MCAT Psychology and Sociology (copy)
Class 1 - 01/06/2024:
Micro-level sociology: a level of sociology that looks from a bottom-up view - from one-to-one interactions to the smaller blocks of society
Macro-level sociology: a level of sociology that looks at society top-down - from looking at society as a whole to the larger-scale social structures
Functionalism: the idea of society functioning as a living organism - macro-level - individual parts work together as a whole ex. government as systems, organs as the states and local departments, and cells as the government workers.
Emile Durkheim: founder of sociology #1 and added on to functionalism
Manifest functions: the intended and main point of the job/reason to do what you do
Latent functions: the side-effects or extra things that are not seen as main but come with the manifest function
Dynamic equilibrium: homeostasis on a functional level in society - everyone works as a whole to keep society running
Common Consciousness: the idea that people who live in the same society have the same ideals and beliefs and need for stability
Anomie: societal dysfunctions when some people from smaller groups of a society do not have the same common consciousness as the larger groups - different ideals of the two
Flaws of Functionalism: ignores inequalities and oppression while being overly optimistic about society - can’t account for social conflict, extreme politics, or social changes
Conflict theory: society is a competition for power, money, and wealth - groups compete for this power and society is the resource - macro-level
Karl Marx: founder of sociology #2 and laid the foundation for conflict theory - ideas of capitalism
Wealth - power - prestige in Class struggle: the imbalance between those who control production(factory owners) and those who provide labour and production(factory workers)
Class Consciousness: members of a lower social class are aware of the exploitation happening to them as a group
False consciousness: lack of awareness of the exploitation happening to the group, only as individuals
Flaws of Conflict Theory: not all individual problems are a group problem, some societies live in democracies, ignore personal issues on a micro-scale, too focused on economics
Max Weber: founder #3 of sociology and was a conflict theorist but disagreed with Marx - said conflict comes from more than just money
Rationalism: increasing rules to increase more effective ways of how a society works
Bureaucracies: those who create the rules and enforce them - administer the laws of society
Symbolic Interactionism: people act towards things based on meaning - 1-1 interactions, micro-level - any social thing that provides meaning ex. language, symbols, writing, etc.
George Herbert Mead: brought the idea of a generalized attitude of a large group - me vs I - founder of social psychology
Looking glass-self: the self is made from the interaction and perception of others - 3 stages:
Imagine how we appear to others
Imagine how we appear to others based on their observations of us
we develop feelings about ourselves based on the imagined judgement of others
Generalized other: the idea of “what would others think” - an idea of a group of people
“I” vs “Me”: me = object pronoun and I = subject pronoun; I develop first due to being group-oriented and I arise after when you develop internally. Thinking is a conflict between Me and I.
Social constructionism: Reality is not inherent but socially constructed - can be both micro or macro level - social constructionists say that everything in the world is made from societies
Social Construct: anything that appears natural but people accept it as an invention by society ex. childhood(can vary different from different societies)
Socialization, values and norms: socialization leads to the process of how people internalize values, norms, and beliefs of their society to learn how to function along with the society ex. gender roles
Feminist theory: treatment of women vs. men - equal rights movements - 3 waves
First-wave feminism: 1900s, focused on the right to vote, own property, wages
Second-wave feminism: 1960-70s, focused on gender equality, equal pay, sexual de-stigmatization
Third-wave feminism: 1980s, focus on intersectionality, how different social identities like gender and race interact
intersectionality: how different social identities interact
Glass escalator/glass ceiling theory: The glass escalator is how men usually get faster into jobs and higher positions than women. The Glass ceiling is a metaphor that there is an invisible ceiling that prevents certain people from rising above a level
Rational choice theory: goals are chosen rationally by seeing both the costs and benefits to make decisions - the goal is to maximize benefits - can be micro or macro
Exchange theory: individuals respond to rewards and punishments and the goal is to maximize rewards - can be micro or macro
Exchange-rational theory: the combination of the two theories
Class 2 - 15/06/24:
Research methods: Valid conclusions from the experiment, study design, flaws in design, making predictions, IV and DV, correlations
Two types of Study designs:
Experimental: manipulates variables and looks at cause and effect; has a population from which a group of participants is taken and has variables(IV and DV), random sampling, random assignment, measurements, and tests the hypothesis
Non-experimental: Variables are not directly manipulated - cannot infer cause or effect but may look at correlation
Between Subjects vs. within subjects: between is comparing from different people while within is comparing results from the same people
Quantitative: numerical statistical analysis
Qualitative: descriptive; describing what was done or how a participant reacted
Mixed methods: using two or more methods, including qualitative and quantitative measures
Repeated measure: taking identical measurements at different times → must be at the same time, preferably by the same researcher so it doesn’t affect the research
Quasi-experimental method: quasi → partial, almost, researchers do manipulate the IVs but there is no control group → looks at the same group but at different times
Comparative methods: can be quasi, but non-experimental → use multiple pre-existing groups and compare them to each other(no control group)
Looking for flaws in design: how could the study be improved? The best way is to look at the design type, the weaknesses and strengths of that type
Internal validity: does the study measure what it says it measures?
Common threats to internal validity:
Impression management: participants adapt their responses based on social norms → they know that the researcher is testing them and behave in the way they think the researcher wants them to
The best way to counter this is using double-blind
Confounding variables: Extraneous variables not accounted for in the study
Lack of reliability: measurement tools do not measure what they should, or lack consistency
Sampling bias: bias to whom is picked to participate; not a valid look at the population
Attrition effects: participant fatigue, drop-outs
External validity: can the study be applied to the real world, the general population
Threats to external validity:
Experiment doesn’t reflect the real world: lack of generalizability
Selection criteria: too restrictive criteria of participants(sample is not representative)
Situational effects: the presence of laboratory conditions, the researcher in the room, affects the outcome of the study
Lack of statistical power: sample groups are highly variable
Validity: does it measure what it claims to measure
Reliability: is the research consistent and will the results be the same when performed again? Commonly used instruments are highly reliable
Social institutions: a set form that governs people's behaviour by setting values, norms, and values for them in an organized manner.
Stability helps fight against anomie
Education: if everyone is equally educated, then their opportunities for socioeconomic success are equal → not true everywhere
Ways that education supports equality: more education less inequality, more pay equality
Ways education supports inequality:
Hidden curriculum: unintentional lessons about norms, values, beliefs
Teacher expectancy: students want to match what the teacher expects of them
Educational segregation a gap between children of high-income families vs low-income families and the level of education they receive differs
Educational stratification: separation of students based on their level of success
Family: relates individuals by a socially defined set of relationships, like birth, marriage, and adoption → most families strive to do five things which are reproduction, protection, socialization, affection, and social status; follows functionalism
Religion: involves beliefs and practices related to the sacred
Government: makes and. enforces rules and regulates relations with other societies - economy depends on the production, and distribution of goods and services
The iron law of Oligarchy: all forms of organization develop oligarchic ways → rule by a small group ex. government
Weber’s “Rational”: rules keep increasing, and so more bureaucracy to enforce them
Weber’s ideal bureaucracy is one with a hierarchal structure, division of labour, written rules and expectations, officials hired based on performance, impersonality
McDonaldization: principles of the ideal bureaucracy applied to the private sector of society ex. everything is standardized, predictable, quantified, total control, replaced by tech, etc.
Medicalization: is the process through which human conditions are defined and treated as medical conditions; mental health, ADHA, depression, and pregnancy outlooks have all changed through the years
Process of medicalization: new information and discoveries, changing social attitudes, development of new medications and treatments
Sick Role: those who are ill have rights and obligations to perform
Availability vs. Accessibility: is the resource available? Can you get or have support to obtain the resource?
Institutional discrimination: When a social structure engages in discriminatory practices against a group/individual
Social epidemiology: study of social determinants of health and use of social concepts to explain patterns in health
Social condition: social determinants of health ex. availability, access, etc
Social isolation: the near-complete lack of contact with others in society
Socioeconomic gradient in health: there exists a proportional increase in health and health outcomes as status increases
Demographics: Major factors are age, immigration status, gender, and race
Two main types of demographics: Malthusian and transition model:
Malthusian: unchecked population growth would excess quickly lead to overpopulation and catastrophes
Demographic transition theory: societies transit from high birth and death rates to low birth and death rates
3 stages, pre-industrial, industrial, post-industrial
Race: dividing people by physical characteristics
Ethnicity: a population group whose members identify with each other on the basis of culture and shared traditions
Socioeconomic status: the standing or class of an individual or group - measured by education, income, and occupation. SES can affect segregation types ex. residential, environmental, food deserts, social
SES three variables: Power, Poverty, Prestige
Social stratification: the idea that some things don’t change based on the family you are born to. very poor may remain very poor, and very rich will remain rich
Caste system: based on status by birth - lower is worse
Class system: status by birth and merit
Meritocracy: higher ability to move up, depends more on effort
Social mobility: determined by your physical capital, social capital, and cultural capital
Social interaction: defined position in society
Master status: dominates
Ascribed status: assigned to you by society regardless of your efforts
Achieved statues: one that you have earned
Role conflict: conflict in multiple roles with different expectations
Role strain: when there is tension in the expectations of a single role
Role exit: transition from one role to the next
Primary group: who you are close to; usually small
Secondary group: the goal-oriented type; usually bigger
In-group: who you belong to
Out-group: who you don’t identify with
Reference group: who a group compares themselves to
Class 3 - 22/06/24:
Identity, Social influences, Attribution, Persuasion, Attachment styles
Identity: self-presentation → we manage our own image by influencing the perceptions of others - we imagine ourselves playing certain roles (front stage self and backstage self)
Self-concept = self-identity → all the beliefs about who you are as an individual
Self-schemas: beliefs and ideas about yourself
Self-efficiency: how good you think you are at doing something → can vary from task to task
Locus of control: whether you think you have control over what happens to you → internal(you have control) and external(you don’t have control)
Aversive control: occurs when behaviour is motivated by reality or a threat
Escape behaviour = termination of an unpleasant stimulus that has already happened ex. running away, changing your behaviours
Avoidance Behaviour = avoiding behaviour that hasn’t happened yet ex. avoiding relationships, job opportunities
Social Learning Theory: learning takes place in social contexts and can occur purely through observation → learn by seeing, looking at others
Social Comparison Theory: shaping our identities by comparing to others
Perspective Taking: the ability to understand the cognitive and affective perspectives of other people → Understanding others
Moral Identity: the degree to which being a moral person is important to a person’s identity
Social facilitation/inhibition effect: either to improve well-ingrained tasks by performance or to worsen the performance of complex tasks
Deindividuation: where there is a high degree of arousal and a low degree of personal responsibility, we may lose our identity and follow the group
Bystander effect: people are less likely to help someone when other people are present
Fewer people will act or take responsibility as a group
Social Loafing: when people work in a group, each person is less likely to exert much effort than if they were to work alone
Peer pressure: refers to when individuals feel directly or indirectly pressured to change their behaviours for others
Groupthink: leads to dysfunctional thinking → when a group reaches consensus without thinking rationally
occurs when the group is overly optimistic and others feel pressured to agree with everyone
Group polarization: When group agreement leads to the view of members moving toward one end → they become more extreme in agreement than they were before
Conformity: when individuals adjust their thinking based on others’ thinking/behaviour
Obedience: when individuals are forced to yield to others’ orders
Attribution theory: we attribute behaviours by disposition(internal causes) or situational(external causes)
Fundamental attribution theory: behaviour to personality
Actor-observer bias: our own action to the situation
Self-serving bias: our successes to ourselves, but our failures to others
Optimism Bias: when we believe that bad things happen to others, but not to ourselves
Just-world belief: when we believe that bad things happen to others because of their actions
Self-fulfilling prophecy: when an individual does something unknowingly but expects it to happen
Stereotypes: beliefs that are held about a person/group
Stereotype threat: when people are at risk for conforming to a negative stereotype
Negative stereotypes: when the group becomes anxious about their performance/actions and can hinder their performance overall
Positive stereotypes: also stereotypes boost, which causes a group to better their performance than they otherwise would have
Persuasion: a powerful way to influence what others think and do
message, source, and target
Elaboration likelihood: proposes two cognitive routes of persuasion
central route = people are persuaded by the content of the argument → this change has a more lasting effect
peripheral route = people focus on the secondary characteristics → this change is more temporary and susceptible to fading
Compliance: foot-in-the-door, door-in-face, low-ball, integration techniques
foot-in-door → small request to eventually bigger requests → more likely to comply for big ones after
door-in-face: large first, then smaller requests
low-ball: getting someone to agree to something at a low cost and then increasing the cost later
Integration technique: gaining personal approval before listing the costs
Attachment styles:
Secure: the child is happy to explore around the mother, cries when she leaves, but is consoled quickly when she comes back
Insecure: insensitive and unresponsive to caregivers
Ambivalent: when the mother leaves, they cry, but when she is back, they are not consoled quickly - the toddler may be inconsolable
Avoidant attachment: toddler demonstrates indifference to when the mother leaves and unchanged when she returns → toddler is under stress
Disorganized: toddler cannot predict the mother’s behaviour - signs of abuse, fright, neglect
Class 4 - 29/06/24:
Personality, Motivation, Emotion, Stress
OCEAN:
Openness - high = embraces new experience - low = doesn’t like change
Conscientiousness - high = values order/competence, manages time well - low= disorganized, irresponsible
Extraversion - high = outgoing, social - low = introverted
Agreeableness - high = think of others and not selfish - low = high-maintenance, lack of empathy
Neurotism - high = high levels of negativity, impulsive - low = more positive, copes well
Personality = way of thinking, beliefs, thoughts - who we consider ourselves to be
Life-course perspective = early stages of life can influence outcomes during our later life
Psychoanalytic perspective = personality largely shaped by our unconscious - often stemming from childhood - Freud
human behaviour motivated by libido(life drives, avoid pain) and death drive(hurt self or others)
Id, Ego, Super Ego → The Id is selfish, the Superego is very moral, and the Ego is the middle
Freud’s Psychosexual Stages: OAPLG
Stage | Tasks | Resolution | Future errors |
Oral - 0-1 | Mouth(sucking, weaning, eating) | Weaning | oral aggression or overeating |
Anal - 1-3 | Anus(bowel and bladder) | Toilet Training | organized or not |
Phallic - 3-6 | Genitals(Oedipus(m) or Electra(f)) | gender identification | difficulty with relations |
Latency - 6-12 | Sexual feeling dormant | social interaction | arrested development |
Genital - 12+ | Reproduction and pleasure | Intimate relations | intimacy issues |
Erik Erikson - continued Frued’s ideas → 3 other points after his first 5 stages
Erikson’s psychosocial stages of development:
Mnemonic: MSG In Rice Is So Delicious
Trust vs mistrust | infancy | Trust=needs met mistrust=needs not met |
Autonomy vs shame | Early child | Autonomy= learns self-control shame=dependant on others |
Initiative vs guilt | Preschool | initiative=achieve purpose Guilt= don’t achieve purpose |
Industry vs inferiority | School-age | Industry = gain competence Inferiority = incompetent feelings |
Identity vs role confusion | Adolescence | Identity = learning a sense of self RC = lack identity |
intimacy vs isolation | YA | Intimacy = mature relations Isolation = can’t be social |
Generativity vs stagnation | Middle | Generativity = contribute to society Stagnation = feeling life is meaningless |
Integrity vs despair | Older | Integrity = wisdom Despair = feeling unaccomplished |
Behaviourist Perspective: BF Skinner → Learned behaviours make up our personality - only the observable and measurable behaviours - blank slates
Humanist Personality: Carl Rogers → Humans are driven by their highest potential, and personality conflicts come to be when we are averted from this potential → Healthy self-concept → needs unconditional + regard, empathy, self-identity
Social Cognitive Personality: Albert Bandura → idea that personality is made from behaviours, cognition, and environment → not only conditioning but observational learning and self-efficacy
Observational learning = Social learning → imitate others(social cognition theory by Bandura) - children also imitate learning they are rewarded for → Bobo doll experiment
Trait Personality - Personality is a result of traits, which are habitual patterns of behaviour, thought, and emotion that become stable over time
Cardinal traits = develop later in life
Central traits = form the basic foundations of personality and are different across situations ex. OCEAN
Secondary traits = related to attitudes, or preferences. Dependant on situation
Biological Perspective = differences in the brain
The amygdala is larger, then more neuroticism
pre-frontal damage leads to a lack of morality
Behavioural Genetics:
Nature vs Nurture → Nature is biology while nurture is the environment
Shared Environment → siblings share similar environments
Non-Shared Environment → unique to one
Heritability → how much variation is caused by genes
Family studies = look at multiple generations of a family to see if a trait is passed on or by environment - can’t test for heritability
Twin Studies = identical twins share 100% DNA, while fraternal twins share 50%, so identical should be more similar
Adoption studies = siblings reared in the same family should be more alike than adopted siblings in another family
Therapeutic methods:
Psychoanalytic → psychodynamic psychotherapy - bring out of the unconscious
Humanistic → Client-centered therapy - positive regard
Behavioural → behavioural therapy - reinforces better behaviours
Social cognitive → CBT - reinforce better thoughts and provide better models
Motivation = the driving force that causes us to do what we do
instincts = unlearned
drives = physical urges, like hunger
needs = higher-level, like love
Arousal = when needs are met, motivate behaviours, ex. desert
Drive-Reduction Theory: need becomes aroused, need to reduce arousal - negative feedback
ex. hunger → stomach pains → eat → stop eating till full → hunger gone
Maslow pyramid - human behaviour as a hierarchy of needs - some needs are higher priority than others and must be met to move up
(bottom)Physiological → Safety → Love and Belonging → Esteem - Self-Actualization(top)
Emotion: 3 parts to it
Physiological - arousal and excitation like HR, hormones, breath
Cognitive - interpretation of the situation
Behavioural - behaviour that expresses the emotion like body language, facial expression, cry/laugh
Theories of Emotion:
James-Lange: Stimulus → Physiological response → emotion
Cannon-Bard: stimulus → physiological and emotional at the same time
Schachter-Singer: Stimulus →physio → Cogitive interpret → emotion
need context at the time of stimulus
Optimal Arousal Theory - Yerkes-Dodson
There is a level of arousal for every performance - no stress, low performance →
Simple tasks = high arousal and strong performance as you get used to it
Hard Task = divided attention, impairs, high arousal but weak performance the higher the arousal
Universal Emotions - expressed by: Happiness, sad, fear, disgust, anger, surprise
Stress = things that pose a threat to our physical and mental well-being
Daily Hassles ex. traffic
Ambient stress = environment ex. social media
Significant life changes ex. pleasure like birth or marriage and unpleasant like death or job loss
Catastrophes ex. unpredictable large-scale events like war, natural disasters
HPA(hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal) Axis stress response:
Flight or Fight or freeze response
Scary or stressful
Environment triggers the hypothalamus to secrete CRH and acts on the anterior pituitary to secrete ACTH which acts on adrenal glands to release cortisol
Cortisol increases BP, and blood glucose(gluconeogenesis), reroutes blood from away digestion and towards limbs and head, and acts back on the hypothalamus and pituitary to stop production of CRH/ACTH → (-) feedback
Adrenal Medullary axis → ACTH also stimulates the adrenal into blood - increases HR, muscle tension
Cortisol should only be elevated in the blood for sometimes
Cognitive appraisal can affect stress
Primary response can be good, positive
Secondary is the personal view - can I cope? Can I deal with the situation?
What affects this is self-efficacy → if low self-efficacy, stress will impact more negatively
Social Support - Impacts the stress on the self - types of support, for example, emotional, tangible(material things for someone, ex. cooking), informational, companionable.
Two Models of Social Support =
Buffering Hypothesis = Social support is the protective layer between us and the stress
Direct effects = being social provides better health and increases oxytocin which counteracts stress cortisol and betters our overall health
General Adaptation Syndrome = when you have chronic Stress(Hans Selye)
When the HPA axis becomes a positive feedback loop - stress resistance = amount of cortisol needs to be in the blood to respond to the stress → alarm(hypervigilant after the stressor, not recovered yet, so dip in resistance), too much stress leads to resistance to cortisol as quickly as before(need more cortisol, more and more; chronic blood glucose, muscle tension, body in stress), exhaustion leads HPA axis collapse and body stops responding to stress(stress burnout) - very dangerous and can take years to recover like autoimmune disease and lots of inflammation
Cognitive Dissonance = feelings of tension(dissonance)when we hold two thoughts or beliefs(cognition) that are incompatible
ex. need a nap but also need to study but can’t study well because the brain is too tired → uncomfortable feeling → activates anterior cingulate cortex in a bad way → we change the way we think rather than our behaviour
Class 5 - 13/07/24:
Mental disorder: psychological symptoms not kept with norms
they are diagnosable and treatable
When is a behaviour disordered?
Biomedical approach: illness that is caused by something in the biopathology and can be treated biomedically
biological: genes, hormones, drugs, physical environment
sociocultural: status, the definition of unusual behaviour, stress, drugs, abuse, discrimination, norms, expectations
psychological: trauma, abuse, fears, beliefs, self-efficacy,
The biopsychosocial approach is preferred over the biomedical locus of control
Use of the DSM-5 - not universal - better used for research
not everything is covered in the test on the DCM
Anxiety: excessive fear, avoidance behaviours, the sympathetic nervous system is activated in the absence of the trigger
Phobias: very specific fear - situational, environment
experienced at a young age
Panic disorder: panic attacks, fear of it, and avoiding situations where they occur
Social anxiety
Generalized anxiety
Depressive disorder: sad, empty, or irritable - not related to normal grief
affective disorder - mood/emotional
Major Depressive disorder
Monoamine hypothesis: serotonin and norepinephrine are used to treat - the depletion of serotonin, norepinephrine, and dopamine
Bipolar: affective disorder
bridge between psychotic and depressive disorder
Episodic - comes and goes
Depressive phase: low energy, low self-esteem, lack of concentration, loss of interest, helplessness, suicidal thoughts - irritable
Manic phase: high energy, high self-esteem, racing thoughts, quick talking, impulsive, irritable - overstimulated and emotionally reactive
Can become psychotic if very severe
Bipolar has two poles
Bipolar 1: more severe mania
Bipolar 2: less severe mania, more prone to depression
Cyclothymic disorder: periods of the same mood over time(2 months) - least severe mania
Schizophrenia: inability to distinguish reality from unreality
Hallucination: false sensory perception - hearing voices, seeing things
Delusion: a false belief that(usual shared by others)
Disorganized speech, thoughts, behaviour
Negative symptoms
Detachment from objective reality
Onset of psychotic symptoms usually in young adulthood - women later onset than men
Most psychotic disorders are episodic - episodes last months at a time
Positive symptoms: not seen in healthy people - hallucinations, delusions, disorganized speech
Negative symptoms: disruption to normal emotions, behaviours - avolition - loss of motivation, reduced mood, emotion, speech → blank
Cognitive symptoms: thought patterns that make it hard to lead a normal life and cause emotional distress - poor executive function, trouble with working memory
Schizophrenia causes: excess dopamine, enlarged brain ventricles- low overall brain volume
PTSD: trauma and stressor-related
exposure to trauma or stressful event - tend to not self-heal or go away
Personality disorders:
patterns of inflexible behaviours across a range of settings/ relationships - socially unacceptable
diagnosis begins in adolescence or early adulthood (never in children)- high comorbidity
Cluster A: odd and eccentric - paranoid-schizoid and schizotypal
Paranoid - paranoia
Schizoid - manifests social withdrawal
Schizotypal - manifests odd behaviour and distorted thinking
Cluster B: dramatic and erratic - antisocial, borderline, histrionic, and narcissistic
Antisocial - sociopathy, no regard for others right or wrong
Borderline - severe abandonment anxiety and emotional turbulence
Histrionic - overdramatic attention-seeking and emotional overreaction
Narcissitcic - inflated sense of self and lack of empathy
Cluster C: anxious/fearful - avoidant, dependant, obsessive
Avoidant - extreme shyness and fear of rejection
Dependant - over-dependence on others to meet needs
Obsessive-compulsive presents rigid concern with order and perfection
OCD: obsessions(thoughts/urges) and behaviours(repetitive)
Obsession = unwanted, intrusive
Compulsions: ritualized behaviours, repetitive
people with OCD are aware of their behaviours/thoughts and feel ashamed of it
body dysmorphic disorder, hoarding, trichotillomania, dermatillomania
Illness Anxiety: excessive or medically unexplainable symptoms - somatic - from the body → physical symptoms
Somatic disorder
Illness anxiety
Factitious disorder
Dissociative Identity Disorder
two or more parts of yourself are not communicating - separation of parts of the mind
abnormal integration of consciousness, identity, emotion
DID - dissociative identity disorder
dissociative amnesia - forgetting a certain incidence or time of your life -> don’t remember what happened or forget who you are for some time
depersonalization/derealization disorder
the idea that you are out of your body, the world isn’t real, you don’t feel real
Neurodevelopmental disorders:
Usually early in developmental - early on - usually before grade school and appear as deficits
Usually intellectual disability
Autism Spectrum
ADHD - unknown causes - affects 2-4% of school-aged children - motor restlessness, difficulty paying attention, distractability, impulsivity
other: intellectual disability, tourettes syndrome
Autism: range of neurodevelopmental disorders - social impairments, communication difficulties, restricted and repetitive patterns of behaviour
Avoided eye contact and may lack empathy
Movements like rocking and twirling
Inability to interact well with other children
1/88 children around age 8 have ASD and males are 4x more likely
Neurocognitive disorders:
Cognitive decline and symptoms may interfere with everyday tasks
Alzheimer’s - destruction and death of nerve cells lead to memory failure and personality changes - problems carrying out daily activities
Amyloid plaques - clumps of protein fragments that accumulate outside of the cells
Neurofibrillary tangles - clumps of altered proteins inside the cells
Parkinson’s - the formation of Lewy bodies and low dopamine levels
In the Substania nigra - dopaminergic neurons die off making it harder to control movements
Proteins clumped together called Lewy Bodies
Traumatic Brain Injury
Huntington’s disease - lack of coordination and unsteady gait; mostly inherited
Sleep-wake disorders: disturbance of sleep, quality, timing, amount of sleep
Insomnia
Narcolepsy - too much sleep
Sleep apnea
Somnambulism = sleep-walking
Night-terrors
Substance-related/Addictions:
Depressants = alcohol, opiates
Stimulants = caffeine, nicotine, cocaine
Hallucinogens = LSD, Marijuana
Stages of Drug use = Dependence, tolerance, withdrawal, addiction
Class 6 - 03/08/24:
Memory + learning
Limbic System
Visual Sensory Perception
Neuroscience: allows us to measure the function and structure of the brain
Changes in synaptic connections - Neural plasticity and Long-term potentiation
Structural Techniques - MRI, CT
Functional Techniques - PET, fMRI, EEG
Memory = encoding → storage → retrieval
Multistore model: sensory to STM to LTM
MCAT states STM = working memory
Central Executive - Baddeley’s Model of Working Memory → responsible for the coordination of sub-systems shifting between tasks and selective attention
Phonological loop - STM auditory store → semantic verbal memory
Visuospatial Sketchpad - visual memory(mind’s eye) → semantic visual memory
Episodic buffer - STM connection to LTM(previous experiences used) → episodic memory(time based) operates less under conscious control
Encoding: storing information in an easier way to store information; semantic(meaning), acoustic(sound), visual(images), elaborative(previous LTM)
Sensory memory: lasts less than 1 second
STM: lasts 15-30 seconds, rehearsal buffer 7±2 → use of phonological loop
LTM: permanent storage; unknown limit; encoding is primarily semantic(meaning-making)
can’t remember non-sense and illogical information - needs to have some type of order
LTM Explicit and Implicit memory:
Explicit = declarative memory → can be recalled and teach someone → cortical storage
Episodic memory(self) and semantic memory(facts)
Implicit = no conscious recall(becomes innate) → stored in the cerebellum
Procedural
Classical conditioning
Priming
Semantic Networks: some connections are stronger than others connections → The more connections, the stronger and easier it is to remember them
ex. one node connects to the others
connected by meaning
Retrieval cue - any stimulus that assists in memory retrieval → priming: exposure to one stimulus influences teh response to another stimulus → positive and negative priming
Context-dependant memory: better at retrieving information in the same environment
State-dependant memory: better at remembering things we have already experienced ex. pain
Retrieval: finding info stored in memory
Free recall: open-ended, ex. sort answer, in your opinion
Cued recall: a hint given and you need to come up with the rest on your own ex. fill-in-the-blanks
Recognition: match a piece of info to something you already know ex. T/F, MCQ → MCAT!
Relearning: if you learn something and forget it, then learn it again later, it may seem easier or faster the second time → There may be some traces of pathways in the brain that have not disappeared yet; easier to rebuild the pathways than make a new one
Types of Memory:
Flashbulb - great deal remembered during high emotional times - very vivid and inaccurate ex. during 9/11
Photographic memory(eidetic): STM
Reproductive memory: accurate retrieval without significant altercation
Prospective memory: happens to do with the future
Dual coding theory: use of words with visuals, better remembered than on their own
Levels of processing models: focus on depth of processing and predict deeper info
Reminiscence bump: 10-30-year-old period memory best → after that life gets boring, don’t remember much
Practice effects: improvement of scores when doing the same test multiple times → Practice will help increase the score over time
Method of Loci: mind palace; storing information in a place
Peg Words: help connect numbers to words to remember them
Intrusion error: substitution of words during free recall → vaguely close to the actual word
Reconstruction process: hippocampus makes updates over time to LTM - mush of multiple memories together the more we think about them
Displacement: in STM, most people can remember 7 ± 2 items
Sensory memory → decays(disappears)
STM → can decay, intrusion errors, displacement
LTM → decay, interference, retrieval failure(ex. tip of tongue, temporary), Intrusion errors
Interference: when other materials make it difficult to retrieve information
Proactive interference: prior learning interferes with new learning → more time goes by between two leanings, more interference for new things ex. learning chem only then doing psy, chem interferes with psy → need to do both equally
Retroactive interference: recent learning interferes with old learning
Memory and cognition and aging: normal aging = no neurocognitive disorders
Semantic memory improves up to 60
Emotional intelligence improves
Stable = implicit memory, semantic retrieval
Decline with age = episodic, source memory, divided attention, working memory, processing speed
Memory errors:
Source monitoring errors → origin of info misidentified
False memories → An episodic memory that never happened
Misinformation effect → episodic memory becomes less accurate post-event
Anterograde amnesia → can’t create new memories but remember old ones
Retrograde amnesia → Loss of previous/old memory
Korsakoff’s syndrome: really drastic alcohol use/withdrawal → The person seems to have Alzheimer’s but in younger people
Dissociative amnesia → both of both anterograde and retrograde
Non-associative Learning: when an organism changes its response to a stimulus
Habituation: become accustomed to stimulus
Dishabituation: lose the habituation - notice it again
Sensitization: becoming more sensitive to the stimulus - can’t tune it out
Classical Conditioning - associative learning: two stimuli paired so that one thing is present, it will give a response if they were both there - Pavolv’s dog’s
Strength of the condition increases as you increase the stimulus pairing
Stop of pairing = extinction, unlearning of pairing
Rest phase to spontaneous recovery - small response but leads to a second extinction
Generalization: other stimuli can condition a response ex. school bell for dogs
Discrimination: when only the associated conditioned stimulus produces a response
Taste aversion
Operant Conditioning: in which reinforcement of an award and punishments are used to mold a response
BF Skinner → believed that psychology was only things that were observable → behaviourist
Reinforcement: anything that increases the likelihood of the desired behaviour
Punishment: anything that decreases the likelihood of the undesired behaviour
Learning: The dopamine reward pathway:
reward begins in the ventral tegmental area(VTA) and connects to the nucleus accumbens
leads to dopamine release
Primary reinforcer/punisher: change the rate of response with previous learning → innate, doesn’t need to be learned
ex. Reinforcement = food, treats. Punisher = pain, confinement
Secondary reinforcer/punisher: stimuli that are learned to be rewarding or punishing → need to be learned
ex. Reinforcement = money, good grades. Punisher = failure, shame, losing money
Token Economy: behaviours reinforced with secondary reinforcers and can be exchanged for desirable stimuli
Ex. world economy = work → earn money → use money for stuff
Reinforcement schedules:
Variable ratio = reinforcement after an unpredictable number of behaviours ex. gambling → Rewards are addictive, you don’t know when the next reward can come
Slowest rate of extinction
Fixed ratio = reinforcement after a set number of behaviours → you know when the reward is coming ex. free coffee after buying 5
Variable interval = provided reinforcement after a period of time that’s not set → reward comes with time but you don’t know when it will come; you need to wait
Fixed interval = reinforcement after a set amount of time → a paycheck, comes after a set time
lowest engagement for the reward since you know it will come after some time
Acquisition: the process at which the rate of reinforced response increases
Extinction: the decrease of the rate of their reinforced response until it ceases
Biological predispositions: it is much easier to shape an organism to what it has evolved and been used to. ex. a bird to peak something than life it up
Instinctive drift: the tendency of some behaviours to trigger similar instincts ex. telling a dog to pick up a stuffed bear but it shakes its head with it(the instinct to kill prey)
Observational Learning:
Mirror neurons: when we observe others, many neurons will fire in a similar pattern → Our brains mimic other neurons firing ex. monkey see, monkey do
Vicarious emotions: mirror neurons activated when we feel teh emotional responses of others
Insight Learning: a process of a solution comes suddenly
Latent Learning: learning comes without any immediate expression or reinforcement → the subconscious reinforcement of motivation, but will demonstrate that learning at another time without being pressured to
Class 7 - 10/08/24:
Behaviour, Sensation and Perception, Attention, Cognition, and Language
Sensation and Perception: connected but separate phenomena
Sensation is the encoding of the physical environment(taking in the stimuli) and perception is the decoding of sensations into things we can actually understand(select, organize, interpret)
Psychophysics: the study of how physical stimuli are translated into a physiological experience
Types of stimuli: Visual, Sound/Hearing, Taste, Touch, Smell, Movement/Vibrations → Chemicals(smell and taste), light(specific electromagnetic wavelengths), air pressure waves, mechanical pressure, temperature
Visual Stimuli is processed by the eyes and the back of the brain → processing pathways
Left side of each retina and right side of each retina to the optic nerve to the optic chiasm(dividing point) → right visual field sides go to left(together again) and the left visual fields go to the right side → optic nerve become optic tract(inside to connect the CNS) which filters visual information →lateral geniculate nucleus in the thalamus → lead to the primary visual cortex
Only smell and taste not contralaterally processed(and only smell not filtered by thalamus)
Agnosia: Inability to process sensory information → organ works fine but the brain doesn’t process it
Visual agnosia - inability to identify faces or objects
ex. prosopagnosia
Speech Agnosia - inability to understand spoken words but can read them
Lobes and their processes: whole brain stores LTM
Frontal: concentration and problem-solving, voluntary movement, personality, language production, speech, smell, emotion
Temporal: hearing, face recognition, language comprehension, STM, memory consolidation and moving memory to LTM, smell
Parietal: touch and pressure, taste, body awareness
Occipital: visual processing
Cerebellum: movement, balance, coordination, motor memory, body awareness
Kinesthesis: allows us to sense the position of our limbs in space as well as detect bodily movements(balance/orientation) → Somatosensation is our external sense
Mechanoreceptors → help us detect pressure or distortion(both in proprio and somato but different)
Proprioceptors respond to physical disturbances in the body → inside:
muscles spindles detect muscle stretch
Golgi's tendons detect tension in tendons
Joint capsule receptors detect pressure and tension in the joints
These work together to monitor musculoskeletal activity
Thermoreceptors → detect temperature changes
Brain Lateralization: Left is more analytical and rational with thought and the right is more artistic and imaginative
Corpus callosum → joins the two sides
Absolute threshold: varies person by person → The minimum amount of a single stimulus that can be detected 50% of the time
Difference threshold: the minimum difference that must occur between two stimuli for them to be perceived as different(just a noticeable difference)
Weber’s Law: the size of the just noticeable difference is a constant proportion of the original stimulus value ex. light intensity → Different tasks and stimuli have different thresholds
Single detection theory: a method for quantifying a person’s ability to detect a given stimulus amidst other stimuli(noise)
Response Absent
Response present
Stimulus present
Hit
Miss(Type 2 → false -)
Stimulus Absent
False error(type 1 → false +)
Correct Rejection
Receiver Operating Characteristic(ROC) curve:
tracks the hit rate vs the false alarm rate in order to represent a receiver's (the person’s) accuracy on a given task
Receptors: four stimulus properties need to be sent to teh CNS
Modality: type of stimulus detected
Location: the receptive field of the stimulus
Intensity: how strong the stimulus is
Duration: how long the stimulus is present
Tonic receptors: generate action potentials as long as the stimulus is present
Phasic receptors: fire only when the stimulus begins - these communicate changes in stimuli
Feature detection theory: certain parts of the brain are activated for specific visual stimuli
respond to certain features of visual stimuli ex. shape, motion, angle
Parallel processing: many aspects of visual stimuli are processed simultaneously rather than as a step-by-step process → we can work the specific details of something and create an abstract idea of it simultaneously
Stages of Perception:
Stimulus → Transduction → perception
Attended stimulus → Transmission → Recognition
Stimulus on Receptos → processing → action
Bottom-Up Process: starts from sensory receptors and leads to the brains → we process what’s going on in our heads
Top-Down Process: starts with a larger concept and leads to the details → we start with an idea and work our way down to the details of it
Perceptual organization: we need to organize sensory information to understand it
Gestalt Psychology: studies the ways we organize sensory information
Depth Perception: the ability to see objects in 3D despite the fact images are imposed on the retina in 2D
Binocular depth cues:
Retinal disparity: the brain compares the images projected onto the two retinas in order to perceive distance
Convergence: eyes turn inward when looking at an object
Monocular cues: depth cues are dependent on the information that is available to either eye along
Relative size
Interposition
Relative clarity
Texture
Relative height
Linear perspective
Light and Shadow
Relative motion
Perceptual constancy: we perceive objects as unchanging even as teh illumination, angle, and object change
Shape, Size, and lightness constancy
Attention and Cognition: Sensory memory → attention → STM
Broadbent filter model:
Attended message and unattended message in → sensory store → selective filter(thalamus) → attended message in → higher level processing → Working memory
A lot of information enters the sensory store, but only some of it makes it past the selective filter into the working memory - other info decays or filters out
Treisman Attenuation Model of Selective attention:
Attended and unattended message in → attenuating filter(thalamus) → higher level processing → both attended and unattended into working memory
Cocktail party effect → filter out a conversation until your name or something important like that is mentioned and attention shifts (salient info = relevant)→ Some info can be attended to under the right conditions
Multitasking: divided attention → only way it works when the tasks are similar in terms of difficulty, practice, and category
Cognitive schema: a mental framework that allows us to organize our experiences/stimuli and respond to new experiences
Use of schemas to assimilate new experiences and also accommodate our schemas for new info
Jean Piaget’s Stages of cognitive development:
0-2 → sensorimotor
2-7 → pre-operational
7-11 → Concrete operational
12-adult → Formal operational
Problem-solving:
Trial and error - potential solutions
Insight - sudden solution
Heuristic -
algorithm
Conformation Bias: when we seek evidence to support our ideas more than we seek the evidence to refute them
Fixation: when we structure a problem in our mind, we can’t see it from a new perspective
Mental set: our tendency to approach situations like we have done before in teh past because it worked then
Functional fixedness: mental bias of how an object is to be used
Availability Heuristic: occurs when we rely on examples that immediately come to mind and when we are trying to make a decision → when we rely on what’s in the mind rather than actual research, we overestimate things
Representativeness Heuristics: occurs when we estimate the likelihood of an event by comparing it to an existing prototype in our brain
Intelligence: the ability to learn from experience and adapt to the environment
Social intelligence
Emotional intelligence - delayed gratification
Fluid vs crystal intelligence → fluid is in the moment thinking and crystal is semantic retrieval
Fixed and growth mindsets → fixed as intelligent is static(born with a preset on your abilities) and growth as abilities can get better if you put effort overtime
Language development: children tend to learn languages in a universal way(normal) - regardless of what language they are learning - innate in some way
4-6 months: Baby babble, use of sounds
6-9 months: babbling becomes focused
10-12 months: first words
18-24 months: 2-word phrases
2-3 years: 3-word phrases
5-7 years: speaking and more complex language
9+ years: understanding of different forms of language
Skinner language theory: language develops through operant conditioning → rewards and punishments
Noam Chomsky Nativist theory: infants born with the innate ability to understand language → Humans evolved with a language acquisition device in their brains that can understand a universal grammar common to all human languages - just exposure is not enough, needs to be taught directly
Lec Vgotsky Interactionist Theory: between the to → some innate ability to understand the language but social interactions and cognitive development as the most important factors - need the innate abilities and someone to teach/correct you
Broca’s and Wernickes Areas:
Broca for language production → damage here leads to non-fluent aphasia → understand is fine, but speaking is hard(struggle to talk)
Wernickes: understanding written and spoken language → damage here leads to fluent aphasia → word salad(sound normal, but non-sense speaking)
Linguistic Relativity hypothesis: different structures and vocabulary of different languages affect the thinking of those who use these languages → Categorical speakers → ex. blue and green are different colours, you see these as different categories - Sapir-Whorf hypothesis