PSYC 031 Exam 1 Study Guide PDF

PSYC 031 Exam 1 Study Guide Chapter 1: Welcome to Psychology What is psychology? -​ Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior -​ Psychology developed along two paths Basic science approach: intellectual endeavors and scientific experimentation at universities...

PSYC 031 Exam 1 Study Guide Chapter 1: Welcome to Psychology What is psychology? -​ Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior -​ Psychology developed along two paths Basic science approach: intellectual endeavors and scientific experimentation at universities Study of perception, thought, behavior Clinical approach: therapeutic interventions for psychological disorders in medical settings Psychotherapy, psychiatry, clinical practice How psychologists study phenomena -​ Summative Thinking o Multiple sources of evidence are considered, and conclusions are not absolute. o Understanding of phenomena grows over time, as new information is presented How biases affect our perception of the world ​ Overconfidence effect is the tendency to be overly sure of what we know ​ Confirmation bias is the tendency to seek out, pay attention to, and believe only evidence that supports what we are already confident we know. ​ Study on Confirmation Bias (Snyder & Swann, 1978) ○​ People chose to ask questions that would confirm whether the person fit the profile, but not those that would disconfirm whether this person fit the profile (e.g., that would test whether an introvert responds positively or negatively to a question about extraversion) ○​ The researchers again found that interviewers were more likely to ask questions that could confirm, but not disconfirm, the initial hypothesis ○​ Biased questions Open science -​ Practices that emphasize the transparency of research so that findings can be more easily shared and tested. Pop psychology -​ Popular (pop) psychology: Claims about psychological phenomena that are promoted through social media, magazines, TV shows, and other entertainment media and that are often accepted as truth by the public but may lack validity. -​ Sometimes pop psychology, pseudoscience, and misperceptions about psychological science are dangerous Pseudoscience -​ A collection of beliefs or practices mistakenly thought to be based on valid science Critical thinking -​ An essential element of psychological literacy is critical thinking: The purposeful, reasoned, and goal-directed process of exploring a situation or problem; it is an essential component of psychological literacy. Chapter 2: Research Methods Limits of intuition and experience ​ There are limitations of using experience and intuition. ○​ We experience only one version of each situation. ○​ Even when we notice patterns, there may be multiple explanations.  ​ Confidence in our intuitions does not mean they are correct. We focus on confirming evidence and disregard disconfirming evidence. Scientific process ​ Scientific method: The process of basing one’s confidence in an idea on systematic, direct observations of the world, usually by setting up research studies to test ideas ​ Theory-data-cycle: The process of the scientific method, in which scientists collect data that can either confirm or disconfirm a theory. ○​ Theory: A set of propositions explaining how and why people act, think, or feel. ○​ Hypothesis: A specific prediction stating what will happen in a study if the theory is correct. ○​ Data: A set of empirical observations that scientists have gathered. ​ Replication: When a study is conducted more than once on a new sample of participants, and obtains the same basic results. Operationalization ​ To test a theory using the scientific method, researchers must convert concepts of variability into concrete, quantifiable, and measurable variables. ​ Operational definition: The specific way of measuring or manipulating an abstract variable in a particular study. ​ By establishing operational definitions, researchers operationalize the variables they study. ○​ Operationalizing a variable usually means turning it into a number, which can be recorded and analyzed. ​ Variables can be operationalized in different ways. ○​ Self-reporting: People describe themselves in an interview or survey, using a rating scale. ○​ Direct observation: Researchers observe and record the occurrence of behavior o ​ Technology can be used to record physiological measures. Naturalistic observation ​ Naturalistic observation: An observational research method in which psychologists observe the behavior of animals and people in their normal, everyday worlds and environments. ​ Case study: An observational research method in which researchers study one or two individuals in depth, often those who have a unique condition. ○​ These findings do not generalize to a larger population but may offer theoretical insights and research inspirations. Descriptive research ​ Descriptive research: A type of study in which researchers measure one variable at a time. ​ Survey research is descriptive research based on self-report, which provides concise summaries of many people ​ Key terms in descriptive survey research ○​ Sample: The group who participated in research, and who belong to the larger group (the population of interest) that the researcher is interested in understanding. ○​ Population of interest: The full set of cases the researcher is interested in. ○​ Random sampling: A way of choosing a sample of participants for a study in which participants are selected without bias, for example, by dialing random digits on the telephone or pulling names out of a hat. ​ External validity is especially important in descriptive research. Experimental research ​ Experimental research: A study in which one variable is manipulated, and the other is measured. Experimental research can provide evidence that one variable causes another. ○​ Independent variable: The manipulated variable in an experiment. ○​ Dependent variable: The measured variable in an experiment.  ​ Experiments are designed to meet the criteria for causation by reducing third-variable problems. ○​ Random assignment: A procedure used in experimental research in which a random method is used to decide which participants will receive each level of the independent variable. ​ An essential element of an experiment ​ Experimental (or treatment) group: In an experiment, a group or condition in which some proposed cause is present. ​ Control (or comparison) group: In an experiment, a group or condition in which some proposed cause is not present. ○​ Placebo condition: In an experiment, a group or condition in which people expect to receive a treatment but are exposed to only an inert version, such as a sugar pill. Generalizability of research ​ Two levels of generalizability are considered: 1. From the sample to the population of interest 2. From the population of interest to other populations of interest ​ To determine this, the same study must be replicated on new groups. ○​ Most psychology studies are conducted on samples from WEIRD (western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic) cultures. These findings cannot be generalized to people everywhere in the world. Chapter 3: Brain, Mind, and Behavior Neurons ​ Neurons: The cellular building blocks of the brain. ​ Neuroscience: The study of how nerves and cells send and receive information from the brain, body, and spinal cord ​ Processing information in the brain ○​ Bottom-up: receives information from senses ○​ Top-down: influences lower order regions ​ Spinal cord: The major bundle of nerves, encased in your spine, that connects your body and your brain. ○​ Transmits signals from the brain to the body ○​ Transmits signals from the body to the brain ​ There are three basic types of neurons: ○​ Motor neurons send signals to make the body take action. ○​ Sensory neurons carry information from the outside world and within the body to the brain. ○​ Interneurons interpret, store, and retrieve information about the world, allowing you to make informed decisions before you act ​ Central Nervous System (CNS): The system composed of the brain and spinal cord; information from your body travels to the brain by way of the nerves of your spinal cord ​ Peripheral Nervous System (PNS): The system composed of the nerves outside of the brain and spinal cord; connects the parts of the body to the brain. ​ Sympathetic Nervous System (SNS): A division of the autonomic nervous system that acts on blood vessels, organs, and glands in ways that prepare the body for action, especially in life-threatening situations. ○​ Provides resources for the fight-or-flight response ○​ Mobilizes the body to attack, defend, or flee, when encountering a potential threat ○​ Works with the PNS to prepare the body for challenges The Nervous System  ​ Parasympathetic Nervous System (PNS): A division of the autonomic nervous system that returns the body to a resting state by counteracting the actions of the sympathetic system. ○​ Performs restorative functions ○​ Allows the body to regenerate energy when it is safe to do so ○​ Works with the SNS to prepare the body for challenges ​ All neurons have the same basic parts. ○​ Dendrite: The part of the neuron that receives chemical messages from other neurons ○​ Cell body: The part of the neuron that collects neural impulse, contains the nucleus, and provides life sustaining functions for the cell ○​ Also called the soma ​ Axon: The part of the neuron that transports electrical impulses to other neurons via the terminal branches ​ Terminal branch: The part of the neuron that converts electrical signals into chemical messages to other neurons ○​ Also called terminal buttons ​ Myelin sheath: A layer of fatty tissue that covers and insulates an axon to ensure that electrical messages travel fast and meet less resistance ○​ Gives white matter its light- colored appearance ○​ Critical for normal human brain development ○​ Increased speed of electrical signal within the neuron ○​ Made up of glial cells or glia ​ Glia: The cells that make up the myelin sheath around neurons to insulate, support, and nourish neurons and modulate neuronal function. ○​ Responsible for vacuuming up neuronal debris; serve as cellular glue between neurons, giving the brain its jelly-like consistency ○​ Contribute to information processing during childhood development and into adulthood ○​ Essential for brain development ​ Synapse: The gap where the sending neuron communicates with the dendrites or cell body of the receiving neuron. ​ Neurotransmitter: The chemical messenger released at the terminal branch to allow communication between neurons. ​ Removing leftover neurotransmitters ○​ Diffusion: Neurotransmitters drift out of the synapse and, over time, into extracellular space. ○​ Degradation: Enzymes breakdown the neurotransmitters in the synapse. ○​ Reuptake: Neurotransmitters are reabsorbed into the presynaptic terminal that released them. ○​ Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) ​ Used in treatment of anxiety and depression ​ Prevents serotonin from being taken up into the presynaptic neuron; allows it to stay in the synapse longer and continue to stimulate target neurons Regions of the brain ​ The brain is divided into two halves, or hemispheres. Each hemisphere has subdivisions (lobes): ○​ Occipital lobe: A lobe that runs along the back portion of the head. ​ Contains the primary visual cortex ​ Largely devoted to vision ​ Temporal lobe: A lobe that runs alongside the ears ○​ Contains the primary auditory cortex ○​ Responsible for the ability to hear and understand language  ○​ Person and object recognition ​ Parietal lobe: A lobe that runs alongside the head above and behind the ears: ○​ Contains the primary somatosensory cortex ○​ Contains a map of the body skin surface and sense of touch ○​ Attention and locating objects ​ Frontal lobe: A lobe located in the front of the head: ○​ Contains the primary motor cortex and map of the body’s muscles ○​ Essential for movement and planning ○​ Prefrontal cortex responsible for thought, planning, decision making, and self-control ​ Neocortex: Outermost layer and the largest part of the human brain: ○​ Supports complex functioning, such as language, thought, problem solving, and imagination ○​ Gives the brain a folded, wrinkled appearance ​ Limbic system: A system often associated with emotion; it bridges the older, lower brain regions that regulate the body with the newer, higher brain structures more related to complex mental functions. ○​ Often described as the “emotional brain” ○​ Plays a role in smell, learning and memory, and motivation ​ Hippocampus: A component of the limbic system crucial for certain aspects of memory, and: ○​ The ability to navigate the environment ○​ The ability to think about the future ○​ Located in the inner part of the temporal lobe ​ Amygdala: A component of the limbic system important for registering the emotional significance of events. Almond-shaped structure Located just to the inside of the end of the hippocampus ​ Basal ganglia: A group of interconnected structures that are an evolutionarily older subcortical motor system: ○​ Necessary for planning and executing movement ○​ Connects the motor regions of the cerebral cortex with the spinal cord ○​ Critical for initiating and stopping movement ​ Hypothalamus: The master controller of the brain and body: ○​ Integrates bodily signals with their associated feelings and behaviors ○​ Regulates specific functions, including: ​ Hunger ​ Body rhythms ​ Reward seeking ​ Aggression ​ Thalamus: A subcortical structure deep in the middle of the brain: ○​ Communicates information to and from all the sensory systems (except the olfactory system) Regulates alertness and consciousness ○​ Plays a key role in relaying sensory information to and from the cerebral cortex ○​ Damage results in a wide variety of impairments Hormones ​ Hormones: The chemicals carried by the blood that travel through the circulatory system enabling the brain to regulate the body’s activities. (endocrine system) Cognitive processes ​ Executive functions: The cognitive processes that allow us to plan, focus attention, and organize multiple tasks to complete our goals. ○​ Associated with the function of the prefrontal cortex  ○​ Serves as the command center for different processes running in parallel throughout the brain ​ Phineas Gage (1848) ○​ 25-year-old manager of a railroad excavation crew ○​ Suffered an accident which shot an iron rod through his jaw and up through his frontal lobe. ○​ Destroyed a region of the lower and medial frontal lobe ​ Cerebellum: A hindbrain structure located behind the pons and medulla ○​ Supports a variety of functions including: ​ Coordination ​ Precision ​ Balance ​ Accurate timing ​ Adjusts head and eye movements to help maintain balance ​ Also plays a role in cognition requiring coordination and timing Chapter 4: Sensation and Perception Perception ​ Perception: The neural processing of electrical signals to form an internal mental representation inside your brain of what’s on the outside. Sensation ​ Sensation: The process by which our sensory organs receive stimulus energies from the environment and transduce them into the electrical energy of the nervous system. Transduction ​ Transduction: The transformation of sensory stimulus energy from the environment into neural impulses. ​ What is the process by which sensory energy is transformed into a set of neural impulses that are sent to the brain for interpretation? ○​ Transduction ​ Visual transduction ○​ Nearsightedness, or myopia, involves faraway objects being projected too far in front of the fovea. ○​ Farsightedness, or hyperopia, involves a near object overshooting the back of the eye, behind the fovea. ○​ Both result is an unfocused image on the retina and thus blurry vision. Weber’s law Ernst Weber (in 1934) observed that difference in threshold increase as the stimulus increases -​ Perception of a stimulus change is not dependent on a fixed absolute value of change but a relative quantity of the stimulus magnitude. ​ Weber’s law: The observation that the likelihood of perceiving a stimulus change is proportional to the magnitude of the stimuli. ○​ The Weber fraction is the ratio of the minimum change in magnitude of the stimulus to the overall magnitude of the stimulus. ○​ Ratio matters rather then the absolute amount Sensory and perceptual adaptation ​ Adaptation: A phenomenon whereby an individual stops noticing a stimulus that remains constant over time, resulting in enhanced detection of stimulus changes. ○​ Sensory adaptation occurs at the level of the sensory receptors. ○​ Perceptual adaptation occurs in the perceptual centers of the brain. ○​ Aftereffects are opposing sensory or perceptual distortions that occur after adaptation. ​ sensory adaptation: occurs at the level of sensory receptors ​ Perceptual adaptation : occurs higher in the brain ○​ Both free us to focus on changes in our environment rather than on unchanging stimuli ​ If we do not adapt to a repeated stimulation in the environment → central aspect of autism ​ What is the correct distinction between sensory adaptation and perceptual adaptation? ○​ Sensory adaptation occurs at the level of sensory receptors, whereas perceptual adaptation happens higher up in the brain. Vision ​ The major structures of the eye serve different functions and are organized to produce the sensation of sight. ​ Cornea: The transparent covering at the front of the eye. ○​ Pupil: A hole in the iris where light enters the eye. ○​ Iris: The colored muscle circling the pupil. ​ The iris can increase or decrease the size of the pupil to adjust how much light enters the eye. ​ Lens: A membrane at the front of the eye that focuses the incoming light on the retina. ​ Accommodation: Adjustments of the lens’s thickness by specialized muscles in order to change the degree to which it bends light. ​ Retina: A surface on the back of the eye that contains the photoreceptor cells, which contain photopigments that are sensitive to light. ​ When light reaches the photoreceptors, chemical reactions change their shape and generate electricity. ​ Rod: Photoreceptor cell that primarily supports nighttime vision. ​ Cone: Photoreceptor cell that is responsible for high-resolution color vision. ​ Optic nerve: A bundle of axons that converge from the retina and transmit action potentials to the brain. ​ Blind spot: An area in the middle of the visual field where there are no photoreceptors and no information can be received. ​ Nearsightedness, or myopia, involves faraway objects being projected too far in front of the fovea. ​ Farsightedness, or hyperopia, involves a near object overshooting the back of the eye, behind the fovea. ​ Both result is an unfocused image on the retina and thus blurry vision.  ​ Rods and cones differ in important ways that relate to their functions. ○​ Rods all have the same type of photopigment, but cones contain one of three varieties of photopigments ○​ The multiple photopigments of the cones allows us to see color. ​ Rods and cones differ in their quantity and distribution across the retina. ○​ Ratio of 20:1, rods to cones ○​ Fovea: A small pit in the center of the retina that is densely packed with cones. ​ When seeing in daytime light, our eyes move to focus stimuli onto the fovea, which brings them into focus. ​ Most rods are in the retinal periphery. ​ Color is a psychological property made by the brain, rather than a physical property of the world. ○​ Objects differ in their capacity for absorbing or reflecting light, and thereby reflect different wavelengths to our eyes. ○​ Visual transduction → rods and cones convert light energy into electrical energy ○​ The blind spot is caused by an absence of photoreceptor cells. ○​ Fovea → cones ○​ Rods → see in dark Object identification ​ The brain processes and organizes the data it receives from the retina through hierarchical analysis. ○​ Increasingly higher levels of the brain create increasingly more complete representations of what is sensed. ​ From the optic nerve, to the thalamus, to the primary visual cortex ○​ Here, an image is recreated from what is presented on the retinas. ○​ Feature detectors: Specialized cells in the visual cortex that respond to basic features such as lines, edges, and angles. ​ From the primary visual cortex to the visual association cortex ○​ Visual association cortex: The regions of the brain where objects are reconstructed from prior knowledge and information collected by the feature detectors. ○​ Prosopagnosia: A visual disorder in which individuals are unable to recognize the identity of faces Illusions ​ A discrepancy exists between the distal physical stimulus and our interpretation of it based on the information in the proximal (retinal) stimulus Illusions are often formed when there is an absence and/or conflict of visual or other types of sensory cues ​ Opponent process theory: ○​ Colors on opposing sides of the color wheel are perceived as opposites: red/green, blue/yellow, black/white. ○​ “Opposite” colors are perceived as more contrasting. ○​ Staring at a color will produce an afterimage of its complimentary color when you look away because cones adapt to the visualized color (perception of that color is reduced) and the cone’s ability to inhibit the opposing color is decreased. Sensory systems ​ Tactile sense: The sense of touch. ○​ Multiple types of specialized receptors in the epidermis (skin) sense and transduce forms of physical energy from the environment into electrical impulses. ​ Different receptors for pain, temperature, pressure, and vibration. ​ Skin sensations are often caused by activation of various combinations of these receptor types ​ Primary somatosensory cortex: The cortex that is responsible for the sense of touch. ○​ Somatosensory homunculus: A depiction of how the body is represented by the brain, proportional to the amount of cortex devoted to each body part ​ The secondary somatosensory cortex is the association cortex for touch and processes more complex features like movement and recognition ​ In addition to the tactile sense, the somatosensory system informs our brain about stimuli inside the body related to determining positioning and internal states. 1.​ Proprioception: The sensory system responsible for awareness of body positions. ​ Sensors throughout the body enable the detection of where body parts are in space and in relation to one another without visualization 2.​ Vestibular system: Sensory system primarily responsible for balance. ​ Semicircular canals and vestibular sacs (which connect to the cochlea) in the inner ear contain fluid that shifts when the head moves or rotates. ○​ Movement of this fluid triggers hair cells that send messages to the cerebellum 3.​ Kinesthesis: The senses responsible for monitoring the position and movement of the body, including proprioception and the vestibular system. -​ Also provides information on how resistance influences our ability 4.​ Receptors deep in the body provide interoceptive, or internal, sense in bones and organs. -​ This information is interpreted by the insular cortex, which is an extension of the somatosensory cortex. ​ Olfaction: The sense of smell. ○​ A chemical sense designed to absorb airborne molecules via receptor proteins embedded in tiny hairs (olfactory cilia) on the olfactory receptor neurons ○​ Olfactory bulb: A structure just above the nasal cavity where information is communicated to the primary olfactory cortex via the olfactory tract ○​ Primary olfactory cortex: The region of the brain, located in the anterior temporal lobe, where smell is processed. ​ Olfaction association cortex is located on the underside of the frontal lobes and integrates olfactory, behavioral, cognitive, and contextual information ​ Connections to the amygdala and hippocampus link olfaction to emotion and memory ​ Gustation: The sense of taste. ○​ A chemical sense directly stimulated by food particles caught by tiny pores on the tongue. ○​ Little bumps on the tongue, called taste buds, contain the tiny pores that catch food particles. ○​ Within each pore, 50–100 taste receptors are clustered, each responding to one of five kinds of taste molecules: sweet, salty, sour, bitter, and savory (also called umami) ○​ The brain identifies a particular taste by the pattern of activation across receptor types. ○​ Taste preferences and aversions promote increased nutrition and prevent intake of poison or disease. ​ The perception of taste is a multisensory experience: Temperature, texture, olfaction, and vision all participate. ​ Both what we expect and our cultural experience affect our experience of taste Gestalt principles ​ Two psychological approaches have been used to explain how we distinguish an object (the figure) from its surroundings (the ground). ○​ Structuralism attempted to understand complex perceptions in terms of their most basic parts or elements ○​ Gestalt psychology: A school of psychological thought that attempted to explain how various elements group together to form objects, arguing that perception is more than a simple piecing together of building blocks ​ Identified principles that the visual system follows to organize incoming data and recognize objects: connectedness, closure, continuity, similarity, proximity, and synchrony. ​ Ambiguous figures and visual illusions demonstrate how our overall perception of an object may differ from the elements from which its perception is derived Chapter 5: Consciousness Metacognition ​ Introspection is a useful tool that takes advantage of humans’ remarkable ability to think about their own thinking Challenges of studying consciousness ​ There is no one structure in the brain that makes consciousness possible ​ Default mode network: An interconnected system of brain regions that are active when the mind is alert and aware but not focused on a particular task, such as during mind wandering. ○​ This network is more active when people report that they are mind-wandering Limitations of conscious awareness Dichotic listening task ​ The cognitive unconscious can influence conscious behavior, often without our realizing it. Once set of examples comes from a dichotic listening task. ○​ Participants wear a set of headphones but hear different auditory messages presented to each of their ears. If you as them to repeat out loud the messages coming from just one ear, they seem utterly oblivious to information in the other ear, even failing to notice if the language in the unattended ear switched from english to german. Subliminal perception ​ Subliminal perception: A form of perception that occurs without conscious awareness. ​ People cannot consciously report having seen a stimulus, but their behavior suggests otherwise. ​ Laboratory studies suggest that subliminal advertising can work, but only under certain conditions. ○​ Behavioral effects of subliminal advertising are fairly minimal. ○​ Outside of the laboratory, advertisers cannot control the environment well enough for subliminal messages to work very well Stages of sleep Regulating sleep Effects of drug addictions