PSYCH 10 Final

compass points on the brain

- superior/dorsal - anterior - inferior/ventral - posterior

Sigmund Freud

- unconscious & emotional responses to childhood experience affect our behavior - psychoanalysis - influential but hard to study scientifically ** mental processes can occur without conscious awareness is not accepted in mainstream psychology**

Plato vs. Aristotle

Plato: argued for some innate knowledge Aristotle: blank start view

antagonists

drug that blocks the function of a neurotransmitter (ex. botulin aka Botox)

agonists

drug that increases the effects of neurotransmitters (ex. Prozac blocks re-uptake of serotonin to elevate mood)

correlational methods

measure how closely 2 factors vary together, or how well you can predict change in one from observing a change in the other; DOES NOT prove cause and effect (positive, negative, zero correlation) useful in ethics, establishing relationships/ making predictions

perception

processing, organizing, and interpreting sensory info

serotonin

regulation of sleep (dreaming), eating, mood, impulse control - drugs that block serotonin (SSRIs) help treat depression, OCD, eating disorders, and obesity

Shepherd Ivory Franz

removed certain skills from cats brains and retaught them

axon

transmits signal to axon terminals (and ultimatelt to other neurons)

Hawthorne effect

type of relativity in which individuals modify an aspect of their behavior in response to their awareness of being observed

peripheral nervous system

somatic (voluntary muscle movement) and autonomic (controls self regulated action of internal organs/glands)

TMS (Transcranial magnetic stimulation)

strong magnets are used to briefly interrupt normal brain activity as a way to study brain regions - used for: direct testing of function; treatment for some neurological and psychological conditions

single cell recording

- individual cell techniques - implant and electrode in a single cell and measures electrical activity

the first psychology lab

Wundt, 1879 studying consciousness- reaction time; pressing a button as soon as the tone sounds vs. pressing a button after you perceive the tone; associated w/ structuralism

transduction

- from sensation to perception - sensory transduction converts physical stimuli to neural impulses - the senses: receive sensory stimulation via specialized receptor cells, transform that stimulation into neural impulses, deliver the neural information to the brain

Payoff matrices for STD

4 outcomes response given: yes or no stimulus signal: on/ off yes/on- hit no/on- miss off/yess- false alarm off/no- correct rejection

ethics in research

Institutional Review Boards- need to make sure it meets the accepted standards of science (physical and emotional well-being of research participants) informed consent institutional animal care and use committee- judges study proposals to make sure the animals are treated properly; each committee includes a veterinarian some animals share similarities with humans and are good models for particular human behaviors/ conditions

endorphins

act within pain pathways and emotion centers of the brain (pain reduction and reward)

neurons

basic units of nervous system that operate via electro-chemical signals can receive, integrate, and transmit info throughout CNS

hindsight bias

belief that an outcome was foreseeable (after it has occurred); "knew it all along effect"; findings seem obvious once we know them, but were once controversial

selection bias

bias introduced by the selection of individuals, groups or data for analysis in such a way that proper randomization is not achieved, thereby ensuring that the sample obtained is not representative of the population intended to be analyzed

central nervous system

brain and spinal chord; body's decision maker

Testing hypothesis: Descriptive methods

case studies- studies one person in great depth, but the con is that is could just work/ be true for one person

cell body (soma)

collects/ sums input; contains nucleus and cellular material

neuro methods

cost- more are rather expensive

myelin sheath

covers the axon of some neurons and helps speed neural impulses

dendrites

detect incoming signals (tips)

sensation

detecting physical stimuli and sending this information to the brain

structuralism

goal is to discover the mind's structure by breaking down experiences into their underlying components ; used introspection (examination of one's own mental and emotional processes)

experimental methods

goal is to establish causal relationships - manipulate variable(s): independent variable - measure effects: dependent variable - experimental and control conditions - random assignment type of research in which the researcher carefully manipulates a limited number of factors (IVs) and measures the impact on other factors (DV)

functionalism

goal is to study the the purpose of behaviors and mental processes by examining them in terms of adaptation to the environment

spatial resolution

how close in physical proximity you can get to the target brain area

temporal resolution

how close in time you can get to when the neurons fire

top down processing

how knowledge, expectations, or past experiences shape the interpretation of sensory information- the context and out expectations affect perception

participant observation vs. naturalistic observation

participant: more anthropological in nature- someone embeds themselves in society and see how they behave- might have to assimilate naturalistic: don't want to interfere at all- (pro) if people knew they were being watched they might act different; (con) can't manipulate anything

bottom up processing

perception based on the physical features of the stimulus (from basic level up to more complex)

placebo effect

phenomenon that occurs when a person believes he or she is receiving real treatment and reports an improvement in his or her condition

random assignment

placing research participants into the conditions of an experiment in such a way that each participant has an equal chance of being assigned to any level of the independent variable increases the chance that the groups are equal

Parkinson's disease

symptoms: rigid muscles, tremors at rest, difficulty starting movements and speaking, odd shuffling walk, changes in thought and emotions - degenerative and fatal neurological disorder - neurons that produce dopamine slowly die off - later stages cause people suffering from cognitive mood disturbances - patients given L-DOPA- building block of dopamine, have a temporary recovery

split brain

the corpus callous is surgically cut and the two hemispheres of the brain do not receive information directly from each other- hemispheres reveal their primary functions (certain functions localized to one side)

invasiveness

the extent to which foreign substances are introduced to the body

psychology

the scientific investigation of behavior and mental processes

electroencephalography (EEG)

- Because fMRI only measures blood flow, it does NOT provide precise info about the timing of neural activity - can record electrical activity from large populations of simultaneously active neurons at the scalp with millisecond resolution - direct measure of neural activity - much cheaper than MRI scanners

phrenology

- Franz Joseph Gall - first attempt at segmenting the brain - the detailed study of the shape and size of the cranium as a supposed indication of character and mental abilities - notion that bigger = better, and bigger = more bumps against the scalp

Testing effect

- Richard, Kornell, Kao: study with two groups- one that tested and then studied, one that just studied- both took a final exam and the items tested before were responded to with higher accuracy - making errors on pretest led to improvement - reading without testing isn't helpful - testing is a good learning tool because it involves retrieval! - even when errors are generated, as long as corrective feedback is given, it will enable more elaborative encoding of correct answers

How does the action potential work?

- action potential travels down (propagates along) the axon to the axon terminals by the opening and closing of ion channels along its length - dendrites - cell body - axon

Positron emission tomography

- assess metabolic activity by using a radioactive substance injected into the bloodstream - used for: revealing size, shape, function of brain; detecting damaged areas and diagnosing dementia

resting membrane potential

- at rest electrical charge - polarized: cell is more negative inside than outside (-70mV) - sodium potassium pump: sodium ions (Na+) tend to be outside and potassium ions (K+) inside

action potential

- caused by changes in the electrical charge and chemical gradients across the cell membrane - "all or none"- if there is enough input to exceed threshold, you will get an action potential; having twice as much input won't double the "strength" of the action potential - intensity is communicated through frequency/ firing rate

hindbrain

- cerebellum: fine motor skills - medulla: heart rate, circulation, breathing - reticular formation: sleep/wakefulness, arousal - pons: connects to rest of brain

scientific theory

- cyclical - theories are models that can be tweaked over time - falsifiable - good theories are as simple as possible! - test with hypotheses- make them as specific as possible

phantom limb

- demonstrates neural plasticity - can be taught to manage pain - sensation that an amputated or missing limb is still attached

types of neurotransmitters

- excitatory- make the receiving neuron more likely to fire - inhibitory- make the receiving neuron less likely to fire - some can be both depending on situation

major regions of the cortex

- frontal lobe: planning, decision making, speaking - parietal lobe: sensory input for touch & position - occipital lobe: receives visual information - cerebellum: balance and coordinated movement - temporal lobe: auditory processing, language

right-brained / left-brained

- in typical people, hemispheres highly connected - largely symmetric, but there is some "lateralization" - contralateral organization: left hemisphere controls right side of the body, and vice versa

single cell stimulation

- individual cell technique - implant an electrode in a single cell and stomata it with electrical currents

staining

- individual cell techniques - golgi stains shown neuron anatomy - Nissl stains show the number of neurons in an area

motor cortex

- initiates voluntary movements and sends messages to the basil ganglia, cerebellum, and spinal cord - **sending** and receiving areas of cerebral cortex sending out info; cortical representations of information are weighted by "importance"

How can a study in a lab tell us anything about real life?

- lab = simplified reality (limitations) - experiments refine theories that can be used to explain real life - "field experiments"- test theories in a controlled way in the real world

motor neurons

- lead away from neurons (brain to body) - carry info from CNS to muscles and glands - direct muscles to contract or relax (produce movement)

sensory neurons

- lead towards neurons (body to brain) - carry info from sensory receptors to the CNS

subcortical structures

- limbic system: emotion/ motivation/ memory - basal ganglia: intentional movement

retrieval

- memory modifier - strengthens memories - errors: good if people get answers correct but bad if they're wrong

Hobbes

- mind is what the brain does - materialism: everything can be explained in material terms/ matter in motion

midbrain

- orienting response to stimuli - can technically survive with only hindbrain and midbrain (Phineas Gage) - reaction to stimuli - basic survival mechanisms (ex. when you hear something you automatically turn towards it) - in between other 2 parts of brain

Decarte

- philosopher who believed in dualism - mind and body are fundamentally 2 different things - conscious mind is something more abstract than the physical body

prefrontal cortex

- phineas gage: his accident caused damage to his frontal lobes - led to major personality changes - lobotomy- form or surgery that deliberately damages the prefrontal cortex- used as a tool in hospitals- less responsive, more subdued

Phineas Gage

- railroad worker- rod went through his head- seemed fine, walking + talking - after 2 weeks he went into a coma; after a month- recovered but there were differences in personality- irritable - frontal lobe damage- before this we though the brain was one monolithic entity- you can lose parts of brain & still function even though some things can change

threshold

- reached when excitatory ("Fire!") signals outweigh the inhibitory ("Don't fire!") signals by a certain amount - once reached, action potential starts moving down the axon - "all-or-none"

why is spacing good for learning?

- retrieval: spacing repetitions = forgetting in between- engage in retrieval - variability- each presentation is more likely to be encoded in a slightly different state when repetitions are spaced apart in time- prepares you to do well in many states/ emotions - attention- massed repetitions get boring

somatosensory cortex

- strip of brain tissue running from the top of the brain down to the sides - each part maps to a specific part of the body - if an area is more sensitive, a larger part of the somatosensory cortex is devoted to it - sending and **receiving** areas of cerebral cortex

the third variable problem

- the fact that two variables are correlated only because each is casually related to a third variable (ex. when ice cream sales go up, more murders are committed- third variable is actually warm weather)

forebrain

- think, process, remember - right and left hemisphere - cerebral cortex - hypothalamus: regulates body function - amygdala: emotion - basal ganglia: movement, reward - thalamus: sensory gateway - hippocampus: memory

fMRI (magnetic resonance imaging)

- used to examine changes in ongoing brain activity by measuring changes in the blood's oxygen levels - compares successive MRI images - great for determining location; not so great at determining timing

MRI (magnetic resonance imaging)

- uses a powerful magnetic field to produce high- images of brain and its structure - e.g. can be used to diagnose a stroke, MS, tumor, dementia, Alzheimer's

split brain experiment

- when a split brain patient is asked what he sees, the left hem sees the fork on the right side of the screen and can verbalize that - right hemisphere sees the left side of the screen but cannot verbalize what is seem- but the patient can pick up the correct object using the left hand

interneurons

- within brain - communicate within CNS; intervene between sensory inputs and motor outputs - think of reflects- neurons are converting sensation to action

experimenter expectancy effect

actual change in behavior due to observer's expectations; ex. training rats in a maze- students who were told that they had slow rats did worse (why we want experimenter to be "blind")

epinephrine

adrenaline- bursts of energy after excising/ threatening event

cognitive revolution

reaction against behaviorism in '50s and '60s; brought back interest in mental processes

observer bias

errors that occur because of an observers expectations; cultural norms favor inhibiting/expressing certain behaviors (ex. rating reviews- people said men were aggressive and women were bitchy)

random sampling

every person int the population has an equal chance of being selected; intended to be able to be generalized back to the entire population

population

everyone in the group the experimenter is interested in a sample is a subset of a population

perceiving order in random events

fallacies of randomness; hot hand ("on a roll", "hot streak"); Gambler's fallacy ("bound to come up eventually", "it's due")

Weber's Law

in order to be a perceived as a different, the intensity of two stimuli must vary by a constant proportion of the intensity of the original stimulus - as intensity increases, we get less sensitive to change

the "barnum" effect

individuals will give high accuracy ratings to descriptions of their personality that supposedly are tailored specifically to them but that are, in fact, vague and general enough to apply to a wide range of people; "we have something for everybody"

dopamine

involved in motivation, reward, and motor control over voluntary movement

absolute threshold

minimum amount of stimulation needed to detect a stimulus 50% of the time - stimuli below this threshold are called "subliminal"

the expert blind spot

once you know the answer, its impossible to remember what it felt like not to know

signal detection theory

predicts how and when we detect the presence of a faint stimulus amid background noise (other stimulation) - assumes that there is no single absolute threshold and detection depends on person's experiences, expectations, motivation, level of fatigue, consequences of missing - radiologists

behaviorism

predominant school of thought in American psychology from '20s to '60s that redefined psychology as the scientific study of observable behavior - rejected introspection - not interested in thoughts or internal mental states and processes

plasticity

property of the brain that allows it to change as the result or experience or injury - decreases with age, BUT neural connections are made throughout the life span

convenience sample

sample that consists of people who are conveniently available for the study

terminal buttons

small nodules at the end of the axon that release chemical signals from the neuron into the synapse

parts of autonomic system

sympathetic: arousing; releases hormones to accelerate heart rate (for example) parasympathetic (calming): releases hormone to slow heart rate and return back to normal state (for example)

MS case study

symptoms: - physical (vision loss, weakness, clumsiness, slurred speech) - cognitive (inattention, memory loss, fatigue) - emotional: (mood swings, depression) - myelin sheath on neurons is destroyed- can't fire electrical signals, neurons can't communicate with each other, area of brain where demyelination happens is what causes specific symptoms

difference threshold

the minimum difference between two stimuli needed to detect a difference between them 50% of the time ("just a noticeable difference)

synapse

the space between the axon of "sending" neuron and dendrite of a "receiving" neuron (where/ how neurons communicate)

how does the synapse work?

when the action potential that is traveling down the axon reaches the axon terminal, it causes the release of neurotransmitters into the synaptic gap/cleft - space where the axon terminal contacts the dendrite - each neuron has ~1000-10,000 synapses