Psychology Chapters 1-8 Final

Ivan Pavlov (1849-1936)

trained dogs to salivate at the sound of a ringing bell: - Performed pioneering conditioning experiments on dogs. These experiments led to the development of the classical conditioning model of learning.

evidence

an available body of facts and information indicating whether a belief or proposition is true and valid

metacognition

an awareness and understanding of your own thought processes

Which research tool is best suited to the biological-neuroscience perspective?

brain imaging techniques - brain imagine techniques, such as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), can measure activity in the brain

How can we compensate for our potentially biased intuitions and narrow range of experiences?

we can systematically collect and average evidence across many people - draw conclusions using scientific methods rather than relying on intuition or experience

consciousness

what you lose when you fall into a deep sleep at night and what you gain when you wake up in the morning

early psychological and medical studies relied on intuition, simple observations, and theories that attempted to explain causes and effects. Such theories sometimes led to...________________

wild and bizarre conclusions and practices that are now completely discredited (animal magnetism)

dysfunctions

impaired functions that have helped us understand humans' normal functions

personality-social applied example

Emily has always been a conscientious student, but her new roommates like to party and are not as worried about completing assignments on time. Over the course of the term, Emily is finding herself feeling more relaxed about deadlines. She's still the most likely one in the apartment to turn in all of her assignments, but she doesn't feel as anxious if she has to finish something at the last minute. She is experiencing two forces on her behavior: the relative stability of personality traits over time and the influence of social norms on her behavior.

clinical applied example

Emily has recently been suffering from anxiety and insomnia and is wondering if they are related. One possibility is that Emily's anxiety causes intrusive negative thoughts at nighttime that prevent her from sleeping. However, it's also possible that Emily's insomnia stems from her irregular sleep schedule and the fact that she works on her laptop before bedtime. In this case, her insomnia is not a disorder and can be managed with proper sleep hygiene. Good sleep hygiene involves restricting the amount of time spent in bed, cutting down on the use of stimulants such as caffeine, avoiding naps, exercising daily, and limiting the amount of time spent staring at a computer screen

developmental applied example

Emily is living through a period in her life that developmental psychologists call emerging adulthood. During this period, young adults (18-25) take time to finish their schooling, gain financial independence from their parents, and establish careers and serious romantic relationships. As emily is exploring and establishing her identity, she might experiment with different possible careers and relationship partners

cultural applied example

Emily's family emigrated to the United States from China when she was 10 years old. Although Emily probably feels acculturated to America, she might still notice subtle cultural differences between Asian-American students and those of European-American descent. Research suggests that students from Western cultures like the United States find it easy to speak up in class and think through an argument while they are talking, whereas students socialized in an Eastern cultural background find it easier to work on difficult reasoning problems quietly.

cognitive emotional applied example

Emotion research shows that how we perceive a situation and our own ability to do well can shape our emotions and our performance - emily wants to work in a health-related field, but she hasn't decided which one. She is a highly competitive student-athlete and is therefore considering exploring kinesiology or sports psychology. She is fascinated by how her current thoughts can affect her performance on the soccer field. When she goes into a game feeling confident, she plays much better than she does if she doubts her abilities.

Which of the following sentences demonstrates overregularization?

"In my dream I catched 2 gooses!" - "Catch" has an irregular past tense ("caught"), and "goose" has an irregular plural ("geese"), but until these exceptions are learned, children will modify these words in the standard way to express themselves.

HARKing

"hypothesizing after results are known" - it misleads readers about the strength of the evidence

p<0.05

"then it means it is statistically significant and you reject the null hypothesis" - Kelly

ventral visual stream

"what is it" - allows us to recognize/identify objects

dorsal visual stream

"where is it" - allows us to process where objects are in space

primary auditory cortex

(i think in temporal lobe) - perceives sound

primary motor cortex

(in frontal lobe) - controls voluntary movement

prefrontal cortex

(in frontal lobe) - planning, decision-making, evaluations, memory, personality traits

primary visual cortex (V1)

(in occipital lobe) - perceives visual information

primary somatosensory cortex

(in parietal lobe) - processes info from skin senses and senses related to body motion

monitoring meditation

(mindfulness meditation) in which the meditator monitors the contents of his experience from moment to moment - meditator may begin by focusing on a particular target, but then broadens his attention and monitors his experience as a whole. As thoughts enter his awareness, the meditator tries to not react or engage with them, but simply observes them as they pass. - doesn't try to "clear" or "empty" his mind - but simply to be more aware of its contents - often used therapeutically to help people transform problematic patterns of thinking and feeling. - practice helps them notice what enters their awareness w/o allowing those thoughts or emotions to distress them - ex: mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR)

lateralization

(one-sidedness) cognitive function that relies more on one side of the brain than the other - left hemisphere is usually the dominant hemisphere for talking (focuses on the details) - right brain is more engages with perceptual tasks and even some emotional tasks (facial expressions) (focuses on the "big picture")

focused attention meditation

(transcendental meditation_ in which the meditator focuses her attention on some specific target. common targets include the breath or a certain word or phrase aka "mantra". - she monitors the quality of her attention, and whenever her focus wanders, she brings it back to the target. Over time, maintaining sustained attention on the target gets easier and the meditator gets more skilled at noticing and recovering from lapses in focus.

relationship between ventral and dorsal pathways

*double dissociation between ventral & dorsal damage - they communicate with each other. How they communicate depends on focused attention

homeopathy

*pseudoscience* The treatment of diseases, such as asthma, cancer, and dementia, by tiny doses of natural substances (e.g. poison ivy, arsenic) that in a healthy person would produce symptoms of disease - NOT an effective treatment for any healthy condition - serious threat to health and well-being - the

1998 medical study by Wakefield and colleagues

*pseudoscience/FALSE* suggested that the trace amounts of mercury in childhood vaccines may cause autism - as fewer children are vaccinated, society begins to lose herd immunity, and diseases that were once almost completely eliminated start making a comeback - blamed for measles outbreak

things about correlation

- - the stronger a correlation is, the better our predictions will be - correlations can be described as "weak, moderate, or strong" - stronger when dots in a scatterplot is closer together, weaker when dots in a scatterplot are farther apart - a correlation does NOT allow us to say that one variable causes the other - correlational studies can never support causal claims bc they can never rule out all possible third variables

individuals can differ greatly in their taste experiences

- 2 synthetic substances, PTC and PROP, taste bitter to some people but are virtually tasteless to others - a small # of people are supertasters who find PTC and PROP unbearably bitter. supertasters are though to experience bitterness and other tastes more strongly. - the range of individual variation, from taste blindness to extreme sensitivity, largely reflects genetic differences in taste receptors on the tongue - food preference is clearly not all genetics. culture also teaches us what is safe - and pleasurable - to eat

learning to understand and produce words and sentences

- 6-9 months: infants know the meaning of many common nouns - around 1st bday: infants show their understanding of words, most children have said a first word and quickly begin to speak in single-word utterances - 1.5 years: children's mastery of individual words takes off - 2 years: they've mastered enough words that they start putting together two-word utterances that sound like old-fasioned telegrams: "mommy juice," "me go," "dada shoe." - 3 years: children's speech progesses very rapidly and children can say short sentences that include not only nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs, but function words like "of" or "the". - 5 years: children speak very similarly to adults, and it is clear that they are mastering the grammatical rules of their language

People are more likely to choose options that are considered the default or "status quo" over other alternatives

- In US, default is to not be an organ donor. Other countries, organ donation is default. - people are more likely to agree to be organ donors in countries where organ donation is the default - show that a simple manipulation of which choice is presented as the default can profoundly affect people's behavior - policy makers can manipulate how choices are presented in order to influence people's behavior

if LTP provides the cellular building blocks for the formation of long-term memories, then increasing or decreasing LTP should result in remembering vs. forgetting.

- LTP increases the amount of protein CREB (cAMP- responses element binding protein) which might represent the molecular basis of memory in the brain - it works by changing the activation of genes in neurons, increasing the neuron's response to stimulation - Genetic studies in Drosophila (fruit flies) suggest that CRED, given its role in LTP, is an ancient evolutionary mechanism for memory formation - when CREB is enhance, learning is also enhances.

post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)

- People who develop posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) after experiencing war, rape, or violence may be stricken with anxiety for years after the event, and previously neutral environmental stimuli associated with the traumatic experience serve as triggers for their fears - for individuals suffering from PTSD, the world may be filled with fear triggers bc of the overgeneralization of fear-conditioned learning

a. Operationalizing Measured Variables example

- Research question: how many people are "thriving" in this country? - Measured variable(s): level of well-being - operationalization of the measured variable: asking people to rate their well-being - metric used: number ranging from 1 to 10

the conscious mind isn't entirely at the mercy of the unconscious mind

- Warning people that they might be influenced by subliminal advertising eliminates any influence, suggesting that the conscious mind can override the unconscious mind - the conscious mind can also step in and take control of behavior when the cognitive unconscious makes mistakes or encounters something it can't handle

neurons learn to predict a future reward

- activity in neurons that release dopamine, a neurotransmitter that is released after a rewarding event, sheds light on the role of predictions in learning - dopamine was first secreted in re

researchers have used fMRI's to examine brain responses to specific events, such as the presentation of a picture or a word

- activity in the hippocampus predicts what is retained in long-term memory, reflecting what a person later remembers, finds familiar, or forgets. - by tracking the activity of the hippocampus during encoding, researchers can see long-term memories being formed by a person for a specific event, allowing them to predict from a brain scan what a person will remember or forget - some of the methods used to enhance long-term memory, such as encoding events meaningfully with deep processing, increase activity in the hippocampus. - judging words deeply (semantically) verses shallowly (alphabetically) leads to enhanced activity not only in the inferior prefrontal cortex but also in the hippocampus, supporting improved memory confidence and accuracy. - different encoding strategies might engage distinct frontal brain regions, the hippocampus represents a common pathway for long-term memory storage. - in contrast, existing memories, esp. those made long ago, may be distributed throughout the brain, no longer depending on the hippocampus.

classical conditioning in the advertising

- advertising industry takes full advantage of the powerful ways in which emotion and classical conditioning can alter behavior - viewers build an association between the new brand (CS) and good feelings (CR) making it likely that the target audience will choose this brand the next time they make a purchase - cigarette companies: pair cigarettes (CS) with beautiful, successful women or muscular cowboys (US to evoke feelings of attractiveness and strength (CR) - government against cigarettes: gruesome pictures to discourage people from smoking

the gustatory system has 3 nerve tracts that connect the tongue to the brain

- after passing through a specialized gustatory region of the thalamus, taste information is directed to the primary gustatory cortex, located in the insular cortex, which is an extension of the somatosensory cortex that represents internal body states. - electrical stimulation in the insular cortex elicits taste sensations, and very strong stimulation can induce gagging and vomiting. - the information is also relayed to secondary taste regions in the adjacent orbitofrontal cortices that lie above the eye sockets

pereptually decoupled though is extremely valuable in other ways than automaticity

- allows us to use information that isn't immediately present (such as knowledge gained form prior experiences) to guide our behavior - the same brain regions that appear to be involved in mind wandering are also involved in other forms of perceptually decoupled thought, such as deciding whether a shape you see on a computer screen is in the same location as it was in a previous trial - has a specific purpose for creative thinking and problem solving: it seems to boost people's ability to solve creative problems and people who are better at solving creative problems have thicker brain regions in the cortical networks associated with mind wandering - may help us organize and structure our plans: when people's minds wander nearly 50% of the time they report thinking about the past or future. Future-oriented thought is often goal-directed, meaning that people are thinking about things they'd like to happen, such as getting a job after college, and how to bring them about - the future-oriented nature of mind wandering may explain why it is associated with feeling less happy

Damage to Broca's area

- broca's area is in left frontal lobe - damage to it impairs the ability to speak but not to comprehend speech

split brain surgery video

- can see AND name words/objects on right of the point (left hemisphere is dominant for language and speech) - cannot name objects to the left of the point, but he IS able to draw them. (Right hemisphere gives the left hand control)

Damage to Ventral Visual Pathway (LOC)

- connections between occipital and temporal lobes - 'object agnosia': don't recognize/perceive objects (inverted faces)

biological rhythms are partly controlled by

- cues of lightness and darkness (to help produce melatonin in the SCN) - cells in the SCN which control the internal biological clock - caused by a mix of biological and environmental forces: individual cells in the brain create rhythms that can be adjusted, or entrained, by exposure to light (people recover from jet lag) - artificial light (screen, tv, computers, smart phones, tablets) can also activate SCN and affect biological rhythms

basic parts to every neuron

- dentrites - cell body - axon - terminal branches

having a biological clock that is consistently synchronized with the natural world is important for health

- disrupting circadian rhythms, not just with bright screens but by working night shifts, for ex, contribute to a host of human health problems, such as cancer and diabetes

encoding of information into long-term memory appears to be a highly fragile process that requires your full attention

- divided attention during retrieval resulted in small or no reductions in memory performance (remarkably)

alcohol is associated with increased risks of violence and accidents

- effects can result in impulsivity, lack of judgment - excessive alcohol use is the 4th leading preventable cause of death - at higher doses, it depresses parts of the brain that control motor movements, leading to impairments in speech, coordination, and balance - too much alcohol can shut down the deep regions of the brain that control life-support functions like breathing, heart rate, and body temperature (alcohol poisoning)

It is evolutionarily adaptive for your survival to remember events that were associated with intense emotions, to prioritive our memories of events that bring us harm or joy

- enhanced memory associated with emotionally arousing events does not appear to be related to increased thought or rehearsal; its as much about the body as it is the mind - arousal (from stress hormones, adrenalin, etc.) enhances long-term memory for neutral events that were presented just prior - amygdala acts as conduit between brain and body

brain regions involved in episodic and semantic memory

- episodic: hippocampus in the medial temporal lobe is critical - semantic: loss of semantic memory is associated with degeneration of the surrounding lateral and anterior temporal lobe, where semantic knowledge is thought to be stored

relation between episodic and semantic memory

- evidence of double dissociation - episodic is remembering (what, who, when, where); also involves hippocampus - semantic is knowing - children with amnesia (or damage to hippocampus) may not remember episodic memories, but they do well in school bc their semantic memory stays intact

Pseudoscience warning signs

- exaggerated claims - overreliance on anecdotes - absence of connectivity to other research - lack of review by other scholars or replication by independent labs - lack of self-correction when contrary evidence is published - "psychobabble" using fancy scientific-sounding terms that don't make sense - talk of "proof" instead of "evidence"

2 kinds of neuron signals

- excitatory (moving the voltage closer to its threshold - increase) - inhibitory (moving the voltage farther away from voltage threshold - decrease to resting state)

when do different types of validity matter?

- external validity matters most when you care about getting a precise estimate of what people in a broader population do or think - internal validity matters most in experiments, where the usual goal is to establish a cause and effect - construct validity is always important, bc any study is only as food as the operationalizations of its key variables

we are susceptible to memory distortions even when the stakes are very high

- eyewitness misidentifications were the single greatest reason for a wrongful conviction among a sample of 250 cases

If you awaken during REM sleep

- far more likely to report having been dreaming than if awakened during other stages - reports of how long they've been dreaming correlate very well with how long they've been experiencing rapid eye movements - thus, rem sleep is the "dream" stage and that rapid eye movements signal the beginning of a dream

broca's aphasia

- frontal lobe - difficulty in producing speech, saying words - disfluent, halting - comprehension is intact

approach to minimize confirmation bias

- give people a concrete strategy to reduce bias, by encouraging them to actively imagine and consider the opposite point of view. - A similar strategy can reduce bias in murder investigations: At each step of the way, the investigators need to actively consider why their hypothesis might be wrong

training with games

- helps someone get better at those games but does not boost much else - brain games do not seem to improve broad cognitive abilities or have meaning in day-to-day living - some evidence has found that the right kind of practice can have broad and lasting benefits: evidence from rehabilitation of function demonstrates that long-term game playing in people who have lost some cognitive function, such as the elderly, can have lasting changes in the brain and behavior

forebrain (subcortex)

- hippocampus: memories of time and place; spatial navigation - amygdala: emotional associations - basal ganglia: planning and executing movement - thalamus: sensory pathways to and from cortex - hypothalamus: master controller of the brain and body; regulation of bodily homeostasis (stability or equilibrium)

account rates of signal detection theory

- hits: responding "yes" when a stimulus is present - misses: responding "no" when a stimulus is present - false alarms: responding "yes" when no stimulus is present - correct rejections: responding "no" when no stimulus is present

we construct our memories to fit with our knowledge and beliefs. When pictures are presented with distinct verbal labels, drawings from memory are adapted to fit the description.

- image of 2 circles connected by a line - eyeglasses or barbell depending on which label is given) - memory is constructive, more like a personal mental sketch than a photograph - memory is like reading a synopsis rather than reading the entire novel. - thoughts and reasoning are central to how we remember - remembering skills, facts, and where and how you learned them are distinct expression of memory dependent on different brain regions.

night vision

- in the dark, all humans are color-blind - night vision is supported by a single type of photoreceptor with a single type of photopigment (the rods) - the peak sensitivity of rods photopigments is the blue-green range of wavelengths (wavelengths at the peak sensitivity of the rod photopigment will appear brighter at night, an effect called the Purkinje shift)

in the field of criminal justice, confirmation bias (and the belief perseverance it causes) can lead to serious problems

- influence police, judge, jurors, interrogators approach to a case - belief that a particular suspect is guilty can lead investigators to seek and favor evidence of that guilt and to avoid or disbelieve evidence of innocence

basics of the different types of validity

- internal is about diminishing confounds (so that you can determine cause) - external is about random sampling - construct is about operationalizations

Drug abuse results

- issues with health obvi - coping mechanism for stress (after losing a job, breaking up, people with mental disorders like anxiety, depression)

judgments, decisions, rational

- judgments: conclusions drawn from some evidence we have at hand - decisions: choices that affect our behavior (judgments often lead to this) - rational decision: a decision that is based purely on reason and logic

deep semantic encoding is responsible for much of our memory storage

- learning something in class - don't remember concept verbatim but the meaning of it - presentation - remember meaning of your message instead of memorizing script - rapper - meaning of lyrics that catches audience

sleep deprivation

- makes it harder for people to concentrate, remember, and perform complex tasks without mistakes - makes people feel more irritable and more likely to notice and remember negative experiences over positive ones

Although overconfidence has its downsides, it may provide a social advantage, making people seem higher performing, more confident, desirable, and more intimidating to potential rivals.

- may give people a romantic edge

observational learning in the real world

- most employers in manual trades such as carpenters, electricians, hair stylists, instruct through observational learning - internships in medicine and surgery also rely on practical exposure to reinforce theoretical knowledge

other smell facts

- most mammals have 2 nostrils - nostrils are used as 2 separate windows to the odor world - like auditory localization, smell localization appears to be supported in part by comparing the odor intensity between the 2 nostrils - when one of your nostrils is plugged, your odor tracking will be impaires - scent localization in humans is severely underdeveloped relative to that of other animals - odor tracking greatly improves with practice, however, suggesting that it may be a skill we have merely forgotten how to use - smell is still important for basic survival functions, such as smelling rotten food before eating it

information from the vestibular system can sometimes conflict with information from vision

- motion sickness when reading in the car. When you read, you are stabilizing images on the retina while you vestibular system says the world should be moving at high speed

the relationship between hypnosis and attention helps explain why some people are more hypnotizable than others

- not everyone is equally susceptible to hypnosis - those who are readily hypnotized are not the most gullible or weak-willed but are the ones who are best able to become deeply focused and absorbed in activities - highly hypnotizable people can become so immersed in a novel, movie, or video game that they are oblivious to the people and events surrounding them

Forebrain (neocortex)

- occipital lobe: vision - temporal lobe: hearing; object memory - parietal lobe: touch; spatial awareness; map of the body's skin surface - frontal lobe: complex thoughts' planning control of movement; map of the body's muscles - insular lobe: taste; awareness of internal organs

depth perception intro

- one our brain has distinguished an object form its background, it has various means as its disposal for takin the 2D retinal image and translate it into a 3D perception of the real-world object - our brain has to use assumptions and inferences about the retinal image to regain depth information - the ability to perceive depth seems to be present early in development, as has been demonstrated in studies using a table whose surface is half opaque and half transparent glass ("visual cliff")

claims are...

- opinions (personal experiences/anecdotes) - intuitions ("people eat meat, now we can") - authority figures (mom says "this works")

Cilia damage

- over a lifetime, the hairs can become damaged bc of overexposure to repetitive sounds or loud noises - cilia loss can occur at specific locations along the basilar membrane, creating hearing impairments for specific frequencies - ex: piano tuners who hear the same banging sound of notes day after day may experience selective hearing loss

Th way questions are worded/framed can provide critical clues to the listener about which option the questions asked recommends as the best decision to make

- people are more likely to describe a medical procedure in terms of its survival rate rather than its mortality rate if its survival rate is an improvement on previously available treatments - defaults and "status quo" can communicate what other people in a community have chosen and recommend

sleep helps us learn and remember

- people remember more over time if they have been asleep rather than awake - more likely to recall them after a period of sleep than after the same period of time spent awake - studies have confirmed that sleep strengthens, and protects newly formed memories - one possibility, is that sleeping brain, esp. during REM sleep, reactivates patterns of neural activity that correspond to new memories, thereby making them stronger - slow-wave brain activity during deep sleep erodes neural connections that have been used relatively less that day and leaves behind those that have been used more - the benefits of sleep for memory suggest that pulling an all-nighter before a big exam isn't a good idea: sleep deprivation will make you feel bad, and prevent your brain from strengthening the information you've studied.

place theory & frequency theory

- place theory best explains the perception of high-pitches sound, the sweet spot of our hearing range that include much of the range of the human voice - frequency theory best explains the perception of low-pitched sound

hindbrain

- pons: regulation of breathing; relays sensations to the cortex and subcortex - medulla oblongata: vital survival functions including breathing and heart rate; critical reflexes such as coughing and swallowing - reticular formation: arousal and attentiveness; sleep and wakefulness - cerebellum: coordination; precision; balance; accurate timing; overall cognition

major sensations detected in the skin

- pressure - temperature - vibration - pain

recognition is not always better than recall; rather, they are 2 different means to retrieve memories

- recognition in multiple choice does not help when "foils"(the incorrect choices) are very closely matched to the correct choice. recognition can often fail where recall might have succeeeded

amplitude (sound)

- related to the quantity of energy, and it corresponds with the intensity or loudness of the sounds we hear. - sounds with large amplitudes displace air molecules more than low-amplitude waves, and this large displacement in turn increases the perceived volume of the sound - measured in decibel (dB) units, which are determined by the ratio of pressure between different sounds

limitations of introspection

- relies on self-reporting, which is subject to inaccuracies - people can't necessarily understand each other's subjective experiences - people are not always good at describing their conscious experiences - more

c. Operationalizing Measured Variables example

- research question: are wealthy people less generous? - measured variable(s): level of wealth AND level of generosity - operationalization of the measured variable: asking people to self-report their income AND asking people to give points to a stranger - metric used: $ amount AND # of points (representing money) awarded, ranging from 0 to 10

b. Operationalizing Measured Variables example

- research question: does taking notes by hand lead to better learning? - measured variable: degree of learning - operationalization of the measured variable: showing students a videotaped lecture and then testing them on it - metric used: percentage of questions answered correctly

confirmation bias is a problem in scientific research

- scientists can favor research findings that confirm their hypotheses and discount findings that don't as being flawed or flukes - science can be exacerbated by the fact that it is easier to publish findings that show confirmatory evidence or statistically significant differences of some kind

different animals have a variety of sensory capabilities

- sensory capabilities have evolved through natural selection - in some cases, similar sensory organs provide very different perceptions. in other cases, very different sensory pathways provide similar perceptual informaiton. - although humans, mice, elephants all have similar auditory systems, each creature's system offers a different range of audition: - humans hear a middle range of frequencies (for speech recognition), mice hear higher frequencies (for ultrasonic vocalizations), and elephants hear lower frequencies (for long-distance sounds via the ground). most species have one dominant sense organ: -- humans are visual animals (Even tho other animals like birds of prey have much better vision than ours) - bears are known to be the best smellers on the land

researchers tried to teach a computer to decode the participants' sleeping brain activity

- since dream reports aren't trustworthy, this was a machine-learning algorithm to try to predict what objects people were dreaming about.

Pavlov found that relearning an association after extinction will be more rapid than in the original conditioning stage

- some residual trace of the association is saved in memory to support later relearning. - made possible by "savings" which is like learning stored away in your brain bank

Basics of Sound

- sound is derived form tiny vibrations that can travel through air, walls, and windows - when an object moves and vibrates, compressed and expanded air molecules create waves that exert pressure on the ear - evolution invented the ear to collect and transduce vibrations into neural energy, which the brain interprets as sound - although we call the waves created by the stimulus sound waves, the sound occurs not in the stimulus but only in the perceiver's mind - sound waves are being created constantly that we cannot tune in to bc our auditory receptors are sensitive only to a certain range of waves - our range of audition narrows with age, causing us to miss more of the high-pitches sounds in our environment - sound is derived from air pressure compression and expansion - sound waves are measured in the unit hertz (Hz): the number (or frequency) of completed wavelengths, or cycles, per second. - on average, humans can hear a range of frequencies from 20-20,000 Hz - the higher the frequency of a particular wave, the higher the sound's pitch - human voice ranges from 60-7,000 Hz (what we hear best)

a. testing construct validity: how well was the variable operationalized?

- study's research question: does feeling wealthy cause people to be more selfish? - key variable(s) in the study: subjective status, level of selfishness - operationalization (measured/manipulated): asking people to compare themselves either to those who are highly advantaged or those who are very disadvantaged, taking candies intended for children - construct validity questions: does comparing oneself to those who are more or less disadvantaged actually change one's subjective sense of how wealthy they feel? Is taking candies intended for children a good measure of people's selfishness?

midbrain

- tegmentum: eye and head orienting - ventral tegmental area: reward pathway for subcortical motor system - substantia nigra: regulates basal ganglia subcortical motor system

wenicke's aphasia

- temporal lobe - difficulty comprehending speech - production is fluent but often meaningless - word "salad"

dreaming helps people sort through recent experiences

- the day's experiences are relives quite precisely during REM sleep for rats, which may partly explain sleep's beneficial effects on memory

descriptive methods use/limitations/strengths

- used for: measuring how people typically think, feel, or behave - limitations: cannot test relationships among variables - strengths: can measure many variables

correlational method use/limitations/strengths

- used for: measuring how variables are related to one another - limitations: cannot identify causal direction of the relationship - strengths: can measure many variables

extra sleep pattern facts

- usually about 4x for pattern in a night's sleep - 1234321R1234 is the pattern - stage 4 gets progressively shorter and then dissapears - REM and Stage 2 sleep periods lengthen - just before awakening, you usually reenter Stage 1 - people awaken feeling most rested and least groggy when they awaken from Stage 1 sleep

Damage to Wernicke's area

- wernicke's area is in the upper left temporal lobe - damage to it impairs the ability to comprehend speech but NOT the ability to speak

operant conditioning in animals

- when an animal does a behavior that is similar to the desired behavior, the trainer clicks and immediately follows the click by giving a reward. this establishes the secondary reinforcer to the primary reward enforcer. eventually, trainer gives at random intervals, and the animal is still reinforced by the click

awareness during sleep

- when people sleep, they become unaware of themselves and of their time and place - awareness of any outside stimulation is greatly diminished, although not entirely absent - people can track their body's position in the bed well enough to avoid falling out - during dreaming, people's conscious selves are acutely "on" yet tuned to an internal, rather than external, world

perceptual learning with face recognition

- you are ale to recognize thousands of people bc of the minute differences in their features - sometimes fails us tho (other race effect)

movement of objects and the observer presents a tremendous source of sensory variability on the retina

- your eyes continuously jump rapidly from point to point to take in information. you unconsciously make approximately 3 of these shifts per second. - while your eyes shift or pursue, the world doesn't also seem to move around, making you dizzy. Instead, when the visual system is interpreting motion, it can subtract the motion caused by eye movements bc it receives feedback from the eye muscles - Your eye movements provide a great deal of information about your surroundings, but your brain needs to differentiate between the movement of objects in the environment and the movement of the observer

Hallucinogen Dangers

-primary danger is its unpredicability: disturbing hallucinations can lead to hazardous behaviors - they DO NOT produce tolerance or dependence, not super addictive -LSD and psilocybin can trigger psychiatric condition resembling schizophrenia (mental disorder that often involves disturbing hallucination and delusional thinking) - can cause permanent damage to serotonin-producing neurons, leading to decreased output and increase risk of permanently depressed mood, memory problems, and sleep disruptions

event-related potential (ERP)

-synchronized electrical response to an event from averaging the EEG rhythms - A diagnostic technique that uses electrodes placed on the scalp to measure the duration of brain waves during mental tasks - pro: provide WHEN events are happening - con: prevent us from knowing precisely WHERE all the signals originate

When to use descriptive design

1 variable (frequency) - descriptive design -> frequency conclusion -> frequency claims - case studies - naturalistic observations - surveys/self reports

What criteria must we satisfy to be convinced that one variable causes another?

1) 2 variables must be correlated 2) we must know for certain which variable came first 3) there must be no reasonable alternative explanations for the pattern

questions to ask yourself to evaluate claims in the popular media

1) What am I being asked to believe? - they might be trying to persuade you - assume a skeptical frame of mind and be ready to examine evidence behind the claim more objectively 2) What kind of evidence is there? - is there empirical research? controlled studies that test hypotheses and evaluate outcomes objectively? 3) How strong is the result? - datagraphics/traditional graphs can mislead readers depending on how the graph's axes are marked 4) Are they making a causal claim? - they might mistake correlation for causation 5) Has the study been replicated?

3 questions of critical thinking

1) What scientific evidence supports this claim? 2) Has this topic been studied empirically? 3) Am I listening to (or reading) someone's opinion, or is the information based on facts that are accepted by unbiased experts?

3 traditional major classes of neurotransmitters

1) amino acids 2) monoamines 3) acetylcholine - for details: https://ncia.wwnorton.com/4285/r/goto/cfi/120!/4

perspective that identify the roles of the body and brain

1) biological-neuroscience perspective: studies the biological underpinnings of how we think, act, and behave

perspective that understands current thoughts and feelings

1) cognitive perspective: studies the mental processes that underlie perception, thought, learning, memory, language, and creativity 2) emotional perspective: examines how the human capacity to feel, express, and perceive emotions plays an important role in decision making, behavior, and social relationships

Kinds of validity

1) construct 2) external 3) internal

3 types of research methods psychological scientists use to test their theories

1) descriptive 2) correlational 3) experimental

perspectives that acknowledge both stability and change in behavior across time and situation

1) developmental perspective: examines how people change physically, cognitively, socially, and emotionally as they age 2) personality perspective: seeks to understand aspects of behavior that are relatively stable over time and situation 3) social perspective: considers the ways in which immediate social context influence thoughts, feelings, and behaviors 4) clinical perspective: focuses on the causes and treatments of psychological disorders , with the goal of improving human well-being, daily functioning, and social relationships

perspectives that explains broader patterns of behavior

1) evolutionary perspective: identifies aspects of behavior that are the result of evolutionary adaptations 2) cultural perspective: investigates how cultural context affects people's thoughts and preferences

3 primary portions of the brain visible in early development in the womb

1) forebrain 2) midbrain 3) hindbrain

Lobes

1) frontal lobe 2) parietal lobe 3) temporal lobe 4) occipital lobe

sequence of light into the eye

1) light enters the eye through the cornea (the transparent covering at the front of your eye) 2) light passes through the pupil 3) light also goes through the iris which gives the eye its distinctive color. The iris increases or decreases in size of the pupil depending on how light enters the eye 4) lens bends the light using accommodation

3 components of that positive psychologists believe happiness has

1) positive emotion and pleasure 2) engagement with life 3) living a meaningful life with good relationships and a history of accomplishments

3 types of areas in the cortex based on their function

1) primary sensory 2) primary motor areas 3) surrounding association areas for each

steps to action potential

1) resting state 2) hits voltage threshold 3) depolarization 4) repolarization 5) refractory period 6) resting state cycle repeats

3 basic classes (or types) of neurons

1) sensory neurons 2) motor neurons 3) interneurons

criteria to support a causation

1) show correlation: are the two variables correlated? 2) temporal precedence of the causal variable: did the causal variable come first in time, before the effect? 3) rule out alternative explanations/plausible explanations for the pattern of results observed: random assignment and carefully manipulated variables can eliminate almost all alternative explanations

researchers build support for a theory in a systematic program of research (theory-data cycle is iterative)

1) start with a descriptive study to find out what is typical 2) then they can move on to correlational methods to establish relationships between variables 3) finally, the may used controlled experiments to establish causation

light energy to chemical energy

1) when light energy hits the photoreceptor cells, it causes chemical changes in their light-sensitive photopigments and changes their shape, which changes the flow of ions into and out of the photoreceptor cell body 2) this change in ionic concentration generates electricity, which is pass on to layers farther forward in the retina - the bipolar cells and then the ganglion cells - which fire action potentials when stimulated sufficiently. 3) to transform and process information in the environment, the photoreceptors first respond to light and generate electricity, which is sent to the bipolar cells. The bipolar cells organize and send their signals to the ganglion cell layer, which sends the signals to the brain 4) to travel to the brain, action potentials from the retina converge in a bundle of axons called the optic nerve, forming a thick cable that plugs the eye into the brain

process of language acquisition

1. 1-2 months: recognize differences between phonemes "B" and "P" at any language 2. 6-7 months: babbling 3. 10 months: babbling starts to sound more like the household language 4. 9-10 months: babies develop expectations for how long words are likely to be 5. before 1st bday: infants group perceived phonemes into words (learn where one word begins and ends). do so by mentally keeping track of which syllables tend to co-occur with which other syllables 6. age 1 yr: can only hear speech differences in their language

second language learning between kids and adults

1. adults appear to be more efficient than children at first: can be given a list of vocab words/phrases to memorize right away 2. young children seem to learn far faster and more deeply in the long run, even if they take longer to get started. - suggestions that kids learn language better precisely bc they are more cognitively limited than adults; learn language from the ground up (master phonemes and morphemes and then complex components) - adults on the other hand process language in larger chunks (whole words rather than its parts) leading them to miss some of languages subleties

what happens in the brain just before insight experiences

1. before solving a problem analytically, participants showed more activity in the visual cortex (reflecting a focus of attention) 2. before solving a problem with insight, participants showed more activity in the temporal lobes (reflecting the brain's preparation to use understanding of word meanings to solve the problem) 3. Participants also showed more activity in the anterior cingulate cortex (reflecting a focus of attention inward may allow a person to detect less obvious solutions the brain generates and bring those to conscious awareness.

claims of hypnoss

1. can help people recover lost or forgotten memories, such as a license plate 2. allow age regression: person mentally "travels" to earlier age and has access to forgotten information from that period of their lives. BUT human memory doesn't capture our experiences like a video recorder might, so it is impossible to "rewind".

contiguity and contingency

1. closeness in time - not enough 2. predictiveness - is even more important - your brain has decided that classical conditioning between events that precisely co-occur in time is not worthwhile bc it has limited ability to help you predict the future, to adjust your behavior to what is coming, and to adapt successfully to the environment

scientific method applied

1. focus on a theory - conducts a literature review to find studies related to this theory 2. state a hypothesis 4. tests her hypothesis with a research method 5. analyze the data 6. report results & embark on further inquiry

Psychologists have concentrates their scientific study on two major categories of meditation

1. focused attention (transcendental meditation) 2. monitoring meditation (mindfulness meditation)

addiction comes from

1. genetics play a role: runs in families (50% have family history) 2. social and cultural causes (more common in males, youth, ethnic minority groups, less educated, lower income) resulting in a different attitude in person's social networks 3. availability of drugs in an environment matters (young adults more likely to use and abuse drugs when they are easier to obtain)

2 basic forms of learning

1. nonassociative learning 2. associative learning

researches study of different durations of storage

1. old memories and the formation of new ones has now been traces to altered activity in collections of individual neurons, measured via electrodes inserted deep in the human brain. - collections of neurons in the medial temporal lobe supported long-term memories of specific people, such as Jennifer Aniston or Clint Eastwood. - researchers used these long-term neural patterns to observe how new memories are formed. When people were shown celebrities in a specific place like the leaning tower of pizza, face-place association became stronger in the patient's memory. Thus, the neural firing became stronger.

Brain damage and disorders

1. parietal lobe: hemispatial neglect 2. frontal and temporal lobes: broca's vs. wenicke's aphasia 3. parietal and temporal loves: visual agnosias and prosopagnosia 4. limbic system: implicit vs. explicit memory deficits (amygdala vs. hippocampus)

brief guide to improving your memory and getting better grades

1. pay attention 2. study often (spacing effect) 3. encode deeply: make the material meaningful to you by elaborating on it and connecting concepts to your own life and what you already know. (Throw in imagery) 4. test yourself 5. use retrieval cues: sit in same general area during lecture and test; be chilled during lecture and studying and test 6. reduce stress 7. sleep: brain is hard at work consolidating information when you sleep, so pulling an all-nighter disrupts learning

about forgetting diseases

1. people with amnesia have largely intact short-term memory and can hold a phone number in short-term memory by rehearsal (a process by which we consciously maintain events using our working memory) 2. people with parkinson's disease have impaired short-term memory but intact long-term memory 3. individuals diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease have impaired short term-memory AND long-term memory - these neurological double dissociations reveal that memory retrieval of an event just two seconds old is not merely easier than remembering something for two weeks. Instead, they are different forms of memory storage.

hierarchy of language

1. phoneme 2. morpheme 3. word 4. phrase 5. sentence

Holding words in short-term memory involves the...

1. phonological loop (similar to hearing your inner voice) 2. visuo-spatial sketchpad: (essentially, your mind's eye, which allows you to see mental images) access to visual information - separate frontal cortical regions are involved in visual and verbal working memory processes, consistent with their proposed operation.

research suggests that the brain does use different kinds of cues and algorithms depending on what it is searching for

1. search process itself likely occurs in the prefrontal cortices which are recruited even when retrieval is not successful. 2. when retrieval is successful, the prefrontal cortex activity is associated with activity in the hippocampus suggesting that the search process accesses memories that are stored in other regions throughout the brain

Humans represent their knowledge about the world in hierarchies of concepts, which include basic, superordinate, and subordinate levels

1. superordinate concepts more abstract and encompass basic-level concepts (furniture, fruit, animal) 2. basic-level concepts: strike a balance, they are broad or abstract enough to include a lot of members yet theyr members still have a lot of features in common, such as similar parts, movements, functions, and shapes (chair, bed, sofa, cabinet) 3. subordinate: are more specific concepts within basic-level concepts (rocking chair, granny smith apple, hummingbird) - most people will match objects more quickly to their basic-level names than to their superordinate, or subordinate level names

Emotiv

14 channel EEG device: people paralyzed by motor neuron disease will be able to communicate fluently using only their minds

B.F Skinner

1904-1990; Field: behavioral; Contributions: created techniques to manipulate the consequences of an organism's behavior in order to observe the effects of subsequent behavior; Studies: Skinner box - Skinner designed a box that enabled him to examine classical and operant conditioning in human and nonhuman animals: (a) a bird, (b) a rat, and (c) a baby. - operant chamber - allowed for free operant responses: animals could respond at any time, as many times as needed, and without intervention bc there is not clear end point or goal, such as escape - researchers could measure how long it took an animal to respond but also changed in the # of responses over time - boxes allowed animals to exhibit the reinforced behavior many times to earn many food or water rewards while in the box

double dissociation

2 different, related parts of the brain w/ similar function but completely different deficits on which part has the damage - broca's vs. wernicke's - object agnosia vs. prosopagnosia

George Elias Muller and Alfons Pilzecker

2 experimental psychologists who proposed the consolidation hypothesis after observing that memory of newly learned information could be disrupted by information presented shortly afterward. - recent memories are the most fragile and are most susceptible to disruption before they are more permanently consolidated into long-term memory.

methamphetamine and cocaine

2 of the most dangerous and highly addictive stimulants: produce a surge of dopamine in the brain, leading to a temporary euphoric state - produce withdrawal symptoms such as irritability, fatigue, insomnia, and depression - can also overstimulate the nervous system, putting the user at risk for heart failure or stroke

While you are on vacation with your brother, he tells you about a psychological study he recently participated in. When he was holding a 50-gram weight, he couldn't tell that extra weight had been added until the added weight was more than 5 grams. According to Weber's Law, how much of your stuff can you add to his 25-kilogram suitcase without his noticing?

2.5 kilograms - According to Weber's Law, the just-noticeable difference in weight would be proportional to the starting weight. The ratio of 5 g to 50 g (in the study) is the same as 2.5 kg to 25 kg.

binge drink

5 or more drinks at a time -25% of adults report doing this in a one-month period - majority of people don't drink to dangerous excess - higher college students: 38% report binge drinking in a given month, about 12% have done so 5 or more times - higher among college students for many reasons:college students see drinking as an important part of college culture, overestimate how much their friends use alcohol, misperception of others' attitudes matters. sep-reported drinking increased.

dreaming might also help people solve important problems

50% of students reported having a dream related to their problem, and about 70% reported experiencing a solution to their problem when assigned to think of a personal problem before sleeping - judges thought that specific dreams offered solutions less often than the dreamers did, they did agree that many dreams offered plausible solutions to the dreamer's problems - compared with a control group, students encouraged to "incubate" their problems in their dreams experienced less distress over their problem

Deese-Roediger-McDermott paradigm

A paradigm for creating false memories of words by presenting associatively related words

Akinetopsia (motion blindness)

A rare condition in which a patient is unable to detect motion despite intact visual perception of stationary stimuli, caused by damage to Area MT - don't see the movement fluidly from moment to moment

sleep

A regularly occurring altered state of consciousness that typically occurs spontaneously and is primarily characterized by a loss of conscious awareness - has a predictable rhythm - across a night;s sleep, people cycle through 4 distinct sleep stages, each with its own pattern of brain activity, about every 90 minutes - EEGs are used to study sleeping people in laboratories.

Cognitive Revolution

A shift in psychology, beginning in the 1950s, from the behaviorist approach to an approach in which the main thrust was to explain behavior in terms of the mind. One of the outcomes of the cognitive revolution was the introduction of the information-processing approach to studying the mind.

retina

A surface on the back of the eye that contains the photoreceptor cells - a multilayered surface that hosts the photoreceptors-the rods and cones-of the eye, critical for transducing light energy into electrical signals - eye focuses an image by adjusting the lens so that light is precisely focused onto a small region, called the fovea, in the retina

frequency theory (rejected by volley principle)

A theory of pitch perception that the brain uses the frequency of hair cells firing to indicate pitch. - ex: if a sound wave traveling at 20 Hz enters the cochlea, it will be transmitted to the auditory nerve by the hair cells at 20 pulses per second.

According to a study of identical twins, IQ has a heritability of 70%. If this measurement is accurate, which of the following statements is justified?

About 70 % of variation in IQ among identical twins' scores can be explained by variation in genes - Heritability is a description of how well the variation in a trait is predicted by genetics in a particular population.

latent content

According to Freud, the hidden drives and wishes that are expressed in dreams and behavior but in a disguised form (as the manifest content) - often sexual in nature and create psychological tension - Freud thought that dreams were a window into unconscious conflicts and could be analyzed to help people with psychological problems

place-frequency map

According to place theory, frequency (pitch) depends on where the basilar membrane is stimulated, while amplitude (loudness ) depends on how much the basilar membrane is stimulated.

Which of the following people most likely has a damaged primary motor cortex?

After suffering a stroke, Kitae's left leg is paralyzed. When he tries to walk, his left leg will not move.

Tomasz has grown up using computers and smartphones, while his grandfather Jacek never even learned to type, much less handle modern electronics. Which of the following statements is most likely to be true?

Although their genes are very similar, their brains will display distinct wiring patterns - The brain regions associated with typing and texting will probably be noticeably different in Tomasz. Despite their shared genes, experience has shaped their brains to be different.

cognitive maps

An internal representation of the spatial relationships between objects in an animal's surroundings. - the term cognitive suggests that what the rats learned was not a reinforced series of behaviors but rather an internal mental representation of the world - tolman believed that operant learning did exist, but that it resulted in what he called "strip-maps" - maps that were simple but narrow and inflexible. However, cognitive maps represent a complex spatial layout - the big picture - tolman argued that cognitive maps were the sign of a healthy mind and a critical ingredient of well-being: focus less on the destination and more on the experience of the journey

the ABCs of operant conditioning

Antecendents Behavior Consequences

open science

As part of a study's publication process, the practice of sharing one's data and materials freely so others can collaborate, use, and verify the results.

linear perspective (monocular cue)

As you may know from art classes, you can mimic distance by drawing a road with two straight lines that gradually converge. When we look at a real scene, parallel lines actually do appear to advance closer together until they are so far away that they reach what is called a vanishing point, where they converge. Instead of telling you the road is getting narrower, your brain uses this distortion of linear perspective to recover depth information.

Ingvar works in a tech support call center and handles one to two dozen calls a day. His manager, Katri, participates in only a half-dozen calls a week, because she gets on the line only when the customer demands to speak to a manager. Over lunch, Katri asks Ingvar what he thinks of a call they both participated in two weeks ago. Ingvar admits that he has no memory of the call. Why, according to interference theory, can Katri remember the call so much better than Ingvar can?

Because he takes so many more calls, Ingvar finds it hard to distinguish one from another, making any single call harder to remember. - Since many of Ingvar's calls are similar, they will all tend to interfere with one another in his memory. Katri, on the other hand, spends so little time on the phone that she has little interference.

linguistic determinism hypothesis (aka Whorfian hypothesis)

Benjamin Whorf's proposal that different languages impose different ways of understanding the world that can shape our thinking - languages differ in how they describe colors,etc. - this can shape how different language speakers perceive color - piraha people in brazil on quantity - belief that language and thought are one and the same

affective reactions

Bob Zajonc (1980) proposed that when people 1st encounter a decision, their first reaction is an affective one; they have a quality of "good for me" or "bad for me" and are a key ingredient in our emotions, moods, and attitudes. - Zajonc argued that these initial reactions are so quick and automatic that they guide people's decisions more often than reason

Alice and Bob are the parents of Charlie. Both Alice and Bob have brown eyes, but Charlie has blue eyes. What is the most likely explanation for Charlie having eyes that don't match his parents'?

Both of Charlie's parents carry the recessive "blue eye" gene, and Charlie received that gene from both parents

Consider the following three letters: A B C. Suppose you are focusing your eyes on the B. Both your left and right eye can see the C, just off to the right of the B. Where in the primary visual cortex are your left and right eyes processing information about the C?

Both the left and right eye send information about the C to the left hemisphere of the primary visual cortex - The C is in the right visual field for both eyes, so both eyes send that information to the same brain region: the left primary visual cortex.

frontal cortex

Brain region which supports your understanding of others and yourself, and controls your decisions and actions

More on CREB

CREB is also critical for some of the basic factors that enhance learning (ex: spaced or distributed learning which enhances later memory is associated with inc. CREB expression. - artificially inducing CRE during massed learning (aka cramming) results in enhanced memory, as if learning was originally spaced out - these cellular and molecular mechanisms ultimately determine what is remembered or forgotten. - random: recent evidence suggests that injection of a protein that codes RNA molecules can transfer a specific memory from one animal to another

complementary colors

Colors located directly opposite one another on the color wheel (red-green, blue-yellow) - when opposing colors are placed next to each other, they stand out more - when mixing complementary colors, they cancel each other's appearance bc of mutual inhibition. Our eyes cannot combine these wavelengths to form a new chromatic experience, and what is left is an experience of some shade of gray rather than color.

d. what is the best method? Does being in a long-term romantic relationship affect the connections between brain regions involved in identifying people and processing emotions?

DTI - DTI can evaluate the strength and direction of physical connections between brain regions.

Which of the following is an example of a double dissociation?

Damage to Wernicke's area impairs language comprehension but not language production, while damage to Broca's are impairs language productions but not language comprehension - When lesions in two distinct brain regions lead to two distinct and non-overlapping forms of impairment, we can infer that each function of the brain is independent of the other. In other words, each function is dissociated from the other.

How old are you? It can be difficult in your early twenties to manage life on your own, build a social network, and plan for your future career. It might be helpful to know that many of your peers feel the same kind of stress.

Developmental - This perspective focuses on how thoughts and behaviors change throughout the lifespan.

somatosensory association areas

Differentiate one object from another by touch, determine the position of objects

b. what is the best method? Does the visual system identify the faces of romantic partners faster than it identifies the faces of family members?

ERP - ERP has good temporal resolution and can therefore tell us when something is happening in the brain.

animal magnetism (18th dent, German doc Franz Mesmer)

FALSE concept/ poster for pseudoscience: the property of the animal body that makes it susceptible to the influence of celestial bodies and the reciprocal action of those around it - idea that all living things (humans, animals, vegetables) have a magnetic fluid that can be used for hypnosis and healing

Children who are isolated and abused throughout childhood, as Genie was, might learn language basics but rarely become normal language users—even after years of instruction. - fail

Genie: discovered at 14 yrs old, lived tied to a chair since 20 months, frequently beaten, never spoken to - brought into foster care and taught by psychologists and linguists - did not learn to use language normally. learned basics of language and could construct meaningful phrases as young children do, but after many years of instruction, she never learned to produce elaborate sentences or even use function words like "a" and "the."

Rosalia has a bad cold and is so congested that she can't breathe through her nose at all. What effect is this likely to have on her experience of food, and why?

Her ability to distinguish between flavors will be greatly reduced. - Our experience of food depends on many senses, including our taste and smell receptors, as well as the food's texture in the mouth. Without smell, differences we might normally be able to detect become invisible.

Phineas Gage (1848)

His brain was severely damages when a rod blasted through his jaw and up through his frontal lobe, altering his personality and sense of self until his death - his missing tissue changed the way his prefrontal cortex interacted with the rest of his brain, ultimately affecting how he chose to act - this confirmed that the prefrontal cortex retrieved information regarding your sense of self, your traits, likes/dislikes, moral judgment, and even your sense of guilt when you have one. - psychopaths have abnormally reduces activity in their prefrontal cortex - basically: prefrontal cortex is central to what it means to be human

When looking at graphs presented in the popular press, which of the toolkit questions might you need to especially focus on?

How strong is the result? - Graphs can sometimes make results look stronger or larger than they might actually be.

Franz Mesmer

Hypnosis originated with Franz Mesmer who believed that he could alter a person's "magnetic flow" to improve his health: technique was theatrical, involving magnets and complex gestures, and didn't seem to accomplish very much - Freud simplified Mesmer's techniques and found them useful for treating various psychological problems

relative height (monocular cue)

If you drive by a field full of sheep, the sheep at the far end of the field will appear to be closer to the horizon because they project to a higher point in your visual field. You correctly perceive them as being farther away.

touch receptors are most sensitive to relative change

If you place your left hand in hot water and your right hand in cold water for 30 seconds, then place both in lukewarm water, your perceptions will tell you that your left hand is now cold and your right hand is now hot - even though the temp is the same for both. - explained through adaptation. adaptation sways the balance of the receptor responses - giving the illusion of different temperatures.

experimental group

In an experiment, the group that is exposed to the treatment, that is, to one version of the independent variable. - group or condition in which some proposed cause is present

control group

In an experiment, the group that is not exposed to the treatment; contrasts with the experimental group and serves as a comparison for evaluating the effect of the treatment. - is the condition in which it is absent, some proposed cause is not present

receptors

In neurons, specialized protein molecules on the postsynaptic membrane; neurotransmitters bind to these molecules after passing across the synaptic cleft. - produce an excitatory or inhibitory electrical signal in the target neuron

Bandura's Bobo Doll Experiment

In this experiment children watched a model attack a doll and then the children were put in a room with toys including the same doll and children it was found that the kids who watched the model were much more likely to imitate the actions. - vicarious reinforcement: saw adult being rewarded for the way he played with the doll; children modeled reinforced behaviors - vicarious punishment: children who saw the adult being punished avoided the punished behaviors when playing with the doll - children learned the consequences through observation - parents have an immense impact on their children bc of observational learning

introception

Interoception involves receptors that monitor the state of our internal organs and relay information about them to the brain. It is primarily supported by the insular cortex, which is an extension of the somatosensory cortex. Sensing the physiological condition of the body; we have receptors deep in our bodies that allow us to feel sensations in our bones and organs - introception provides feedback to the brain about the internal physiological status of the body related to our vital organs - these receptors are esp. important for detecting internal pain and helping us consciously track abnormalities within our bodies - w/o introception, we might not know when to slow down on the treadmill when our heart hurts or when to go to the ER when our appendix bursts - supported in the insular cortex. it is an extension of your somatosensory cortex, appropriately located next to the tongue and esophagus sections, but it represents the mushy insides of your body

child found before sensitive period - success

Isabelle: not spoken to from early infancy (deaf mom and emotionally indifferent). Discovered at age 6, no language and cognitive development was below that of a normal 2yrold - within a year, she learn to speak as well as her peers, showed normal levels of intelligence, and started attending school

Which of the following is a primary limitation of the frequency theory of pitch perception?

It does not explain how the ear separates frequency (pitch) from amplitude (loudness) - Both the frequency and the amplitude of sounds can influence the frequencies at which hair cells fire, yet the frequency theory cannot explain our ability to sense frequency and amplitude separately.

Hong and Jian are identical twins, separated at birth. Hong is raised by adoptive parents in China, while Jian is raised by adoptive parents in the United States. Their standard of living is similar throughout childhood. After they've grown up, they both participate in a retrospective memory study before meeting for the first time. Jian is able, unprompted, to recall many more memories from early childhood than Hong. What probably accounts for this difference in memory of childhood?

Jian's family probably talked more about his childhood than Hong's family did. - Jian's memory reflects cultural differences in how early memories are discussed and retrieved more frequently by his family.

classical conditioning can each well beyond simple associations to change behavior and influence how we think and feel

Little Albert: afraid of fluffy white things: demonstrates that fear, a much more complex behavioral response than a reflex like salivating, could also be conditioned. - negative associations can be so powerful that they are learned extremely rapidly and are easily generalized, even after a single experience - PTSD

e. what is the best method? Does being in a long-term romantic relationship affect the size of the amygdala?

MRI - MRI has good spatial resolution and can therefore produce accurate images of brain structure.

timeline of psychology (establishing the field, social and cultural psychology, behaviorism, clinical psychology, cognitive psychology) + people

Middle: https://ncia.wwnorton.com/4285/r/goto/cfi/20!/4

diffusion

Movement of molecules from an area of higher concentration to an area of lower concentration.

How does naloxone compete with opioid drugs in such a way as to prevent an overdose?

Naloxone binds with the same target receptors as opioid drugs, but it does not activate those receptors - By competing with opioid drugs for the same set of receptors, naloxone clogs the system, slowing the firing of cells with opioid receptors and keeping them from being continuously activated long enough for the opioids to degrade.

We must not assume that anything genetic or biological is fixed and unchangeable

Neuroscientists have shown that London taxi drivers develop a larger hippocampus, the spatial memory region of the brain, as they spend more years navigating the complex street system of London - biology can change with experience

relative size (monocular cue)

Objects that are farther from you (such as the person in the distance) project a smaller image on the retina than those that are nearby (such as the person in the foreground). You can use your knowledge of the size of an object as a cue to judge its distance.

c. what is the best method? How does romantic love alter brain chemistry?

PET - PET is a technique that can target chemical changes in the brain.

Urbach-Wiethe Syndrome

Patients suffer damage in the amygdala; they show normal long-term memory for neutral events bc their hippocampus is intact, but they do not show the normal emotional boosting of memory

autonomy

People must give informed consent for participating in research. They cannot be coerced into participating through intimidation or extremely high payouts. There are special consent procedures for vulnerable populations (e.g., children, prisoners) who may not be able to give true informed consent. - concerns each research participant's right to make his own decision about participating in a study

Localizationists

People who believe in the idea that specific parts of the brain are involved in specific behaviors and psychological functions. - opposite from the holist tradition - true: the brain works as an integrated system, in smaller and larger brain networks

beneficence

Proposed research is evaluated on its risks and benefits to the participants, and on the research outcome's potential benefit to society. - concerns the balance of risks and benefits in research - will the community benefit from the findings? Are there potential risks to the community if the research is not conducted?

Which one of the following statements about psychology is true?

Psychology is relevant to every part of the human experience - As the scientific study of mind and behavior, psychology helps us understand all aspects of being human

b. applying beneficence

Questions: - Did the researcher take care to minimize risks to the participants? Do the findings of the study offer potential benefit to the community?

c. applying justice

Questions: did the sample of participants used in the study resemble the types of people who will benefit from it?

taste receptor cells

Receptors that transduce gustatory information. - the sense of taste is mediated by taste receptor cells, which are bundles in clusters called the taste buds. - taste receptor cells sample oral concentrations of a large number of molecules and repot a sensation of taste to the brain

relative motion (monocular cue)

Relative motion, also known as motion parallax, provides excellent depth information. Objects that are very distant appear to move much more slowly because they are more stable on your retina than nearby objects. Rather than perceiving objects as moving slower or faster, your brain interprets them as differing in depth. As you well know, birds seem to move quickly across the sky, planes move slowly, and the moon hardly moves at all. Such perceptions are the opposite of these things' actual speeds and are attributable to their distance.

final step of a scientific investigation

Report the findings/make the study's results public

biological-neurological applied example

Research suggests that mild hits to the head, even those that are not diagnosed as concussions, can have a cumulative effect on cognitive performance: - last term, emily had been doing well in her classes right up until the end of the term. A week before finals began, emily headed a ball in a soccer match to score the winning goal, but for the following week she felt disoriented and was unable to concentrate

Anvita is at a corporate party at which a magician is hypnotizing employees. After she participates, the magician mentions to Anvita that she was a wonderful participant to work with because she is "very hypnotizable." What does this reflect about Anvita as a person?

She gets absorbed in experiences, to the point of ignoring her surroundings. - This is the chief indication that somebody can be easily hypnotized. People who are always aware of their surroundings often can't be hypnotized at all.

Robin is a freshman who is taking introduction to psychology. How should she study for her upcoming midterm exam?

She should meet with a study group for an hour every other day - Spreading out study sessions into short chunks of time is an example of distributed practice, which results in increased retention of information. In addition, working with a study group can be motivating.

Which of the following people most likely has a damaged primary somatosensory cortex?

Shirley knows the pot she just grabbed was extremely hot because a blister has formed on her hand, but she is alarmed to realize that she couldn't feel any pain, or even any sensation of heat, when she was touching it.

larynx

Structure in the throat that contains the vocal cords - high for mammals, but low for humans - pros: allows humans to make a much larger range of vocal sounds - downsides: likely to choke to death, allows animal to eat and breathe but not at the same time (chimpanzees dont have this problem)

What is a key benefit of taking introductory psychology in college?

Taking introductory psychology equips you with critical thinking tools that help you make informed decisions

ventral pathway

The "what" pathway. travels along the temporal lobe - Pathway of visual processing. - Damage to the ventral stream impairs recognizing what an object is while leaving intact the ability to say where it is

dorsal pathway

The "where" (and "how") pathway. ultimately joins the parietal lobe - Pathway of visual processing. - flows upward to the parietal lobes - supports location, depth, motion, and thus influences how we interact with objects - Damage to dorsal stream don't know where it is or how to grasp an object, but they can recognize what it is. - perception of movement is processed in a specialized part of the dorsal pathway (middle temporal cortex/MT). helps know where things are as they are moving. Each MT neuron is tuned to respond to motion in a particular direction

Which statement about the eye's blind spot is correct?

The blind spot is caused by an absence of photoreceptor cells - At the blind spot, the eye's neural wiring leaves no room for photoreceptor

variability

The extent to which the scores in a data set tend to vary from each other and from the mean. - we can measure variability through range (difference of highest and lowest scores in the batch of scores) or standard deviation

Why does the fovea provide the highest level of visual acuity?

The fovea has the highest concentration of cones - The cones that are so abundant in the fovea are responsible for giving us crystal-clear vision, as well as color perception.

synaptic cleft

The narrow gap that separates the presynaptic neuron from the postsynaptic cell.

Diamond-Water Paradox

The observation that things with the greatest value in use sometimes have little value in exchange and things with little value in use sometimes have the greatest value in exchange.

double dissociation

The phenomenon in which one of two functions, such as hearing and sight, can be damaged without harm to the other, and vice versa. - Person 1: function A is present; function B is damaged; Person 2: function A is damaged; function B is present). - broca's vs wernicke's

preregistration

The practice of posting a study's method, hypotheses, or statistical analyses publicly, in advance of data collection (before they carry out a study)

dichotic listening

The procedure of presenting one message to the left ear and a different message to the right ear. people fail to notice if the language in the unattended ear switched from English to German - the unconscious mind is monitoring the unattended ear

developmental perspective

The psychological perspective that studies how people change physically, cognitively, socially, and emotionally as they age - encompasses all the phases of the human life cycle: conception, birth, infancy, toddlerhood, childhood, adolescence, young adulthood, middle age, and old age - offers valuable perspectives on why diff. age groups display diff. patterns of reasoning, language, and social behavior

synaptic transmission

The relaying of information across the synapse by means of chemical neurotransmitters.

preparedness

The species-specific biological predisposition to learn some associations more quickly than other associations - ex of human preparedness: tendency to learn specific phobias - an irrational fear for a specific group of stimuli (guns, war, bombs, so on) - most common phobias are spiders, snakes, and heights - strong predispositions for real-life threats that a species has faced during its evolution, and members of that species are more apt to learn to fear those threats. Our evolutionary part prepares us to learn certain associations more rapidly

volley principle

The theory holding that groups of auditory nerve fibers fire neural impulses in rapid succession, creating volleys of impulses. - helps explain that neural hair cells alternate their firing rate to achieve faster combines frequencies - the cilia in the cochlea take turns firing so that they can respond to higher frequencies (instead of firing 1,000 times per second, it will only need to fire 250 times per second to transmit the same signal) - larger-amplitude sounds will increase the firing of the hair cells.

p-hacking

The use of data mining to uncover patterns in data that can be presented as statistically significant, without first devising a specific hypothesis as to the underlying causality.

When you watch fireworks on a dark night, the beautiful colors are vivid and bright. They seem to just jump out of the sky. What does this indicate about the fireworks, in terms of the physical properties of light?

They have a very high amplitude - High-amplitude light waves are perceived as being very bright and vivid.

Psychological science

This term refers to the scientific study of the mind, brain, and behavior - psych is an exacting science that uses rigorous scientific methods to develop insights into the human mind and human behavior

hallucinogens describes so far are mostly illegal

US government allows them to be used in certain religious practices or in research. their illegal status is not terribly controversial bc they are perceived as fairly dangerous. other (mostly) illegal hallucinogens are much more controversial bc the negative consequences of their use are relatively mild compared with those of other drugs (like ecstasy: street name for MDMA)

closure

We fill in gaps to create continuous edges, allowing us to perceive an object as a whole.

synchrony

We group items together that move at the same time. In audition, a similar effect takes place which is referred to as grouping by onset.

connectedness

We group together objects that are connected.

similarity

We group together things that look alike.

proximity

We perceive features as grouped when they are close together.

continuity

We tend to look for smooth, continuous patterns in objects. Similarly, while having a conversation we can partially ignore any interruptions and understand the sentences in a continuous manner.

a. applying autonomy

What questions can you ask to decide if the study is consistent with this ethical principle? - did participants have the chance to review the procedures of the study and decide whether or not they wanted to participate? Were vulnerable groups protected in this study? Were vulnerable groups protected in this stud? Were participants debriefed about the study at the end? For your information - yes, participants gave informed consent. No vulnerable groups, such as children, developmentally disabled people, or prisoners, participated in the study. Participants were debriefed at the end of the study

support for Chomsky's claim

When deaf children in Nicaragua were around other deaf children in a school, they invented their own language without the help of adults. As younger children join the school, the language is evolving and taking on new, increasingly complex features.

How does the Gestalt principle of closure cause us to see shapes based only on their absence?

When gaps in several visible objects have edges that line up, we assume that those lines are part of an object that is obstructing our view

interposition (monocular cue)

When you are viewing one object that is partially blocked by another, you perceive the object behind the other to be farther from you. (It does not appear to be cut in half.)

semantic satiation

When you say or read a word so many times that it stops making sense. - similar to the experience of semantic dementia but in healthy brained individuals - repetition of a word makes it sound meaningless.

Which of the following research questions is best studied with the cognitive perspective?

Why do people remember some events but not others? - the cognitive perspective focuses in part on the mental processes responsible for memory

genome

a 23-chapter (one for each chromosome) instruction book on how our ancestors have adapted to changes in their environments. It includes such important instructions as how to build an eye, a heart, and a brain. As such, the many million years of trial-and-error "learning" to build our basic biological systems are coded in the living memory of our genome genes provide the basic machinery for this learing to take place. - visual cortex comes into the world not programmed with what to see, but ready to learn to see

frequency distribution

a bar graph in which the possible scores on a variable are listed on the x-axis from the lowest to highest, and the total number of people who got each score is plotted on the y-axis - along with making a frequency distribution of a set of scores, researchers usually estimate the average of the batch

prototype

a best example or average member of a concept that incorporates most of the features most commonly associated with it - the closer something is to the prototype of a concept, the more quickly people can identify it with that concept - things that are more different from a prototype can be challenging to identify

suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN)

a brain structure in the hypothalamus, just above ("supra") the optic chiasm, which conveys information form the eyes back to the brain - when stimulated, the SCN communicates with the brain's pineal gland to reduce the production of certain hormones, including sleep-inducing hormone melatonin - when the SCN suppresses melatonin production, greater feelings of arousal result, so daylight leads to feeling awake. When there is no light to stimulate the SCN, the pineal glands produces more melatonin, leading to feelings of sleepiness and reduced arousal - cells in the SCN control the internal biological clock - when the SCN is selectively lesioned, rats and other species lose their biological rhythm: they still eat, drink, sleep and exercise, but at haphazard times - when suprachiasmatic cells from embryos are transplanted into the brains of these lesioned animals, rhythmic behavior returns

optic nerve

a bundle of axons that converge from the retina and transmit action potentials to the brain - connects the eye in a specific spot at the back of the retina - there is no room for photoreceptors where the optic nerve leaves the eye, which results in a blind spot

degradation

a chemical reaction breaks down the neurotransmitters in the synapse

antagonist

a chemical that competes with a naturally occurring neurotransmitter by preventing it from binding with its target receptor - interferes with normal neurotransmission (occupies the receptor keyhole but doesn't open the lock) - Naloxene is antagonist for heroin overdose - NOT useful in addiction treatment - blockade opioid receptors resulting in strong withdrawal symptoms; does not decrease the strong craving for the drug

agonist

a chemical that mimics the action of a neurotransmitter

blocking

a classical conditioning phenomenon whereby a prior association with a conditioned stimulus prevents learning of an association with another stimulus bc the second one adds no further predictive value - conditioning does not occur randomly, but rather associations are made only to events that are valuable and informative - blocking is adaptive - blocking is often compromised or absent in individuals who experience hallucinations (schizophrenia) bc the disorder disrupts a person's ability to attend to environmental stimuli in a predictive manner; they are bombarded with excess info, making learned connections difficult esp. since they are not always connected to reality

conditioned taste aversion

a classically conditioned response where individuals are more likely to associate nausea with food than with other environmental stimuli - this survival mechanism often follower a wicked bout of food poisoning - bc there were no previous associations, the aversion can be particularly strong in cases where you eat something foreign or exotic and become sick - conditioned taste aversions and more natural pairings are instant and powerful: humans & many other animals have a preparedness to learn about food sources specifically through the chemical sense of taste and smell - getting sick after eating a novel food will result in conditioned taste aversions based more on visual appearance than on flavor - farmers can use conditioned taste aversions to help their livestock avoid certain poisonous plants

hypothalamus

a collection of many different nuclei below the thalamus that integrates internal states of the body and their corresponding feelings and behaviors. The hypothalamus connects the central nervous system and the endocrine system, regulating functions including hunger, reward seeking, and aggression

nerves

a collection of neurons that carry signals from the body to the brain

family resemblance structure

a concept has a set of features that each member has some subset of, thought different members have different subsets of features.

punishment

a consequence that decreases the likely hood that a behavior will be repeated

reinforcement

a consequence that increases the likelihood that a behavior will be repeated

primary reinforcers

a consequence that is innately pleasurable and/or satisfies some biological need - food, drink when thirsty, warmth when cold, sex - all linked to behaviors necessary to pass on our previous genes - satisfy an innate biological need

repression

a defense mechanism against remembering a traumatic event, is hotly debated and controversial, there is good evidence that we can willfully reduce the likelihood we will retrieve certain memories, even of the more mundane variety.

observational research

a descriptive research method in which psychologists measure their variable of interest by observing and recording what people are doing - good bc people sometimes are not able to accurately self-report what they do

Electronic nicotine delivery system (ENDs)

a device which may look like a cigarette, pipe, pen, or USB memory stick that heats a nicotine solution into a vapor that users can inhale - often advertised to help people stop smoking, but the evidence suggest that switching from cigarettes to ENDs is not particularly effective for quitting - these devices have prompted a rise in nicotine addictions among young people, including middle school and high school students, who mistakenly believe that the drugs are harmless - although they contain far fewer toxins than tobacco cigarettes, they can contain much higher concentrations of nicotine - nicotine exposure during adolescence, when the brain is developing, can disrupt brain circuits that control attention, learning, impulse, control, and mood. - also increases the likelihood of using other tobacco products and developing additional addictions later in life - hundred of cases of vaping-related respiratory illness, some of them fatal, prompted an investigation into the health consequences of ENDs and led some states to consider outlawing the products

inattentional blindness

a failure to perceive information that is outside the focus of one's attention - 50% of participants missed the gorilla-suited person waking through scene - blame for many traffic accidents

tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon

a failure to retrieve information despite confidence that it is stored in memory. - occurs increasingly as we age - show that your brain is able to store much more than you can retrieve at any particular moment. - neural traces of memory can persist, even if we lose the capacity to retrieve them

Stefan is a 10-year-old boy. He doesn't get much sleep the night before visiting a neuropsychologist and performs poorly on the tests the doctor administers because he is tired. As a result of his poor performance, Stefan is diagnosed with a learning disorder. However, a test administered at a later time reveals that Stefan's ability to learn is normal after all. In signal detection theory, the initial diagnosis would be an example of which of the following?

a false alarm - Psychological assessments are reliable overall, but they are not perfect because any given test score is also subject to external randomness (such as a poor night's sleep). Stefan received a diagnosis (the "alarm") because the test made a mistake (hence the alarm being "false").

scatterplot

a figure used to represent a correlation, in which each dot usually represents a study participant, the a-axis represents one variable, the y-axis represents the other variable - can be positive, negative, or zero referring to the slope of the dots (this doesn't mean that the association is week or that it has bad implications) - can also show strong, moderate, or week correlation - when two variables have zero correlation with each other, no systematic relationship between the two measured variables is observe (tall people with generosity)

retrograde amnesia

a form of amnesia in which access to memories prior to brain damage is impaired, but the individual can store new experiences in long-term memory.

affective conditioning

a form of conditioning in which a previously neutral stimulus acquired positive or negative value - ex: neurologist Dr. Claparede greeted a patient with amnesia daily. 1 day, dr had pin in his arm when he shook her hand. next day, she hesitated in shaking his arm despite not remembering him. She implicitly remembered the pain despite amnesia for the main who caused her pain

semantic encoding

a form of deep encoding, operates on the meaning of events and yields better memory than merely processing what a stimulus sounds like or looks like

change blindness

a form of inattentional blindness, in which a person fails to notice changes in visual stimulus - worker switching places after asking directions (figure 5.4) - we experience change blindness bc our awareness is limited and we cannot attend to every detail of an event or scene

observational learning

a form of learning in which a person observes and imitates a behavior from a model - eliminates some of the painstaking trial-and-error process and increases the rate of learning (and decreases the risks) associated with operant or classical methods - involved being able to execute the desired behavior

nonassociative learning

a form of learning that involves a change in the magnitude of an elicited response with repetition of the eliciting stimulus - involves inc. or dec. response to a repeated stimulus. - learning even in the simplest of organisms (invertebrates like the sea slug) - habituation and sensitization represent 2 opposing poles of nonassociative learning

associative learning

a form of learning that involves making connections between stimuli and behavioral responses

explicit memory (declarative memory)

a form of memory that involves intentional and conscious remembering - ex: remembering the time and place you first learned to ride a bike - hippocampus specialized in the formation of explicit memories - includes: episodic memory and semantic memory

implicit memory (nondeclarative memory)

a form of memory that occurs without intentional recollection or awareness and can be measured indirectly through the influence of prior learning on behavior - ex: remembering how to ride a bike - implicit memory depends on a variety of memory systems throughout the brain -includes: procedural memory, priming, classical conditioning

habituation

a form of nonassociative learning by which an organism becomes less responsive to a repeated stimulus - the brain decreases it attention to stimuli in our environment that turn out to be harmless or unimportant ("cry wolf") - brain becomes less responsive with repeated exposure, allowing us to direct our resources to more important stimuli in our environment - might be attributed to a decreased response due to muscle fatigue. may reflect a decreased ability to detect the stimulus due to adaptation of the sensory receptors - reflect learning in the connection between how sensory inputs result in motor outputs

sensitization

a form of nonassociative learning by which an organism becomes more sensitive, or responsive, to a repeated stimulus - leads to an increased response with repetition of the stimulus, making us more sensitive to it

superstitious conditioning

a form of noncontingent reinforcement, in which individuals learn a behavior that has no actual relationship with reinforcement - developed after coincidental reinforcement began and increased during the intervals between reinforcement - this type of superstitious behavior arises bc our prediction-machine brains, in trying to extract meaningful patterns out of noise, will sometimes invent a pattern when none actually exists - behaviors do not necessarily reflect true associations with the result of one's actions. instead, learning depends on the associations made in the mind of the beholder

subliminal perception

a form of perception that occurs without conscious awareness - happens just below the level of conscious awareness - in subliminal perception, people cannot consciously report having perceived a stimulus, but their behaviors suggest otherwise - subliminal advertising can work, but only under certain conditions (advertisers cannot control environment well enough for sm to work very well)

cued recall

a form of retrieval that is facilitated by providing information related (retrieval cues or hints) to the stored memory - ex: fill-in-the blank questions bc they provide information in the question that can help cue the answer

recognition

a form of retrieval that relies on identifying previously seen or experienced information - ex: recognizing someone's face (NOT their name), multiple choice tests - often much more accurate than free recall over a variety of delays; after long delays there is almost no recall from memory, but recognition tests reveal that individuals still have substantial memory for what they studied

transcranial direct current stimulation (TDCS)

a gentler form of neurostimulation in which very low levels of direct current are delivered via electrodes on the head to stimulate brain function - enhancing hand-eye coordination cognition in both healthy and clinical populations

descriptive statistics

a graph or computation that describes the characteristics of a batch of scores (data), such as its distribution, central tendency, or variability - it summarizes participants' differing responses in terms of what was most typical and how much people's responses varied from the average

basal ganglia

a group of interconnected structures underneath the cortex that are necessary for planning, executing, and stopping movement. The basal ganglia transmit information from motor regions in the cerebral cortex to the thalamus, allowing the brain to communicate with the spinal cord to control muscles - degeneration of the basal ganglia results in slow, rigid, tremor-filled movements and Parkinson's disease

overegularization errors

a language error made by children that involves extending rules of word formation. These errors reveal children's understanding of grammar. (such as adding -ed to irregular verbs that dont follow the rules) - ran/came/ate = runned, comed, eated

myelin sheath

a layer of fatty tissue that covers and insulates an axon to ensure that electrical messages travel fast and meet less resistance - critical for normal human brain development - shrinks during the process of normal aging (most exaggerated in people with Alzheimer's disease)

secondary reinforcers

a learned pleasure that acquires value through experience because of its association with primary reinforcers - tokens, money - we have learned to associate these secondary reinforcers with primary reinforcers, and in doing so we greatly expand what we will work to obtain - secondary reinforcers have some characteristics that can render them even more powerful forces on behavior than primary reinforcers - for many of us there is no limit to how much money we desire to attain and how much we are willing to work for it

Institutional Review Board (IRB)

a local panel of researchers, teachers, and other citizens, who determine whether the study upholds the community's ethical standards - centered around 3 ethical principles: autonomy, beneficence, and justice

acetylcholine

a major neurotransmitter class that can behave as both an inhibitory and an excitatory signal, supporting heart, skeletal muscles, and cognitive function - binds to both inhibitory and excitatory receptors; contributes to muscle control

Homunculus

a maplike representation of regions of the body in the brain (little man creature) - each body area is represented proportionally to the amount of somatosensory cortex devoted to it, rather than to the actual body part size

singe-cell recordings

a measurement of the electrical activity of a single neuron - helps us decipher the brain's language because they represent the fundamental units of the brain's code - docs conduct these in surgeries to diagnose and plan the treatment for various disorders (epilepsy, major depression, Parkinson's disease)

operant conditioning

a mechanism by which our behavior acts as an instrument or tool to change the environment and, as a result, voluntary behaviors are modified. - involves voluntary actions or behaviors, which serve as levers to control or operate on the environment to produce desired outcomes - over time, with continued practice, these behaviors become more automatic and second-nature to us. - voluntary behaviors are generally modifies as a result of their consequences. We learn that the behavior must be performed to get or avoid something. - by allowing associations to voluntary (operant) and involuntary (classical) behaviors, our brain can both control and be controlled by the environment, thus covering all its bases

long-term potentiation (LTP)

a mechanism that creates enduring synaptic connections, which results in increased transmission between neurons - an increase in a synapse's firing potential after brief, rapid stimulation. Believed to be a neural basis for learning and memory. - regarded as the most likely cellular mechanism supporting long-term memory - found throughout the brain, but it was first discovered in the hippocampus of the rabbit. - best hypothesis regarding the cellular basis for how all memories are formed

lens

a membrane at the front of the eye that focuses the incoming light on the retina - bends light using accommodation

concepts

a mental category that groups similar objects, events, ideas, or people - mind organizes mental representations into concepts - most people have a concept of "chair" that includes many sorts of chairs they encounter - these are valuable bc they allow us to use prior experiences to understand and react to new things that we encounter - some concepts are defined by specific rules or features (triangles - 3 sides). - most concepts aren't so straightforward but instead have imprecise boundaries, so that all members do not share the sam characteristics (beanbag as a chair; birds that don't fly-penguins)

mental set

a mental framework for how to solve a problem based on prior experience with similar problems - however, occasionally, knowledge and experience make it more difficult to solve a problem (applying a mental set to a problem is usually an efficient means of solving it but can sometimes prevent us from seeing newer, better solutions

availability heuristic

a mental shortcut for deciding how frequent or probable something is based on how easily examples come to mind - ex: thinking of what causes the most deaths: lightning or floods... floods - trouble is that sometimes examples are more available in mind not bc they are more common but bc we've encountered them more recently, bc they were more distinctive or vivid, or bc media reported them in a biased way - when the availability heuristic leads us astray, it can spark irrational fears

representative heuristic

a mental shortcut for judging the likelihood of something based on how well it represents some category (stereotypes) - any understanding of statistics or logic is overriden by your knowledge about concepts and what prototypical members of those concepts are like - ex: knowing which foods are prototypical of healthy is enough to guide a good guess... you don't need to read the nutrition information

affect heuristic

a mental shortcut for making judgments and decisions that involves relying on affect - the good-for-me or bad-for-me feelings we associate with various objects and events in the world - ex: standing at an 80 story building brings negative feelings, pushing us away from the experience - these are not helpful for guiding for decisions, they are essential - affective response to a situation is critical to shaping people's moral judgment of it (participants exposed to a stinky room made harsher moral judgment than those in the no-spray condition

heuristics

a mental shortcut that allows people to efficiently solve problems and make judgments and decisions - part of the automatic system of thinking, heuristics are mental shortcuts that are quick, effortless, intuitive, and automatic - tend to operate outside of conscious awareness; people are usually unaware that they are using them, believing instead that they are reasoning through things carefully and logically using their controlled system of thought - usually lead to good judgments and decisions, at least ones better than change

self-report

a method to introspect - limitation: people may choose not to reveal their thoughts accurately or honestly - limitation: people may be unable to translate their conscious experience into words (conscious experience is often ineffable, or indescribable) - there is no guarantee that others would understand them the same way you do

multistore model of memory

a model proposing that information flows from our senses through three storage levels in memory: sensory, short-term, and long-term - information from the environment has the potential to move through each of these levels of storage to form more and more permanent memories with less and less detail. - the stages of this model are not so clearly separated and overlap much more in the brain than previously thought

epithelium

a mucous membrane in the nasal cavity that contains the olfactory receptor neurons - enable human beings to discern about 1 trillion different odors! - researchers have not found a clear organizational system within the epithelium

endocrine system

a network of glands that produces and releases hormones into the blood stream to regulate the body's activities - works with the CNS and PNS, sending signals from your brain to your body and back again - interactions of the CNS and the endocrine system synchronize the brain and the body, coordinating the nervous systems to prepare the body for any challenges that lie ahead

nervous system

a network of neurons running throughout your brain and body - composed of the central nervous system and the peripheral nervous system

action potential

a neural impulse; a brief electrical charge that travels down an axon

monoamines

a neurochemical class that includes norepinephrine, - dopamine (rewarding, euphoric effects) - serotonin (well-being appetite sleep); important for flight-or-flight and reward responses

all-or-none response

a neuron's reaction of either firing (with a full-strength response) or not firing. - excitatory and inhibitory potentials is continuous

reuptake

a neurotransmitter's reabsorption by the sending neuron

effect size (d)

a numerical estimate of the strength of the relationship between two variables. it can take the form of a correlational coefficient, or for an experiment, the difference between the two group means divided by the standard deviations of the two groups

thalamus

a pair of symmetrical egg-shaped structures located between the basal ganglia that acts as a hub for information to and from all the sensory systems, except for smell. The thalamus regulates sensory inputs, for example relaying less information about the outside world during sleep - damage to thalamus can result in loss of touch, blindness, memory loss, and many more things

classical conditioning

a passive form of learning by which an association is made between a reflex-eliciting stimulus (e.g. a shock) and other stimuli (e.g. a sound) - causes the appearance of a behavior - a person learns to extend the ability for a stimulus (food) to elicit a reflexive response (hunger) to other associated stimuli, such as the appearance of a favorite restaurant. - originated to teach organisms how to best prepare for what was upcoming in the environment

Unihemispheric sleep

a pattern of sleep in which only one half (one hemisphere) of the brain experiences slow-wave sleep at a time, while the other half remains awake - sleep with one eye open, facing outward from their pod to spot potential threats - hemisphere that controls that eye stays awake and alert, whereas the other hemisphere goes into deep, slow-wave sleep

After he was stung by a bee, young Eli became very nervous every time any flying insect was anywhere near him. Even if it was a common housefly, Eli would think it was a bee and would jump and run. What phenomenon influenced Eli's perception of the flying insects?

a perceptual set - A perceptual set, which is a part of top-down processing, is a predisposition that influences what we perceive based on recent experience or context.

journals

a periodical containing peer reviewed articles on a specific academic discipline, written for a scholarly audience

arousal

a person's level of wakefulness or alertness - arousal is at a low point when we are deeply sleeping and at a high point when we are awake and vigilant

Herman Ebbinghaus

a pioneer of human memory research in the late 1800s; discovered that recall varies as a function of position within a study list - that is, what is studied first, last, or in between. - when results are graphed in the order in which the words were presented, the curve looked like a big smile (called the serial position curve)

hypothesis

a prediction about what will happen based on the theory

ventral tegmental area

a primitive component of the motivation and reward system that motivates us to move - - located in the midbrain, the VTA produces dopamine and plays an important role in reward, motivation, and the forming of addictions

counterconditioning

a procedure that conditions new responses to stimuli that trigger unwanted behaviors - Watson and Raynor did NOT do this for Little Albert

random assignment

a procedure used in experimental research, in which a random method is used to decide which participants will be in which group - allows researchers to assume that at the beginning of the study, the people in each group are, on average, similar - flipping a coin

diffusion chain

a process in which individuals learn a behavior by observing a model and then serve as models from whom other individuals can learn

meta-analysis

a process in which researchers locate all of the studies that have tested the same variables and mathematically average them to estimate the effect size of the entire body of studies

statistical significance

a process of inference that applies rules of logic and probability to estimate whether the results obtained in a study's sample are the same in a larger population - important concept of inferential statistics - necessary bc researchers generally cannot study everybody in a population of interest

foveation

a process where eye movements direct the fovea to a target

visual transduction

a process where the rods and cones convert light energy into electrical energy

heroin

a psychoactive opioid drug that piggybacks on the body's preexisting neurotransmission infrastructure - mimics the action of the body's natural endorphins by binding with the opiate receptors, mimicking and amplifying the effects of the body's natural feel-good neurotransmitters - acts as an agonist of endorphins - risk of overdose - great risk for intense pleasure

action potential

a rapid change in voltage created by a neuron when it is sufficiently stimulated to surpass a critical threshold; serves as the basis for neural signaling - travels down the axon - researchers observe this through single-cell recording - electricity in neurons is created by chemistry - neurons are bathed in an extracellular fluid composed of positively and negatively charged particles/ions

echoic memory

a rapidly decaying store of auditory sensory information - while seeing something is nearly instantaneous, hearing something inherently occurs over time. - echoic memory is thought to have a longer duration than iconic memory

iconic memory

a rapidly decaying store of visual sensory information

Monochromacy color blindness

a rare condition in which individuals are born with only one kind of receptor. Monochromatic individuals have no color perception - they see all wavelengths as various shades of gray

cataplexy

a rare version of narcolepsy in which they collapse into a paralyzed state - just like during REM sleep - yet remain awake - episodes can be triggered by strong emotions, including negative ones like sadness and anger, but also positive ones like joy and surprise

hypnotic analgesia

a reduction in pain perception caused by a hypnotic suggestion - people can dunk their hand in freezing cold water and keep it there for long periods while experiencing little pain - can reduce pain more dramatically than aspirin or even morphine - has allowed people to undergo dental procedures and some forms of surgery without any anesthetic - hypnosis was used to help patients through traumatic surgical procedures long before the development of anesthesia - effects can be seen in patterns of brain activity. The experience of pain involves 2 major brain regions: somatosensory cortices (receives and process sensory input about the painful stimulus, such as where it is and how intense it is) and parts of the limbic system (process the emotional aspects of the pain, such as how unpleasant it is) - people show increase activation in all of these regions when exposed to a painful stimulus, such as high heat - can affect these brain regions in different ways depending on the nature of the hynoptic suggestions: suggestions that the pain will be "less intense" reduces activity in the somatosensory cortex, whereas suggestions that the pain will be "less unpleasant" reduces brain activity in the limbic system

Fear conditioning has been found to depend on the amygdala

a region next to the hippocampus in the depths of the medial temporal lobes, which plays an important role not only in fear associations but also in other forms of emotional learning - amygdala serves as a key brain region through which emotional CS-US associations are made - amygdala is perfectly positioned for fear conditioning, as it also directly communicates with the brainstem, which influences bodily reflexes - the amygdala not only mediates conditioned aversive and escape responses but is also involved in conditioned reward, as occurred in Pavlov's dogs

circadian rhythm

a regular, 24-hour patten of bodily arousal. also known as the biological rhythm or biological clock.

fixed-interval schedule

a reinforcement schedule based on a fixed amount of time before a reward is given - there is a steep drop-off in responding immediately after receiving the reward and then, very closely to the five-minute mark, responding increases - response rate yields a very distinct scallop-shaped pattern when graphed

variable-interval schedule

a reinforcement schedule based on an amount of time between rewards that varies around a constant average - leads to slow and consistent responses bc the time to the next reinforcer is relatively unpredictable - ex: check email inbox, fishing, surfing

continuous reinforcement schedule

a reinforcement schedule in which a behavior is rewarded every time it is performed - ex: chocolate every time you finish reading a study unit - *effective bc it leads to rapid acquisition of a behavior, but that behavior will also be subject to rapid extinction - very rare in the real world (vending machines) - you expect a reward, if you don't get it behavior easily goes extinct

partial reinforcement schedules

a reinforcement schedule in which a behavior is rewarded only some of the time - very effective motivators - can be determined by one of two variables: behavior or time 1. ratio schedules: schedules determined by behavior 2. interval schedules: schedules determined by time - both ratio and interval schedules have fixed and variable forms: when you use a fixed schedule, precisely every nth response is reinforced (ratio), or reinforcement occurs after a set amount of time (interval) - with variable schedule, reinforcement occurs more randomly, such that only approximately every nth response is reinforced (ratio), or reinforcement occurs after an approximate amount of time (interval) - variable schedules are more resistant to extinction than fixed schedules bc of the unpredictability of the reward

fixed-ratio schedule

a reinforcement schedule in which a specific number of behaviors are required before a reward is given - piecework pay at a factory where a worker receives $1 for every 10 pieces made - behavior tends to decrease briefly immediately after a reward is received and then accelerate as repetitions get closer to the threshold for receiving the reward

variable-ratio schedule

a reinforcement schedule in which an average number of behaviors are required before a reward is given - very effective schedule for eliciting consistently high levels of behavior - casinos: lack of predictability, response rates (pulling the slot machine arm) are consistent and very strongly reinforced, keeping people stuck to their slot machine seat - high-frequency behavior: high and steady rate of responding is surprisingly resistant to extinction - golf is another example

hypnosis

a relaxed state of mind in which a person is especially receptive to suggestions made by a hypnotist and feels her actions and thoughts are happening to her rather than being produced voluntarily - during hypnosis, a hypnotist helps a subject shift into a relaxed state and then makes suggestions that the subject readily accepts as true or happening, such as that her hand is as "light as a feather."

conditioned response (CR)

a response that occurs in the presence of the conditioned stimulus after an association between the conditioned and unconditioned stimulus is learned - represents a learned adaptive response, used from coping with the environment - salivation after seeing Pavlov

alpha waves

a rhythmic pattern of low-frequency, high-amplitude waves in the brain's electrical activity (as measured with the EEG) that is associated with being awake yet relaxed with the eyes closed

delta waves

a rhythmic pattern of very-low-frequency, high-amplitude waves in the brain's electrical activity (as shown in the EEG) that is associated with deep, Stage 4 sleep

beta waves

a rhythmicc pattern of high-frequency, low-amplitude waves in the brains electrical activity (as measured with the EEG) that is associated with being awake and actively thinking - when you are awake

Gestalt psychology

a school of psychological thought that attempted to explain how various elements group together to form objects, arguing that perception if more than a simple piecing together of building blocks - alternative framework to explain how the human brain groups various elements together to form objects. - attempted to define certain universal rules of thumb that the visual system uses to organize incoming data into meaningfully structured wholes - Gestalt principles are the basic rules that the visual system follows (connectedness, closure, continuity, similarity, proximity, synchrony). they provide a rough guide to the visual system's shortcuts for object recognition - the visual system uses

meditation

a set of practices used in various religious traditions to train a person's ability to control attention, awareness, and sometimes emotions - has been used by people of various religious faiths, often bc it is believed to foster spiritual and emotional well-being - has become increasingly mainstream (about 8% of US adults report practicing meditation as a means of improving their health.) - meditation practices are prescribed to treat physical and psychological health problems and are used in schools to boost student well-being and performance

inferential statistic

a set of procedures used to estimate whether a pattern of results represent a true relationship or different in the population - uses sample data to make general estimates about the larger population

theory

a set of propositions about what people do and why - researchers test theories with a specific hypothesis

language

a shared system of symbols including spoken, written, and signed words and gestures, and a set of rules for how to combine those symbols to communicate meaning - people's ability to produce language enable them to transfer knowledge between each other and across generations - versatile: many parts and subparts that can be flexibly arranged to convey different meanings - people can communicate about anything

narcolepsy

a sleep disorder in which a person falls asleep suddenly and uncontrollably - nearly 1 in 2,000 people - episodes last just a few minutes but can happen at times that put the sufferer at risk of both embarrassment and physical danger

sleep apnea

a sleep disorder in which a person's breathing is interrupted bc of obstructions in the airway or problems with the brain's control of breathing - when backup systems in the brain detect a lack of oxygen, they awaken the person with a gasp of air - more common in: men than in women, people who are older or overweight, people who snore - many people don't get treated bc they don't realize they have it: although they are awakened dozens or even hundreds of times each hour, they don't remember these awakenings, so they feel sleepy and irritable during the day w/o knowing why - often it is a spouse or a bed partner who detects the problem

insomnia

a sleep disorder involving chronic difficulties falling or staying asleep - most unpleasant and problematic - more physically and mentally fatigues than their normally sleeping counterparts - more likely to report medical and mental health problems - 10% of college students: may be esp. prone to insomnia even if they don't realize they have it - some "quick-fix methods" to fall asleep can aggravate the problem: 1. alcohol (negatively affects sleep quality, suppresses REM sleep in the first 1/2 of the night leading to more wakeups in the second half) 2. over-the-counter sleeping pills: disrupt sleep quality, and people develop a tolerance to them. when they stop taking them, insomnia can be even worse than it was before

night terrors

a sleep disorder occurring during deep sleep that involves dramatic expressions of fear, with accelerated heart rate and respiration - occur near the beginning of Stage 4 sleep (different than nightmares that happen during REM sleep) - patients rarely wake up during an episode or remember anything about it the next morning

REM behavior disorder (RBD)

a sleep disorder that involves acting out one's dreams because the paralysis that normally occurs during REM sleep is absent or incomplete - brainstem does not block signals, so people act out their dreams, sometimes putting themselves in danger - more common in: adults middle-aged or older

sleepwalking

a sleep disorder that involves walking or performing other behaviors while in deep sleep - takes place during Stage 4 sleep - more common in: children (who spend more time in Stage 4 sleep)

fovea

a small pit in the center of the retina that is densely packed with cones - during the day, most of what we experience in vision comes from the cones huddled in this tiny section of the retina - unconsciously, we know exactly where our fovea is- we use it all the time, moving your eyes so objects in the world fall on it. (necessary for reading) - your eyes are trained to move constantly in order to focus different stimuli directly onto the fovea, a process called foveation

microelectrode

a small wire used to monitor the electrical activity of or stimulate activity within a single neuron - allows scientists to "listen" to a neuron's electrical activity and its changes in response to different events

contingent reinforcement

a specific response is reinforced because it yields some desired change to the environment

cochlea

a spiral structure in the inner ear where the basal membrane, containing auditory sensory neurons, is located - critical transducer of the ear, turning fluid vibrations into neural energy - the coil of the cochlea is filled with fluid that is moved when ossicles push and pull the oval window

dissociation

a splitting of conscious awareness. In the case of hypnosis, one stream of awareness stays connected to the hypnotist's suggestions whereas another stream observes the person's experiences in a disconnected way -hypnosis can be an extreme form of the same processes involved in mind wandering

rapid eye movement (REM) sleep

a stage of sleep characterized by rapid eye movements, brain activity similar to wakefulness, faster heart and breathing rates, inability to move the skeletal muscles, and dreams - similar to Stage 1 except your heart rate rises, breathing increases and becomes less regular, and every 30 seconds or so, your eyes dart around behind your closed eyelids - paradoxical sleep

algorithms

a step-by-step procedure for solving problems that guarantees a solution - maze

conditioned stimulus (CS)

a stimulus that has no prior positive or negative association but comes to elicit a response after begin associated with the unconditioned stimulus - Pavlov entering the room (previously neutral but now a stimulus for salivation) - bell in next experiment

unconditioned stimulus (US)

a stimulus that produces a reflexive response without prior learning - food in Pavlov study

sensory memory

a storage level of memory that holds sensory information on the order of milliseconds to seconds - characterized by substantial storage capacity but also extreme fragility and very limited duration - although we cannot remember all that our senses experience, for a brief instant our sensory systems may store everything that comes in. A fleeting sensory memory is made when information is initially processed by each sensory system, such as the eye (iconic) or ear (echoic), lasting from milliseconds to seconds. - afterimage - sensory information either quickly fades away, to be forever lost, or is sent on to persist a little longer in short-term memory

short-term memory

a storage level of memory where information can be held briefly, from seconds to less than a minute (before being either stored permanently or forgotten) - holds a limited amount of information for a short time, ranging from a few seconds to less than a minute - most of us can hold approximately 7 items in verbal short-term memory at one time (7 digits of a phone number) however, studies have shown that the capacity is limited to approximately 4 items. - despite its longer duration, short-term memory has a much more limited capacity for detail than sensory memory. but with the loss of the potentially unlimited capacity of sensory memory, we gain something substantial: content and meaning. - short term memory is post-categorical: containing information about meaning - unlike ur sensory receptors, which can process only raw data, your short term memory knows the difference between a face and vase or a moose and a goose. - for us to even report on our iconic memory, we must convert that information into short-term memory, where we can determine that what we are seeing are letters and numbers

long-term memory

a storage level of memory where information can be held for hours to many years and potentially a lifetime - a memory like your first time riding a bike can be stored for over 100 years, although it will have far less vivid detail than a photograph or a movie would. - form of storage that holds information from minutes to years - has no clearly defined limits in its capacity or duration - research into long-term memory began in the early 20th century with Herman Ebbinghaus

magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)

a structural imaging technique that uses magnetic fields and radio waves to create images of the brain - most common and sophisticated modern imaging tool - show the brain's gray (dark) and white (light) matter: - gray matter is the cellular machinery that created distinct brain regions - white matter is the long tracts/connections between the brain regions that allow for inter-region communication - pros: provides brain structure/structural imaging - cons: reveals nothing about the brain cells' functions or activity

basilar membrane

a structure in the cochlea where the auditory cilia, or auditory sensory neurons, are located - contains thousands of hairlike cilia. Vibrations of the basilar membrane cause the cilia to bend back and forth, triggering neural impulses - like an elastic rubber band in your cochlea, to vibrate - more than 10,000 tiny cilia in each human ear, neatly organized into rows along the basilar membrane. - physical bending of the cilia, or hair cells, triggers neural impulses, similar to a hydroelectric dam that transforms the flow of water into electricity (cilia are extremely sensitive) - bending the cilia in one direction creates a depolarization of the hair cell bodies, making them more likely to fire action potentials. bending them in the opposite direction creates a hyperpolarization, making them less likely to fire

medulla oblongata

a structure in the hindbrain that controls autonomic functions such as heart rate and blood pressure, in addition to vital reflexes such as swallowing and coughing

pons

a structure in the hindbrain that controls breathing. it also relays sensations such as hearing, taste, and balance to the cortex and subcortex. "Pons" comes form the Latin for "bridge", as the structure connects the medulla and cerebellum to the rest os the brain

olfactory bulb

a structure just above the nasal cavity where information is communicated to the primary olfactory cortex via the olfactory tract - about the nasal cavity, beneath the frontal lobe - looks and serves a similar chemical-sensory function to the antennae of a slug - size of the olfactory bulb relative to the rest of the brain differs greatly across species, reflecting their use of smell, and is relatively tiny in humans

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

insight

a sudden conscious change in a person's understanding of some situation or problem (aha moment) - can feel spontaneous, magical, and even inspired, research suggests that insight actually involves a lot of unconscious cognitive work - sometimes arises when we pick up on useful information from our environment wihtout being consciously aware of it - ex: when participants saw subliminal hints before an anagram task (figure 8.6) - being in a good mood seems to make insight more likely

grammar

a system of rules that governs the way that language parts are put together so that people can understand each other - There are grammatical rules at every level of language: phonemes, morphemes, phrases, and sentences.

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 - consists of hippocampus, amygdala, basal ganglia, thalamus, and hypothalamus - often described as the "emotional brain" - plays important and diverse roles in smell, learning and memory, and motivation

transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS)

a temporary and reversible disruption or enhancement of cortical brain function that allows scientists to study brain regions and their functions - does not damage the brain - temporarily changes the patterns of normal neural activity - affected neurons are stunned into temporary submission or even stimulated into action

overconfidence bias

a tendency to overestimate the accuracy of one's knowledge and judgments - students are often overconfidence with how much they know of course material - people judge overconfident people more positively than underconfident people

REM rebound

a tendency to spend more time in REM sleep if deprived of it on previous nights

trichomatic theory

a theory of color perception stating that 3 types of cone cells, each most sensitive to a specific wavelength of light (short, medium, or long), work together to produce our perception of a multicolored world - developed by Thomas Young and Hermann con Helmholtz - any one color patch could be matched by the additive mixing of 3 lights of different wavelengths - long (red), medium (green), and short (blue) - all of our color experiences could be created by combining these 3 wavelength components - a single cone type cannot distinguish the precise wavelength and amplitude of light, so color perception requires the joining efforts of at least 2-3 cone types - the firing pattern across our 3 types of cones creates the final color judgment and experience in the brain: these multiple cone judges resolve other perceptual riddles as well, such as the fact that we can see the vibrant yellow of a lemon even though we don't have a "yellow" receptor

opponent-process theory

a theory of color perception stating that information from the cones is separated into 3 sets of opposing or opponent channels in the ganglion cell layer - explains the color afterimages as perceptual opposites - provides a physiological account of how colors are treated and perceived as opposites - a color afterimage is a perceptual opposite of the original color. - responses of the cones are combines in the bipolar and ganglion cell layers to create 3 sets of opposing or opponent color responses: white-black, red-green, and yellow-blue - color opponency is due to how bipolar cells combine inputs from the different cone types. ganglion cells that receive inputs from cones at the red vs. the green end of the wavelength cancel each other out. - as you stare at the original image, the cones' adaptation to the presented colors not only reduces perception of those colors but decreases the cones' ability to inhibit the opposing colors in the ganglion cells (the brain sees not only less of what the cones detect in that region but also more of its opposite)

place theory of pitch

a theory of pitch perception stating that different pitches arise from different places along the basilar membrane - Helmholtz proposed that high frequencies are felt by hairs at the beginning of the basilar membrane, where it is narrower and stiffer. low frequencies travel all the way through the coil to hairs on the tip of the basilar membrane, where it is wider and floppier - evidence supporting this was by Georg von Bekesy - the basilar membrane in your ear creates a place-frequency map. According to place theory, frequency (pitch) depends on where the basilar membrane is stimulated, while amplitude (loudness ) depends on how much the basilar membrane is stimulated. - lower-frequency sounds are not, however, as well organized on the basilar membrane as von Helmholtz had predicted

reminiscence bump

a time of prominent memory making between adolescence and early adulthood - the density of memories is not = across one's lifetime. middle-aged individuals systematically have many more memories from some periods, esp. around young adulthood. - your hippocampus is fully mature and active throughout all these ages, so the bump cannot be attributed to changes in the biology of memory - more likely, the development of personhood and the many major experiences that mark changes in the direction of your life happen during this period, making these years especially memorable.

Stage 3

a transitional stage with slower brain waves, just before Stage 4

procedural memory

a type of implicit memory related to the acquisition of skills; involves motor skills and behavioral habits - severe retrograde amnesiacs like HM experience this despite a total loss of explicit memory for having acquired them - ex: Clive Wearing - procedural memories are preserved in amnesia bc they are supported by regions other than the hippocampus in the medial temporal lobe, such as the brain regions important for motor production and coordination (the hippocampus and explicit memory are not needed for acquiring or demonstrating complex procedural skills)

descriptive research

a type of study in which researchers measure one variable at a time - have a goal of describing what is typical- tells us: What do people do, on average? - often takes the form of a survey - average height and weight for a full-term baby - average blood pressure for adults of your age and sex - average number of hours per week that college students play video games

correlational research

a type of study that measures two (or more) variables in order to understand the relationship between them

standard deviation

a variability statistic that calculates how much, on average, a batch of scores varies around its mean - find the distance between the individual score and the mean, and then compute the average of these distances

measured variable

a variable whose values are simply recorded - height and braking time are simply observed and recorded in numeric form - asking people how happy they are from 1-10 scale and then record what they say is also a measured variable

manipulated variable

a variable whose values the researcher controls, usually by assigning different participants to different levels of that variable - researchers can manipulate a degree of intoxication by assigning some people to drink alcohol and other to drink a nonalcoholic beverage - researchers could manipulate the variable cell phone use by assigning some people to talk on the phone while driving and other to talk on the phone in the passenger's seat - manipulated variables are used only in experiments

allele

a variant form of a gene; humans have 2 alleles per gene, one inherited from each parent - strong (dominant) - weak (recessive)

functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI)

a variation of MRI that measures brain function by tracking oxygen in the blood flow through the brain - pro: better than PET scan bc spatial and temporal resolution are better - con: cannot reveal the fine time scale shown by EEG or MEG - primary took for the functional mapping of the human brain due to its noninvasiveness and good spatial resolution

Prosopagnosia (face blindness)

a visual disorder in which individuals are unable to recognize the identity of faces (even those of family members and friends or their own reflection) - they can tell a face is a face and not some other object, but bc of all faces have two eyes, nose, mouth, etc. they appear more or less the same.

phi phenomenon

a visual illusion in which the flashing of separate images in rapid succession is perceived as fluid movement - what made the early days of Walt Disney magical (filmstrip)

flashbulb memories

a vivid memory for an emotionally significant event, thought to be permanent and detailed, as if frozen in time like a photograph - gives people great confidence in their accuracy, but people often report incorrect information (false memories) regarding these emotionally charged events - they are more accurate the closer a person lived to the event

random sampling

a way choosing a sample of participants for a study in which participants are selected without bias - ex: dialing random digits on the telephone or pulling names out of a hat - allows sample to generalize to a population - members of a population of interest must have an equal change of being selected for the sample

random sampling (aka random selection)

a way of choosing participants for a study in which participants are selected w/o bias - ex: dialing digits on the telephone or pulling names out of a hat - every person in the population of interest has an equal change of being selected - used only. in experiments: method used to assign participants to the different levels of the independent variable - helps rule out alternative explanations for any difference between experimental groups

In the context of language acquisition, which of the following best describes the "sensitive period"?

a window during which language acquisition is facilitated - Young children who are immersed in a language-filled environment are able to acquire that language more deeply and durably than those who enter that environment as adolescents and adults.

shallow and deep encoding engage different brain regions

a. the visual cortex is associated with the processing of word appearance b. deep encoding additionally recruits prefrontal and temporal lobe regions, reflecting access of conceptual information

working memory

ability to organize information in a meaningful way in short-term memory - while short term memory is the holding dock for a duration less than 30 seconds, working memory provides the operations - loading, unloading, manipulating, and organizing the cargo in the dock. - without using working memory, information will rapidly fade from short-term memory - working memory is then best thought of as working-with memory, enhancing the duration of short-term memories and facilitating their transfer into long-term storage - working memory is a 2way bridge between short-term and long-term memory. the working memory's central executive supports cognitive operations, such as rehearsal, on new information coming into short-term memory from different sensory systems, as well as information from prior long-term memories. The visuo-spatial sketchpad stores and processes information in a visual and spatial form, and the phonological loop processes spoken and written material.

metacognition

ability to think about your own thinking; awareness and understanding of one's own thought processes.

Suppose you are about to monitor and measure the activity in a psychopath's prefrontal cortex. What do you expect to see?

abnormally reduced activity overall - Psychopaths generally understand the consequences of their behaviors, but brain regions associated with feelings of guilt appear to be less active.

6 month old babies sleep...

about 14 hours a day - newborns spend a disproportionate amount of time in REM sleep

college-age adults sleep...

about 8 hours

free recall

accessing information from memory without any cues to aid your retrieval - might sound easy, but when you're required to recall freely from memory, you are unlikely to access all of the relevant information you actually have stored - ex: shown list of 30 words today, tomorrow asked to recall them - likely would forgotten almost all of them

positron emission tomography (PET)

accidentally discovered that drifting and sometimes fuzzy awareness that happens during mind wandering involves a different collection of brain regions - people were resting in PET scanner, some parts of the brain were more active when people were performing the specific task than when they were doing nothing - some parts of the brain (default mode network) were more active when people were doing nothing than when they were performing the task

Clive Wearing

accomplished musician, conductor, and musicologist until he contracted herpes simplex encephalitis that resulted in severe anterograde and retrograde amnesia - has about a 30 second short-term memory - recognizes his wide and gushes with affection when he sees her (even when he can't remember her name) - can still conduct and play music if it is put in front of him (procedural memories)

manifest content

according to Freud, the visible, surface content of a dream or behavior that disguises the hidden, latent content - CENSORED, SYMBOLIC - story line of a dream

5 fundamental processes underlying learning

acquisition, generalization, discrimination, extinction, and spontaneous recovery

skin sensations are often caused by the activation of various combinations of receptor types

activation of both cold and pressure receptors leads to a sensation of wetness, whereas stimulation of both cold and warm receptors produces a burning sensation

olfactory association cortex

adjacent orbitofrontal cortices on the underside of the frontal lobes, but these evolutionarily newer cortical brain regions are not necessary for discriminating smells - an area that integrates olfactory information with associated behavioral, cognitive, and contextual information - represents the knowledge we have about the odor world, beyond what our nose knows. This knowledge includes names for smells and interactions with other senses, such as finding a specific odor appealing when looking at cheese but not so appealing when looking at feet.

retinotopically organized

adjacent portions of the retina connect with adjacent areas of the visual cortex - primary visual cortex is retinotopically organized - Your visual cortex re-creates a picture of the activity presented on your retina like a TV in your brain, albeit distorted, focusing primarily on your fovea through cortical magnification. Your visual cortex represents the foveal region as if it were looking at it through a high-powered magnifying glass.

treatments for insomnia

adjust their behaviors (sleep hygiene) 1) Limit time asleep/in the bed 2) Go to bed only to sleep 3) Relaxation training 4) Nonsense syllables

accommodation

adjustment of the lens's thickness by specialized muscles in order to change the degree to which it bends light - as people age, the lens of the eye gets less elastic and the eye's ability to focus via accommodation weakens, making it difficult to see things that are too close - a condition called presbyopia

In his mid-30s, Yusef begins studying Bengali, a language he does not speak. Over the course of the next ten years, he becomes a fluent Bengali speaker, able to switch comfortably between it and his native language. A brain scan is performed, and the region of Yusef's temporal lobe that is associated with language appears to have grown relative to its size when he was 30. Yusef's brain has experienced ______________.

adult plasticity - Over many years of his adult life, it appears that Yusef's brain has devoted more cortex to language production.

complete memories of committing crimes can be falsely generated

after young adults were asked repeatedly about a true emotional event and a false criminal one when they were between the ages of 11 and 14 yrs old, they became convinced that they had committed a crime - research suggests tat some of these criminal accounts reflect false beliefs, where people accept that the false event occurred without remembering the event. - 30% of participants still falsely remembered the event, suggesting that repeated interrogations may cause one to even start questioning their innocence.

Under the modern scientific view, which best describes the cognitive unconscious?

all of the cognitive processes that occur outside of conscious awareness - The mind is busily working throughout the day and even when we are asleep, and we are only conscious of a small sliver of that activity. All of the brain's other activities make up the cognitive unconscious.

cognition

all of the mental activities associated with thinking, including knowing, remembering, solving problems, making judgments and decisions, and communicating

insular cortex and anterior cingulate cortex

allows us to experience pain

confounds

alternative explanations in experiments

Which of the following brain regions is considered essential for classical conditioning of emotional responses?

amygdala - This portion of the limbic system is responsible for generating a wide range of emotional responses, including fear.

brain activity is enhanced for emotional events in amygdala AND hippocampus

amygdala facilitates the consolidation of long-term memories made by the hippocampus - amygdala influences consolidation process behind the scenes, even when your thoughts (and body) have moved on to other things.

lesion

an abnormal tissue resulting from disease, trauma, or surgical intervention - use contralateral organization to assume that someone who cannot feel the right side of her body likely has left-hemisphere brain damage in her somatosensory cortex

operant conditioning

an active form of learning by which an association is made between a stimulus (e.g. a shock) and a voluntary response (e. g. a press of a button) - makes associations between a behavior and its consequences, and makes a behavior change as a result

extinction

an active learning process in which there is a weakening of the conditioned response to the conditioned stimulus in the absence of the unconditioned stimulus - does not imply complete unlearning or totally forgetting the importance of the bell, or CS - the brain learning to not respond

You need to calculate your yearly income by multiplying your weekly paycheck by 52 (the number of weeks in a year). Unfortunately, you don't have a calculator handy, so you multiply the numbers by hand like you did back in school (lining the numbers up, working column by column, and so on). What kind of procedure are you using to solve your problem?

an algorithm - The procedure used to multiply numbers by hand is an algorithm because it has a clear, step-by-step structure and is guaranteed to yield an answer.

confound

an alternative explanation for a relationship between two variables; specifically, in an experiment, when two experimental groups accidentally differ on more than just the independent variable, which causes a problem for internal validity - when confounds are eliminated, studies have internal validity

instinctive drift

an animal's reversion to evolutionarily derived instinctive behaviors instead of demonstrating newly learned responses - ex: when wanted pigs to deposit large coins in piggy bank, pigs would drop the nickels on the ground and shove them with their snouts - behaviors overruled the very effective reinforcement training bc the animals were engaging in instinctive behaviors such as rooting (pigs) and food washing (raccoons)

signal detection theory

an approach to measuring thresholds that takes into account both the intensity of the stimulus and psychological biases for a more accurate assessment. - one way to control the biases between conservative/liberal people is to include trials where no stimulus is present - distinguishes a conservative bias ("I don't hear anything yet") from a more liberal bias ("Sure, I hear everything"), allowing researchers to distinguish true perceptual sensitivity from other factors that might influence our responses

blind spot

an area in the middle of the visual field where there are no photoreceptors and no information can be received - your brain does not want you to know that you are blind, however, so it fills in the blind spot with information it gets from the surrounding regions of the retina - "white lie": what your eye does not sense, your brain can still perceive. your brain uses its beliefs about the world, given the surrounding context, to make you perceive what it thinks the stimulus must be.

the brain "connectome" project

an attempt to map all of the neural connections in the brain - goal is to define both large-scale brain networks (between brain regions) and small-scale brain networks (within the brain regions)

sensitive period

an early period in the life of an organism during which it is esp. sensitive to and able to learn from specific information in its environment - during this period, language acquisition can occur, but afterward, language acquisition will be limited

phrenology

an early pseudoscience suggesting that mental abilities and personality traits could be read from bumps on the skull

Neurolife with Ian Burhart

an electronic neural bypass technology that can link the brain directly to the limb it controls - tiny chip surgically implanted in Ian's brain that records his brain activity as he's thinking about moving his hand - computer algorithm that decodes his brain activity and interprets the movement he is thinking about - wearable sleeve with up to 160 electrodes that activate the individual muscles to evoke the attempted movement

learning

an enduring change in behavior resulting from prior experience - adaptation to one's environment that is often expressed in the form of increased skill, ability, or understanding due to experience. - allows us to adapt the environment to our desires and needs

Naran vividly recalls an argument in which she was standing in her kitchen while she and her sister shouted at each other. However, her sister insists that the argument never happened and even provides clear evidence that, on the day that it supposedly took place, she was out of town. Naran is forced to conclude, reluctantly, that she must have had an especially vivid and realistic dream and confused it for a real event. Assuming it was in fact a dream, what would this kind of memory error be an example of?

an error of reality monitoring - Naran has mistaken an imaginary event for a real one. As such, she has failed to monitor the reality of this event.

double-blind procedure

an experimental procedure in which both the research participants and the research staff are unaware (blind) of condition assignment/about whether the research participants have received the treatment or a placebo. Commonly used in drug-evaluation studies.

afterimage (relating to sensory memory)

an image continuing to appear in your vision after the exposure to the original image has ceased.

language acquisition device (LAD)

an innate mechanism that linguist Noam Chomsky proposed to explain the process of language acquisition in children. Chomsky argued that the. language acquisition device is activated by language exposure and guides language development with little to no explicit teaching from adults - human languages have common features (nouns, verbs, subjects, objects) constituing universal grammar that children innately understand

default mode network

an interconnected system of brain regions that are active when the mind is alert and aware but not focused on any particular task, such as during mind wandering

mental representations

an internal mental symbol that stands for some object, event, or state of affairs in the world. - allow a person to think about things in their absence

naturalistic observation

an observation method in which psychologists observe the behavior of animals or people in their normal, everyday worlds and environments - goal is to observe w/o interfering with the usual behavior of those being observed - scientists try to make themselves unobtrusive (one-way mirrors, position themself in an optimal location)

case study

an observational research method in which researchers study one or two individuals in depth, often those who have a unique condition - ex: Henry Molaison who removes his hippocampus (couldn't remember new people but knew old people) - although findings from case studies may not generalize to a larger, population, they can still lead to theoretical insights that inspire other types of research studies

functional fixedness

an obstacle to problem solving that involved focusing on an object's typical functions, thus failing to recognize atypical functions that could help solve a problem - solution based on prior experience blocks a better one

drug addiction

an uncontrollable compulsion to use a substance even though that substance damages the user's health and everyday functioning - about 10% of americans experience a problem with drug addication at some point (usually alcohol or nicotine) - recently, more North Americans develop addiction to opioids (painkillers, heroin, fentanyl) inc. rates of overdose deaths and ballooning healthcare costs

bottom up

analysis that begins with the sensory receptors and works up to the brain's integration of sensory information

reconsolidation does not so much delete memories as much as it updates them

anisomycin injection in the primary taste cortex impaired the rat's nausea memory, resulting in the animals drinking more sweetened water - reactivation updated a taste memory, but in opposite directions based on recent experiences. It is clear that the simple act of retrieving a memory makes it highly vulnerable to change.

priming

another example of implicit memory; the increased ability to process a stimulus bc of previous exposure - ex: expose people to long list of words (sample, table, grape) then present them with word stems (sam.., tab.., gra..). first words that come to mind tend to be ones they had seen before, even if they failed to explicitly recall seeing those words previously - also found in amnesia, despite impaired explicit memory for having studied the words, reflecting a distinct form of memory - priming occurs largely independent of depth of processing (further suggests that explicit and implicit memory are fundamentally distinct expressions of memory)

two aspects of consciousness

arousal and awareness; they are related (directly?) - most of the time: when we are alert, our awareness is clear; when we are sleeping, our focus is vague - aspects of consciousness are not entirely interdependent: sleepwalking (low awareness, high arousal) or vivid dreaming (low arousal, high awareness)

"nocturnal" animals

arousal is highest at night

humans are "diurnal" animals

arousal is highest during the day - arousal increases in the morning, as they first wake from sleep, and reaches a peak later in the day... at this time, conscious awareness feels heightened - people find it easier to focus their awareness and control their thoughts and actions - for both young and old people, arousal decreases bedtime approaches. - during sleep, people reach the lowest point in their circadian arousal levels - cues from the environment such as lightness and darkness are responsible for our circadiun rhythms (affect when we sleep) - still operate without cues of day and night bc of the internal biological clock that keeps the body running "on time."

psychoactive drugs

artificial chemicals introduced into the body that "piggyback" onto the preexisting infrastructure used by your body's own neurotransmitters - include prescription medications that alter psychological processes, such as mood, perception, thought, and behavior - common psychoactive compounds: caffeine, nicotine, and alcohol

A sound wave hits your left ear first and then hits your right ear a fraction of a second later. Given that your ears hear the sound at two different times, how do you experience this sound wave?

as a single sound, coming form your left - The brain can detect this tiny gap, but it doesn't split up your sensory experience into two sounds. Instead, it judges that the side the sound arrived at earlier must be the direction it was coming from, so you hear a single sound coming from your left.

neurobiological long-term memory

associated with increased postsynaptic changes in the genes within the receiving neurons, specifically to create more neurotransmitter receptors.

parts of a reference that show if a source is valid or not

author and journal

Karl reads a lot of "true crime" books, and he worries about meeting new people because they might be serial killers. However, the risk of Karl ever meeting a serial killer is low, because they are actually very rare. What pattern of thinking is distorting Karl's sense of risk?

availability heuristic - Karl can think of a lot of examples of serial killers because of his reading habits, which makes them seem a lot more common than they actually are.

marijuana

available in pill form, which reduces some of the harm associated with smoking it - marijuana smoke, like tobacco smoke, contains cancer-causing substances and is, in some ways, more harmful than tobacco smoke - even when not smoked, there are risks: 1. short term: can undermine judgment, reduce motor coordination, slow reaction time (driving or operating heavy machinery is a no no) - although it does not produce drug tolerance or sever withdrawal symptoms, people can develop addictions to it - chronic use, marijuana is associated with impairments in memory, attention, and reaction time

Won's grandfather has Parkinson's disease, which makes initiating movements or speech difficult. Which part of the brain is most impacted in this disease?

basal ganglia - Parkinson's disease affects the basal ganglia, which are critical for both initiating and inhibiting movement.

Why can't you claim causation?

bc there could be alternative explanations (aka 3rd variables) *correlation studies have low internal validity

challenging to learn what words mean... why?

bc when children hear a new word, they are usually surrounded by hundreds of potential meanings for that word: objects, properties of objects like shapes or colors, actions, properties of actions like speed or pattern, and specific people and animals - to reduce this problem, people often look at the things they are labeling so infants can track the direction of an adult's eye gaze to narrow the scope of possible word meanings

positive form of operant conditioning

behavior leads t a stimulus being presented (given) - adds

negative form of operant conditioning

behavior leads to a stimulus being removed - subtracts

It is commonly observed that "practice makes perfect." According to Thorndike's "law of effect," how does trial-and-error learning result in behaviors that achieve our objectives?

behaviors that yield good outcomes become more likely, while those that yield bad outcomes become less likely - In Thorndike's usage, successful behaviors are "strengthened," meaning that they are more likely to appear in similar scenarios in the future, while behaviors that lead to bad outcomes are "weakened."

Which of the following language-related abilities usually develops first in young children?

being able to distinguish between the phonemes of all languages - Remarkably, infants are able to distinguish between the phonemes of every natural language as early as 1 or 2 months old.

achromatic colors

black, white, and grays; they do not result in a distinct color, or chromatic experience

The use of "scapegoat" foods in chemotherapy treatment is a way of reducing the odds of nausea being associated with foods that patients enjoy. Which conditioning phenomenon best describes how this technique works?

blocking - By tricking the body into associating the nausea with the scapegoat flavor, other flavors no longer contribute much "predictive value" to the equation. In effect, this conditioned taste aversion blocks nausea from being associated with other foods.

fear conditioning

bodily responses to an aversive stimulus (i.e. sweating) in individuals without a hippocampus - amnesiacs sweated but didn't remember explicit memory of aversive noise burst - Urbach-Wiethe syndrome patients (those with highly selective damage to amygdala) failed to show the implicit fear bodily response, but did have explicit memory between the stimulus and aversive noise -these studies support a double dissociation between explicit knowledge supported by the hippocampus and implicit affective memories supported by the amygdala.

The Interpretation of Dreams by Sigmund Freud

book proposing that dreams are a way of expressing our deepest unconscious wishes - manifest content, latent content

adrenaline and cortisol

boost your energy and increase your heart rate, blood pressure, and blood sugar levels - produce the "rush" you get when you are highly nervous, anxious, or excited - help to respond to urgent life challenges

random sampling or random assignment applied: The American Automobile Association (AAA) conducted a survey using a random-digit phone-dialing system to call a national sample of 2,000 U.S. drivers. The target question was whether or not drivers thought that driving while talking on a cell phone should be illegal. However, before asking this target question, the surveyor told half of the participants that hands-free cell phones are associated with higher accident rates. The other half of the participants were not given this information. The computer used a random method to decide which participants were and were not given the information. The AAA wanted to know if hearing about research on cell-phone-related accidents would prompt people to change their responses to the target question. Did this study use random sampling or random assignment?

both: This study used random sampling because it used a random-digit dialer to select who was going to be in the study sample. By using a random method to decide which survey participants were and were not given the information, the study used random assignment. This study therefore used both random assignment and random sampling.

eardum (tympanic membrane)

boundary line between the outer and middle ear - eardrum is a tight, skin-like membrane located approximately an inch into the ear canal that responds to sound wave vibrations by moving in and out with corresponding pressure changes - very sensitive and responds not only to pressure from vibrations of the faintest sounds but also the the intense pressure that can be felt when gaining elevation in an airplane or diving deep below the water's surface - connects to 3 of the tiniest bones in the human body

Serafina is applying to colleges. But she is interested in dozens of colleges, far too many to invest the time and money to apply to. According to ________, her best bet is to deliberately narrow her pool to a smaller number of options, based on the limited information she has about each college.

bounded rationality - Even though there is a risk that Serafina might not apply to the school that is the very best fit for her, it is better for her to recognize that she has limited resources and to make a smaller number of applications as strong as possible.

Stage 4

brain emits large, slow delta waves

Stage 2

bursts of rapid rhythmic brain-wave activity called SLEEP SPINDLES and high-amplitude waves called K COMPLEXES are observed - 20 minutes long

You read a headline on your newsfeed that states, "Study finds that women are better drivers than men." You find the original study and read that the study was conducted on a sample of 16-year-olds who just earned their drivers' licenses and is based on how high they scored on the written and driving portions of their exams. Which of the following questions would be related to your concern about the study's external validity?

can the results of the study say something about all drivers? - The external validity of a study is how well it extends to the population of interest. Asking about whether the study's results apply to this population is related to external validity.

autonomic nervous system

carries involuntary commands; the part of the peripheral nervous system that controls the glands and the muscles of the internal organs (such as the heart). Its sympathetic division arouses; its parasympathetic division calms.

When to use experimental design

cause/effect of 2 randomly assigned groups - experimental design -> causal conclusion-> causal claim - behavioral measurements - surveys/self-reports

psychic blindness

caused by abnormalities in the amygdala: animals could still see, but the psychological importance of what they saw appeared to be absent

stem cells

cells that have not yet undergone gene expression to differentiate into specialized cell types, such as skin cells, liver cells, and neurons - after a person suffers a sever stroke, stem-cell therapy may be able to regenerate the specific neuronal structures that the stroke damaged

Setting aside routine functions, which of the following brain areas must operate exceptionally well for a concert pianist to perform the most difficult pieces of music?

cerebellum - More than any other brain region, the cerebellum controls our perception of time and the execution of precise motor movements, without which mastery of a musical instrument such as the piano would be impossible.

the image of an object on our retina also varies dramatically in aspects such as hue and brightness as a result of changes in ambient light

changes in light throughout the day result in significant changes in the wavelengths reflected by an object - 2 people can see the very same dressk as black and blue or white and gold depending on the inferences their brain make about lighting at different times of the day - our brains' beliefs about the environment can result in dramatically different color perceptions of the same event

ecstacy

chemic structure resembles both mescaline and methamphetamine, so it has both hallucinogenic and stimulant properties - produces relatively mild hallucinations and feelings of elation, empathy, closeness to others - risks: risks of heart and kidney failure, stroke, coma - prolonged ecstasy use can alter serotonin circuits in the brain and lead to mood disturbances, impaired memory, difficulty sleeping, and a weakened immune system

psychoactive drugs

chemical substances that alter a person's thoughts, feelings, or behaviors by influencing the activity of neurotransmitters in the nervous system - 3 main categories: depressants, stimulants, and hallucinogens - some people use them to treat serious problems. drugs can reduce pain from surgeries or injuries and treat mood problems such as anxiety disorders or depression - help children who struggle with selective attention to focus and control their impulses - some people are drawn to them to alter consciousness in ways that feel good or solve mundane problems (caffeinated drinks to feel alert, smoke cigarettes to feel calm, alcohol to "loosen up", sleeping pulls to fall asleep) - some drugs are used for spiritual growth: religious rituals incorporate drugs that produce vivid hallucinations, believed to connect the user to a higher spiritual being or awareness - rats in labs can use drugs - effects of many psychoactive drugs on the body start to diminish with repeated use - diminished effectiveness makes drugs more alluring than less so

photopigments

chemicals in photoreceptors that are sensitive to light and assist in converting light into neural activity. - human eye uses a variety of these light-sensitive photopigments to pick up different wavelengths and convert them into electrical signals - human eye uses a variety of these light-sensitive photopigments to pick up different wavelengths and convert them into electrical signals - the range of wavelengths that these photopigments respond to determines what wavelengths of light that species can see-the visible spectrum

Köhler felt that his work with chimpanzees studying insight learning was proof that not all forms of problem solving could be explained by operant conditioning. Which of the following observations is critical to this conclusion?

chimpanzees often solved complex problems on the first try - If successful behaviors need to be shaped by feedback, then the early stages of solving a problem should always consist of trial and error.

endorphins

class of neurotransmitters that have a dramatic effect on the brain and behavior - the body's natural opioids - morphine-like neurochemicals produces by the body during pain; they inhibit transmission of pain signals - "feel-good" chemicals - bind with opiate receptors

older adults sleep...

close to 7 hours

nuclei

clusters of cell bodies in the CNS

one exception is that memories for traumatic events or major changes in life may be remembered from young ages

college students were asked to recall a memory from the ages of 1 to 5 years old, some were able to recall emotionally vivid memories from as far back as 2 years old - these instances of early emotional memories could be due to the boosting of weak hippocampus activity by the amygdala, which is more fully formed early in development - it has also been argued that some of these memories may reflect knowledge learned from family stories (it may be semantic knowledge about the self, not true episodic memory).

When you first see your beautiful prom date in her dress, you marvel at how green the material of her outfit is. Later, in the slightly darker auditorium where the dance takes place, the green color appears to be about the same even though surrounding light levels have changed. Which concept does this demonstrate?

color constancy - Color constancy is the phenomenon whereby the brain adjusts its perception of color to hold it constant, taking into account changes in lighting conditions.

CT (computerized tomography) scan (aka CAT scan)

combines a series of X-ray images of your brain from different angles to reveal its 3D structure - cons: low resolution of the images; expose patients to dangerous radiation

cocaine

comes from the coca plant grown in South America, was used for many years by doctors as a local anesthetic for ear, nose, and throat surgeries - cousin is Novocain also widely used for this purpose - now, used illegally as a recreational drug, it produces a shorter-lasting high than methamphetamine: its effects wear off within 15 to 30 minutes, leaving the user's brain exhausted of dopamine, serotonin, and norepinephrine - humans and animals will go to great lengths to obtain another cocaine "high" - problems: emotional disturbances, muscle tics, paranoia, and in some cases, cardiac arrest and respiratory failure

self-report

common means that researchers use to operationalize variables: - ask partipants about current stress level - measure aggression by rating themselves using a 1-5 scale

cone cells

cone cells in the eye, which are responsible for our high-resolution color vision, are concentrated in a small pit at the center of the retina called the fovea

peripheral motor neurons

connect the brain to the organs and muscles

Stage 1 and 2 (first stages of sleep)

considered "shallow" bc it is relatively easy to awaken from these stages and become aware of the outside world

Lack of sleep, chronic stress, and cramming are all behaviors that are associated with both reduced test performance and poor retention of material after the semester has ended. Which process is being undermined by all three of these study habits?

consolidation - Memories need time and rest to become robust and durable. By starting to study early and taking care of your brain, you'll find it much easier to recall the course material.

neural persistence

continued activity in neurons after a stimulus ceases, which rapidly fades - may be critical to a sense of perceptual continuity or permanence. - ex: when something moves, we don't perceive it as a new object but as a continuation of our prior perception of the same object. (twirling sparklers or propellor display)

central executive

control center that works with these sensory-specific stores which allow you to manipulate information in short-term memory. - appears to engage regions of the frontal cortex that are commonly used for a wide variety of cognitive tasks and abilities - central executive functions reflected in working memory capacity have been shown to have some relationship not only to general intelligence but also to your ability to filter out irrelevant information from working memory, among other abilities.

thermoreceptors

convert kinetic energy into action potentials that signal the sensation of temperature; respond to changes in temperature

the way different cultures speak about and retrieve the past also has important consequences for memory development

cross-cultural studies have shown that north americans retrieve both more childhood memories and earlier memories than do chinese children - not due to variations in the biology of memory consolidation, but rather to the way the cultures place different emphasis on talking about the past.

cumulative cultural evolution

cultures evolve to build complex practices and areas of knowledge that gradually improve over centuries and millennia - culture extends to eating preferences, language, group dynamics. it informs a group's habits, behaviors, perspectives, and rituals - the cultural climate you grew up in played a part in shaping what you have learned and what you will continue to learn

tactile agnosia

damage to regions around the secondary somatosensory cortex, meaning one has an impaired recognition of objects from touch, but recognition of objects through vision remains intact - double dissociation reveals that we have distinct sense-specific object recognition systems in vision and touch that work in parallel

The fact that the theory-data cycle is iterative implies which of the following is true of different research methods?

data from different research methods are combines to understand a topic - Each method has its own strengths and weaknesses, so each one is better for answering some questions than others.

consolidation of memory does not require your conscious efforts, and you can even do it in your sleep. (its directly linked to sleep)

daytime naps are good for you bc they boost memory consolidation - sleeping may enable stronger memory consolidation and it have been shown to trigger overnight consolidation of learning - consolidation has been proposed to act as a kind of replay of memories in the back of your mind even as you sleep, to enhance memory storage.

deep encoding in the brain

deep encoding has been shown to map onto higher-order brain regions related to thought, such as the frontal lobes, and temporal lobe regions related to semantic information - when participants engage in deep semantic encoding to retrieve preexisting knowledge about a word, they engage not only the visual cortices but also the left lateral prefrontal cortex which supports search functions of the brain - deep encoding engages these additional brain regions to determine whether we ultimately remember or forget. If you could scan your brain while reading this book, then you could tell when you were engaging neural circuits that support deep encoding that predict better memory, guiding you to read this or that paragraph again for better retention

Which of the following scenarios facilitates, rather than disrupts, the consolidation of long-term memory?

deep sleep - Getting enough sleep appears to be critical to the function of memory, whereas severe sleep deprivation can disrupt consolidation processes.

demyelination

degradation of myelin; process of losing the myelin sheath of a nerve fiber - central characteristic of neurodegenerative diseases such as multiple sclerosis (results in loss of sensory processing and muscle control)

time that elapses between the performance of a behavior and receipt of the consequence can have powerful effects on our behavior

delayed reinforcement can take the form of a paycheck, holidays, or retirement, whereas delayed punishment might include being grounded, put in detention, or given time in prison. - immediate reinforcing consequences often overpower delayed punishment. We eat candy even though it can cause cavities. Smoking is still prevalent even though it causes cancer - underplaying the importance or extent of delayed consequences, or delay discounting, guides people toward poor or impulsive choices making them more susceptive to substance abuse

binocular cues

depth information gathered from the separation between an individual's two eyes. - separation allows the brain to receive 2 perspectives on the same event

monocular cues

depth information that can be gathered by only one eye. - animals whose eyes are positioned on the sides of their heads must rely on monocular cues only bc the images on the 2 eyes are entirely different - they cannot be compared. - monocular cues include relative size, relative height, interposition, linear perspective, and relative motion (which support depth perception)

3 main types of research designs

descriptive, correlational, experimental - each allow a different conclusion - each supports a different claim

age related memory decline may be explained by decreased selective attention, influencing what gets into memory more than what has fallen out

despite being attentive, the elderly appear to have decreased focus of attention during encoding into memory, rendering their attention more diffuse - elderly has more activation in areas that encode places, the objects they were supposed to ignore - rather than having memory impairments, the elderly may have memory for different things than young adults do bc of changes in their ability to attend and to ignore

AlterEgo by Arnav Kapur

device can replace things like books or google by allowing "users to seamlessly and efficiently interface with their computing devices." Not even with a touch of a button! - perfect memorization - basically brain access to everything on the internet

About 1 in 50 people are color-blind. These people report seeing colors but can't tell certain colors apart (for example, distinguishing red from green). Which of the following terms describes their visual machinery?

dichromacy - Meaning "two colors," dichromacy happens when the visual system responds with peak intensity to two wavelengths of light. Two peaks are enough to differentiate some colors, but not all the colors most people experience.

brain bases intro

different collections of brain regions give rise to different aspects of consciousness - consciousness involves arousal, which refers to a person's level of alertness - different brain regions also underlie different types of content that people are aware of

auditory association area

differentiates one sound from another through past experiences

Suppose a pharmacologist develops a drug that can bind with a particular receptor in the brain. The brain has difficulty breaking down this drug. Which of the following mechanisms is the only way for the drug's effects to wear off?

diffusion - Because the body can't easily break the drug down, its effects will wear off only as the drug diffuses out of the synapse. Such a drug would be very dangerous, because it would build up in the brain over repeated doses.

Noam Chomsky

disagreed with Skinner, arguing that children are genetically endowed with specialized learning mechanisms. - pointed out children learn words and grammar at a rate too fast to be explained by learned associations and reinforcement. - proposed that children are prewired with a language acquistion device

Herman Ebbinghaus (1850-1909)

discovered primacy and recency effects in memory, also by necessity studies the nature of forgetting (forgetting curve)

When Raoul first moved to Manhattan, the sound of traffic outside his window made it hard for him to sleep. After three months, Raoul had become used to the traffic and slept without difficulty. However, after spending a weekend in the country, where the nights are quiet, Raoul returns to find that the traffic is disrupting his sleep again. What is the term that describes the renewal of Raoul's sleep disruption?

dishabituation - After Raoul habituated to the noise of traffic, a brief stay in a quiet place restored Raoul's sensitivity to it. Because this is a return to his original baseline, it is considered dishabituation.

damage to certain locations in the thalamus or in the reticular activating system in the brainstem (a system that controls the cycling of sleep and wakefulness and also control the arousal level of frontal lobe)

disrupts arousal/alertness of consciousness

A cognitive psychologist hypothesizes that people who exercise more will also have better memories (e.g., be able to recall more words). Which of the following scatterplot patterns would provide support for her hypothesis?

dots that slope upward from left to right - this shows a positive correlation

What does the activation-synthesis hypothesis say about the origin of dreams?

dreams are the result of the brain trying to make a narrative out of jumbled brain activity - The idea is that waves of "activation" flow through the occipital lobe, limbic system, and temporal lobe and produce arbitrary combinations of stimuli, which the rest of the brain tries to "synthesize" into a coherent story.

depressants

drugs that decrease ("depress") activity levels in the nervous system - shape consciousness by lowering levels of arousal, making people feel calm and perhaps sleepy - insomnia, anxiety - can lead to drug tolerance - at very high doses, depressants can decrease nervous system activity enough to impair thinking, induce a coma, or even stop breathing. - ambien (insomnia), xanax (anxiety), alcohol

hallucinogens

drugs that distort perception and can trigger sensory experiences such as sights and sounds in the absence of any sensory input - aka psychedelics, used in religious rituals and recreationally - LSD (lysergic acid diethylamide or "acid") is a synthetic drug invented in 1938 - mescaline (from peyote cactus), psilocybin (from certain mushrooms), PCP - most hallucinogens are chemically similar to the neurotransmitter serotonin and can both facilitate and block its transmission in the brain - interfering with the serotonin systems of the brain leads to changes in perception (intricate patterns and colors, series of meaningful and fantastical images) - people often use these to trigger positive emotions of euphoria ("good trip") but they can also trigger disturbing emotions of panic, horror, or paranoia ("bad trip").

stimulants

drugs that increase activity levels in the nervous system; excite neural activity and speed up bodily functions - increase arousal usually making people feel alert, energetic, and even euphoric - ex: caffeine

paradoxical sleep

during REM sleep, the muscles of the body are completely relaxed - the brainstem actively block signals from the motor cortex to the rest of the body, producing a kind of paralysis that prevents the body from acting on the motor cortex's commands. - explains why horses and other animals can sleep while standing up for the non-REM sleep stages, but lie down for REM sleep

When do most people experience rapid eye movement (REM) sleep?

during Stage 1 sleep, after completing the first sleep cycle - In an ordinary sleep cycle, the brain gradually transitions through the stages down to Stage 4, then transitions back up through Stages 3 and 2 before entering REM as a distinct stage of sleep—Stage 1.

sleep constructs, repairs, and restores

during deep sleep, the pituitary gland releases a hormone that stimulates growth and cellular repair - explains why rapidly growing children need more sleep than their older counterparts and why people recovering from injury or intense exercise heal faster if they sleep more - sleep boosts the # of immune cells available to fight off infections, explaining why sleep deprivation can lead to sickness and why sick people may find themselves sleep more than usual - sleep predicts longevity and physical well-being. people who sleep longer live long on average and are less likeyl to develop health problems, including obesity, diabetes, heart disease, depression, and drug abuse - during sleep, the brain rebuilds proteins and restores its energy supply of glycogen - rest nd "reset" overstimulated neurons, allowing neural systems to function more effectively during waking hours - scientists have discovered a system of tunnels in the brain that serves to distribute important nutrients that the brain needs to function and eliminate waste products (glymphatic system: operates primarily turned on during sleep)

Vision is a complex sense, and the eyes are remarkable organs for letting us see as much as we do. Which of the following statements about vision is correct?

each species has a different range of visual stimuli that their eyes can normally detect - Even in closely related species, like monkeys, the sensitivities of vision (such as telling colors apart) can differ dramatically. These differences are even more dramatic when comparing distantly related species, such as mammals and insects.

resting potential

electrical charge across the cell membrane of a resting neuron when the neuron cannot fire an action potention

forgetting therapy

emerging technique for therapy in memory reconsolidation interference. - people with a phobia to spiders were exposed to spiders for 2 minutes, then immediately given propranolol (drug that reduced emotional memories); when tested 4 days later, they were able to let tarantula walk on their hand... a year later, their fear of spiders dropped below clinical levels - although reconsolidation may seem to render our memories fallible and unreliable, it benefits us by making our memories adaptive and flexible, updating them with new data form the environment. - reconsolidation after retrieval shows that memory is not an unchanging record of the past but is designed to help us keep up with the changing world

circulatory system

enables your brain to regulate your body's activity via blood-borne chemicals - (aka cardiovascular system) This system works as the transportation highway for the body. It consists of the heart, blood, and blood vessels. It transports substances such as oxygen, carbon dioxide, and nutrients in the body.

deep encoding

encoding based on an event's meaning as well as connections between the new event and past experience - judging people by how they look is shallow, but judging them by how they think is deep - elaboration - semantic encoding

self-referential encoding

encoding based on an event's relation to our self-concept, which lead to enhanced memory for the event - capitalizes on our self-fascination, resulting in very strong memory for events that are encoded relative to our self-concept - self-referential encoding appears to depend on distinct medial frontal regions of the brain which are associated with social and emotional evaluations

shallow encoding

encoding based on sensory characteristics, such as how something looks or sounds

cramming

encoding too much information in a short period of time (bad for studying)

example of encoding, storage, and retrieval

encoding: taking good notes during a lecture storage: whether the ink fades or not retrieval: being able to find where you left your notes - the mysteries of remembering (and forgetting) reflect a complex interplay between all stages, and brain evidence shows that they are not nearly as distinct

adrenal glands

endocrine glands located on top of each kidney; produce a variety of hormones, including adrenaline and cortisol, that are central to the stress response - best known for their role in the fight-or-flight response

After participants practiced a new skill by typing specific key sequences, motor memories continued to increase in the cerebellum over the next 5.5 hours.

even when you finish practicing something, your brain does not. consolidation continues the learning into a stored memory

although we think of memories as moments suspended in time, in reality our memories are under constant revision from new information

every day in the mirror you are accessing a memory and at the same time storing a new one. it is nearly impossible to remember the old you to see incremental changes - time lapse of kids growing up; parent thinking they always looked as they do now.

some animals find a way to sleep, even when sleep makes them highly vulnerable to predators

ex: dolphins sleep despite having no good places to hide from predators - unihemispheric sleep

Marie has reached retirement age and is worried her mind might not be as sharp as it used to be. Given the current scientific consensus, which of the following is most likely to help maintain her cognitive faculties for years to come?

exercise - Exercise that results in elevated cardiovascular activity is among the most reliable preventative measures that people can undertake to keep their brains healthy into old age.

identify the type of study: Through a large-scale, random-assignment study of school tours to the museum, we were able to determine that a strong causal relationship does exist between arts education and critical thinking.

experimental: Because the study used random assignment, it was probably an experiment. Select "Next" to evaluate this example's validity.

correlations vs. experiments

experiments: - random assignments (preexisting characteristics do not affect the outcome) - manipulation, then measurement (2 groups: control group and other group) correlations: - no random assignment - only measurement/observing what is already happening (no manipulation)

researchers have tested the benefits of meditation by comparing people who are beginners in meditation to experts who have practiced for extended periods of time

expertise in focused attention meditation is associated with better performance on selective attention tasks and differences in activity in certain parts of the brain

semantic memory

explicit memory supporting knowledge about the world, including concepts and facts - simply knowing - much (if not all) of our learning tested in school can take place w/o a normally functioning hippocampus bc it depends on the semantic memory (you know the answer but you dont remember how)

"big data"

extremely large data sets that may be analyzed computationally to reveal patterns, trends, and associations, especially relating to human behavior and interactions. - researchers analyzed 700 million words that Facebook users wrote on their wall posts

eye placement

eye placement has evolves so that predators have eyes in the front of their heads, allowing for binocular cues and greater depth perception. - Grazing animals have eyes placed on the sides of their heads to provide a larger visual field for detecting predators. - having 2 eyes contributes to our rich depth perception

weapon focus

eyewitnesses focus on one important aspect of an event and ignore details - ex: important details like a gun are encoded and remembered but surrounding peripheral information are not. - its not enough for us to look at events for them to be converted into memories. They must receive enough attention before they can be remembered.

a. what is the best method? Do "reward centers" in the brain show increased activity when a person views an image of a romantic partner instead of an image of a family member?

fMRI - fMRI has good spatial resolution and can therefore tell us where activation is changing in the brain.

Pseufo-science

fake news - ex: "vaccines cause autism"

Henry Molaison (H.M.)

famous patient who suffered anterograde amnesia (cannot form new memories) after having surgery a. in teens, developed severe epilepsy with life-threatening and debilitating seizures (seizures were localized through EEG measurements of unusual electrical activity in both medial temporal lobes) b. at age 27, underwent surgery to remove these regions which are located inward from the ears toward the middle of the brain. region contains multiple structures (amygdala, hippocampus). it wasn't known until after his surgery that the hippocampal structures are critical or laying down new conscious memories of experiences and facts. - surgery was successful in reducing HM's seizures, but he was no longer able to convert new experiences into long-term memories. - HM seemed normal in that he retained intelligence, ability to speak and understand language, personality, and even short-term memory (like remembering phone number for a few seconds) - but after phone # faded from short term memory, he forget # AND that he was given a # at all. - he could remember his life from early childhood until a couple of years before his surgery (he become "stuck" in 1953)

4. reinforcement

final stage to imitating actions; will increase the likelihood that a person will repeat a new behavior or skill

Structuralism (Wundt)

first school of psychology based on the nation that complex perceptions can be understood in terms of their most basic parts or elements - focus was to find the fundamental building blocks of perceptual experience - in other words, to discover something like a periodic table of elements for perception

1. attention

first step to imitating actions and is influenced by many factors - ex: person admires and respects her model or instructor, she is likely to be more attentive - attentional capacity of the learner will greatly influence the capacity to learn

Alice writes a daily column that you enjoy. Because of her editor's strict oversight, each post goes online at exactly 7 AM every day. If you had to describe the column as following a schedule of reinforcement (with the columns themselves being the reinforcers and your checking the column's website being the behavior that is being reinforced), which would fit best?

fixed interval - The first time you visit the website after 7 AM, the column will be available. Then there will be no new column until the next day. As such, a fixed 24-hour interval governs the availability of the columns.

extracellular fluid

fluid outside the cell - sodium (Na+) - chloride (Cl-) - potassium (k+) - calcium (Ca2+) -

third-variable problem

for a given observed relationship between two variables, an additional variable that is associated with both of them, making the additional variable an alternative explanation for the observed explanation

dreams are often emotional

for amost everybody, dreams contain negative emotions like worry, fear, and embarrassment 2x as often as positive emotions - failures and misfortunes, such as being chased, sleeping through an important exam, or showing up naken to give a class presentation - people seem to enjoy dreaming, rating their dreams as more pleasant than unpleasant on the whole

Suppose you are taking a political science course and are trying to learn the exact timeline of major events in the 2012 U.S. presidential election. Many things happened, and it would be easy to get the order of those events confused. Which of the following exercises is likely to produce the best recall for this problem?

for each major event, write a paragraph about what was happening in your own life around that date and how those things compare - Connecting the events with your own biography is an example of self-referential coding. Since you already know your own life story, it provides a chronology with which you can associate other events at that time.

dreams aso reflect the senses that people use in their waking lives

for most, dreams are highly visual, but not for people who are born blind or who became blind before the age of 5. Blind individuals experience mostly auditory, taste, smeel, and tactile sensations when dreaming - dreams are similar in content to those of sighted individuals, blind individuals have a higher % of dreams that involve something bad happening while getting from place to place - dreams also incorporate residues of very recent events

trace decay theory

forgetting occurs because memory traces fade with time - if a person does not access and use a memory, the memory trace will weaken or decay over time and will be less available for later retrieval

insight learning

form of learning that occurs without trial and error and thus without clear reinforcement - behavioral changes suggest that we have come to an understanding of the solution - Kohler with chimpanzees who appeared to have formed a mental representation, an internal concept of the solution before attempting to reach the bananas proving them with an "aha!" moment that allowed a novel association to occur. After understanding the state of the bananas in relation to themselves, they then inferred what tools were needed to procure the food

dizygotic

fraternal twins from two separate eggs (like siblings) share 50% of their genes

Information in neurons flows in one direction, ________________.

from the dendrites to the axon - The dendrites collectively act as the cell's inputs, while the axon and its terminal branches provide the output.

SOMETIMES variables can only be measured, not manipulated

gender is always a measured variable - depression, ethnicity, disease status = measured variables NOT manipulated

Sebastian and Tim both love to cook, and their dog Waldo is happy to eat any tidbits the chefs might be willing to spare. Sebastian is a sucker for puppy dog eyes and often drops bits of food for Waldo. Tim never gives Waldo food while cooking because he does not want to encourage begging. Despite this difference in behavior, Waldo patiently waits in the kitchen whenever anyone is cooking. What is this an example of?

generalization - Even though Tim has never given Waldo a snack while cooking, Waldo has nevertheless generalized the behavior he learned from getting fed by Sebastian.

localization basics

getting input from 2 ears located on opposite sides of our heads allows our brains to compare the relative timing (which comes first) and intensity (which is louder) between the sounds hitting each ear. the brain then uses this contrast to locate the origin of sounds in space - ex: if your friends were playing music in a dorm, sound localization would tell you which door to knock on - the brain is able to detect a 0.000027 second difference betwen the arrival of sound at one ear and at the other to determine the horizontal location of a sound - intensity of the sound also provides its own clues - your head casts a sound shadow, such that the ear farther away from the sound gets a slightly quieter version than the ear closer to the sound source - sound localization is much more accurate in humans for objects in front of us bc we can use visual feedback to tune the precision of our auditory localization

false memories depend on gist memory rather than verbatim memory

gist memory: the general global aspects of the supposed event verbatim memory: the specific details - gist-based memories are highly durable, so false memories sometimes outlast real memories - we cannot judge a memory's faithfulness to reality by its persistence in our minds - false memories depend on the same brain structures that are critical for making true memories

A developmental psychologist is conducting a study on children's interest in attending college. Which of the following variables could a researcher measure but not manipulate?

grade point average - this variable cannot be changed or manipulated by the researcher

syntax

grammatical rules that govern how words and phrases combine into well-formed sentences - ex: happy cow instead of cow happy

serial position curve

graph depicting both primacy and recency effects on people's ability to recall items on a list - the recency effect reveals better memory for the last items on a list, while the primacy effect occurs for the items at the beginning of the list, resulting in a characteristic smile shape

Hypnotherapy

has been used for 200 years and has been shown to be effective for treating many problems, such as helping people lose weight.

frontal lobe and parietal lobe

having clear and specific awareness usually involves focused, selective attention, involving these regions

HM with episodic and semantic memory

he could retrieve memories form his past despite not having a hippocampus - hippocampus is necessary for episodic memories, but not semantic ones - most likely, his older, episodic memories were retained following hippocampal damage bc they become "semanticized". memories were more similar to facts and definitions to him which did not require him to reexperience his past

Adelmo is a witness to a brazen bank robbery. He watches the bank robbers flee the scene in a pickup truck and vividly remembers the man sitting in the truck bed holding an automatic rifle. When he is questioned by police, he admits that although he had a clear view of the back of truck, he has no idea what its license plate number was. In this example of weapon focus, what would it likely take for Adelmo to remember the truck's license plate?

he will probably never remember the plate bc he never encoded it - When people feel threatened, their attention focuses on the threat and, as a result, most peripheral details are never even encoded.

temporal lobe main functions

hearing, memory

Max is sitting with his roommate, Gerald, watching a baseball game on television. Max notices that the broadcast has suddenly gotten very loud and asks Gerald to turn down the volume. Which physical quality of the sound waves coming from the television is responsible for Max's perception of increased volume?

higher amplitude - The amplitude of a sound wave is related to its volume, and higher amplitude would result in increased volume.

After a closely contested election, a friend of yours tells you that he did not vote because he knew ahead of time who would win. When pressed, he responds, "Well, I was right, wasn't I?" What effect likely contributes to your friend's current certainty about how he felt on election day?

hindsight bias - Even if your friend had a strong feeling about the election at the time, hindsight bias will tend to make him even more confident about the outcome after seeing the results.

Which of the following phenomena does the opponent-process theory of color vision (but not the trichromatic theory) successfully explain?

how visual afterimages occur - Opponent-process theory holds that ganglion cells that are activated by one color (for example, green) also inhibit that color's opposite (for example, red). When a cone adapts to seeing the color green, the part that inhibits red also adapts, causing a visual afterimage of red when you look away from something green.

dual inheritance (gene-culture coevolutionary theory)

human cultural evolution was likely a dominant force driving our species' genetic evolution over the last few hundred thousand years

a different way of thinking about hypnosis is not as a splitting of attention but as a highly focused state of attention

hypnosis may be an extreme form of selective attention that more closely resembles looking through a telescope rather than the lens of a camera - one's awareness is focused even more vividly than usual, and even more of the periphery is out of view - explains why the hypnotized subject becomes highly responsive to suggestions: he is so focused on the what of the suggestions that he neglects the why, making it easier to comply with what the hypnotist proposes. - also explains how hypnosis can reduce pain: the hypnotized subject is so focused on some target that she simply doesn't process the painful stimulus and thus doesn't experience the pain. injured athletes experience something similar when they are focused so intently on a competition that they fail to feel the pain of their injury until later

hypnotic induction

hypnotist asks the subject to sit quietly and focus on some specific target, such as a sound or object in view. Using a calming tone, the hypnotist encourages the subject to relax and then offers suggestions about what will happen next: "Your eyelids are getting heavy." -suggestions usually include thing that inevitably happen as people relax, so that the subject easily accepts and follows

hypnosis can make our recall of experiences less trustworthy

hypnotized person might feel more accepting and confident that any "memory" that comes to mind while hypnotized is true and accurate. Yet that "memory" could easily come from the person's imagination or from the suggestion of the hypnotist - many court systems no longer allow courtroom testimony that has been "enhanced" through hypnosis

logical fallacy (not-me-fallacy)

idea that belief perspective or the backfire effect could not happen to us

monozygotic

identical twins which share 100% of their genetic material because they develop from the division of a single fertilized egg - high degrees of heritability (70% for IQ for a study)

unpleasant or painful memories - trauma

if emotions primarily affect memory during the consolidation process, after the event has passed, then there is a window in which these emotional memories might be diminished before they become etched in the brain - administration of a stress hormone blocker, such as propranolol, after traumatic experiences could shield against the development of intrusive memories and posttraumatic stress disorder

odor molecules fit into the receptor proteins of the cilia like a lock-and-key system

if enough odor molecules bind to their corresponding protein receptors, then an action potential is triggered, which travels down the bundle of receptor neuron axons that compose the olfactory nerve

potential downside of using affect to guide our thinking

if our affect can be manipulated, so too can our judgments and decisions (advertising) - naming vegetables with labels that described their healthiness actually reduced vegetable consumption (labels that were taste-focused were eaten much more)

Edward Thorndike

in America studying operant conditioning with cats - In Edward Thorndike's studies of trial-and-error learning, a cat had to learn how to escape a puzzle box for a food reward. pulling the string in the box opened the door and then the cat was rewarded with freedom and some tasty fish. - each time the cat was placed back in the box, less time was needed for the cat to pull the string until it did so immediately - only way cats acquired this skill was by learning it through trial and error. when thorndike tried to assist learning by taking the cat's paw, no learning occurred. - only thorugh each cat's own actions did the amount og time to escape the box begin to improve

a. Using small samples (questionable practice)

in a small sample, a few chance values can influence the data set, so the study's estimate is imprecise and less replicable - alternative, transparent practice: although it's not part of research transparency, larger samples are now required and encouraged - studies with large sample sizes produce estimates that are more precise and replicable

placebo condition

in an experiment, a group or condition in which people expect to receive a treatment but are exposed only to an inert proposition, such as a sugar pill - placebo groups are important bc they help researchers separate the physiological effects of a treatment from a person's expectation that the treatment might affect them

When can you claim causation?

in experiments - random assignments (cancels out preexisting differences) - manipulation (researcher controls) - well done experiments have high internal validity - no confounds

tegmentum

in the midbrain, the tegmentum reflexively moves the head and eyes toward sudden sights and sounds in the environment

hemi-spatial neglect

inability to attend to the left side of visual space, and thus to be aware of visual stimulus in the left visual field

visual agnosia

inability to recognize objects - patients with damage to the temporal lobe can perceive shapes and objects and can even draw them, but they fail to recognize what the objects are.

Some of the most striking further evidence supporting consolidation theory as the basis for memory storage comes from the effects of electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) to treat disorders such as depression.

individuals undergoing ECT often demonstrate retrograde amnesia (difficulty retrieving memories of past events), esp. when both medial temporal lobes are stimulated. Bc of this, powerful side effect, ECT technicians now stimulate only one lobe. - concussions and trauma can cause similar short windows of retrograde memory loss. ex: woman collided with moose leaving a hoofeprint on her forehead. Even when looking at her injury in a mirror and at her wrecked car, she couldn't remember the collision - ultimately, consolidation theory suggests that building a new memory takes time, and if consolidation is disrupted the result may be amnesia.

infant and childhood memories are stored in your brain but are inaccessible as you age

infants do not have language to label everything in their environment, and this limitation might reduce their ability to both store memories and use language as a retrieval cue later - not a single child verbally reported information about the event that was not part of his or her vocabular at the time of the event. - *studies suggest that language development plays a critical role in infant and childhood amnesia

cranial nerves

information about the state of the external world gathered by your head's sensory organs (eyes, ears, nose, and mouth) goes to the brain via the cranial nerves, which poke through the cranium or skull - 12 pairs of nerves that carry messages to and from the brain

top down

information processing guided by higher-level mental processes, as when we construct perceptions drawing on our experience and expectations

retrieval cues

information related to stored memories that helps bring the memories back to mind - help jog peoples memory

multisensory

integrating across sensory systems - our brains combines these signals to create a unified perceptual experience. Otherwise, our perceptions would be disconnected, dizzying, and chaotic

Ruling out alternative explanations, or confounds, enhances which aspect of a study?

internal validity - internal validity is how well a study can rule out alternative explanations

When you sit in your classroom, you can easily tell that your professor is closer to you than the blackboard is. This is because your view of the blackboard is obstructed by the shape of your professor's body. This demonstrates which visual depth cue?

interposition - This depth cue suggests that when you are viewing one object that is partially blocked by another, you perceive the object behind the other to be farther from you.

anandamide

involved in moor regulation, appetite control, pain perception - marijuanas effects on these processes make it useful for improving appetite in cancer and HIV patients and for treating medical conditions like multiple sclerosis and chronic pain

Hyperopia (farsightedness)

involves a near object overshooting the back of the eye, behind the fovea - result is an unfocused image on the retina and thus blurry vision (fixed by glasses, contact lenses, or surgery)

Myopia (nearsightedness)

involves faraway objects being projected too far in front of the fovea - result is an unfocused image on the retina and thus blurry vision (fixed by glasses, contact lenses, or surgery)

perceptual learning with language

is dramatically illustrated in language learning - your brain started out equally sensitive to all language sounds. After only 6 months of exposure to your soon-to-be-native language, your brain and perception started to adapt to the phonemes, the specific sound building blocks, of your native tongue - your perceptual abilities altered rapidly so that you as an infant became less sensitive to differences that were not relevant in your native language. perceptual changes in early childhood can also make it hard to distinguish non-native phonemes in adulthood.

tactile perception

is greatly influenced by expectation and the input from your other senses, especially vision. - skin sensations are usually perceived at the location of the receptor, but not always (rubber hand illusion: experimenter hides your hand and places a rubber hand on the table in front of you, strokes your hand and rubber had simultaneously, rubber hand seems to become your own. Vision tells your somatosensory cortex to shift its sensation to an area where receptors do not even exist) - not only about stimulation of touch sensory receptors but also about what your brain thinks you should feel

color purity

is related to the # of wavelengths that make up the light; it determines the perceptual quality of a color's saturation - eye can distinguish up to a few hundred spectral colors, which are based on a single wavelength or a small band of wavelengths - the smallest number of wavelengths = colors that are the most pure and vivid on the spectrum - when spectral colors are mixed together or with white light, this yields the vast range of color experiences we can distinguish - as purity and thus saturation decrease, colors fade to grey - the more wavelengths your visual system senses, the less color you will see

the job of every neuron

is to acquire, process, and act on information coming from your thoughts and the environment

Saying that a finding is "statistically significant" means that it

is unlikely to have happened by chance if the null hypothesis is true - Statistically significant results mean that it is unlikely that the results came from a null hypothesis population (a result this rare would only be expected to occur about 5 percent of the time).

Preregistration is an important aspect of high-quality science because

it allows researchers to publicize their hypotheses before collecting data - this avoids hypothesizing after the results are known (HARKing)

What unique feature of Nicaraguan Sign Language (NSL), used by deaf children in Nicaragua, gives us special insight into how language is learned?

it arose spontaneously, invented by deaf children who had no adult teachers - Because the rules emerged from children, rather than being imposed by adults, a strong claim can be made that the language instinct is innate in ways that even reading and writing are not.

what we learn during classical conditions is influence by the presence of other previous associations

it is easier to make an association between a CS and an US if they have not previously been related in any way - familiar events already have predictions associated with them, making new learning about the more difficult

Certain sequences of numbers (such as "123456789") are easier to maintain in working memory than others (such as "524869713"). What feature of working memory explains this difference?

it is post-categorical - What makes one order easier to maintain than the other is a pattern that has meaning (is post-categorical). By identifying meaning, the brain can replace the nine elements of the list of numbers with one single idea: ascending digits.

mind wandering probably involves tradeoffs

it is useful and sometimes necessary to maintain our focus on specific tasks in the present moment, having a wandering awareness may help us accomplish important goals down the road.

How does functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) record brain activity?

it tracks the magnetic properties of blood flowing to areas of high brain activity - The iron in blood makes it magnetic, and because areas of high activity consume oxygen (which is delivered by blood), scientists can use detectable changes in blood's oxygen levels to infer where the brain is more active or less active.

synapse

junction between the axon terminals of the sending neuron and the dendrites or cell body of the receiving neron

awareness

knowledge or perception of a situation or fact - we experience a state of being highly aware, such as noticing the detailed flavors of an indulgent dessert. other times awareness is fuzzy and vague - conscious awareness seems focused onto specific aspects of your experience: it is very limited - people tend to prioritize their awareness to whatever is relevant to their goals, to the exclusion of everything else (selective attention)

empirical

knowledge we have on psych is based on systematic observation and measurement (rigorous study designs)

Which of the following is based in the left hemisphere for most people?

language - Language is the most heavily lateralized function in the brain (dominant in the left hemisphere for most people).

B.F. Skinn argument about language

language acquisition is formed by associations between the sight of things and the sounds of words - imitate: replicate what they hear from others - reinforcement: positive reaction like smiles or hugs that make them want to produce that word or syntax again

Behavior

learning cannot influence behavior unless the behavior occurs

savings

learning stored away in your brain bank - the residual plasticity hypothesis, which proposes that even after extinction, neural networks of learning persist, which can lead to savings if conditioning is reintroduced

latent learning

learning that occurs without either incentive (such as food reward) or any clear motivation to learn - tolman argued that our brains will naturally, without external reinforcement, form a map of our surroundings -Rats exploring complex mazes demonstrate evidence of learning without reinforcement. (b) When food was provided on day 11, these rats showed they were learning as much, if not more, about the maze as rats who were reinforced with food from day 1.

Discrimination

learning to respond to a particular stimulus but not to similar stimuli, thus preventing overgeneralizations - allows you to stop and look when you hear a specific car horn, like the specific one you heard before an accident

upside down principle

light rays that enter the eye are inverted on the retina, so that up versus down and right versus left are flipped. - if sight were entirely up to the eye and didn't involve the brain, when talking to your friends you would see them standing upside down and on the opposite side of the room. - the image on the eye is also 2D, bc the retina is a 2D sheet that can code only flat images - our brains use their experiences and smarts to recover much of what is lost on the retina so that we ultimately perceive an upright, 3D world.

hypothalamus

links nervous system to endocrine system via pituitary gland - intersection of the central nervous system and the endocrine system - located at the bottom of your brain - plays an important role in governing your essential motivational states (eating, drinking, having sex) - give you pleasure

references

list at the end of books that include the materials originally published in respected academic journals - Authors. (Year of Publication). Title. Journal name. Volume #. (Issue #). Page #s. URL/DOI. - Mid/bottom: https://ncia.wwnorton.com/4285/r/goto/cfi/22!/4

taste buds

little bumps on your tongue, each containing tiny invisible pores that catch food particles - within each of these pores are 50-100 taste receptors, each of which responds to 1 of the 5 kinds of taste molecules: sweet, salty, sour, bitter, savory (also called umami) - different sections of the tongue do not specialize in different tastes. instead, all taste sensations come from anywhere on the tongue. taste receptors can be found on the rook and back of the mouth as well. - spicy "heat" is not a taste but rather a somatosensory experience, similar to texture)

primary motor cortex (in front of PSC)

located in the frontal lobe in front of the parietal lobe's primary somatosensory cortex, the primary motor cortex is responsible for all voluntary movement, from walking to speaking

brainstem

located in the lowest part of your brain at the base of the skill, this ensures that your brain gets the oxygen it needs - regulates vital functions such as breathing and heart rate, so that you don't have to think about them - it sits on top of and is continuous with the spinal cord, collecting sensory signals form the body and sending signals down from the brain to create movement and regulate vital functions - plays a role in emotion-related changes in your body (fearful face) - damage to even small areas of the brainstem is potentially lethal, and individuals with such damage require critical life support to stay alive

primary somatosensory cortex (behind PMS)

located in the parietal lobe next to the frontal lobe's primary motor cortex, the primary somatosensory cortex is responsible for the sense of touch

hippocampus

located just below the amygdala in the temporal lobe, and part of the limbic system, the hippocampus creates memories of events and is important for navigating the environment. It also allows you to remember emotionally important moments and envision your hopes (or fears) for the future. The hippocampus's elongated, curved shape inspire its name, Greek for "seahorse"

anosmia

loss of sense of smell - can happen from severed olfactory nerve through violent accidents if the head is snapped back and forth bc the olfactory nerve has to pass through tiny holes at the base of the skull called the cribriform plate

gut microbiome

made up of a whole bunch of microorganisms (microscopic organisms such as bacteria). these gut microorganisms affect the brain in what is called the gut-brain axis. - bottom of https://ncia.wwnorton.com/4285/r/goto/cfi/96!/4

Suppose you want to participate in a study mapping the structure of a living person's brain. Which of the following techniques for studying brain structure exposes living patients to the least health risk?

magnetic resonance imaging - MRI imaging is safe, even at high levels of exposure. It is an invaluable non-invasive scientific tool.

Hypnotherapists

make suggestions intended to help people control undesired symptoms or behaviors. - may suggest that the subject will experience reduces or no pain or will feel fewer craving for food - often posthypnotic suggestions

Stage hypnotists

make suggestions that will ultimately entertain an audience, such as telling a subject that she is glued to her chair or another that he cannot hear.

You and your roommate are discussing the results of a self-report study that measured the number of minutes spent on social media during a person's first week of college and their satisfaction with life during their fourth week of college. Which of the following changes could be made to the study to change it from a correlational study to an experimental study?

manipulating how many minutes people spend on social media during the first week of college - the inclusion of a manipulated/independent variable is necessary to make a study an experiment

Stage 1

marked by slow breathing and irregular brain waves. During this stage you may experience vivid images and sounds resembling hallucinations. You may also have a sensation of falling (often leading your body jerking) or floating. - you relax more deeply and shift into about 20 minutes of Stage 2

sleep apnea treatment

masklike device that regulates breathing during the night -respiration machine

SOMETIMES variables can be either measured OR manipulated

measured: stopping by a campus party and asking how many alcoholic drinks they have consumed manipulated: inviting people to a lab setting and control whether people will consume 2 shots of vodka versus 2 shots of water

heritability

measures the degree of heredity, or how much variation in phenotype across people is due to differences in genotype - calculated as a proportion ranging from 0 to 1. - 0=genes do not contribute to how people differ with regard to a particular trait - 1=only genetic factors are responsible - typical heritability range of values for human behavioral traits (between .3 and .6, or 30-60%) - .49 (49%) for the majority of traits between identical twins

When to use a correlation design

measuring 2 variables and their connection to each other (correlation) - correlation design -> correlational conclusions -> association claim - naturalistic observations - behavioral measurements - surveys/self-reports

REM behavior disorder (RBD) treatment

medication and protective measures to keep body restrained - specifically, using a sleeping bag and wearing gloves to prevent yourself from unzipping it

there is evidence that memories can be selectively "zapped" with humans.

memories can be dislodged by ECT, providing evidence that newer memories may still be undergoing a process of consolidation in the brain. - since ECT interferes w/ the consolidation of recent memories, researchers have recently asked whether ECT can also alter reconsolidation during memory retrieval, to target a specific memory - figure 7.30: Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) while viewing scenes from a previously viewed emotionally disturbing film (reactivation) caused selective forgetting of these memories compared with memories of events not shown again (nonreactivation) during ECT. - stronger and older memories may also be susceptible to disruption upon retrieval but require a longer retrieval trial to be disrupted than de weaker and younger memories.

prospective memory

memory for the things we need to do in the future

Memory stages

memory has traditionally been understood as flowing through stages occurring at different points in time, including initial experience (encoding), maintenance of information over time (storage), and later access by searching through those stored representations (retrieval). - in reality, these stages interact substantially, giving a much more complex picture of how memory works. retrieval of memory results in a re-encoding of the original event.

retrospective memory

memory of things we have done in the past

In the card game Hearts, the Queen of Spades is almost always a card you want to get rid of. Darna is a champion Hearts player with a lot of experience, but she has only just begun playing poker. Despite queens being good cards to hold onto in poker games, Darna's instincts tell her to discard the Queen of Spades whenever it is dealt to her. Darna's prior experience with Hearts is influencing her poker-playing through which mechanism?

mental set - Darna's experience playing Hearts has given her a sense of what role the Queen of Spades might play in a card game.

Which stimulant, if regularly used over an extended period, creates irreversibly depressed functioning in its long-time users?

methamphetamine - Although many stimulants are associated with negative long-term health effects for a variety of reasons, metabolism of methamphetamine is directly neurotoxic.

top down of the brainstem

midbrain, pons, medulla oblongata, and reticular formation

to locate parts of the limbic system

middle https://ncia.wwnorton.com/4285/r/goto/cfi/100!/4

humans have specifically evolved a body type that enables us to manipulate the environment perhaps better than any other species

moderate strength, combined with just enough agility, a large brain, and an opposable thumb, enables us to interact effectively with our surroundings and learn how to use elements of it to our advantage - without the ability to manipulate objects in our environment, we could only ponder what might be

consciousness

moment-by-moment awareness of the external environment as well as one's own thoughts, feelings, and behaviors - awareness of the external world and internal world in ourselves - the stream of inner experience - takes different forms when people are asleep, awake, focused, daydreaming, meditating, caffeinated, or taking hallucinogenic drugs

assess learning and habituation by...

monitoring eye movements and measure where and for how long subjects look at something - first look results in longer looking time. looking time decreases when events are repeated (looking behavior habituates)

In the phrase "weeping willow," "ing" is an example of what component of language?

morpheme - Morphemes are the smallest possible meaningful bits of language. Even though "ing" is not a full word, it still conveys a meaning—it signifies ongoing action of some kind.

anterograde and retrograde amnesia suggest that the ability to remember old events and to acquire new ones are not one and the same

most medial temporal lobe amnesiacs have severe anterograde, and, to a lesser degree, temporally graded retrograde amnesia, which means that events that occurred just before their brain damage are remembered less well than those further in the past.

external validity

most relevant for descriptive and correlational designs

internal validity

most relevant for experiments

Stage 3 and 4 ("deeper" stages)

much more difficult to awaken without feeling disoriented and sluggish

Dichromacy color blindness (having only 2 cones)

natural occurs in 1 in 50 people, often results from a deficiency in 1 of the 3 types of cones - allows for the perception of some color distinctions, but offers only about 1% of the variety a person with normal trichromacy has

What proportion of people appear to have dreams, according to studies conducted in sleep labs?

nearly everyone, including people who claim "I don't dream" - If awoken during REM sleep, nearly everyone will report having some kind of dream experience. People who claim to never dream more than likely do so but don't remember because they rarely wake up during REM sleep.

random sampling or random assignment applied: A research team in Utah placed trained observers at a local intersection with a four-way stop sign. The observers recorded two pieces of information about each driver: whether the driver stopped legally behind the stop sign, and whether the driver was using a hand-held cell phone while driving. Did this study use random sampling or random assignment?

neither: This study used a convenience sample of whoever was driving by that intersection during the observation hours, so there was no random sampling. In addition, there was no manipulated variable in the study, so there was no random assignment.

neuron

nerve cell; primary functional unit of the nervous system - come in all shapes/sizes

damage plasticity

neural modification following injury - largely takes the form of brain reorganization

Which of the following are the cellular building blocks of the brain?

neurons - networks of neurons are responsible for the brain's ability to process information

neural refractory period

neurons need time between firing to produce new action potentials so cilia can fire about 1,000 times per second. - high-frequency sounds, which account for much of our auditory range, are too high for there to be a one-to-one correspondence, yet we can easily perceive sounds up to 6,000 Hz

mirror neurons

neurons that are active both when performing an action and when the same actions are observed in others - brain regions with mirror neurons respond both when we act and when we observe the same action - mirror neuron response may help us understand someone else's actions - accidentally discovered by a group of scientists who were recording the electrical activity of neurons in the premotor cortex of macaque monkeys while the animals were reaching for and eating food. same neurons that fired when observing human putting ice cream in his mouth, also fired when monkey place it in their mouth - brain regions were active when executing an action and mirrored the same actions during observation of action in others - mirror neurons capture not only the action but also the intention behind the action - infants' imitation may be the basis for understanding the intentions of others. motor neurons should support our ability not only to observe and learn from others but the relate in deeper, empathetic ways (seeing someone else in pain)

sensory neurons

neurons that carry information from the outside world (like, light) and within your body (like signals from the immune system) to your brain

interneurons

neurons that connect neurons. They interpret, store, and retrieve information about the world, allowing you to make informed decisions before you act - make up most of your neurons

"workspace neurons"

neurons that connect one area of the brain to another. - do the physical work of communicating across brain regions and creating connections

Donald O. Hebb

neurons that fire together wire together - "when an axon of cell A is near enough to excite a cell B and repeatedly or persistently takes part in firing it, some growth process or metabolic change takes place in one or both cells such that A's efficiency, as one of the cells firing B, is increased" - Hebbian learning: can use to train some neurons. - strong stimulation of a presynaptic neuron A (neuron before the synapse) results in a more enduring, enhanced postsynaptic activity in a connected neuron B (the neuron after the synapse). - LTP

motor neurons

neurons that send signals to get your motor running - to make the body take action - whether you move your legs, make your heart beat faster, or remove your finger from a flame - in general motor = MOVEMENT

glutamate

neurotransmitter in amino acids class - binds to excitatory receptors; helps form long-term memories

GABA (gamma-aminobutyric acid)

neurotransmitter in amino acids class - binds to major inhibitory receptors; influences muscle tone

dopamine

neurotransmitter in the monoamines class - associated with reward and pleasurable experiences

serotonin

neurotransmitter in the monoamines class - contributes to feelings of happiness and well-being, appetite, and sleep

Norepinephrine

neurotransmitter in the monoamines class - involved in fight-or-flight response activation

diffusion

neurotransmitters drift out of the synapse over time into the larger extracellular space

technological implication of retrieval

now, much of our memory retrieval is supplanted by our electronic devices. info that you would once have needed to retrieve from memory can now easily be offloaded from your computer or phone bank for nearly instant retrieval. - research shows the Google may be changing how our brains work to retrieve information, such that internet searches are associated with reduced memory recall - 18-34 yr olds may have worse memory than 55+ yr olds for basic info like where car keys are - as we increasingly rely on our mobile devices, we may be diminishing our ability to retrieve memories, making them harder and harder to access

data

observations from a study, usually in numerical form, collected from people at certain times or in certain situations. - To be a scientist means to follow the theory-data cycle of collecting data to decide whether theories are right or wrong

sensory adaptation

occurs at the level of sensory receptors; a decrease in sensitivity to a constant level of stimulation - free us to focus on changes in our environment rather than on stimuli that are unchanging - olfactory receptors are very quick to adapt, making smell rapidly fade - sensory adaptation generally doesn't occur in our everyday visual experience bc our eyes move constantly and thus continuously change incoming stimulation

primacy effect

occurs for the items at the beginning of the list; first items may have initially received more processing, such as extra rehearsal and elaboration. - patients with a poor ability to form long-term memories do not show a primacy effect but do show a recency effect

perceptual adaptation

occurs higher up in the brain; ability to adjust to an artificially displaced or inverted visual field - free us to focus on changes in our environment rather than on stimuli that are unchanging

depolarization

occurs when a neuron's voltage becomes more positive; the first phase of the action potential

source amnesia

occurs when we cannot remember where our memories come from, even though we remember the event

survey research

often used in descriptive research because it provides concise summaries of a lot of people

Aplysia Californica (sea slug)

often used to study the cellular and molecular bases of memory bc of its simple nervous system. researched use it to learn about the strengthening of neural connections related to short and long term memories. - the hope is that the fundamental cellular and molecular building blocks are common to fruit flies, sea slugs, and our own brains - after repeated shocks, the sea slug becomes more defensive in its behavior, developing a long-term memory for the aversive experience - these short-term vs. enduring changes in behavior can be tracked to strengthened connections at the synapse between sensory and motor neurons.

Sigmund Freud (1856-1939)

one of the first scholars to propose that the mind has unconcsious aspects - proposed that the mind is like the iceberg: 1) parts above the surface correspond to the conscious mind (focus of your attention rn) 2) parts below the surface is the preconscious (thoughts and emotions you aren't currently aware of but could easily bring to mind) 3. at the deepest part of the iceberg is the dynamic unconscious (hidden memories, instincts, & desires that shape our behavior) - argued the dynamic unconscious is often in conflict with the conscious mind, actively working to assert itself while the conscious mind struggles to keep it in check

exercise and neurogenesis

one of the recently discovered benefits of physical exercise is its influence on our brains. Exercise has been shown to increase blood flow and create new neurons int the hippocampus in both mice and humans - exercise boosts neurogenesis in the hippocampus in "runners compared with sedentary control mice. The

health-related benefits of meditation

only 5 days of training in meditation reduced anxiety and depression and lowered stress-related hormones in the body compared with 5 days of similar training involving relaxation techniques - reduces heart rate and blood pressure - decreases the perception of intensity and unpleasantness from a painful heat stimulus - less different in reaction time, suggesting better control of their attention

Test-prep training courses (such as those that prepare students for the SAT or ACT) train students to identify types of questions to choose strategies for how to solve the problem. What kind(s) of memory does this approach rely on?

only recognition - Recognition typically relies on the superficial structure of options, not on their deeper semantic content. This is why a good "foil" in a multiple-choice exam is one that resembles a correct answer.

A researcher decides to measure the variable of how self-focused people are by counting the number of times a person says "I" or "me" in a 10-minute recorded conversation. This specification of how this variable will be measured is known as which of the following?

operational definition - An operational definition is how a researcher specifies the process for determining the levels or values of each variable. For this variable, the researcher counts the number of times "I" and "me" are said.

construct validity

operationalize variables appropriately (relevant for all research designs)

aftereffects

opposing distortion that occur after adaptations - they are opposing bc you perceive the opposite of what your sense and brain have adapted to - ex: waterfall illusion: after gazing at a waterfall for about a minute, when you move your gaze away to the rocks, they appear to be moving upward - aftereffects are by no mean limited to the visual system - apply not only to simply sensations but also to our complex perceptions - ex: aspects of faces such as sex or emotional expressions are subject to the tuning effects of perceptual adaptation (staring at a smiling masculine face will shift an ambiguous face to look sad and feminine)

peer review

other scientists who are experts in that area of research identify the manuscript's virtues and flaws - meant to ensure that the research published in journals is innovative, important, and well-conducted

neuroplasticity

our brain's ability to reinvent and rewire itself - remains a subject for scientific debate - William James highlighted extraordinary plasticity of the brain, proposing that the foundation for learning lies in the cultivation of the brain's neurons - Edward Thorndike (puzzle box fame) investigated the idea of transfer of learning: practicing and learning one activity, not only will help you learn the facts for this class but also will transfer to other tasks or real-world situations learning is specific to what is practiced and does not generalize very dar afield

skin basics

our thin skin is the threshold between our outer and inner worlds. it is our largest. sensory organ. Our sense of touch is bother imperative to basic survival and socially enriching - touching one another serves as a critical role in reducing stress

nociceptor

pain receptor - a bare nerve ending that signals potential harm and causes a withdrawal reflec

middle temporal cortex/MT

part of the dorsal pathway where the perception of movement is processed. - some neurons will increase their firing response when an object is moving to the left, others when moving up or down; some even respond to complex radial motion - Damage to the MT area means akinetopsia: a deficit in perceiving motion, such that they experience the world as a series of static snapshots rather than a continuous flow of events

amygdala

part of the limbic system in the temporal lobe, the amygdala processes the emotional significance of events. The amygdala is one of the most interconnected brain structures, adding emotional significance to our senses, thoughts, and memories. "Amygdala" is Latin for "almond", referring to this structure's shape

cell body (aka soma)

part of the neuron that collects neural impulses, containing the cell nucleus, and provides life-sustaining functions for the cell

terminal branches (aka terminal buttons)

part of the neuron that convert these impulses into chemical messages

dendrites

part of the neuron that receives chemical messages from other neurons

axon

part of the neuron that transports electrical impulses to other neurons via the terminal branches

informed consent

participants must provide informed consent before participating - in the informed consent process, a researcher explains the procedures, including the risks and potential benefits, to the prospective participants who then decide whether to take part - at the conclusion of the study, the researchers provide a full debriefing to participants

Dreaming isn't exclusive to REM sleep

people also experience dreams in Stage 1 and Stage 2 sleep (usually in the first hour of sleeping) and even report dreams if awakened from the deeper, slow-wave sleep, Stage 3 and 4. - dreams experiences during REM tend to be more like stories and feel more "real" to the dreamer: they are more visual and involve more action and emotion. - dream reports from non-REM sleep more often contain disconnected thoughts or ideas

rebound effect

people can become physically dependent on depressants, leading to withdrawal symptoms that ironically exacerbate the problem the person took the drug to correct - form of withdrawal; paradoxical effects that occur when a drug has been eliminated from the body - heightened anxiety for those using it to treat anxiety

when people are in a new environment, they don't sleep with "one eye open," but they do sleep with half the brain a little more awake

people sleeping in a new environment showed shallower slow-wave brain activity in the left hemisphere than in the right - the left hemisphere was more responsive than the right to sounds played through a set of headphones the sleepers wore.

our early relationships (especially with our parents) affect our level of trust in romantic partners in adolescence and later life

people w/ positive relationships with their parents often expect to have positive/healthy relationships with their romantic partners (and vice versa) - attachment style

There is ample scientific evidence that expert meditators, who have devoted years to their craft, perform better than both nonmeditators and beginner meditators on various cognitive tasks. But this is not, in itself, definitive evidence that meditation is the cause of their better performance. What other factors could have been responsible for their elevated scores?

people who choose to become expert meditators may have been unusual from the start - "Expert meditators" are a great example of a nonrandom sample. We don't know if their scores on cognitive tasks were typical before they undertook years of training. It's possible that only people who would have high scores anyway would stick with the training for such a long time.

critical periods

periods early in life during which very specific experiences must occur to ensure the normal development of a characteristic or behavior - environment is the teacher, brain is its pupil - lessons form the environment during infancy teach neurons in face-processing regions of the right hemispheres how to represent faces

cones

photoreceptor cell that is responsible for high-resolution color vision

rods

photoreceptor cell that primarily supports nighttime vision

After years of taking sleeping pills regularly, Valerie finds it very difficult to sleep without them. Even though she dislikes taking them, her insomnia when she doesn't take the medication is worse than it was when she first started taking it. Needing the pills to sleep normally is an example of

physical dependence - Valerie's body now takes for granted that she will take the pills every night, and does not function properly in their absence. In other words, her body physically depends on the pills for normal function.

Desmond feels a wave of comfort when cuddling with his girlfriend, brought on by a flood of oxytocin in his body. Which organ is responsible for this feeling?

pituitary gland - Oxytocin is one of many hormones that the pituitary gland releases as it coordinates the endocrine system.

repolarization

potassium enters the cell; Return of the cell to resting state, caused by reentry of potassium into the cell while sodium exits the cell.

sympathetic nervous system

prepares your body for fight or flight - the 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 - arouses the body, mobilizing its energy in stressful situations - pupils dilate to see potential threats, breathing and heart rate increase, blood rushes to big muscle groups to fuel you to take action

Providing informed consent is done to address which of the following ethical principles?

principle of autonomy - this is associated with allowing people to make their own choices

As a small child, Romina played a video game in an arcade. Many years later, as an adult, she encounters the same game again but has no memory of having played it before. Despite not recognizing the game, she does extremely well, anticipating its surprises and nearly beating it on her first try. What kind of memory is Romina benefiting from in this example?

procedural memory - Playing a video game well involves motor skills, so being able to play well after many years is like riding a bike: something Romina knows how to do, even if she doesn't remember how she learned it.

hierarchical analysis

process in which higher and higher levels of the brain create more and more complete representations fo what is out in the world - brain appears to make sense of the data it receives from the retina through this

quantify behavior

process psychological scientists use to report research findings - they convert behavior into numbers - after quantifying behavior, researchers make sense of the numbers using statistics

elaboration

process that deep encoding requires that you make associations between new information and the old information already represented in your brain

primary gustatory cortex and insular cortex

processes taste information; located in insula - the primary gustatory cortex is located in the insular cortex. The insular cortex is also where the internal body states are represented, so it makes sense that taste, which occurs inside the mouth, would ablso be represented there.

broca's area

produces structured speech (generally situated in left hemisphere only)

Which sense enables one to know, without looking, that one's knee is bent?

proprioceptive - Proprioception is the sense of how each body part is arranged in relation to the rest.

opioids

psychoactive drugs that are prescribed as analgesics (drugs used to relieve pain) including morphine, fentanyl, and oxycodone - activate the release of dopamine in the brain's reward system, which in the absence of significant pain can motivate repeated drug use - repeated exposure to opioids alters the brain so that it functions normally only when the drugs are present, resulting in addiction

Early study of psychology

psychology used to be the science of conscious experience, but psychologists realized that consciousness is difficult to study because it's inherently private. You cannot observe or experience another person's consciousness, not they yours. - one approach is introspection

correlation coefficient (r)

quantifies the direction and strength of correlation using a single number - r=-1.0 represents a perfect negative relationship - r=0 represents zero relationship - r=1.0 represents a perfect positive relationship - the sign of r shows the direction (positive+ or negative-)

not all stimuli can evoke a similar aversion

radiation paired with a red light (CS), the rats never learned to associate the red light and the nausea (UR) whereas they made the association between nausea and the sweet water after only a single pairing

After discussing the original correlational study examining social media usage and life satisfaction, you and your roommate have decided to create an experiment to determine if there is a causal link between the two variables. You have chosen to manipulate how many minutes people spend using social media by creating three groups (0 minutes, 15 minutes, and 30 minutes on social media per day) and then measure people's life satisfaction. Which of the following is necessary to ensure that the three groups are equally satisfied with life at the beginning of the study?

random assignment - Random assignment ensures that each participant has an equal chance of ending up in each of the experimental or control groups.

random sampling or random assignment applied: A research team invited college students who were taking an introductory psychology class into the laboratory. Students were asked to drive a standard, 15-minute course on a professional-grade driving simulator while having a conversation with a member of the research team. Half of the students were talking via cell phone, and the other half were talking to their conversation partner in the passenger's seat. The researchers flipped a coin to assign students to one of the two conditions. Did this study use random sampling or random assignment?

random assignment: This study used a convenience sample of college students who were taking introductory psychology, so it was not a random sample. However, by flipping a coin to assign students to the two levels of the independent variable, the researchers used random assignment in this experiment.

Which of the following is true of random assignment and random sampling?

random sampling and random assignment are both used to deal with potential bias - Random sampling is used to make sure that studies are not biased toward particular types of people. Random assignment is used to make sure that experimental groups within a study are not biased toward a particular type of person.

random sampling vs random assignment

random sampling is important for external validity. we want to ensure that every person who is part of the population of interest has an equal chance of being included otherwise we may not have representative sampling that will generalize to population. random assignment is important for internal validity when conducting an experiment. we want to randomly assign people to groups or conditions so that the groups will be as similar as possible on all non manipulated variables

random sampling or random assignment applied: The American Automobile Association (AAA) conducted a survey using a random-digit phone-dialing system to call a national sample of 2,000 U.S. drivers. Drivers were asked whether they had ever talked on a cell phone while driving. Did this study use random sampling or random assignment?

random sampling: This study used random sampling because it used a random-digit dialer to select who was going to be in the study sample.

reconsolidation

reactivation of consolidation by retrieving a memory, making the memory susceptible to change. - after retrieval, an original memory may again undergo consolidation, like an old memory made a new one - permits the relearning of your memories, looping back to the encoding stage to create a new learning of an old memory - often examined using classical conditioning and was first studied in nonhuman animals (rats with anisomycin - 7.10)

right brain

recognizes phases

John has been falsely accused of a crime and has been taken in for questioning by police. The officer doing the questioning is persuaded of John's guilt and, in violation of police policy, spends several hours asking leading questions and showing John crime scene photos. Over time, John's confidence in his alibi begins to waver, and he starts to feel as though he may have had something to do with the crime. Why?

reconsolidation has incorporated elements of the officer's questioning into John's memory of events, altering them. - Unethical methods for questioning suspects can lead to false confessions because they can exploit reconsolidation to undermine the integrity of a suspect's memory.

Magnetoencephalography (MEG)

records magnetic fields produced by the brain's electrical currents, similar to those measured in EEG - resolves the timing of the brain's electrical events with high temporal precision, getting closer to the timing of actual neuronal activity - allows researchers to uncover how different parts of the brain communicate with one another - pro: provide WHEN events are happening - con: prevent us from knowing precisely WHERE all the signals originate

Hypnosis has been shown to be effective in a number of clinical domains. Which of the following applications has instead proven to be unreliable?

recovering repressed memories - Because hypnotized individuals are extremely suggestible, they are especially vulnerable to having false memories created, even if the hypnotherapist believes those memories to be real.

Isaac Newton and refraction

refraction: the bending of light rays through a prism - discovered that pure white sunlight contains all the colors we can perceive bc of the rainbow of colors visible to the human eye - objects are not colored but have differing capacities for absorbing and reflecting sunlight (leaves reflect the portion of the light spectrum that we see as green; white objects reflect the entire visible spectrum; black objects absorb the entire spectrum) - pure sunlight allows us to stay tuned to the changes and variations it produces as it bounces off objects in our environment, rendering them in vivid color - the fact that you see the world in color is an illusion due to the cortical magnification of information from the fovea, bc the majority of your visual field is color-blind

cortical magnification factor

regions that require finer discrimination (in this case, the fovea) receive more cortical representation - apportioning the small fovea with a large area on the cortex - pattern of less convergence and greater acuity in the cones is carried over to the brain - more direct connections (less convergence) in conjunction with more cortical space (cortical magnification) allow the cones in the fovea to convey more information (higher levels of detail) to the rest of your brain

Following a severe viral infection, Lusine discovers that she suffers from severe retrograde amnesia. These symptoms gradually subside, but while they are affecting her memory, what sort of recall would Lusine have difficulty with?

remembering events from before the infection took hold. - Retrograde amnesia involves forgetting the past, possibly even forgetting your identity. Fortunately, this kind of amnesia is much rarer than films and novels make it out to be.

memory traces

remnants of past communications in neurons - it takes 2 neurons to communicate

best study method

repeated retrieval tests - might be bc of an extension of the encoding specifity effect, where testing yourself is the best way to prepare for a test - if you administer self-quizzes before each exam, you will be in much better shape than if you just highlight and take notes - enhancing effects of retrieval practice for later memory show that the mental act of reconstructing knowledge can enhance memory - BUT remember that retrieval is a source of both remembering and forgetting, so reactivating a memory during retrieval leaves it open to manipulation - changing an incorrect answer to a correct one edits your previous edits your previous memory, but the reverse can happen as well. so when testing yourself, be sure that you are retrieving and re-remembering the correct answers.

Animal researchers are encouraged to use alternative methods to animal research whenever possible. This is known as the principle of

replacement

guiding principles for animal research (the 3 R's)

replacement, refinement, and reduction - replacement: find alternatives to using animals in research when possible (ex: computer simulation) - refinement: modify experimental procedures and other aspects of animal care to minimize or eliminate animal distress - reduction: adopt experimental designs and procedures that require the fewest animal subjects possible

secondary somatosensory cortex

represents more complex features, such as the sensation of motion on the skin, and enables the recognition of objects. - hapsis: examining an object by touch (supported by the somatosensory association cortex) - helps patients with visual agnosia (damage to visual association areas) bc even tho they can't recognize objects by sight, they can tell what an object it by its feel.

testing to improve your memory

research has shown that self-testing, or retrieval practice, is by far one of the most effective learning strategies. - retrieval tests have been shown to surpass the effectiveness of other active techniques.

justice

research should not be conducted disproportionately on one segment of the population. The participant who bear the burden of the research should be representative of the people who will benefit from the research

d. underreporting nonsignificant effects (questionable practice)

researchers mislead about the strength of the evidence by not reporting conditions or measures that did not support the hypothesis - alternative, transparent practice: open materials, in which all study materials are reported publicly - others can see the full study design and fairly evaluate

c. p-hacking (questionable practice)

researchers try many ways of analyzing their data, so the result is more likely to be a fluke rather than a true, replicable pattern - alternative, transparent practice: open data, in which full data sets are provided - others can rerun and confirm the statistical analyses and use the data to test new questions

how do scientists assign a number to a trait's heritability?

researchers use family trees to track heredity because people share genes with their relatives to varying degrees - scientists can closely measure degrees of relatedness - 50% of our genetic makeup is with our parents and siblings, 25% with grandparents, 12.5% with first cousins

genetic disorder phenylketonuria (PKU)

results from a single gene mutation carried on a recessive allele, and it causes extreme intellectual disability, seizures, irritability, and temper tantrums

Douglas is out drinking with his friends and becomes frustrated when he realizes that he cannot remember the name of his favorite teacher from grade school. The next day, after he has sobered up, he easily remembers the teacher's name. Which aspect of Douglas's memory was disrupted in this example?

retrieval - Because Douglas was later able to remember the name, the memory must have been encoded and stored. He struggled only to retrieve it.

false memory

retrieval of an event that never occurred; our memories can be influenced by information presented after an event - flexibility sets the stage for creating either more accurate memory

parasympathetic system

returns the body to its resting state - the division of the autonomic nervous system that returns the body to a resting state by counteracting the actions of the sympathetic system - calms the body, conserving its energy - rest-and-digest response: allows you to regenerate the energy that your body needs when it is safe to do so

Damage to Fusiform Face Area (FFA)

right inferotemporal lobe - 'face blindness' = prosopagnosia

recency effect

right side of the smile; the last items are still in short-term memory or working memory, so people can recall them immediately - if people are briefly distracted at the end of the word presentation, the recency effect is greatly diminished. - individuals diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease and schizophrenia, who have great difficulty with working memory, do not show a recency effect in recall

chromosomes

rod-shaped structures that reside in a cell's nucleus - humans have 23 pairs in every cell - genes are located on chromosomes - composed of double strands of DNA

rods vs. cones

rods: - all the rods have the same type of photopigment - human eye contains about 120 million rod cells - nighttime: provide more sensitivity, primarily supporting nighttime vision, when light is limited and we see things in grainy shades of gray. - show high convergence (supporting sensitivity) - demonstrate a much greater degree of convergence, ultimately connecting many individual signals to one ganglion cell - provide only black-and-white information cones: - contain 1 of 3 varieties of photopigments (the multiple photopigments of the cones allow us to perceive colors; color vision only occurs in the cones) - human eye contains only 5 million cone cells - daytime: specialize in acuity, supporting daytime vision when light is abundant and we see things in high-resolution color - show low convergence (supporting acuity) - cones in the fovea have more of a 1-to-1 connection to cells farther down the line, showing less convergence onto the bipolar and ganglion cells - responsible for our color vision

pragmatics

rules that govern the practical aspects of language use, such as taking turns, using intonation and gestures, and talking to different types of people

reticular formation

running through the brainstem, the reticular formation is essential to the regulation of arousal and attention. It also regulates sleep and wakefulness. Stimulation from caffeine is largely due to the effect it has on the reticular formation

dream report

scientists awaken a person at various points across a night's sleep and ask her if she was dreaming and if so to describe the dream - even patients who report "never dreaming" report dreaming when awakened during REM sleep, suggesting that people do dream but may not remember their dreams by morning

cultural perspective

seeks to identify how culture affects people's thoughts and preferences

What is the correct distinction between sensory adaptation and perceptual adaptation?

sensory adaptation occurs at the level of sensory receptors, while perceptual adaptation happens higher up in the brain - Sensory adaptation involves a reduced response by sensory receptors, while perceptual adaptation involves a reduced response by the brain to unchanging stimuli.

hallucinations

sensory experiences, such as sights and sounds, that happen in the absence of any true sensory input

dreams

sequences of images, emotions, and thoughts (sometimes vivid and story-like) that pass through the mind during sleep - can involve vivid hallucinations (visual, but sometimes auditory and tactile) - challenging to study bc they are inherently private (scientists rely on self-reports) - strongly associated with REM sleep

shallow encoding in the brain

shallow encoding has been shown to map onto basic regions more related to perception of sensory information - a shallow visual judgment increases activity primarily in the back of the brain in the occipital lobe, where the primary and secondary visual cortices are located

cerebellum

shaped like a miniature brain, the cerebellum is located behind the pons and medulla in the hindbrain. This structure allows for coordination, balance, precise movements, and accurate timing. It is estimated that the cerebellum has 3-4x as many neurons as the cerebral cortex! - important for high achieving athletes

Using treats, Jeremy is trying to teach his dog to roll over. So far, however, his dog has only learned to flop onto its back and wait for treats. While the target behavior has not been trained yet, Jeremy sees this as progress toward his ultimate goal. What approach to training is Jeremy relying on?

shaping - Shaping is all about successive approximation: getting closer to the target behavior gradually. Jeremy's dog has learned to flop, so all it needs to do now is to learn to also flip back over to complete the target behavior of "roll over."

Modern psychologists

share Freud's belief that unconscious mental processes influence behavior, BUT differ from him in their view of those processes - modern psychologists see the unconscious mind not as a competitor of the conscious mind, but as a collaborator with it. (cognitive unconscious)

methamphetamine ("speed" or "meth")

shares some chemical properties with amphetamines and leads to a rush of euphoria and energy that lasts for hours - over time, reduces the brain's baseline levels of dopamine, leaving the user with permanently depressed functioning and dramatic declines in well-being - researchers argue that chronic meth use alters the brain in ways that impair social functioning, leading to social isolation, depression, and aggressiveness (wreaks havoc on a person's physical and psychological functioning)

Magda is a lawyer who has worked for years in a windowless, fluorescent-lit office. She is very good at her job and easily remembers much of the information relevant to her work without looking it up. As a treat to herself, Magda rents a seaside cottage and works remotely for a week. Should she expect to find recalling this information easier or harder at the cottage, and why?

she encoded those facts while in the context of her office, so retrieving them in. different context would be harder - Even if Magda's office is not a very pleasant space, it is a consistent context that likely facilitates recall of the information that she relies on professionally.

Yaqub has just had a phone number whispered in his ear by someone he finds attractive. He knows that he has a few moments to type that number into his phone before he forgets it. According to the multistore model of memory, what kind of memory is Yaqub relying on to retain the digits long enough to get them into his phone?

short-term memory - Short-term memory has a duration measurable in seconds. This is enough time to make note of something, but the information will become inaccessible if not recorded.

Advertisers routinely exploit the affect heuristic to influence the decisions of consumers. Which of the following techniques would use positive affect to improve a consumer's chances of buying a product?

showing physically attractive people using the product - Regardless of the intended use of the product, merely associating it with feelings of attraction may make the consumer more likely to engage with the product.

Rubin vase illusion

shows a 3D model of a famous image of either a vase or 2 faces - 2 component compete to be the dominant perceptual figure - your brain needs to settle its internal dispute about what it should perceive, so it picks one as the figure and relegates the other to the background

prediction error

signals that the brain has to revise its predictions about how the world works. If this pattern continues, then the predication has to change in order to eliminate the error, and this adjustment becomes the basis for extinction - our brains are prediction machines, using past experiences to see into the future and test whether our predication are right or wrong

doorway effect

simple act of walking through doorways influences memory retrieval bc the context changes as you pass through a door into another room - encoding specificity principle at work - episodic memory, by definition, requires this kind of specificity for the time and place of the original event - basically: retrieval of what we learned should be tied to circumstances similar to how and when the memory was formed

Luis reports chronic irritability and tiredness. Suspecting his sleep is being disrupted, he sets up a camera and records himself overnight. He is surprised to discover that, several times throughout the night, he awakens with a loud gasp, then falls right back to sleep. What condition might Luis be suffering from?

sleep apnea - Recurring gasps for air suggest that Luis's breathing is being interrupted, triggering desperate breaths when his brain detects low oxygen levels.

In the week after pulling an all-nighter, Philip often feels as though he is fighting off a cold. Why might this be?

sleep deprivation tends to weaken the immune system - The body uses sleep as a time to replenish its supply of immune cells, so one of the many consequences of missing a night's sleep is that the body is left more vulnerable to infection.

sleep protects and conserves

sleep may hepl animals stay safe and conserve their resources - species should vary in their sleep habits depending on how hard and risky it is to get food - animals tend to increase their sleep when food is scarce, as bears do when they hibernate in winter - animals tend to decrease their body temp during sleep, which reduces how much fuel the body needs - animals who face little danger from predators and can get a lot of nutrients from a single meal, like lions and bats, tend to sleep a lot - animals who need to stay alert for predators and graze all day to get the nutrition they need tend to sleep less

axon terminals (synaptic buttons)

small fibers branching out from an axon

very early memories appear to achieve temporary storage, but it is not clear whether they fade with time or become irretrievable

some evidence in favor of the storage failure hypothesis is that some brain regions, including the hippocampus and prefrontal cortex, are not fully developed in infants - infants can form memories and maintain them across the amnesic period of infancy if they are reminded about the memory periodically over the first years of life. (photos and family stories may play a large role in forming our childhood autobiographical memories).

Which of the following is not a limit of introspection?

some people are not capable of introspection - Introspection is the inherent human ability to contemplate our conscious experiences, and it is available to everyone.

nicotine replacement theory

some smokers try to reduce their health risks by finding alternative ways to get their nicotine fix - safe alternative and a "quit smoking" aid. - in one form, users apply a skin patch that delivers nicotine and gradually decrease the dose over time until it is easier to stop using nicotine altogether - in recent years, electronic nicotine delivery systems (ENDs) have become popular as a form of nicotine replacement therapy bc they more closely mimic the smoking experience

evidence for meditation's effect on attention has been mixed

some studies have found that meditation improves the ability to control attention compared with an active control ands ome have not

variable

something of interest that can vary from person to person or situation to situation - has at least 2 levels, or values - ex: height, braking time

feature detectors

specialized cells in the visual cortex that respond to basic features such as lines, edges, and angles with specific colors or movement. - neurons in the primary visual cortex - information from these feature detectors is collected and passed on to teams of cells in the secondary visual cortices (visual association cortex) where objects start to be reconstructed

wernicke's area

speech comprehension (generally situated in left hemisphere only)

Edward Tolman

started to argue that learning could occur without outward behavioral evidence that it was taking place; researched rats' use of "cognitive maps"

false positive

statistically significant findings that do not reflect a real effect

nicotine

stimulant (most often ingested through tobacco products like cigarettes) - increase heart rate and blood pressure, suppresses appetite, increases alertness, can reduce neurotransmitters that calm anxiety and reduce sensitivity to pain - quickly and highly addictive, unpleasant withdrawal symptoms: anxiety, irritability, insomnia. - symptoms set in so quickly that even those who try to quit smoking within the first few weeks of using it often fail - has clear and well-documented negative health consequences: ingestnig nicotine is ingesting a wide range of toxic chemicals, increased risk to cancer, lung disease, cardiovascular disease - tobacco use accounts for 1 in 5 male deaths and 1 in 20 female deaths in people over the age of 30 - quitting smoking reduces the risk, the earlier the better

caffeine

stimulant; 85% of americans consume at least one caffeinated beverage per day (usually coffee); regular trips to the coffee shop or soda machine can lead to tolerance and withdrawal symptoms, caffeine hurts people's wallets more than their bodies - among healthy adults, moderate caffeine consumption is not associated with any health problems - use is also associated with some benefits: improvements in mental alertness, concentration, athletic performance, reduces risks of type II diabetes, Parkinson's disease, and cancer - most commonly used of all psychoactive substances

subcortical regions

structures of the brain that lie deep beneath the surface (cortex) - includes the amygdala, hippocampus - supports the creation of episodic memories, especially emotional events - damage to these structures disrupts the ability to form new memories

concept mapping

students construct a diagram in which boxes represent concepts and arrows connecting the boxed represent relations among the concepts. - its considered an active, elaborative study method, as it requires students to form relationships among concepts and create an organized knowledge structure - a visual means of exploring connections between a subject and related ideas

Peter Wason

studied confirmation bias by having subjects determine a rule governing a three number sequence - 2-4-6 when really any number would do - Confirmation bias shows that "ordinary people will evade facts to defend themselves against new information on issues".

Ivan Pavlov

stumbled across conditioned reflexes when he was completing work on physiology of digestion in dogs. - apparatus measured dogs' salivation, when dogs were given food they would salivate. However, after many repetitions of this measurement, he noticed the dogs salivating in response to many stimuli such as the sight of the food dish, Pavlov himself, or sound of someone approaching to deliver food. - realized that the dogs were beginning to associate relevant sights and sounds with the food, and he recognized that this was a form of learning - conditioned reflexes did not orginiate from the salivary glands themselves, but were being learned by the brain through classical conditioning

Consider the concept of "sharks." How would the category of "hammerhead sharks" relate to it?

subordinate concept: Hammerheads are a specific kind of shark with distinctive features but clearly subordinate to (i.e., a subset of) the concept of sharks generally.

location of suppression

successful suppression of unwanted memories altered activity in the hippocampus, and some of the same prefrontal cortical mechanisms used in retrieval were called upon to suppress retrieval of unwanted memories - not only does practicing memory retrieval enhance memory, but practicing not-retrieving also increases forgetting.

Kent Cochrane (K.C.)

suffered both anterograde and retrograde amnesia after a motorcycle accident - he could report the saddest days of his life (brother drowning) - revealed no conscious episodic memory of this emotional event, but knew his brother died. Thus, the hippocampus may be necessary only for detailed memories of personal experience, not the mere facts of one's life.

posthypnotic suggestion

suggestions that are meant to be carries out after the subject is no longer hypnotized

dual-process theory of nonassociative learning

suggests that habituation and sensitization are always at work. they are distinct opposing processes, whichever of the 2 has a stronger response wins. depends on the state of arousal - when you are more aroused, sensitization is more potent than habituation - when you are more relaxed, habituation dominates

hyperthymesia

superior memory of autobiographical events - may justly be considered a memory disorder, related to defective prefrontal cortical circuits, that impairs what is selected for later memory - AJ who has reported such memories since the age of 14. exhausted by thinking of her past and cannot stop her constant recollections, making it very difficult in memorizing other information that does not relate to self-knowledge. - performs poorly on most standardized memory tests and was an average student, unable to apply her exceptional autobiographical memory to other forms of learning - superior memory can be excessive - more does not always mean better. A healthy memory is not just about retention but also about being able to forget.

Institutional Animal Care and Use Committe (IACUC)

supervises how animals are treated in research. They require researchers to write proposals for their research that justify the use of animals and explain how they will be treated

visual priming

supported by decreased neural activity for previously seen images in visual cortical regions suggesting that the brain finds repeated images easier to process, consistent with the idea of priming the brain to perceive more readily something it has seen before. - can reveal implicit perceptual memories for very specific types of objects processed in different brain regions. - Perceptual priming for faces, where previously seen faces are processed (judging their gender for ex:)is supported by face-sensitive regions in the fusiform cortex

Which of the following is responsible for the fight or flight response?

sympathetic nervous system - this activates the body, allowing it to respond to emergencies

flavor equals...

taste + smell - the combines activation of the olfactory receptors and taste buds produces an integrates flavor-speaking experience - complex interplay between our chemical senses is also due in part to the overlapping of olfactory and gustatory circuits in the brain

positive correlation between "screen time" near bedtime and disruptions to natural arousal patterns

technologies can interfere with the circadian rhythm for many reasons: - they can be cognitively, socially, and emotionally stimulating - brightness is an important factor (they emit LED and shorter (bluish) wavelengths of light that are stimulating to the retinal cells that communicate with the SCN

The ventral visual pathway travels along the ________ lobe of the cerebral cortex, while the dorsal visual pathway joins up with the ________ lobe.

temporal; parietal - The ventral pathway addresses questions of "what," and the dorsal pathway addresses questions of "where" and "how."

confirmation bias

tendency to seek out evidence that supports existing beliefs and to deny evidence that refutes our beliefs - can happen in the lab - databases to use in psych: PsychoInfo & Google Scholar

perception if probabilistic meaning...

that the transition from hearing to not hearing is gradual, rather than all or none.

ossicles

the 3 tinies bones in the body - the hammer, anvil, and stirrup - that acts as levers to amplify incoming sound waves. - form a bridge between the eardrum and another membrane called the oval window - eardrum connects to the hammer, which joins up with the anvil, which connects to the stirrup, which arrives at the oval window. - the ossicles act as levers amplifying the vibrations of incoming sound waves. this amplification is very important for our hearing, especially at small amplitudes, bc behind the oval window the inner ear is full of fluid, and fluid requires more energy to move than air does. If the sound waves were not amplified, the quieter sounds that we are capable of picking up would not move the oval window and would be inaudible - help protect the inner ear from extremely loud noises - cannot predict when sudden loud noises occur, so they don't help much when you are startled. but when you are at a sporting event, ur ossicles can act like a volume knob by adapting to noise amplitudes, reducing perceived sound up to 20 decibels

internal validity

the ability of a study to rule out alternative explanations for a relationship between two variables; one of the criteria for supporting a causal claim

sensitivity

the ability simply to detect a stimulus is present

automaticity

the ability to perform even complex activities, like driving a car, brushing teeth, or typing out a text message, with minimal conscious awareness - with extensive practice, we start to perform them w/o needing to think about them, so our bodies are in one place while our minds seem "elsewhere". - automaticity is essential: we are able to perform many complex behaviors at once while freeing up conscious awareness to do other things

source memory

the ability to recall the context in which we acquired a memory

in severe epilepsy...

the abnormal electrical activity of seizures can originate in one hemisphere and sweep across the corpus callosum to disrupt the activity in the other hemisphere, resulting in neural havoc and often a loss of consciousness

selective attention

the act of focusing one's awareness on a particular aspect of one's experience, to the exclusion of everything else

Which type of data would be better collected by observational methods than by self-reported methods?

the amount of time it takes to help a person pick up dropped papers - most people probably do not think about their behavior in terms of time elapsed, making self-reporting difficult

Which brain region is critical for processing and experiencing the emotional component of memories?

the amygdala - The amygdala is perhaps the most important brain region for any phenomenon in which memory (implicit or explicit) and emotion overlap.

your brain may not be able to retrieve the exact same memory twice

the apparent fallibility of our memories reflects a capacity that has been selected through evolution to be highly adaptive for us. When retrieving a memory, you do so in part by reactivating the neural networks that support the memory. - the recollection of past experience in itself is a new experience, potentially coming with new thoughts, feelings, and context that your brain can update and store.

validity

the appropriateness or accuracy of some claim or conclusion - evaluate 3 diff. types of validity by asking 3 questions about a study: 1) How well did the researchers operationalize the variables? 2) are the people they studied representative of the population of interest? 3) Can we rule out the most plausible alternative explanations?

mean

the arithmetic average of a group of scores, obtained by adding the scores and then dividing by the number of scores

tonotopic organization

the arrangement of the auditory cortex such that nearby frequencies are processed near each other in the brain, resulting in sound map - higher frequencies are processed toward the back of the auditory cortex and lower frequencies toward the fron - when adjacent locations in the human auditory cortex are stimulated before neurosurgery, "nearby" pitches can be heard

null hypothesis

the assumption that there is truly no relationship between variables in the population - the inference process is called null hypothesis significance testing

central tendency

the average: the center of the batch of scores: mean, median, mode

genes

the basic physical and functional units of heredity; made up of DNA - brain is a product of genes and your environment

photons

the basic units of all forms of electromagnetic radiation. they have wavelike properties as they travel through space - our eyes transduce electromagnetic energy from the world into the neural energy of the brain, transforming light into sight - depending on its wavelength, electromagnetic radiation is classified into various types of waves, ranging from radio waves to gamma rays. - human eyes detect just a small sliver of the spectrum of electromagnetic energy (called the "visible" spectrum) - it is the property of the sensory receptors in our eyes that make them visible, not the wavelengths of light - humans have sensory receptors that are tuned to the range of wavelengths from 390-750 nanometers (one-billionth of a meter) but are blind to others

Which structure, found inside the cochlea, is vibrated by the movement of fluid and causes tiny hairlike structures to vibrate in turn?

the basilar membrane - When it receives input from the oval window, fluid inside the cochlea causes the basilar membrane to vibrate. Tiny hairs called cilia then register vibration at different points along the length of the membrane, telling the brain which wavelengths of sound the ear is receiving.

animal rights

the belief that animals have inherent rights equal to those of humans - animals are incapable of providing informed consent

growth mindset

the belief that human personality and behavior can change - better at adjusting their own behavior by setting goals and sticking to them even in the face of setbacks

hormones

the blood-borne chemicals that travel through the circulatory system enabling the brain to regulate the body's activities - released by the endocrine system

imagination inflation

the boost in confidence associated with imagining the misleading information, referred to as imagination inflation - imagining nonexistent actions or events can even create entirely new false memories - people can be made to remember an entirely fictional event as actually having occurred, such as a unique and exciting childhood experience of a hot-air balloon ride. (looking at photo of hot-air balloon ride 50% created false memories)

Ponzo illusion

the brain can use distance cues to influence the interpretation of size - when we see 2 objects. that project on the retina as the same size, but one appears to be farther away, we perceive the farther object as large - these assumptions, which override the retinal image to influence what you perceive, are developed through experience

classical conditioning can also explain how our brains respond to chronic drug use

the brain of a chronic drug user can learn to anticipate the receipt of drugs by adjusting neurotransmitter levels to reduce the impact of the drug - chronic drug users progressively become less responsive to doses of opioids such as heroin, and the brain learns to predict the drug's effect on arrival through the bloodstream - through classical conditioning, chronic drug users form associations with environmental stimuli present when the drugs are administered. Users will take drugs in the same location. The constant envrionmental stimulus serves as a CS. the brain uses this to generate a conditioned response in anticipation of the drug, thereby lessonging its impact. - if the chronic user takes the drug in an unfamiliar environment, the contextual CS is no longer present and the brain does not preemptively adjust its neurotransmitter levels in anticipation of the drugs. - an overdose is much more likely and stronger when the CS is not present because a previously tolerable dose can have a much stronger, and potentially fatal, physiological effect

neural plasticity

the brain's ability to physiologically modify, regenerate, and reinvent itself constantly over the course of a lifetime - 3 key concepts important in understanding neural plasticity: critical periods, damage plasticity, and adult plasticity

perception

the brain's internal dialogue between our expectations and what our sensory receptors detect. - the same perceptual data can lead to different perceptions based on a person's mental perspective - such as seeing a glass half empty or half full.

amino acids

the brain's most abundant class of neurotransmitters - glutamate (important for neuronal excitation and long-term memories) - gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA), important for neuronal inhibition and the regulation of muscle tone)

corpus callosum

the bridge of fibers that connect the two hemispheres - relays neural information between the two hemispheres - supports the contralateral

Suppose you are trying to remember the following memories. Which is an example of a semantic memory? a. the scenery and music during the final shot from your favorite movie b. the calendar date of your father's birthday c. the look on your mother's face when she caught you coming home past your curfew d. getting caught in a downpour so bad it forced you to pull your car over

the calendar date of your father's birthday - Most of us don't remember when we learned our family members' birthdays but, if asked, we "know" them. These are the hallmarks of semantic memories.

At her university's fall activities fair, Delaney walks down aisles of booths advertising all the options for on-campus clubs and activities. Each club is using a unique strategy to draw people to its booth. Which of the following groups is using a secondary reinforcer to reward those who visit?

the campus writing center, which has posted a banner reading, "Want to get better grades?" - Good grades do not satisfy an innate biological need; rather, we have learned to value them through experience. Therefore, they can be considered a secondary reinforcer.

Memory

the capacity to store and retrieve information in order to facilitate learning - not only allows your past to guide decisions in the present, it also helps you predict and navigate the future - it functions and fails bc of 3 basic links in this chain: encoding, storage, and retrieval

glia

the cells that make up the myelin sheath around neurons to insulate, support, and nourish neurons and modulate neuronal function - vacuum neuronal debris; serve as the cellular glue between neurons, giving the brain its jelly-like consistency - essential for brain development - aid in the formation of neural networks (clusters of cells that wrk together as a functional unit) during brain development - help remove unwanted connections and send invitations to make new ones

neurons

the cellular building blocks of the brain that are the basis for your mind and behavior - work within large interacting networks - come in different shapes and sizes, but they are all made up of structures that send electrical signals to and receive electrical signals from other neurons - communicate with each other across small gaps (synapses) using chemical signals called neurotransmitters - there are 10,000 specific neuron types

ion channels

the channels that allow chemical ions to enter and exit the neuronal membrane to generate the voltage for the resting and action potentials - allow positively charged sodium (Na+) into the neuron

neurotransmitters

the chemical messenger released at the terminal branch to allow communication between neurons

instead of criminalizing those addicted to drug use (punishing)....

the clinic approaches addiction through a medical model and rewards responsible usage (reinforcement

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

brain networks

the collections of brain regions that are connected and work together to support brain functions

color circle

the color circle is a more accurate representation of how we perceive color than the straight color spectrum is. Colors on the opposite side of the circle are perceived as most distinct. We also can see purple between red and blue, the high and low ends of the spectrum. - your visual system synthesized a novel color by combining the short-wavelength and long-wavelength ends of the spectrum - the blue and red cone photopigments - to fill the gap and complete the circle. (purple is considered a "psychedelic color bc it is a genuine hallucination of your brain)

iris

the colored muscle circling the pupil - gives the eye its distinctive color - can inc. or dec. the size of the pupil to adjust how light enters the eye (pupil appears black bc most of the light entering the pupil is absorbed)

comparative neuroanatomy

the comparison of brain structures across species - also has to take into consideration the bodies to which brains are connected - body sizes and features have a substantial role in brain development and evolution

association cortex

the cortex that integrates information coming in from the senses with existing knowledge - association areas are present in every lobe

insular lobe

the cortex that is insulated by the overlying cortex; supports the sense of taste and allows perception of the internal organs

primary somatosensory cortex

the cortex that is responsible for the sense of touch - beside primary motor cortex

primary motor cortex

the cortex that is responsible for voluntary movements - beside the primary somatosensory cortex

misinformation effect

the decreased accuracy of episodic memories because of information provided after the event - seeing car stop at yield sign vs seeing car stop at yield sign and then reading of it stopping at a stop sign. Those who read misinformation after the event integrated it into their original memory - can be powerful, resulting in false memories of seeing news footage of a tragic event when no actual footage of the event was ever recorded.

Matari is getting a functional MRI scan as part of a scientific study. Prior to the task, the experimenter tells him to sit tight and do nothing for a few minutes while an initial scan is performed. Which parts of Matari's brain are likely to be more active during this initial scan than when he is later focused on performing the task?

the default mode network - This diffuse network includes regions throughout the brain, which are detectable chiefly by well-coordinated patterns while the participant is awake but unfocused or daydreaming.

reliability

the degree to which a measure yields consistent results each time it is administered (first step in construct validity) - intelligence is assumed to be a fairly stable characteristic (people's scores on intelligence tests should be consistent across multiple testing occasions for an intelligence test to be reliable) - consistency between two observers: same # of laughs consistent between the 2

external validity

the degree to which it is reasonable to generalize from a study's sample to its population of interest - uses random sampling technique to select its sample of participants from the population of interest - another aspect of external validity concerns whether results from one population of interest can generalize to another (studying college students doesn't allow us to generalize to people of all ages) - For a study to have external validity, the sample used must be representative of the population of interest. - do not just test on WEIRD cultures (Wester, Educated, Industrialized, Ruch, and Democratic)

drug tolerance

the diminished response to a drug that results form prolonged use, leading the drug user to require larger doses to achieve the same original effect - comes with costs: financial, potential damager to organs (alcohol with liver)

jet lag

the disorientation that happens when you travel across time zones and your usual sleeping schedule mismatches the environment

retroactive interference

the disruptive effect of new learning on the recall of old information

proactive interference

the disruptive effect of prior learning on the recall of new information - negative transfer: detrimental effect of your past memories on how well you can learn and perform today.

wavelength

the distance between any two consecutive crests or troughs of a wave. - the wavelength of light determines our experience of color

somatic nervous system

the division of the peripheral nervous system that controls the body's skeletal muscles - located in the PNS, largely carries voluntary commands - controls your conscious movements (walking, maintain yoga positions) - includes your skeletal muscles, which are attached to your skeleton

resting membrane potential

the electrical charge of a neuron when it is not active

spacing effect

the enhanced ability to remember information when encoding is distributed over time

neocortex

the evolutionarily newest cerebral cortex that is the largest part of the human brain; supports complex functions, including language, thought, problem solving, and imagination - develops through late adolescence and young adulthood - extensively folded, giving it a wrinkles appearance

phantom limb

the experience of sensations, such as pain, in a limb that no longer exists following its amputation - may be caused by adjacent fingers, whose freshly grown "rots" are tickling the cortex once devotes to the missing fingers

episodic memory

the explicit recollection of personal experience that requires piecing together the elements of that time and place - who, what, when, and where - hippocampus (in medial temporal lobe) is critcal for forming memories of these most personal episodes. hippocampus is your personal time-travel machine -features of episodic memory are present in other animals (birds that remember where and when they stored food). We cannot be sure that the birds consciously remember these food-storing episodes but their behavior suggests that they do

A common sales technique is the "door-in-the-face" technique. To use this technique, the seller first quotes a price that is outlandishly high, knowing the customer will almost certainly refuse. They then follow up with a second, much more reasonable price. Why is this technique usually more successful than simply naming the more reasonable price up front?

the first price changes the customer's reference point, so the lower price seems like a huge savings - By framing the reasonable price as a savings, the seller makes customers feel like they've gained something in the negotiation, even though the seller always intended to settle for the reasonable price.

primary sensory areas

the first regions of the cerebral cortex to receive signals from a sensory organ via its sensory nerve - allow us to perceive what our senses are detecting: touching, seeing, hearing, tasting, and smelling - chemical sensory areas include olfactory (smell) and gustatory (taste)

neurogenesis

the formation of new neurons - known to begin during prenatal development - without the birth of neurons, our genes would not be able to build a brain - creations of new neurons is still debated - shown to continue past early development in : hippocampus and and area lining the brain's ventricles, where neural stem cells originate - even if we grant that adult brains can grow new neurons, there remains skepticism about whether these baby neurons grow up to be fully functioning adult cells of the nervous system that affect behavior - some evidence suggests the hippocampal adult neurogenesis is important for certain forms of learning and memory, and a decreased rate of hippocampal neurogenesis can lead to development of Alzheimer's disease

According to the "Premack principle," one behavior may be reinforced using another, more frequent behavior. When using it with animals (who cannot describe their own preferences), which of the following assumptions is necessary for the principle to be effective?

the frequent behavior that is used as a reinforcer is something that the animal is motivated to engage in - A frequent behavior may not always be enjoyable. An animal that spends a lot of time coughing, for example, may not "enjoy" coughing, but might instead have a lung condition. To use a behavior as a reinforcer, it is important that it not be forced or reflexive.

population of interest

the full set of cases the researcher is interested in

genotype

the genetic makeup of an organism composed of the organism's complete set of genes

deep processing enhances memory

the greatest remembering results from encoding information in way that requires retrieving information about meaning from memory. This is compared to shallow encoding of perceptual information, such as letter case (sight encoding) or producing rhymes (sound encoding)

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 - surveys allow researchers to use a smaller group of people to draw conclusions about the larger group of people they came from - survey researchers usually contact between 1,500 and 2,500 people

amplitude

the height of a wave's crest - related to our experience of intensity or brightness, like the effect of a dimmer on a light switch - measure the quantity (brightness) of light

the learning of cognitive maps must ultimately be supported by changes in the brain

the hippocampal formation is essential not only for learning but also for a spatial representation of the environment, closely linking these 2 functions in the brain - grey matter expands in frequently used brain regions - studies measuring the amount of grey matter in different regions of the brain find that city taxi drivers boast larger hippocampal size the longer they have been driving a taxi - while bigger brains are not necessarily better, this correlational finding suggests that years of practice can lead to brain growth a. London taxi drivers have more gray matter in the hippocampus (shown in yellow) compared with bus drivers. b. more experience driving a taxi is associated with greater volume in the posterior hippocampus, a region associated with spatial memory

rehearsal

the holding of information in the brain through mental repetition

pupil

the hole in the iris where light enters the eye

some psychologists have argued that hypnosis is an extension of ordinary social behavior

the hypnotist influences the subject through the same means of social influence used in everyday life. - means don't involve changing the subject's conscious state of voluntary control - others have looked to the power of social situations - these means don't involve changing the subject's conscious state of voluntary control - Nonhypnotized people can be led to perform all sorts of actions, even ones that they think they would never perform

global workspace hypothesis

the hypothesis that conscious awareness arises from synchronized activity, from across various brain regions, that is integrated into coherent representation of an experience - conscious awareness arises when diverse regions of the brain coordinate and communicate with one another - EEG recording showed that at any given electrode, patterns of brain waves were similar whether the word was consciously or subliminally perceived. When words were consciously perceived, there was a greater synchronization of those brain waves across those electrodes - findings suggest that the key difference between conscious and unconscious thought is the extent to which diverse brain regions are working together - explains why people's conscious awareness temporarily disappears during sleep or under anesthesia for surgery, although the brain remains active.

activation-synthesis hypothesis

the hypothesis that dreams result from the brain's attempt to organize the chaotic patterns of brain activity during sleep into a semicoherent narrative - dreaming involves neural activity, starting from deep in your brain, that spreads and activates random images, sensations, and ideas. Your brain works to weave these together into a coherent story. - during REM sleep, waves of neural activity start in the brainstem, spread upward through the cortex, in the occipital lobe the visual information gets processed (explaining the vivid visual images experiences when dreaming, activation also spreads to areas in the limbic system (associated with emotional experience) and the medial temporal lobe (memory retrieval) - regions of the brain that are responsible for making sense of our experiences get to work synthesizing the random images and sensations into a semi-coherent story

Premack Principle

the idea that activities individuals frequently engage in can be used to reinforce activities that they are less inclined to do - Grandma's rule: you can't eat your dessert (preferred behavior) until you eat your vegetables (less-preferred behavior) - you can't go out with your friends (preferred behavior) until you finish reading this chapter (less-preferred behavior) - it is a frequent behavior that serves to reinforce another less-frequent one; not just the potential pleasure of a behavior that can be used to reward a less-pleasureable behavior - aka: it is not just the joy of the exercise that would reinforce your studying but the fact that it is a frequent behavior

alcohol myopia

the idea that alcohol narrows attention and perception, such that intoxicated people use restricted information in deciding how to think and behave - more likely to act according to a single piece of information and not take into account other, potentially more important pieces of information

law of effect

the idea that behavior is a function of its consequences - actions that are followed by positive outcomes are strengthened, and behaviors that are followed by negative outcomes are weakened - good outcomes = "satisfiers" - bad outcomes = "annoyers" Thorndike posited that we will work, and thus expend energy, to get satisfiers and to escape from annoyers. Thorndike posited that a satisfier or annoyer would work (that is, produce a behavior) only if it was motivating to the learner

bounded rationality (Herbert Simon)

the idea that rational decision making is constrained by limitations in people cognitive abilities, available information, and time; our thinking capabilities are limited - sometimes people turn to others and to technology to work around their limitations (dating websites, books, computer algorithms)

encoding specificity principle

the idea that retrieval is best when the present context recreated the context in which information was initially encoded. - sit in the same seat for lecture, location serves as a retrieval cue for what you learning during class (best to study in multiple locations so that you can recall info not matter where you are) - if all of the original features are not there to "re-collect," memory retrieval can be impaired - ex: After divers learned material either underwater or on land, replication of the original encoding context served as an important cue for better memory retrieval - apparent in many situations

infantile amnesia

the inability of adults to retrieve episodic memories from the first few years of life (usually from birth to age 3-3.5) - children increasingly form lasting memories over the next several years of their lives - when tested early in development, children can remember events from before the age of 3 or 4 years old, yet access to these autobiographical memories declines as children get older. even though children can remember events from toddlerhood, they also appear to have distorted conception of when the event actually occurred. - children postdate their earliest autbiographical memories, so that the remembered events in reality occurred even earlier than the children believe they did.

anterograde amnesia

the inability to transfer information form short-term to long-term memory, preventing new long-term memories from forming.

mood-dependent retrieval

the increased likelihood of remembering when a person is in the same mood during both encoding and retrieval - people are more likely to recall events encoded during a sad mood when they are again sat at retrieval and vice versa

state-dependent retrieval

the increased likelihood of remembering when a person is in the same state during both encoding and retrieval - applies to even altered states , induces or natural - if you study for an exam after a few drinks, you will actually recall the information better if you are drunk when you take the exam

aquisition

the initial learning of association between the unconditioned and conditioned stimuli during classical conditioning - phase where the pairing of the US and the neutral stimulus is introduced. At the beginning of this phase there is no response to the neutral stimulus, but after many pairings, learning increases rapidly as the now CS evokes the CR more reliably, until it reaches a maximum level when the association is fully learned. - learning of conditioned responses is thus not immediate but increases rapidly with repeated exposures

Positron emission tomography (PET)

the injection of radioactive glucose into a person's bloodstream to measure blood flow associated with higher brain activity or the brain's use of specific neurochemicals - active neurons require glucose to function - scientists monitor the radioactive glucose as it moves through the brain via the blood to revel regions of higher brain activity - the radioactive substance decays over a few minutes, and the PET scanner picks up the signals radiating from areas with increased glucose consumption associated with mental activity - pro: indicates WHERE the brain is active and the SPECIFIC CHANGES in the brain chemistry - con: do not yield an exact measurement of time between stimulus onset and brain response

inner ear

the innermost part of the ear, where the cochlea resides.

deep brain stimulation (DBS)

the insertion of an electrode deep in a patient's brain to alter the activity of brain regions that have been abnormally active

Margaret has begun to experience strange sensations of flavor, even when nothing is in her mouth. If her neurologist is concerned that Margaret might have a brain abnormality, which part of the brain would the neurologist likely examine first?

the insular lobe - Sometimes called the insula, this region of cortex includes the primary taste cortex, which could explain Margaret's phantom taste experiences.

substantia nigra

the intersection of the midbrain and the basal ganglia, regulating movement itself and is the origin of abnormality in Parkinson's disease

According to the somatosensory homunculus, which of the following body parts has the largest dedicated portion of the somatosensory cortex?

the lips - The lips and hands are clearly the largest structures in the somatosensory homunculus.

frontal lobe

the lobe located in the front of the hear; contains the primary motor cortex and a map of the body's muscles, essential for movement and planning - the rest of the lobe is the prefrontal cortex: thought, planning, decision making, and self-control

occipital lobe

the lobe that runs along the back portion of the head; contains the primary visual cortex and is largely devoted to vision

temporal lobe

the lobe that runs alongside the ears; contains the primary auditory cortex and is responsible for the ability to hear and understand language

parietal lobe

the lobe that runs alongside the head above and behind the ears; contains the primary somatosensory cortex, supporting a map of the body's skin surface and the sense of touch - helps you pay attention to and locate objects

amnesia

the loss of memory due to brain damage or trauma. - Henry Molaison (H.M.) before his death; memory loss is the most thoroughly documented case study in history

semantic dementia

the loss of memory for meaning in both verbal and nonverbal domains following progressive degenerative disorders such as Alzheimer's disease - difficulty in finding their words, impaired comprehension of words, impaired ability to recognize the relationship between semantically related pictures (closed v. open umbrella). it's as if the underlying meaning is lost when the pictured objects are not visually similar

binocular disparity

the magnitude of differences between the images projected on an individual's 2 eyes. - results in the brain seeing the world in "stereo," it produces the perception of 3D space by comparing the images projected on each eye. - ex: looking at a particular player on the baseball field: object is focused on the right and left fovea equally, so there is no binocular disparity, but the image of the other players are cast onto different positions in each retina, causing binocular disparity - the farther an object is from your line of focus (the fovea), the greater is the different between the images it projects on your 2 eyes. - this info is sent to the brain and contributes to your 3D stereovision. - movie and television use this to do 3D; many species have a larger visual field bc they have eyes on the sides of their head.

Film editors depend on selective attention to ensure that viewers experience movies as continuous, despite changes within and across scenes. However, some changes are more likely to be noticed than others. Imagine a scene that involves the main character eating dinner in a dimly lit restaurant. Which of the following changes is most likely to be noticed by an audience?

the main character's eyeglasses turn to sunglasses from one shot to the next - Selective attention narrows our focus to what matters most, and that focus remains on the faces of the characters for most of a film's runtime. Therefore, a change on the face is much more likely to be noticed.

storage

the maintenance of information in the brain for later access - the maintenance of the encoded information in our brains for later access - duration of this storage can be very brief, lasting for only a blink of an eye, to potentially a lifetime

THC

the major active ingredient in marijuana (also considered a mild hallucinogen), alhough it triggers a variety of other effects as well, including relaxation, euphoria, and heightened sensations of color, smell, sound, and taste. - mimics neurotransmitter called anandamide

spinal cord

the major bundle of nerves encased in your spine that connects your body and your brain - it's a two way street

independent variable

the manipulated variable in an experiment (the hypothesized cause) - found on x-axis

pituitary gland

the master endocrine gland, located at the base of the brain, that in addition to producing its own hormones regulate hormone production in other glands - pair of tiny oval-shaped clusters - sends messages to regulate other endocrine glands throughout the body, modulating hunger, sexual arousal, and via the pineal gland, sleep - communicates with the male and female sex glands (testes and ovaries) to produce sex hormones such as testosterone & estrogen, influencing growth, sexual development, and brain development - also has oxytocin which plays a role in interpersonal trust, romantic love, and reproductive functions related to giving birth

Suppose you are an experimenter, setting up mazes and rewarding rats who make it from one end to the other. You have two mazes, both of which have an identical arrangement of walls. In the first maze, the walls are left blank and featureless. In the second maze, certain walls have unique stickers on them, acting as landmarks. According to Tolman's theories, how should rats' performances in these mazes compare?

the maze with landmarks will be learned more quickly bc the stickers can help with navigation - According to Tolman, rats form "cognitive maps" that represent the layout of the maze. The landmarks should help the rats because they make it clear where in the "big picture" the rat is currently located.

dependent variable

the measured variable in an experiment (the hypothesized effect) - found on y-axis

median

the middle score in a distribution; half the scores are above it and half are below it

absolute thresholds

the minimum amount of stimulus necessary for someone to detect a stimulus half of the time - threshold is the opposite of your sensitivity - the lower the threshold, the higher your sensitivity - perceptual thresholds can change as a result of various factors (thus, graphed would look like an S) - thresholds are not static, but constantly changing (now you hear, now you don't)

difference thresholds (aka just-noticeable difference (JND))

the minimum difference requires between two stimuli for an observer to detect a difference half the time - Ernst Weber: difference thresholds increase as the stimulus size increases - perception of stimulus change is not a fixed absolute but a relative quantity - a percentage

acohol

the most commonly used depressant - 80% Americans>18 have used alcohol, 57% used alcohol within the last month - makes some people feel calm or sleepy, it makes others feel giddy and gregarious, and other aggressive and angry - alcohol's diverse effects stem partly from people's diverse expectations for how alcohol will affect their behavior: people will get sleepy/giddy/aggressive if they expect to get that way - chemical effects on the body effecting behavior: depresses activity in neural circuits that ordinarily control our impulses, preventing us from eating eating an entire box of cookies or walking down the street singing show tunes at high volume - essentially "loosens the breaks" on behavior. if provoked, intoxicated people are more likely to behave aggressively - people are more likely to help others when they've had a couple drinks - depresses activity in areas that help us interpret other people's intentions and emotions

mode

the most frequently occurring score(s) in a distribution

levels of processing

the multiple levels at which encoding can occur, ranging from shallow to deep - refers to the concept that encoding is an active process, which can occur at multiple levels on a continuum form shallow to deep

auditory nerve

the nerve that carries impulses from the inner ear to the brain, resulting in the perception of sound - axons of hair cells from the cochlea are bundled together to form the auditory nerve - action potentials form the hair cells in the cochlea travel through the auditory nerve to the brainstem, which transmits the impulses through the auditory nucleus of the thalamus up to the primary auditory cortex

perception

the neural processing of electrical signals to form an internal mental representation inside your brain of what's on the outside. - further processing of these electrical signals (including organizing, constructing, interpreting sensory information) - although the eyes and other sensory organs detect stimuli, what the eye sees does not alone determine our conscious perceptions. - perception is the job of the brain, they are not direct copies of the sensory world - Perceptions are our brains' beliefs about the sensory world based on prior experiences and the present sensory evidence

the brain "connectome" project

the neurons and synapses in the human brain are divided into thousands of distinct but interacting networks that function in parallel; neuroscientists aim to study each neuron in the human brain and its connections

dissociation

the neuropsychological evidence, following brain damage or a lesion, that a specific brain area is involved in a particular function but not in others - Region X (the eyes) supports function A (seeing) but not other functions (hearing, tasting, smelling)

reuptake

the neurotransmitters are reabsorbed into the presynaptic terminal branches of the neuron that originally released them

frequency

the number of cycles per second of a wave - longer-wavelength light has lower frequency - shorter-wavelength light has higher frequency - measure the quality (color) of light

phenotype

the observable characteristics of an individual resulting from the interaction of genotype and environment - refers to physical characteristics AND other measurable properties (behavior, physiology, mental qualities)

weber's law

the observation that the likelihood of perceiving a stimulus change is proportional to the magnitude of the stimuli - difference between 1-2 seems much larger than the difference between 9-10 - can be applied to our perception of any magnitude change - ratio rather than the absolute amount of the difference

Which of the following structures in the olfactory sensory system is the first along the pathway to display an organized structure, so far as we can currently tell?

the olfactory bulb - The epithelium sends signals to the olfactory bulb, and it is here that the first clear structure emerges in olfaction. Signals are sent to glomeruli, spherical clusters of neurons that respond differently to different types of stimulus.

You read a headline on your newsfeed that states, "Study finds that women are better drivers than men." To consider this study's construct validity, you would want information about which of the following?

the operational definition of "good driver" - Construct validity is how well a study conceptualizes its variables, so you would want to know how it measured "good driving."

contralateral

the opposite-side organization of the brain, whereby one side of the body is connected to and controlled by the opposite brain hemisphere - applies to how the brain sees, feels

cerebral cortex

the outermost layer of tissue in your brain - gives you excellent cognitive skills and the ability to experience complex emotions - supports your sense of your mind and self - built around the inner, evolutionarily older parts of the brain

framing

the particular way that na issue, decision, or set of options is described. Framing can change decisions by shifting the decision maker's reference point

Which of the following relationships between a sample and a population of interest would allow us to have confidence in the results of a survey?

the people in the sample closely resemble the people in the population

pitch

the perceptual quality of sound that makes a flute sound high and a tuba low - change in the quality rather than the quantity of energy (contrasts with amplitude)

refractory period

the period of time required for a neuron to return to its resting state before it can fire another action potential (neuron needs a few milliseconds to recharge and be ready to fire again)

adaptation

the phenomenon whereby an individual stops noticing a stimulus that remains constant over time, resulting in enhanced detection of stimulus changes - with constant exposure to any stimulus, neurons fire less frequently - striking consequences of adaptation are aftereffects: opposing distortion that occur after adaptations

color constancy

the phenomenon whereby the brain adjusts its perception of color to hold it constant, taking into account changes in lighting conditions - you visual system can accommodate these shifts in illumination - the brain uses contextual cues to adjust its perception of color, taking into account the presence of shadows - it knows that the same color in the context of light vs. shadow should be perceived as different shades.

size constancy

the phenomenon whereby the brain adjusts its perception of distance in order to perceive an object's actual size as constant, taking into account changes in retinal size - objects that are farther away project onto a smaller portion of the retina than closer objects of the same size

optic chiasm

the point in the brain where the visual field information from each eye "crosses over" to the appropriate side of the brain for processing - information from each of the optic nerves diverges, like trains switching tracks - axons coming from the left side of each retina are diverted to the left hemisphere of the brain. Axons from the right side of each retina are diverted to the right hemisphere of the brain. These axons arrive in a specialized visual nucleus of the thamalus and then continue on to the primary visual cortex (visual sensory receiving area in the occipital lobe)

repolarization

the portion of the action potential during which the neuron returns to its resting potential

middle ear

the portion of the ear containing the eardrum and ossicles

What change to the way neurons behave is typically associated with long-term potentiation (LTP)?

the postsynaptic cell becomes more sensitive to stimulation

Hypnosis also cannot make people perform acts that they couldn't be persuaded to perform when not hypnotized

the power of hypnosis comes not from some magical ability of the hypnotist to control the subject, but from the willingness of the subject to trust and accept the hypnotist's suggestions.

open science

the practice of sharing one's data, materials, analysis plans, and published articles freely so others can collaborate, use, verify, and learn about the results

perceptual set

the predisposition that influences what we perceive based on recent experience or context. - mental predisposition that influences (from the top down) what we perceive based on the sensory inputs (from the bottom up) - using top-down perceptual hypotheses, our brains attempt to tell a coherent, complete story of our surroundings by taking into account recent experience or context, unconsciously biasing the way we perceive the world - emotional cues have a powerful influence on our perceptions, but even subtle environmental cues can lead us to make assumptions about what we might reasonably expect to see or feel - perceptual sets frequently influence our perceptions in the short term by using recent experience or context to guide our perceptions - over the long term, maintained sets can result in perceptual learning, causing enduring changes in how our brains support perception.

positive punishment

the presentation of a negative stimulus, leading to a decrease in the frequency of a behavior - getting a ticket for speeding

positive reinforcement

the presentation of a positive stimulus, leading to an increase in the frequency of a behavior - giving children stickers for hard work - hug and appreciation for bring mom flowers

inverted spectrum problem

the problem of accounting for the fact that people's color experiences could be very different even though they are functionally equivalent - imagine that your bff's color vision differs in some subtle way that makes her experience of color the perfect inverse of yours... such tests could reveal that her visual system responds to light exactly the same as yours does, but that wouldn't mean that her subjective experience was identical

neurogenesis

the process by which new brain cells are born in adult brains - may be involved in the formation of new memories - may be related to stress and depression - likely will open treatments for traumatic brain injury, stroke, and neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's disease

sensation

the process by which our sensory organs receive stimulus energies from the environment and convert them into the electrical energy of the nervous system (transduction) - sensations merge together in the brain to determine your perceptual experience of coffee

shaping

the process by which random behaviors are gradually changed into a desired target behavior by what is called reinforcement of successive approximations - shaping starts simply, with a behavior that is vaguely similar to the target behavior, and then builds in complexity until the target behavior is achieved - rat in skinner box, dispense food as rat got closer until it pulled lever - still used with other animals. used in commercials and movies, parents use to get toddler to use the toilet, clinicians use to get spider phobics to touch a tarantula

retrieval

the process of bringing to mind previously encoded and stored information - occurs when we access information stored in the brain from past experiences

retrieval

the process of bringing to mind previously encoded and stored information, is the last stage of memory - for the most part, it happens smoothly, but we are not always able to access the information we store. Trying to access our memory can be chaotic, circuitous process of retrieving related, but incorrect, information - through retrieval, we can dig up and dust off memories that we may not have accessed for decades

introspection

the process of examining one's own internal thoughts and feelings. - useful tool that takes advantage of humans' remarkable ability to think about their own thinking, called metacognition - ask people to observe and describe their own experiences - involves self-report (thus suffers the same limitations as any self-report measure) - many limitations: people don't know what they are thinking (recognizing objects, words, and people requires complex and important mental computations that occur without our conscious awareness)

chunking

the process of grouping stimuli together in chunks in working memory to increase the amount of information stored in short-term memory. - allows us to overcome the limited amount of information we can retain in short-term memory, to make it impressively large. - bc short-term memory involves meaning rather than arbitrary units, making these connections reduces what needs to be stored in memory. - ex: perceptual organization.

restructuring

the process of reorganizing one's understanding of a problem to facilitate a solution

encoding

the process of taking information from the world, including our internal thoughts and feelings, and converting it to memories - occurs as we first perceive information in our environment and, in concert with our thoughts and feelings, convert it into a form ready for storage

theory-data cycle

the process of the scientific method, in which scientists collect data that can either confirm or disconfirm a theory - steps: theory, hypothesis, design, collect data, compare (begin cycle again) - allows us to objectively decide whether theories are correct and when they need to be changed - involves developing a theory about what people do and collecting data that are compared with the theory- the data either confirm or disconfirm the theory

scientific method

the process that scientists/empiricists use of basing one's confidence in an idea on systematic, direct observations of the world, usually by setting up research studies to test ideas - ex: they might measure some aspect of behavior across many people to test ideas about what people do, on average, and why they do it - follows the theory-data cycle

consolidation

the process whereby memory storage is integrated and becomes stable in the brain - it occurs after experiences have passed, working behind the scenes on building a stable, enduring memory in your brain. - w/o consolidation, there would be no storage and thus no memories to be recalled, resulting in amnesia. Like a glue that needs time to set, memory consolidation is a time-dependent biological process whereby memories are built.

dual-processing theories

the proposal that people have 2 types of thinking that they can use to make judgments and decisions: one that is slower, more effortful, and leads to more thoughtful and rational outcomes (controlled system), and one that is fast, fairly effortless, and leads to decent outcomes most of the time (automatic system)

imitation

the purposeful copying of a goal-directed behavior - within the first days/weeks of meeting other humans, infants imitate facial actions such as mouth openeing and tongue protrusions - observational learnign through imitation might be our first teacher, and through it we continue to learn important lessons for the rest of our lives - observational learning of motor skills may depend on mental simulation of the actions - a silent act of imitation by the motor cortex

timbre

the quality of sound determined by complexity of waves - almost all sounds are made up of many cumulative waves - similar to the way the # of light wavelengths influences the purity of a color, the complexity of sound allows us to experience the psychological quality of timbre - explained by how we can tell two instruments apart even when they are playing the same pitch

Interhemispheric transfer

the rapid exchange of information between the two hemispheres. - corpus callosum allows this

spontaneous recovery

the reappearance of an extinct behavior after a delay - dogs salivate the next day when Pavlov rang the bell - If after many subsequent delay periods no US was ever presented, extinction would prevail and spontaneous recovery would no longer occur, although the association may not have been fully forgotten.

electroencephalography (EEG)

the recording of electrical waves from many thousands of neurons in the brain, gathered using electrodes placed on the scalp - EEG waves come in different sizes and rhythms - EEG rhythms are most often used to diagnose brain states (sleep or wakefulness; joy or sadness) - can also predict seizure onsets to warn someone before they occur - pro: provide WHEN events are happening - con: prevent us from knowing precisely WHERE all the signals originate

dishabituation

the recovery of a response that has undergone habituation, typically as a result of the presentation of a novel stimulus - Dishabituation occurs when a response that was weakened by habituation is restored to its initial strength, so that the person responds to the old stimulus as if it were new again - different than sensory adaptation - your brain reorients to the initially startling car alarm to ensure that it has not become important after the cell phone rings.

Imagine that a metaphor for a neuron's action potential firing is the process of a chain of dominos falling. When dominos fall, they can't fall again until someone sets them back up. What would we call the interval of time needed to set the dominos back up?

the refractory period - During the refractory period, the neuron can't fire because it is resetting its electrical potential, just as the dominos can't fall until they're set up again.

primary somatosensory cortex

the region of the brain where the processing of touch sensations occur. - organized in such a way that sensations in particular body regions correspond to specialized adjacent regions of the cortex, consistent with a topographic representation (there is a somatosensory map of your hand in your brain) - larger regions of the body do not necessarily correspond to larger regions of the somatosensory cortex; instead, the most important areas get the most cortical real estate (tip of index finger gets much more representation than larger expanses of skin) Touch is processed in the somatosensory cortex. (b) It is organized according to the topography of the body, supporting a map of the entire body in the brain.

primary olfactory cortex

the region of the brain, located in the anterior temporal lobe, where smell is processed. - is the piriform cortex, and evolutionarily older cortical region on the inside of the temporal lobe that is adjacent to the amygdala and hippocampus. - olfactory sensations bypass the thalamus and connect directly with the primary olfactory cortex, as well as the components of the limbic system, suggesting that smells are linked with emotions (the amygdala) and memory (the hippocampus)

primary auditory cortex

the region of the brain, located in the temoral lobe, where sound is processed - place-frequency maps are found here too - adjacent places on the basilar membrane are represented in adjacent parts of the primary auditory cortex, making a "mind's ear" similar to a piano keyboard

visual association cortex

the region of the bran where objects are reconstructed from prior knowledge and information collected by the feature detectors. - located at the border of the occipital and temporal lobes (where the elements, or visual features, such as angles, lines, and edges are glued together and organized into basic shapes) - patients with damage to these brain regions are not blind but fail at drawing even basic shapes bc they have great difficult in organizing the details of their perception

negative reinforcement

the removal of a negative stimulus, leading to an increase in the frequency of a behavior - drink to relieve thirst, eat to relieve hunger, take pain medication to relieve a headache - negative reinforcement is NOT punishment, because it increases the likelihood of a behavior

negative punishment

the removal of a positive stimulus, leading to a decrease in the frequency of a behavior - losing your license for too many speeding tickets

If data collected in a study do not confirm a hypothesis, which of the following is likely to happen?

the researchers will change the theory a little bit, and test the revised theory in a new study - When data don't support the theory, the researchers might need to change the theory. Alternatively, researchers might take the information from the study and try to redesign the study by measuring more carefully or collecting a larger sample of participants.

unconditioned response (UR)

the response that is automatically generated by the unconditioned stimulus - always the same as conditioned response - saliva in Pavlov study

forgetting curve

the retention of information over various delay times - showed that memories are not forgotten at a constance rate over time. Instead, the course of forgetting is initially rapid and then levels off - consistent with the testing effect, with repeated retrieval practive of the syllable lists, the rate and amount of his forgetting was slowed to the point of almost perfect retention - basics: we soon forget more than we remember

Many animals besides humans benefit from observational learning, especially when young animals learn by observing the behaviors of their parents and other adults. What is the major evolutionary advantage of being able to learn in this way?

the risk associated with learning complex and dangerous behaviors can be minimized - By observing an adult demonstrate the basic patterns associated with a complex behavior, a young animal can greatly reduce the range of behaviors it needs to explore to master a skill. Offspring that avoid the kinds of errors that would result in injury or death are therefore much more likely to survive.

cognitive psychology

the scientific study of mental activities and how they operate

2. Retention

the second stage of imitating actions; the encoding of information for future memory retrieval is often assisted by verbal descriptions or images - taking notes: act as reminder to practice certain aspects of a new technique in between lessons

olfaction

the sense of smell - a chemical sense bc the nose is designed to absorb airborne molecules - most complicated and puzzling sense - 1,000 types of receptor proteins embedded in the tiny hairs, called olfactory cilia, on the olfactory receptor neurons (which reside in the epithelium)

gustation

the sense of taste - a chemical sense bc the tongue relays information when it is stimulated directly by chemicals from food. - mediates what enters into our bodies and thus is the last line of defense against eating things that are bad for us (toxins, disease vectors) - we come into the world with robust taste preferences to protect our bodies and guide us toward nutrient-rich foods. - sweetness is associated with nutritious foods, and bitterness is associated with toxicity - culture does come to alter preferences tho - taste is derived from multiple receptors on the tongue - little bumps on your tongue are taste buds, each containing tiny invisible pores that catch food particles - as in the other sensory systems, the brain identifies a particular taste by the pattern of activation across recetor types

tacile sense

the sense of touch - perhaps the most obvious facet of our somatosensory system - determined by multiple receptors in the sin, or epidermis - each of these receptors is specialized to pick up and transduce a particular form of physical energy from the environment into electrical impulses, which are all sense in parallel and sent to the brain for analysis - major sensations detected in the skin are pressure, temperature, vibration, and pain

kinesthesis

the senses responsible for monitoring the position and movement of the body, including proprioception and the vestibular system - with practice, athletes gain an extremely fine-tuned awareness of their bodies and the tools that they use in sports, which allow them incredible control and precision

vestibular system

the sensory system primarily responsible for balance - consists of fluid-filled semicircular canals in the inner ear that relay information about body and head movements to the brain to help maintain balance, connected to the cochlea. movement of this fluid triggers hair cells that sense messages to the cerebellum - if you spin for a while and then stop quickly, it takes some time for the fluid in your inner ear to stop swirling

proprioception

the sensory system responsible for the awareness of body position - in pitch darkness, your body is not rendered blind but retains a sense of the position of its parts - tells you where to fumble for your keys and which direction the door is in - sensors in the joints, tendons, bones, ears, and skin enable you to know where parts of your body are in space and in relation to one another without having to visually check (alcohol can impair this)

split-brain procedure

the severing of the corpus callosum to reduce the spread of seizures across the brain hemispheres

adult plasticity

the shaping and reshaping of neural circuits throughout adulthood, which occur every day as you experience your world - remapping and cortical expansion are at work in your hippocampus when you are learning to navigate complex city streets - the auditory and motor cortex expand when you practice playing a musical instrument

acuity

the sharpness or specificity or perception, supporting the discrimination of stimuli. (n.) sharpness (particularly of the mind or senses)

morphemes

the smallest unit of language that carries bits of meaning. Morphemes include words and also word parts like prefixes and suffixed that change a word's meaning. - ex: "ing" or "-s"

phonemes

the smallest unit of language, such as the individual sounds that make up speech - ex: dog = "d", "o", and "g" - 869 different phonemes in human speech

Amisha is reading on the sun deck of a cruise ship. Music is playing nearby, and she can smell the chlorine of the nearby swimming pool. After a while, she becomes seasick from the movement of the ship, resulting in serious nausea. Which of the following stimuli is likely to make her feel queasy at a later time?

the smell of the pool - Humans and many other mammals are biologically prepared to strongly associate both taste and smell with nausea because these senses are closely connected with food.

divisions of the peripheral nervous system

the somatic nervous system and the autonomic nervous system

human bipedalism

the somatosensory cortical area devoted to the hands is much larger than the area devoted to the feet. This results in us standing and walking on two feet, which frees up the hands for various specialized tasks.

construct validity

the specific assessment of how accurately the operationalizations used in a study capture the variables of interest - also means how well an independent variable was manipulated - is survey researchers operational well-being, they might use the ladder-of-life measure. this accurately measures well-being, so the variable has construct validity - if the study used self-report questions, we would look carefully at how clearly the questions were worded

operational definitions

the specific way of measuring or manipulating an abstract variable in a particular study - usually means turning variable into a number - ex: turning aggression into a concrete, quantifiable and measured variable - measured variable can be operationalized in many ways: self-report, direct observation, etc. - sometimes use technology for variables that are not easily observable (measure BAC)

glomeruli

the spherical cluster of neurons in the olfactory bulb - receptors in the glomeruli clusters are not randomly distributed. the bulb contains a patchwork of glomeruli - a map organized by receptor types, but this map is not clear yet bc during olfaction, many receptor types are simultaneously stimulated

Consequences

the stimuli after the behavior that either increase the likelihood that the behavior will be repeated or decrease the likelihood that the behavior will be repeated. - antecedents for our behavior, enable us to predict the consequences of that behavior

antecedents

the stimuli that precede the behavior and signal the consequence - when a traffic light is green, stepping on it is good. when red, stepping on it is bad. the color of the light is the antecedent (A) stimulus that indicates the likely consequences of your behavior - whether it will produce good or bad effects

detecting a stimulus depends on...

the strength of the stimulus and the perceiver's sensitivity as well as - psychological, situational, and personality factors (these can all cause problems for psychophysicists)

liberal response bias

the students who are motivated to get the highest score, so they say they hear everything, demonstrating hearing better than a dogs - respond "yes" more than "no" - more hits and false alarms

conservative response bias

the students with higher thresholds who are motivated to be accurate, so they don't say they have heard the tone until they are absolutely sure - respond "no" more than "yes" - in both cases, the respondents' true sensitivity may be the same, but it is masked by their biases - more misses and correct rejections

replication

the study has been conducted more than once on a new sample of participants and found the same basic results

behavioral genetics

the study of how genetic factors influence trait variation (difference in characteristics) between individuals, whether that trait is something visible (height) or more abstract but measurable (emotional stability)

neuroscience

the study of how nerves and cells send and receive information from the brain, body, and spinal cord - can help you understand how you perceive, remember, think, and feel about yourself and others

epigenetics

the study of how the interactions between your genes and the environment regulate your gene expression - phenotype influences, and is influences by both the environment and genetic expression

neuropsychology

the study of the brain's workings; done by examining the brain's altered function following brain damage - use bc it's unethical to intentionally injure healthy human brains; rely on unfortunate cases of accidental brain damage to learn about the functions of different brain regions

psychophysics

the study of the relationship between the physical characteristics of environmental stimuli and our mental experience of them. - scientist Gustav Fechner developed a set of methods to objectively measure people's subjective perceptual experiences

b. HARKing (questionable practice)

the study reveals an unexpected result, but the researcher writes about the study as if the result had been predicted all along - alternative, transparent practice: preregistration in which researchers publish the hypothesis and study design before data collection and analysis begins - others have more confidence in the strength of the evidence

Why do we experience jet lag when we travel to a different time zone?

the suprachiasmatic nucleus can only gradually adjust its clock to match a new schedule - The SCN acts as the body's master timekeeper, keeping the rest of the body in sync, but it can only adjust its own clock a bit at a time.

peripheral nervous system (PNS)

the system composed of the nerves outside of the brain and spinal cord; connects the parts of your body to your brain - bidirectional

central nervous system (CNS)

the system composed of your brain and spinal cord ; information from your body travels to your brain by way of the nerves in your spinal cord

belief perserverance

the tendency for people to resist changing their beliefs, even when faced with disconfirming evidence - participants tended to perceive whatever evidence supported their initial belief as more credible and persuasive than opposing evidence - seeing both sides of the issue only strengthened whatever participants had previously believed - findings suggest that once we think we know something, it can be difficult to unknow it.

overgeneralization

the tendency to interpret a single negative event as a never-ending pattern of defeat and failure - when generalization goes too far - stopped to look for cars everything you heard any sound

confirmation bias

the tendency to look for and weigh evidence that confirms preexisting beliefs more strongly than evidence that is inconsistent with those beliefs - peter wason with 2-4-6 rule

loss aversion

the tendency to make choices, including riskier ones, that minimize losses - When the options in the "disease problem" are framed in terms of loss (people dying), people prefer the option that gives them some chance of avoiding the loss. - leads people to cling tightly to what they have, for fear of losing it.

generalization

the tendency to respond to stimuli that are similar to the conditioned stimulus, so that learning is not tied too narrowly to a specific stimulus - the greater the similarity between the 2 stimuli, the more likely they are to be generalized - can be adaptive in our everyday life: walking or driving, you respond when you hear a car horn, even if you haven't hear that specific one before

other race effect (ORE)

the tendency to see individuals of other races as more similar looking and harder to distinguish than people of one's own racial background. - this lapse in recognition arises from our brain's limited perceptual expertise - young children do not demonstrate the ORE, but as they develop increasing face recognition expertise up to early adulthood, the ORE emerges - the ORE may contribute to racism toward other people to whom we have little exposure and who therefore look different form "us". - seems to occur bc perceptual learning tunes our brain's neurons toward picking up on features that help us distinguish the kinds of individuals we have seen in our environment - ORE may be so powerful that it is similar to prosopagnosia, the severe deficit in facial identity recognition following brain damage, although the ORE results from lack of perceptual experience rather than from injury.

hindsight bias

the tendency, once some outcome is known, to overestimate the likelihood that one would have predicted that outcome in advance - can reduce by asking physicians to provide specific reasons why each of the possible diagnoses might be correct

interference theory

the theory that people forget not because memories are lost from storage but because other information gets in the way of what they want to remember - forgetting in long-term memory is related not to the passage of time but to interference created by integrating new and old information in the brain as time passes - G.E. Muller and A. Pilzecker showed that forgetting and the influence of interference are heightened with increasing similarity between the to-be-remembered items and the interfering stimuli - can come from either existing memories from your past or the acquisition of new information

cultural transmission

the transfer of information from one generation to another that is maintained not by genetics, but by teaching and learning - passed on by subsequent generation

transduction

the transformation of sensory stimulus energy from the environment into neural impulses (then sent to brain via sensory nerves) - the process of transduction into electrical energy is different for each sensory organ - sensory-specific process of transduction such as light activates the receptors in your eyes and not the receptors in your ears

horizontal transmission

the transmission of skills between peers - pick the right friends, they have an impact on you

vertical transmission

the transmission of skills from parent to offspring - ex: when children learn a language from their parents

inactivation

the transmitter is either taken back into the terminal or inactivated in the synaptic cleft - diffusion, degradation, and reuptake - these processes stop neurotransmitters from continuing to stimulate the postsynaptic neuron and therefore terminate the chemical message

gene expression

the turning on and off of genes in a particular cell to determine how that cell functions - experiences can directly influence your gene expression (genes and behaviors are a to-way street)

TMS

the use of strong magnets to briefly interrupt normal brain activity as a way to study brain regions - interrupts signals from your brain to various parts of your body - used to create a map of the brain

cognitive unconscious

the various mental processes that support everyday functioning without conscious awareness or control -support ordinary perception, memory, and thinking w/o conscious awareness or attention - can influence conscious behavior, often without us realizing it (dichotic listening)

Gestalt principles (connectedness, closure, continuity, similarity, proximity, synchrony)

the visual system uses these rules to rapidly asses the environment and organize it into structured objects - we do encounter exception to the rules that can trick our visual systems into seeing situations that are impossible in reality

voltage threshold

the voltage necessary for a neuron to start an action potential (around -50 millivoltes) - results in a series of action potentials carrying the electrical signal down the axon to the terminal branches

social learning theory (by albert bandura)

theory stating that learning is a cognitive process derived from social observation, rather than direct reinforcement of motor actions - children learn behavior through social learning which involved main processes: attention, retention, motor reproduction, and reinforcement

there are no colors in the world

there are only wavelengths - but humans perceive these different length waves of light as a distinct quality we call color

You and your roommate are discussing the results of a study that found a negative relationship between the number of minutes people spend on social media during a person's first week of college and their satisfaction with life during their fourth week of college. Which criterion for causation prevents you from concluding that social media usage causes lower life satisfaction?

there may be alternate explanations for the relationship between social media usage and life satisfaction - Although there is a relationship between the two variables and temporal precedence between them has been established, it is possible that other third variables may be responsible for the relationship.

In what way are means and standard deviations similar to one another?

they are both examples of descriptive statistics - Both means and standard deviations summarize participants' different responses. - Incorrect: they are both examples of measures of variablility

How are the r statistic and the d statistic similar?

they are both measures of the size of an effect - Both r (effect size) and d (correlation coefficient) indicate the strength of the relationship between two variables.

What do the EEG and MEG imaging methods have in common?

they are precise in detecting WHEN brain activity occurs, but they are imprecise in detecting WHERE brain activity occurs - Because these tools offer high temporal resolution, they are ideal for detecting whole-brain patterns over time (for example, brain waves), but they are limited in their ability to determine the specialized functions of different brain regions.

patients with damage their ventromedial frontal cortex

they function well intellectually (memories and reason work) but they lack an ability to associate affective reactions to "good" or "bad" with the possible consequences of their actions making it more difficult to know how to act - unable to properly evaluate the emotional consequences of their actions (Elliot): also feel nothing of the results so do not learn from mistakes

Although hallucinogens vary dramatically in their effects and long-term consequences, most have which following feature in common?

they generally influence serotonin signaling - Serotonin is most famous for its role in mood, but manipulating it can lead to distorted sensory experiences as well.

The brief retention of sensory impressions demonstrates the observed phenomenon of neural persistence. Which of the following is a good description of how neurons that have sensory inputs manifest this persistence?

they remain active for a fraction of a second after the input stops - "Persistence" here means "past the end of the stimulus," but the duration of that persistence is still very brief.

A debate is organized and the audience is evenly divided with respect to which side they agree with. Assuming both debaters have roughly equal skill, what is the likely outcome for the audience?

they will tend to leave the debate even more persuaded of their prior views than when they arrived - Thanks to belief perseverance, presenting both sides of an argument equally tends to polarize people, because they treat confirming evidence as being more persuasive and contradictory evidence as less persuasive.

Which is an example of perceptual decoupling?

thinking about something someone said at work while driving home - Even though our bodies and senses are engaged in a high-stakes, fast-reaction-time activity (i.e., driving), we are able to shift some share of our awareness to unrelated thoughts without going off the road.

Which of the following scenarios depicts the influence of top-down processing in taste perception?

thinking that a $90 chocolate bar tastes better than a $1 chocolate bar, even if they are made of the exact same chocolate - The expectation that we are getting a higher-quality product can influence how we perceive its overall quality. This is top-down processing.

3. motor reproduction

third step to imitating actions; helps reinforce a skill as the learner physically imitates the model's actions - although you see people drive your whole life, it is not until you drive that the skill becomes solidified in your own behavior

children can learn better with reinforcement than with punishment

this has important implication for education - Compared with adults, children showed (a) greater learning during positive (success) relative to negative (failure) performance feedback and (b) greater activity in executive function and cognitive control regions.

people who are more creative exhibit more instinct learning or "aha!" moments

this is because they exhibit distinct brain activity compared with individuals who approach problems methodically - insight learning, like latent learning, may be associated with seeing the big picture rather than focusing on the details

neurobiological short-term memory

this is different from psychologists version. Neuroscientists study how a neurobiological event results in memories that can either fade quickly or endure for long periods of time. - when forgotten in less than an hour, it is associated only with short-term presynaptic changes, resulting in more release of the neurotransmitter.

people dream about what is familiar and relevant to them

this suggest continuity between the waking and dreaming self - musicians are 2x as likely as nonmusicians to have dreams about music

Perceptions of alcohol use often differ substantially from actual consumption rates, partly due to personal experience and partly due to media representations. Which of the following groups of people has the most common level of alcohol consumption for American adults over the last month?

those who drank alcohol but didn't binge drink - About a third of American adults (32 percent) drink socially but do not generally consume more than four drinks per sitting. The vast majority (75%) of American adults haven't drunk heavily in the last month, and over two in five (43%) have not drunk at all in the last month.

other studies have compared people undergoing a weeks-long or months-long meditation program with those who are on the waitlist for the program

those who meditateed for 3 months at a retreat setting reported more self-control and sense of purpose compared to the control group - blood tests showed that the meditators had more of a blood enzyme that is believed to protect immune cells - problem with this methodological approach is that the meditators could be doing a number of other things besides meditating like eating, exercizing, etc. meditators could also be benefiting from the expectation that meditation will be helpful or from the positive relationship they are forming with their meditation teacher

front lobe main functions

thought, planning, movement

the encoding specificity principle can often backfire during exams

times when you have studied a lot but cant retrieve that info during the exam - possible that you have not studied in a way that allows for more than one cue to retrieve the answer. So when a cue other than the one used to study is given on the exam, you cannot retrieve the correct information - encoding specificity provides the correct search terms or retrieval cues to find your files, so you do not have to randomly search through all of the folders in your hard drive

researchers have also tried to harness the power of classical conditioning - specifically, conditioned taste aversion - to help cancer patients

to prevent widespread conditioned taste aversions, patients ate a "scapegoat" food with a unique flavor, such as root beer ice, before every treatment. Patients who successfully linked the scapegoat food to the nausea experienced 30% reduction of aversion toward other foods

parietal lobe main functions

touch, spatial relations

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 - Transduction comes after sensation and before perception.

weber's fraction

triangle I/I, where triangle - minimum change and I = physical intensity or magnitude of the stimulus - JND is captures in the Weber fraction (the ratio of the minimum change in magnitude of the stimulus to the overall magnitude of the stimulus)

trial and error

trying actions or strategies at random until they find something that works - Thomas Edison is said to have used this approach often in making some of his most important discoveries (light bulb)

Marion recently saw a horror movie in which the killer disposes of bodies by feeding them to pigs. Marion found the scene so upsetting that she had to leave the theater. Now, when she sees a pig, she feels intense anxiety, bordering on panic. According to classical conditioning, what is the appropriate term for the distress that caused Marion to walk out of the movie?

unconditioned response - At the time of viewing the film, Marion viewed a scene (the US) that made her feel intense emotional distress (the UR). Now, pigs in general (the CS) cause her to feel anxiety (the CR).

unconscious intro

unconscious aspects of your mind can monitor, understand, and respond to aspects of your experience without your awareness

When blocking was first described, it was very surprising to learning theorists. What feature of blocking made it so unexpected?

under certain circumstances, 100% of a cue's presentations can be followed by an event without an association forming between the cue and the event - Even though one cue is "perfectly predictive" of the event (whether it be food or an electric shock), it will not be learned if an existing association with another cue already perfectly predicts the event.

withdrawal

unpleasant physical symptoms that result when a person is physically dependent on a drug and its effects wear off -signals physical dependence: the person now needs the drug for the body to function more or less normally - can also experience psychological dependence: strong desire to use the drug again, even after the withdrawal symptoms have faded

belief perspective

unwilling to take into account new/contradictory evidence to our belief

experimental method use/limitations/strengths

used for: testing whether one variable causes another - limitations: can only examine a few variables in one study; NOT all variables can be manipulated - strengths: can establish a causal direction of a relationship

EEG (electroencephalogram)

used to record a night's sleep to reveal different patterns of brain activity that each mark different sleep stages - measures brain activity

amphetamines

used to treat specific psychological disorders, including narcolepsy and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). (methylphenidate, e.g. ritalin, is another stimulant often used to treat ADHD). - meant to be prescribed by physicians, but sometimes used recreationally or by people w/o health problems who want to enhance their ability to focus. (11-43 % of college students report using someone else's prescription amphetamines, mostly to enhance their academic performance)

Diffusion tensor imaging (DTI)

variation of MRI; an imaging method that uses a modified MRI scanner to reveal bundles of myelinated axons in the living human brain - allows researchers to assess the size and direction of the connections between brain regions - allows us to make detailed maps of the connections between the brain regions

2 major pathways in the visual brain

ventral and dorsal visual pathways - which originate from the retinal cones and rods - ventral pathway travels along the temporal lobe - dorsal pathway ultimately joins the parietal lobe

Kittens learn to hunt with the help of their mothers, who engage in various behaviors to give their offspring the chance to learn how to fend for themselves. This includes bringing them injured prey animals to practice on. What is this sort of learning an example of?

vertical transmission - Transmission is "vertical" when it goes from parent to offspring. The special bond kittens have with their mothers is driven by maternal instinct, which is seen in many species.

occipital lobe main functions

vision

the sense of balance is informed by...

vision and the vestibular system - you can disrupt your sense of balance by cutting off visual information - your sensory systems are constantly conferring with and influencing one another to help you construct a more complete and informed picture of your surroundings than would be possible with any one sense alone.

ventriloquist effect

visual cues inform auditory signals so that they seem to come from the moving mouth of a dummy sitting in a ventriloquist's lap - a tendency to mislocalize heard sounds onto a seen source of potential sounds

basics of the properties of light on the color spectrum

wavelength = hue (large wl = red, small wl = purple) amplitude = intensity (too much = white, too little = black) color purity = grey to saturated hue (small to large) - i think frequency is inverse to wavelength

direct observation

way to operationalize a variable - measure aggressive behavior by observing them (kids on a playground at recess); could count behaviors such as punching, kicking, and shoving - use computer based tools: GPS devices, smart phones, social media tools

human ear structure

we rely on the structure of our ears to better funnel sound into the ear canal - our ears are separated into the outer, middle, and inner ear. the structures in the ear have evolved to collect and amplify air pressure waves and transduce them into sound - visible section of the ear: pinna or outer ear has evolved its shape to capture sound waves

Taste experience is multisensory

what we perceive as taste is actually a multisensory experience (touch, smell, hearing, sight) - when we eat, simultaneous stimulation of the mouth region of the somatosensory cortex evokes touch sensations in the mouth (texture plays a role too, not.just taste) - the experience of flavor itself does not occur on the tongue alone but is a combination of taste and smell - perceived crunchiness of foods like granola is mostly an auditory sensations - spicy "heat" is not a taste but rather a somatosensory experience, similar to texture)

McGurk Effect

when a speaker's lip movements actually change what we hear. - an error in perception that occurs when we misperceive sounds because the audio and visual parts of the speech are mismatched.

opioid tolerance

when brain requires higher and higher doses of the drugs to achieve the same effect - user becomes dependent on the drug, which leads to daily drug use to avert the unpleasant symptoms of drug withdrawal, (bone and body aches, tremors, racing heart, vomiting)

synchronous neural activity

when different brain regions association with an experience become active at the same time, they are more likely to be bound together in conscious awareness. Attention is proposed to play a key role in causing different brain regions to synchronize. - a key function of attention may be to bind together the different aspects of an experience

backfire effect

when faced with contradictory evidence, your existing belief becomes even stronger

encoding failue

when information never makes it into long-term memory - bc our sensory memories fade quickly, without proper attention they never make it into short-term memory, let alone long-term memory

positive transfer

when old information can facilitate the learning of new information - If you parked in the same place every day this week, you would not only reduce interference but also reinforce your memory, making it unlikely that you will forget where to find your bike.

Vicarious reinforcement and punishment provide observers with valuable sources of information. Keeping in mind the framework of social learning theory, which of the following scenarios successfully exploits this principle?

when one child misbehaves in class, the teacher tells the whole class what he/she did wrong and what the consequences will be - Under operant conditioning, a child will only learn not to misbehave by experiencing punishment themselves. Social learning lets a child learn what not to do by observing the punishments experienced by others.

forebrain and medial temporal lobe become active...

when people are focused on past experiences or future plans

occipital lobe in consciousness

when people are focused on specific features of their perceptual experience, such as visual information

synesthia

when people experience information form one sensory system as if it were coming through multiple senses - perceptual experience of on sense that is evoked by another sense - ex: some synesthetes may experience colors when they hear notes played on a piano

alcohol poisoning

when people reach the state of not breathing, heart rate stopping, and loss of body temperature control from drinking too much - althugh, some research suggests that low doses (<1 for women, <2 for men) ay have health benefits: protecting against heart attacks, stroke, and even diabetes

depolarization

when sodium comes into the cell; The process during the action potential when sodium is rushing into the cell causing the interior to become more positive.

mind wandering

when the focus of your awareness drifts away from your current activity and seems to wander, sometimes in fairly uncontrolled ways - happens a lot - some researchers have found that people are less happy when their minds are wandering (bc people's minds wander to stressful, unhappy topics) - mind wandering sometimes reflects a failur to maintain our attention, but other times it is an intentional strategy for escaping a boring situation

source monitoring

when we forget whether the source of our facts was an article or a news feed

reality monitoring

when we forget whether we experienced or imagined an event

perceptually decoupled

when your mind wanders, your awareness is shifting to things that are different from what you are seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling, and feeling right now. Thus your thinking is decoupled, meaning disconnected, from what your senses are currently taking in. - brain reveals itself through automaticity

in some cases, shallow processing can be better than deep processing

when your retrieval invokes the same shallow mental retrieval process that took place originally at encoding - if you study something by creating rhymes, your memory will be best if you use rhymes during retrieval

noncontingent reinforcement

where a reward was delivered to pigeons on a fixed-interval schedule no matter what behavior they were doing at the time

Complete the following statement in the way that would be most consistent with Benjamin Lee Whorf's hypothesis of linguistic determinism: "Someone who has never learned any words pertaining to or describing sadness

will not experience sadness." - Whorf's hypothesis is surprisingly radical. In his view, language is thought. Many who study language's effects on cognition today take a more moderate view

motivated forgetting

willful forgetting of information so that it is less likely to be retrieved later - occurs when individuals intentionally try to forget information so that they are less ikely to retrieve it later. - repression

Where Freud won/lost about dreams

win: dreams can reflect people's emotional concerns loss: little evidence to support claim that dreams disguise forbidden wishes

working memory span

working memory capacity ; measured by how many items can be juggled and manipulated in the mind. - ex: in digit-span tasks, its the longest # of sequential digits you can remember - ex: simple span tasks:tests the maintenance component of working memory, which is more traditionally referred to as short-term memory. - complex span task: adds in other operations and is a full workout of your short-term maintenance and working memory capacity.

taste has important top-down influences, such as your expectation of food

you probably do a lot of exploring with other sensory systems before you place something in your mouth - telling someone it is more expensive, resulted in higher ratings - warning someone that it is savory, resulted in favorable ratings compared to not warning them where they strongly disliked it

Which of the following statements about interneurons is true?

your brain has more interneurons than sensory and motor neurons combined - Interneurons are by far the most numerous class of neuron, interpreting, storing, and retrieving information about the world and allowing you to make informed decisions before you act.

thinking about yourself is a form of deep encoding: what we do tend to remember is what is most meaningful to us

your brain is so efficient at making personal connections with info and events that it helps you remember things you would rather forget - deep encoding through personal meaning is effective bc it engages distinct parts of your brain related to a specific form of self-reflection to enhance remembering

evolution and culture often work together

- Human behavior and preferences often reflect a complicated interplay between evolution and social context - Nature and nurture interact to predict broad patterns of human behavior as well as individual behavior ex: women and men have more similar preferences regarding what they look for in a partner if they live in a country where women have greater equality, opportunities, and freedoms

Psychologists use various perspectives to approach a problem and develop a fuller understanding of a phenomenon

- Nature (biology) and nurture (the environment) interact to predict behavior - psychology seeks to identify which aspects of behavior are universal to all people and which aspects of behavior vary across cultures - behavior is shaped by conscious understanding and by unconscious processes - we can gain insights by understanding both normal functioning and dysfunctions (disruptions to normal functioning) - applying psychology can change our lives in positive ways

be mindful of cultural variation

- Western world promotes and values uniqueness and individuality - Eastern cultures (China, Japan, and Korea) place more value on harmony and conformity - general cultural preferences do not always override individual preferences, so in any given culture there will always be people whose preferences differ from those of the larger group

applying psychology to college courses and career

- helps court cases: eyewitnesses can and do mistakenly "finger" innocent people as criminals - students might fail standardized tests for many reasons: bc their school districts lack funds to provide quality education (not bc of intelligence) - political campaigns to increase peoples desire - help in sports industry from the concussions, brain injuries, and psychological disorders

findings in positive psychology

- people often conduct self-analysis to improve their circumstances and lives - Studies link smartphone dependency with heightened levels of anxiety, depression, and social isolation. - risk of Alzheimer's for first-degree relatives (parents, children, sibling) of people w/ Alzh... is estimated 10-40% higher than unrelated people. For those w/ family history = 1.8-4.0x higher than those w/o - interviewers favor applicants who focus more on being pleasant, agreeable, and complimentary over applicants who focus on their abilities and experiences - providing children with consistent love, encouragement, rules, and relationships generally improves their life satisfaction - to stimulate community activism, organizers should foster neighborhood identity that unites people regardless of other social differences (ethnicity, class, etc) - outreach by local officials to city residents, together w/ education and publicity campaigns, were important parts of recycling program design in the cities with the most successful recycling efforts - mailing people their statistics of their energy consumption levels as compared to their neighbors' motivates them to use less energy

Finding Reliable Sources of Psychological-Scientific Information

- published in well-known and respected academic journals that are indexed in major academic databases (JSTOR, ProQuest) - published by establish and reputable publishing houses, such as university presses and major publishers (Knopf, Random House, W. W. Norton) - sponsored by organizations that are dedicated to scientific truth (research universities, NIMH, CDC, U.S. Census Bureau) - acknowledge earlier research on the topic to provide background information and context - detailed descriptions of the experimental methods used - suggest reasonable conclusions based on the research conducted, but also identify areas of potential weakness and suggest areas for future study

other ways to study

- testing yourself - take detailed and clear notes while listening to lectures - cornell note-taking method - manage your time - focus (do NOT multitask) - manage your technology - stay motivated (good attitude and self efficacy - organizational skills and attention to study, self-discipline) - find a study partner or join a study group - learn as you go

scientists have gained a vast understanding of love, relationships, and social connection by approaching these topics from different perspectives.

- the physical touch of a romantic partner can reduce the brain's automatic fear response - used a combination of different research methods (brain scans, video observation, animal studies) to reveal deeper truths about a single question

overconfidence in our own ideas comes about because...

- we sometimes fail to notice or recall the disconfirming cases that show that our ideas are wrong - when we do notice instances that go against our ideas, our biased intuition tends to discount them, explaining away the cases that don't match what we think - people tend to have a bias blind spot

Psychology was boring in Western Europe, but it developed in two distinct and independent ways

1) scientific branch (Wilhelm Wundt - 1870s Germany, William James - 1880s America) : took root in universities amid intellectual endeavors and scientific experimentation 2) clinical branch (Sigmund Freud - turn of the 20th cent. Austria, then England): took root in medical examination rooms, where doctors used therapeutic interventions to treat people suffering from psychological disorders, such as debilitating anxiety and depression (psychotherapy, psychiatry, clinical practice)

Ethical Guidelines for Research

1. Respect for the dignity of persons 2. Responsible caring 3. Integrity in relationships 4. Responsibility to society

Have you thought about seeking out counseling services? If your anxiety and insomnia are getting in the way of your everyday activities, you can find the right kind of psychotherapy or medication to help.

Clinical - This perspective focuses on identifying and treating thoughts and behaviors that are harmful to well-being.

Why is it important to combine different psychological perspectives?

Combining psychological perspectives helps us understand the mind and behavior more deeply - Bc each psychological perspective has its own strengths and limitations, combining these perspectives is necessary to investigate research questions as thoroughly as possible

applying critical thinking claims in real life

Systematically evaluating information to reach a clear conclusion supported by evidence. Claim: exercise can improve your memory 1) curiosity and open mind (no bias) despite having maybe experienced it herself 2) reminds herself what she is studying and has skepticism/weary mind 3) What evidence is there? only 1 study of few people 4) Most reasonable conclusion is that there isn't enough supporting research. More evidence needs to be gathered to make a clear conclusion.

Recognizing Fake News and False or Misleading Information

Table 1.1: https://ncia.wwnorton.com/4285/r/goto/cfi/18!/4 Newspapers and magazines: - article refers to a "specialist" w/o mentioning that person's name, credentials, and employer or affiliation - company spokesperson is quoted (they're biased so it's not necessarily scientific truth) - survey results are presented w/o info about the # of people surveyed Self-assessments or quizzes: - the assessment doesn't offer info about the psychological research that informed the creation of the quiz and that supports the reliability and validity of the results Self-help books: - advice from so-called "experts" w/o academic or professional credentials who do not cite valid academic research to support their advice - people w/ advanced degrees who write about topics outside of their field of expertise - drawing general conclusions form case histories Social media: - reading tweets by people or organizations with a known bias or agenda - reposting info that you cannot verify through a neutral fact-checking org. (snopes.org, politifact.com, or factcheck.com) TV news outlets and talk shows: - listening to the opinions presented. Many news programs and talk shows have a political agenda that causes them to slant the news in a direction that supports their beliefs and biases Websites: - website's sponsor is not identified, the articles' authors are not identified, or the site focuses on one person's opinions - writers' biographies do not include info that explains their expertise on the topic they are writing about. Check for org. dedicated to accurate scientific research, political agenda

basal ganglia

a group of interconnected structures underneath the cortex that are necessary for planning, executing, and stopping movement. The basal ganglia transmits information from motor regions in the cerebral cortex to the thalamus, allowing the brain to communicate with the spinal cord to control the muscles

intuition

a subject feeling about what makes sense - could be drawn from life experience or a simple intuition - our personal experiences do not show us all possible events, so we shouldn't base out conclusions simply on what we have seen or lived - experience has no comparison group: real-world behaviors usually have more than one explanation, all happening at once (reasons are confounded)

empirical

based on astute observation and accurate measurement - best evidence is primarily empirical - results from sophisticated and cutting-edge technology (fMRI - measures brain functions by looking at changes in oxygen levels in the blood flowing through the brain) - questionnaires

Does your tendency to think about your anxiety and insomnia make those problems worse? If you put less pressure on yourself regarding your grade in this course, do you think you could improve your ability to enjoy the class?

cognitive-emotional - This perspective focuses on mental processes and emotions.

Yu-ri is reading an op-ed article in which a local parents' group expresses its concern about children playing violent video games, claiming that such games are causing a rise in crime. The members of the group support their claim by mentioning a recent study on video games and aggression that was published in a leading academic journal by researchers at a prestigious university. Which of the following tools will help Yu-ri most efficiently evaluate the article's claims?

critical thinking - The three key critical thinking questions are powerful tools that will allow Yu-ri to quickly evaluate the article's claims. She could notice that the parents' group is expressing its claims in an op-ed article, investigate the evidence in the study to see whether it in fact demonstrates that violent video games lead to crime, and examine whether the study was conducted empirically.

Which of the following could be an example of empirical evidence?

data gathered by a questionnaire and published in an academic journal: - Questionnaires can be carefully developed to be empirically based research tools, and they are often used in psychological studies to collect data.

evolutionary applied example

emily might not realize that some anxiety is useful. It can initiate the fight-or-flight response that prepares her to run away or fight in a dangerous situation. Psychologists also point to the importance of "useful anxieties" that help people anticipate and prevent some painful or unpleasant event. In modern human societies, the same evolved stress responses that helped us escape from predators are activated even when we are dealing with stressful situations that are not life threatening.

Shanella is interested in studying the causes of obesity. Which psychological perspective(s) should she use?

evolutionary and cultural perspectives - Shanella can draw on both of these perspectives, combining research on human survival instincts and current cultural norms about eating to more thoroughly investigate what causes obesity.

evolutionary perspective

helps psychologists to identify aspects of behavior that result from evolutionary adaptations that have facilitated humanity's survival - evolutionary psychologists study the cultural universals that unite all humans (reading others' emotions, preference for fairness, capacity for language, seeking out and maintaining a successful relationship with a mate)

Little Albert study

highly unethical: - researchers tried to study how phobias emerge by training a baby to associate a rat with a loud and scary noise - boy developed a fear response to anything furry and white

oxytocin

hormone that plays in trust and romantic love - plays a critical role in childbirth, lactation, and bonding between mothers and their infants - increased oxytocin levels are more trusting of others and show an improved ability to accurately perceive the emotions of people to whom they feel similar - ex: as two people form a close connection, their bodily reactions synchronize and fluctuate together

pseudoscience

makes claims that are supposedly based on rigorous science and fact but that are not supported by reliable, verifiable, scientific evidence: - A fake or false science that makes claims based on little or no scientific evidence. - not all pseudoscience is the result of malice, fraud, or an intent to deceive (some may be well-intentioned but draw incorrect conclusions from it) - ex: astrology

unconscious

mental processes that we cannot directly observe or directly influence - they strongly shape our interpretations in ways that affect our behavior

bias blind spot

not only is our intuition faulty, but we tend to believe that it is correct. It is difficult to accept fault with our own

popular psychology ("pop psychology")

often based on out-of-date or invalid research, unproven propositions, oversimplified, and misinterpreted data or observations - found in social media, websites, magazines, TV shows, simplistic self-help books - relatively harmless, but sometimes can have serious false/fakes/unethical consequences

What's problematic about basing conclusions on intuition?

our ideas "feel right," in part because we tend to be overconfident in what we know and how well we think we understand events. People's feelings of confidence do not always mean that their ideas are accurate

Unconscious processes in Dating and Mate selection

our unconscious preferences for a long-term partner may be at odds with out states preferences

If you have always been a conscientious person, maybe you should look at your social setting. Do you feel that you have a group of friends who are helping you set and maintain good study and sleep habits? The norms created by others can be a powerful influence on us.

personality-social - The personality perspective focuses on the somewhat stable collection of traits that define an individual, while the social perspective focuses on how one is influenced by the behavior of others.

According to positive psychology, what are the three components of happiness?

positive emotion and pleasure, engagement with life, and living a meaningful life with good relationships and a history of accomplishment

personality perspective

psychological perspective that seeks to understand aspects of human behavior that are relatively stable over time and situation - might ask whether some people possess traits that make them more socially skilled - people differ in how adept they are in relating to other people - a combination of a stable personality and stressful life events can lead to psychological disorders

Psychology is "summative"

this means that it rests on a body of knowledge that is continuously growing - "suggests", "provides evidence to support", or "offers a counterpoint to" rather than a certain conclusion

biological-neuroscience perspective

psychological perspective that seeks to understand the biological underpinnings of how we think, act, and behave - neuroscience - ask questions like: What is the genetic basis for psychological disorders? What patters of brain activity allow us to understand and produce speech? When and why does stress lead to an increase in heart rate, blood pressure, and hormones such as cortisol? - still in its infancy - use new technology and dysfunctions

cognitive perspective

psychological perspective that studies the mental processes that underlie perception, thought, learning, memory, language, and creativity - psychologists have been able to determine what infants know, identify the best treatment approaches for depression and anxiety, and learn the many ways in which human memory is unreliable

social psychological perspective

psychological perspective that studies the ways in which immediate social contexts influence social thoughts, feelings, and behavior, independent of personality - might ask whether people are more socially skilled in some situations than in others - people tend to behave in a more socially skillful manner with people who seem similar to themselves

emotional perspective

psychological perspective used to understand how our capacity to feel, express, and perceive emotions plays an important role in decision making, behavior, and social relationships - ex: social media: study of over 5,000 Facebook users found that those who make the most status updates report the lowest levels of psychological health and well-being

clinical perspective

psychological perspective which uses psychological science to identify the causes and treatment of psychological disorders - goal is to help people improve their well-being, relationships, and daily functioning - breakups of romantic relationships are one of the strongest predictors of depression

Which of the following explains why conclusions provided by psychological science are better than those reached by people's intuition or personal experience?

psychological science systematically tests ideas using controlled methods and multiple people - this overcomes any one person's bias or overconfidence

critical thinking

purposeful, reasoned, and goal-directed thinking that seeks to examine evidence, evaluate conclusions, solve problems, make decisions, and formulate reasonable and accurate conclusions

WEIRD samples

research participants from Western, educated, industrialized, rich, democratic backgrounds - make up much of the existing knowledge base in psychology - trying to change this bc many parts of the world are psychologically and culturally dissimilar from the US.

positive psychology

scientific study of important human experiences, such as hope, faith, courage, and creativity - a fairly recent movement in psychology that emphasizes factors that make people happy, keep them healthy, and help them manage stress - 3 components: positive emotion and pleasure, engagement with life, and living a meaningful life with good relationships and a history of accomplishments

cerebellum

shaped like a miniature brain, the cerebellum is located behind the pons and medulla in the hindbrain. This structure allows for coordination, balance, precise movements, and accurate timing. It is estimated that the cerebellum has three to four times as many neurons as the cerebral cortex!

Cyrus is running a study on whether people perform better on a task with complete strangers or with recent acquaintances. Which of these psychological perspectives is he most likely using?

social perspective - The social perspective generally focuses on how social contexts—such as working with strangers or acquaintances—influence behavior

distributed practice

spreading out your learning into shorter sessions over a longer period of time - you learn and retain much more information by doing this

human brain

the body's control center and underlies all biological processes - everything psychological is simultaneously biological

corpus callosum

the bridge of fibers that connects the two hemispheres, allowing for the rapid exchange of information between the two halves of the brain. Severing the corpus callosum, as in a split-brain procedure, prevents practically all communication between the brain's hemispheres

Zach is thinking about dropping his introductory psychology course because he claims that the whole subject is merely common sense. Which of the following tendencies is he demonstrating?

the overconfidence effect

Hazel Markus (from US) and Shinobu Kitayama (from Japan) research together to find....

the people in Western cultures tend to see themselves as independent entities, whereas those in the Eastern cultures are more likely to define themselves by their relationships with others

culture

the rules, values, customs, and beliefs that exist within a group of people who share a common language and environment - passes from gen to gen (childern learn from their parents, caregivers, larger society) - people tend to select lifetime romantic partners who are similar to them in economic status, age, intellectual ability, and physical attractiveness - parenting styles differ by culture

What were the two main branches of psychology during the early development of the field?

the scientific and clinical branches - Wilhelm Wundt and William James pioneered the scientific branch of psychology in the late nineteenth century. Sigmund Freud started the clinical branch at the turn of the twentieth century. Today, the branches have merged—scientific research informs clinical treatment.

neuroscience

the scientific study of how nerves and ells send and receive information from the brain, body, and spinal cord

psychology

the study of mind and behavior. - It helps you better understand yourself & others

overconfidence effect

the tendency to be overly sure of what we know, making us unreasonably confident that our own intuitions are more correct than the consistent results of 100 research studies.

confirmation bias

the tendency to seek out, pay attention to, and believe only evidence that supports what we already are confident we know - you can counter your own confirmation bias by seeking out new analysis from media sources that do not share your political leanings