exam 2

Consciousness – awareness of thoughts, memories, feelings, sensations, and environments

Sleep – reduced awareness of external stimuli, low levels of physical activity

Wakefulness – alertness, awareness, and responsiveness to external stimuli

Biological Rhythms – internal rhythms of biological activity

The Circadian Rhythm –  roughly 24 24-hour internal clock in the brain that controls alertness and sleepiness

Homeostasis – ability to regulate various physiological processes to keep internal states steady and balanced

Suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN) – brain’s clock mechanism; located in hypothalamus

Sleep regulation - the biological processes that control and regulate the timing, duration, and quality of sleep

Jet lag – the circadian rhythm is out of sync with the time zone one is in

Insomnia –  problems falling asleep, staying asleep, waking up too early at least 3 nights/week for a month

Sleep debt – cumulative of not getting enough sleep

Sleep rebound – increased amount and intensity of sleep after deprivation

Regulation of sleep cycle – regulated by the circadian rhythm, which is controlled by the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN)        

Why Do We Sleep? Evolutionary psychology – the behavior of humans best understood by thinking about the context in which we evolved

Why Do We Sleep? Hypothesis 1 – sleep is essential to restore resources that are expended during the day

Why Do We Sleep? Little research supports this explanation. Why not just inactivity? Negative correlation between energy demands and time in sleep

Why Do We Sleep? Hypothesis 2 – sleep patterns evolved as an adaptive response to predatory risks, which increase in darkness. We sleep in safe areas to reduce the chance of harm

Potential benefits of sleep – maintaining healthy weight, lowering stress levels, improving mood, increasing motor coordination, and benefits related to cognition/memory formation

Cognitive Function of Sleep – sleep deprivation = disruptions in cognition/memory deficits, impairments in abilities to maintain attention, make decisions, and recall long-term memories

Rapid eye movement (REM) – darting movements of eyes under closed eyelids,,and Brain waves during REM sleep appear very similar tthe o brain during wakefulness

Non-REM (NREM)- four stages distinguished by characteristic patterns of brain waves

Stage 1 Sleep – transitional phase b/w wakefulness and sleep.  Slowdown in rates of respiration and heartbeat. Marked decrease in overall muscle teniand and on, core body temperature. Easy to be woken up

Stage 2 Sleep - body goes into a state of deep relaxation. Theta waves still dominate, but they are interrupted by brief bursts of activity known as sleep spindles 

Stages 3 and 4 Sleep – often referred to as deep sleep or slow-wave sleep. Characterized by low frequency, high amplitude delta waves. Heart rate and respiration slow dramatically.  Much more difficult to awaken someone from sleep. 

REM Sleep – brain waves very similar to being awake; when most dreaming occurs

Paralysis of muscle systems except for circulation and respiration

Paradoxical sleep – combination of high brain activity and lack of muscle tone

REM rebound – if deprived of REM sleep / any sleep over time, people will spend more time in REM sleep when possible

Freud’s Dream Protection Theory – Freud thought dreams provided access to unconscious

Manifest content – actual content, or storyliune of a dream

Latent content – hidden meaning of a dream

Jung and the Collective Unconscious – Jung believed dreams allowed us to tap into the collective unconscious

collective unconscious, a store of information he believed everyone was born with

activation–synthesis theory  - dreams are how brain tries to make sense of random neural activity while we sleep

Cartwright’s Neurocognitive Theory of Dreaming – dreams are reflections of waking life and are a meaningful product of our cognitive capacities, which shape what we dream about.

Sleepwalking – sleepwalking person often acts like any fully awake person, although a sleepwalker may be somewhat clumsier

Sexsomnia – a sleep order characterized by engaging in sexual behavior while asleep

REM sleep behavior disorder – physically act out vivid, often unpleasant dreams with vocal sounds and sudden, often violent arm and leg movements during REM sleep – aka dream-enacting behavior

Night Terrors –  a sleep disorder that can be linked to stress, anxiety, and trauma.

Sleep Apnea – disorder in which people stop breathing for
nearly ½ a minute or more

Obstructive sleep apnea - OSA can occur when muscles relax during sleep, causing partial or complete blockage of the upper airway

Central sleep apnea - CSA can occur when the brainstem doesn't react normally to changes in blood carbon dioxide levels

Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) –  the unexpected death of a seemingly healthy baby under one year old during sleep

Narcolepsy –  a chronic neurological disorder that affects the body's ability to regulate sleep-wake cycles. 

Cataplexy -   a sudden and transient episode of muscle weakness or paralysis that occurs during wakefulness and is typically triggered by strong emotions. 

 Psychoactive drugs -  previously discussed in Ch. 3 - contain chemicals similar to those found naturally in our brains and that their molecules alter consciousness by changing chemical processes in neurons  

Diagnosis – by a mental health professional through a comprehensive evaluation of a person's medical history and substance use behaviors

Physical dependence – the adaptations that result in withdrawal symptoms: Sweating Insomnia Seizures

Psychological dependence – loss of control over drug use and compulsive, continuous use despite damage caused to oneself and others. Such as family history and peer pressure

Tolerance -   A condition that occurs when the body gets used to a medicine so that either more medicine is needed or different medicine is needed.

Withdrawal -  a physiological response to the sudden quitting or slowing of use of a substance to which the body has grown dependent on

Sensation – detection of physical energy by sense organs, which send that info to the brain 

 Transduction – nervous system changes stimulus into electrical signals our brains can use 

Absolute threshold – lowest level of a stimulus we can detect 50% of the time

Subliminal messages – presented below threshold for conscious awareness 

difference threshold – how much difference in stimuli is required to detect a difference between them 

Weber’s Law – stronger the stimulus, greater change necessary for detection of a difference

Perception – sensory info organized, interpreted, consciously experiences 

  Bottom-up processing – perception starts at the sensory input

Top-down processing – conceptually driven; influenced by beliefs and expectancies 

 Sensory adaptation – we often stop perceiving stimuli that remains constant 

Inattentional Blindness – may fail to detect something plainly visible while attending to something else 

Signal detection theory -   ability to identify something in a distracting background like picking friend in a sea of faces 

Culture and Perception – Individuals from Western cultures were more prone to experience certain types of visual illusions than individuals from non-Western cultures, and vice versa.

Amplitude – distance from center line to top point of crest or bottom of trough 

Wavelength – length of a wave from one peak to the next 

 Frequency – number of waves that pass a given point in a given time period 

Hertz – cycles per second Lower frequencies-longer wavelengths and Higher frequency =shorter wavelength 

Visible spectrum – p [art of larger electromagnetic spectrum that we can see 

Electromagnetic spectrum – all electromagnetic radiation that occurs in our environment (light, gamma, x-ray, microwaves) 

Pitch – frequency of sound waves; high frequency sound waves, high pitches and low frequency sound, low pitch

 Decibels – height of sound waves, our experience of loudness 

Timbre – quality or complexity of sound waves

Cornea –- transparent covering of the eye

Pupil – small opening in eye that lets in light 

Iris – colored part of the eye 

Lens – curved transparent structure providing more focus, can change shape to focus light 

Fovea –lens Will focus images on this small indentation in the back of eye 

Retina - light sensitive lining of eye 

Cones – color vision; acute details, spatial resolution, requires more light

Rods – long and narrow; basic shapes and forms

Optic nerve – rod and cones are connected to retinal ganglion cells

Blind spot – where optic nerve exits thru retina 

Optic chiasm – where optic nerve from each eye merges just below the brain  

Trichromatic theory of color vision – all colors in the spectrum can be produced by combining red, green, and blue.

Opponent process Theory - color is coded in opponent pairs: black-white, yellow-blue, and green-red.

Afterimage -   continuation of visual sensation after removal of stimulus 

 Binocular cues – use both eyes 

Depth Perception – ability to judge distance of objects / spatial relationship of objects at different distances 

 Binocular disparity – slightly different view of world each of our eyes receives 

Monocular cues – only one eye 

Linear perspective – perceive depth when we see 2 parallel lines that seem to converge in an image 

Parts of the outer ear – The pinna, external auditory canal, tympanic membrane 

Ossicles -  small bones in middle ear that transmit sound vibrations 

Parts of the inner ear – cochlea, semicircular canals, vestibule, and hair cells 

Pitch Perception - Different frequencies of sound waves are associated with differences in our perception of the pitch of those sounds.

Temporal (AKA frequency) theory of pitch perception – frequency is coded by the activity level of a sensory neuron.

Place theory of pitch perception - different portions of the basilar membrane are sensitive to sounds of different frequencies

Monaural cues – one ear; each pinna interacts with incoming sound waves differently depending on sound source relative to our bodies 

Binaural cues – two ears sound will arrive at one ear slightly before other 

Gustation – taste 

Olfaction-smell 

Olfactory receptors – located in a mucous membrane at top of nose 

Olfactory bulb – tip of frontal love where olfactory nerves begin 

info sent to regions of limbic system / primary olfactory cortex

Gestalt Psychology – breaking psychological phenomena down to smaller parts would not lead to understanding psych 

Gestalt Principles – rules governing how we perceive objects as wholes within context 

Figure-ground relationship – decision about what is foreground and what is background 

Proximity – objects physically close to each other seen as unified wholes 

Similarity - items that share visual characteristic are seen as more similar

Continuity, AKA good continuation – line are seen as following the smoothest path 

Closure – our brain fills in what is missing in partial info

Reflex – motor / neural reaction to specific stimulus in environment

Instinct – innate beh triggered by broader range of events, such as aging and changing of seasons 

Learning –  relatively permanent change in behavior cause by experience

associative learning – AKA conditioning –  learning that 3 events occur together 

Classical conditioning – learning to associate 2 stimuli and anticipate events 

Stimulus –Any event in the environment that produces a response, even if the response is as simple as noticing the stimulus occurred.  

Operant conditioning – ;earning to associate a behavior with or without a consequence 

Classical Conditioning (CC) -   It is a type of learning that had a major influence on the school of thought in psychology known as behaviorism.

Pavlov’s Experiments - During the 1890s, Russian physiologist, Ivan Pavlov was researching salivation in dogs in response to being fed.

Unconditioned Stimulus -  UCS – automatically triggers response  

Unconditioned Response – UCR – unlearned response to US 

Conditioned Stimulus – CS – previously neutral stimulus that becomes associated with US triggering CR 

Conditioned Response – CR -  learned response to previously neutral stimulus 

Acquisition – linking neutral stimulus with US; eventually becomes CS

Forward conditioning – fastest learning – cs presented before US 

Backward conditioning – slower learning – US presented before CS 

single-trial learning –only takes one pairing ; ex is taste adversion

Extinction – CR decreases/ disappears when CS no loneger pairs w US 

Spontaneous Recovery – reappearance of CR after a pause following extinction 

Stimulus Discrimination –  differentiate between CS and other stimuli not paired w US

Stimulus Generalization – stimuli similar to Cs can provoke CR   

Habituation – decrease in responsiveness after repeated presentation of stimulus  

Higher-order, AKA second-order conditioning –  pairing a new neutral stimulus with conditioned stimulus

operant  - any active behaviour that operates on environment to generate consequences 

law of effect –  behaviors followed by consequence we want likely to be repeated 

Reinforcement -  any consequence that increases likelihood behavior will be repeated 

Positive reinforcement – adding something they want after behavior 

Negative reinforcement –  removing something they don’t want after behavior 

Punishment – any conseuqence that decreases frequency or behavior

Positive punishment – adding something thyey don’t want to decrease behavior

Negative punishment – taking away something they like to decrease behavior 

Physical punishment also has some notable drawbacks. Changes are temporary 

Primary reinforcers  - stimulus that motivates behavior through basic needs 

Secondary (AKA Conditioned) reinforcers – stimlus that gains its reinforcing power through association with primary 

Immediate reinforcers – occur immediatle after beh 

Delayed reinforcers – has a delay  

A reinforcement schedule -  rule stating which instances of a beh will be reinforced 

Continuous Reinforcement  - desired behav is reinforced every single time it occurs 

Partial Reinforcement – response only part of the time

Fixed –  predicatble 

Variable – unvariable 

Ratio – number of beh 

Interval – amount of time 

Fixed-ratio schedules -  reinforcement schedule where a reward is given after specific set of responses are made 

Variable-ratio schedules – partial schedule of reinforcement in which a response is reinforced after an unpredictable number of responses 

 Fixed-interval schedules – a set amount of time between rewards or other occurrences 

Variable-interval schedules –  Behavior reinforced after an unpredictable amount of time has passed 

models – demonstrate or explain beh

A live model – individual demonstrating or acting out a beh 

A verbal model – descriptions / explanations of beh

A symbolic model – real or fictional characters displaying behs in books, films, television programs, or online media 

Latent learning –  not reflected in immediate beh change