PSY 101 Exam 1 Review

Textbook chapters 1-4

Psyche- Mind or soul

Logos- Knowledge or study

Psychology’s etymology

Psychology

The scientific study of thoughts, feelings, and behavior, and the relationship between them.

Biological Psychology / Behavorial Neuroscience

Type of psychology that focuses on the brain, spine, genetics, and its influences on TFB

Experimental Psychology

Type of psychology that focuses on sensation, perception, learning, motivation, and emotion.

Cognitive Psychology

Type of psychology that focuses on thoughts, higher mental processes, language, memory, reasoning, and information processing.

Developmental psychology

Type of psychology that focuses on development (utero through old age), and how TFB are at an old age

Personality Psychology

Type of psychology that focuses on consistency in human TFB, things we carry across different situations, and how individuals differ.

Social Psychology

Type of psychology that focuses on the interpersonal world, how we navigate it and why do we do it. Interactions.

Psychometrics

Type of psychology that focuses on measurements of TFB.

Clinical psych

Type of psychology that focuses on psychological disorders/dysfunction. Diagnosis and treatment.

Counselling psych

Type of psychology that focuses on adjustment to everyday life problems

Educational and school psych

Type of psychology that focuses on learning how to learn better, and problems that kids have

Industrial/Organizational psych

Type of psychology that focuses on figuring out how to make businesses/industries more effective

Philosophy and Physiology (biological systems, mechanics of the body)

Psych’s 2 roots

Wilhelm Mundt

Founded the first experimental psychology lab in 1879, the focus was to study the structure of the mind through introspection. Aim to understand the building blocks/elements of consciousness and the mind.

Introspection

Showing trained subjects a stimulus and asking them to describe it based on its intensity. Bigger, brighter, louder, etc. Careful, systematic self-observation of the conscious experience.

Introspection is the examination of one's own conscious thoughts and feelings. It involves self-reflection and analysis of internal mental processes, often used in psychology to understand personal experiences and emotions.

Titchener

Mundt’s student who translated Mundt’s work to English

Structuralism

Mundt’s and Titchener’s school of thought. Its focus was to analyze consciousness into basic elements and investigate how they’re related.

Functionalism

Led by William James. Thought that psych should focus on the function and purpose of consciousness. How behavior adapts to real-world demands.

Methods: Anything that informs

Psychoanalysis

Its focus was unconscious motivation and conflict. Method was therapy.

Slips of tongue and dream interpretation

How the unconscious was observed.

Sigmund Freud

He was a psychological therapist, treated people with psych problems, said that people aren’t masters of their own mind, and that behavior is greatly influenced by control over your sexual urges.

Behaviorism

Psych shouldn’t study the mind, but should only focus on objective, observable things like behavior.

Manipulation of a variable or stimulus and observing behavior

Behaviorism methods

Animal testing

Studying behavior without the complexities of the human mind.

Skinner

Sided with behaviorism, believed that mental processes exist, but there’s no need to study it. Created the skinner box, where he manipulated rewards and punishments, studied animal behavior.

Humanistic Psychology

Focuses on human uniqueness and potential for growth. We’re different from other species, so animal testing isn’t helpful.

Method: therapeutic process, measurement.

Contemporary psych trends

A new focus on the positive aspects of human nature like optimism and satisfaction. Also, looking into the psychology of other cultures, since most of our understanding has been based on western cultures.

Skepticism

Asking for evidence, doubting before believing, looking at things from multiple angles. Think abt the Amazing Randi

Measurement and description: Devising methods for measuring a psychological variable of interest, characterizing TFB

Understanding and prediction: Why a phenomenon occurs, and under what conditions it’ll occur.

Application and Control: See the value of research in the real world. Understanding gives better control

Psychology’s main 3 goals

Case Study

Analysis of the experiences of a particular person or group when their extraordinary experiences would be impossible to recreate in a lab. Thing about Phineas Gage —> Brain region specificity.

Naturalistic Observation

Observation/description of naturally occurring phenomena usually with little to no experimenter intervention. Think Jane Goodall and the monkeys —> Monkeys use tools.

Surveys

Asking people to respond to carefully worded questionnaires. Meant to correlate responses and see a degree of relation between variables.

Experimentation

Investigation of cause and effect relationships through manipulation of variables. Allows for you to say that one variable caused another, not just correlation. Correlation =/ causation

Ex. Anti-anxiety drug, one group gets it, another group gets placebo

Independent Variable

What the experimenter manipulates in the experiment

Ex. The drug

Dependent Variable

What you’re measuring

Ex. The levels of anxiety after the drug/placebo

Correlation

An association between two variables. Doesn’t signal causation. To get causation, must be controlled experiment.

Ex. More education = less sex? Maybe people who are more educated have longer hours of work, and therefore aren’t able to sleep around all day.

Nervous System

A complex network of cells and tissues that coordinates the body's responses to internal and external stimuli. It consists of two main parts, and is composed of two categories of cells.

Glia

Mainly provide structure, support, and nourishment to neurons. Hold things together. They form the myelin.

Neurons

Individual cells in the Nervous System that receive, integrate, and transmit information. Nerves are bundles of these.

Soma

Cell body, contains the nucleus

Dendrite

Branch-like part of the neuron that receives information and signals.

Axon

Long, thin fiber that transmits signals

Terminal buttons

Small knobs that secrete chemicals called neurotransmitters

Myelin

Insulating material that speeds up transmission of signals down an axon

Deterioration of myelin on motor neurons

Cause for multiple sclerosis

Nodes of Ranvier

Natural gaps in myelin

Synapse

Junction/gap between neurons through which messages are transmitted. Chemicals are exchanged here.

Neuron at rest

Like a little battery with a small negative charge.

Action potential

Brief shift in a neuron’s electrical charge that travels down an axon. Occurs because of neurotransmitters. Sends a message to the terminal buttons, that then secrete neurotransmitters into the synapse, trigger another neuron.

All-or-none law

Either a neuron fires or it doesn’t. The strength of a stimulus is indicated by the rate of firing. Stronger stimulus = faster firing.

Synaptic cleft

Where the transmission of signals takes place. Gap between the terminal button and next neuron’s cell membrane

Presynaptic neuron

The neuron having the action potential and sending the signal

Postsynaptic neuron

The neuron receiving the signal

Postsynaptic potential (PSP)

Voltage change at the receptor site on a postsynaptic cell membrane. There are two types.

Excitatory PSP

Positive voltage change that makes the next neuron more likely to fire

Inhibitory PSP

Negative voltage change that makes the next neuron less likely to have an action potential

Reuptake

When neurotransmitters are soaked up by the presynaptic neuron

Acetylcholine (Ach)

Links motor neurons and muscles; is involved in attention, arousal, and memory.

Lack of Ach is Alzheimer’s.

Black widow spiders flood synapses with Ach, that’s why they cause violent muscle spasms.

Dopamine (DA)

Linked to muscle activity and pleasurable emotions

Lack of DA is parkinson’s (tremors, lack of control)

Norepinephrine (NE)

Increases arousal, modulates mood

Manic states are caused from too much NE (cocaine and amphetamines)

Depression caused from too little NE —> SNRI (selective norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors) let more free-floating NE hang out in synapse

Serotonin (5-HT)

Lowers activity level and causes sleep; related to positive emotions and anxiety. Inhibits dreaming

LSD gives waking dreams bc inhibits action of this NT

Depression is too little serotonin —> SSRIs (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors)

Central Nervous System

Brain and spinal cord

Peripheral Nervous System

All neurons outside the brain and spinal cord

Spinal cord

Connects the brain to the body through the PNS, houses bundles of axons that carry brain’s message to the body.

Injury- interrupts signals from brain to body bc the connection is impaired. Higher up injury = greater impairment. Hemiplegia, paraplegia, quadriplegia

Hindbrain, midbrain, forebrain

3 regions of the brain

Hindbrain

Responsible for basic/primitive functions. Houses the cerebellum, medulla, and pons.

Cerebellum

Responsible for coordination of movement and physical balance. One of the first structures to be affected by alcohol

Medulla

Responsible for unconscious processes like heartbeat, blood flow, and breathing

Pons

Connects different regions of the brain so they can communicate. Responsible for sleep and arousal.

Midbrain

Part of brain involved in integrating sensory processes. Contains dopamine releasing neurons. Most important structure is the Reticular Activating System

Reticular Activating System

Involved in sleep, arousal, breathing, and pain perception

Forebrain

Plays a crucial role in complex behaviors, decision-making, and the regulation of homeostasis.

Hypothalamus

Part of the brain that regulates biological drives. The 4 Fs are fighting, fleeing, feeding, and mating.

Damage can lead to no regulation of eating, fat fucking rat

Thalamus

Relays and INTEGRATES sensory signals. Makes things meaningful

Limbic system

A complex set of structures in the brain that plays a crucial role in emotion, behavior, motivation, long-term memory, and olfaction. Houses the amygdala and hippocampus

Amygdala

Regulates emotion and fear responses in the brain

Hippocampus

Regulates learning and memory

Cebral cortex

Outer layer of the cerebrum. Responsible for complex mental activities like learning, remembering, and thinking. In humans, big and wrinkly.

Neocortex

Neocortex

Plays a crucial role in complex behaviors, including language, reasoning, and decision-making. Outermost layer of cerebral cortex

Left brain hemisphere

Controls right side of the body, deals with analytical processing and fine details. Language comprehension, speech production, math ability, etc.

Right brain hemisphere

Controls the left side of the body. Language comprehension but only with crude speech, pattern recognition. Holistic processing.

Traumatic Brain Injury

Significant health problem, caused my any blow to the head. Mild—> severe.

Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE)

Progressive degenerative disease only found in those with a history of repetitive mTBI, like athletes. Characterized by an abnormal buildup of Tau protein in the brain, interrupting communication channels.

Symptoms: personality changes, memory impairment, impaired ability to plan/organize/multitask, mood changes, depression, irritability, poor impulse control, aggression, addiction.

Postmortem

The only way to diagnose CTE right now.

Sensation

Stimulus of sense organs like the eyes, ears, skin, nose, etc. Involves absorption of energy/stimulus/information about the world

Absolute threshold

Minimum amount of stimulus that an organism can detect

Vision

Human eye sensitive to narrow range of wavelengths. Occipital lobe receives and processes most visual signals in an area called the primary visual cortex. Eyes detect light, transport it to brain, occipital lobe interprets, vision.

Hearing

Auditory sensations surround and inform us. Noise induced hearing loss can be permanent because hair cells break off and don’t grow back.

Taste

5 types that humans can detect: sweet, sour, bitter, salty, umami. The only universal source of disgusting taste is feces. Chemicals melt in saliva, taste buds send signals to brain.

Smell

Humans can distinguish more than 10000 smells. Strong ties to memory because we can remember smells very well. Chemicals dissolve in mucus.

Anosmia: inability to smell

Gate-control theory

The spine can bloc incoming pain signals if it’s overloaded with other signals

1. Humans have native perceptual tendencies

2. Proximity- things close together are perceived as a unit

3. Similarity- we group things that are similar in shape, size, color

4. Continuity- lines are seen as continuing

5. Closure- we visually close shapes to make a meaninful form

Gestalt principles of perceptual organization

Perceptual constancy

Tendency to experience a stable perception despite changing sensory input

Illusion

False perceptual hypothesis