Psychology Midterm PDF

Unit 1 Science of Psychology Basic vs applied research ○ Basic = intended to advance core scientific knowledge IE: animal modules/animal labs ○ Applied = designed to solve practical, real world problems Scientific method ○ Ask a question, f...

Unit 1 Science of Psychology Basic vs applied research ○ Basic = intended to advance core scientific knowledge IE: animal modules/animal labs ○ Applied = designed to solve practical, real world problems Scientific method ○ Ask a question, formulate hypothesis, conduct research analyze and draw conclusions Psychology’s 4 main goals ○ Description (what occurred) ○ Explanation (why something occurred; examination of causes) ○ Prediction (when and under what conditions is the phenomenon likely to occur again) ○ Change (how to prevent unwanted outcomes or bring about desired goals) Features of good scientific theories ○ Statements, theories, and hypotheses should be FALSIFIABLE Null hypothesis significance testing (type I & type II errors, 2x2 chart: true vs false positive & negative) ○ Null hypothesis (Ho) = no relationship or difference ○ Alternative hypothesis (Ha) = there is a relationship or difference ○ Type I error (false positive) = researcher finds a relationship when there is none ○ Type II error (false negative) = researcher finds no relationship when there’s one Important Vocabulary Scientific: following scientific method to collect and analyze data Behavior: actions/changes that can be externally observed Mental processes: cannot be immediately observed (including emotions and thoughts) ○ Thoughts: MRI studies (imaging blood flow) ○ Emotions: facial expressions, body language, tone of voice, and reaction times Sample: subsection of a population Population: what you're studying Reading 1 Accuracy: explanations and theories match real world observations Consistency: theory has few exceptions and shows agreement with other theories within and across disciplines Scope: theory extends beyond currently available data, explaining wide array of phenomena  Fruitfulness: usefulness of the theory in guiding new research by predicting new, testable relationships Proof is more associated with deductive reasoning Common p value threshold: 0.05 (5%), 0.01 (1%), 0.001 (1/10th) Psychological science relies on probability of seeing specific results and that it’s replicated in additional studies Thomas kuhn (2012) suggested that there is no such thing as objective theory or data Levels of analysis is the idea that a single phenomenon may be explained at different levels simultaneously. Here as listed as follows 1. Social cultural 2. Behavioral 3. Cognitive 4. Biological Important Vocabulary Hypotheses: tentative explanation subjective to testing Induction: drawing general conclusions from specific observations Pseudoscience: everyday reasoning Falsified: claim can be demonstrated incorrect Falsifiable: testable Probabilities: measurement of the degree of certainty of occurrence of the event Inductive reasoning: general conclusions inferred from a set of observations Deductive reasoning: given premises determines the interpretation of specific observations Anecdotal evidence: biased evidence taken from personal experiences used to support a conclusion that may be incorrect Correlation: measure of relatedness of two or more variables Null hypothesis significance testing (NHST): alternative hypothesis produces results as extreme as that one observed if the null hypothesis were true Distribution: spread of values Type 1 error: error of rejecting the null hypothesis when it's actually true 15. Probability values (p-values): if the P is low (0.05), reject the HO (null) ○ a. "significant at a p <.05 level" = same study repeated 100 times should have this expected result occur fewer than five times ○ b. Type 1 error is unlikely Scientific theory: comprehensive framework for making sense of evidence regarding phenomenon Empirically: concerned with observation or ability to verify a claim Causality: variable a causes the effect of/on variable B Generalize: one can extend conclusions from one study to other groups or situations not included/involved in that study Quiz Answers Inductive reasoning involves drawing conclusions from ○ SPECIFIC OBSERVATIONS Inductive reasoning is based on data from ○ samples A scientific theory has ___ when it agrees with other theories within and across disciplines ○ consistency When scientific theories are revised with new data, these revisions hope to increase the theory's ? to real-world observations ○ accuracy A statement that can be shown to be false is ○ FALSIFIABLE The idea of falsifiability involves ○ Ruling out bad explanations News media might report scientific claims as proven. Why is this problem? ○ The scientific method is based on probabilities, not proof. A prediction that is tested by researchers is called a/an ? is/are a way to see if observed data differ from what the data would look like if there was no relationship between the variables ○ hypothesis ○ Null hypothesis significance testing What does the alternative hypothesis predict in NHST? ○ That there is a relationship between two variables. In null hypothesis significance testing, the researcher is attempting to falsify the ○ null hypothesis (Ho) What is a type I error? ○ Finding a relationship when none really exists Making a ? smaller decreases the chance of a type I error ○ p-value Making a p-value smaller ? the chance of a type II error ○ increases Of those listed, which is the lowest level of analysis? ○ Biological A kettle boils because of molecular heat transfer, and because someone put the kettle on for a cup of tea. This demonstrates ○ levels of analysis Values reflect ○ beliefs about the way the world should be Research findings are applied by people in a way that is consistent with ○ their values What does it mean for a theory to be "fruitful"? ○ It opens the way for other useful research Part of the problem with horoscopes, scientifically speaking, is that  ○ they are so vague, they cannot be falsified Unit 2 Research Methods Types of research design (pros and cons of each) ○ Descriptive / qualitative studies such as: Naturalistic observation Naturalistic observation ○ Observes and records behavioral without interference Case study In depth, small number of participants Single cases, unique, particular characteristics Survey Demand characteristics might play a role ○ Ways to minimize: anonymous answers ○ Correlational = examines possible relationships between variables When 2 variables are related, a change in one is accompanied by a change in the other Correlation coefficient: R ranges from -1 to +1 Shows direction and strength of the relationship between 2 variables Perfect correlation is 45 degree angle 0.1 - 0.2 = weak, 0.3 - 0.5 = moderate, 0.6 - 1.0 = strong Limits: does not equal causation (third-variable problem) and may be illusory (can never provide clear cause and effect relationship between variables ○ Quasi-experimental Random assignment not used Relies on existing group memberships Causal inferences are more difficult Can’t draw reasonable conclusions that experimental designs could bring ○ Longitudinal studies Tracking the same people over time Can last weeks, months, years Provides valuable evidence for many theories but takes lot of resources independent variable: manipulated/changed in the experiment Dependent variable: what is observed and measured by the researcher/experimenter Control group: does not receive the treatment Experimental group: receives the treatment Random assignment: allows causal inference, doesn’t let participants pick what conditions they are in  Experimental is the best design to find the answer to a question Experimental safeguards ○ Types of biases Sample Recruit participants thinking they represent larger population but they don't ○ IE: taking first 10 people to show up as the sample Experimental Researcher is influencing the outcome in the way they expected it to be Ethnocentrism Believe the ethnicity/culture we come from is representative of truth Participant Knows what assignment they’re assigned to, influencing their behavior in the study Social desirability Start to respond in the way you think the experimenter wants you to Internal validity: you’re making sure the experiment is testing what you think it’s testing by controlling variables WITHIN the study External validity: whether you find your study generalizable / applicable to the real world Ecological validity: results are relevant and applicable to real life situations Problems in research ○ Researcher experimenter bias Can be solved by blind observers, single and double blind studies, placebos Ethnocentrism Can be solved by cross cultural sampling ○ Participants Sample bias and confounding variables Can be solved by representative sampling, random assignment, rigorous experimental controls Participant bias Can be solved by anonymity, confidentiality, placebos, single and double blind studies, deception Controls ○ Placebo Placebo effect = inactive substance that can cause behavior in the expected direction of the active substance Single blind study = not telling the participants which group they are assigned to  Double blind study = participants and researchers are both unaware of who’s in experimental or control group Operational definition: how abstract concepts (emotions) are measured in a study Quiz Answers How does a researcher know which methods she should use to test her hypothesis in psychological research? ○ The best method depends on the question being asked as well as the resources that are available to the researcher In an experiment, the condition that is being manipulated or changed by the researcher is called the __ variable ○ Independent Psychologists often explore questions related to abstract concepts (satisfaction, happiness, spirituality) when conducting research but those concepts may be hard to quantify. What must be clearly stated at the beginning of the research of such a concept? ○ An operational definition of the concept Which of the following is an example of an empirical question that could be tested using systematic observation ○ How does race impact voting trends in a political election? Which of the following would serve as an appropriate operational definition of depression in a research study about mood disorders? ○ A participant's total score on a statistically valid depression inventory Markus is in a study examining the impact of vitamin C on vision. Some participants take 100mg. Of vitamin C every day while others take placebo. Markus doesn't know which group he's in, but he is given eye exams measuring his vision each month. What is the dependent variable? ○ Participant's vision, in this case, Markus' Barbara is complaining that she has terrible abdominal pains. Several physicians have found nothing wrong with her. One physician gives Barbara a prescription for tablets with no real medication in them. "I think that this new medication will be very helpful for your abdominal infection", the physician tells Barbara. Within 24 hours of taking the fake medication Barbara reports that her abdominal pains have disappeared. This is called a __ ○ Placebo effect What is participant demand? ○ When a research participant behaves in a way that she/he thinks the experimenter wants them to behave Martiza is in a study testing if almond milk slows the development of brittle bones. She's in the study for 3 months but doesn't know that her milk allergy is causing her body to block nutrients, so it doesn't help her. Martiza's allergy is an example of a(n): ○ Confound Dr. Magill is conducting research on whether giving monkeys ice cold water in the morning will cause them to be less aggressive during the day. He has several graduate  students observing the monkeys and he regularly comments to the students that ice water is "definitely making a difference." As a result, the graduate students are less likely to rate minor aggressive incidents as true aggression. The research in this example has been compromised by __ ○ Experimenter expectations Which kind of research allows us to passively observe exactly two variables to determine a relationship between them without drawing cause-and-effect conclusions? ○ Correlational research Annie conducts correlational research study and calculates that the variables in question have a correlational coefficient of -.81. In this statistic, the negative sign gives us information about the __ of the relationship between two variables ○ Direction Based on wat you know about dental hygiene and health which of the following would be the best description of the correlation between variable A (the number of times a day one brushes their teeth) and variable B (the number of cavities one has when they go to the dentist) ○ A strong negative correlation The more one brushes their teeth (goes up), the less cavities present (goes down) = NEG What kind of research would be most useful in investigating whether saving for retirement improves with age? ○ A correlational design An article headline claimed that "drugs cause homelessness" due to a positive relationship found between homeless populations and drug use. Educated psychologists thought this might be flawed, because they thought unemployment was influencing both drug use and homelessness. This is an example of: ○ A third variable problem Which of the following represents the biggest problem associated with the use of a correlational design in psychology research? ○ The designs do not allow one to determine causality Dr. Zarski wants his department to put together a proposal for a program of research that will earn excellent grant funding from a variety of sources, including the federal government. He knows that the research he is conducting will take many years and cost upwards of several million dollars. Which type of research is Dr. Zarski probably proposing? ○ A longitudinal study What distinguishes an experiment from a quasi-experimental research design? ○ An experiment involves random assignment and a quasi-experiment does not Mary is gathering data for her dissertation research, and has decided to use the internet to reach a large number of potential participants with a minimum of cost. She creates a list of questions and put its on a website, and then sends the link out to many people in the hopes that they will go to her site. This inexpensive and rather efficient research design is called a(n) ___  ○ Survey Dr. Crondall is studying who's happier - married or non married couples. He uses people's current marital status as an independent variable because he can't randomly assign people to a married or single group. What kind of research strategy doesn't employ random assignment? ○ A quasi-experiment Unit 3 Biological Psychology Neuron is basic building block of the nervous system Cell body contains the cell nucleus (soma) ○ Receives information from dendrites and if enough stimulation is received, it’s passed to the axon Axon conveys impulses away from cell body ○ Carries neuron’s messages to other body cells Dendrites receive information from other cells Myelin sheath covers the axon of some neurons to insulate and speed neural impulses Terminal buttons release chemicals called neurotransmitters to other cells through the junction Loss of normal levels of myelin leads to long term problems in cognitive functioning Communication between neurons ○ Synapse is the gap between neurons ○ Neurotransmitters are chemical messengers between each neuron Process of neurotransmitter ○ 1. Sends chemical signal Released from terminal button at the end of the axon, across the synaptic gap ○ 2. Receive chemical signal Receiving a neuron ○ 3. Dealing with leftovers Reuptake SSRI = selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor Neural communication ○ WITHIN a neuron = electrical ○ BETWEEN neurons = chemical Types of drugs in chemical messengers ○ Agonist: mimics or enhances a neurotransmitter effect (like Parkinson’s drugs) ○ Antagonist: blocks or hinders a neurotransmitter effect (like antipsychotic drugs) Types of neurotransmitters ○ Dopamine = movement and attention ○ Acetylcholine = muscle action and learning ○ Endorphins = mood and pain  ○ Epinephrine = arousal and memory ○ GABA = learning and regulating anxiety ○ Glutamate = learning and movement ○ Norepinephrine = attention and arousal ○ Serotonin = mood and sleep Tools for brain research ○ Electrical recordings Not a lot temporal information - not specific Doesn’t cost a lot/doesn’t take a long time ○ fMRI (Functional magnetic resonance imaging) Radiowaves create 2D image Tracks oxygen level in the brain, directly related to metabolism More activity in a particular area = more oxygen there ○ PET scan Positron emission tomography Uses radioactive substance injected through bloodstream then moves to the brain ○ MRI Inflammation (brain swelling) Blood vessels that are large or small, clots, tumors can all be picked up ○ CT scan Computer tomography Uses xray to give static image Has a before and after image ○ Brain biopsy (slice of a brain cell, taking blood markers and examining under the microscope) Brain structures and functions Hindbrain ○ Structure: pons, cerebellum, medulla ○ Function: heart rate, respiration, sleep, balance facts/details In the back Vital for functioning essential/automatic survival functions Midbrain ○ Structure: reticular formation ○ Function: sleep/arousal facts/details In the middle How awake or activated you are Forebrain Cerebral cortex (also called cerebrum): mushy folds of the outside of the brain  Higher order thinking or executive functioning ○ Decisions, regulate impulses Hypothalamus: drives us to behavior (regulates us to action) Thalamus: relay center for communication Limbic system Amygdala: emotion (“center” of the brain) Hippocampus: memory ○ Function: thinking, emotions, memory facts/details: In the front Makes us the most human Function for higher order Corpus callosum connects the hemispheres of the brain Gyrus (hills) and sulcus (valleys) are the folds of the cerebrum Cerebral cortex/cerebrum: 4 lobes Frontal lobe: cognition, motor control, speech ○ Motor cortex = motor movement ○ Broca’s area = language production (LEFT HEMISPHERE ONLY) ○ Higher functions = thinking, personality, memory Parietal lobe: sensation ○ Somatosensory cortex = sensory messages ○ Receives and interprets bodily sensations Occipital lobe: vision ○ Vision and visual perception Temporal lobe: hearing ○ Wernicke’s area = language comprehension Motor cortex: controlling voluntary movement Somatosensory cortex: organizing sensory information Spinal cord: sends information to and from the brain and peripheral nervous system and controls reflexes Peripheral nervous system ○ Somatic nervous system (SNS) Connects CNS to sensory receptors Controls skeletal muscles ○ autonomic nervous system (ANS) Connects CNS to muscles and glands Controls involuntary motor responses Sympathetic nervous system ○ High stress / flight or fight or freeze response Parasympathetic nervous system ○ Low stress, resting stage Brainstem ○ Most basic structure, located top of the spine and bottom of the brain  ○ In charge of life support functions for the human body Cerebellum: involved with movement and posture, associated with other thinking processes, coordinates actions without the need for any conscious awareness much like the brain system Split brain patients help us understand that the brain is contralateral or opposite sided ○ Reading 3 Chimpanzees show similarities with our nervous systems Nervous system can be thought as the body's communication network that consists of all nerve cells CNS ○ Referred to as "central" because the brain and spinal cord are 1) primarily responsible for processing sensory information 2) sending signals to peripheral nervous system for action Approximately 86 billion neurons in human brain PNS Carries signals necessary for the body to survive Quiz Answers 1. The human brain has developed in numerous ways over the course of evolution. For example, ______, an ancestor of the modern human that lived over 2 million years ago, had a larger brain volume than its own ancestors but far less than modern humans. 1. homo habilis 2. The ______ system can be thought of a massive network of cells that allows for communication within the body. 1. Nervous 3. There is a very popular fighting-oriented video game in which characters often kill each other at the end of their match. One character’s finishing move is to grab his opponent  and tear his spine out. His final stance is to stand up holding the opponent’s brain and spinal cord up high in a victorious pose. In biological terms, this combatant is holding his opponent’s ______ nervous system. 1. Central 4. While driving to the beach for a vacation, your family gets stuck in traffic for over an hour. Each car sits very close to the one in front of it and the one behind it, but there is a small space that separates each car. In a system of neurons, such gaps between cells would be called ______. 1. Synaptic gaps 5. The electrical part of a neural signal – the message that gets sent down an axon and toward the next neuron – is called a(n) ______. 1. Action potential 6. Why would it be accurate to say that neural communication is an ‘electrochemical process’? 1. Because the system is electrical within a neuron, but chemical between neurons 7. Which of the following neurotransmitters is known to have an impact on such functions as sleep, hunger, and mood? 1. Serotonin 8. The single most basic part of the human brain – a part that is seen in other, less-evolved animals - is the ______. This essential area helps to regulate such critical functions as breathing, digestion, and the beating of your heart. 1. Brainstem 9. Which of the following would NOT be considered a structure that is part of the limbic system? 1. Medulla 10. 13-year old Laila is taken to her doctor when her parents recognize that she is having symptoms related to her movement and posture. The doctor sends her to a neurologist, who orders an MRI of her brain. The doctor is not surprised to find out that Laila has a small growth on her ______, and speaks to the parents about how this will be treated so that Laila’s symptoms will resolve. 1. Cerebellum 11. The thick bundle of neurons that connects the left and right cerebral hemispheres is called the ______. This structure allows those hemispheres to communicate with each other. 1. Corpus callosum 12. Charlise suffers from severe epilepsy and has several seizures a week. Her neurologist has tried several different medications to control the illness, all without success. Now she is concerned that Charlise will suffer brain damage if the seizures continue, and has recommend a split-brain procedure. She describes to Charlise that this surgery will involve severing the ______to reduce electrical activity between the two hemispheres of her cerebral cortex. 1. Corpus callosum 13. Ritchard and Kenny go out to have dinner at their favorite restaurant to celebrate their 3-year anniversary. Ritchard orders the paella, his favorite dish of rice and seafood. With every bite he closes his eyes and sighs with happiness. What part of Ritchard’s cerebral cortex is probably most active as he is enjoying the taste of his dinner? 1. The parietal lobe 14. Which part of your body occupies the largest amount of space on the precentral gyrus, which is also known as the “primary motor cortex?” 1. The lips 15. Which area of the brain is associated with complex problem solving, planning and organization? 1. Frontal lobe 16. The ______ nervous system includes nerves and neurons that are located outside of the brain and spinal cord, and facilitates communication to other parts of the body. 1. Peripheral 17. Which part of the brain, located on the left side of the frontal lobe, was identified by a surgeon as being implicated in speech production? 1. Broca’s area 18. Which of the following brain imaging techniques provides the highest level of temporal resolution? 1. Electroencephalography (EEG) 19. Irene has been having migraines lately and she goes to visit her doctor. Her doctor sends her to have a brain imaging test that will measure changes in the naturally occurring oxygen in the blood in her brain. Which type of procedure is Irene going to have? 1. functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) 20. Which type of brain imaging technique involves shining an infrared light on a person’s head to see how it changes as it penetrates the brain? 1. diffuse optical imaging (DOI)