AP Psych Semester One Review

History

• Introspection

  • Scientific recall of sensation and feelings 

  • 4 dimensions

    • Quality 

    • Intensity 

    • Duration 

    • Clarity

• Functionalism

  • Mental processes help adapt to environment

  • Adaptations are learned and maintained 

  • Through repetition become habit 

  • Practices and idea influenced by Darwin 

  • Edward Throndike 

• Structuralism

  • Psychophysics→ reaction time

  • Elements of out conscious experience

    • Objective sensations→ sight, touch, taste

    • Subjective feelings→ emotional response, mental images 

• Gestalt

  • Perceptions are more than the sum of the parts 

  • Theories of visual perception

  • Learning is active and purposeful

  • Insight, sudden appearance of the Gestalt, helps solve problems

• Behaviorism

  • John B. Watson and B.F. Skinner

  • Scientific study of observable behavior 

  • Reinforcement causes behavior pattern

• Law of Effect

• Psychoanalytic

  • Unconscious motives and internal conflicts determine behavior

  • Psychosexual stages of personality development 

• Cognitivism  

  • Ulric Neisser

  • Thinking, storage, processing, 

  • Serial processing, problem-solving

• Humanism

  • Free will and potential of all people are key 

  • Hierarchy of needs

  • Unconditional positive regard

Research Methods

• Dependent variable

  • what changes, the result 

• Independent variable

  • the variable that you change to get a different result

• Experimental group

  • The group that is being tested with the independent variable 

• Control group

  • The group that is being tested with no additional variables (no independent variables)

• Confirmation bias

  • We look for evidence that supports our belief and ignore evidence that contradicts our belief 

• Operational definition

  • Describes the actions and procedures used to measure or control a variable

• Hypothetical construct

  • a theoretical concept or entity that is not directly observable but is assumed to exist and is used to explain observable phenomena

• Naturalistic observation

  • Studying unobtrusively

• Case Study

  • a process or record of research in which detailed consideration is given to the development of a particular person, group, or situation over a period of time.

• Experimental method

  • a scientific research approach where a researcher actively manipulates one variable (independent variable) to observe its effect on another variable (dependent variable), allowing them to establish a cause-and-effect relationship between the two

• Quasi-experimental method

  • when you cannot manipulate the group; there is some factor that stops you from using a completely experimental tactic 

    • You can’t change where people live, where they go to school, etc.

• Null hypothesis

  • that there is no significant difference between specified populations, any observed difference being due to sampling or experimental error.

    • If we reject our null hypothesis, we can say our results are significant 

• Representative sample

  • a subset of a larger population that accurately reflects the characteristics of that population

• Research ethics

  • the moral principles and guidelines that researchers must follow when designing, conducting, and reporting research, ensuring the protection of human and animal subjects, and upholding the integrity of the research process, including considerations like informed consent, confidentiality, and minimizing harm to participants

Statistics

• Descriptive statistics

  • A descriptive statistic is a summary statistic that quantitatively describes or summarizes features from a collection of information, while descriptive statistics is the process of using and analysing those statistics.

• Mean

  • The average of the data 

  • Most commonly used measure of central tendency

• Median

  • Middlemost score

• Mode

  • Most occurring score 

• Standard deviation

  • measuring variability  

    • Tells us how big is the difference between the mean and the different groups 

    • 50 percent is the mean 

    • 1 standard deviation above is 34 

• Normal distribution

  • a continuous probability distribution wherein values lie in a symmetrical fashion mostly situated around the mean.

• Correlation coefficient

  • without causation 

    • A correlation of +.90 would indicate a strong positive relationship between the two variable 

    • A perfect positive correlation is 1.0

• Inferential statistics

  • While descriptive statistics summarize data, inferential statistics help you come to conclusions and make predictions based on your data.

• Type I & II errors

  • In statistical hypothesis testing, a type I error, or a false positive, is the rejection of the null hypothesis when it is actually true. A type II error, or a false negative, is the failure to reject a null hypothesis that is actually false. Type I error: an innocent person may be convicted.

Biology

• Nervous system

• CNS

  • Central Nervous System

  • Brain and spinal cord

  • Sensory afferent neurons to spine

  • Motor efferent neurons from spine 

• PNS

  • Peripheral nervous system 

  • somatic nervous system and autonomic nervous system 

    • Somatic → conscious body parts; movements and actions

    • autonomic nervous system → heartbeat, respiration 

      • Sympathetic nervous system → stress

      • Parasympathetic nervous system → cools us down

• Parts of a Neuron

  • Dendrites

  • Soma 

  • Axon 

  • Myelin Sheath

  • Axon Terminal 

  • Synaptic Cleft

• Neural transmission

  • Positive sodium ions (NA+) rush in, pushing out less positively charged Potassium ions (K+)

• Action potential

  • Absolute Refractory Period

  • Relative Refractory Period 

• Neurotransmitters

  • Dopamine

    • Movement 

    • Attention

    • Learning 

    • Pleasure → cocaine blocks reuptake 

    • Too little → Parkinson’s disease

    • Too much → Schizophrenia

  • Serotonin

    • Arousal 

    • Sleep 

    • Mood 

    • Appetite 

    • LSD inhibits serotonin 

  • Ach

    • Memory in hippocampus

    • Creation of memories 

      • Alzheimer's disease

    • Movement in PNS 

    • Excitatory

Structures/Functions

Lobes of brain

• The hindbrain 

  • Medulla oblongata → necessary for survival

    • Heartbeat 

    • Respiration

    • Swallowing

    • Digestion 

  • Pons → “the bridge”

    • Bridge or relay

    • Sleep 

    • Arousal 

  • Cerebellum 

    • Balance 

    • Coordination

    • Much larger in animals as a proportion of brain

    • Affected by alcohol 

  • Reticular activating system RAS (mid and hindbrain)

    • Sleep 

    • Arousal

    • Attention 

• The forebrain → upper level thinking

  • Cerebral cortex

    • Outer layer of the brain 

    • Complex = cortex

    • 4 lobes

    • Somatosensory and motor cortex

  • Amygdala (In limbic system)

    • Anger

    • Aggression 

    • Fear

  • Hippocampus (in limbic system) 

    • Involved in learning and memory 

  • Thalamus 

    • “Relay center” 

    • Sends sensory info to cerebral cortex (except smell) 

    • Linked to RAS for sleep and arousal

  • The Hypothalamus

    • The 4 F’s 

      • Food

      • Flight

      • Fight

      • Sex 

    • Body’s thermostat 

    • Lateral hypothalamus → ON - stimulate eating 

    • Ventromedial hypothalamus → OFF - stops eating

• 4 Lobes of the brain 

  • Frontal lobe 

    • Higher order thinking

    • Planning 

    • Personality 

  • Parietal lobe

    • Somatosensory cortex 

      • Touch and feel 

  • Occipital lobe 

    • Sight

  • Temporal lobe 

    • Hearing 

Brain scans

• EEG

  • electroencephalogram

    • Measures brain wave activity

    • ERPs (event-related potentials) → minimize interference

• PET

  • Positron emission tomography

  • Traces radioactive glucose

  • Shows brain functions, levels/areas of activity 

    • Whichever most active needs more glucose (energy)

• MRI

  • Magnetic resonance imaging

  • Uses magnetic field instead of x-rays

  • fMRI → function MRI 

    • Shows area of activity in the brain

• CAT

  • Computerized axial tomography

  • Cross-sectional images of the brain

  • Uses x-rays

Endocrine system

• Regulates growth, reproduction, metabolism, and behavior 

• Controls glands 

• Releases hormones

• Uses negative-feedback loop 

• Adrenal glands

  • Secretes epinephrine and norepinephrine

  • Fight or flight response

  • Controls 50 other hormones

  • Produces corticosteroids

    • Muscle development

  • Anabolic steroid (synthetic) 

    • Mood swings

    • Sterility 

• Thyroid gland

  • Produces thyroxine

  • Too much → hyperthyroidism → weight loss

  • Too little → hypothyroidism → weight gain 

• Pituitary Gland

  • Master gland

  • Regulates other endocrine glands

  • Controlled by the hypothalamus 

  • ACTH 

  • Fight or flight response 

Negative-feedback loop

• a system where the output of a process acts to counteract or decrease the initial stimulus

Sensation/Perception

• Psychophysics

  • Study of physical stimulation and psychological sensation

• Thresholds

  • Detection: awareness of stimulus 

  • Absolute threshold: minimum stimulus needed for detection 50% of the time

• Signal-detection analysis

• JND

  • Minimum difference between stimuli to detect difference

• Stroop effect

  • a psychological phenomenon where people take longer to identify the color of a word when the word itself names a different color

• Weber’s law

  • The principle that states that the just-noticeable difference between two stimuli is a function of the magnitude of the original stimulus

• Sensory adaptation

  • Become accustomed to stimulus and no longer respond

  • Also called habituation 

  • Dishabituation → change in stimulus causes us to notice it again 

  • Focusing 

    • The lens thickens or thins to focus (accommodation) 

    • The muscle of the eye make it elongate 

• Vision

  • Ganglion cells → axons are the optic nerve

  • Amacrine and horizontal cells → interneurons communicate laterally

  • Bipolar → interneurons connect two ways

  • Cones- give us color 

  • Rods- can not see color 

Trichromatic theory

• Primary colors combine for all colors

• Three specialized cones for each color 

• Color-blindness is due to problems with cones 

• Genes discovered that cones produce hue-sensitive pigments 

Opponent-Process Theory 

• Two sets of opposing colors

• Red-greens and blue-yellow (also black-white)

• As red increases, green decreases (no reddish-green color) 

• Proof-afterimages

Monocular cues

• Two dimensional

• Able to be recognized…

• Relative size, texture gradient, interposition, linear perspective, 

Binocular cues

• As eyes turn inward, object is closer 

• Binocular disparity

  • Difference between view of two eyes 

Gestalt principles 

• Closure

• Figure-ground perception

• Proximity

• Similarity

• Continuity

• Common fate

• Perception of movement

• Perceptual constancy 

• Size, shape, color, and depth constancy

• Ponzo illusion

Audition

• Mechanics

  • Amplitude: intensity (loudness)

  • Pitch: tone

  • Timbre: quality of sounds 

• Auditory canal, tympanic membrane, malleus, incus, stapes, oval window, cochlea

Place theory

• Pitch is determined by what part of the basilar membranes is stimulated 

Frequency theory

• Basilar membrane fires the same frequency as sound Volley principle

• Explains how higher frequencies are produced

• Duplicity theory

  • Sounds are heard by combination of place and frequency

• Taste & Smell

  • Chemical sense

  • Papillae on tongue are specialized for different chemicals

  • Now 6

    • Salt 

    • Sour 

    • Bitter

    • Sweet

    • Umami

    • Oleogustus 

  • Olfaction

    • Chemical sense

    • direct path to brain

    • Olfactory epithelium has specialized receptors

• Skin senses

  • Haptic: pressure, temperature, pain

  • Pressure

    • Shallow and deep

  • Temperature

    • Warm and cold fibers 

  • Pain

• Body senses

  • Kinesthetic

    • Body sense tells us where our body is

  • Vestibular 

    • Vestibular sacs and semicircular canals hold fluid

    • Motion moves hair in fluids 

    • Act like gyroscope

Consciousness/Sleep

• Stroop effectx

  • a psychological phenomenon where people take longer to identify the color of a word when the word itself names a different color

• Cocktail party phenomenon

  • Follow only one conversation instead of being overwhelmed by all the sounds

• Mindlessness

  • Going on “autopilot”

• Filter theories

  • Sensory filter– we filter at the sensory level

  • Top-down filter- we recognize our names even in unattended ears

  • Signal-attenuation mechanism- information is not totally blocked, just weakened

• Levels of consciousness

  • Preconscious

    • Available but not in our consciousness

    • Tip of the tongue phenomenon

    • Subliminal perception 

    • Blind-sight 

      • Visual cortex of the brain is damaged so you can’t consciously “see” but can respond

  • Subconscious/unconscious

    • Information not available to our conscious mind

  • Conscious

    • What’s in our mind 

• Sleep Disorders

  • Sleep disorders 

    • Insomnia → difficulty sleeping

    • Narcolepsy → falls asleep unexpectedly

    • Sleep apnea → stop breathing while sleeping

    • Somnambulism → sleep walking; outgrow it

    • Sleep terrors → outgrow it

• Stages of sleep (measured by EEG)

  • Stage 1: Beta, theta

    • Transitional stage between wakefulness and sleep 

  • Stage 2: Theta, sleep spindles, spikes in EEG, K complexes

    • Large, slow waves

    • Muscle tension lowers

    • Promotes effective memory  

  • Stage 3: <50% delta waves

  • REM

    • beta, theta

    • “paradoxical sleep”

    • Waves look like EEG of an awake brain

    • Rapid Eye Movement 

    • Most remembered dreams

  • If you deprive someone of REM sleep, they’ll go into REM rebound 

Hypnosis theories

Deep relaxation

Epiphenomenon

• Role-playing by subject is genuine 

Neo Dissociative

• separate part of the conscious mind; hidden observer 

Dream theories

• Psychodynamic

  • “royal road to the unconscious mind”

  • Manifest dreams → actual content 

  • Latent dreams → symbolic 

• Cognitive

  • Problem-solving

• Activation-synthesis

  • Attempt to make sense of random neural firing 

Drugs

• Narcotics: opiatesCNS Depressants

  • Alcohol

  • Barbiturates

• CNS stimulants

  • Caffeine, cocaine

• Hallucinations 

  • LSD, ecstasy 

Learning

• Classical conditioning

  • Conditioned stimulus 

• UCS, UCR, CS, CR

• Phases of classical conditioning

  • Acquisition, extinction, spontaneous recovery, savings

• Stimulus discrimination

  • The learned ability to distinguish between a CS and other stimuli that do not signal a US

• Stimulus generalization

  • The tendency to respond to stimuli similar to the CS

• Conditioned emotional response

  • May be happy or sad, etc.

  • Advertising: corona + beach = relaxation

• Counterconditioning

  • Replace positive connection between UCS and CS with unpleasant UCS and UCR

• Operant conditioning

  • Actions are associated with consequences 

  • Rewarded actions are repeated and punished actions are extinguished 

  • Increase the likelihood of a behavior repeating or decrease it with punishment

  • All about choice, not automatic or innate 

  • Thorndike’s Law of Effect

  • Skinner

    • Reinforcers

    • Punishers

• Reinforcers and punishers

  • Reinforcers

    • Behavior more likely to continue

      • Positive and negative 

  • Punishers

    • Behavior more likely to not occur 

      • Positive and negative 

• Reinforcement schedules

  • Fixed

    • Know how many and how long

    • After a set number or duration

  • Variable 

    • Do not know how many or how long

    • After any number or amount of time 

  • Ratio

    • Certain amount of attempts

  • Interval

    • After certain amount of time 

  • Variable Interval and Variable ratio are the most resistant to extinction

• Social Learning

  • We learn from watching others 

Memory

• Types of recall

  • Cued recall → given a prompt 

  • Serial recall → repeat in order (presidents)

  • Free recall → any order 

  • Paired associates → two lists of matched things (friends order for snacks)

  • Total recall 

  • Fill in the blank 

Relearning

• Studying for a final and knowing the information faster since you already learned it

Recognition

• Multiple choice 

Types of memory

• Episodic 

  • Autobiographical 

  • Events people have experienced or witnessed 

  • Flashbulb memory 

    • Highly inaccurate 

• Declarative 

  • Jeopardy knowledge 

  • Memory of general knowledge 

• Procedural 

  • Riding a bike 

  • Riding a bike

More on memory…

• Encoding

  • Visual 

  • Acoustic 

  • Semantic  

• Storage

  • Maintenance rehearsal → repeat it over and over 

  • Elaborative rehearsal → pairing and using 

  • Organizational systems → making it fit into existing categories 

• Retrieval

  • Context-dependent memory 

    • Place, situation

  • State-dependent memory 

    • Mood, state of consciousness

  • Tip-of-the tongue phenomenon 

    • “It’s uh, umm, starts with a p or t…” 

• Sensory memory 

  • Iconic

    • Image  

  • Echoic

    • Sounds  

  • Eidetic 

    • “Photographic”

• Short-term memory 

  • 7, plus or minus 2

  • Primary effect

  • Recency effect

  • Chunking 

  • Interference

• Long-term memory 

  • Can be retrieved much later

  • Benefits from rehearsal 

  • Schemas 

Information-processing model

Decay and interference

• Proactive interference

  • Old gets in the way of new

• Retroactive interference

  • New gets in the way of old 

Constructive memory

• If false memories are implanted in individuals, the individual constructs their memories 

Mnemonic devices

• Method of Loci 

• Peg-word system

• Chunking 

Eyewitness accounts

• Misinformation effect

  • Influenced by the framing of the question

  • Effects estimations and future recall 

• False presupposition

  • Did you see A stop sign?

  • Did you see THE stop sign?

Biology of memory

Thinking

• Divergent

  • “Brainstorming”

  • Create as many different solutions as possible

• Convergent thinking

  • Narrow down to one, best solution 

• Well- and ill-structured problem solving 

  • Well-structured 

    •  clear way to find solution 

  • Ill-structured 

    • No clear path to solution. For example: what college should I attend? Who should I marry?

• Algorithms

  • Guarantee a solution to well-structured problems, but may be time-consuming.

  • Recipes, formulas, etc

• Heuristics

  • Short cuts

  • Representativeness

    • Use of patterns from population to make predictions (base rate– “odds”)

  • Availability

    • Uses of available data that most readily springs to mind  

• Mental set

  • Sticking to a solution that works 

  • Can’t see beyond normal way of thinking 

• Functional fixedness

  • Inability to see alternate uses 

  • Can’t see different uses beyond norm 

• Decision theory

  • a field of study that analyzes how individuals or groups make choices by considering available information and potential outcomes, aiming to select the "best" option based on the given situation, often involving probability and utility calculations to maximize expected benefit under uncertainty

  • Utility-maximization theory

    • We make decisions that bring us the most pleasure

  • Subjective-utility theory 

    • Different for each individual 

  • Satisficing

    • Consider our options and select first one that is satisfactory 

• Gambler’s fallacy

  • False belief that sequential events are not random 

• Inductive reasoning

  • a logical process where you form a general conclusion based on specific observations or examples, essentially moving from particular details to a broader generalization

• Deductive reasoning

  • a logical process where you reach a specific conclusion based on general premises or facts that are assumed to be true

Motivation

• Instinct theory

  • 1) Inherited

  • 2) Species specific 

  • 3) Stereotyped 

  • Automatically as response to stimulus 

• Drive reduction theory

  • Drive as an impulse to satisfy a need 

  • Primary Drives– biological (thirst, hunger)

  • Secondary Drives- learned 

• Need for achievement

  • High need for achievement take on moderately challenging task they are likely to succeed and pass 

• Intrinsic/extrinsic motivators

  • Intrinsic

    • Within 

  • Extrinsic 

    • Outside 

• Julian Rotter locus of control

  • Internal Locus of Control

    • Success and failure are internal 

  • External locus of control

    • Success and failure are external 

• Hunger regulation theories

  • Mouth 

    • “Sham feeding”

    • Dogs stopped eating even if food chewed and swallowed

  • Stomach 

    • Hunger pangs 

    • Contractions of stomach signal hunger BUT people without stomachs feel hungry 

  • Hypothalamus 

    • Monitors hormones from stomach, pancreas, digestive tract

    • Lateral hypothalamus → ON switch 

      • Secretes orexin

    • Ventromedial hypothalamus → OFF switch

    • Glucostatic hypothesis: Both VMH and LH monitor level of glucose and determine the need for food 

    • Lipostatic hypothesis: VMH & LH monitor levels of lipids (fat) and determine the need for food 

      • Appetite hormones 

        • Insulin:  from pancreas; controls blood glucose

          • Converts blood glucose to fat 

        • Leptin:  from fat cells (lipids)

          • Increase metabolism; decrease hunger

        •  Orexin:  from lateral hypothalamus

        • Ghrelin:  from empty stomach (ON)

        • Obestatin:  from full stomach (OFF)

        • PYY: digestive tract (OFF)

Emotions

• James-Lange

  • Emotional stimulus causes physiological reaction

  • Physiological reaction produces emotion 

  • “We are afraid because we run.” “We feel sorry because we cry.”

  • Emotions follow don’t cause behavior

  • Stimulus → automatic arousal → conscious feeling 

• Cannon-Bard

  • Thalamus relays emotional stimuli to cortex and internal organs simultaneously 

  • Emotional awareness and physiological changes occur at the same time

    • You see a bear and haver increased heart rate and fear at the same time

• Two-factor theory

  • the two basic components of emotions are a cognitive label and physical arousal 

• Schacter-Singer

  • How we think about events affects the experience of the emotion

  • Physiological arousal is undifferentiated state that we can be given any of a number of labels 

  • The labels we use to describe our emotions depend on our immediate environment and what is on our mind at that particular moment 

• Robert Zajonc

  • Cognition and emotion are separate 

  • Evolutionary evidence to show emotion precedes cognition 

• Paul Ekman

  • Universal occurrence of facial expressions of emotions 

  • Facial expressions amplify and regulate the emotion

  • 7 universal emotions → anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness, surprise, and contempt 

• Facial Feedback

  • Making a certain face can change your emotions 

  • Smile to make yourself feel happy

  • Frown to feel sadness

  • “Fake it til you make it”

• Major emotions

  • Fear

    • Adaptive response preparing our bodies to flee danger

    • Acquired through classical conditioning (i.e. those reflecting our past traumas)

    • Acquired through observational learning (i.e. those reflecting fears of parents and friends)

    • Biological predispositions (i.e snakes, cliffs, spiders, not cars and electricity)

  • Anger

    • Causes

      • Annoyances 

      • Foul odors

      • Extreme temperatures 

      • Aches and pains

    • Catharsis hypothesis: reduction of anger by release through aggressive actions

    • Advantages: can be temporarily calming if it does not leave us feeling guilty or anxious 

    • Disadvantages: expressing anger leads to more anger 

    • Ways to channel: exercising, playing music, talking to a friend

  • Happiness

    • The adaptation-level principle: we adapt to levels of a stimulus and need something even better to make us feel happy 

    • The relative-deprivation principle: the sense that we are worse off than others with whom we compare ourselves 

    • Predictors of happiness

      • High self-esteem

      • Outgoing 

      • Close relationships

      • Work that engages 

      • Religious faith 

      • Sleeping well 

      • Exercise 

Stress