AP Psychology Unit 1

Frontal Lobe: Controls decision making, planning, judgment, personality, and voluntary movement (motor cortex).

Parietal Lobe: Processes touch, temperature, and pain; contains the somatosensory cortex.

Occipital Lobe: Responsible for vision; processes visual information.

Temporal Lobe: Responsible for hearing, memory, and language comprehension (Wernicke’s area).

Broca’s Area: Controls speech production; damage causes broken, halting speech.

Wernicke’s Area: Controls language comprehension; damage causes meaningless, fluent speech.

Corpus Callosum: Connects the left and right brain hemispheres and allows communication between them.

Cerebellum: Coordinates balance, posture, and fine motor movement; “little brain.”

Medulla: Controls heart rate, breathing, and vital life functions.

Pons: Regulates sleep and facial movements.

Reticular Formation: Controls alertness and arousal; filters incoming stimuli.

Thalamus: The brain’s sensory relay station for all senses except smell.

Hypothalamus: Regulates hunger, thirst, body temperature, sexual behavior, and controls the pituitary gland.

Hippocampus: Forms new memories; damage leads to difficulty creating new long-term memories.

Amygdala: Involved in emotion, especially fear and aggression.

EEG (Electroencephalogram): Measures electrical activity of the brain using electrodes on the scalp.

CT/CAT Scan: 3-D X-ray that shows brain structure.

MRI: Uses magnetic fields to show detailed brain structure.

fMRI: Measures brain activity and structure by tracking blood flow.

PET Scan: Measures brain activity by tracking radioactive glucose use.

NREM-1 Sleep: Light sleep, theta waves, hypnagogic sensations (falling or floating).

NREM-2 Sleep: Deeper sleep with sleep spindles (bursts of brain activity).

NREM-3 Sleep: Deepest sleep, delta waves, body repairs and releases growth hormone.

REM Sleep: Rapid eye movement sleep; vivid dreaming, active brain but paralyzed body (paradoxical sleep).

Paradoxical Sleep: REM sleep is called paradoxical because the brain is active while the body is paralyzed.

Circadian Rhythm: 24-hour biological clock regulated by the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN) in the hypothalamus.

Sleep Deprivation: Causes fatigue, poor memory, irritability, weakened immune system, and weight gain.

REM Rebound: Increased REM sleep after being deprived of it.

Insomnia: Trouble falling or staying asleep.

Narcolepsy: Sudden, uncontrollable sleep attacks (often straight into REM).

Sleep Apnea: Breathing stops during sleep; causes snoring and fatigue.

Night Terrors: Sudden fear or screaming during NREM-3; no memory afterward.

Sleepwalking (Somnambulism): Performing actions while asleep, during NREM-3.

Freud’s Wish-Fulfillment Theory: Dreams express unconscious desires and conflicts.

Activation-Synthesis Theory: Dreams are the brain’s attempt to make sense of random neural firing.

Information-Processing Theory: Dreams help process, sort, and store daily experiences and memories.

Physiological Function Theory: Dreams preserve and strengthen neural pathways.

Evolutionary Theory of Sleep: Sleep keeps us safe at night and conserves energy.

Restorative Theory of Sleep: Sleep restores the body and brain by repairing tissue and consolidating memories.

Sensation: The process of detecting physical energy from the environment through sensory organs.

Perception: The process of organizing and interpreting sensory information.

Transduction: Conversion of sensory energy into neural impulses (e.g., light to nerve signals in retina).

Absolute Threshold: Smallest detectable stimulus at least 50% of the time.

Difference Threshold (Just Noticeable Difference): Smallest detectable change between two stimuli.

Weber’s Law: The JND is a constant proportion of the original stimulus, not a fixed amount.

Sensory Adaptation: Decreased sensitivity to a constant, unchanging stimulus.

Rods: Photoreceptors for black, white, and gray vision in low light.

Cones: Photoreceptors for color and detail in bright light.

Feature Detectors: Neurons that respond to specific features like shape, angle, or movement.

Trichromatic Theory: Three types of cones (red, green, blue) combine to produce all colors.

Opponent-Process Theory: Color vision is controlled by opposing pairs (red-green, blue-yellow, black-white).

Cochlea: Coiled structure in the inner ear where sound waves are transduced into neural impulses.

Place Theory: Different pitches trigger activity at different places along the cochlea’s basilar membrane.

Frequency Theory: The rate of neural impulses matches the frequency of the sound wave for low pitches.

Olfaction (Smell): Only sense that bypasses the thalamus; processed in the olfactory bulb and limbic system.

Gate Control Theory: Pain can be blocked by competing sensory input, such as rubbing the skin.

Vestibular Sense: Sense of balance and body orientation, located in the inner ear (semicircular canals).

Kinesthetic Sense: Sense of body position and movement from receptors in muscles and joints.

Gestalt Principles: The brain organizes sensory information into meaningful wholes.

Figure-Ground: Distinguishing an object (figure) from its background (ground).

Grouping Principles: Organizing stimuli by proximity, similarity, continuity, and closure.

Depth Perception: Ability to judge distance using binocular cues (retinal disparity, convergence) and monocular cues (relative size, linear perspective).

Perceptual Constancy: Perceiving objects as unchanging in size, shape, and color despite changes in lighting or distance.

Perceptual Set: Mental expectation or bias that influences perception.