Key concepts:
1. Definition of Psychology: The scientific study of behavior and mental processes.
a. Behavior: Observable actions.
b. Mental Processes: Thoughts, feelings, and motives.
2. Psychology as a Science:
a. Critical Thinking: Involves not blindly accepting arguments but evaluating
evidence and forming conclusions based on facts.
b. Scientific Method: Five key steps:
i. Observe: Identify phenomena.
ii. Hypothesize: Develop testable predictions.
iii. Test: Conduct empirical research.
iv. Conclude: Analyze data and draw conclusions.
v. Evaluate: Revise the theory if necessary.
3. Historical Roots of Psychology:
a. Wilhelm Wundt: Founded the first psychology lab (1879), focusing on measuring
mental processes.
b. Structuralism: Studying the structure of the mind (Wundt and Titchener).
c. Functionalism: Focus on how behavior helps us adapt to our environment
(William James).
d. Behaviorism: Focus on observable behavior (John Watson, B.F. Skinner).
e. Cognitive Psychology: Focuses on mental processes (memory, problem-
solving).
4. Modern Perspectives in Psychology:
a. Neuroscience: How the brain and body influence emotions, memories, and
sensory experiences.
b. Behavior Genetics: How genes and the environment influence individual
differences.
c. Cognitive Psychology: Focuses on how we process and store information.
d. Socio-cultural: How behavior and thinking vary across situations and cultures.
Key Terms:

1. Biopsychosocial Approach: An integrated approach combining biological,
psychological, and social-cultural factors.
2. Dual Processing: The principle that information is processed simultaneously on
separate conscious and unconscious tracks.
Important Figures:
1. Wilhelm Wundt: Father of modern psychology.
2. William James: Key figure in functionalism.
3. John B. Watson and B.F. Skinner: Pioneers of behaviorism.
Chapter Questions:
Q: How is psychology a science?
Q: What would a behaviorist study?

Chapter 2: Biology of Behavior & Consciousness
Key Concepts:
1. Nervous System:
a. Neurons: The building blocks of the nervous system.
b. Neuroplasticity: The brain’s ability to change and adapt in response to
experience.
c. Types of Neurons:
i. Sensory Neurons: Carry information from sensory organs to the brain.
ii. Motor Neurons: Carry information from the brain to muscles.
iii. Interneurons: Communicate within the brain and spinal cord.
2. Neural Communication:
a. Action Potential: The electrical charge that travels down the axon.
b. Synapse: The gap between neurons where neurotransmitters are released.
c. Neurotransmitters: Chemicals like dopamine and serotonin that transmit
messages across the synapse.
3. Divisions of the Nervous System:
a. Central Nervous System (CNS): The brain and spinal cord.
b. Peripheral Nervous System (PNS): Includes all other neural structures.
c. Somatic Nervous System: Controls voluntary movements.
d. Autonomic Nervous System (ANS): Controls involuntary functions like heart
rate and digestion.
i. Sympathetic: Arouses the body (fight or flight).
ii. Parasympathetic: Calms the body (rest and digest).
4. Brain Structure and Function:
a. Brainstem: Controls basic life functions like breathing and heart rate.
b. Limbic System: Involved in emotion and memory (includes the amygdala and
hippocampus).
c. Cerebral Cortex: The outer layer of the brain responsible for higher-level
functions.
i. Lobes of the Brain:
1. Frontal Lobe: Associated with reasoning, motor control, and
planning.
2. Parietal Lobe: Processes sensory information.

3. Occipital Lobe: Responsible for vision.
4. Temporal Lobe: Responsible for hearing and memory.
5. Brain Imaging Techniques:
a. EEG: Measures electrical activity in the brain.
b. MRI: Produces images of brain structures.
c. fMRI: Shows brain activity by detecting blood flow.
6. Sleep
a. What is Sleep?
i. Definition: A periodic, natural loss of consciousness, distinct from a
coma or anesthesia.
ii. Biological Rhythms: Governed by:
1. 24-hour Circadian Rhythm: Internal clock influencing sleep-wake
cycles, body temperature, and hormone release.
2. 90-minute Sleep Cycle: Repeated stages of sleep through the
night.
b. Stages of Sleep:
i. N1 (Light Sleep): Theta waves, brief stage, characterized by myoclonic
jerks and hypnagogic sensations.
ii. N2: Theta waves with sleep spindles; body becomes less responsive to
the environment.
iii. N3 (Deep Sleep): Delta waves; the hardest stage to wake from, crucial for
physical restoration.
iv. REM Sleep: Paradoxical sleep (brain active, body paralyzed); vivid
dreaming occurs, helps consolidate memories.
c. Why Do We Sleep?
i. Evolutionary Reasons: Protection and energy conservation.
ii. Restoration: Physical and mental repair, hormone release, and muscle
development.
iii. Brain Plasticity: Enhances learning and consolidates memories.
d. Effects of Sleep Deprivation:
i. Weakens immune system.
ii. Impairs memory, attention, decision-making, and mood regulation.
e. Dreams:
i. Happen mostly during REM sleep.

ii. Can incorporate external stimuli and are often vivid or emotional.
f. Theories on Why We Dream:
i. Information Processing: Helps store and process the day’s experiences.
ii. Neural Development: Strengthens brain connections.
iii. Freud’s Theory: Reflects unconscious desires (manifest vs. latent
content).
Key Terms:
1. Neuroplasticity: The brain’s ability to reorganize itself.
2. Neurotransmitters: Chemical messengers in the brain.
3. Sympathetic Nervous System: Prepares the body for stress.
4. Parasympathetic Nervous System: Calms the body after stress.
Important Brain Structures:
1. Amygdala: Involved in emotion, particularly fear.
2. Hippocampus: Critical for memory formation.
3. Frontal Lobe: Important for decision-making and voluntary movement.
Chapter Questions
Q: What are some theories about why we sleep, and is any one theory “right”?
Q: What does it mean when we say the brain is “plastic”?

Chapter 3: Developing Through the Life Span
Key Concepts:
1. Research Methods
a. cross-sectional studies: many people assessed at one point in time
b. Longitudinal studies: same people assessed over many time points
c. Preferential looking technique: give infant choice of what to look at, and the
infant will show a preference for something by looking at it more than another
option
2. Big Questions in Developmental Psychology
a. Nature & Nurture: how does our genetic inheritance interact with our
experiences to influence our development?
b. Continuity & Stages: what parts of development are gradual and continuous,
and what parts change abruptly in separate stages?
c. Stability & Change: which of our traits persist through like, and how do we
change as we age?
3. Biological Processes
a. DNA: molecule containing the genetic information that makes up chromosomes
b. Genes: biochemical units of heredity that make up the chromosomes; segments
of DNA
c. Chromosomes: threadlike structures made of DNA molecules; contain the
genes
d. Genome: complete instructions for making an organism, consisting of all genetic
material in the organism’s chromosomes
e. Epigenetics: study of molecular ways by which environments can influence gene
expression
f. Epigenetic marks: molecules that trigger or block genetic expression
4. Prenatal, Infancy, and Childhood Development
a. Zygote: fertilized egg that enters a 2-week period of rapid cell division and
develops into an embryo
b. Embryo: developing human organism from about 2 weeks after fertilization
through 8 weeks
c. Fetus: developing human organism from 9 weeks after conception to birth
d. automatic reflex: responses that all newborns have that support survival

e. Critical period: time period in which a skill is most successfully acquired in
development
5. Cognitive Processes
a. Schemas: concepts/frameworks that organize information
b. Assimilation: interpreting new information according to an existing schema
c. Accommodation: adjusting schemas to new information
d. Theory of Mind: ability to attribute mental states to self AND others
6. Piaget’s Theory:
Stage Age Key Characteristics
Sensorimotor Birth-2 yo Object permanence
(understanding objects
continue to exist even cannot
hear/touch/see them)
Preoperational 2-7yo Increase symbolic thinking
Concrete operational 7-11yo Perspective taking
Formal operational 11-15yo Hypothetical-deductive
reasoning
7. Vygotsky
a. Scaffolding: interactions with more knowledgeable others that allow the child to
build on abilities
b. Zone of proximal development: range of skills that the child can perform with
assistance, but not independently
c. Private speech: internal dialogue that helps us develop new skills and ideas
8. Socioemotional Processes
a. Stranger anxiety:
b. Attachment: an emotional tie with another person
c. Secure attachment: in their caregiver’s presence, infants play comfortably, get
upset when they leave, and seek contact with them upon return
d. Anxious infants: may cling, cry, and remain upset at caregiver’s leaving
e. Avoidant infants: seem not to notice/care about caregiver’s departure or return
f. Temperament: an individual’s behavioral style of responding
9. Erikson’s Stages of Prosocial Development

a. identity: one’s sense of self
b. Social identity: “we” aspect of one’s self-concept
c. Emerging Adulthood: 18-mid-20s
Stage Age Specific Crisis that must be solved:
1 Birth-1.5yo Trust VS Mistrust
2 1.5-3yo Autonomy VS Shame/Doubt
3 3-5yo Initiative VS Guilt
4 6-Puberty Industry VS Inferiority
5 Adolescence Identity VS Role Confusion
6 19-40yo Intimacy VS Isolation
7 40-65yo Generativity VS Stagnation
8 65- Integrity VS Despair
10. Parenting Styles
a. Culture: set of enduring behaviors, ideas, attitudes, values, and traditions shared
by a group of people and handed down from one generation to the next
More responsive Less responsive
More controlling Authoritative Authoritarian
Less controlling Permissive Neglectful
Key Terms:
1. Development: the pattern of continuity and change in human capabilities that occurs
throughout life
2. Developmental psychology: examines our physical, cognitive, and social development
across the life span
Chapter Questions:
Q: What outcomes are associated with each parenting style?
Q: What is emerging adulthood?
Q: What are some abilities of newborns?

Chapter 5: Sensation & Perception
1. Sensation and the Brain:
a. Transduction: changing one form of energy into another
b. sensory receptors: specialized cells that detect stimuli and transmit it into
sensory nerves
i. Photoreceptors: detect light; sight
ii. Mechanoreceptors: detect pressure, vibration; hearing, balance
iii. Chemoreceptors: detect chemical stimuli; smell, taste
c. All-or-nothing: once a stimulus reaches a certain level, the neuron will fire
d. Thalamus: forebrain structure; acts as relay station for sensory information
2. Thresholds
a. Absolute thresholds: the minimum amount of stimulus energy that a person can
detect
b. Difference thresholds: the degree of difference that must exist between 2
stimuli before the difference is detected
c. Weber’s Law: 2 stimuli must differ by a constant proportion to be perceived as
different
3. Subliminal Perception
a. Subliminal perception: detection of information below the level of conscious
awareness
b. Priming: activating (often unconsciously) associations in our mind, thus setting
us up to perceive, remember, or respond to objects/events in certain ways
c. Primes: stimuli that are presented before a target stimulus (sometimes outside of
conscious awareness), which influence later behavior
d. Perceptual set: a predisposition or readiness to perceive something in a certain
way
e. Sensory adaptation: a change in the responsiveness of the sensory system
based on the average level or surrounding stimulation
4. Vision
a. Retina: The multilayered surface that records electromagnetic energy and
converts it to neural impulses for processing in the brain
b. Cones: the receptor cells that allow for color perception
i. Fovea: in center of retina, contains only cones
c. Rods: the receptor cells in retina; sensitive to light but not useful for color vision

d. Optic Chiasm: where optic nerve fibers divide
5. Color Vision
a. Trichromatic theory: color perception is produced by 3 types of cones in the
retina
b. Opponent process theory: cells in visual system respond to complementary
pairs (red-green), (blue-yellow)
6. Gestalt (Perceiving shape)
a. Gestalt Psychology: how people naturally organize their perceptions according
to certain patterns
b. Figure-ground relationships: principle by which we organize the perceptual
field into stimuli that stand out and those that are left over
c. Gestalt Laws of Perceptual Organization:
i. Law of good continuation
ii. Law of proximity
iii. Law of closure
7. Depth Perception
a. Binocular cues: depend on the use of 2 eyes
i. Convergence: muscle movements in 2 eyes provide information about
how deep and far something is
ii. Retinal disparity: calculation of distance by comparing images from both
eyes
b. Monocular cues: depth cues available to each eye separately
c. Perceptual constancy: recognition that objects are constant and unchanging
even though sensory input about them is changing (size, shape, color)
8. Hearing
a. Audition: sense or act of hearing
b. Parts of the ear:
i. Outer: pinna and external auditory canal
ii. Middle: channels and amplifies sound
iii. Inner: oval window, cochlea, basilar membrane
1. Basilar membrane lines wall of cochlea and vibrates when
exposed to different sound frequencies
2. hair cells line the basilar membrane
3. Cilia: fine bristles on hair cells

a. Tectorial membrane: cover hair cells
9. Senses
a. Touch: pressure against skin; mechanical energy
b. Pain: sensation that warns you of damage to your body
i. Nociceptors: detect hurtful temperatures, pressure, or chemicals
c. Taste:
i. Papillae: taste buds
d. Smell
i. olfactory epithelium: lining of the roof of nasal cavity
e. Kinesthetic senses: provide information about movement, posture, and
orientation
f. Vestibular sense: provides information about balance and movement
i. Semicircular canals: fluid filled tubes in inner ear that detect head motion
g. Sensory interaction: one sense may influence another
i. McGurk Effect
Key Terms:
1. Stimuli: anything in the world that we can detect with our senses
2. Sensation: receiving stimulus energies from the environment and transforming those
energies into neural energy
3. Sensory receptors: sensory nerve endings that respond to stimuli
4. Perception: organizing and interpreting sensory information so that it makes sense
5. Top-down processing: when our expectations, knowledge, or experience with the
world influences what we sense ; guide by higher-level mental processes
6. Bottom-up processing: sensory receptors register information about the external
environment and send it to the brain for interpretation
7. Stereotyping: expectations based on membership in a particular group
Chapter Questions:
Q: What is an example of top-down processing VS bottom-up processing?
Q: How do we sense our body’s position and movement?
Q: What is the McGurk Effect?