results, comparing them with stored information and enabling perceptions.

What are the parts of the eye?

• Lens

• Pupil

• Iris

• Cornea

• Retina

• Fovea

• Optic Nerve

• Blindspot