Unit 2 PSY 201

Consciousness

Awareness of everything going on inside and outside of you; Freud saw it as a continuum from clear waking awareness to altered states (a shift in the quality or pattern of mental activity).

Electroencephalogram (EEG)

An amplified recording of the electrical waves sweeping across the brain's surface, measured by electrodes on the scalp.

Beta waves

Small, fast waves seen when a person is wide awake and mentally active.

Alpha waves

Larger, slower, rhythmic waves seen when a person is relaxed (eyes closed) or lightly drowsy.

Theta waves

Slower, small, irregular waves typical of Stage N1 light sleep as a person first drifts off.

Delta waves

Large, very slow waves that dominate Stage N3, or slow-wave (deep) sleep.

Time to fall asleep

The average person takes about 10 to 20 minutes

Stage N1

Light sleep with theta waves; may include hypnic jerks (sudden muscle twitches) and hypnagogic images (fleeting dream-like imagery).

Stage N2

Body temperature, breathing, and heart rate decrease, and EEGs show sleep spindles (bursts of spindle-shaped waves).

Stage N3

Deep, slow-wave sleep dominated by large delta waves; hardest to wake from, and when sleepwalking occurs.

Order of stages / 90-minute sleep cycle

Sleep cycles through N1, N2, N3, back up through N2, then REM about every 90 minutes; later in the night N3 shrinks and REM periods lengthen.

REM sleep

Rapid eye movement sleep: eyes move under the lids, brain waves resemble waking, muscles are paralyzed, and about 90% of dreaming occurs. It supports memory consolidation and learning.

Non-REM sleep

Stages N1 to N3, marked by little eye movement, slowing body functions, and gradually slower, larger waves; dreams are less common and less vivid.

Sleep apnea

A sleep disorder involving temporary cessations of breathing during sleep, causing frequent awakenings and daytime fatigue.

Sleep apnea treatments

CPAP (a mask delivering continuous air pressure), oral devices that reposition the jaw, and upper airway stimulation implants (e.g., Inspire).

REM sleep behavior disorder

A rare disorder in which the mechanism that paralyzes voluntary muscles during REM fails, so people thrash or even get up and act out dreams.

Nearly universal element in dreams

Dreamers have a stable sense of self, perceiving everything from a first-person perspective; dreams also commonly involve sex, aggression, misfortune, and concerns from daily life.

Freud's wish-fulfillment theory

Dreams disguise unconscious wishes: the manifest content (what you remember) hides the latent content (the true meaning). Empirical support is weak, since it is hard to test or falsify.

Cartwright's problem-solving/mood-regulation theory

Dreams help us cope with our issues and improve our mood by working through emotional concerns. Support: dream content often reflects waking concerns and mood, but the effect is modest.

Activation-synthesis theory

Dreams are the cortex's attempt to make sense of random brain stem activation during REM. Support: REM brain stem activity is well documented, but it doesn't explain why dreams often have coherent, personally meaningful content.

Hypnosis: what it CAN do

A state of heightened suggestibility that can reduce pain, serve as anesthesia, decrease anxiety, treat headaches, IBS, and skin disorders, help a bit with addictions, and cause sensory distortions, disinhibition, and amnesia.

Hypnosis: what it CANNOT do

It cannot give increased strength, reliably enhance memory, or regress people to an earlier age.

Concentrative (focused attention) meditation

Meditation in which attention is deliberately held on a single object, such as the breath, a word, or a mantra.

Mindfulness (open monitoring) meditation

Meditation in which you observe passing thoughts, feelings, and sensations non-judgmentally as they arise.

Narcotics

Opium-related drugs (morphine, heroin, methadone, OxyContin) that suppress pain and mimic endorphins; risks include overdose, infectious disease, and immune suppression.

Hallucinogens

Drugs like LSD, mescaline, and psilocybin that powerfully alter mental, emotional, and sensory experience, producing mystical experiences, "bad trips," and accidents.

Sedatives

Drugs that decrease central nervous system activity (barbiturates, benzodiazepines), causing sleepiness and relaxation; risks include accidents and overdose.

Alcohol

A depressant that produces mild euphoria but impairs motor skills, judgment, and memory while raising aggression and lowering self-awareness; contributes to about 1/3 of car accidents.

Stimulants

Drugs that increase CNS activity (caffeine, nicotine, cocaine, amphetamines), producing euphoria, energy, and alertness; risks include sleep problems, hypertension, heart attack, and overdose.

Marijuana (cannabis)

A hemp-derived drug (THC) causing mild, relaxed euphoria and used medically for chronic pain and nausea; risks include accidents, lung disease, psychosis risk, and impaired attention, learning, and memory.

Physical dependence

A state in which the body can't function normally without the drug, so quitting causes withdrawal (headaches, nausea, shaking); avoiding withdrawal is negative reinforcement.

Drug tolerance

After repeated exposure, more of the drug is needed to produce the same effect.

Taste aversion (conditioned taste aversion)

A nausea or other negative response to a taste that was followed by illness, learned after only one pairing; an example of biological preparedness.

Latent learning

Learning that is not apparent in behavior when it first occurs and takes place without reinforcement; it shows up later when there is an incentive.

Operant conditioning

Learning in which voluntary behavior is strengthened or weakened by its consequences (Skinner).

Classical conditioning

Learning in which a neutral stimulus becomes associated with a stimulus that naturally triggers a response, so it eventually triggers a similar response (Pavlov).

Biological preparedness

The tendency to learn certain associations (e.g., fear of spiders, taste aversions) quickly, after one or a few pairings, because of their survival value.

Neutral stimulus (NS)

A stimulus that initially produces no relevant response; it becomes a conditioned stimulus once paired with an unconditioned stimulus.

Unconditioned stimulus (UCS)

A stimulus that automatically triggers a response with no learning required (e.g., food in the mouth).

Unconditioned response (UCR)

The automatic, unlearned reaction to an unconditioned stimulus (e.g., salivation to food).

Conditioned stimulus (CS)

A formerly neutral stimulus that, after repeated pairing with an unconditioned stimulus, now triggers a learned response (e.g., the tone).

Conditioned response (CR)

The learned response to a conditioned stimulus alone (e.g., salivation to the tone).

Pavlov's experiment

Dogs learned to salivate to a tone (conditioned stimulus) after it was repeatedly paired with food (unconditioned stimulus); before pairing the tone was neutral, and after pairing it produced a conditioned response

Positive reinforcement

Adding a pleasant stimulus after a behavior, which makes the behavior more likely.

Negative reinforcement

Removing, escaping, or avoiding an aversive stimulus after a behavior, which makes the behavior more likely.

Higher-order conditioning

A strong conditioned stimulus is paired with a new neutral stimulus, turning that stimulus into a second conditioned stimulus.

Stimulus discrimination

Learning to respond to the conditioned stimulus but not to similar stimuli.

Stimulus generalization

Responding to stimuli similar to the conditioned stimulus in the same way as to the conditioned stimulus.

Spontaneous recovery

The reappearance of an extinguished conditioned response after a rest period with no training.

Extinction

The gradual weakening of a conditioned response when the conditioned response is repeatedly presented without the unconditioned response (or, in operant learning, when reinforcement stops).

Observational learning

Learning new behavior by watching a model (Bandura); steps are attention, retention, reproduction, and motivation.

Fixed schedule

Reinforcement follows a predictable, unchanging requirement (same number of responses or same amount of time).

Variable schedule

Reinforcement follows an unpredictable, changing requirement that varies around an average.

Ratio schedule

Reinforcement depends on the number of responses made.

Interval schedule

Reinforcement depends on the passage of time (the first response after a set or average wait).

Fixed ratio (FR)

Reinforcement after a set number of responses, producing a very high rate of responding.

Variable ratio (VR)

Reinforcement after an unpredictable number of responses, producing high, steady responding that is very hard to extinguish (e.g., gambling).

Fixed interval (FI)

Reinforcement for the first response after a set amount of time, so responding speeds up as the expected time approaches.

Variable interval (VI)

Reinforcement for the first response after unpredictable time intervals, producing slow, steady responding.

Punishment

Any consequence that makes a behavior less likely

Harsh punishment can cause fear, aggression, and lying, and works best when immediate, consistent, and paired with reinforcement for correct behavior.

Positive punishment

Adding an unpleasant stimulus after a behavior to make it less likely.

Negative punishment

Taking away a pleasant or desired stimulus after a behavior to make it less likely.

Escape learning

Acquiring a response that ends or decreases aversive stimulation already present (a form of negative reinforcement).

Avoidance learning

Acquiring a response that prevents aversive stimulation from occurring at all (a form of negative reinforcement).

Schedule least resistant to extinction

Continuous reinforcement (reinforcing every response) extinguishes fastest; intermittent schedules, especially variable ratio, resist extinction more.

Behavior modification program

A systematic plan to change behavior: identify the target behavior, gather baseline data, monitor antecedents and consequences, reinforce good behavior, remove temptations, and monitor success.