AP Psych Semester 1

Sensation

the process of receiving and representing stimulus energies through the nervous system

Perception

the process of organizing and interpreting sensory information

Sensation is to _______________ and perception is to _____________________

detection; interpretation

Top-down processing

patient's negative expectations about the outcome of surgery can increase their post surgical pain

Selective attention

students in a study were more likely to cross streets unsafely if they were on the phone

Change blindness

doesn't notice changes that happen in front of you when your attention is elsewhere

Transduction

The process by which your ears convert sound waves from a sound into neural impulses

converts physical stimuli into neural messages

Why is transduction important to sensation?

Absolute threshold

smelling something minutes before someone else; meaning you have a lower _____________________

They'd be wrong to think that unconsciously processed information is unusually persuasive

Subliminal persuasion....why would someone who believes in this be wrong?

Signal Detection Theory

emphasizes that personal expectations and motivations influence the level of thresholds

sensory adaptation

diminished sensitivity to an unchanging stimulus

Minimizes sensory adaptation

Result of constant quivering of the eyes

Biopsychosocial approach to understanding perception

Perception is the combo of our sensory capacities, cultural contacts and gestalt principles

parapsychology

the study of things like telepathy

intensity of colors

light wave amplitude determines the...

Retina

Light sensitive layer of the eye; contains rods and cones

longest - redshortest - blue/violet

How humans experience the longest visible electromagnetic waves...

Hue

Intensity is to brightness as wavelength is to_____________________

Iris

What controls the dilation of the pupil?

The ganglion cells before its processed by feature detectors

What is visual information processed by?

Feature Detection

When looking at the hands of a clock showing 8 o'clock, certain brain cells are more responsive than when the hands show 10 o'clock

Young-helmholtz Theory

The retina contains 3 kinds of color receptors

Opponent-process theory

cells that are stimulated by exposure to YELLOW light are inhibited by exposure to BLUE light

Gestalt Psychology

emphasized the whole may exceed the sum of its parts

Figure Ground Principles

the cocktail party effect shows _______________________

Visual Cliff Experiment

showed that the ability to perceive depth is at least partly innate

Retinal disparity

3D movies enhances our sense of depth perception by simulating the effects of ___________________________

stroboscopic movement

Cartoons like Bugs Bunny hoping on the screen is an example of _____________________________

Shape constancy

textbooks cast a trapezoidal image on the retina but people perceive them as rectangles due to the ___________________________

misperception of distance

Ames room displays how we can misperceive distance

color constancy

an object's color is perceived/influenced by its surrounding objects

Immanuel Kent

emphasized that perceptual understanding comes from inborn ways of organizing sensory experiences

John Lock

believed people learn to experience the world through experience

sensory restriction

only causes damage early in life, suggesting there is a critical period for more perceptual development

perceptual set

stereotypes are most similar to __________________________; after watching a scary movie you perceive a sound in your home as an intruder

frequency of the sound wave

Pitch is determined by......

Someone with Sensorineural hearing loss

What does a cochlear implant benefit?

middle ear function

when the middle ear is damaged, a hearing aid could aid/restore the sense of hearing

Initiates transduction and the transmission of neural messages to the auditory cortex

What does movement of the hair cells along the basilar membrane do?

nerve deafness

would likely happen as a result of damage to the basilar membrane

conduciton hearing loss

Effects of rupture of the eardrum

Place theory

high frequency sounds trigger large vibrations near the beginning of the basilar membrane suggest ___________________

Place vs. Frequency Theory

Frequency - low pitchPlace - high pitch

yes!

Is place and frequency theory correct about how we hear pitch?

it reaches both ears at the same time

Difficulty of hearing overhead sounds indicates....

Pressure spots

when tickling someone, a person strokes adjacent pressure spots on their skin

Receptor cells for kinesthesis

located in the joints, tendons, bones, and ear

Nociceptors

if you burn yourself, ______________________ transmit pain triggering signals to your CNS; also initiate neural impulses leading to pain

gate-control theory

suggests pain is experienced when small nerve fibers activate and open a neural gate

auditory

Tinnitus is the phantom ________________________ sensation

why children resist eating certain foods

Kids have more taste receptors so their sensitivity to taste is greater

smell

What are olfactory receptor cells used for?

Kinesthesia

system for sensing position and movement of body parts

vestibular sense

ability to detect whether your body is in a horizontal or vertical position depends on the __________________________

Sensory interactions

With eyes closed and nose plugged, it's hard to distinguish tastes as different

Embodied cognition

our bodies can alter our cognitive preferences and judgments

community psychologists

Psychologists who work to understand the quality of life of individuals

psychodynamic perspective

how our bodies unconsciously remembers experiences that our minds cannot recall

mary calkins

first woman to become president of the American Psychological Association

mental processes

Cognition revolution involved a renewed interest in ______________________

placebo

something which has a positive mental effect, but no physical effect

mean in a data set

found by adding all numbers in the data set and then dividing by the number of values in the set

introspection

examination of one's own thoughts and feelings

replication in science

if two or more people do the same experiment they should get the same result; scientists can check their work

operational definitions

making sure that a psychologist's claims match other psychologists' understandings

psychiatrist

medical doctor who has specialized in treating psychological disorders

pituitary gland

endocrine system's most influential gland; regulates growth and controls other endocrine glands

introspection

Behaviorists dismiss the value of ___________________________

contemporary psych

scientific study of behavior and mental processes

cause and effect

psychologists use experiments to distinguish between _____________________________

wording effects on experiments

possible effects on participants caused by the order of presented words or even the choice of the words themselves

biological, psychological, social-cultural

levels of analysis

behavioral perspective

focuses on the role of learning in explaining observable behavior

how much each point varies from the mean

standard deviation on a normal bell curve

unconscious mind vs. individual's potential

psychoanalysis vs. humanists

motor cortex

which part of the brain relies on visual information in coordinating our voluntary movements?

parietal lobe

receives sensory input for touch and body position

synapse

the junction between the axon tip of the sending neuron and the dendrite or cell body of the receiving neuron

Alcohol in large and small doses

small doses: increase your heart rate, aggression, and impulsivenesslarger doses: typically causes sluggishness, disorientation, and slower reaction times, as it decreases your mental sharpness, blood pressure, and heart rate

NREM-1 sleep

slowed breathing & irregular brain waves; sensations of falling or floating

both are depressants

why is it dangerous to combine alcohol and a sleeping pill?

brainstem

the oldest part and central core of the brain, beginning where the spinal cord swells as it enters the skull; the brainstem is responsible for automatic survival functions

marijuana

feeling relaxed, hallucinations, memory loss are all effects of ______________________

manifest content

the actual content of one's dream

intensity

Light-wave amplitude determines the _____________________

motor cortex

an area at the rear of the frontal lobes that controls voluntary movements

MRI

best way to detect enlarged fluid-filled brain regions in some patients who have schizophrenia is to use a(n)...

60 year olds spend less time in deep sleep

20 yr. olds vs. 60 yr. olds deep sleep patterns

any stage

sleep talking may occur in what stage of sleep?

Franz Gall

proposed the idea of phrenology in the 1800s

natural selection

traits that contribute to reproduction and survival will most likely be passed on to the succeeding generations

endocrine system

glands secrete HORMONES that regulate processes such as growth, reproduction, and nutrient use (metabolism) by body cells

psychological, biological

Everything that is ______________________ is also ____________________

REM Sleep

rapids eye movement

spacing effect

information is retained better if there is a longer period of time between sessions or relearning

Imagery

Description that appeals to the senses (sight, sound, smell, touch, taste)

Chunking

organizing items into familiar, manageable units

semantic encoding

the process of relating new information in a meaningful way to knowledge that is already stored in memory

short term

Passing an electric current through the brain during electroconvulsive therapy is most likely to disrupt _________ memory