Psych Exam 1

Comprehensive vocabulary flashcards covering foundational psychological history, research methodology, scientific design, statistics, neural communication, and brain structure and function.

Nature/Nurture Debate

The historical and ongoing debate over whether psychological characteristics are innate (nature) or acquired through environmental experience (nurture).

Mind/Body Problem

The fundamental question inquiring whether the mind and body are separate and distinct entities, or if the mind is simply an outcome of physical brain activity.

Dualism

A philosophical position proposed by René Descartes in the $1600$s stating that while the physical body controls basic behaviors, rational thought is governed by a distinct mind separate from the body.

Wilhelm Wundt

The founder who established the first experimental psychology laboratory in Leipzig, Germany, in $1879$ and pioneered the use of reaction time to investigate mental events.

Structuralism

An early school of psychology advocated by Wilhelm Wundt and Edward Titchener that sought to analyze complex conscious experiences by breaking them down into basic components using introspection.

Introspection

A systematic research method wherein trained observers reflect upon and report their immediate conscious subjective experiences regarding a specific stimulus or event.

Gestalt Psychology

A psychological movement asserting that "the whole is different than the sum of its parts," emphasizing that breaking down phenomena into individual elements fails to explain subjective experiences like apparent motion.

Psychoanalytic Approach

A perspective founded by Sigmund Freud centered on unobservable subconscious mental processing, primal conflicts, and repressed memories that drive human behavior.

Behaviorism

A school of thought led by John Watson and B. F. Skinner rejecting internal mental processes as unscientific and focusing strictly on directly observable environmental stimuli and behavioral responses.

Cognitive Psychology

A field emerging in the late $1950$s (championed by George A. Miller and Ulric Neisser) focused on understanding internal mental functions such as memory, intelligence, language, and decision making.

Social Psychology

The subfield of psychology dedicated to studying how individual thoughts, feelings, and actions are influenced by the social context and the presence of other people.

Critical Thinking

A practice involving systematic questioning of incoming information and rigorous evaluation of the quality of evidence supporting psychological claims.

Scientific Method

A systematic, cyclical process of reducing ignorance through continuous interactions among theories, hypotheses, and empirical research testing.

Theory

A broad explanation or model derived from observations that makes predictions about future outcomes and must be both testable and falsifiable.

Hypothesis

A specific, narrow, and testable prediction formulated directly from a underlying theory.

Operational Definition

A detailed and concrete description specifying how a variable is manipulated or measured within an empirical study.

Case Study

An in-depth, intensive investigation of a single unique individual or organization, such as the study of amnesiac patient Clive Wearing.

Reactivity

An alteration in participant behavior caused by awareness of being observed by a researcher, famously illustrated by the Hawthorne Effect.

Observer Bias

Systematic evaluation errors caused by an observer's prior expectations or implicit biases.

Social Desirability

A type of self-report bias where respondents deliberately frame answers to present themselves in a favorable or socially acceptable light.

Directionality Problem

A limitation of correlational research where two variables correlate, but it is impossible to establish which variable causes changes in the other.

Third Variable Problem

A limitation of correlational research where an unmeasured extraneous variable influences two measured variables, producing a false correlation between them.

Independent Variable (IV)

The variable manipulated directly by the experimenter, consisting of at least two conditions or levels (such as a treatment condition and a control condition).

Dependent Variable (DV)

The outcome or behavioral response measured by the researcher, hypothesized to change as a result of manipulating the independent variable.

Confound

Any uncontrolled factor that systematically varies alongside the independent variable and provides an alternative explanation for changes in the dependent variable.

Random Assignment

The practice of placing study participants into experimental conditions by chance, ensuring each individual has an equal probability of assignment to minimize preexisting group differences.

Selection Bias

Systematic baseline differences introduced between experimental groups due to non-random assignment of participants.

Sampling Error

Distortions occurring when a selected research sample fails to accurately represent the target population, exemplified by the $1936$ Literary Digest poll predicting Alf Landon would defeat Franklin D. Roosevelt based on $2.3$ million responses from $10$ million surveyed readers.

Construct Validity

The degree to which operationalized variables successfully measure or manipulate the intended theoretical construct.

External Validity

The extent to which experimental findings can be generalized to individuals, settings, or real-world conditions outside the sample.

Internal Validity

The degree to which observed variations in the dependent variable are demonstrably caused by the independent variable rather than confounds.

Correlation Coefficient

A statistical index ranging from $-1.0$ to $+1.0$ that reflects the strength and direction of a linear relationship between two variables.

Standard Deviation

A measure of variability that indicates the average distance of individual data points relative to the mean.

Inferential Statistics

Statistical procedures used to determine whether observed differences between sample groups represent genuine effects in the population or occurred by chance.

Central Nervous System (CNS)

The master control division of the nervous system comprising the brain and spinal cord.

Peripheral Nervous System (PNS)

The structural network of all neurons located outside the CNS that relays incoming sensory data to the CNS and executes motor commands sent from the CNS.

Dendrites

Branching neural extensions responsible for receiving chemical signals from adjacent presynaptic neurons.

Axon

A long cellular extension that conducts electrical impulses away from the cell body (soma) toward terminal buttons.

Myelin Sheath

A fatty insulating layer formed by glial cells around an axon that substantially increases electrical signal transmission speed.

Nodes of Ranvier

Gaps along a myelinated axon where the neuronal membrane is exposed to extracellular space.

Resting Potential

The negative net electrical charge maintained inside an inactive neuron relative to the outside, sustained by sodium ($\text{Na}^+$) externally and potassium ($\text{K}^+$) and negatively charged proteins internally.

Action Potential

A brief reversal of membrane electrical charge traveling down the axon that constitutes a neuron's firing response.

Synapse

The physical junction gap between the terminal buttons of a presynaptic neuron and the dendrites of a postsynaptic neuron across which neurotransmitters transmit signals.

Serotonin

A neurotransmitter regulating emotional states and impulse control, low levels of which are linked to sad or anxious moods and treated with Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors.

Phrenology

A historic pseudoscience positing that localized brain regions expand with frequent use, creating external skull bumps indicative of distinct mental faculties.

Broca's Area

A region in the left frontal lobe discovered by Paul Broca in $1861$ that plays a crucial role in language production.

Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS)

A technique using powerful magnetic fields to temporarily disrupt activity in targeted brain regions, creating a reversible virtual lesion to evaluate brain region function.

Brain Stem

The base structure of the brain housing the midbrain, pons, medulla oblongata, and reticular formation, responsible for essential life support processes including heart rate and breathing.

Cerebellum

A large hindbrain structure situated behind the brain stem that coordinates motor function, balance, and physical movement.

Thalamus

The subcortical sensory relay station that receives, organizes, and distributes incoming sensory signals (excluding smell) to the cerebral cortex.

Hypothalamus

A subcortical brain structure that regulates vital internal body states, including body temperature, blood pressure, and blood glucose levels.

Hippocampus

A subcortical brain structure vital for the formation of new long-term memories and establishing cortical interconnections.

Amygdala

A subcortical structure heavily involved in processing emotional stimuli, generating fear responses, and enhancing attention during high-emotion experiences.

Basal Ganglia

Subcortical structures critical for planning and producing movement, damage to which is associated with conditions like Parkinson's disease and Huntington's disease.

Somatosensory Homunculus

A distorted neural representation on the primary somatosensory cortex of the parietal lobe where highly sensitive body parts occupy disproportionately large areas.

Hemineglect

An attentional impairment caused by parietal lobe damage that leads patients to fail to notice or reproduce visual information on the contralateral side of space.

Prefrontal Cortex

The front portion of the frontal lobes responsible for executive functions like planning, attention, impulse control, and personality, famously illustrated by the case of Phineas Gage.

Corpus Callosum

A massive tract of nerve fibers connecting the left and right cerebral hemispheres, enabling interhemispheric communication.

Split-Brain

A condition resulting from surgical severing of the corpus callosum, revealing functional hemispheric specialization through controlled cognitive tests.

Sympathetic Division

The autonomic nervous system division that triggers physiological arousal ("fight or flight"), increasing heart rate, dilating pupils, and suppressing intestinal activity.

Parasympathetic Division

The autonomic nervous system division that calms the body back to baseline post-arousal, but can also initiate an involuntary "freeze" response to threats.