Learning goals for Exam 1 (2).docx

**Introductions -- Addressing Misconceptions About Psychology** - Describe what makes something "a science". Describe the six steps of the scientific method. - Discuss whether psychology is all just common sense. Discuss whether psychology is a science. - Explain the ways in which w...

**Introductions -- Addressing Misconceptions About Psychology** - Describe what makes something "a science". Describe the six steps of the scientific method. - Discuss whether psychology is all just common sense. Discuss whether psychology is a science. - Explain the ways in which we can -- and can't -- use psychology to predict people's behaviour. - Explain the difference between applied psychologists and basic (or research) psychologists. - Describe a few different kinds of applied psychologist. **Introductions -- The Philosophy and Early History of Psychology** - Explain what is meant by the phrase "the mind-body problem". Explain Descartes' view and the modern psychological view of the relationship between the mind and the body/brain. Explain what the case of Phineas Gage tells us about this relationship between the mind and the brain. - Explain differing viewpoints on the roles of nature and nurture. Explain what empiricism is. Explain what nativism is. - Outline the development of the first scientific schools of psychology: Structuralism, Functionalism and Behaviourism. Describe the goals and methods of these schools of psychology, as well as Freud's goals and methods. **Introductions -- The Modern Focus of Psychology** - Explain what it means to adopt an eclectic approach to psychology. - Describe what is meant by the term "the cognitive revolution", including its methods ("cognitive testing") and theories (the analogy of the mind "as a computer"). - Describe how recent developments in biology and neuroscience help us understand the mind. - Explain how psychologists believe that evolution has played a role in shaping our minds. - Explain the role of culture in modern psychologists' thinking. - Explain what "multi-causality" means. **Research Methods in Psychology -- Principles of the Scientific Method** - Explain what parsimony is, and be able to identify more parsimonious and less parsimonious ideas. - Explain what falsifiability is, and why it is important in science. - Explain how new ideas in science are generally connected to old ideas, and must be supported by converging evidence. **Research Methods in Psychology -- Method of Data Collection** - Explain what an "operational definition" is and be able to generate your own. - Explain what it means for a measure of something to be reliable. - Explain what it means for a measure of something to be valid. - Describe the pros and cons of observing behaviour. Explain what "external validity" is. - Describe the pros and cons of collecting survey data. - Describe what makes a test "standardized". Explain the pros and cons of standardized testing. Describe the different types of standardized tests (IQ, achievement, aptitude, neuropsychological) **Research Methods in Psychology -- Correlations** - Define what a correlation is and recognize when a study is correlational. Explain what an *r* value (e.g., *r* = 1, *r* = 0, *r* = -1) tells us. - Discuss how correlations can be used to help us predict things. - Explain why correlations cannot be used to explain things. (Why correlation is NOT causation!) Explain the direction-of-causality problem and the third variable problem. **Research Methods in Psychology -- Experiments** - Explain what makes something an experiment and how experiments allow us to make conclusions about causes. - Explain what makes something an independent or dependent variable. Identify independent and dependent variables. - Be able to calculate some simple descriptive statistics (mean, mode, and median). Explain what means, modes, and medians are. Explain in general terms what a standard deviation shows us. Explain in general terms what inferential statistics tell us, and what they are based on. - Explain the problems created by confounding variables, expectations, and biases in experiments and how to avoid such problems. - Explain what random assignment is and how it removes some, but not all, confounding variables. - Describe the key issues regarding generalising the results of an experiment. Explain what a representative sample is. Explain what a biased sample is. **Biological Psychology -- Your Brain and What it's Made of** - Describe the difference between the Central Nervous System (CNS) and the Peripheral Nervous System (PNS). - Describe the three major kinds of neuron; sensory neurons, interneurons, motor neurons. - Describe the basic structure of neurons -- their four basic parts (dendrites, soma, axon, terminal buttons) and the function of each part. **Biological Psychology -- How Neurons Communicate** - Explain what an action potential is. - Describe what role the myelin sheath plays in speeding up action potentials. Explain why some neurons are faster than others. - Explain how and why neurons can change their firing rates. - Explain what a neurotransmitter is. Describe two examples of neurotransmitters. - Describe what excitation and inhibition are. Describe how neurotransmitters create excitation or inhibition. **Biological Psychology -- Drugs, the Brain, and Communication Networks** - Describe how agonists work and give one example of an agonist. - Describe how antagonists work and give one example of an antagonist. - Explain how interconnected neurons form networks using the example of a reflex. Describe how and why the brain plays no role in an initial reflex response. - Explain what the term "neural plasticity" means. **Biological Psychology -- Methods for Studying Brain Function** - Explain how studying the effects of brain damage can inform our understanding of the functions of parts of the brain. Describe what we know about Broca's and Wernicke's areas of the brain. - Explain the disadvantages of relying on studies of brain damage to tell us about brain function. - Describe how methods that stimulate the electrical activity of the brain can tell us about brain function. - Describe what both EEG and fMRI measure and how they tell us about brain function. **Biological Psychology -- The PNS and Brain Functions** - Describe the different networks of neurons in the PNS and what their functions are. - Describe the major structures of the brain and the functions associated with them, including the hindbrain, the forebrain, the hippocampus, and the different lobes (frontal, parietal, temporal, and occipital) of the cortex. - Describe the way that neurons are organized in the motor and sensory areas of the frontal and parietal lobes. - Explain how the two hemispheres divide and co-ordinate brain functions. Describe what can happen if the corpus callosum between the two hemispheres is absent or disconnected.